Something went wrong in the jump.
I remember the crash.
I must have died in that crash.
I figured I’d been reconstituted, because when I came to, my pod was dry and upright, and I was not coughing up space phlegm like it was going out of style. I could even see Phoenix's silhouette outside my pod, waiting for me to hit the release tab so he could catch me and my wobbly knock-knees just like all the previous times I’d come back.
But when the pod door slid up and my straps came undone like wet noodles, I slipped out and hit the hull of our drop ship like a marlin landing in the bottom of a fishing boat. I hissed in pain as I shakily pushed myself up to look up at my drop partner. “The hell, Nix,” I grumbled. “Sleep on the wrong side of the pod again? What happened? Did we crash?” When my eyes finally adjusted to the unnatural light, my breath caught.
Phoenix wasn’t dressed for a jump. He was outfitted for another drop, another deployment. Clipped onto the front of his raid suit was his landfall rifle in a low-ready position, a finger hovering over the trigger. Next to him was Kurage in similar dress, but while Nix’s face was covered by his helmet, Kurage only wore a neck warmer and a furious sneer of disgust and loathing. I only recognized it was her because of the iconic birthmark on the right side of her face. But her normally short black hair was long, unkempt, pulled into a knot at her neck.
“You fucking whore!” she roared as she advanced and lifted me up by my armpits, driving me back into my pod so forcefully the back of my head bounced against the carbon composite. “Traitor sonuvabitch!” The medic shoved me again, then kicked me in the side as I fell.
Through my confusion, I put up my hands and demanded, “The fuck happened to do-no-harm?!”
Instead of a worded reply, she screamed, raining artless punches down on my shoulders and head. I had no idea what the fuck was going on, let alone why my best friend was beating the shit out of me while my partner passively watched on!
But Kurage wasn’t a fighter by trade or training, and she exhausted herself less than a minute later, stumbling back, holding her bruised knuckles to her chest in an almost prayer-like gesture. She spit in my direction before she rushed out. I slowly got back to my feet, touching at a tender spot on my face. I waved a hand at Phoenix. “What? You don’t wanna get your licks in too? Say something.” He didn’t move. “The fuck is her problem?” I asked. “What does she think I did?” I wiped at my mouth. “What… What do you think I did?”
Phoenix didn’t say. He gestured with his rifle toward the pod bay exit where Kurage had just disappeared. “Move,” he said coldly, his voice crunchy and robotic as it passed through his helmet’s mic, sounding scuffed like it had been dropped in water and never reprinted.
I moved, but slowly.
I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
The drop ship was a mess. Whole walls were ripped off, but what was more, the torn edges of the structure were rusted, malformed, or half-reprinted. There was mud and grass and debris in every corner. The air was humid and smelled slightly like mildew. Even though it had to be at least ninety degrees in the shade, I shivered as I rubbed at my bare arms. “Can I at least grab my…” My locker where I normally stashed a spare suit for reco’s was not only empty, but the door was ripped off. The locker was completely gutted. Even the drawings I’d taped up inside of it were gone.
I whispered, “What the—augh!” Phoenix had kicked the back of my knee.
He snapped, “I said, move.”
I wasn’t taking any more of this shit without an explanation, but especially not from him. I thought we had finally grown some measure of professional respect between us, maybe even an affection that could outlive the shit we’d been in for the last seven months. As I stumbled to my feet, I braced myself against an intact support and turned to face him. “Nix, tell me what the fuck is going on!”
He leveled the rifle at me.
Me?
Me.
No way.
Not me.
Not him.
“Hey.” I put my hands up, going for calm, but sounding more pathetic than anything. I’m not afraid of death. It’s the dying part that usually hurts. “Please. I am just… a little outta the loop here. What is going on? What’s happening? Why are you doing this? Phoenix, please… Answer me.”
He sighed, taking the platform off safe with a flick of his thumb. “Imagine how I must feel,” he said, sounding exhausted.
Like a megalomaniac? I managed to think before what might’ve followed splashed across a bulkhead, shapeless.
ns 15.158.61.8da2
