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Gripping the cable, Luci climbed up to the open airlock. She hooked her hands onto the steel rim and hoisted herself inside, embracing its sturdiness. Machined and worked by human hands, lit by bright lights. A shelter from the darkness. Standing up, she looked down at the hostile habitat sprawled on the stone land a hundred feet away. Her stomach clenched from the height. Even though Croshaw was relatively close, they'd powered down the air pumps and turned the lights off. Its fabric reflected the bright landing lights, blazing in the darkness. But once they left … the shadows would rush in and eat it up. When they came back, would there be anything left? Or would the shadows make it disappear?
Maybe we should leave the light on, she thought idly. Let them know we've claimed this territory.
She hauled the cable in and untied the knot. Philomena and Blaze went in through the cargo bay, to close it up after they'd unloaded the hostile habitat and mining equipment. Luci was alone up here, standing guard at the edge of the universe. Searching for monsters in the dark, to make sure they didn't overrun this last lonely human outpost.
There's nothing out there, she thought. In two weeks, nothing's attacked us.
Yet.
The fear tightened her chest, made her breathing get faster. She focused on coiling the cable up to shut it out. Once it was spun around into a circle, she dropped it. It hit the deck silently. She pushed the button on the control panel the shut the outer door. Through the closing airlock doorway, her view of the darkness narrowed. The steel came together, shrinking the gap. The dark world outside was going away, and the reinforced steel of this familiar human machine would shield her fragile body from it. Bathe her in light and heat and air. Keep the bad things out there from ripping her to pieces.
Puffing out air to calm her nerves, she watched the door seal itself.
But then …
At the very last second …
Something hurtled out of the dark to grab her—!
Stop, Luci! Stop!
The door nestled against the opposite side of its frame, hiding her view of the rogue planet. Its mechanism secured it in place. They were ready to go. Tapping her foot ten times a second, she waited for the air to cycle. Once the inner door slid aside, she barged into the locker room and immediately stripped the heavy suit off. After sweating inside the damn thing for two weeks straight, the padding felt sticky and disgusting. But she was too tired to care right now, so she shoved it into the locker and hurried for the common room.
As her feet crossed the threshold, however, the long window at the top made her halt. It allowed a slice of darkness to enter the human world. She felt like the shadow was sweeping through it and going down her body like a laser scanner.
That's crazy, she thought. Light and shadow don't work that way!
She went to the kitchen sink and splashed some water on her face. Hoping the smooth, cool shock would calm her down. Wash away some of her fear. But that black line above … It was looking down on her. Watching her. Waiting for a chance to leap on her vulnerable back and rip her head off. The darkness wouldn't let her go. It skulked at the light's edge, where she couldn't see it, peering lustfully at her. Gripping the edges of the sink, she steadied her queasy body. Despite the water dripping down her face, washing the sweat away, she felt itchy and uncomfortable. The unease crawled under her skin, and no matter how much she scrubbed her face, she wouldn't get it out.
Groaning, she pawed at the paper towel roll. But her hand sailed through the empty air. They were out, it seemed. She wiped her face with her hands, then wiped her hands on her cargo pants.
Everything's broken, everything's running out …
She pulled away from the sink and headed through the ship. Back to the locker room. She pulled her hand-me-down flight jacket out and slid it on. The familiar weight of the several-sizes-too-big jacket was comforting, reassuring. It patched up her fraying nerves. The sturdy fabric was like a tight hug from her family. She zipped it all the way up to her chin and headed for the flight deck. The sleeve drooped past her wrist, so she thrust her hand up into the air to make the sleeve slide down to her forearm. Tapping the intrapanel, she opened the door.
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Blaze leaned his lanky body against the wall on the port wall, his arms folded and his leg up on the wall like some kind of dreamy heartthrob posing for a picture. On the console's opposite side, Philomena faced the starboard wall. Feet apart, head tilted back, nose in the air, fists on her hips. Refusing to give the man behind her any attention.
Both of them are so confident, no matter what happens to them … or no matter how much Blaze makes himself looks like an idiot.
