Off Planet

by Aileen Erin

  “He’s fine. Busy, though, getting more lucole ready for the labs.”

  I shot a look at Ahiga. “Did you know about this?”

  “Matthew warned me. They’ve apparently made a breakthrough, but I don’t know more than that.”

  “Apparently they’re shipping the weapon out in five days,” Audrey said.

  Ahiga leaned forward. “How do you know that?”

  “Matthew came by while I was with Tyler just now. He’s taking stuff up to the labs, and then they’re doing their thing to it before shipping it out. He was pretty clear what that meant when he told Tyler.”

  That was too soon. Especially if it was weapons. “We’re running out of time…” I let out a stream of curses as I paced. “What do we do?”

  Audrey stepped in front of me, stopping my frantic movements. “Can I give you some advice?”

  “Sure.”

  She grabbed my shoulders and gave me a little shake. “Don’t worry about any of the shit with the lucole exodus or the weapon.”

  “How can I ignore that when people could die? When—”

  “Stop it.” Audrey gave me another sharp shake. “You can’t do anything about whatever SpaceTech is doing. You’re a worker. That’s it. And worrying about all this other crap is just going to distract you. The only thing you need to be thinking about is getting officially transferred to mining duty, and then not dying while mining.”

  I pulled away from her to lean against the wall again, banging the back of my head against it a few times. “I don’t know if I can ignore it.”

  “And what can you do about it?”

  I closed my eyes. “Nothing.” Absolutely nothing. There wasn’t a goddamned thing I could do about any of this, but it still felt like it was my responsibility somehow. I was here. There had to be something I could do…

  “Listen to her.” Ahiga’s sharp tone had me opening my eyes. “Whether you know it or not, your spirit—watching what you’ve been going through the last thirteen days—has affected just about every person on this base. The ripple you’re causing is having a bigger impact than you can see. So you keep kicking ass. You keep fighting and surviving, and trust that I’m doing everything I can on my end about the rest of it.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just watched him.

  He got up and cracked open the door. “Twenty-two hundred. I’ll get you into the bar. I’m going to send another goddamned message. See if I can hurry things along somehow.”

  I nodded. “I’ll be there.”

  “Come on,” Audrey said. “Let’s go get you some food.”

  I made a face. “It’s between mealtimes. It’ll be disgusting.”

  Audrey scrunched up her nose. “Sure, but it’ll be calories. Which you need. I bet Della will sneak you some dessert.”

  I gagged. “That stuff isn’t dessert. It’s toxic.” As was everything on Abaddon.

  Audrey pulled me into the hallway with a laugh. “So dramatic. You make it sound like you’ve almost died a few times.”

  I elbowed her, and she laughed harder. Audrey’s joke might not have been enough to make me laugh, but it was enough that I smiled. If there was one bright spot out of all of this, it was Audrey.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  That night, I waited just down the hall from the bar. I didn’t want to be too close, but I didn’t want to miss Ahiga either. I leaned against the wall, tapping my fingers on my leg. The cameras were watching me, but no one had come to tell me to move. I wasn’t doing anything wrong by being in the hallway. At least not yet.

  Audrey thought I should dress sexy for this, but I didn’t agree with her, and I definitely didn’t want to wear the tiny biker shorts and tank that I used for under my suit. Instead, I’d borrowed a pair of her navy scrubs. They felt like the more professional option, even rolled at the top to keep them from dragging on the floor.

  The way Carl had been described to me I didn’t think he’d care about what I was wearing or anything I had to say.

  Getting him to hear me out was going to be my biggest challenge. I didn’t have much of a plan for how to do that, which made me nervous. I liked a good plan, with a handful of backup plans, but Abaddon left me with almost no options.

  My wrist unit went off—thirty seconds until twenty-two hundred—and I started down the hallway. The door to the bar opened as soon as I reached it. Ahiga exited without sparing me a glance.

