Page 33 of Challenged

Hot. Humid. Full of bugs and big cats.

Great.

The clothes Brooks has found for me feel coarse after the raskarran nightgown, but at least they actually fit. They’re ugly, functional. Cargo trousers and a loose white t-shirt. The synthetic material clings to my slightly damp skin.

“Don’t suppose there’s a skin care regimen hiding in one of those lockers?”

I worry for a moment that Brooks won’t pick up on the sarcasm in my tone, that she’ll think I’m being serious. After all my demands and stomping about yesterday, they’ve probably got the impression that I’m extremely high maintenance. Thankfully, she just chuckles.

“I’m afraid we weren’t exactly the crowd for that sort of thing.”

“They don’t teach you to cleanse, tone and moisturise on military tier?”

“Moisturise? You think they wanted any part of us to be soft?”

At first, I think I’ve offended her, but when I glance in her direction, she’s grinning at me.

“And science tier wouldn’t bother with something so inconsequential as looking good,” I say.

She laughs. “Certainly not the ones I encountered on this little trip. The other girls might have something, although probably not here. You might have to wait until we’re back at the village for your skincare.”

“I can wait for skincare. Painkillers, on the other hand…”

Brooks’ smile turns sympathetic. She heads for the door, inclining her head and gesturing for me to follow her. “Let’s go find Shemza now.”

Shemza. The alien they showed me first yesterday. Lorna’s mate. Shortly after meeting him, I flounced out of the room after demanding they speak with their management.

Eugh.

“Look, I’m sorry about how I was yesterday,” I say, jogging after her. “You’ve been nothing but kind to me. You, Lorna and Liv. You didn’t deserve to deal with me at my absolute worst.”

I only hope she believes me about that ‘worst’ part.

The corridor is darker than the shower room, the strip lighting more flickery and dim, but I can see the lack of concern on Brooks’ face as she shrugs, waving away my apology much like Rardek did.

“You woke up on another planet nineteen years in the future. We can’t expect you to have been reasonable about it.”

“There’s ‘reasonable’ and then there’s ‘not a complete asshole’. I could have managed the second.”

“Don’t underestimate how much cryo messes with you. Not just your appetite. Hormones, emotions. Without meaning to sound terrible, you probably weren’t in your right mind yesterday.”

“Well, I’m still sorry. Seems to me I owe you guys my life. Probably will continue to owe you my life until the Mercenia rescue arrives.”

For the first time, Brooks’ expression drops.

“There is a rescue, right?” Fear trickles up and down my spine like an electric current. “What Liv said about not getting back to my life - she just meant the passage of time, right?”

“Angie, Liv and the others crash landed here months ago. Mercenia never came for them. Just like they never came for us twenty years ago. We’re stuck here.”

“Sure, because they lost communications, or there was some kind of issue. They thought there were no survivors.”

Brooks just looks at me with a pained sort of empathy. “Or because Mercenia doesn’t really give a shit about any of us.”

It’s a fair criticism of Mercenia. The systems, the structures - they’re unforgiving. People get chewed up and spat out all the time. But not…

Not me? I almost laugh at myself. I was chewed up and spat out a long time ago. This is just round two.

“Look, I know Mercenia can be shitty. Believe me, I know. But there are lines. And I would have thought ‘abandoning your people on an alien planet’ would be one they wouldn’t cross.”

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