The habitat had everything we could possibly need. Built as a giant dome with various divisions connected around the epicenter, the habitat would be our living space for the next three and a half months. Soldiers lived along the west end, separated by rank. The captain had a private bedroom as well as an office. There would be four bunks per room prior to the survey team’s arrival. Afterward, fourteen of our ranks would return to Main and ten of us, plus the captain, would remain to keep watch over the survey team.

At the center of the habitat was a communal living space where the inhabitants ate together in the dining hall separated by rows of empty shelves that the survey team would fill with specimens upon their arrival. On the other side of the waist high shelves was a lounge area with couches, chairs, two screens and a couple of games.

I was exceptionally good at the Viz, which no one offered to play with me anymore. Sore losers, they were.

The armory was to the north, connected through the barracks only. On the east end was where most of our supplies were, stocks of food, clothes, materials to fix the habitat, and the charging pods for the droids. The little buggers had a battery life that lasted a century if they remained in stasis, but they would be regularly patrolling the area and doing menial tasks at the habitat so they would probably charge even if they rarely fell below 90%.

Finally, to the south was for the medical bay as well as the barracks and lab area for the survey team. The droids handled setting that up. We would not risk being lectured by the scientists because a piece of equipment was set up wrong or had a fingerprint on it. They were a peculiar bunch, the survey team, full of brainiacs that rarely spoke a word of sense

 I steered clear of them mostly, just as I steered clear from everyone once the work was done.

While Arana took to searching for booze, Zavir and Iylene tested out the Viz, Lilea and Ryker took naps, I went outside. Never leave unless in a group of two, Roys said, but I didn’t want to be stuck in a habit, shielded from the sun when I finally got to see one.

I forgone the exoskin and visor, stepping out into the suns that brought warmth unlike any other. In my pocket, I grabbed my pack of smokes to light up. Checking no one was around, I slipped off my boots and socks to let my toes sink into the soil. The grass tickled the soles of my feet. My imagination didn’t live up to reality. I fell to lay in the grass where the suns kissed my face. Frankly, all I wanted was to rip off all my clothes and run around.

The Colony always reeked of smoke and oil, both of which forever coated our lungs. Every day, you woke to choking on your own recycled atmosphere. All you heard was the buzzing of machinery, the harsh cracks of the miners deep within the asteroid. But on The Planet, there was none of that. The wind sang. The suns shined. Strange animals called out. A figure flew overhead, four-winged and slim, but likely as large as me based on its shadow. Six smaller versions followed it into the canopy where the flora moved outside the energy shield.

Zavir and I sat that up, having to place conductors at specific intervals around the habitat. Octagonal in shape, the energy shield kept us contained, cooling off the interior somewhat and preventing any unwanted guests from entering, as well as notifying our captain if anyone happened to trudge out without permission.

Even with the energy shield up, I grabbed the flamethrower given on Main. The flora was expected to be defended better against by fire than blasters, although we had plenty of those, too.

With one hand on the weapon, I tugged on my socks and boots in time for Roys to walk out of the flora. He used his commlink to open the energy shield. The rest of our group trudged along at his back.

“I’m impressed you haven’t burned the habitat to the ground,” Roys said when tugging off his visor to reveal short brown hair soaked in sweat. My eyes betrayed me by following a bead of sweat that rolled along his strong jaw and over his nape.

“Apparently, you weren’t all that worried, otherwise you wouldn’t have tasked me with it,” I replied while crushing my smoke, then I settled my hands in my pockets when I was supposed to salute. That caused Roys’ right eye to twitch, as well as me not wearing my visor or exoskin, no doubt.

“Did I not make you aware that you are expected to maintain your visor and exoskin until ordered otherwise?” he asked relatively calmly, as he often managed. It was that twitch in his eye that gave way to anger.

“You did,” I said.

“And didn’t I say never to go anywhere alone?”

“I am right outside the habitat under a very powerful energy shield.”

“On a foreign planet we have yet to fully study, disobeying at least three direct orders.”

I grinned and gave a shrug that had him shoving his visor in my chest.

“Laundry duty it is. All by hand. Make sure everything is perfect for tomorrow.” He signaled for the troop to follow. “Leave everything with Ethin.”

One by one, the soldiers dropped their visors in eerie silence. That was meant to be when they poked fun at me for being disciplined. Except as the soldiers passed, none said a word, so exhausted that their faces were red and eyes so wide they nearly fell from their skulls.

Perhaps Zavir was right and my luck saved us from spending the day in a jungle that sucked the life out of the entire troop.

I had to carry groups of visors to the storage room where droids brought the necessary cleaning supplies. The room reeked of sweat that had Ryker gagging when he poked his head in some time later.

“What did you do this time?” asked Ryker, crossing his tattooed covered arms over his chests. Most of the tattoos he didn’t remember getting.

“Went outside alone,” I replied.

“Ah, so you deserve this.”

I gave Ryker the finger.

Laughing, he leaned against the doorway. “One of these days, Roys is going to take you out back and beat the shit out of you.”

“He can try. I am the Viz champion, after all.”

“The Viz is a combat game. Roys is a captain for a reason.” Ryker ran a finger down his right eye, mirroring one of the scars Roys had. “Neither of us have been in a place like this, but he has”

“Read up on him, did ya?” I slapped a clean visor on top of another then took to scrubbing the next. The water was dirty so I made a mental note to clean Roys’ visor before changing it.

