Verdant (Love in Space #1)

Chapter 1

The Planet unfurled below like a blossom during the first spring. Not that I knew what spring looked like, having been born in a colony. Changing the seasons in a place that never saw a sun would have been a waste, and so, I fought Ryker for a window seat.

I didn’t expect there to be so much green in all the universe, let alone on a single planet.

The color reached across the land, and as the clouds dispersed, a blue ocean greeted us.

The Planet, titled something completely fucking ridiculous that we ignored because we wouldn’t be capable of pronouncing it anyway, resembled what Earth once was, based on the adverts.

Land and water, serene and full of life, spread upon its surface, entirely untouched by colonization.

“Breaching lower atmo,” the shuttle’s com declared.

The seatbelt light blinked on, painting the cabin in crimson. An alarm went whump, whump, whump, and the engines sounded more like a beast than metal.

“When we land, no one leaves the shuttle without my say-so,” Roys said from the front of the cabin.

“Yes, sir,” the group agreed, except me. I kept my attention on the porthole.

“Ethin,” Roys warned in that low gravely voice that made my teeth grind.

“Lucky,” I corrected.

“Repeat my last order.”

Beside me, Ryker laughed and earned a fist to the gut.

“No one leaves the shuttle without your oh so special permission,” I said.

Roys’ eyes rivalled space itself. Practically black from a distance, and a deep, unreal blue if one dared to risk proximity. The scars across his needlessly attractive face made him all the more intimidating. Each mark spoke of a battle that he survived and most of us wouldn’t have.

“Good. Now share with the group what our mission is, so I know you paid attention back on Main,” he ordered.

More snickering bled from the group. Twenty-four soldiers spread throughout the rattling cabin.

The red lights hastened, signaling the upcoming landing.

The shuttle’s timer blinked at fifty seconds.

Roys would make us wait long after landing if I didn’t follow orders.

Mostly because I didn’t follow orders. But this time I would, because I had never felt fresh air on my face or grass or unfiltered water, and no bootlicking captain with an attitude problem would impede that.

“We’ve been sent to neutralize all threats within a ten-click radius of the habitat to ensure the safety of all future tenants.

Our biggest threat, based on scans, is not the animals that inhabit this place, but the flora.

We are never to go out in less than a group of two, and we must all report our findings to you immediately to ensure our safety and that of the survey team that will join us in two weeks,” I said without breaking eye contact.

Ryker whistled and blocked my punch to the gut that time.

“Twenty seconds to landing,” the shuttle comms announced.

Satisfied, and far too smug, Roys turned away.

Annoying fucker.

We abandoned the cloud cover to observe the flora we were so warned about.

Corporate’s report didn’t have more than a dozen dangerous flora listed because that was the most the droids gained prior to being demolished.

Initially, Corporate believed animals tore the droids to shreds.

After vid feed returned detailing the eradication of an unfortunate droid, they learned flora caused the varying degrees of violent demise.

The flora of this world were peculiar creations, an array of plants ranging from gleaming orange bulbs that caught fire to their surroundings when agitated, to towering structures with stems as thick as a grown man’s waist and broad tops where tendrils snatched prey to be wrenched into the canopy and dissolved.

A particularly nasty flora paraded itself as a yellow flower that, when approached, ripped out of the soil to reveal a monster of rooted decay that enjoyed ripping the flesh off its victims and devouring their innards.

That video, involving a regrettable rabbit-like creature, made the entire troop sick to their stomachs.

The shuttle landed in a field previously cleared by droids, the remnants of which were sprinkled about.

From the window, their remains studded the landscape, broken hands and feet protruding from the loose soil.

Grass and moss ravaged their skeletons, making the droids appear as if they had been there for decades rather than a month.

The Company didn’t lend the best of the best AI to non-colonized planets, particularly those on the Outer Rim.

Too much risk of losing big tech like security units.

They didn’t consider droids much of a loss, or us, so the militia investigated instead.

The shuttle landed with a lurch. Arana hurled into a bag. Her stomach never enjoyed landing and her already cool white skin had a sickly shine. She wiped the remnants of sick from her mouth and launched to her feet.

“Don’t give the captain a hard time.” Arana retrieved her canteen to wash out her mouth. She spat into the pack, then brushed her teeth. She always carried a toothbrush for potential shuttle rides.

“He’s going to be more pissy than usual, and I am in no mood to run the perimeter when we could be snatched by who knows what to be eaten nice and slow.

” Arana leaned over the seat to seize me by the collar.

“I have two good women waiting for me back home, and if I do not get to fuck them again before I die, I will kill you myself.”

Smacking her hand away, I said, “Good to know that sex is more important than our friendship.”

“You bet your ass it is. I haven’t had a decent fucking since we left the last port.” Arana gave a great sigh, her eyes drifting to Iylene lifting their packs out of the overhead compartment. “If I weren’t in a closed polycule, I would jump your bones tonight.”

Iylene spoke with no inflection in their voice, as aevid’s often did. “If you tried, I would shoot you.”

Aevid’s were known for two things; apathy and shedding.

The latter of which I could have gone my whole life without seeing, but unfortunately, Iylene shed once a year, leaving remnants of their pale blue skin throughout the barracks.