  It was a little obvious, but Ahiga knew as well as I did that we weren’t lasting much longer here. SpaceTech had to be wondering why he kept going to the med bay whenever I was there.

  Inside, the bar was packed. I expected it to smell like cheap beer and sweat, and that’s exactly what it smelled like. Nearly everyone in there wore navy and gray SpaceTech uniforms of some sort—camo, athletic wear, and a few more formal guys in gray button-downs and navy slacks.

  I kept my head down as I moved through the room. I wasn’t sure what this Carl would look like, only that he was old and sat alone. Which actually helped a lot, because most of the guys in here were young and gathered around tables, playing cards or shooting the shit loudly with each other.

  I finally spotted Carl off to the side. As expected, he was at a table by himself, flicking his fingers in the air. His solid white hair made him stick out from all the decades-younger officers in the bar. He was hunched over a pint, not paying attention to any of the noise around him. Instead, focusing on whatever his implant was showing him.

  I wondered what he was watching. Did a guy like him still care about the news? Or was he playing a game to take his mind off of the job he hated?

  I took a second to gather up my courage, and then made my way to his table. I pulled out the chair across from him, and he barely spared me a glance.

  This was already going so well. “Hello.”

  “Go somewhere else.” His face was lined with wrinkles, highlighted by the intense scowl he was giving me.

  Okay. So he was grumpy. At least that bit of info was accurate. “I came to talk to you. I have something you might find interesting.” I pulled out the test score paper, sliding it across the table to him.

  “You don’t have anything I want to see.” He pushed it back to me.

  I slid it back at him. “Please. Just give me a chance. I need—”

  “You don’t need anything from me.” He leaned forward. “No one with half a brain would even take that damned test. The fact that you did shows me you’re stupider than most. Or maybe just gullible as all hell.” He crumpled the paper in his fist and threw it at me.

  I barely managed to catch the wadded up paper before it smacked me in the face.

  “I’m saving your life here. You can thank me or not. I don’t really give a shit.”

  I wanted to be annoyed and frustrated, but I couldn’t be. Carl had a good point—I’d said almost the same thing to Roan a million times—but this was my best shot at survival. It was pathetic that this was what my life had come to. I knew that, but I was desperate. I wouldn’t take no from him.

  I took the crumpled-up paper and smoothed it down on the table, leaving it between Carl and me. “I won’t survive the work detail that I’m on. I don’t know if you’ve heard the rumors, but I’m the one on ice-down duty on the planet’s surface. I’ve nearly died every day I’ve been out there and, trust me, if I stay out there, I will die. I’ve been denied transfers multiple times already. You’re my one shot at living.”

  He finally looked at me.

  “I need the mining gig. I need it badly, and quickly. The odds are much better for me doing twenty runs, than lasting another week out there on the surface.”

  He sat there, quietly considering me. He took a slow breath, which made me think that I was getting through to him, even though the expression on his face hadn’t changed. It was something.

  “Just look at my scores, please. I know I can do this, and even if I can’t, blowing up on the moon is better than slowly boiling to death out there. It would b
e a mercy.”

  He pressed his lips together and started shaking his head.

  I wasn’t sure what else I could say, but I had to say something. I was desperate. I had to make Carl accept me as a miner. “I don’t know what you need to hear, but I—”

  A large beast of a man sat in the chair next to me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “Looky what I found. A girl. In our bar. From the work crew.” He squeezed me against his sweaty body. “Whose dick did you suck to get in here?”

  Calm. I had to stay calm. Even if I wanted to rip the man’s arm from his socket.

  My skin buzzed with fury.

  Six in. Three out. Three in. Six out. “Please, move your arm.”

  “Don’t be that way.” He squeezed me tighter. “Come on. Play nice.”

  Carl’s gaze locked with mine and he leaned back in his chair. He wasn’t going to do anything, but he was watching how I would handle this.

