Off Planet

by Aileen Erin

  Volatile. I didn’t need to hit it a second time to be sure.

  I held my breath and gently let go, not wanting to disturb the crystal a second time. “Marking that one as explosive.” I grabbed the marker, writing a ‘1’ on it.

  “Done. Good job, kid.” Carl’s voice came through my wrist unit. He kept a database of all the crystals tested. There hadn’t been a miner down here in weeks, so every crystal here was neutral until I hit them, but there were still some he didn’t want me testing. He said the crystals sometimes changed, but if it was marked unsafe on three different mining trips, he labeled it as dangerous for good.

  “This one?” I asked, just in case I could avoid hitting it. There were no marks on it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to hurt.

  “Hit it.”

  Not the answer I wanted.

  If the past few hours told me anything, it was that I hated mining. Each time I tested a crystal, it felt like messing with a live bomb. The desperation I’d felt while icing down Abaddon’s surface made me forget that only someone seriously dumb or desperate would sign up for this job.

  My hands were shaking as I held the hammer. I’d tried to control my fear, but I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep going. The next crystal might blow up in my face, and if it did I’d left a trail of active ones ready to go off all over the mine. Luckily, none of the explosive ones were double-tapped, but there had to be a hundred single-tapped and surely that couldn’t be safe. I’d essentially rigged Apollyon to blow up at any second. One wrong move and my flesh would be red mist.

  I tried to tell myself I didn’t need to make a full load today. I just needed to give Declan enough time to get here, but the longer the day wore on, the more I realized mining wasn’t any different than icing down the surface of Abaddon. Switching jobs hadn’t changed anything, and that left me with a feeling of hopelessness. Enough of it to drown in.

  I was exhausted—mentally and physically—and I wanted to give up. I wanted to get back in that ship and say I was done for the day, but I wasn’t sure what would happen if I came back before Carl gave me the okay. Only two things kept me going—Declan’s voice telling me not to give up, that he was on his way, that everything would be okay—and repeating my mantra.

  I’m a di Aetes. I don’t quit. Not ever.

  I reached for the next crystal and gave it a gentle tap. The tone was a soft, medium-pitched hum like small flutters against my mind. None of the neutral ones hurt. I hit it again and heard the same smooth sound, only a little softer.

  Harmless.

  I quickly gave it one more tap to neutralize it, and I turned the hammer around to the pickaxe side.

  A couple of heavy swats to the bedrock around the crystal released it from the wall of the mine. I placed it carefully in the container hanging at my hip.

  One more down and I was still alive.

  My face stayed dry thanks to the mask, but sweat dripped down behind my ears, falling onto my neck. I wiped it off with my shoulder as I took a few more steps around the edge of the mine.

  I’d descended six of the ten mining levels so far. The dirt had been carefully blasted away from the crystals during the excavation process, leaving the shards exposed along the walls. Each level had fewer and fewer viable crystals. Some I tested, but most Carl instructed me to avoid. I’d only filled two of the ten containers, and I was more than halfway through the mine.

  I paused at another grouping.

  “How are you doing?” Declan’s smooth voice was a balm on my frayed nerves.

  My tank top was soaked through, and it wasn’t just the heat. “I’m hanging in.”

  “Good work, kid. You’re doing great,” Carl said.

  “He’s right, you know.” Declan’s voice was soft. “You’re doing great.”

  Great. That was such bullshit. I must’ve been a good actress because on the inside I was slowly losing it.

  Carl said something about energy bars on the ship when I first came out here, but I didn’t understand why I’d need them. He’d told me that the mask lasted for twelve hours. I was supposed to stay here until either I’d harvested enough crystal or the mask ran out, but I honestly didn’t think mining would take longer than a few hours, which meant I’d never need one of those energy bars or the full twelve hours from the mask.

  I was so unbelievably wrong.

  Mining was more time-consuming than I could’ve possibly imagined. Since I didn’t plan on taking any unnecessary risks, I was stuck out here for nine more hours. Also known as an eternity.

  “Your temp’s pretty hot,” Declan said. “And your blood pressure is through the roof. I need you to remember to breathe.”

