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Chapter Text

Company employee #5225 (more commonly known as 'Iris') was spray painting the walls of a facility with the innards of a hoarding bug when she noticed she was being stalked.

Something dark and silent shifted at the edge of her vision as she came up from the last shovel swing. Green viscera glooped onto the walkway. Iris glanced up, adrenaline still surging, and briefly locked eyes with the shadowy figure lurking in the doorway. A rustle of spiky leaves, a low growl, and the creature was gone.

Bracken.

She had the distinct impression that it would not be gone for long. Iris hefted the handle of her lucky shovel and took a long breath to calm her heart rate. The flower guys usually didn’t get aggressive unless provoked, but you needed to keep an eye out in case they started hunting. More intelligent than most of the creatures Company employees came across, bracken liked to play games of hide and seek in the dark, and had a nasty habit of sneaking up on scavengers who turned their backs.

Accepted survival strategy suggested to glance at it to spoil its attempt to sneak up on you. Otherwise, it was categorically a Really Bad Idea to try to square up or fight. Iris had recovered enough bodies to know what a bracken could do to a human neck when given the chance.

And this one was stalking her. Which meant it was time to head for the exit, as calmly and quickly as possible. After a moment of thought, she shrugged, and reached for her tool belt. Couldn't hurt to radio over the intel.

"Bracken on me," she said into her walkie-talkie, and promptly turned it off again without waiting for a response. Sigma's comms from the ship weren't likely to be particularly insightful, and Iris preferred to move quietly, without any unnecessary radio chatter.

Kicking aside the newly deceased hoarding bug in her path, she lifted a sheet of corrugated metal onto her back. After being hard at work for six hours, she already had a bunch of junk and scrap stuffed in her pockets, and another big piece waiting outside. Job well done, time to go. Lingering around was what got you killed in this business.

And she had been about to head back for some food anyway. You needed to eat whenever you got the chance with this job. Worst case scenario, that meant stuffing your face with dehydrated snacks right before passing out at 2am, or wolfing down protein bars at 6am. On a good day, like today, she might have the rare chance to heat up some 'noodles'. The Company's menu was pretty dire. Identifiable meat was a luxury. Vegetables were a forgotten extravagance.

She'd forgotten what being full felt like, honestly.

With her stomach groaning at the thought of satisfaction it would never receive, Iris shouldered her haul and walked briskly towards the fire exit, spinning around every so often to check she wasn't being followed. Little chalk marks she'd etched on the walls kept her on the right path. She couldn't hear Aaron or Blevins on this side of the facility, but they had gone in separately, so she didn't consider the silence any cause for concern.

Her own footsteps were the only echoes in these abandoned hallways. Two corridors and a stairwell to go, already cleared. No problem.

Threats you couldn't hear were always the worst, and Company helmets didn't do much to assist peripheral vision. Iris had to turn her whole body to monitor the full 360 degrees of potential-attack-direction. Not that there would be much she could actually do if a bracken swooped out of nowhere. Her beloved lucky shovel wasn't going to be enough.

And she might have to rename her favourite weapon at this rate. It was damned unlucky to even see a flower man on 21-Offense. Unsurprisingly, they were much more common on moons with more vegetation. Offense was a wasteland.

Nothing better to eat than dumb human scavengers, her brain supplied helpfully.

Yeah. The demon stalking her was just as hungry as she was. Wonderful.

A metallic squeak made her jump a little. A vent? Or a rusty hinge?

One more corridor, just one stairwell. She cast the beam of her flashlight at the shadows, listening so hard for signs of danger that her own pulse became a drowning rush.

One stairwell. Iris scanned through the glass panel of the door, seeing the red light of the fire exit not far below. Clear.

She turned back. The corridor behind her was still empty. A few old webs, some dark stains, a few dents and soot stains, hints of violence, but none of it recent. Clear.

Iris opened the door and closed it behind her. Just a few steps to the exit. All good. No big deal. She was halfway down the stairwell, each step rattling heavily with all the extra weight of scrap, when sudden movement made every hair on her arms stand on end.

Fuck. A shadow stepped right in front of the exit, black on red.

Iris backed up a step and froze in place, averting her gaze towards the wall, wondering in a panic what to do. She had not expected the bracken to appear in front of her rather than behind. That wasn't a very sneaky hunting strategy. Did it intend to attack her outright?

Under the emergency lighting, she had caught a better look at it. Long limbs, earthy reddish-brown skin. Tall, even for a flower man, with a scattering of nasty-looking scars on its right shoulder, maybe from a turret, or some kind of shrapnel. The petal-like protrusions on the same side were torn. This monstrosity had survived some gnarly shit. So the chances of it being in any way intimidated by a tiny human woman burdened with loot were - let's be real - next to zero. Bug squashing abilities aside.