  I wasn’t sure what he was looking for. If I somehow managed to defuse the situation maybe that would make me look like I was good in a crisis, which would help if anything went wrong while I was on a run.

  Or maybe he was trying to see how tough I was. He could be wondering to himself if I could take this asshole down.

  I could, and I wanted to, but something told me that might not be the best tactic.

  “I’m going to ask you one more time. Please, let me go. I don’t want any trouble.”

  The asshole stank of booze as he leaned against me, running his nose up my cheek before licking my face. “Come on, honey. Let’s go somewhere quiet.”

  Okay. I was done with this asshole. He wasn’t going to let me go no matter how nicely I asked, which meant I was going to have to use force.

  I didn’t take my eyes off Carl as I spoke. “I have to take care of this, but please don’t hold it against me.”

  Carl’s eyes widened a little bit, and he gave me a small nod.

  “Thanks. I appreciate your understanding.”

  I slammed my elbow into the asshole’s stomach. His grip loosened as he tried to get some air in. I stood up, grabbed his head, and slammed it into the table. I gave him a little nudge, and he fell to the floor, unconscious.

  I brushed off my hands on my pants and started to sit again. “I really need—”

  “What the fuck.” Some guy was crouched over Asshole’s unconscious body. He stood up, staring at me, and stepped toward me.

  I ignored him. “I really need this job. The thing is—”

  Asshole’s BFF grabbed my arm, pulling me out of my chair and into his body.

  I kept my eyes on Carl. “Excuse me. I’ll just be one more second.”

  I darted out of the way just before the BFF punched me in the face. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  He snarled and came at me again.

  I punched him in the face, and he dropped to the ground. I stared at him for a second as he held his nose, but he didn’t get back up. Pathetic.

  I started to turn back to Carl, but silence gripped the room.

  Trouble. This was trouble.

  Then there was cursing. Some even called me a few inappropriate names. Chairs scraped against the floor as men got up from their tables. They clearly hadn’t heard about the lessons I’d been giving everyone or about my sparring with Ahiga.

  I rolled my eyes and held out a finger—asking Carl to wait again—before I turned to the room.

  Everyone was now on their feet staring at me. “This one decided to lick my face,” I said, pointing to Asshole. “This one tried to defend him.” I pointed to Asshole’s BFF. “I’m not here for trouble, but I don’t enjoy being manhandled.”

  “Fuck that,” someone muttered.

  I shook out my arms, relaxing my muscles. “If you want to try me, please do. It would be my pleasure.” I’d been training people on my day off and after the shifts when I didn’t end up needing nanos, but training and sparring were different than an all-out fight. I wouldn’t have to go easy on these men. That had me grinning like it was Christmas.

  This was going to be fun.

  The first guy started at me, and from then on, time was a blur of fists and blocks.

  Two came at me at once, but I dropped down, sliding on the floor between them, and grabbed their ankles and twisted. Bones and tendons snapped.

  I kipped up and kept going, one after another after another. One move to the next. Like each opponent was a piece in a larger game.

  A man came at me with a bottle. I caught his arm as he swung it at me, spinning myself into his body. I elbowed him in the stomach as I wrenched the bottle out of his grasp and kicked him square in the nuts.

  Another grabbed at me, and I swung the bottle at his head. The glass broke as he crumpled to the ground.

  The sound of glass breaking seemed to mark a pause in the fighting. I was now holding a weapon, and no one seemed confident enough to come at me anymore. They were all looking around at each other, trying to figure out what everyone else was going to do before acting.

  That was lame.

  I backflipped, putting some extra power into it. I flew high in the air, landing on the top of the table behind me. “This has been fun! Thanks so much for showing me a good time.” I gave them a killer smile. “But if we’re done, then I’d love to finish my conversation with Carl.” I jerked my thumb behind me. I was a little disoriented, but I was pretty sure he was still at his table sitting behind me somewhere.

  The door in the back of the room opened, and I saw Ahiga step through.

