Hands in my hair and chest heaving, I asked, “Got anything to clean up your mess?”

He searched the room as if that would change anything then grabbed his ripped shirt. He approached with intentions to clean that mess. The thought made me sick. I tugged the shirt out of his hand. While I wiped off, Roys returned my clothes to me, also sick inducing. I tossed the ruined shirt at him. He scowled and that scowl worsened when I pulled out a cigarette.

“Don’t smoke in here,” he said.

The cigarette hung out of my mouth. “You’re really denying me a smoke after sex?”

“I’m denying one in here. You are welcome to smoke those disgusting things anywhere else.”

I went to light up. Roys grabbed the entire pack. I scrambled around him as he held them both behind his back. “Oh, fuck off already.”

“No smoking or I crush these and we aren’t exactly stockpiling replacements.” He was right. Once we ran out, corporate would be a pain about shipping more.

Setting aside the cigarette, I dressed and stashed the lighter. “Happy?”

He handed over the pack and got to dressing himself. I stared. A lot. Enough to get his attention.

“What?” he asked.

Leaning against the desk, I replied, “I’m surprised you agreed to this and that you’re still open to another.”

“Who said I was?”

“Your enthusiasm.” I pushed off the desk to catch him by the hem of his pants. He didn’t pull away when I kissed him. A hand fell in my hair, pulling me away so he could mark my neck. “Keep that up and my team will have questions. I can’t promise I won’t share all the juicy details.”

“Do so and this will never happen again.”

“You think you’re good enough to stop me from yapping?”

“I think you like playing around.” He released me to meet my attention. Though he was a tad shorter than me, I always felt small in his presence. “And you’d rather continue this game than end it.”

“You really are paying extra special attention to me to have all that figured out, huh, sweetheart? Same time and place tomorrow?”

“Sure.” He shoved me away and grabbed his shirt. “You head out first. I’ll wait.”

“Sweet enough to rot my teeth,” I teased on the way to the door where I stopped and looked back, feeling a question climb my throat.

Roys stood there, arms crossed, his gaze practically burning through the floor. It’d burn through me if I dared to ask what earth’s like, and while it was tempting, I was actually feeling tired and I might be able to get a good night’s sleep, so I left.

I was wrong.

She laid there. Crying. Screaming. Hand outstretched. They were closing in. Closer. Closer. Too many blasters. Too many of them.

There had to be a way out. An escape. I looked and looked. Walls of metal. Rust. Blood. Her blood, pooling around her leg. Skin ruptured. She couldn’t run. We couldn’t run.

“What are you doing…” Her eyes, wide, terrified, crying. She reached for me. “Ethin!”

Don’t say that name. Don’t say that fucking name.

“Ethin!”

“Don’t!” I flew out of bed, hit my head off the top bunk, and plummeted. “Fuck off!”

There I laid, a hand on my throbbing head, staring up at the top bunk trying to breathe. I scratched at my chest, over the heart racing too loud to hear anything more. My skin cracked and bled under my furious nails while her voice wouldn’t stop. Never actually stopped.

I rolled out of bed, blood dripping from the wounds. Using tissues from the desk, I wiped the mess away and opened the commlink’s self facing camera. The bastard left far too many marks. I had to throw on the turtleneck option for our uniforms.

My chest burned from the cuts, so I went to the med bay first. Tareik, the senior medic, was in there, as gelatinous as ever. Flureds, they were called, though most of us called them squishy’s because they were just that. A moving and talking, without a mouth, waist high blob of gelatin that couldn’t be shot, cut, burned, or crushed. And they were entirely peaceful, practically incapable of violence. I wouldn’t be surprised if they blew up for saying a bad word.

“Ah, Private Katlan, are you in need of healing?” Tareik slithered past the cradle, a slightly bent capsule not so dissimilar from the droid’s charging stations.

The cradle connected to the floor at the back of the room. The interior dipped in low enough for a body to be laid in there and the regenerative liquid to drape over the user. They would lie for minutes or hours, depending on the severity, and be pieced back together bit by bit. I had been in one a few times and the experience was always less than ideal. Felt claustrophobic and, if you were conscious, incredibly invasive.

“A quick spray for this should do.” I held up my shirt.

Tareik went for a canister on the shelf. They were far too slow, so I went over to meet them. Once Tareik was done, I returned to the communal area where Arana sat with Lilea and Iylene. Zavir and Ryker were nowhere to be found. I messaged them. Both were patrolling the energy shield. As expected, we weren’t entirely off duty. Outside our mandated training regimen, groups were sent in rounds to inspect the perimeter.

“Lucky!” Arana gestured to join them.

Lilea looked over her shoulder. Their eyes weren’t similar in the least, but I saw Her.

