Ghosts of Bunker Seven

Derrick Boden

 

            Violet slouched in the corner booth at Dally’s Lookout, infected orange eyes turned toward the Port of Long Beach outside. Big gray container ships slid into the docks, one after another, like pegs into holes. It was a relief watching things fit, work the way they should, do what they were meant to do. The feeling never lasted long.

            She took a swig from her gin and tonic — the last one her pension check would cover — and swept her gaze across the restaurant. Eyes shifted away as the roomful of gawkers took a sudden interest in their chicken fried steak. A dozen hushed conversations halted mid-sentence. Mothers drew their daughters close. Fathers cautioned their sons not to point, but kept eyeing her themselves. Violet cracked a wry smile. Their tax dollars at work.

            She lit a cigarette and watched the smoke curl around her deep blue fingers. Her skin was mottled, like storm clouds on a night sky. On days when the stares got to her, she’d throw on her old military coat and a pair of sunglasses. Tonight her tank top was a middle finger to the world. Let ’em stare.

            Violet shook her head. Probably just the Scrag talking again. If it were up to her, she’d be wearing a pair of concrete shoes at the bottom of the surf. The damned bacteria coursing through her veins had other ideas. Someday, maybe she’d beat it out. Not today.

            A pair of suits sauntered up to the hostess counter. The last time anyone had showed up at Dally’s wearing a tie, they’d come to issue her a subpoena. Violet slid to the edge of the booth. Time to go.

            “Ma’am, you can’t smoke in here.” A waitress stood lock-kneed a full two tables away, as if she was going to catch the damn plague.

            “I was just leaving.” Violet took another drag before stuffing the butt into the side of the table.

            The waitress hustled off to the kitchen. Violet grabbed her jacket and tossed some cash onto the tabletop. It probably wouldn’t cover the bill, but close enough. She was three steps from the side door when the suits spotted her.

            “Specialist Violet Cruz.” The man’s voice was thick and authoritative.

            Violet kept walking. She had a hand on the door when she spotted more men outside. Her gaze flicked toward the kitchen. She might be able to make it out the back. Was it worth it?

            Violet let her hand drop. Not today.

            Cold metal jabbed her above the kidney.

            “Please, Miss Cruz.” The man’s breath was hot against her neck. He reeked of designer cologne. “Why don’t you stay for another drink?”

            Violet looked over her shoulder. Clean-shaven. Immaculate blonde hair. Government swagger. He’d look better with his spine snapped in two over the pie counter. But that was probably just the Scrag talking again. It was getting harder to tell the difference.

            She shrugged. “Sure. You’re buying.”

            The man led Violet to a booth in the corner, out of earshot of the other patrons. She slid in opposite the man’s partner, a bulky bruiser stuffed into an ill-fitting suit. The talker sat down next to her, boxing her in. Violet angled herself so that her booted feet could reach the men’s knees, in case it came to that.

            “I’m Agent Tanner Torquato. We need your help.”

            Violet rolled her eyes. “I’ve heard that once before.”

            “We’re here about Corporal Jeron Stackhouse,” Tanner said. “You know him.”

            Stacks. Dammit.

            “Heard the name,” she said.

            “He was in your unit during the Bunker Seven raid–“

            “I said I’ve heard the name.”

            Violet leaned closer. Tanner held her gaze. Give the guy credit; most people couldn’t stand to look her in the eye for longer than a blink. Like staring down creepy orange gaslights, Sanford had said.

            “He’s gotten himself into some trouble,” Tanner said. “We need your help getting him out.”

            Violet laughed. “I seriously doubt that.”

            “Mr. Stackhouse disappeared with a pair of high-profile hostages five days ago. An old Virgalite launch dock just came online on the Martian surface, and we think your friend’s inside. One of the hostages got word to us that Mr. Stackhouse has secured a stockpile of biological agents. He plans to unleash them on the Earth.”

            Heat flooded Violet’s face. “Biological agents…”

            “Scranton-Ridge Bacteria.”

            “Bullshit.” Violet pounded her fist against the tabletop. The restaurant fell silent, save for the hissing of the kitchen fryer. Hands sought out wallets and flagged down waitresses.

            “The Scrag was destroyed,” Violet said. “Every last spore.”

            Tanner licked his lips and called for another gin. The waitress set it down at the far edge of the table and scampered off.

            “Apparently we missed a cache. You know how it goes.”

