Chapter 31
“We are glad you are joining us, Captain. Should anything go awry, it will be helpful to have you on board,” Iylene said from the co-pilot seat. The door to the cockpit remained open. Roys sat in the cabin to my right, visible out of my peripheral vision.
“Let’s hope you won’t need me. Based on your scans, this route should be good, but I definitely don’t want a repeat of what happened last time,” he replied.
“Nor do I, although Lucky had the situation under control once, he could do so again.”
“Don’t put pressure on me. I might panic.” I caught Roys’ cute grin before he put his visor on.
“Once we land, Ethin will stay on the shuttle. The rest of us will fan out to secure the area. There can’t be any risk to the researchers,” Roys explained.
“Yes, sir,” the cabin replied. Iylene pinched me for not following suit. If they knew how often I said it in bed, they wouldn’t be so stingy. Besides, I had questions.
“Why am I staying on the shuttle?” I asked.
“You’re the best pilot. If we need you to get us, you can, and if you need to leave, I trust you will get the shuttle back.”
The blackout on Iylene’s voice hid their face, but the tilt of their head gave away the truth. A sense of distrust remained from what happened with Lilea. My fingers flexed, and we pushed on.
Arana and Ryker discussed the possibility of strange new flora and all the ways it could kill us.
Zavir explained to Lilea how to use the special scanner the survey team sent with him, in case we saw new flora.
They wanted to work on the data as soon as possible, even if that meant our potentially breaking equipment.
Roys sat on his commlink, flicking through the holo screen, checking on the habitat, and landed on the storage room.
“Worried they’re starting trouble back home? I thought you trusted the survey team,” I said.
“I do, but if anything goes wrong, it’s on me. I need to monitor things.” Reaching into his pocket, he retrieved two candies, offering one to me that I accepted.
Iylene either didn’t care or didn’t notice.
They looked out the window, alert to the canopy passing below.
The cabin chatted on the flight path that took an hour.
When we landed, Roys repeated the plan, separating everyone into teams of two, except for him.
With me on the shuttle, we were one person short.
While the others unloaded, I stepped up behind him. “I thought we’re meant to go in teams of two.”
“Worrying about me?” Roys adjusted the flamethrower strap on his broad shoulder.
I had a peculiar urge to run my hand over his back to see, even with a layer of exoskin between us, if he would react. Clenching my hands, I shrugged. “Just pointing out that you aren’t following your own rules.”
“I’m going to circle the perimeter, so I won’t be far from you, and should anyone need my help,” he tapped his commlink. “Now go.”
The teams dispersed. I circled the shuttle, keeping my eye on the flora and checking the tracker. My regular looping made an indentation in the grass. Roys’ tracker stopped. Weird. I checked again. Still no movement.
“Roys, check in,” I said over comms while approaching the mark. He wasn’t far into the treeline. He didn’t answer. I raised my flamethrower. My heart rate peaked. A dreadful retching sound came from ahead.
“Roys?” I nudged aside the plants to find him hunched over spitting up. “What happened?”
“I’m fine.” He coughed, one hand on a stalk and the other holding his visor. “The heat must have gotten to me.”
My shoulders dropped. I caught his waist, steadying him as he coughed up the last of it. He washed out his mouth and wiped the sweat from his brow. My fingers rubbed against his side while I looked him over. There was no damage to his exoskin, no sign of an injury.
“Are you actually checking on me?” He offered a raised brow over his shoulder. “The real question is what’s wrong with you? You've being so caring today."
My tongue ran over the back of my teeth prior to releasing him. “It’s part of my job description. A certain prickly commander would lecture me otherwise.”
And I thought something worse had happened.
He chugged from his canteen and stepped away from the mess. I did too. Sweat had his hair sticking to his skin, creating long lines down his face and disappearing beneath his suit. He had a paler look compared to his normal warm skin tone, and his hand shook holding the canteen.
“Take a break in the shuttle. I’ll put the air on.” I nodded behind us.
“I’m fine. I needed to drink more, that’s all.” And drink he did, chugging his canteen and mine when I offered it. He got candy afterward and scratched his arm. “They should finish up soon. By the sound of it, we’re in the clear.”
“More reasons you should get in the shuttle.”
“I don’t know how to handle you pretending to care about me.”
“Get your ass in the shuttle.”
Roys had this look, something I couldn’t explain, that I knew I had to ruin for my sanity.
“I’m not carrying your ass if you pass out from heatstroke, and if the others offer, I’ll leave them behind,” I warned.
We had a long, glaring contest that had a clear winner, so I wasn’t sure why he bothered.
Roys stalked toward the shuttle. I went into the cockpit to flick on the air.