I need to get tough! No more of this fraidy-cat crap. I'm a starship engineer, I need to tachi-up and make my darling little neko-chans swoon! Yeah! From this moment on, I'm going to be all butch and confident and … and get all the space babes!
The two of them, and Rsh at the console, turned to face her as her shoes struck the deck.
"Ready?" Rsh asked.
"Yup," Luci said. "More than ready. Let's hit the road."
She forced the blustery statement out of her mouth. She wasn't going to second-guess herself anymore. In response, Blaze went down the steps to the pilot's seat. Philomena went to the console and looked at the database on its monitor.
"You finished it, right?" she asked.
Wearily, Rsh replied, "Yes."
"Did you find anything juicy?"
"I do not know. We shall need the starnet to … compare data with."
Luci said, "There's a ViaDUCT node orbiting Croshaw, right? Hey, did you find any addresses there?"
Mashing the mechanical keyboard, Rsh filtered the rows of data. "Likely aliases," he warned. "I am unsure how … useful they shall be."
In chorus, Blaze and Philomena both declared, "Can't be any more useless than—"
"SILENCE!"
The full-throated roar from Rsh was like thunder inside the cramped flight deck. Luci jumped away from the console, her heart going off faster-than-light. Beside her, Philomena jumped away from him, her arms crossed like he was going to lunge at her and she needed to keep him at arm's length. As the terror drained from her body, she clamped her hands down on her heart, her tall body sagging.
She's startled … Hey, now's my chance!
Luci took a bold step forward, towering over Rsh for once, and shot her finger at him.
"Hey!" she said. "That's no way to talk to a lay-dee!"
Her voice cracked. As her throat jumped up into a squeak, she cringed and quaked on the spot. Hoping everybody else had the common decency to overlook her embarrassing failure, like she'd just dropped a plate of food on the ground in a crowded cafeteria. Slowly, like a beast rousing itself from its slumber, his head tilted towards her. As his fierce, shining golden eyes came up, her pointer finger trembled so much it pointed everywhere except at him.
"Please?" she asked quietly.
After regarding her, he asked, "You too?"
She curled her finger up, tucked it into her weak fist, and then let her whole arm drop to her side. She gulped, but it got stuck in her throat, so she had to gulp twice as hard, and then thrice as hard, to swallow all that air down.
Blaze's voice called over the console. "Uh, ready for lift-off?"
Turning back to the console, Rsh said, "Please."
As they got ready for life-off, Luci turned to the gorgeous woman on the other side of the alcove and gave her a smile. 'I'm looking out for you,' she wanted to say, but the cold stare she got in return told her, clear as day, that Philomena could look out for herself. Nursing her broken heart, Luci watched Rsh work the console. Outside, the thrusters fired against the ground.
The thrusters fired against the ground. Rsh switched the monitor over to the external cameras and watched the exhaust light up the land. They rose up and away from all the stuff they'd left behind. He then tabbed the OS over to the 3D model of the crater the scanners made.
"We have a terrain map," Rsh said. "We should not need to be so cautious … on our next descent."
"What if something changes it?" Luci asked.
"There is nothing out there," Rsh said. "This world has remained in stasis … for eons."
"You sure about that?"
Rsh's fingers froze above the keyboard. Flexed a little bit. Limbered themselves up. Getting ready for a fight, maybe? Philomena, next to them, glanced their way. A collective shiver seemed to pass between all of them, as if there was a crack in the hull and the cold darkness of the crater was leaking inside, hellbent on killing them with its icy hands.
"Let's get out of here," Blaze said, his accent slipping away. "This place is giving me weird vibes."
He increased power to the thrusters, and the ship lifted into the air. Craning her head back, Luci stared up at the circle of stars far over their heads. Waiting for it to spread out, open like a portal back into the actual universe. Away from this shadowy pocket dimension they were trapped inside.
The starship's rumbling engines lifted Luci out of the darkness, but she knew, with some amount of dread icing her heart over, that soon they'd have to descend again.
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Dive into the Subconscious Arc
"Descent"
FIN
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