FORESIGHT and SCOPE: BOOK TWO

C H A P T E R F O R T Y-S E V E N

FERN'S POV

My chin and mouth rested sluggishly in my palm as my body slumped in the co-pilot's seat. I zoned out for the entire journey to our destination and did not realize we had leapt out of hyperspace until—

"Fern," Tech tapped my arm, breaking my trance. "I am beginning the landing sequence. I require your assistance."

"Yes, sorry." I straightened my posture. "Starting the landing sequence now." I could feel Tech's attentive eyes boring into me from my left. I huffed, "Yes?"

"You are anomalously distracted today."

"Not distracted." I corrected, tightly gripping the controls. "I'm just not thrilled about this excavation mission Cid has us on. Nothing can go right when it comes to abandoned mineshafts. Ever since she handed us the coordinates to Ipsidon, I've had this bad feeling." My lips pouted in frustration. "Additionally, I'm not feeling well, so apologies if I'm quiet today." I flipped a switch above my head.

"W-would you care for a med pack?" the intellectual clone shyly offered. Without turning my gaze to him, I could hear him rummaging through his pack next to him. I scoffed lightly and shook my head. "I appreciate it, Tick. I'm fine. Promise."

We maneuvered the Marauder through the sparse clouds as we descended below the atmosphere, revealing a vast desert planet that was engraved with a labyrinth of deep canyons of bright clay-orange rock. It may be a sunny day now, but I had read about the sporadic sandstorms that were prone to conduct lightning. Combine that with the fact we were on our way to distillate a highly-volatile mineral fueled (no pun intended) my disinterest in the mission collectively. Scattered in select regions were rippling mountainous walls where one could easily hide a ship out of sight and travel along its bordering ledges. We followed the coordinates to one of these areas and touched down within the cover of shade.

When the ramp lowered, my lungs heaved from the stuffy, humid air. While Omega beside me secured her leather headgear, I slipped off my jacket with the light-blue details, folded it, and deposited it in our shared compartment. After tugging down my skin-tight, black sark and adjusting the high collar around my neck with two fingers, I worked on reknotting my combat boots.

"Will you not need your jacket, Fern?" the young girl asked.

"Not if I don't want to die of heat stroke, Half-Pint." I chuckled at my joke. I noticed her starting to remove hers and I stopped her. "You, on the other hand, will be fine. We won't be here long anyway." Omega frowned momentarily, as if she was disappointed I wouldn't allow her to follow my example, but nevertheless nodded with a small grin. I handed her our essential gear for our peculiar mission.

Once the boys geared up, we each stepped down the ramp in a single file. I flipped my long braid over my shoulder and adjusted my grey headband as I scanned our surroundings, shielding my eyes from the sand-suffused breeze. At the nose of the Marauder, the rugged ground dropped into a deep crevice. The narrow path that led to our designated ipsium mine sharply curved around the looming wall. Once we carefully swiveled around, we only trekked about a kilometer to reach an elevated platform at the foot of a giant, metallic, circular door. There was a control box, in which Tech volunteered to operate.

"Ipsium is a tremendously valuable resource when refined. However, in its raw state—" he started to inform while he hiked up the platform steps.

"—'it is highly combustible, like an erratic supernova.'" I reilerated in verbatim from the foot of the stairs while I observed the intricacies of the sealed entrance. "Yes, yes, we were all at the briefing, Wired-Brain. And in the cockpit when you repeated yourself. Twice."