Off Planet

by Aileen Erin

  I wondered if I could switch.

  Mining should be dangerous enough if Ahiga pitched it the right way to the CO. Maybe not as flashy a death as burning on the surface of Abaddon, but blowing up on its moon had to be a draw for Jason.

  It was a crazy plan and had a lot of ifs, but it was a start.

  Was I really considering this?

  No. Not yet. But maybe one day I’d be desperate enough to try.

  The glow faded completely, and I slowed my pacing. There was nothing I could do now except follow Ahiga’s advice—shower and sleep.

  Tomorrow, I’d figure out if I really was desperate enough to beg for mining duty. If there was one thing I knew, I would not be doing a stupid robot’s job for long. My stubbornness wouldn’t allow it.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I woke with a start. My head slammed into the bunk above me as I fought to get out from under the sheets. Even the paper thin cotton was enough to make me feel trapped.

  It took me a few long seconds to realize where I was. I got up, looking up and down the row of bunks, but everyone was already gone.

  I went back and sat heavily on my bunk. I hadn’t even stirred while my bunkmates were getting ready, and I wasn’t sure when it’d gotten so uncomfortably stuffy in the room. It felt like the AC had gone off sometime in the night, and I wasn’t sure how I managed to sleep through that. I didn’t think I’d been dreaming, but with how I woke up—with my heart racing and a panicked scream threatening to break free—I must’ve been dreaming something terrible.

  I glanced down at my wrist unit and realized I had an hour and a half before my first day started. Not wanting to be late for work, I quickly headed to the showers.

  The bathroom had a row of open shower stalls, and I gritted my teeth as I walked toward them. The water flow in my old apartment’s shower had been weak on a good day. It took five minutes just to get my hair wet, and the water had been lukewarm. From the shower I’d taken last night, I thought I might hate the showers here more. At least at the apartment, I’d had privacy. I didn’t like being naked in front of anyone. No one was here right now, but I wouldn’t always be that lucky.

  I almost skipped a shower, but I’d sweated so much in my sleep, I could feel a layer of stickiness along my skin. That was no way to start the day.

  Picking the closest showerhead, I turned on the knob. No matter how hot I turned it, the water stayed cold. I would’ve thought that with how hot it was here that the water would also be hot, but no.

  I quickly shed the shorts and tank I’d used as pajamas. Holding my breath, I stepped under the icy stream. I yelped as goosebumps broke out across my skin and moved as quickly as I could. It was a shock at first, but then, when I got over the initial jolt, it was a refreshing break from the thick heat in the room. Still, I didn’t linger for long in there. Not like I had in the spaceport shower.

  When I finished, I slapped my hair into a messy bun and threw on another pair of shorts. At least I thought they were shorts. They were skintight and made of the same water-wicking material as a lot of the other stuff. The tank top was fitted, but soft. Going out in so little clothing wasn’t my usual MO, but it was too hot to even think about pants.

  I had a little over an hour before I had to show up for work. That left me just enough time to follow Ahiga’s advice to have a good breakfast. My appetite was still nonexistent, but if Ahiga said food would help me survive, I’d eat as much as I could shove down my throat.

  My hands shook as I checked my hair. Going out on the surface seemed pretty terrible, but I’d gotten through plenty of sticky situations. I wanted to believe that I could do this, but the nerves were still there.

  I checked the screen on my wrist unit. There was an emergency info app, a calendar—which had my shifts—and a few other things that I’d check out later. But no access to any browsers. Aside from an alerts app from SpaceTech, there was no messaging on the unit that I could find. A map icon was also nonexistent, but there was a little SpaceTech icon labeled “SPB-14278.”

  A basic menu bar popped up, and I realized Matthew was right. This wrist unit was pretty archaic. It looked like something programmed decades ago. One more click and the map popped open. The blinking blue dot on the screen showed my position. A little search told me that there were two mess halls—main and an officers’ club. The main mess was a few buildings away. I quickly navigated, checking the map every few steps as I wound through dimly lit hallways until I finally reached a door with a barely visible metal plaque labeling it “Mess Hall.”