He sat in the cabin drinking more water and itching his arm.
The cabin door shut to keep the air in while I circled the shuttle and took up checking the perimeter in Roys’ stead.
All this walking, no one talking, my mind chose to wander.
The day wasn’t as hot as usual. That didn’t mean it was bearable, but Roys had been in worse.
Tareik, our senior medic, may have to look at him.
The Planet could have diseases we never knew of.
If Roys caught something, we could be in serious trouble.
He could be in serious trouble. I chewed on my bottom lip, trying to think of anything other than the unknown and potentially incurable diseases.
On my last circle of the shuttle, I glanced through the cockpit’s window. The open cabin door revealed Roys seated in the back. He had his commlink on, checking the storage room. That was the second… no, the third time.
It didn’t mean anything. He was doing his job, checking on the habitat while we were gone.
Lilea and Iylene burst from the flora. “We’re back finally,” Lilea sighed. “Finished and all in the clear. The flora here is quite pretty, with lots more colors, and seemingly more friendly.”
“I beg to disagree!” Ryker stalked out of the woods carrying the carcass of a flora on his back.
Zavir carried the rest of it, roots and all.
The stalk was as long as the shuttle and thick with a giant V-shaped head behind Zavir’s back.
Inside that head were tentacles, suction cups and potentially teeth.
“This fucker.” Ryker strode to the back of the shuttle, where the survey team said we could stash samples. “Tried to eat us! There were dozens of them that way, all up in the canopy waiting to pounce. Do not go that way.”
Zavir shoved the carcass into the cargo space as the door opened and Roys stepped out.
“Good thing that isn’t the way the team wants to go.” Roys took a gander at the dead plant. “They’ll be happy you brought that. Both of you okay?”
“I’m traumatized,” Ryker replied with a dramatic wave of his hand. “But physically fine.”
“I had a great laugh,” Zavir said when getting on the shuttle. He stopped to give Roys a look. “But you’re pale, Captain. Did the heat get to you?”
“Yeah. Ethin was kind enough to check the perimeter while I got some air,” Roys said, causing the group to release a series of childish taunts that I should respond to.
I didn’t, calmly following everyone into the shuttle where my eyes refused to stray from Roys until I entered the cockpit. The earlier scene replayed in my mind’s eye. He checked the habitat to make sure everything was fine. It wasn’t weird. Except I kept watching, picking apart every move.
He ate more candy today than usual. He had scratched his arm five times since I started counting, got sick earlier, pale clammy skin…
that night he played the viz had been unusual.
He was in such a good mood… he called me Lucky.
It was weird that he was so open to going back to his office when there was a risk of getting caught.
The shuttle too, freezing up like that when we were attacked.
He called it a fluke, but Roys never tensed up.
Even when we were in the caves, he remained levelheaded.
Frequently itching his arms, not taking those damn armguards off…
I was overthinking things, and who cared? That was his business. I knew he was a user. He hadn’t changed. It didn’t fucking matter.
At the habitat, Roys helped Zavir take the specimen into the lab.
Maddy invited them in. She acknowledged me with a nod, which I returned.
That should have made me ecstatic, but seeing her brought memories of the Colony, of the synthetics we delivered to people we pretended not to care about because that was all we could do to survive.
When a dead body showed up on the side of the street, we never checked because we probably would recognize their face.
It wasn’t uncommon to turn up at a drop to encounter a corpse inside.
The stench of rot permeated my mind. One never forgot that smell or the glaze of the eyes or the maggots crawling through tissue long abandoned.
I didn’t care. It wasn’t my business. Roys didn’t matter. He was a grown man making his own decisions. He. Didn’t. Matter.
I had no appetite during dinner. I think I spoke, mumbling here or there while a nightmare played on repeat in my mind; waking one morning to discover Roys didn’t join us at breakfast. Walking back to his office to find him slumped over in his chair and seeing his eyes, once an unreal blue, made dull gray.
His armguard lay on the ground, revealing veins black as sludge, lips pulled back into a strained smile, lifeless.
Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.
That night, when the dark would not relent its torment, my paranoia carried me to the storage room.
I was wrong. Had to be. I was overthinking things.
“You’re paranoid,” I said outside the storage doors.
They opened onto flickering lights. I moved fast in case his commlink would notify him of anyone entering storage.
There were dozens of shelves that I scanned.
The times I caught him, I thought he had been looking in the corner.
On the third try, I opened a box full of rations, and his favorite candy; a box only he checked.
My sweaty hands pushed through the content, meeting the bottom, where my fingers swept against fabric. With eyes clenched shut, I grappled for the oddity and brought out Zavir’s pack. Inside, two vials of moira were missing.
Fuck.