  I grunted, and I hoped he realized how ridiculous his observations were. Was my heightened blood pressure really a surprise?

  “Hurry up, Martinez. You’re running out of time, and you’re only twenty percent complete.” The voice never identified himself, but I knew that it had to be one of Jason’s guys. He’d been nagging me to move faster for the last hour, probably hoping that he could goad me into making a mistake.

  I ground my teeth to stop myself from saying anything. I couldn’t afford any distractions, especially from this guy. Not when a mistake meant blowing myself up.

  “Just take a breath. You’re doing great.” I took a minute to soak in the sound of Declan’s voice.

  I wasn’t sure why it helped so much, but I was thankful that he was helping me through this. He made me feel like I wasn’t so alone, even though I was. It was only me and the drones on Apollyon.

  “You’re alive, and that’s all that matters. You don’t need a full load. You just have to last long enough. I want you to be very sure before you swing that pickaxe again, okay? Don’t let him rush you.”

  I sighed.

  “Okay,” Declan said. “Okay. That’s better. Sighing counts. Take another breath. Deep inhale.”

  I did as he asked, but my hand still shook as I grasped another crystal. It had two “1” marks on it. Each a different color. Two different miners had tested it before me and marked it as volatile. I hated testing ones that already had marks on them. Those were the most painful.

  Ice it all to hell.

  I brought the hammer end down on it. The tone must’ve been out of my hearing range because I didn’t hear anything, but it made my ears pop painfully anyway. The tool slipped from my hand, and I lowered my head and tried to breathe through the pain.

  “You okay?” I barely heard Declan’s voice over the ringing in my head.

  I pressed my hands over my ears and yawned, trying to equalize the pressure. “Mark that one as superhot.”

  “What about the rest in that cluster?” Carl asked.

  Who cares about the rest of the fucking cluster? I wanted to shout it at him. But I couldn’t. Not if I wanted to keep up the appearance that I was doing this job.

  All of the crystals in the cluster had marks on them. It was safe to say that they’d all be volatile, but I knew the control room didn’t give a shit about that.

  It took me a second to shove my fear far enough inside me to get my hand to work again. I picked up my tool from the ground, reached out to a crystal, and hit it with the hammer end.

  I couldn’t hear that one either, but my back molars throbbed. “Volatile.”

  Carl hadn’t said anything about pain when testing crystals, but I couldn’t bring it up now. I didn’t want to look weak in front of Jason and his tribe of jerks. Especially when I wasn’t sure if this was an Aunare-only thing.

  It took me a good twenty minutes to finish hitting the rest in the bunch, earning myself a hell of a headache. I made sure to mark each one, but by the end of it, my breath was coming out in quick pants.

  When I was done, I squatted down, hanging my head between my knees, waiting for the pain to go away, but it didn’t.

  This whole mining thing was fucked. Almost all of the crystals were volatile. My head was aching. I was exhausted and sweaty. Most of all, I wa
s done. I wanted to quit, but I couldn’t. Declan wasn’t here yet. So I had to keep going. I had to be strong.

  I’m a di Aetes. I don’t quit. Not ever.

  “You okay, kid?” Carl’s voice held more than a bit of concern.

  “I just got a migraine. Nothing too bad.” It only felt like my head was being cleaved in half.

  “Get up. Now. Or this run is over.”

  Jason’s friends were the worst. Cowards. Liars. I hated them with everything I was, and I didn’t care if the run was null. I was ready to throw down the damned tool and tell them to go ice themselves. I’d sit here and wait out the remaining time. If they had a problem with it, they could come drag me back.

  “I’m linked in to the control room.” I heard the strain in Declan’s voice as he tried to keep his anger leashed, and I knew that whatever he said next, I wasn’t going to like it.

  “If you stop before you’ve hit the load minimum, they’re going to put you back on the surface for a six-hour shift. Ahiga’s arguing against it, but he’s outranked.”

  I whimpered. “What do I do?”

  Carl was talking to me through my wrist unit, urging me to keep going, but I wasn’t listening to him.