  I scanned my hand on the unit next to the door. This time it didn’t make my teeth hurt, but the buzz along my body was uncomfortable. The door unlocked, and I stepped into the noisy room.

  A couple hundred guys sat eating at long tables with benches. As I walked through the center aisle between them, the men stopped eating to stare. The movement rippled from front to back. My fingers itched to tug down the shorts, but I didn’t want to give off the impression that I was uncomfortable, even if I was. They might mistake my lack of comfort for fear, and that could quickly escalate into one of them trying something with me, which wouldn’t go well for them. But my skin crawled as I fought the urge to turn around.

  Ahiga said food. So I was getting food.

  I scanned the faces staring at me. No women in sight. Not as far as I could tell. For a second I wondered if I was in the right place. Maybe I’d mixed up which mess hall I was supposed to be in. Or maybe I missed a women-only mess, but I quickly ruled that out. There were only two, and from what Matthew and Ahiga said, there weren’t many women here. Having a separate mess hall wouldn’t be a good use of resources.

  A whistle cut through the air, and I realized that maybe the other women weren’t in this room for a reason. Maybe I was the dummy for coming here to eat. But where were the other women?

  I tilted my chin up, not wanting to show any nerves, and walked evenly paced steps as I made my way to the counter at the back of the room. A lady with a hair net grunted at me. Finally. Another woman.

  “Good morning,” I said in what I hoped was a friendly tone.

  The answering stare down made it clear she didn’t want to be friends with me.

  Fine. I grabbed a tray from the stack and shoved it under the protective glass. Some sort of neon yellow egg substitute hit the metal with a wet plop. I struggled to keep the disgust off my face. Choking down this slop was going to be a chore. A serving of potatoes, a hunk of bread, and some gray-looking sausage quickly followed. I thanked her and went to find a place to sit.

  A man with long, stringy hair who stunk like he hadn’t showered in weeks had a large empty space beside him. He seemed like he was paying zero attention to the room, so I figured it was a safe place to sit, even if he did stink. But as I moved to the empty part of the bench, the man slid over, stopping me before I could throw my leg over the bench.

  Okay, not welcome at that table. The guy seemed to like his meal in peace. I understood that well enough.

  The third time it happened, I started to get annoyed. The guy looked and smelled normal, so I wasn’t sure why I was getting the cold shoulder. I didn’t have to be soul mates with whoever I sat next to, but I needed a place to sit so I could attempt to eat this crap before my shift started. I didn’t have time for their juvenile behavior.

  “You can sit by me,” someone said behind me. The slime in his voice made me cringe.

  I chose to ignore the offer, not even looking back at him.

  Worst case scenario, I could always take my tray to my bunk.

  “Maité!”

  I stumbled at the sound of my name. It didn’t sound like Ahiga or Matthew, and I assumed they’d be in the Officers’ Mess. Who else here knew me?

  I spun, scanning the faces and trying to find the source.

  “Over here!”

  My mouth dropped open. “Holy shit,” I muttered under my breath.

  John Santiago was a short guy, but thick and made up for his height
by lifting some insanely heavy weights. His head was shaved, but he didn’t have as many tattoos as some of the other ABQ Crew guys. None of them showed in the standard SpaceTech tank and pants that he was wearing, but the matador fighting a bull on his chest was memorable. The over-the-top expression on the matador’s face used to crack me up when we sparred. I wasn’t sure why he’d gotten that particular tattoo exactly, but the guy loved to laugh and to make everyone around him laugh. So I figured that had a lot to do with it.

  He was smiling big, showing me a mouthful of pearly whites, and I felt my shoulders loosen. “¡Tanto tiempo!” he said, bumping my forearm with his.

  It was good to see a friendly face. “No kidding. It’s been what…three years?”

  “Yo! Move down!” he yelled at the guy sitting next to him.

  There was some grumbling, but a few guys slid down the bench, opening a seat next to Santiago. I’d been trying to ignore everyone else—I’d had enough hostile looks—but as I put my tray on the table and sat down, I saw Ahiga sitting across from me.

