Yulik approached the lake, staring directly at the ground. As he did so, he kicked a medium-sized crab-like animal. It did not move; it was dead. Surrounding this creature were dozens, hundreds of others, all of them killed mere moments apart.

There were no scavengers; nothing was gnawing on their corpses, which meant whatever had killed them was still there. Judging from the nearby lake, Yulik assumed it was a Kulumenta, a carbon dioxide eruption, which meant it must be one deep lake.

Fortunately, the carbon dioxide was now limited to a thin blanket just a few centimetres deep.

"You certain that they are around here?" asked Yulik.

Yulik's technical expert, a Surt woman, a race of carnivorous molluscforms, inspected the device she had cobbled together. Yulik could be very demanding, and she did not work well under stress.

She wanted to retreat into her shell, but she doubted it would do much to protect her from the captain if he got angry.

"Yes, I can detect someone's P.D.A here", stated Surt, her voice gurgling slightly, a clear sign of nervousness amongst her people. Luckily to Yulik's ear, it was indistinguishable from her normal voice.

"Just the one," asked Yulik.

"Yes", replied Surt.

Click approached, carefully stepping over the animal's corpses, "Captain Yulik, what happened here?" she asked.

Yulik took the time to explain the natural disaster that had occurred here and that it meant that the human was alive and leading them.

"How did you come to that conclusion? From one P.D.A. signal and a kulumenta," asked Click, not seeing a single connection.

"If the eruption had killed the entire group, there would be dozens of P.D.A. signals, not just one, not to mention we would see at least one corpse. That means someone dropped theirs during the evacuation," explained Yulik.

"The only one who could have possibly known about this natural disaster, other than an exogeologist, would be the human female. The balance of probability puts it in the latter camp; therefore, she is alive and leading them," stated Yulik, stepping over a fallen tree.

He needed to find wherever the passengers camped; if he could do that, Yulik could pick up their trail and continue the hunt. In the rush to evacuate, they would have left a lot of evidence behind.

Click excepted that this was a possibility, but it seemed to contain a few leaps in logic. It was also possible that one of the passengers knew what a kulumenta was; tornados were impossibly rare on her homeworld, but she still knew what they were.

It was better to assume the human was alive, though, as there was less chance of being caught in an ambush or trap.

Yulik led his crew around the lake's edge; there was little chance of another limnic eruption, even so, he kept an eye on the water.

There also seemed to be a lot of mud; he nearly became stuck in one patch. Scrapping away at the saturated soil with his feet, Yulik found many fern-like plants pressed hard against the ground.

"The eruption must have created a large wave that covered everything," he said to himself. "If the lake had been bigger, it would have caused an inland tsunami," he thought.

After several hours of searching, Surt said, "We're right on top of it; everyone look!" Yulik ignored that she had technically just given an order; if he reprimanded her, it would make him seem petty and damage his already tenuous position.

Everyone began sifting through the mud; they pulled up many pieces of wood that had been lashed together, proving that the passengers had been there.

With so many bodies searching, it did not take long for them to find the errant P.D.A.; Yulik took it from the pirate who had located it. "Good work," he said, wiping away the grime.

"With this, we'll know exactly where and when the rescue party will arrive," said Yulik triumphantly.

Faster-than-light communication was not as simple as travel. Radio waves and other communication methods could be sent FTL, but they deteriorated quickly.

To compensate for this flaw, every occupied system had several communication stations that would launch a capsule containing all relevant data at another station, downloading the information and sending it to its intended source.

The cruise liner would have done this. Hence the delay between the attack and anyone finding out about it. It had been seven days since then, and the response from the human government should be arriving soon.

The survivors would not be able to respond to this message, which was good; it meant they could act with impunity, and the rescuers would be none the wiser.

Yulik handed the P.D.A. to Surt and ordered, "keep an eye on that and inform me the moment we get the rescue message."

Everyone else was ordered to look for signs of where the passengers had gone, broken branches. There would be precious few footprints, but if they were lucky, one of them would not have been smothered.

It was Yulik's sharp eyes that picked up the first clue. A bent twig sticking out of the mud; it did not seem like much, but considering that the survivors would have scared away most other large animals and the CO² had killed after they left, Yulik was confident only they could have caused it.

More investigation of the area located more signs, and Yulik smiled; he had their trail now; Yulik called his crew to him and said, "This way."

***

Madeline rubbed her eyes and checked her P.D.A.; it had been about 30 hours since she last slept. She wondered what the record was with a giggle.

Roger pinged, informing her that she needed sleep, and once again, she hit ignore. No one had died when the Mazuku hit, Madeline's forewarning granting them the headstart they needed to escape.