  “One just said if you don’t get up, he’s going to get you himself, rough you up, put you in the suit, and throw you out onto the surface of Abaddon.”

  “Shit,” I muttered to myself. I couldn’t put on the suit again. I couldn’t go out on the surface. If Audrey had to give me one more round of nanos…

  “You can’t put on that suit again and survive,” Declan said, echoing my thoughts. “You’ve got a little over eight hours left on your mask. I don’t care why they’re yelling. Go slow. Finish your day. Once you’re back on the base, relax. Eat. Shower. I’ll be there tonight, and we’ll leave. It’ll all be over soon. I promise. Just get through the next eight hours for me.”

  I focused on Declan’s words, but eight hours seemed like forever and going back to icing the surface wasn’t a good alternative.

  So I would move slowly, deliberately, knowing the time would run out. I would get through this.

  Eight hours and then I was done.

  “I’m getting up,” I said. “Just give me a minute.” I reached for the tool that had fallen to the ground beside me. The tiny tool felt heavy in my hand. I closed my eyes and wished there was another way.

  “If you don’t get your ass up right now, we’re coming to haul you back here. Your old job will look like—” I tuned Jason’s crony out. He was trying to piss me off, and I wasn’t going to let him have that much control over me.

  “Your di Aetes steel is showing, you know,” Declan said.

  “Huh?” I wanted to ask specifics but couldn’t.

  “When I was growing up, I would’ve done anything to be part of your family. Your dad is the opposite of my father, but he takes no shit. The look on your face right now while those assholes are yelling at you? The determination? That’s all your father. You’re Amihanna di Aetes, and it shows.”

  A tear rolled down my cheek. He didn’t know about my mantra. That whenever I wanted to give up, I had to remind myself that I was a di Aetes. Hearing that right then, when I was so close to giving up, meant I could keep going.

  I stayed still for a second, just breathing in and out, letting the pain from my head flow down my body and out of my limbs.

  I’m a di Aetes. I never quit. Not ever.

  I rose on shaky feet, dusting myself off. “I’m fine.” It was a lie, but it sounded truthful when I said it.

  The next cluster was much larger than any of the others I’d seen—over twenty crystals, some as thick as my forearm. One wide, arcing crystal linked the others in the cluster together. It was odd that there was no rhyme or reason as to which ones would be mineable. Some tiny ones gave off the worst tones. Some of the biggest ones were the weakest, but there was no guarantee.

  I didn’t want to hit it even though it didn’t have any marks on it, but my life was filled with doing things I didn’t want to do. Mining lucole was just one more thing. One more very dangerous thing.

  I licked my lips and picked one to test. The fat arcing one. It was the thickest, and hopefully that meant it was the least harmful. I swung the hammer down.

  The high-pitched, whining tone crescendoed until it was all I could hear. The pain hit me hard and fast, and I fell, my back slamming into the ground.

  The tone quieted, and my vision started to gray until it was black.

  And then I was without sight and sound.

  As I lay there, I wondered if this was it. If maybe I’d already died, and if the afterlife was just a dark hole where I’d spend eternity.

  For a second, I was relieved. No matter how hard I’d tried to do the right thing, it seemed that I always lost. Maybe quitting wasn’t so bad. Maybe having this be done and finished meant that I could rest.

  No more hiding. No more waitressing. No more wondering whether today was the day I was going to be discovered as a halfer. No more Jason Murtagh or SpaceTech using me to destroy the Aunare. It all sounded so perfectly lovely.

  But then I realized if I were dead, my limbs probably wouldn’t hurt anymore. And the rock jabbing my back wouldn’t exist.

  So I wasn’t dead. At least not yet.

  That realization was a little disappointing. Because if I wasn’t dead, then all I had was more suffering ahead of me.

  So I lay there and waited for my hearing and vision to come back. Wondering if they would come back. And if not, what was I going to do next?

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I don’t know how long I was on the ground, but after a while I blinked my eyes, and I could see light and shadows. It took a few more minutes for my sight to fully come back, but everything was still silent. I couldn’t even hear myself breathe.