“I’m heading out.” I gave a half-hearted wave and left the habitat.

I wasn’t the only one outside. Roys had given us permission not to wear our exoskins within the energy shield, although he recommended we keep them near at all times. Soldiers created games and sat around in the open field. Others took to the training yard that the droids set up over the last few days. When folks got too hot, they went inside for a rest. I didn’t join any of them.

I found a shaded area behind the habitat, kicked off my boots and socks, then fell into the grass. The grass was cool and the soil a little damp. I rolled onto my stomach, taking in a deep breath. Fresh air. Nature. Soil and rain. I never had such a thing. Nothing real.

At the Colony, the upperring loved using artificial scenters, trying to bring a planet to the asteroid, but it wasn’t the same. You couldn’t feel the earth under your fingernails, the grass on your lips or the sun as it chased away the shade.

She would have loved it here.

I buried my face in the dirt and stayed there. My lungs burned for air and my muscles tensed. My commlink beeped. I ignored it, setting my head aside to take a breath that did nothing to ease my thoughts. The memories came because of that stupid nightmare, replaying that moment over and over, as if it would change anything.

The first year after I left the Colony, I replayed those moments in my mind, searching for a change. What if I did this, what if we had done that, what if we changed our entire lives so that never happened? But it didn’t matter because every scenario ended the same, or worse, and so I told myself not to think about it. Don’t remember. Stash Her away in a bottle and lock that bottle away, never to be opened. 

Unfortunately, that never worked. The bottle was always cracked and pieces of Her poured out time and again.

The commlink beeped. Another. Another. I turned it off. Didn’t feel like being bothered. Felt like moping there for the rest of the day, basking in the suns. Real suns.

“Why is your commlink off?”

I shouldn’t have been surprised that Roys came to find me, and yet, I pushed myself onto my elbows to make sure it was him. There he stood, blocking the light with all those rippling pectorals of his. He became a dark silhouette to my squinting eyes.

“Was that you messaging?” I asked around a yawn. The time on the commlink proved I had dozed off and slept better laying here than I had in bed. It was barely two hours worth of napping and still he was on my ass. And not in the fun way.

“Some of it,” he answered, donning his signature scowl. He nodded toward the energy shield.  “You were meant to go on patrol.”

“Is that so?” I picked apart grass to knot together like string.

“Arana found you out here smothering yourself in the grass.”

“Has a nice smell.” I rubbed my hand over the ground and looked up at him. “Give it a try.”

He made a strained face. “So you could keep my head there until I went blue in the face? No thanks.”

I threw the knotted grass at him. “Admit it, that was a nice try.”

He gave an annoyed but playful hum that had me biting back a grin. 

“I partnered her with someone else,” he continued to explain. “But the next one came out and you were sleeping. When they tried to wake you, you smacked them.”

“Mm, can’t say I recall that. Pretty sure they’re lying.” Although Arana warned the others before that I was mean when anyone tried waking me. Claimed I kicked her out of the bed once when she tried cuddling. Although I may have been awake and just wanted to avoid cuddling. Wasn’t my thing.

“You’ll be patrolling with me now.”

Laughing, I rolled onto my back and sat up, legs crossed and hands on my ankles. “Now I know you’re bullshiting. You’re using this as an excuse to spend more time with me.” I leaned away and pressed a hand to my heart while batting my eyelashes. “Oh no, cap, have you fallen for me?”

“You’ve discovered my greatest secret,” he said so plainly that he could give Iylene a run for their money.

Still, I played along and stuck a finger in my mouth, pretending to puke. “That is disgusting.”

“You’re the one that asked a foolish question.”

“Is it that foolish?” I cast my eyes from side to side. No one was back here, but we heard the others, not so far away. “I think you want some more alone time with me.” I grabbed him by the holsters, tugging him forward so I had to crane my neck to look up at him. “I’d be more than happy to oblige.”

“Get up,” he ordered, stern, authoritative, but not the same as when we were alone. It didn’t have that edge. “Once the patrol is done, you’re free to do as you wish.”

Neither of us moved. I wasn’t interested in going on patrol. I was more than happy to lounge about all day. Roys knew that. He knew I didn’t like taking his orders. Not here. And maybe he realized that, too, because then he knocked my hands away to kneel where he balanced on his heels.

Hidden behind the habitat, no one saw Roys catch my chin or heard how low his voice could go. “Good behavior is rewarded, remember?”

I shuddered. “What’s the reward?”

He moved in. My eyes fluttered closed, waiting for that taste of cherry.

“Behave and find out.” Roys didn’t look back as he walked away.

I was a little grateful otherwise it’d be humiliating how fast I followed.