Page 4 of Mates for the Raskarrans #1-6

CHAPTER FOUR

Liv

E llie is certain that the monster she’s caught for us is going to make for a delicious meal. I’m not convinced, but after looking at the supplies in the escape pod, I’m game to try anything.

Because we have almost nothing.

Sure, there are a few first aid bits that Grace commandeers immediately, but in terms of food supplies, we’ve got maybe three or four portions of synth meats and vitamin supplements.

I don’t know how this escape pod could be built for twelve and yet stocked so poorly.

Except I do. Fucking Mercenia. They don’t give a damn about the welfare of their crews - there are thousands of bodies back on Earth, ready and waiting to replace anyone they lose out here.

The escape pod and supplies are just the bare minimum to make it look like they care.

Or perhaps it’s for when they are transporting important people, the supplies ordinarily much more comprehensive.

Either way, we don’t even have any bottled water to slake our thirst. There are a couple of flares though, and I think I’ll be able to light a fire using them so we can at least cook Ellie’s catch.

So, while Grace attends to Lorna, administering pain medication and trying to do something with her arm, the rest of us head for the forest, looking for fallen branches. There aren’t many, but between the ten of us, we manage to scrounge together enough to build a decent sized fire.

One of the girls, Sam, used to work in food prep, so she takes over the actual building and lighting.

Apparently, some of the rich people foods were actually flame grilled - makes them taste better, according to Sam.

It seems a very primitive and unnecessary way of producing food, but I’m grateful for the extravagance of the rich, because it means Sam knows how to sort the fire for us.

While the damp wood fizzles and pops, I turn my attention to Lorna and her injured arm.

It’s already going a nasty purple colour, swelling in the wrist and into her hands. Lorna grits her teeth and doesn’t complain, but when she doesn’t think anyone’s looking, her lips start to wobble. She knows she’s going to be in trouble if we don’t get her proper medical treatment soon.

Hell, we’re all going to be in trouble if Mercenia don’t come for us soon.

I push it to the back of my mind. No use dwelling on things I can’t control.

It takes a while, but Sam gets the fire going.

The new sticks we feed it spit and crackle as the flames boil out the moisture, and I hope the noise repels rather than attracts any predators.

Because there must be some. Earth rainforests were home to big cats and alligators, or was it crocodiles?

I always got those monstrous lizards confused as a kid.

Whatever. They’re both fast moving, with enormous mouths and too many teeth.

And then there are the poisonous insects and frogs, fish with razor-sharp teeth, snakes…

The slice of sand between the water and the trees feels like an island of safety, but I’m keenly aware that we’re going to have to leave it before long. Ellie’s catch might feed us tonight, but it’s not like there’s an abundance of the strange, spiny creatures.

“I walked a long way down the sand,” she says when I ask her about it. “Just trees and sea as far as the eye could see. Plenty of birds, if only we had a way of catching them. Probably fish, too. But I didn’t see any more of these crawlers. Shame. It was easy to kill.”

I don’t challenge her about wandering off on her own because no one put me in charge and it’s nice that someone has shown some initiative rather than just cowering together on the sand.

Sam cooks Ellie’s kill and though some of the others start off squeamish about it, hunger soon wins out.

Grace feeds Lorna so she doesn’t knock her bad arm.

I accept the leg handed to me and nibble on the flesh that sticks out of the end of it.

It’s juicy and flavoursome - completely different to the jelly-like synth meats I’m used to eating.

I hold it against my tongue, letting the meat melt in my mouth.

It’s quite a pungent flavour, but in a good way.

Strong and almost a little bit sweet. I rip the hard outer shell of the leg open, pulling the flesh out from inside it, stuffing more of the tender meat into my mouth.

When I’ve scraped the leg clean, I suck the juices from my fingers, not even minding the bit of grit and sand that my tongue picks up.

Silence settles over our little group as everyone eats.

I look round at the faces. I haven’t spent much time getting to know them on our flight out here.

They’re all lottery winners, lucky recipients of a place on Alpha Colony, Earth’s first colony on another planet.

I think they’re all happy to be that, though I know not everyone was.

Certainly not the woman who traded places with me.

It shouldn’t have been possible. We’re all ID chipped and logged in Mercenia’s systems. When the back alley butcher took my ID chip from my arm and switched it with hers, it didn’t replace the photographs on records.

It didn’t swap her blonde hair for my dark.

But she went to my work the next day without incident, and I boarded the ship to Alpha Colony without a second glance from anyone.

When it comes down to it, I think us bottom tier workers are so disposable to Mercenia Corp, they just don’t give a shit who’s who.

Which doesn’t fill me with confidence about what their intentions are for us on Alpha Colony.

The others talk about the small holdings they’ve won with starry-eyed enthusiasm, blessing Mercenia in one breath, while thanking the stars for their luck in another.

It’s why I’ve not gone out of my way to befriend them.

My face might blend just fine, but my cynicism does not.

But whatever Alpha Colony holds, I have to get there. Have to.