  I rolled onto my side, rubbing my spine, trying to ease the ache away. The rock I fell on definitely left a bruise.

  I finally decided to say something. Declan was too far away to help, but he was probably worrying. “I think I’m deaf.” I couldn’t hear my own words. My heart was racing, but I couldn’t hear the whooshing it sometimes made in my ears, especially when I was scared. And right now, I should’ve been hearing the whooshing. Loudly. Which made the silence that much scarier.

  I massaged along my jaw, trying to get my ears to pop, but they wouldn’t. “Shit.” What was I supposed to do now?

  And then there was an excruciating pop in my ears, and I screamed. I reached up and felt liquid running down my lobes and onto my neck. I pulled the tiny earbud out, and my fingers came back red.

  It was only then that I realized I could hear Carl, Ahiga, and the rest of the control room yelling at me through the wrist unit. I’d bet money if I put in the earbud, Declan would be, too.

  I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Their voices were too loud and on top of each other.

  I put my hands over my ears. “Stop!” That got everyone to shut up. “Let’s mark that one as hot, shall we?” My words were sassy, but my voice was so weak and barely there.

  I wiped off my bloody fingers and the earbud on my leggings. There were too many drones hovering around me, watching my every move, so I knew they could probably see the earbud. I tried to be covert about it, but at this point I wasn’t sure how much I should care. I was bleeding. I didn’t know what that meant, but it couldn’t be good.

  I bent over and lifted my tank top to wipe off the rest of the blood. After a few wipes, the blood stopped, and the fear pounding through my body eased a little. I tried to hide putting the earbud back, but I was over it. Over Jason and his stupid cronies. Declan would be here soon anyway.

  There was a long silence, and I assumed that they were all watching me clean up. After years of hiding, having them see me like this made me feel naked. I told myself that it didn’t matter. That I was wearing clothes and that they couldn’t read my mind and that I shouldn’t feel this way, but it didn’t help.

  �
�You scared the crap out of me, kid,” Carl said finally. “It’s almost like these crystals are hurting you.”

  I didn’t want to admit that they were but damn it—they were more than hurting me. I was pretty sure the crystals were killing me.

  “Ami?” Declan’s voice had a hint of a quiver to it.

  He’d never said my name like that, and I knew that meant he was as scared as I was.

  I grunted.

  “You okay?”

  I couldn’t answer that.

  “Get your ass up and start mining,” Jason’s jerkwad of a friend said.

  “Ignore him,” Declan said. “Cough once if you’re okay. Twice if you’re hurting.”

  I coughed twice.

  Hurting was laughable. Every bone in my body ached, and my head was beyond pounding. I couldn’t even think about how bad my ears felt.

  I didn’t want to test any more crystals. Not even one. I was terrified of what they were doing to my body. I’d never had a headache this bad before.

  “You might be reacting to the crystals. I didn’t think about what this would be like for an Aunare. I didn’t… I didn’t know you’d have this kind of a reaction.” Worry made his voice waver. “The bleeding is a bad sign, Ami.”

  I closed my eyes and let that sink in. At this point, the number of things that had gone wrong since Declan came into my life was laughable.

  “And I hate to say it, but it’s important that SpaceTech doesn’t know how badly the lucole is affecting you.”

  Was he kidding? How was I supposed to act like it wasn’t affecting me? I couldn’t get my limbs to move any faster even if I wanted to. I wasn’t even sure I could stand up yet, much less mine any more lucole. Especially if it was killing me. What was I supposed to do?

  “Stall. Tell them it’s the stress. That you’re scared.”

  I hissed, telling Declan just what I thought of his idea. I might be terrified of what was happening to me, but letting the control room know that I was scared was not something I wanted to do. I didn’t like showing weakness.

  “I know. You’re a di Aetes, but even your father would agree with this plan. It makes sense. Your blood pressure is dangerously high, and they’ll believe that you’re too scared to continue. That your fear is giving you a headache. Tell them and sit tight. I have to make a call. I’ll be here, but I’m muting myself, okay?”