An hour past lights out, Zorrah emerges from her bunk and trudges sleepily across the room. To any watchful eyes potentially leering at a display of darkened dorm rooms she looks like a half-asleep cadet who drank too much water after dinner.
Bracing herself with the doorframe, she takes a moment. She inhales deeply, as if taking a yawn break before continuing to the head. The pause continues a moment longer than it should, then she turns to face the racks of bunks within Serpent 6.
I peel my eyes, focusing through the dark for the signal.
She nods her head before continuing toward the showers. I wait a dozen seconds and pull back my sheets. Still in full uniform, I drop my bare feet to the floor. The room expands and contracts around me, as if it were a lung. I can’t see the bunks lining each wall from floor to ceiling, but I know the cadets sleeping in them. To an extent, their survival depends on me.
Gods, I swallow, don’t let me let them down. Clutching Zorrah’s uniform in my hand, I slip out of the room.
“Zorrah,” I whisper. “All good?”
“The eyes are down. All of them.”
I work my way across the pitch black latrine looking for her. “Where are you?”
“I had to go to the bathroom—I mean, hit the head.”
I swallow a laugh. “And I thought you were acting.”
“I was at first.”
I hear rustling from both ends of the room as Zorrah finishes up and the next member of the green ones enters. “Hello?” I ask.
“It’s Cera.”
A minute later Zorrah has gotten dressed and everyone has arrived, Yetic being the last. “And you’re sure the eyes are completely down? They won’t see or hear anything?”
“Yes,” Zorrah whispers emphatically. “It’s not rocket science.”
“No of course not. You just talk to computers,” Yetic retorts.
“They’re not computers—”
“Don’t try to explain it, unless you want his head to explode.” An unwanted voice joins the others. “What am I saying? By all means, continue.”
“Neca, what are you doing here?” Groping in the dark, I try to put myself between Yetic and Neca before a full-blown testosterone blowup ends our mission before it starts.
“Are you kidding? I’ve got more experience with this sort of thing than the rest of you combined. Other than Zorrah, I bet the rest of you have never so much as snuck a biscuit.”
“Back to your bunk, Nightmare,” the threat rises in Yetic’s voice. “This isn’t a booze run for the old man.”
“Then what is it?” Neca asks.
“Can it, both of you.” I clutch Yetic’s hand in the nick of time and turn toward the sound of Neca’s voice. “We’re fixing the broken combat chamber so what happened today doesn’t happen tomorrow.”
Neca whistles through his teeth.
I sigh. “You might as well come along, cadet. Your skill set could come in handy.”
“We don’t need him,” Yetic objects.
“Maybe not, but there’s no reason to take that chance, unless you two squabbling hens can’t silence your clucking for the next hour.” A wonderful silence fills the next few seconds. “Perfect. It’ll be the six from Serpent 6. Now let’s get out of here before it becomes seven.”
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