Renegade Redhead by F. E. Arliss

Author:F. E. Arliss
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Space Opera, SciFi
Published: 2017-10-27T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Finding the Cavern

It took them five weeks to get back to the barren world the expedition had marked as uninhabitable. They also had taken several day-long stops behind asteroids and moons to make sure they weren’t being tracked. Sasha had Blue run extensive sweeps and checks to remove any sort of tracking or monitoring devices that could put them in jeopardy. He found six the first sweep. Unbelievable, Ryo! She thought. The second sweep found one. The third and fourth sweeps turned up nothing. She even had him check the sanitation system. Ryo was nothing if not sneaky.

Sasha liked that their destination was far, far away and off to the side of any possible return of the Intergalactic Guard exploration. Hopefully, they’d never have to see any of those people again. She experienced a little twinge of regret over Ryo Donji though. She had liked him. A lot.

During those weeks, Sasha had time to finally process what she had done. At least, what she and Dolores had done. They had pulverized tons of moon rock. Not an easy fete with explosives, let alone the mind! It also had drained her. She needed to work on building back up her reserves. It had completely zeroed her out. Then, being marooned had kicked the crap out of her when she was already depleted. Sasha explained that to her three crew members and then withdrew for most of each day into her own tiny bunk room. No one seemed to mind.

Sasha played with Zilla each night while blaring rock tunes through the comms system. The crew seemed not to mind. After an hour or two, she would crumple, and sleep cradled under Zilla’s bristly chin, resting comfortably wedged between one great forearm and his heaving chest. The sound of his breath and heartbeat were better than any white noise machine she’d ever experienced.

She joined them each night for dinner and spoke about what she found on the planet they were headed to. The more she explained, the more she could see ideas forming in their heads and hers. Plans were thrown around and discussed. By the time they reached the small orb known as RE181, they all knew their jobs.

Simi had manufactured Caja a synthetic arm, and given it several different types of upgrades. It now sported blue optic fiber sensors, and a mega-strength internal frame that could crush a dinosaur’s spine. He also coated it with a substance that Simi had analyzed as being as close to the cloaking cover on the Slingshot as he could get. The energy of Caja’s brain impulses worked the arm, but the cloaking caused it to look like he didn’t have an appendage from the elbow down.

“Cool,” Sasha had crowed, “a stealth arm. That’s sneaky, Simi. Caja, you’ll be able to surprise the crap out of people thinking you’ve got a deficit on that side. It’s genius!”

Caja hadn’t seemed quite so sure, but got used to it quickly. He put a layer of tinted paint over it so that it was visible at first.

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