Chapter 17 part 6

"No, dummy," Carlos snapped. "The evasion jets aren't even firing."

Kivi apparently didn't like being called a dummy any more than the rest of us. She kicked him in the butt, and he caught her foot. He tried to twist it, but she snapped it back and threw a punch.

"Hey, hey," I said. "Let's get our gear on. This is for real."

"Oh yeah?" Carlos asked. "You knew, right? Let me guess: the date marked on your calendar? Or did Graves text you personally?"

"You know what, Carlos?" I said. "You're an even bigger asshole in the middle of the night."

Everyone laughed and loudly agreed. Carlos grumbled, but he shut up and put his gear together.

Five minutes later, we were jogging down the passages to the tubes. We shot down, one at a time. The arrows were lit yellow on the floor and walls—even the ceiling. Our squad number was easy to follow.

I knew long before we got there where we were headed. The team chit-chatted around me as we moved quickly toward the lower decks.

"It's not another drop?"

"Can't be."

"This is yellow-level…that could only mean we're boarding a lifter."

"At least we don't have to get fired out of the cannons again."

In general, the group was happy it wasn't going to be a hot drop. If the LZ was clean enough to allow a lifter to land, it had to be relatively safe.

We were herded aboard a lifter and clamped into place. Rows of troops faced one another, but few of us made eye-contact. Not even Carlos was up for any new jokes. We were tired and worried.
The troops had been elated when they'd pulled the legion off Cancri-9. My team had been left behind, of course, but most had seen it as a narrow escape. The assignment had been rough, and no one wanted to stick around to see just how many lizards they would throw at us the next day.

Now, however, that feeling of relief was over. We weren't going home. We weren't even going to another planet, another assignment. We were going back down onto a planet that had turned utterly hostile.

I leaned back and closed my eyes. The lifter shook, rattled and squeaked. I smelled hot metal and strange chemicals. Cold air and hot vapors chased over us as different parts of the ship vented and adjusted themselves. It was nothing like the luxury ride a passenger ship provided back home.

My head lolled, and I nearly fell asleep. Off and on, my chin touched my chest and woke me up.