Though she had nearly come close, Hyt, much shorter than most present, was at an increased risk of suffocation, as CO² was heavier than air and hung close to the ground. Madeline had just made it in time; she was bloody lucky that Diduk had noticed she was missing.

Carbon dioxide was not toxic, even to habitableworlders which was a blessing; it meant that a few lungfuls of air had reversed most of the damage. Though Madeline had very nearly collapsed during her heroic rescue and suffocated with her.

The sudden exodus had led to the inevitable consequences; everyone was sleep-deprived, and Madeline had been forced to do everything while they recovered. Finding food for over sixty people, maintaining the fires, administering antibiotics to the M’ar, and treating the snake man's broken leg.

After all that, Madeline was running on fumes; she was groggy, irritable, prone to stumbling and nonsensical ramblings. They were all on the move again, but Madeline had refused to rest; the forest was too cramped, there was not enough food, and there was an increased risk of injury due to the exposed roots, broken branches, and sharp rocks.

Despite her monumental workload, Madeline had still found the time to locate a suitable new place to camp; it was a river roughly one hundred miles away. The water would be clean, food should be abundant, and enough open space to limit trips and falls.

As they rested in a small clearing Diduk approached her. Being an entirely different species from Madeline, it was not always apparent when she felt unwell. The groans of pain Madeline did when injured would mean happiness, fear and a dozen other emotions in as many species.

Despite that barrier, Diduk knew at once that she was in a bad way. Dark circles surrounded her eyes; her skin was greasy, Madeline’s hair was a mess, and she was emitting a different scent than what she usually let off.

Diduk knew she needed rest; this would be his fifth attempt today to convince her, and it would be his last.

“Madeline, we need to talk,” said Diduk.

She ignored him; instead, she was looking up at the canopy, “clouds look dark, probably rain, need shelter”, she mumbled to herself.

“Madeline”, Diduk called, grabbing hold of her shoulder and turning her to face him. He tried to ignore that it took two hands to do it.

“What?” demanded Madeline, her tone sharp and disinterested.

“Madeline, you need to sleep”, stated Diduk.

“I can’t sleep, it talks of rain, and if you are left out in it, you’ll go hypothermic and die, so I need to build some shelters,” retorted Madeline, jabbing his chest with her finger.

Diduk believed that another human would have barely felt anything from that poke; his chest, however, stung in pain from the blow, and he suspected he would get a faint bruise there.

“We can handle that; you need sleep,” replied Diduk.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Madeline chuckled though there was no joy in it, “handle it, he says, just like you handled it at the lake; if you had been making the decisions, you would have all choked to death.” Her face then contorted into a mirthless grin, and she turned her back on him, returning to her planning.

Diduk stepped in front of her, and he could tell that his determination to continue the conversation was not easing her mood.

“I admit that my knowledge of geography is lacking, but my medical knowledge is not, and I know for a fact that going this long without sleep, even for a human, is incredibly damaging for your health,” stated Diduk.

Madeline snickered, “even for a human, as though we’re some sort of super race.”

Diduk was about to reply with galactic averages, but Madeline cut him off, “do you know what I do? Do you know what the mighty Deathworlder does for a living?”

Diduk did not answer; her profession had never come up during her medical.

“I’m a waitress, I move plates of food from the kitchen to the table, and I do that for six hours every day, Monday to Thursday,” she explained with a snide smile.

“And in spite of that, in spite of the fact that I have never done a single second of true raw survival until I came here, I am still infinitely better at it than you,” said Madeline, raising her voice to such a level that it became difficult to ignore the conversation.

She pushed Diduk away, and he needed to stabilise himself on a tree to stop himself from hitting the ground.

“So when I say that none of you would last an hour without me being awake, you just shut the fuck up and do what I say”, stated Madeline, with barely contained venom.

Diduk was seriously concerned that Madeline would hurt him or rather make a deliberate attempt to harm him. He rubbed his shoulder; Madeline's shove had nearly torn the muscle.

Whatever extreme emotional state she was in, Madeline still had enough self-control to turn around and get straight back to work, “I also need to make a stronger rope for snake boy’s stretcher,” Madeline mumbled to herself.

“What I wouldn’t give for another deathworlder,” thought Madeline. Suddenly she felt something touch the back of her neck.

Madeline knew what it was; she had felt it dozens of times, getting vaccinations, genetic enhancements and the like.

