“We should always by no means have been this low.”

“Shut up. I’m transferring the rattling ship.”

“Not too excessive, we have to keep in visible vary!”

“How can we keep in visible vary when this stuff have wings and fly into us! We’ll use the cameras.”

“That’s what I meant, not eye visible vary. Digital camera visible vary!”

The deck is totally bursting with bickering. The Mare was by no means like this when the captains had been round. Sullivan would have decided with out asking anyone and executed it herself if obligatory, and Raine would have beat the hell out of us if we’d tried to be this chaotic in her presence, both earlier than or after the mutiny. We’d like no less than one of many captains again, ideally each, as a result of we’re not going to outlive if we don’t get some management going right here.

Casey is sitting within the captain’s chair, one leg slung over the armrest, a bowl of brightly coloured cereal loops cradled loosely in her fingers. Occasionally, a little bit milk slops over the facet unnoticed and drains down into the material of the chair.

We’re completely trashing this ship. The bridge was by no means what you may name a spic-and-span form of place when our first captain was in cost, however Raine had it very orderly. She made a rule that there was to be no loitering. You had been both flying the ship, manning the devices, delivering data, otherwise you had been off the bridge fully. Then Raine bought kidnapped making an attempt to save lots of Sullivan, and now…

KA-DUNK KA-THUNK

The ship jolts down all of the sudden, shedding all of the altitude we simply gained, however that’s not really Maria’s fault. She’s now splayed throughout the controls, having misplaced her steadiness within the try to keep away from a human missile.

“Sorry!” Cadence’s newest powered roller-shoe prototype has propelled her at excessive pace into the management panel. Certainly one of today, we’re going to discover a Cadence-sized gap within the hull and that would be the finish of it. You can’t cease her tinkering, it doesn’t matter what you do. As soon as, Raine confiscated her instruments and supplies, solely to find that Cadence had manufactured new instruments out of bits of an previous chair, after which used elements of the Mare itself for brand new supplies. She’s incorrigible.

“CADE! GO SIT DOWN!”

Rage, not her actual title, however the one title that precisely accounts for her temperament, grabs Cade by the again of the neck and drags her off the bridge, one wheel on her roller-shoes squeaking all the way in which. Rage has a pink mohawk and solely wears garments which have tears in them. We’ve tried giving her new garments, and someway they find yourself torn inside hours. She’s certainly one of our few offensive gunners, and holding her off the weapons system has been a relentless battle.

“We should always blow one thing up!” she shouts on her means off the bridge.

Earlier than she was kidnapped, Raine was very clear we had been to not blow something up. Even when we actually wished to. We’re following that order. We don’t know what penalties would comply with for the captains if we had been to…

“They’re fucking on the roof of that bone home,” Ame says. Ame’s often quiet. She largely does surveillance and used to report on to Raine, and no person else. A few of us had by no means spoken to her in any respect till we bought caught on this saurian planet.

“They aren’t… oh, they’re.”

I attain over and switch the screens off. “We shouldn’t watch that. Ame, don’t you dare flip the recording on.”

“It auto-records. I can’t cease it. Captain Sullivan instituted that coverage years in the past.”

“Then don’t you dare watch the recording. That’s non-public.”

“I might by no means,” Ame says.

“I might!” Sasha swings between hyper-focus, hyper-vigilance, and simply normal hyperactivity. She’s a genius, and he or she can also be fully uncontrollable. Sullivan was good at holding her busy, and Raine was good at holding her beneath the thumb — however now there’s no person to step into the gulf of management left by these two, and Sasha is sort of a chainsaw blade that got here off an working chainsaw. Truly, that’s an excellent description for lots of the crew.

No person is coming to save lots of us. So I resolve to go all the way down to the planet, to carry no less than one individual again to save lots of us.

2 TIES THAT BIND

Lettie

I didn’t get free. I began to consider the filthy, unseemly, and downright humiliating issues that occurred to the captains, and I simply went type of limp in Shan’s arms as he lastly hauled me up into a greater grip.

“Give me a blindfold. I don’t need her discovering her means again out right here.”

“Good thought.”

Thick cloth is wound round my head, leaving my nostril free, however solely simply. I’m wrapped up like a mummy from the neck up, which leaves me with my different senses to aim to compensate. Contact is the one which instantly involves the fore. I really feel the highly effective rippling of the creature behind and beneath me, holding me in his outlaw arms. He’s not being tough, however he’s being agency. He has me in a maintain that won’t permit me to flee, although it would permit me to wriggle. Each movement I make offers me extra of a way of his physique.

His large type makes me really feel small, and that may be a rarity. I typically really feel as if I’m taking over an excessive amount of area, however I don’t even take up his whole lap. It has been a really very long time since anyone made me really feel this safe. There’s something about being blindfolded that promotes rest too. I’ve seen this accomplished to scared animals of all species, however I at all times figured folks had been too sensible. Perhaps not. Perhaps I’m nothing greater than a scared animal within the grip of an clever predator.

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