            Violet’s fingers and biceps twitched. Her skin was hot. The bacteria inside her was interested. She tried to suppress the feeling.

            “This has got nothing to do with me,” she said. “I was discharged, I’m sure you read the story.”

            Tanner lowered his voice, and his expression softened. “What happened at Bunker Seven was…unfortunate. You and Mr. Stackhouse are the only remaining survivors. He won’t negotiate with us, but I know you hold some sway with him.”

            Only two left. Had it happened so fast? Less than ten years for twenty-six soldiers to hang themselves, step in front of speeding trains, and start fights they knew they’d lose. Now, after all the government denials, cover-ups, and slashed pensions, the brass was back. Calling for her to clean up their mess again.

            “You dug this grave for yourselves.” Violet drained her drink. “Now let me out.”

            Tanner rested his hand on the table. “Miss Cruz. Command is already prepared to cut their losses and nuke the base. I convinced them to give me a shot. They think I’m crazy for trusting you. Don’t tell me they’re right.”

            Violet bit her lip. Anyone but Stacks. She looked out the window, toward the container ships below. Nothing ever fits right in real life.

            “I’m guessing we can’t contact him remotely,” she said.

            Tanner shook his head. “Unfortunately not.”

            Violet grimaced. Mars.

 

 

            Outside the shuttle window, pale red valleys swept past beneath a rust-brown blanket of haze. Remnants of failed terraforming efforts dotted the dusty landscape: hulking drills swamped in pools of unearthed water, rows of collapsed generators like deflated balloons, steam stacks doubled-over and blackened.

            Violet clenched her jaw. After all these years, Mars was still a shithole.

            Soon the machinery gave way to other, more familiar sights: battlegrounds. Crumbling bunkers. Abandoned outposts. Toppled missile launchers. The Virgalites dug in here for seven long years, the splinter group enduring a constant pummeling by the military. Near the end, Violet’s unit swept through base after base in a grueling land assault. One day stood out among the rest. Somewhere out there was Bunker Seven.

            Violet shifted in her harness. Tanner’s words gnawed at her. Unleash the Scrag on the Earth. It seemed impossible, a soldier that had suffered through Scrag infection wanting to spread the pain to others. And Stacks, of all people. Was the Scrag controlling him? Maybe it really had gotten into their brains, started taking over their thoughts like Sanford had said, before the poor bastard whacked himself.

            “Pleasant flight?” Tanner was strapped in opposite Violet in the shuttle’s crowded deployment bay. He looked all-too comfortable in his trim pressure suit.

            “Lot shorter these days,” Violet said. “Last time out, we missed the whole playoffs in transit. Five days is hardly enough time to forget what a bad idea this was.”

            The shuttle dipped into a cracked valley, charred from years of bombardment. Stacks was close. He’d been sloppy, tipping his hand at the old Virgalite launch dock. Maybe he didn’t care at all.

            “We still don’t know how your friend found the stockpile,” Tanner said. “There weren’t any records for him to steal.”

            Violet looked out at the dusty landscape. The Scrag surged in her veins like hellfire. Stacks didn’t find the stockpile. Something else inside him did.

            Tanner was still staring at her, like he wanted to say more.

            “Spit it out,” she said.

            “I had a cousin, ran backup for the Bunker Seven raid. Maybe you knew him.”

            Violet regarded him with a sidelong glance.

            “Steven DeRosa,” he said.

            Screams echoed in Violet’s memory. “Yeah, I knew old Stevie. Good kid.”

            “They never did recover his body,” Tanner said. “Said the fire was too intense. Did he go out…with dignity?”

            Violet suppressed a shiver. There was never a fire at Bunker Seven. Stevie was one of the first to be exposed to the Scrag, before anyone knew what was happening. He pleaded for help, clawing at his eyes until they bled. Then came the gunshot, and the silence. Maybe he was the smart one, ending it there.

            Violet studied Tanner. The bastards never even told him.

            “Yeah,” she said. “He went out with dignity.”

            Tanner paused. “Before the accident, were you–“

            “I try not to think about those days.” Walking down the street without stares. The feel of a man’s touch on her skin. The pain of a hot stovetop. Memory was a bad habit, and she already had plenty of those.

            Tanner bit back a response and looked out the window.

            The thrusters spun down to a low hum as they dropped below fifty meters. The shuttle banked at the edge of a crater and began its descent. The old Virgalite base wasn’t visible until they were nearly on top of it. Faded orange sidings camouflaged with the planet’s surface, half covered in the ever-shifting sands.

