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The main floor of the ship was in shambles. Muddy bootprints lined the floor, streaking around the corners. I stepped over a discarded uniform helmet and empty laser rifle cartridges.
"Your squad was in a hurry to leave." Varus observed the mess.
"I don’t see signs of animal predators in here, do you?" I debated whether to throw the switch to lift the ramp. The less chance of other things boarding the ship, the better.
"Not right now, but the giant lizards were nearby. They left their young behind to scavenge."
That was enough for me to throw the switch and raise the hatch. "Guess we’re taking our chances with whatever might still be in here. Follow me."
He didn’t like that. "I should be in front to face the danger."
"How are you going to lead if you don’t know your way around the ship? Just let me do it and watch my back."
Varus, with a huff to show his disapproval of my plan, kept right on my heels as I went from room to room. Each one was empty. We reached the emergency deploy dock on the ship’s second level. Of the six pods normally stored there, one remained.
"Thank you." I prayed to a god who probably couldn’t hear me this far from the Milky Way. "My squad made it out. They left one pod behind for me." I tapped my unresponsive com link. "I wish I could contact them to get the rendezvous point."
Varus touched the side of the pod. "Do you know how to fly this?"
"I wasn’t cleared for this mission until I passed my flight exam."
"Why don’t I find that encouraging?"
"I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you. Grab supplies. We’ll leave when the weather clears."
I heard aplunk. Glancing up, I saw chunks of rock strike the open hatch. They rolled across the floor and stopped near my feet. "Meteorites. Looks like we’re staying put until this little storm passes."
Varus produced mutterings in a guttural dialect that resembled cursing. "More time wasted by twiddling our thumbs."
"I’m not going to twiddle my thumbs. I'm going to wash them in a hot shower after I search for supplies."
I closed the roof hatch and headed to the galley. I snatched the rations left over in the pantry units. A canister of water sat on the bottom shelf. I poured some in the lid and guzzled it down. "You have to be thirsty."
Varus shook his head. "I quenched my thirst for now."
Between the two of us, there were barely enough rations to last for a day. I hoped we could make it to our next destination before we needed to eat again. "If you’re hungry, there’s a few wafers and protein gels."
He declined. "I need to watch the door for intruders."
I tossed rations in a storage bag. "I’m done here. Let’s keep moving."
We passed by the medic station. I darted in to grab supplies from the locker while Varus closed the door and stood by it. I kept a knapsack with a spare uniform and other clothing items in case I needed to change while on duty. "Here." Opening a cabinet, I seized a toiletry kit and the largest set of scrubs I could find and tossed them to Varus. "They’re clean. I don’t know how they’ll fit." My eyes shifted to the pants he was wearing and how he filled those out.
Varus flung the top portion of the scrubs onto the nearest examining table. "A shirt is useless without room for wings."
I wouldn't mind seeing him shirtless for a while longer.The intrusive little thought crossed my mind. What was going on with me?
I grabbed a first aid kit before I headed to the cold storage unit. All the blood stores were in the generator-powered unit. I handed a pack to Varus. "A little something for the road. You never know.”
He put the pack with our other supplies. "You have a strange hidden sense of humor."
I opened more cabinets to find anything else we could carry. "My father hated it, said it made me so unladylike."
"What does humor have to do with being a lady?"
I threw gauze into my knapsack. "You’ve never been to a professional networking event in New Orleans. Say the wrong thing and you’re locked out of all future events and social connections."
"Racopians rely on our bonds. We don’t establish or sever ties over the ability to tell a good joke."
