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She perked her ears, listening. Slowly, she turned toward him, prepared for the possibility that Stag’s eyes would be open, staring. But he lay on his side facing her, fast asleep judging by the deep, even breathing. One arm was underneath him, the other sprawled outward, a hand close enough to nearly brush her stomach.
Tez licked her chapped lips and shifted back on her blanket. His light brown lashes swept over high, freckled cheekbones. He had a strong nose that could’ve been broken at some point, judging by the bump in the middle. A scar sliced his left eyebrow in half. Another, slightly puckered, slashed at a diagonal from under his cheek toward his chin. He looked rough in that annoyingly hot way that only seemed to work for a man. If she’d had a bumpy nose and a scarred face, he’d probably think it was ugly.
Maybe he already thinks I’m ugly.
Tez chastised herself for even bothering to be curious. She’d already decided she was due for a psych visit when she was back at home base.
She stifled a surprised huff as his next inhale came with a brief, guttural snore.
Maybe she could kill him now. He seemed out of it enough. But she no longer had her knife, and she’d seen the speed of his reactions and gotten a taste of his strength before. If she failed, who knew what his retaliation would be? No, for now it seemed smarter to bide her time and wait for rescue.
It hit her that there was a non-trivial chance that she may not make it back. She’d been taking comfort in assuming rescue was coming. The station would’ve been monitoring the scuffle when she went out, and they were within range of detection when they crashed. They would know where she was, and be preparing for her recovery.
But what if they failed? What if something went wrong and they couldn’t get to her? What if Stag’s people, whoever they were, got to them first? What if Stag decided to kill her in the commotion when someone did come, or she got caught in the crossfire?
What if they ran out of oxygen before anyone made it down there?
Tez’s chest constricted like a fist clenched under her ribs, and she forced herself to take slow, deep breaths, counting to ten: a strategy she was taught to cut short an incoming bout of panic.
Pull yourself together.
She just had to focus on remembering her training and following the rules. That would greatly increase her chances of surviving the ordeal. She’d trained for this, after all—theoretical approaches to dealing with an enemy if one absolutelyhadto engage before blasting them into oblivion. They hadn’t covered crash landing on an uninhabitable planet and being stuck in the same Raptor, exactly, but she was sure she could draw onsomething.
At some stage in the night, the lights in the cabin had gone out—smart, saving much-needed energy. Slowly and quietly, Tez got to her feet. She held her breath as she stepped over her sleeping nemesis and tip-toed over to the control panel.
This being a modded Raptor, Tez was familiar with most of the controls. She sank into the hacky pilot’s seat, bringing her legs up and crossing her ankles underneath her. She checked life support first, and input a set of new parameters consisting of her weight and sex to recalculate the remaining oxygen and rations. Two and a half days. That was what they had left.
Tez swallowed. It should still be more than enough time to get rescued.
Then she explored the other metrics of the ship, especially the modified control panel she spotted before. When she pressed a button labeled “Aft 1,” Tez jumped a little at the high-pitched clicking that filled the cabin. It thankfully stopped when she hit the button again, and Tez glanced over her shoulder, remaining very still until she was sure the sound hadn’t woken her captor.
Turning back to the display, she noticed that a progress bar was ticking with an “Aft 1 0258” label on top. A few seconds later, the topology of the rocky surface of Arvex appeared on the screen, coupled with an error message: “Invalid input.” Frowning, Tez navigated into storage where a number of similarly named files were listed. She tapped into another “Aft 1” item and waited as the file loaded.
It took Tez a few moments to understand what she was seeing. The file was made up of several toggleable layers, and she soon realized that it showed a portion of the station she guarded, orbiting the planet. Each layer displayed a different level of the interior, and on the righthand side was data about materials, temperature, and other specs of the construction. The final layer displayed inner hallways and crimson blurs that, Tez realized, were heat identifiers of people. She scrolled through some of the other files, finding each other to follow a similar template, and several displaying sensitive engine and control sectors.
“The fuck are you doing?”
Tez jumped and flung herself out of the pilot’s chair at the rough gravel voice behind her. Stag was on his feet, closer than she should’ve let him get. She was too engrossed in what she was doing to pay attention.
“You’re scanning the station. Why?” she asked.
“None of your goddamn business is why,” Stag stalked toward her.
When he grabbed her upper arm and pulled her away from the console, Tez succumbed to a flash of irritation. “What’s your deal? What are you, terrorists? You planning to blow the place up or something? Hold a grudge against the company? The colonies? What?”
His grip on her arm tightened, brows knitting together. “You ask too many questions for someone whose life depends on me. Didn’t anybody teach you to keep your mouth shut?”
“Oh, buzz off,” Tez snapped.
Stag raised an eyebrow. “‘Buzz off’? Well, aren’t you pure as an undrilled fucking ice planet?”
Tez’s cheeks burned at the mockery. She’d been made fun of for not swearing before. It didn’t bother her to hear it—it just wasn’t a habit Tez ever grew into. But she hated being mocked for it. People thought it was boring. She was boring. Little goody two-shoes, delusional and dreaming of being someone. She scowled at the man smirking down at her.
“Where are your people, anyway? Aren’t they coming for you?” he drawled.
“Aren’t yours?” she snapped back.
“Dunno.” Stag shrugged lazily. “Just thought company resources were meant to hold somevalue. Maybe you’re just not that important.”