            Just like all the Virg stations, it was a dingy old prefab, recycled from the early settler habitats. Scorched paint and twisted panels bore evidence of the military strategy: bomb, raid, and leave the rest to rot. Only on this base, the patrol hadn’t found the Scrag. Lucky bastards. They probably all had medals sitting on their mantles. Christmas and kids and laughter and retirement plans.

            “We’re fairly certain Mr. Stackhouse entered through there.” Tanner pointed to a pair of intact shuttle docks jutting out from the side of the crater. The massive bay doors were sealed shut. “We’re going to land a short distance away and enter on foot.”

            A half dozen personnel carriers already hugged the edge of a nearby rock outcropping, spilling drab-armored commandos onto the ground in droves. They stumbled in the unfamiliar gravity like idiot kids on a trampoline. Rookies.

            The craft settled to the ground. Red dust whipped around the shuttle’s sides. Violet exhaled slowly. She could almost feel the Scrag clinging to her cells, resonating in her pores. It had come home.

            “Those eyes of yours gonna work in this dust storm?” Tanner fastened his helmet at the collar.

            Violet slid her oxygen tank into the sleeve on her back and checked the valves. “You guys developed the Scrag. You tell me.”

            “I wasn’t involved,” Tanner said. “And…it was decommissioned for a reason.”

            Right. Just another in a long line of failed military experiments, in the never-ending quest for a better soldier. Except the Scrag wound up stockpiled in Virgalite bases. It was the same faction the government had been funding for a half-decade during the Mars Civil War, before the Virgalites went rogue. After the incident at Bunker Seven, the government disavowed any knowledge of the technology. The infected soldiers were given cursory medical attention and sent packing. Try and make it in society again, boys and girls.

            The effects weren’t all bad, though. With reduced skin sensitivity came improved pain tolerance, though she’d grown tired of stuffing out cigarettes on her arm long ago. In standard atmospheric pressure her exposed blood would clot in a matter of seconds. And then there were the eyes–that thin, iridescent film that clung to her cornea. Santos was sure he could see in the dark, but she called bullshit. Still, on late nights in the city, perched atop the Vincent Thomas Bridge ready to jump, she swore she could see the fish through the chop, fighting the current just like the rest of the world.

            The ramp cracked open and dust blasted into the deployment bay. Violet’s helmet interface sprang to life, displaying atmospheric conditions and short-range scan results. The compressed air tasted metallic. Familiar.

            “These prefabs are all the same.” She turned to face Tanner and his contingent of soldiers. “I ran recon. I know a way in that Stacks won’t…or shouldn’t, at least.”

            Tanner nodded. “Great, lead the way.”

            “You guys aren’t coming with me. There’s no way Stacks will talk to me with your goons around.”

            “This will be a team effort.”

            Violet rolled her eyes. Teams never seemed to work out for her. Time for a change of plans.

            “You’re the boss,” she said. “Follow me.”

            Violet set one foot onto the cracked ground, then the other. She walked a few paces, reacquainting herself with the planet’s gravity. She flexed her arms, testing the suit’s maneuverability. Satisfied, she turned and strode toward the crumpled observation dome. Six soldiers flanked her, three on a side. She edged a bit closer to the nearest soldier as she walked.

            “You still don’t have maps of these old stations, do you?” Violet scanned the ground in front of her. The glint of scratched metal caught her eye up ahead, almost entirely concealed in dust. Just a few more paces.

            “No.” Tanner’s voice was tinny through the comms. “After the raids, there was never any need–“

            Violet stomped hard on the metal disk and twisted her foot to the side. The seal cracked, and compressed air blasted dust from a circular hatch a few feet away. Using her momentum, Violet kept turning and snagged the pistol from the nearest soldier’s leg holster. She planted a foot on his torso and tore the gun free of its straps as she hurled herself backward. She arched her back as she sailed through the air toward the open hatch.

            The remaining soldiers drew their weapons on her way down. She twisted her head to see if she’d correctly gauged the gravity. The ground approached, a foot or two shy of the hatch.

            Dammit. She reached out her free hand and caught the lip of the hatch as she landed, then dragged herself over the edge. The muffled thunk, thunk of flechette rounds erupted behind her. Her suit snagged at the leg as she hauled herself into the hatch. She clung to the ladder along a narrow metal chute. A wild hissing surrounded her as she groped for the hatch’s internal lock. One of the soldiers leapt at her from above. Her hand closed around the lever. She pulled down hard and the hatch snapped shut. The soldier banged against the other side.

