Losing

‘I’m getting off Syraw and that’s final.’

‘Elizabeth! Eliza-’

‘Next stop, Syraw.’

‘Even if it’s a Ludenguard Installation? Liz-’

‘Let her go Captain. She’s angry - needs time to cool off.’

I looked to Davvy. He'd succeeded in stopping me from following Liz into the garden but still managed to piss me off. Doctors and their cool, who’d have them? This had all been inevitable though, Liz hated me. I could feel it when she looked at me - though she’d avoided me for the best part of two weeks. Since I’d come back and...well, we’d travelled to that wind-blasted little rock that turned out to be a death trap. I wish I’d known her better before then, hell I wish we’d never gone there in the first place.

‘Syraw...Captain, are you OK?’

‘Yeah Davvy, fine.’ I waited for him to look away. This is why I liked wearing my mask - I’d never been too hot at hiding things without it. He went to sit by Melody who was busy leafing through a palm-top book I couldn’t see, her eyebrows rising very slightly as she nudged the doctor to show him something. If I was gonna lose more crew at the Ludenguard Installation, the least I could do was gain a powerful weapon in return.

I wondered how Lem was doing, I’d had to give him most of my rations as part of our deal so the others wouldn’t suspect. My stomach protested almost immediately. Without thinking I pushed open the doors into the ships humid garden, luckily Liz had moved on and was nowhere in sight. I stared down at the plants and followed their roots through the aqua-blue hydroponic minerals. The garden was about the only thing I hadn’t destroyed in recent history. Never mind – perhaps soon things would start to look up...