She turned to see Diduk, his eyes staring with an intensity that she did not think the lizardman was capable of. In his hand was the medical applicator. Unlike in the old days when a single needle was used to inject things into someone, this used a pad with thousands of microscopic needles to administer the shot; this had the benefit of causing no pain, which was always a plus in medicine.

“What did you just do, Diduk?” asked Madeline.

He did not respond.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?” she roared.

Diduk was stunned; by all rights, Madeline should have been out cold by now; he had used enough Daizepam to knock a Tretu out in seconds.

Madeline took a step towards him and stumbled, “thank the one light that it’s working,” Diduk muttered.

“Having fun”, hissed Madeline getting back to her feet.

“It was an anaesthetic to help you sleep,” explained Diduk.

“You drugged me without my consent,” Madeline growled, ambling towards him; she was angry, but she was finding it hard to maintain it; she yawned deeply.

“You need sleep, and I made an executive decision”, stated Diduk; taking another step back, Madeline was still on her feet and walking towards him, a vicious snarl on her face.

Madeline exploded into action; she clenched her fist and went for Diduk. Had she not stumbled and her reaction time so crippled by the lack of sleep, she would have hit him and most likely shattered his jaw.

Madeline hit the floor, but she was still conscious. “You won’t last five minutes without me”, she mumbled through the dirt and leaf litter.

“We’re not going to last without you; you just need some sleep,” explained Diduk.

Madeline did not reply; she was finally out for the count.

Everyone stared at her prone figure for over a minute before Tarin said, “I thought she was going to kill you.”

“She wasn’t going to kill me; Madeline’s just stressed and tired, and that state made her incredibly irritable”, Diduk explained, though deep down he wondered if the drug had not taken effect, would Madeline have attempted to strike him?

“Good thing you sedated her then,” said the horse millipede, leaning over her quietly snoozing form.

“I didn’t sedate her. I anaesthetised her,” explained Diduk.

“I thought anaesthetics did not provide any sleep benefits; it just knocks you out cold”, stated Tazil

“Right, I planned to get her unconscious, then when it wore off, I hoped she would fall straight to sleep", answered Diduk. "But it seems I vastly underestimated the dosage, and it just made her so drowsy Madeline could not stay awake anymore.”

“She's right, you know”, said Jodhr.

“About what?” asked Tarin.

“We would not have lasted this long without her,” explained Jodhr.

Diduk could not help but agree, but they were sapient creatures; their ancestors had reached the stars just like humanity, and if they could accomplish that, they could survive on this world for one month.

“Madeline said survival was an act of sheer will”, stated Tazil.

“Our survivalist is a waitress; she admitted it herself,” someone chimed in.

“Exactly, and look what one waitress was able to accomplish, minimal training, no experience, and we're all still here”, pointed out Diduk.

“Now, let’s put out heads together and prove Madeline wrong,” said Diduk.

***

Yulik was finding it difficult to determine precisely how far behind the survivors they were. On Bosd, he would have been able to pinpoint it down to the hour. Every world was different; however, different humidity, different light, and different fauna.

Still, he had picked up a few things from his week here and narrowed the timeframe to one to three days. He sighed; if he had been by himself, he could catch up to them within hours.

For all their other qualities, none of which readily came to mind, his crew were not paragons in the physical department. To give them their credit, though, they were improving; the gravity and low oxygen were serving as a robust workout, and Yulik was convinced that the crew were now stronger than they had been at any other point in their lives.

"Everyone take a break; get something to drink," stated Yulik. He took a swig from his canteen and found it nearly empty.

"I'm going to find some more water," he said. "Make sure there's a fire going by the time I get back", he added; he hauled a large container onto his back and wandered into the forest.

Yulik's crew did as they were told, and it was not long before a fire was roaring in the centre of their little camp.

They sat silently, each one thinking about what had led them here, listing off the mistakes one by one.

Click, however, was questioning Yulik's decision; personally, she felt the best bet was to surrender and serve ten or twenty years.

"Do we all agree with this plan?" Click asked.

"What?" Surt said, Click's words snapping everyone from their musing,

"Shit, I did not mean to say that out loud," thought Click.

"I'm just wondering if fighting our way out is the best option," stated Click.

"What other option is there?" someone asked, though Click could tell from their tone that they had already thought about it; they just did not want to be the one to voice it.

"Well, the option to surrender when the rescue party come, we would all live, and at most, we would get twenty-five years", explained Click.

No one responded; they all just looked at the ground, no one wanted to be sent to prison, but they could not lie that it was the most sensible option. Twenty-five years wasn't all that long, after all. Who knows, they might even get trained up and a respectable job at the end of it.