            The hissing persisted, from below. Violet triggered her headlamp and looked down. Air was shooting from a large gash in her suit around her calf. Her helmet flashed a warning about loss of pressure. Oxygen levels were plummeting. She swept her headlamp across the airlock, and spotted the pressurization controls at the bottom of the chute, some thirty feet below. She kicked off and slackened her grip on the ladder, sliding to a jarring halt at the bottom. She tore open the panel, then thumbed the controls. There was no telling if this piece of junk was still operational.

            Air hissed into the room from an array of nozzles. She switched off the pressure on her suit.

            Tanner’s voice piped in over the comms. “Cruz, what the hell–“

            “This is our only shot, boss. You’re gonna have to trust me.”

            “You’re out of line, soldier–“

            “I’m not a soldier anymore, and I’m not asking permission.”

            “Dammit, Cruz.” Tanner hesitated. “You have thirty minutes before I call in the nukes.”

            “Roger.” Violet cut the comms.

            She detached her helmet and stripped down to her cargo pants and tank top. She dug out the first-aid kit and flashlight from her shredded suit and pocketed them. Then she checked her watch.

            Thirty minutes. She punched the door release and slid into the base, pistol at the ready.

            The airlock opened into the station’s main control hub. A wall of glass separated the command room from the docking bay. Out in the bay, a flat black shuttle sat inert, its ramp down and its lights off. On this side of the glass, a row of controls dominated the far wall. Hallways branched off into the rest of the station.

            Two men sat bound and gagged in the command room, backs to the wall. Both of their faces were familiar at a glance: General Alan Kramer, and that senator–Nelson Davis, or maybe Davis Nelson. It was no wonder they were hesitant to nuke the place.

            A cluster of metal canisters were stacked in the center of the room, beside a toppled hand truck. Red lettering emblazoned each canister: “SRB”. Scranton-Ridge Bacteria. Violet’s fingers twitched, and her throat constricted. She felt a deep, aching hunger.

            A baritone voice echoed from beyond the rightmost doorway. It was Stacks.

            She turned back to the airlock, where the inner door had partially shut behind her. She slammed the controls, but it wouldn’t budge. The mechanism was jammed. She pressed her body into the crack, but couldn’t get more than an arm into the airlock.

            “Vee?”

            Violet pried herself loose and whipped her gun to bear.

            Jeron Stackhouse stood with feet planted, a massive handgun pointed at Violet’s chest. His skin was dark and mottled. His eyes shone an iridescent orange. It was the first time Violet had seen another Scrag victim since the debriefing nine years ago. The blood pumped heavy in her ears.

            “Stacks…”

            Jeron brought his left hand up to reinforce his grip on the gun. Down the hallway behind him, more Scrag canisters lay strewn about a small storeroom. “They send you here to stop me, Vee?”

            His voice carried with it an assault of unwanted memories. Drinking contests at A-Dock. Target practice on Aeolis. A hot shower at HQ, the water slipping down his muscular shoulders. His screams for help, in the storeroom at Bunker Seven.

            She forced the thoughts back. “You can’t do this. I mean, I’m angry too, but innocent people–“

            “You call them innocent?” Jeron cocked his head at the general and senator.

            Violet glanced at the bound men. Stacks’ choice of hostages was far from coincidental. The Scrag had been the senator’s pet project, until the tests went south. Since then, he’d shoveled millions into covering it up. General Kramer led the anti-Virgalite offensive, and he personally let the door hit the Bunker Seven survivors on the way out.

            “I mean the others. You’re not really planning on deploying all these spores back on Earth. Are you?”

            Jeron cast his gaze toward the ground. His muscles flexed, as if he were physically fighting with himself. He opened his mouth to speak, then clamped it shut. When he looked up, his jaw muscles formed tight knots.

            “They cast us out!” he said. “They used us, lied to us, and when we became an inconvenience, they tossed us aside. They deserve the same.”

            “Can you even remember how it felt? Nobody deserves that–“

            “I remember every day!” Jeron’s face contorted, as if he were back there again, clutching his eyes and writhing on the floor.

            Violet paused, let him cool for a moment. She checked her watch. Twenty-five minutes.

