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Oh yeah.She’d demanded his name, but he never asked.
“Tessa. Tez.”
“Tessa.” Stag nodded. He crossed one ankle over the other as he stood there. The cords of vein and muscle under his forearms shifted as he planted his hands against the panel behind him. The way he watched her made her want to disappear through the floor, straight to the middle of Arvex. He jerked his chin toward the back of the cabin. “There’s a toilet in there. You should go.”
Great, now he was telling her when to go to the bathroom. What an entitled prick.
“Might get an infection otherwise. Probably don’t want a UTI stuck down here,” he elaborated.
“Oh.” Tez swallowed. She unfolded her legs, bare toes warm against the floor, and stood. She stretched the hem of her singlet down over her hips and padded to the tiny enclosed cubicle that was the bathroom. Unmodded Raptors had it in the same spot, so she knew what to expect: a hole in the floor, collecting waste at the bottom of the ship. It wasn’t exactly fancy; Raptors weren’t designed for the kinds of flights that would necessitate bodily evacuation. They were short-term fighter craft. But… well, emergencies happened, and Tez was glad for it now.
When she was done, Stag was sitting in the seat with his clothes back on and a headset on his ears. It must have been morning by then, and the temperature had already dropped significantly, though the ship still retained some of the heat of the night. Tez pulled on the trousers and jacket of her flight suit.
“Any luck?” she asked, though luck was perhaps not the right word for it. He would be trying to contact his people, and his people could very well kill her.
“Nothing. Try yours,” he said, holding the headset out to her and getting out of the seat for her to take his place. She stared at it for a few moments, unsure if she wanted to sit back down in the spot where she just got… She shook her head and sat.
Punching in the station’s comms frequency, Tez tried to make contact. “Arvex Station Atlas, this is Tessa Preston. Come in.”
There was nothing but silence on the other line, not even a crackle signifying that the signal reached anything at all. This was rare, because sheknewthe station itself was up there, so the problem must have been the local transmitter itself.
“I think it’s this.” She slapped her palm against the dash.
Stag nodded, having clearly come to the same conclusion. He rubbed his jaw, and Tez wondered if he was thinking the same thing she was.
“We have about two days left. I checked,” she said.
He looked at her, and she hoped he couldn’t see the worry there.Hedidn’t look scared, so she shouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“We have to leave,” Tez said. “Get to my ship, check for a comms bundle. Anything we can scavenge.”
“Highly unlikely, judging by the crash I saw.” Stag shook his head. “And we can’t afford to expend more energy than we already are.”
“Well, otherwise we’re stranded flotsam out here, waiting to suffocate.”
Stag looked at her for a few long moments, thinking. “We wait one more day. If no one’s here tomorrow, we go. We calculate a route in the meantime.”
“Fine.” Tez nodded and got to calculating.
* * *
Once another night passed and the life support estimated dropped to one and a half Old Earth days, it was time to go.
At first, Tez insisted on going alone. It would’ve been the smart thing to do. Then she could bring his oxpack as backup in case things went south and be able to take more time. But Stag shut that down in the most annoying way possible.
“No.”
“No? That’s it? Justno?” She rolled her eyes.
He grunted, motioning for her to turn around so he could strap her refilled oxpack to her back. She didn’t return the favor as he put on his own and grabbed his helmet. She was still waiting for an answer.
“You’re not going out there alone.”
“Why not? It’s not like I can run anywhere. You’ll still get your little sacrificial hostage,” she snapped, voice muffled by the helmet on her head. She plugged the oxygen tube into the output valve near the back of the jaw. “It’s stupid for us both to go out there. And what if someone comes in the meantime? Someone should stay back here.”
“Ready?” He looked her over.
“No, I’m not ready. This makes no sense.”
