As he walked from the truck that had taken him to the surface to the Jerboa parked nearby, Buster Harkness looked back at Zed Steadman one last time. He had a duffel bag slung over his shoulder with a week's worth of supplies and his only possessions: his scrubs, his prescriptions, his vaporizer, his weed, and a small folding multitool that Petro had given him as a gift. You saved us all with a really big multitool, can't hurt for you to have a little one around in case you need to save us again.
The many small keepsakes he collected over the past six months were still in his room. If he ever returned, they would be waiting for him. If not, he wouldn't need them anymore.
Looking back, the entrance to Zed Steadman looked to all the world like just another shallow cave entrance. To him, it would always look like home.
It was much easier to climb into the Jerboa than it had been last time. He had more room to maneuver as he hung the duffel bag from the storage hook in the back. As he brought it to life, there wasn't as much of a belly for the vertical control lever to jam into as it lurched forward.
All this time he just thought that Petro was being nice when he said that he was looking fitter. Sure, when he looked in the mirror he could see that he was a little less rotund. And he no longer found himself out of breath from walking between rooms or talking excitedly for long periods of time. But it wasn't until he had the baseline of the cockpit to compare it to that he realized just how much more physically fit he had become.
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The panda grinned. Mirabelle wasn't going to believe how different he looked. In spite of everything, it felt good to smile. Even if it was a spiteful one.
As he strode away from the base in the stark blue light of early sunrise on Baldwin's Fall, his radio chirped to life. "Buster, I want to remind you that your collar will be tracking and recording you at all times." Dr. Calvini's voice scolded him, "If you try to pull anything, we'll know."
"Yes, I know." responded Buster with as much pleasantness as he could muster, "I remember the electrostatic actuator too, I haven't given you a reason to use it yet."
"Good luck, Buster. A lot of people here are rooting for you, come back for their sakes'." Dr. Calvini signed off.
He rolled his eyes. At least they couldn't see him anymore.
As he hopped the first hops of his journey to Martenwol, he thought back on his first trip. He had been so scared of being hunted down that he had done the entire route in one amphetamine fueled marathon over two days. Now he felt foolish. It had been over six months and nobody from Nakuna had showed up. There was the blockade, sure, but even then they rarely intercepted anything coming or going from Zed Steadman.
As best as the humans he had talked to could tell, Nakuna was scared. They didn't know what had killed their people, and after Mark Starr Syndrome they were very gunshy about new contagions. For all they knew, this planet could remain virulent for years. Best to write it off instead of sending in a dropship and confirming their fears.
Besides, who would want to work at Martenwol again after word got out? It was cursed now.
As he hopped across the dark purples and blacks of Baldwin's Fall, the dark blue atmosphere above spackled with thin white clouds, he drank it all in. Now he knew for a fact that he was being hunted, and he wasn't afraid.
He had won long ago, all of this was just the victory lap. If it was cut short, he could still say that he came out ahead.
He might die, but he wouldn't die a Nakunan.