            “How do you expect to pull this off?” she said. “There’s an orbital missile system stacked with nukes, ready to deploy–“

            Jeron’s gaze slid to the shuttle. “Chinese stealth technology.”

            Violet raised an eyebrow. Tanner hadn’t mentioned that. “How the hell did you–“

            A flash of color swept behind Jeron. Only one hostage sat against the wall.

            “Stacks!” She lowered her gun and darted to the side.

            Jeron swiveled. “Dammit!”

            Violet sped around Jeron to get a clear angle down the hall. The general was hobbling through the adjacent storeroom, still half-bound. He was almost to the far door when Jeron fired.

            The flechette round grazed the general’s shoulder. He slipped to the ground in the storeroom. The projectile ricocheted off the bulkhead wall and struck one of the canisters. The canister popped and hissed, spinning in a tight circle. Burnt orange gas streamed out into the small room. It was still contained, but not for long.

            Violet lowered her shoulder and slammed into Jeron from the side, sending him flailing into the command room wall. She closed the distance to the storeroom doorway in two strides and punched the controls to seal the room. Inside, the general was already shrieking and clawing at his skin. Violet aimed and fired two rounds into his chest. The door slid shut, sealing the dead general and the ruptured Scrag canister inside.

            The station fell silent. The senator cowered in the corner, with no intention of following his old pal. One hostage down, and now the back half of the base was contaminated. What a mess.

            “Damn, Vee.” Jeron rubbed his side. “Still got it.”

            Violet looked up, and for a second it was her old friend standing before her.

            “You never could tie a knot,” she said.

            “Hey, I was a boy scout–“

            “Come back with me,” Violet said, stepping closer. “Let’s get out of here.”

            Jeron hesitated. “And go where?”

            “Back to Earth. We can drop off the grid, get lost together. Like old times.”

            Jeron’s expression softened. “We made a good team, you and me. You remember that time old Smith was tripping balls on chumba extract, and we strapped him to a pair of surface boosters?”

            Violet smirked. “First tobogganing run in Aeolis Mons history. And the worst. Thought Captain Suds was gonna burst an artery when he found out.”

            Jeron laughed. It was a thick, familiar sound.

            “Whatever happened to old Franken-Smith, anyway?” Jeron asked.

            Violet bit her lip. “Gone. They’re all gone. We’re all that’s left.”

            Jeron’s expression slackened. “All gone…”

            Violet took another step forward, and her bare arm brushed against his. “Come back to Earth, just you and me. Forget all this stuff.”

            Jeron smiled, and rested a hand on her shoulder. He looked down at her with his iridescent eyes, and a warmth surged inside her for the first time in years. His lower lip trembled, and all at once she wanted to feel him, hold him, taste him.

            His eyes shifted, and his expression grew cold. Behind those eyes, a battle raged.

            “I have to spread the spores.” His voice was distant. “Set them free.”

            Violet sighed. No sense in fooling herself.

            “Do you ever wonder if the Scrag is getting to you?” she said. “I mean, listen to yourself, man.”

            His face contorted into a frown. “What do you mean–“

            “I feel it too, sometimes. Like I only exist for its survival. Like I have to…keep it alive.”

            Jeron nodded, but his gaze was vacant. “I knew you’d understand. Will you help me?”

            Violet looked away. He was too far gone. Her fingers closed around the pen injector in her pocket first-aid kit.

            “One thing first,” she said.

            She wrapped her arm around his neck and drew him close. His lips were rough and salty, his breath hot. His body pressed against hers for a long moment before going limp in her arms, the pen injector protruding from the side of his neck.

            “Sorry, Stacks.”

            His body was heavy, but the strain on her muscles felt good as she dragged him to the shuttle. She hoisted him into a passenger seat and buckled him in, then returned for the senator. She tore the gag from the senator’s mouth before dragging the man across the floor to the hallway.

            “What are you going to do with me?” The senator’s voice was a trembling vibrato. “The SRB–“

            Violet hauled him into a nearby utility closet.

            “I’m not as cruel as you, Senator. You get to live with what you’ve done.”

            The senator’s eyes welled with tears.

            “Twenty-eight soldiers probably didn’t even register on your cost-benefit charts,” Violet said. “Six, seven years ago, I would’ve paid good money to watch you feel the agony. The fever in your veins, your flesh crawling like ants, the white-hot fire in your eyes.”

            The senator cowered, avoiding her gaze.