  “What are you doing here? I thought officers didn’t mix with workers.” It came off a bit ruder than I wanted, but I didn’t want to come across as friendly anyway. Not when SpaceTech was watching.

  “You know her?” Ahiga asked, ignoring my question.

  “Yep.” Santiago’s tray was empty. Guess someone liked the food. “She’s the Crew’s best fighter. Man, you should see her spar. It’s, like, crazy. She’s fast and sharp and dude, you just never see the girl comin’. When she was a kid, Jorge would test out his top guys against her. She always won. It’s like she knew what they were going to do before they did it. She just took them the fuck down.” He slammed his hands on the table, rattling our trays.

  The guy was talking too much, but in that moment, it was so nice to see an old friend that I didn’t care.

  “We’d time it and set up bets and shit.” Santiago laughed. “My money was always on Maité though. I ain’t stupid. She beat my ass five times—”

  “Seven.” He wished it was five times, but he was wrong.

  “No way, chica. It was five. It’s not something I could forget.”

  “Apparently, you did. It was seven.” I grinned at him, but my smile quickly faded when I realized the guys within hearing distance had quieted to listen to us.

  Damn it. I didn’t want any more attention than I already had.

  I avoided their gazes by staring at my food. They’d forget about me in a second. They had to.

  I quickly glanced up, and any hope I had to remain anonymous here deflated to nothing. I’d been so happy to see Santiago that I’d forgotten to keep my mouth shut. I’d totally abandoned my plan to keep my head down until Declan got here. Everyone in the Crew loved him, and apparently the same was true here.

  I stabbed a hunk of potato and forced down the grainy bite, trying to ignore their stares. How the cook managed to ruin potatoes was beyond me.

  “You’re not saying different, so that means you really think you beat me seven times. The first time got me by surprise. Wouldn’t forget that shit.” Santiago started counting on his fingers. “Two. Three. Oh yeah. Three was a bitch. You kicked me so fucking hard in the leg I limped for weeks. Couldn’t afford the nanos and I wouldn’t let myself admit a child hurt me that badly. Hit my pride hard.” He huffed. “But I got over that the fourth time. Then five. So what am I forgetting?”

  I shrugged. No way was I answering that, especially since he hadn’t elaborated on a couple of them.

  “Wait. Wait. I got it. That time when you did that bounce-off-the-wall kick thing makes six.” He slammed a hand on the table, and the water in my glass sloshed over the rim. “Oh shit. How did I forget the time you flipped me so hard I flew across the room? TKO.” He smirked at me. “That’s embarrassing. Seven. She beat my ass seven times, and she was just a kid. How old were you then? Fifteen? Sixteen?”

  “Twelve. I was thirteen when Jorge switched me to teaching.”

  “Sounds like you’re a girl full of surprises,” Ahiga said.

  “You already met Ahiga?” Santiago asked.

  I glanced up and froze, waiting for Ahiga to say something. I’d already given away that I knew him by my reaction when I sat down. But Ahiga didn’t say anything.

  This was getting awkward. “We were on the same ship here. It was only us in the cryo room. So not really. Just to say hi, I guess. How’d you end up here, Santiago?” I asked, hoping to change the subject off to something—anything—other than me.

  “Eh. You know I got caught takin’ down that Rojo a while back. Been here ever since. I was going to get ten on Earth, but it’s only four here. Almost done.”

  “Seriously?” If he’d lasted nearly four years, it gave me hope that maybe I could last out my one year. Or at least until Declan came. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad? Sure, my job was the pits, but maybe life in general on the base wasn’t as terrible as SpaceTech made it out to be.

  “Yeah.”

  “I didn’t think people lasted that long here.”

  Santiago leaned back in his chair and gave me one of his easy smiles. “It’s not as bad as people make it sound. I’m a mechanic for the mining ships. It’s what I did before, so it ain’t all bad. Man. That’s the crazy part of it. Those assholes who sign up for runs.” He shook his head. “Those mofos drop like flies. Anyone with half a brain would stay away. Hell, anyone with a few working brain cells should know better.”

