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She waited for an answer as her nemesis, now stripped from the waist down, turned around to hunch over the control panel. Dense sweeps of muscle shifted beneath the skin of his back. He pressed his palms wide on the flat surface of the panel, sandy-brown hair dipping out of view as he looked down to observe. It wasn’t at all a surprise that a pilot was in good shape. It was an expectation, really. So before he even pulled his base layer over his head to reveal chiseled abs rippling under his skin with the movement, Tez sort of expected it. She wasn’t entirely expecting her stomach to flip-flop like it did, though. It was just remnants of whatever happened moments ago. Her body’s way of coping withthat. Confusion was better than trauma, after all.
But Tez suddenly wished she hadn’t been so uptight with her sex life. She always thought frolicking with other guards in their posts or even at home base would distract her from her work: getting promoted. Making a name for herself. Rising in the company ranks to help lead humanity’s search for water. That was how the promotional video she saw as a teenager made it seem, anyway.
Turns out that wasn’t meant to be for people likeher. She was lucky she’d made it into the pilot corps.
Maybe she should’ve been indulging like Reana the whole time, enjoying herself, getting it out of her system. Instead, she was presently having a very questionable reaction to the man who was probably about to kill her.
“I don’t kill you unless you become a pain in my ass.” His deep voice was harsh, annoyed. “You’re collateral. Your people will probably get here faster than mine.”
“And you want to use me as your human shield,” Tez finished for him.
His tense jawline came into relief as he turned his head a little toward her. “At least you catch on quick.”
Tez slumped against the wall, running a hand back along her wet hair. So she was a hostage now. She glanced down at the wrist of her suit. Zero percent oxygen, sunset. It would only be getting hotter in here as the night progressed, and Tez had no desire to boil to death, at least not yet. This way, she had a little time to figure things out.
“How much life support left in here?” she asked as she began stripping her own flight suit down to the base layer.
“Five and a half days for just me… so with you, we got maybe three—what are you doing?” he barked, watching her fold the suit over a rail. She was down to her white base singlet and underpants.
“Not cooking to death,” Tez said matter-of-factly. “Got a name, or should I just stick with Gnat?”
She couldn’t help but twitch a smile as she noticed his scowl in her peripheral vision, masking it quickly by turning her attention to the surrounding space. As she took it in, it looked like the cabin of her own Raptor, only with significant modifications. There were more screens and an additional control panel next to the yoke. The standard pilot’s seat had been replaced with some hand-me-down from Old Earth days.
“Stag,” he grunted. “That’s all you need to know.”
Tez shrugged and slid to the floor, pulling her knees up to rest her elbows on top of them. She thought she was all right before, but sitting there with him standing just a foot or so away, she felt suddenly self-conscious. She shifted, pressing her legs together to her body and crossing her ankles to ensure the crotch of her panties was not exposed. She folded her arms in front of her and looked anywhere but up at him, instead fixing a pointed gaze to the black floor in front of her toes.
“Here.” Something hit her chest and Tez flinched, but it was just a nutrigel packet sliding into her lap. “So they can’t say I starved you.”
He was already ripping open his own pack and squeezing the gel into his mouth. Tez flipped it back and forth in her hand, making sure it hadn’t been tampered with. She’d trust this guy as far as she could throw him. But it looked sealed. Slowly, she broke the seal and squeezed it onto her tongue.
Nutrigel technically contained all nutrients a human needed to survive, even a human with no access to drinking water. And for most people in the galaxy, it was enough to keep them alive, though by no meansthriving. But Tez, having had the luxury of small amounts of water by the nature of her job guarding ice resources, was already feeling her tongue in her mouth, dry and fuzzy. Her body was too accustomed to hydration to be able to handle just nutrigel alone.
No point complaining about that to the Gnat—Stag—though. Not like there was anything he could do about it. She doubted he’d go out hunting for remaining pools on the planet’s surface on her behalf, or let her do it for herself. Going out there would be a waste of oxygen and energy that they couldn’t afford. Though with any luck, the others would find them by the time the night was over. They’d probably take Stag back up to the station at least. Maybe he’d try to use her to bargain for a Raptor so he could get out of there and go back to his people. Tez doubted that would work.
“What are you doing here, anyway? You clearly haven’t been bothering us tostealanything. What do you people want from us?”
“Not important,” Stag said gruffly. He was opening a storage compartment on the side of the cabin, which Tez recognized as her own standard-issue Raptor had the same one. He tossed a scrunched up, musty blanket her way and kept one for himself, spreading it on the floor. The craft wasn’t designed to sleep in, so that was as close to bedding as they were going to get.
“I’d say since you’re about to get captured, it’s pretty important. You may avoid them killing you with me as your hostage, but eventually you’ll be interrogated. And your people’s behavior on these little skirmishes has been extremely erratic. You’re not regular pirates.”
Tez spread out her blanket and stretched out on her back, the floor still digging painfully into her tender spine. But it was better than nothing.
“Thanks for your concern.” He did the same with his own blanket and lay on his back next to her, folding his hands under his head. “But it’s none of your fucking business.”
She rolled her eyes at the ceiling. They both knew it was probablygonna beher business soon. She decided not to push her luck and remained silent. It would be prudent to get some rest before rescue arrived, since tomorrow was sure to be a very long day. Getting off a planet’s surface is no easy feat even if you have a functional land-to-atmosphere shuttle. Tez closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind as best she could. It was hard not to feel the oppressing presence of the man on his back next to her. The space they were in was too small, filled with this musky smell of him that made her skin crawl.
His presence next to her was thick and stifling. He was too close, making her whole body tense and on edge. But there wasn’t any space to create more distance. Tez wanted nothing more than to flip on her side with her back to him, create some sense of separation. But turning one’s back to the enemy would be the height of stupidity. She forced herself to remain on her back, fighting the urge to glance at him from the corner of her eye.
Coupled with the discomfort of lying half-naked next to the enemy, another thought, one she tried very hard not to dwell on, was pulling at her brain.
What if his people get here first?
* * *
When Tez woke up, she kept her eyes closed, mind grasping for its bearings.
She was held captive. Crash landed on a desolate formerly-ice-planet. A thin layer of sweat covered her entire body, and the white singlet she wore was moist against her skin. But the temperature was cooler, which signified that night time was coming to an end.