            “Guess you’re lucky. I’ve stopped caring.” Violet turned on her heel and marched off. “You should be safe here until the evac team arrives.”

            She slammed the door shut behind herself and checked her watch. Ten minutes.

            She got to work on the canisters. Jeron’s shuttle was stocked with a half-dozen incendiary explosives, and as she planted them around the Scrag tanks in the command room her body grew sluggish, her movements slowed. Her muscles fought against her. The Scrag wanted her to stop. She wanted herself to stop.

            Back in the shuttle bay, Violet sealed the command room doors and triggered the remote detonator. She watched through the wall of glass. Fire licked the canisters, setting off explosions as they burst into clouds of orange gas.

            A knot formed in her stomach. It was like watching genocide. Causing genocide. As the fires raged, her body grew colder, until she stood shivering in the bay, alone.

            “Oh, shit no!”

            Violet swiveled. Jeron was standing on the shuttle’s ramp, eyes wide. Impossible–she’d dosed him with enough tranquilizer to knock him out until this time tomorrow. Unless the Scrag’s resistance somehow suppressed it…

            “What the hell are you doing?” Jeron said.

            “What I had to do,” she said.

            “But Vee…” Jeron’s expression shifted from shock to terror. “I have to save them!”

            He charged the glass, drawing a sidearm from his calf and unloading. The barrier cracked and popped, but held tenuously.

            “Stacks, wait!”

            Violet tore after him. She caught up to him as he slammed his shoulder into the glass. She reached a hand out to stop him, but his body was already halfway through the shattered pane. Blood ribboned from a hundred cuts on Jeron’s body as he plunged into the command room. He ran from canister to shattered canister as fire engulfed his body. His eyes glowed like orange beacons, until they too were snuffed out by the fire.

            Violet collapsed to her knees just short of the broken glass. Smoke stung her eyes. A tank burst from inside the command room. Flames shot out through the hole in the glass, straight toward Violet.

            She bolted for the shuttle. Her boot caught on a beam a few paces from the ramp and she tumbled to the ground. The heat of the fire burned against her back, even through her hardened skin. She clawed her way to the ramp and into the shuttle. She pounded the release and the ramp swung shut.

            Violet checked her watch. Sixty seconds. She flipped on the comms.

            “Call off the nukes,” she said. “You’ll find the senator in the third wing utility closet.”

            “And the general?” Tanner’s voice crackled, strained with tension.

            “Negative.”

            “Cruz, what the hell happened in there? Return to the surface immediately–“

            Violet cut the comms. Tanner wouldn’t be waiting with a medal of honor. Now that they’d seen what the Scrag had done to Jeron, there was no way they’d let her walk. She was a liability.

            She ducked into the cockpit and strapped herself in. A jumble of Chinese characters lined the dashboard. She thumbed a few controls without luck, before stumbling across the primary power switch. The touchscreen interface sprang to life and welcomed her in English. Jeron’s doing, no doubt.

            Her fingers darted across the screen, and within moments the thrusters fired. She triggered the bay doors and programmed an exit pattern into the pilot computer. The walls hummed as the stealth technology kicked in.

            Outside the cockpit windshield, flames spilled into the docking bay, licking the shuttle’s black paint. The command room was a charred wasteland. In the center of the room, the blackened remains of a body clung to a blown-out Scrag canister in a final embrace.

            Violet punched the pilot to “ON”. The shuttle lifted off the ground and shot into space. The vast red landscape swept away beneath her. She leaned back and closed her eyes.

            Far in the distance, Earth awaited. Cities and lights and hatred and fear. The government would come looking for her. Even if she were able to disappear into the crowds and the bustle, how long could she resist the Scrag? If they’d missed this cache, no doubt they’d missed others. How long would it be before she wound up back here, hell-bent on spreading any remaining spores? Maybe three years. Five if she was lucky.

            Violet opened her eyes. The hell with that. Her hands moved slowly as if under water. Her muscles shook under the tension, the Scrag binding her from within.

            She drew in a slow, even breath. Not this time. Summoning her remaining strength, she reached out a trembling hand to override the ship’s warning.

            The shuttle burned a tight arc in the night sky until the red planet once again spun into view.

            Violet gripped her harness with tired hands. The shuttle screamed toward the surface. In the seconds before impact, she could still feel Jeron’s kiss on her lips. Even though it was just for a moment, it had felt good.

 

 

END