  He took one look around the room and then stared up at me. “What the everlovingfuck is going on here!?”

  I spun the neck of the bottle in my hand. “These guys wanted to play.” I smiled innocently. “I just don’t think we were on the same page about what kind of play I was up for.”

  The men started yelling all at once. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one about to pounce on me, but Ahiga’s whistle cut through the din.

  “Leave the lady alone! That’s an order! And clean this place up!”

  All but one hopped to Ahiga’s orders. I turned to look at him square on. He stood there for a good minute—a look of disgust on his face—before spinning on his heel and leaving the bar.

  Five feet ten. Two hundred pounds. Muddy brown hair. Weaselly eyes that were placed far too close together. I’d bet good money that guy was friends with the redhead from earlier.

  There wasn’t anything I could do about that now, but I would ask Ahiga about him later. I had more immediate things to take care of at the moment.

  I jumped down from the table and walked to Carl. He was still sitting there, calmly drinking his pint as he watched me, apparently not bothered at all by the brawl.

  My chair had been knocked to the floor at some point, so I bent to pick it up, and then sat in it, saying nothing.

  I wasn’t out of breath or even sweating much, but I’d said enough already. It was Carl’s turn to talk. The paper with my test scores was still on the table in front of him, but as far as I knew he hadn’t looked at it.

  “That was some show,” he said after a moment.

  I nodded. It wasn’t clear from the way he said it if he meant that as a compliment or not, so I kept my mouth shut.

  He leaned forward, whispering. “I know.”

  I swallowed. I didn’t dare say anything. Not with so many ears around, and even though I needed Carl’s acceptance, I didn’t trust him. Not with confirmation of what he believed I was.

  He leaned back in his chair again. “I haven’t seen fighting like that since… Well, it’s been a while. I had a friend once who was good, but he wasn’t as good as you.”

  I hadn’t trained with another Aunare since I was six. I wasn’t sure how I’d measure up so that I took as a compliment. “Thank you.”

  “Most people look tired after a battle like that, but you took down damned near twenty IAF, and you look like you’re ready to take on a hundred more.”

  He was right. Th
e fight made my blood sing with energy. It made me feel like I could run ten marathons and not feel it. And despite the violence, it made me feel at peace.

  Carl nodded and, finally—after all the craziness—took the paper off the table. His low grunt as he looked it over and quietly folded it, handing it back to me, made my heart race.

  He stared at me again, and I waited. It felt like we sat there for hours but was probably only a few minutes at most.

  “Okay,” he said finally. “You chicken out or wash out, that’s it. No second chances. You’re back to your old duty. But you want to try this stupidity, far be it from me to stop you. Especially with the shit job you’ve had so far.”

  A weight lifted off me, and I could finally breathe again.

  I wasn’t going to chicken out. This was my shot. I wasn’t going to mess it up.

  “Meet me in 12WA. Oh-six hundred sharp. Don’t be late.”

  “I won’t be.” I stood and gave him a nod before stepping over a few guys to get to the door.

  As soon as I got to the hallway, I took off running back to my bunk.

  My plan had come together. Ahiga had been right. Two days. Everything was coming to a head, and I wasn’t going to have to go back out on the planet’s surface.

  With any luck, I’d be off this godforsaken planet before Jason Murtagh knew what happened.

  Hope bloomed brighter in my chest, and I planned to hang onto it for as long as I could.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  My wrist unit helped me find 12WA after my early breakfast. News had traveled fast on the base about my run-in at the officers’ bar, thanks to the bartender. Everyone knew that I’d moved to mining duty, and now the betting had taken a new turn. How many runs would I get in before blowing myself up? How much crystal would I haul in on my first run? Would I quit an hour in?

  Their bets didn’t bother me. I was trading one danger for another, but I wasn’t mining on my first day. Ahiga said to expect a couple days of training, and that meant today wasn’t going to be dangerous. But I stood outside of room 12WA and wondered what training would mean exactly.