“He is our captain for the foreseeable future.”

“I preferred Darmin.”

“We all preferred Darmin, the drunk bastard.” Ryker made some form of religious gesture.

Darmin wrecked a speeder inside the hangar bay while drunk two months ago. Literally went out in a blaze of glory. I didn’t laugh. I thought about laughing. For two hours. Then me and Arana laughed while drinking Darmin’s “hidden” stash in his office. It was literally a drawer full of booze that anyone could open.

Now that may make me sound like an asshole, but honestly, I didn’t like any of my superiors. They were exactly that, superiors, people to order me about and I hated that. I knew what kind of person went for those positions and I wouldn’t listen to a damn word they said. I learned not to the hard way.

“But he’s gone and we’re stuck with this one,” Ryker added while picking up the cleaned visors. “Play nice before you get yourself into some real shit.”

I smiled up at him. “No matter how often you feign concern for me, I will never bend over for you.”

“Oh no, how terrible, you’ve ruined my life ambitions.” Ryker kicked the bucket so the water sloshed all over my pants. “Finish up or Roys will have you bent over and not in the fun way.”

I couldn’t deny that when he first showed up the thought had crossed my mind in extreme detail. Once he opened his stupid mouth though, I realized fucking was off the table. Unless gags were involved, yeah, that might have worked.

Ryker departed, leaving me to finish up the visors, then all the soaked clothes the droids brought little by little. They offered a larger container too where I scrubbed the clothes under Roys’ supervision.

The captain visited to lean against the threshold with a piece of candy caught between his teeth. He always carried the damn things, cherry flavored based on the wrappers.

“Don’t you have better things to do than watch me do laundry?” I asked when dropping another clean shirt into the pile. Droids took the pile to the dryer every couple of minutes. They didn’t talk but they had big eye sockets that made them look apologetic or at least pitying.

“Anything would be better than monitoring you, but unfortunately, you are in dire need of my attention, seeing as you cannot follow basic orders.” Roys tossed a piece of candy at my head. “How would you like it if you stayed at the habitat tomorrow?”

Roys didn’t miss my hesitation.

“The droids know not to leave the energy shield, but if anything were to get through, they aren’t well equipped to defend the habitat. I could leave you to keep an eye on things that way I know you won’t fuck anything up out there,” Roys continued.

“You need me. My scores are better than anyone here, including you.” I scrubbed a visor hard enough that my nails scraped against it.

“Not all of them.” Roys balanced his weight on the heels of his feet, so we were eye to eye. The blue in his went practically dark, as consuming as deep space. “You have skills and it makes this all the more annoying. One day, you need to start using them.”

Roys’ nanomites flashed on his temple. We all received one when we joined the militia. Little nanomites on our temples, easily removable but far too useful to do so. On all our wrists, we had our commlinks and their holo screens. His popped up and he stood. “One of your buddies is bringing you dinner, but if this isn’t done in time for tomorrow, you won’t be getting breakfast.”

I waved the captain off, who stood there a moment longer, waiting for me to share the signature yes sir that never came. Darmin never bothered to get it out of me. Was probably too drunk to realize I wasn’t doing it, honestly.

Rolling his eyes, Roys sauntered off and I spent the remainder of my evening cleaning. By the time I finished, everyone had gone to the barracks. Zavir and Ryker took one bunk. Arana claimed the top of the next one, her clothes strewn about the floor. I stripped myself, leaving my clothes with hers, and dropped my beanie on the desk, before rolling into bed.

The habitat wasn’t large, so the rooms were exactly what we needed. Big enough for our bunk begs to be shoved against each wall and a space between that Zavir would have to angle himself to get through, as well as a desk and a closet. Once the others departed in two weeks, there’d be more space. It was as big as the one I had at the Colony but without the reinroaches. Terrible creatures. Ate right through metal and a bone here or there.

Before I fell asleep, my commlink buzzed. I shouldn’t have looked because I couldn’t go to bed pissed off. Zavir and Ryker made displeased grunting noises prior to falling back asleep.

“Tomorrow is going to suck ass.” Arana crawled so half her body hung off the edge to glare at me below. “We’re stuck with Roys because of you.”

I hit her in the face with the pillow.

“Ouch!” She wiggled further onto her bed so only her brown eyes were visible. “There may be a way for you to change his mind, though.”

“Do share how you think I could manage to achieve that.”

“Ask nicely with his dick in your mouth.”

I slid out of bed. Arana squirmed further back in hers. “Hey now, it was a joke. Let’s play nice, Lucky.”

She blocked me from using the ladder to her bunk. I shoved her back. Squeaking, she held up her hands as I straddled her. “This extreme of a reaction is convincing me that maybe you actually do want to suck his dick and, gah, don’t punch me in the tit!”

“What tit?”

“How dare you! You know how sensitive I am about my beautifully muscular chest. Ouch, Lucky, fuck off, I will kick you off this bed right now.”

Arana did, in fact, kick me off the bed where I proceeded to lay there on the floor hoping we’d run into one of those man-eating plants tomorrow so it could chew Roys up and shit out his carcass. I can’t believe I ever had sex dreams about that hunk of garbage. Then again, maybe that was my mind’s way of making our captain somewhat useful.

Regardless, Arana was right. Tomorrow would suck ass.