Our Existence Is Scandal

✦7✦

"I'm confused, you guys thought I was giving you these suits so you could go and open a little metal door, glance inside it, and then come and tell me what you see?"

We continued to stare at her for a few seconds before Astra nodded slowly. Tempest snorted "If I wanted to know what was in it so badly I would just get Deimos to rip it out of the ground and bring its remains," She raised an eyebrow "Of course, you were going to get into the dome!"

"I didn't sign up for that," I told her honestly, "I'm tired, haven't eaten in hours, and because of this?" I held up my wrist "Weak. I was barely in the right shape to walk here much less infiltrate a hostile alien settlement."

"I wouldn't ask you to do it if I didn't believe you could," Tempest assured us. Astra frowned.

"If it's so easy why haven't you done it?'

It's like she'd stolen the words right out of my mouth. Tempest was bold, far from helpless, and was armed with a pet that looked like it devoured planets as it was past time. If all her people were like her then it was a wonder they'd been killed off in the first place.

So it either there was something she wasn't telling us or she was-

"You're scared," Astra blurted, her eyes softening. "Don't even try to deny it, it's written all over your face. That's why you live like this and haven't made an attempt to take your home back, settling for making their lives slightly difficult. You're petrified of them."

"I would be stupid not to," Tempest said, hanging her head "And you would be too. You-" She let out a breath "You have no idea what they can do, what I have seen them do."

Astra opened her mouth but closed it sharply. "So you'd rather risk our lives then?" I asked her, feeling less sorry for her by the minute "We just look like the perfect test dummies to you?"

Tempest shrugged "It's not like you have a choice," She tilted her head "You hope to leave this place, don't you? See your families again? Unfortunately for you, your freedom lies in the walls of that dome. And I'm not going into it."

"And that's the plan?" Astra was now looking at me "We're just going to risk our lives for the small chance we can pull this off?"

I kept my eyes on Tempest, her feathers still pointed at the sky defensively "Do you have a better idea?"

Astra put her head in her hands "I'm going to die."

"No curly, you're getting off this planet," Tempest promised, her eyes glancing at her before connecting back with mine "We all are."

"I'm not comforted by empty promises," I said, turning my eyes to the dome before us "And I don't like this plan and I don't like that it's the only one we have and I don't like her," I gestured to Astra with a nod of my head "But, I cannot die on this planet."

She nodded "I will not either."

"The suits I've given to you are from a set which means we can communicate via our helmets, privately," She pointed to the buttons that lined my forearm "I'll be talking to Sol back on forth, Astra's communicator is damaged so once we get too far I won't be able to talk to her," She ran her fingertip over the only black button "This one will mute you, under no circumstances and I mean none are you to press it, do you hear me Sol?" My wandering eyes met hers again "If we cannot communicate we have nothing. If we have nothing, we are already dead."