Chapter 54

Daylight poured in through the cargo bay outer airlock hatch, nearly blinding Connor. Hot, thick air rushed in with a deep thrum he felt in his bones, carrying the stench of the alien world with it.

From the airlock hatch, he had a good view of the rectangular stretch of reddish-gray rock where Martienne had set down at dawn. It was like a low butte, over three hundred meters long, and almost two hundred wide. The drop couldn’t be fifty meters.

Fifty meters, and he was at least twenty meters from the nearest edge.

It still brought on a sense of vertigo that caused his stomach to push his sweet bacon-and-yam paste breakfast against the back of his throat.

Selen stepped up beside him, wincing. “What is that smell?”

He put a boot on the ramp, testing it. “I remember a friend of mine had a terrarium when we were kids. All kinds of plants, lizards, a snake. Then he got caught up in martial arts. A couple years later, we were in the shed where he kept the thing and he opened it up. Everything was rotting.”

“And it smelled like this?”

“Not as bad, but yeah.”

“So…something died here a long time ago?”

Connor pointed to the woods that began a kilometer out from the butte edge. “All those fallen trees, maybe.”

They littered the gentle slope down to the tree line.

Once again, “tree” was a convenient substitute for whatever it was they were looking at. These things weren’t spikes that rose up in a relatively uniform pattern like the tree-things they’d found after the shuttle crashing.

Selen clomped down the ramp defiantly, as if challenging whatever lived in the area to show itself. “You still think that was some sort of giant organism?”

He followed after her. “It makes sense.”

“All one big ecosphere, huh?”

“I’m not a scientist, but…evolution.”

She went straight to the ledge and looked over. “I don’t like the way this place evolved.”

“No.” His legs wobbled as he looked over. “We’ll have to use ropes if we go down this side.”

“What, no jump?” She snorted.

“One crazy stunt per planet. That’s my limit.”

She grabbed his hand. “You saved our lives.”

The look in her eyes sent heat through him and made him want to crush her to his chest. Being so close to death had affected them both. It was like before Dr. Litvinenko’s death.

But he had Toshiko to think about now.

A small burst of heat grew over his heart.

The amulet!

Connor backed away from the edge and jerked his head to the opposite side, pulling free of Selen in the process. “Let’s check for a way down.”

Her smile turned wistful. “Sure.”

They circled the butte, finally settling on a point where the descent could be managed standing, if the climbers were cautious. Ascending would be brutal, though.

He tested the way down, Selen close behind. They were sweating and breathing heavily when they reached the base.

She pulled out her pocket computer and eventually aligned it back toward where the the Lucky Sevens’s nose pointed. “That’s our goal.”

“That crater I saw?”

“Mosiah says it’s a bunch of ruins.”

“People lived here?”

“Things that could build, apparently.”

Hot, sweaty, and in the light of the sun, Connor still shivered. “I’ll take Kalpana and Lem on a recon.”

“Not Rudy?”

“He needs some rest.”

Selen shrugged. “We all do.”

“Every minute we stay here, the odds of more of those things showing up increases.”

“I know.”

She led Connor back up the ramp, which was every bit as demanding as he’d feared.

He found Kalpana in the galley, finishing up a mug of synthcaff. She was already geared up. She looked him up and down with a smirk. “We finally gonna do this?”

“You, me, and Lem.”

“I could handle that.” A mischievous glint lit up her eyes.

Connor ducked out and made a beeline for the infirmary. He wasn’t used to the sniper being flirtatious. It must be nerves.

He stopped when he saw Vicente and the Moon twins coming down the ladder tube. “Vicente!”

The big man smiled. “Just getting ready to spread the love, Boss.” Vicente pulled a pouch from his hip, reached inside, and held up a handful of bullets. “For the shooters.”

“Good.” Connor looked up the ladder tube to be sure no one else was on the deck above, then waved the other three to the top of the cargo bay ramp.

Tim Moon’s eyes narrowed. “Is there a problem?”

“I need you three to do me a favor.”

Vicente’s eyes narrowed. “Anything.” He almost managed a conspiratorial whisper.

“I need someone to keep an eye on Mosiah at all times.”

The twins glanced at each other, then Tom smiled. “Easy. He likes us.”

“Um.” Connor frowned. “I don’t know that he likes anyone.”

“He does us.”

“Don’t trust him. Okay?”

Tim brushed a strand of fiery red hair out of his eye. “Don’t trust anyone.”

“Can you do that for me?”

Vicente clapped Connor on the shoulder. “Done, Boss.”

“Thanks.”

Connor hurried to the infirmary, to find Selen standing at the side of Rudy’s bed, arms crossed.

Lem looked up. “Good morning, Lieutenant. I will be ready to go in a moment.”

Connor’s throat tightened, but he smiled when Rudy looked up. “You think you’ll be ready when we get back?”

There was a frown on the sergeant’s face, and it didn’t fade. “I was telling the captain that I think we should bail on this one.”

Muscles bunched on Selen’s face. “You can always give up your share and stay in bed.”

“I can’t do that.” Rudy didn’t turn from Connor.

Maybe it was so that he could see the anger in his sergeant’s eyes.

Connor pulled Lem aside. “Go ahead and gear up. I’ll meet you and Kalpana in the cargo bay.”

The android beamed. “Excellent!”

He hurried over to a countertop where a backpack rested, pulled it over his shoulders, then almost skipped out.

Before the hatch closed, Selen was at Connor’s side. “This is my team.”

He held his hands up. “Selen’s Devils. Everyone knows that.”

She poked him in the chest with a finger. “You pushed me to take this job.”

“And you warned me not to trust this guy.”

“So we finish the job. There’s no going back.”

“I’m not arguing with you.”

She glared down at Rudy. “Someone is.”

The sergeant closed his eyes. “It’s a suicide mission, Captain.”

“It’s the mission we signed on for, so we finish it.”

Selen brushed against Connor as she stormed out, but the heat she gave off now wasn’t the same as the intimate fire he’d felt earlier, when looking down from the butte top.

Rudy sighed. “She’s making a bad call.”

“She’s made bad calls before. It’s part of being human.”

“Making bad calls when you’re running a mercenary team gets people killed.”

“You’ve never spoken out against her before. What’s up?”

The sergeant touched a bandage on his face. “I don’t want to see anyone die in a place like this. It’s…bad here. Wrong.”

Connor patted the other man on the shoulder. “Get some rest.”

Outside the infirmary, Connor took a deep breath. He couldn’t tell Rudy, but the concern about Selen’s decision making, the sense that the world was rotten…

Those feelings had eaten away most of Connor’s confidence. Hearing someone else—hearing Rudy—voice those concerns shattered the last of that confidence.

Now the only thing Connor was sure of was that they were all going to die here.