Chapter 5
I may hate Roys, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy the wild look about him, coated in sweat and dirt.
The shadow of a beard formed on his jaw.
My eyes admired the captain’s firm chest, over the hair trailing along his stomach to disappear beneath the hem of his exoskin.
I thought of Arana’s challenge to discover if he really was just a pinch.
Apparently, one could still be horny when practically buried alive. The human condition truly was a bitch.
Roys stood at the center of our makeshift camp, an alcove we stumbled on.
At some point, the tunnel bled into a cave system.
We meandered through the entrance, where water dripped from the stalactites.
The soil was more rock than dirt, blue rock at that, inlaid with shimmers like the night sky.
The alcove was out of the way of the entrance and provided good cover.
I sat the water pack aside and tugged off the upper half of my exoskin to remove the shirt beneath. My exoskin kept me warm enough, so the shirt would make for a good pillow.
Roys sat down, his teeth chattering. He had tried tugging the remnants of his exoskin back on hours ago.
However, the neckline had broken apart entirely, and the wreckage took to his arms next.
He kept what remnants he could over his chest to protect from the growing chill and to hide those dark veins.
The tunnels didn’t carry the heat of the jungle above.
We sat out the lamplight between us, which gave off little heat.
He needed clothes. Real ones to cover his back.
I shifted the shirt behind my head and shut my eyes. Though utterly exhausted, sleep wouldn’t take me. I kept thinking back to Arana walking toward the flora, how Roys told me not to shoot but I did. So many times I was ordered not to do something, and it rarely led to anything good.
Never fight against the upper ring; they will destroy you, Pa always said, but the upper ring destroyed us, anyway.
Never turn your back on me, and I will never turn my back on you, our boss always said, but as soon as trouble came knocking, he ran.
We’ll always be together. I promise, my own voice, lying to Her.
Joining the militia meant following orders.
I knew that when I accepted their offer, but it also meant I never had to look back.
I could do push-ups for angry commanders.
I could do laps for disagreeing with my superiors.
I could take the hits when they were drunk or angry, and whatever stupid remarks or annoying commands they threw at me, so long as it meant I was far from a past that couldn’t catch up with me.
But Roys was right; if I had listened back there, we wouldn’t have been separated. Arana would be alright, and we’d be at base camp laughing over the ordeal rather than doomed to waste away underground. I would die the same way everyone else did at the Colony.
“Why do they call you Lucky?”
My eyes opened. Roys situated himself on the left to put weight on his arm rather than his back. His teeth continued chattering, arms crossed tightly.
“Because I’m a lucky bastard,” I replied.
Roys snorted. “The situation at hand says otherwise and, literally, everything I’ve seen from you thus far.”
“Getting in trouble isn’t unlucky. That is of my own volition.”
“I always knew you irritated me on purpose. There has to be a story. You don’t get a name like that otherwise.”
I had plenty of stories, many of which my troop didn’t know, and yet they, and everyone before them, called me lucky anyway.
“Plenty of reasons, some stupider than the others. I’ve never been caught thieving, from childhood and well through my cadet days. I’ve never lost a game of poker or wrecked my speeder, although that last bit is out of pure skill. They call it luck rather than admit the truth.”
“Your speeder skills are impressive.”
“Don’t give me compliments. It’s unsettling.”
Roys chuckled, and for once, it wasn’t utterly bitter. “But none of that made the name stick, right?”
“No. During our first speeder test, straiers attacked. I was the only one out of thirty to survive long enough for backup. The troops started calling me lucky more often. The name stuck a year later after I was pulled out of my first planetary tour, where the entire team died because of a faulty shuttle, crashed and burned in atmo.”
I half expected him to mention why I was pulled out of that tour.
Getting into a fistfight with a superior officer because they got lippy with me after a guard run.
We had plenty of them, taking the speeders to protect vessels.
Guess I did one too many “ill-advised” maneuvers, and the officer wasn’t pleased, so there was a bit of a tussle.
A lot of cussing. More of their blood than mine.
Corporate kicked me off the tour out of fear of future insubordination.
They weren’t entirely wrong for being concerned.
“And now here you are, having been dragged off by unknown flora that should have killed us both,” Roys said instead.
I tapped the water pack leaning against my side. “With enough water to keep us going a while longer. Lucky, right?”
“I would have preferred not to learn firsthand.”
“Now that you know, will you start calling me lucky?”
“No.” His eyes had a mischievous glint in them. “Sucks when someone purposely irritates you, doesn’t it?”
I rolled my eyes and tried to get more comfortable. “Aren’t commanding officers meant to be more mature than that?”
“We normally are, but you love to test those boundaries; otherwise you’d be in the same position as me.”