"I don't want to go to jail, but I don't want to die even more," said Surt after a couple of minutes, her little pseudopods waving rhythmically, along with her eyestalks.

"I know the captain is strong, but despite what he says, I know he is not a deathworlder; Bosd is a Class 10(H), not a death world," said one of the crew.

"I think you'll find it is", stated Yulik, who had just returned from his water collection.

He removed the water carrier he had strapped to his back and poured its contents into a massive bowl. After placing the bowl over the fire, Yulik returned to his talkative crew.

"I've seen the planetary stats, Captain; I reviewed all applicants", stated Click, "Bosd is a Habitable world."

Yulik hissed, though, for a Ponut'kild, this was a dismissive smirk rather than a sign of hostility.

"My homeworld has only been denied death world status by a quirk of fate; my race made contact with the wider galaxy about ten years after humanity", explained Diduk.

"So?" replied Click.

"So, they shifted galactic perception; compared to Earth, every world looks habitable, hell this place would have been classified as a habitable world if it had been discovered after humanity", Yulik explained, gesturing to the planet.

"The Bosd government will eventually get the classification it deserves; my people have felt it was a slight the moment we joined galactic politics", stated Yulik.

"I'm surprised you even care about any of them, considering your profession," said Click.

"I am a pirate, not politically dead", replied Yulik.

***

"How in the name of all that is holy can someone so small weigh so much," said Tarit as he hauled Madeline along the ground. Her stretcher rocked back and forth as it hit every rock and bump in the soil, but Madeline was oblivious to it all and slept on.

"I could tell you about bone density, muscle tissue per square millimetre and all that," stated Diduk.

"I think I'll just stick to complaining," replied Tarit as they struggled to climb a small hill. "Please tell me it will be someone else's turn soon", he added, scratching at the ground as he spoke, a clear sign of stress amongst his people.

Diduk checked his P.D.A., "another ten minutes."

"I'll have dislocated my back by then," stated Tarit, grunting again.

Diduk rubbed his eyes and called out, "everyone, take a five-minute break!"

Everyone unceremoniously slumped down into the dirt. Diduk was impressed at how well everyone had adapted to the situation; a week ago, the notion of lying down in the mud would have been revolting to many of them.

Madeline stirred but did not wake, and Diduk found himself wondering what it was like to sleep like a human, to dream as they did. He found it a little frightening to spend so much of your life unconscious, but from how Madeline described it during her medical checks, she thoroughly enjoyed it.

Diduk once again checked his P.D.A.; the geographic data for this part of the planet was lacking, and they had already been confronted with many unexpected roadblocks.

"One step at a time, Diduk," he thought "for now I need to find food," he said.

Over the past few days, he had become good at identifying edible plants. Some of them were rather nice as well, and Diduk found himself adding them to his diet.

Though Diduk was carnivorous, that did not mean he never ate vegetable matter. As with almost all carnivores, certain trace nutrients and minerals could only be found, in meaningful quantities, within plants.

Naturally, with modern technology, cloned meat could be reinforced with these nutrients, but most people Diduk met still liked to have a little green food in their diet. It was pretty fun to eat too; he liked crunchy food.

Collecting a couple of baskets the group had made over the past few days, he began scouring the forest for food.

Despite his newfound botanical skill, he still utilised the scanner to ensure that everything was safe to eat.

As his collection grew and became difficult to carry, Diduk decided to gather just one last batch. As he dug up the roots of a plant that had come to be known as sweetroot by the herbivores, he heard something behind him.

It was the snapping of a branch; Diuk quickly took out his medical scalpel. It was not much, and it galled him to use a piece of medical equipment as a weapon. However, his fear of being eaten by a deathworld predator was greater, and he stood motionless, staring into the trees.

Diduk knew that it was not one of the survivors; few could leave the camp by themselves, and those few who could all agreed to search different parts of the forest to maximise their food production.

"Well, well, well, it's been quite the chase you have led us upon", a voice called out from the trees.

His brain quickly put everything together; as the cruise's chief medical officer, Diduk had interviewed every single crew member and passenger, and this was not one of them. With the rescue party still three weeks away, at least it could only be one person.

There was also the unmistakable cruelty his words carried that probably would have tipped Diduk off if nothing else had.

The unknown man stepped from the forest; he was a bipedal reptilian, much like Diduk, but their features were more savage and feral. Two sharp canines poked from his upper lip, and his eyes possessed a predatory quality that Diduk found hard to put into words.

Diduk also took note of his lack of a respirator, which could mean only one thing.

"Now, doctor, if you would be so kind, please take us to your friends," Yulik said with a sneer.