There’s another pause, and this one draws out just a beat too long – long enough for my gut to clench in fear that the signal has dropped, or Rover thinks we’re pranking her, or—
Holy shit, comes Rover’s voice.Say again? Pax has been invaded?
‘Confirm, invaded,’ I reply. ‘By an armed force. We don’t know what they’re here for, but they’ve discovered our presence and they’re trying to kill us.’
Holy shit, Rover says again, shock audible in her tone.How many of you are there? I don’t have a lot of room in here.
‘There’re two of us,’ I reply. ‘We’re holed up in the greenhouse right now, but we can move to meet you.’
Okay, yes. This thing isn’t designed for three, but if you can bring an auxiliary oxygen tank with you, we’ll make it work. I’m a geologist, I’m not armed. I just happened to be in the area, so they asked me to – okay. I’m the one here, I have to do this. I’ll have to pull up, get you on board, and then we run like hell.
‘Agreed.’
And I have to pick you up from a garage. I have to get inside an airlock before I can open up the rover and let you in.
‘Understood,’ I reply, then toggle the mute button again. ‘Cleo, they came in on the east side. So it’s safer on the other side, right?’
‘That’s right,’ Cleo whispers, lifting her head and looking over her shoulder, as though she can see through the walls, see where our enemies are right now. ‘She’ll have to pull up on the west side, where the main garages are. I don’t know how we can get there without being seen, though. It’s a long way.’
‘If the alternative is staying here, we’ll figure it out,’ I reply. Then, unmuting the channel: ‘Rover, we’ll meet you at the west garages, do you know them? They’re the main intake facility here, so I’m guessing they’re marked on the outside.’
Visibility’s almost zero with this dust storm, Rover replies.But I can lock on to the nav beacon.
I punch a button to bring up the external display, and get a view of outside the base that’s a hazy red, the camera lens half encrusted with red dust, the air beyond it filled with the kindof fog that the dust storm creates. Rover’s right – visibility’s terrible.
Just please be there, all right?Rover continues.I don’t want to meet these people. My ETA is forty-five minutes.
‘We’ll be there,’ I promise.
Okay. Going silent now. Rover out.
The faint hiss of static on the line dies away, and for a long moment, neither of us moves. Then I let out a slow breath and let my head fall back. ‘Did that just happen?’
‘That just happened,’ Cleo whispers. ‘The cavalry’s coming. Someone’s going to freaking rescue us.’
Slowly, the realization that this is real is trickling through me, bringing me to life one degree at a time. There’s a way out of this.
There’s a way out of this.
I push to my feet, turning and shoving my chair out of the way so I can reach for Cleo. She throws her arms around my neck, clinging to me, laughing as I whirl us in a circle, dizzy with relief and disbelief.
Then my foot catches the leg of my chair and I’m moving too fast in too little gravity to stop myself. Together we go staggering backward, Cleo’s feet still not on the ground.
I let myself fall, arms around her, and land flat on my back, Cleo on top of me.
Her brown eyes are laughing, and her lips are right there, curved to a smile she can’t hide. I want to kiss her so badly, and all I’d have to do is lift my head just a fraction. Then she’dlean down, and curl a hand around the back of my neck, her weight just right on top of me. And I’d—
Cleo rolls off me, landing on her back beside me, her hand finding mine. She’s still laughing, though she tries to stop. ‘You okay?’
‘We’re getting out of here,’ I tell her.
‘We’re getting out of here,’ she agrees, looking at me sidelong. And her warm brown eyes are dancing, and her red hair’s falling around her face, and in this moment, IwishI could—
‘Cleo,’ I hear myself say.
‘Mmm?’
‘Fair warning. If we live through this, I’m asking you out.’
