Then the repressive heat seemed to ease slightly. Maren drew a breath, and though it still burned her lungs, it wasn’t as intolerable as it had been before. The glow faded, and Maren could make out the shapes below them. Saul was keeping the ship low, only a dozen meters above the dunes. Maren looked upwards through the window in the ship’s ceiling and felt her heart skip a beat. The gamma flares drifted above them, flowing through the sky like a torch’s light through a dark room. The flare painted the heavens white with electric flecks of blue swirling through it. She’d always thought her planet’s eternal sunset was one of the prettiest things she’d ever seen, but the deadly vision that wove across the sky took her breath away.

Saul flew the ship for another four kilometres while Maren and Gin admired the lights. When the temperature returned to endurable levels and the white glow was distant enough to no longer pose a threat, he lowered the ship onto a clear patch of desert. The craft shuddered and groaned as it hit the planet’s surface, warning that the hull likely wouldn’t withstand much more abuse. Maren patted the armrests, silently thanking it for holding together for as long as it had.

“Jeeze,” Gin said after a moment’s pause. “I can’t believe we’re actually alive.”

Maren glanced at Saul. He’d collapsed back in his seat and closed his eyes as he drew deep, long breaths through his nose. Now that the temperature had returned to a pleasantly toasty level, sweat developed over his face. “Nice work, Saul,” Maren said.

Though he didn’t open his eyes, his mouth twitched upwards at the corners.

Maren undid her harness and stumbled through the cabin, the shock and adrenaline making her legs unsteady. She went to the storage cupboards at the back of the room and dug through them. Then she returned to her seat with three bottles of water and passed them out. “Drink up. I’m betting we’re all pretty dehydrated right now.”

“Are we going to be safe here?” Gin broke the seal on her bottle’s lid and took a long drink. “The flare can’t leak around the planet?”

“Nah. It’s like light. It can only travel in a straight line.” The water had been stored in its plastic bottle for months, and Maren knew it should taste terrible, but at that moment, it was one of the sweetest things she’d ever drunk. She consumed half of her bottle in one go then sat back and inhaled deeply. The pilot room was gradually cooling to just a little warmer than average room temperature. Her throat still felt raw, but she seemed otherwise fine.

“I can’t believe those guys were Cymics,” Gin said, curling up in her chair. She’d kicked her shoes off and shed her pink jacket. “They seemed so… normal.”

“They were probably planning to keep up the façade for a few hours,” Maren said. “They’d get us in the ship, make us feel safe, and tell us they were taking us back to Central. They wouldn’t make a move until we were off guard, without our guns, and separated in different parts of the ship. Hell, they might have even meant to play it extra safe and attack while we were sleeping.”