Khadija is the only one I’ve spoken at any length to.

She’s a cynical bastard like me, and doesn’t hold much hope for Alpha Colony.

In whispered conversations late at night, she confessed to me that it was better this unknown - the possibility of change and happiness - than the inevitability of being worked to an early death by Mercenia in the warehouses.

I get that, and I respect her for having the balls to take the chance, although I think my steady diet of contraband fiction has given me a greater imagination than most. Because I can think of a whole load of terrible things that could be waiting on Alpha Colony that would be far worse than the predictable, short life back on Earth.

Thinking about the books makes me think of my sister.

Sally. She took this same journey ten years ago, back when there wasn’t a lottery, but a contract.

Work your ass off getting Alpha Colony set up, and we’ll reward you with a small holding.

Her plan was to head out there, get her small holding, then earn the money to fly me out to join her.

When I didn’t hear anything from her for six months, I figured she was too busy, that lines of communication were poor, that everything was going to plan and when I did hear, it would be summoning me to join her.

I was twelve years old and not yet divorced of optimism.

When I hadn’t heard from her in two years, I went to Mercenia for answers.

I wouldn’t have got them if another family far more important than mine hadn’t been fighting for them, too.

Their daughter was a medic - like Grace, but only in title.

Where Grace is a medic for the lower tiers, this woman was apparently a trainee doctor, looking to set up a surgery on Alpha Colony.

You can disappear a bottom tier worker, but you can’t disappear a trainee doctor.

Soon, Mercenia’s bigwigs had come out with a story about a collapsed building, along with reassurance that it was a freak occurrence, unprecedented and impossible to predict. Several people had been victims, crushed to death, and my sister was one of them.

But I don’t buy that for a second. Too clean, too convenient. If it was true, they’d have told that doctor lady’s family straight away.

I think something, or someone, went horribly wrong out in Alpha Colony. I think my sister was a victim of more than just an unfortunate freak accident. And I’m going to find out the truth if it’s the last thing I do.

As we finish eating, the light starts to fade, and we all watch the skies and the tree line with apprehension.

“We should set a watch,” Khadija says.

“So we can see the thing that’s going to eat us coming?” One of the others says.

“Better that than not see it coming,” Ellie says, her grin almost feral. “I’ll take the first watch.”

She’s clutching the weapon she’s made, the one she used to kill the crawler. It’s a bit of sheared off metal tied to a pole with the ripped sleeves of her jumpsuit. Crude, but scary, and apparently effective.

“We should do it in pairs,” I say, “there are enough of us. I’ll watch with you Ellie.”

Khadija volunteers for the next watch, and Sam offers to pair with her. The others grudgingly begin to sort themselves into pairs, with only Lorna and Grace left without a shift. Which is fine. The medic needs to be on hand to deal with any problems, and Lorna needs her rest.

The sand doesn’t make for comfortable sleeping.

Some of the girls go back in to the escape pod to lie on the chairs, while others try to create a blanket out of the escape pod’s parachute.

It flaps about a lot in the slight breeze, but with a number of them lying on it, it doesn’t shift too much, and it beats getting coated in sand.

I stay perched where I am, and Ellie comes to sit next to me.

We don’t talk, not until the bodies on the blanket stop shifting, and the sound of breathing shifts to deep and steady. Even then, we remain quiet a while longer, like we’ve both agreed beforehand not to say a word until we’re sure the others are asleep.

“So,” Ellie says, eventually. “Chances of Mercenia bothering to rescue our asses?”

“It’s a very fine collection of asses,” I say, “but...”

“Zero?”

“Probably.”

Ellie’s quiet again for a moment.

“You know,” she says, “when they announced the lottery program, I was looking for the catch. I figured at best it was a way of keeping the bottom tiers in line, you know? That whole rule about you can’t get a place if you’ve had a sanction of any kind.”

“Yeah,” I say. I’d had the same thought, but quickly moved on to more sinister explanations. Experimentation, slavery, exploitation.

“Well, I figure if that’s the best-case scenario, us dying out here doesn’t make it any less effective. And rescuing people is surely expensive. So, logically...”

“We’re screwed.”

“Yup.” She exaggerates the pop of the ‘p’ sound, staring off towards the forest. “Think we’ve got a chance of surviving?”

“I’d say it’s greater than our chance of rescue.”

Ellie gives a dark laugh, but it is a laugh.

“Screw Mercenia and their Alpha Colony,” she says. “I’m going to survive the hell out of this. Make my own small holding here. Rule as queen of this planet.”

The firelight glints off her teeth as she grins at me.

“Can I be queen, too?”

She pretends to consider me. “We could get married. Rule as partners.”

“You’re very not my type. In an anatomical way.”

Ellie laughs. “You’re not mine either, but it’s going to get real lonely out here, just the twelve of us. No men.”

I think of my not so little green man. I wonder if my brain will be kind enough to conjure him up for me again tonight.

“There’s always our dreams,” I say.