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?? CHAPTER 26 ??
Macie
We submit our votes to Arjun via our tablets.
It isn’t as unanimous as I’d hoped, but it’s close. Our outliers are Tess (who’s buried in computer work that is far above my understanding) and Stella (who hasn’t had a wink of sleep since she started planning how to get the bulldozer down the thin path to the beach) and Faith. Faith wants to remain with the ship. She shuts herself inside the bridge while the rest of us pack.
The doctors are in a near panic at the idea of leaving the medbay behind, though. One of the Rurim is still in there - Trecol - and isn’t awake yet.
“His crew is coming back,” I tell Rowan - our pediatrician. She and our OBGYN Justina have been tending to him, learning about Rurimish anatomy, running various scans and even talking to him as lies motionless on a bed of sleeping bags and flat pillows. “They can move him safely.” I hope.
She runs a hand through her hair. It’s as limp and as tired as she is. Everyone is tired. Nikos, an ER nurse and Justina’s husband, heaves an enormous yawn as he examines an x-ray. Thea scratches around the top of the cast on her arm distractedly. Grace lies asleep on a cot in the corner. I didn’t realize she was unwell. I haven’t paid attention to what’s been happening in the camp.
My team is just as worn down. I find Skye and Hope packing their bags in the cargo bay, objects spread around them as they prioritize what they need and assess how much they can carry. Judd is in another corner, apparently trying to figure out how many weapons he can strap to himself at once.
“We really need to know, Macie,” Skye says. “Did you sleep with the alien?” She waggles her eyebrows. Judd coughs to cover a laugh.
“You guys,” I say, “It isn’t that simple.”
“I mean, he either entered you or he didn’t.”
“Skye!” Hope throws her head back and laughs. “It sounds so gross phrased that way!”
“It is gross!” Skye laughs. They both turn to me with expectant looks. Do I lie? Do I deprive them of the joy of laughing at my situation? Or do I just go with it? They’ll find out, eventually. Ryle has no intention of keeping this a secret or of letting me go. Not that I’d want to let him go, either. Not at all. I hope I won’t have to. I hope I won’t ever have to...
“She’s got a dreamy look on her face,” Hope calls to Judd. He snorts.
“I... I like him a lot.” The words rush out. “He’s actually really sweet. And funny! And, well, so, yeah. I did, uh, sleep with him.” I blush and duck my head.
They both shriek with delight.
“Why, do you two have your sights set on one of the other Rurim?” I ask, turning the tables on them. “Some of them are a little grumpy, but the green one seems nice, and the all-gray guy has kind eyes...”
“Maybe!” Hope laughs. “I’m waiting for Rowan to go full Florence Nightingale when her patient wakes up.”
“The purple one drew me a picture,” Skye admits, biting her lip. “Kinoth?”
“Was it an illustration of you two doing it doggy-style?” I ask dryly, remembering one of my early introductions to Ryle’s doodles. Skye turns beet red.
Judd cuts in with a grunt. “You ladies can’t all just take off and start fucking the aliens.” He’s drifted closer to our conversation and takes the last steps into our circle. “Dean and I were made promises when we agreed to this mission. Families. Futures.”
“You were promised a chance at a family,” Hope says gently.
He runs a hand over his chin. “That wasn’t how it was phrased. Wasn’t how it was sold to us.” His eyes are dark. This might actually be a growing problem - one I didn’t foresee, didn’t consider before falling for the big blue alien. “The earlier crew, either. Dean and I are just two, but that group is mostly men. Human men.”
Shit. “I never thought about that,” I say with a grimace.
“You hit your head,” he says to me, then, “You two have no excuse.”
“Wow, rude,” Skye says. I don’t say it out loud, but he’ll never win a wife with an attitude like that. “We don’t owe you our commitment. And we definitely don’t owe you our bodies.”
He backs up a step. “I didn’t mean it like that. Not me specifically. But you owe something to the people who sacrificed so much to launch us here. You owe humanity. You promised it.”
He isn’t wrong. But we’re so far off course. And so far off mission.
“I think we’ll have to address that when we can,” I say quietly. “Right now we don’t even know if we’ll ever find that crew. Or ever get off of this planet.”
And now Faith makes more sense. The weight of promises made to the entirety of humanity is on her shoulders. She must be so afraid of failing, even though none of this is her fault. I imagine her on the bridge right now, frantically trying to communicate with all the ship’s systems, figure out how to fix everything that’s broken. Fetch the engine. Weld it back together. Find our intended target. Launch into space. Lead us all there. To me? It seems absolutely impossible.