Had a horrendous smell too, like baked rotten meat.

Their species stood tall and thin with smooth hairless skin and long tails that helped them run or jump.

At the front of the cabin, Roys stood. The captain wasn’t the tallest guy on the shuttle but certainly had the most presence.

Ryker always tried to sneak into the captain’s bunk because he swore the man purposefully bought shirts a size too small so they’d struggle to contain his figure.

Arana argued the guy was just big, and I agreed with her.

Roys was made entirely of muscle, spite, and a pinch of dick.

Arana disagreed about the pinch, but her attempt to convince me to peek at Roys in the shower to prove otherwise never worked.

“Our priority is securing the area so we can set up the habitat and energy shield,” the captain said in a booming voice. His commands always sounded as such — words that shouldn’t be ignored. “I’m sending your orders through the commlink, which must remain on at all times.”

The commlinks on our wrists flashed. Ryker, Iylene, Arana, Lilea, Zavir, and I were together. Over the years, most of the troops found their groups and stuck to them. As much as Roys could be a pain in the ass, he understood breaking apart units never resulted in desirable outcomes.

“Visors on.” Roys took his from under his arm. Visors started as a face mask that spread over and down our necks to connect with our exoskin. The Planet had a breathable atmosphere for all species aboard the shuttle. However, because of the heat, humidity, and unexpected threats, gear remained on.

When Roys next spoke, it came through our connected visor comms. “Follow your orders and watch each other’s backs.”

Buzzing, the shuttle doors descended into light and heat that our exoskins couldn’t wholly cool.

The humidity put a fog on the visors. Silhouettes piled down the ramp into the world beyond.

I followed and my visor adjusted to the abrupt brightness.

Flora surrounded the field, spiraled and puffy, tall and thin, budding and sleeping, but all their caps striving to reach the suns.

Two of them danced in the sky, one to the east and the other to the west protruding real light, nothing artificial about any of it, that I wanted nothing more than to touch my bare skin.

“Move along,” said Roys.

Over my shoulder, the captain paused in the shuttle’s threshold.

Soldiers marched past his looming figure.

My visor wasn’t on blackout, so I offered a contrived smile.

Zavir and I argued over beers that Roys couldn’t smile because he was secretly an android in disguise that hadn’t figured out how humans worked.

Again, no one had tested the theory, but smile or not, he was stupidly attractive. It was a bit annoying, actually.

I descended to stand on an actual planet.

This would make my fifth tour, but it was the first planetary one.

Born and raised in a colony, I had always been on a mining vessel leeching off asteroids.

I breathed recycled air, drank recycled water, and saw flora on nature documentaries, adverts, or the incredibly rare and expensive flowers that decorated the upper circle’s yards.

The richest of the rich lived there, the ones who worked for The Company that survived off the asteroid materials my people mined.

And now there I was waltzing along The Company’s future venture because no one ever really escaped them.

I joined my group before Roys could do anything to piss me off, which honestly could be as simple as looking in my general direction. He was too… involved, unlike some of our previous superiors. I didn’t trust a lick of his bullshit.

Lilea and Zavir came over to our group last while the droids took more time unloading. Everyone had their duties on their commlink. When I opened ours, I growled, but Arana was the one to whisper, “What the fuck? Why do we have habitat duty?”

“Because Lucky is in our group and Roys hates him,” said Zavir with an eager hop. All four of his gray hands spread out in a display of excitement. “Once again, your luck is helping us out.”

“In what way?” Arana countered. “We’re stuck with the droids that could put the place up without our help.”

A screen popped on all our visors about a flora the droids encountered prior to being smashed. The flora stood tall with a single thick bloom that hung low from the top of the stalk. That bloom opened to reveal petals lined by teeth as thick as our arms.

“Do you want to risk running into that?” Zavir asked, each of his four gold eyes locking on a different person. “I sure don’t, so let’s enjoy setting up the habitat and getting in a nap before the captain returns.”

“I like that idea,” said Lilea, who wandered over to the habitat materials.

I wasn’t entirely against the idea of setting up base, but following Roys’ orders always put me in a foul mood.

He’d been with us a little more than a month and acted like he owned us.

Every superior officer did, having those sticks of superiority rammed too far up their asses for it to ever be pleasurable.

“Don’t make that face, Lucky. Think of it this way.” Ryker swung an arm around my neck. His brown eyes had their usual mischievous glint. “The captain isn’t here to breathe down our necks. We’re likely to have most of the day without him.”

“True, and if my name holds out, one of the flora will eat him,” I replied.

“Let’s hope you’re extra lucky today.” Laughing, Ryker departed to join the others.

Around us, soldiers disappeared among the thick and unknown jungle.

At my feet, grass sprouted to brush against my ankles.

I had been wondering what it would feel like since we received our orders to deploy here.

Try as I might, I couldn’t stop dreaming night after night about how it would feel to dig my bare toes into dirt and bury my face in the grass, to take a breath of fresh real air.

I fell to my knees and removed my visor to finally get exactly that. Leaning forward, the grass touched my cheeks, cool and wet and ticklish. I wondered how humans supposedly came from such beauty and why they would ever destroy it.

Selling thirty years of my life was entirely worth this.