  The men nearby nodded their agreement.

  I wanted to scream and shout and curse the fact that everything I came up with turned out to be a dead end. “Ah. Well. That’s interesting.” Once again, the little bit of a plan I’d thought up disappeared. I’d been hoping to somehow transfer to the mining runs. On Earth, Roan said that he thought we could make it, but I’d told him then that it was suicidal. Apparently, I was right the first time.

  Damn it. I hated being right all the time. Just this one time I wanted Roan to be right. I needed him to be right.

  Santiago leaned into me. “So…uh…since we’re both gonna be working on base together, you gonna show me your tattoo?” He waggled his eyebrows.

  I snorted before I could stop it. “No.” My cheeks burned. Why did he have to say it like that in front of all these guys? I already felt like too many people were paying attention to me, and now they were probably mentally undressing me.

  “Her tattoo?” Ahiga said, looking at me. “Most people who have them don’t mind showing their art.”

  “Yeah. Maybe people who have them on their face don’t mind it, but not me. Mine’s personal.”

  I didn’t know why I felt that way about my tattoo, but when I’d been trying to pick what to get, I could only come up with one thing that I was okay with forever marking my skin. And when the artist was done, it felt like I’d made a part of my soul visible. Suddenly, I was vulnerable in a way I didn’t like.

  I’d made Vanessa—the tattoo artist—promise never to tell anyone what it was. I’d even taken the sketches of it and burned them.

  Thankfully, the tattoo was hidden on the inside of my left hipbone and small—about two inches by one inch. The only people besides me and Vanessa who had seen it since was Roan—because he’d been with me when I got it—and Haden.

  I regretted that Haden had ever seen it, and the one time he’d ever touched it… I could still see the shock in his eyes as I slapped his hand away from me. We’d been hot and heavy one second, and then he caressed that spot, and I suddenly felt dirty. I’d grabbed my clothes, barely bothering to dress before I was out the door.

  I didn’t answer his calls after that night. It’s why I don’t date. After that night, I knew I was too much of a mess to handle a relationship. It wasn’t worth the time.

  I stared down at my plate. I’d barely managed a few spoonfuls of this lab-grown junk.

  Someone kicked me under the table, and I glanced up.

  “You watching your figure?” Ahiga asked.

 
“Girl doesn’t need to watch shit. She fine,” someone yelled from down the table.

  I stared so hard at Ahiga that I was pretty sure he knew I was murdering him in my mind.

  “Eat,” he said, clearly not bothered by my stare.

  Fine. I knew I had to eat, but it wasn’t my fault that the drugs had mutilated my appetite. I mushed the soupy eggs around with my fork. I was going to have to try them, but I wasn’t looking forward to it. I forked a small bite on the bread, hoping that would make it edible, but gagged. “This is disgusting.” It was so awful it was making my eyes water.

  “You’ll get used to it.” Santiago chuckled as I made a yucky face at him. “I’ve spent too much time with the guys placing bets on what Maité’s tattoo is.”

  Was he still talking about my freaking tattoo? “Shut it.”

  “Not unless you show me.”

  “No.” And if he kept bringing it up, I was going to kick his ass for the eighth time.

  “One of my girls gave it to her—it’s an initiation thing, so I know it’s there—but Maité won’t let no one see. Vanessa won’t spill where it is but said no one would ever guess what it was. ABQ Crew members have to have one of an animal, but everyone gets to pick theirs. Some think maybe she chickened out and Vanessa’s just covering Maité’s ass.” He slapped his hand on the table. “Guys have been trying to get at her just so they can see the tat, but no one gets through to Maité. Except for Roan. He—”

  “Shut up!” I loved Santiago, but he was killing me. The guy was spilling way too much information. No one could know a weak spot, especially about Roan. “I like my privacy. Remember that or I’ll be forced to remind you.”

  I had to survive, and the best way to do that was to keep my head down. Being a woman on a male-dominated planet was already going to make that difficult enough. And if the guys thought I was a challenge, the target on my back would only get bigger. I’d already made it bad enough when I corrected him earlier. This needed to be shut down. Fast.