I cannot think about the fact that we have no signal light, no beacon, nothing to tell our rescuers where to look for us. My father will come for me, no matter what. He’ll move heaven and earth and space itself to find me. Then I’ll never have to see this soldier again, never have to feel so incapable.
When I step over the lip of the doorway into the pod, the major is going through his pack again, doing one of his supply checks. Like he thinks he can somehow make rescue come more quickly by taking inventory.
How can he just stand there, hunting through that stupid bag? I want to shake him, scream at him that our rescue ship isn’t in that bag, that nothing’s going to have magically appeared inside it to put the Icarus back into the sky where she belongs.
“Well?” I manage to sound civil. “You always know what the next step is—what now?”
He doesn’t lift his head until he’s finished his check, infuriating in and of itself—but when he does glance over at me, he only gives a slow blink. “Right now we sleep. Then tomorrow, if we’re not broadcasting, we’ll head out and find a better place to be seen. Maybe the wreck itself, if we don’t come across a colony between here and there.”
The wreck? The man’s insane. It’s days away at least. “Head out? Speak for yourself. I’m not going anywhere. They’ll see our crash site. If we leave, my father won’t know where to look for us.” And he will come for me.
His look is dubious, almost insolent. “You may be content to wait for your white knight, my lady, but I’m not going to sit around while our supplies run out.”
My lady? Does he know how crazy his faux courtesy makes me? Surely no one could be so aggravating by accident or coincidence. I cling to that anger, trying not to let it fade as I look at him. It’s safe, this fury. I can’t afford to feel anything else.
The anger is a shield, and if I relinquish it, I’ll shatter.
A tiny piece of me wonders if he knows that. On the ship he was out of his element, awkward and almost tentative. Here, he’s certain. Everything he does has a purpose. Maybe some part of him is deliberately goading me, keeping me strong.
Or maybe he’s just an ass.
I stew in silence as he goes through that pack of his again, and then the lockers. He piles a coarse reflective space blanket with a softer one he finds in a locker near the roof, then looks across at me expectantly.
When I just gaze back at him, confused, his jaw tightens.
“Abhorrent though it may seem to you, we are going to have to spend the night together. Brace yourself.”
With a jolt, I realize it’s not supposed to be a random pile of fabric, but a bed. Just the one bed. The words fly from my lips before I can stop them. “Absolutely not.” My voice has the same cold steel my father’s does—at least I can put what I’ve learned from him to good use. “If you will leave me some water, you can take the rest of the supplies and sleep out there, in the forest you enjoy so much.”
I’m watching him carefully, so I see his hands curling slowly into fists. An odd flare of pleasure runs through me. If he’s infuriating me on purpose, then at least I can give as good as I get. “Maybe while you’re at it you can stand on top of the pod and flag down the rescue teams when they come in the night.”
He throws his pack down, making me jump. When he speaks, though, his voice is calm, controlled. “Miss LaRoux,” he says softly. “All due respect, but I’m not sleeping outside when there’s a perfectly good shelter here.”
My satisfaction at having stung him falters. If the rescue teams do find us in the night, Merendsen’s war hero status won’t last long in the face of my father’s wrath.
I take a deep breath, trying to backtrack. Maybe anger wasn’t the way to go. “Major, the circumstances might be unconventional, but that’s no reason to abandon—”
“Screw the circumstances.” Despite everything, the flash of annoyance across his features prompts an answering surge of satisfaction in me. At least there’s one thing I can do well in this godforsaken wilderness. “It’s going to be cold out there, and it’ll be warmer in here with two. I’m as tired as you are and I’m not going to stay up all night on watch. I also don’t think much of being eaten.”
That makes me pause. “Eaten?”
“Tracks,” he says shortly. “In the woods, a ways back. Big ones.”
He’s trying to scare me, I know. I saw no tracks, and he certainly never pointed them out to me. Besides, terraforming companies would never introduce large enough predators to their ecosystems to endanger human inhabitants. I grit my teeth.
Even if he was telling the truth, the risk of predators would be less than the risks he’d face if found with me. “Major Merendsen, believe me, if my father finds us together—”
“—then you’ll have to find a way to explain it to him. I’m not going out there in the face of all good sense. You can have the bed, I’m fine in one of these chairs. Sleep or don’t sleep as you like, but if we have to move out tomorrow, I expect you to keep up a decent pace. Good night.”
It’s an order: Good night, Private, or else. Without another word, he jerks the string tight on his bag, slouches in his chair, and stretches his long legs out in front of him. His chin to his chest, he closes his eyes and clicks the flashlight off, leaving me in darkness. The only sound is his breathing as it immediately begins to slow.
Without his face distracting me, it’s easier to be furious. How can he have been so abrupt with me? Doesn’t he realize that I’m only trying to keep him from losing his commission—or worse? I struggle with the urge to wake him up and insist. I wish I were brave enough to sleep outside, but lie or no, his talk of big animal tracks is enough to keep me from moving.
I take a deep breath and try to think. My father isn’t completely unreasonable—surely he’ll understand. Especially since it’s quite clear the major doesn’t want anything to do with me. Perhaps it isn’t the end of the world if he stays here, just for tonight.
And a tiny, tiny part of me points out that I’d rather have him here, beside me, in case anything does come in the night.
I slide between the two blankets, trying not to wince at the coarseness of the space blanket against my skin. It’s barely better than sleeping on the floor, the metal grid cutting into my hip, and I begin to think maybe the major has the smarter idea. I’ll be damned before I imitate him, though, so I curl up beneath the blanket, pillowing my head on my arm.
Maybe there’s something I can do with the remnants of the communications array. Get some sort of signal transmitting, to tell people we’re here. If I can prove we’re signaling, maybe the major won’t drag me across this nightmare of a planet.
I’m inching toward sleep when my cousin’s face flashes in front of my eyes. My throat seizes so suddenly it’s as though invisible hands are strangling me. She was only doing what my father forced her to do; she was still my best, my only friend. I should have gone back for her, tried to find her in the crowd, brought her with us. And instead, I left her there.
My lips shape the words in the darkness. I left her there to die.
I think of Elana, her mindless devotion to chasing the trends I set. I think of Swann, the ragged edge to her voice as she tried to fight her way back through the crowd to get to me as the Icarus began to break apart. Did they find escape pods that worked? Or did Swann spend too long trying to find me in the midst of the crowds, and go down in flames with my father’s ship?