My tongue ran over the back of my teeth.
I kept my eyes on the cavern where the darkness swallowed our light.
I wondered if that was the last that my parents saw, shadows creeping in, their tomb closing over them, panic and fear settling in as their bones broke and the dwindling air left their aching lungs.
Or was it all over in an avalanche of viscera?
“Ten years and this is your first planetary tour? With your scores? Flight, combat, medical, I could hardly find a test you haven’t hit high marks in,” he said, returning my thoughts to our present tomb rather than past ones.
“Sounds like you were stalking me.” I pressed a delicate hand over my chest and veered away from him. “Should I be worried about my virtue down here?”
We both recalled the shower incident where Roys stumbled upon me and another having a late night sexcapabe. Roys knew my “virtue” was very nonexistent.
“My point is, your speeder skills aren’t all that is impressive about you.
I wondered why Corporate kept such an insubordinate officer around, so yes, I had a peek at your records.
There isn’t anyone in our troop who comes close to your tactical scores, and yet, you’ve barely been entrusted with more than chore duties typically given to cadets.
” He gauged my reaction, which I refused to give, then went on.
“Why, I wondered? And soon learned, because your fuse is always lit and you’re consistently trying to light everyone else’s. ”
“Not everyone’s. Yours, absolutely.” I clicked my tongue before meeting his scrutiny. The light caught in his eyes, revealing their true shade, an ethereal blue he didn’t deserve. “Don’t lecture me, cap. You aren’t in any position to defend yourself.”
“That’s it. Going straight to a threat because I pushed a button or two.”
“The likes of you will keep pushing those buttons without a threat.”
“Likes of me meaning what, exactly?”
“Superiors who think they’re better than everyone else, even if they’re a fucking junkie who kissed the right ass to get where they are. How many officers did it take to get your title? I bet half of Corporate has had you on your knees in more ways than one.”
Those eyes consumed the light as the cave had, dark as could be. A muscle feathered in his jaw, and I smiled, leaning in so every breath fell over his cheeks. A sick sort of thrill paved a course through my nerves, catching my excitement alight rather than the fear that had been sparking all day.
“Thought I didn’t see those marks on your arms earlier?” I asked. “The candy makes sense now. Pop one of those when you need a fix, yeah?”
Roys’ eyes twitched and nostrils flared.
“Sucks when someone purposely pisses you off, doesn’t it?” I pulled away, prepared for the hit, the shout, the anger, whatever he had boiling within. My fingers twitched, yearning for that distraction.
Brows furrowed, Roys took a deep breath through his nostrils. “You are a dick, Ethin.”
“Don’t talk dirty to me. It’ll turn me on.”
Roys turned away, attempting to situate himself on his right shoulder instead.
Disappointed, I watched him struggle, failing to get comfortable.
His back was utterly fucked, even if the med spray worked wonders.
His entire back was searing red and covered in ugly bruises and scrapes, like he had been dragged across rocks.
“Need more med spray, Captain?”
Roys barked out a harsh laugh, bitter as could be. “Fuck off.”
“Suit yourself, but I am not carrying you out of here. Fall behind and you’ll get left behind.”
He finally showed it — a harsh glare shot over his shoulder that was more convincing than his muttered words, “I do not doubt that.”
Still, he pondered the offer. Roys got the med spray to hand off.
That time he had nothing to bite down on, so he groaned through the process.
His shivering grew downright pathetic, making him clench the lamplight against his chest. The light scarcely illuminated the cavern.
There were three potential exits, each a dark tunnel leading to equally gruesome ends.
As much as I hated to admit it, two down here were better than one.
Ten years, he had reminded me. Twenty years left.
I’d be forty-five when I escaped the militia, if I did, and I wanted to.
No, I had to otherwise all of it was for nothing.
My life and its worthless fucking decisions would be for nothing, as meaningless as everyone else’s at the Colony.
Another corpse to be lost in space, pathetic, used, forgotten.
Damn it.
I threw the shirt at him. Roys looked over his shoulder, brow cocked. “What are you doing?”
“Take the fucking shirt or don’t. Up to you.”
Roys picked up the garment as if he thought it was infected with an unknown disease, then cast me a sketchy glance.
I rested my head on the cold cavern wall.
Wordlessly, he slipped on the shirt. It was at least one size too small, honestly two, but I didn’t want to admit that.
The fabric struggled to keep him contained, and I also didn’t want to admit how attractive that was, how I wondered what it would feel like to run my palms beneath that fabric, feeling his muscles tense and watching the lust build in his typically stern eyes.
Good looking did not override being annoying, I reminded myself as my eyes fluttered closed and sleep finally greeted me.