The biggest problem right now was that the bracken had met her gaze but refused to move. It stood still, blocking her escape. Probably deciding whether she looked edible, Iris thought, clenching her jaw. She needed to turn and leave, make for the main entrance or circle back, but she was paralysed with the thought that backing down right now would make her seem like prey.

Didn't bracken attack running targets? Or was that bears?

Just when she was convinced she had fatally miscalculated their standoff, the bracken broke the spell. Silent as mist, it slinked away under the stairs and through an open door.

Oh, shit. Thank fuck.

Iris resisted the temptation to sprint mindlessly to the exit. Tripping on the stairs would not be ideal, given the circumstances, and she wasn't sure what was going through her stalker's twisted little mind. Whatever. She was alive. Time to GTFO quick, before it changed its mind about skulking around and went into full attack mode.

Completely unbothered and definitely not trembling like a leaf, she opened the fire door and stepped into the sunlight. Whistling winds and a plume of moon dust on her visor reaffirmed her continued survival. Alive for another day.

Nice to know that close calls could still rattle her. There were so many with this job, she was starting to lose count. Only a few days into her Company service, she had watched a friend explode on a mine, close enough for the blast to knock her off her feet. Pieces of the poor guy had splattered her suit, and when she'd finally had the chance to clean her gear during a flood on 61-March, she had found a clump of his hair and scalp still stuck in her belt. A day later, a new girl had started sinking into mud on 41-Experimentation, and screamed for minutes over the radio even when she'd sunk well out of sight. Not forever though. The limited air in her suit ran out, and she fell unconscious. They never recovered that body. Over the next month of Company service, Iris had witnessed pretty much every gruesome way a human could be suffocated, torn apart or crushed to death.

So yeah. Getting scared again was a good sign. After everything, she had been getting worried that she was desensitised to fear and violence. But there was still some sense of self-preservation left. Good to know.

She put up a hand to shield her vision. No sign of her shipmates through the hot mid-afternoon haze. They'd be coming out the main entrance, anyway. No reason to care yet.

Her whole body ached by the time she dragged her haul to the ship. 4 pm. Good time to stop for the day. Plenty of time to rest and recover her strength. For killing another hoarding bug, she would carve a new notch into the handle of her lucky shovel, grab food, and then get whatever sleep she could.

Complications arose the moment she came into view around the back of the ship. Employee #5354, the self-appointed 'crew coordinator' calling himself Sigma, was still bent over the ship monitor. He looked up as she deposited her haul, clearly stressed. Sweat glistened off his brow in the fluorescent lighting, dripping on the inside of his helmet.

"Blevins and Aaron are trapped in a room with a pair of spiders outside," he said, without so much as a hello. "Go help them out. I'll guide you."

Iris shook out the tension from her sore shoulders, grabbed a protein bar, and lay on her bunk. "There's a bracken in the mix there too," she said. "I'm not going back this late. Teleport them out."

Sigma shook his head, and a drop of either perspiration or condensation trickled down the inside of his visor.

"Teleporter's fucked," he reminded her. "The autopilot malfunctioned a while back and crashed the ship."

Oh yeah. The three of them might have mentioned that in passing when she first came on board a couple of days ago. Between the veiled threats and innuendos, she hadn't been listening much. Iris was not what you might call a team player. Meeting quota alone was next to impossible, so she worked in crews by necessity, but gathered her own scrap, and worried about her own welfare. No friends. No regrets.

Sigma's walkie-talkie crackled. There were a few panicked words, a scraping noise, some interference. Iris shrugged and ignored them.

"I need to rest," she insisted. "Go after them yourself if you want."

Sigma eyed the loot already stored away. It was obvious what he was thinking. With what she had just brought on board, there was more than enough to meet next quota.

"Do you think I'm stupid?" he sneered, adding spittle to the moisture in his helmet. "I know what you did to your last squad. I'm not getting abandoned on this hellscape overnight."

The coward spent all day hiding behind monitor screens, then felt entitled to ask her to play hero for men she didn't know? Go figure.

"No sense in more of us dying," Iris shrugged. "Go or stay, your choice."

Sigma didn't respond. If he was considering righteously beating her head in with a yield sign, he kept that to himself. Over the next minutes, and then the next hour, he watched the monitor, anxiously tapping his feet. No change. Iris glanced over occasionally while she carved the new notch in her shovel handle. The red dots indicating spiders had not budged.

Around 5 pm, the worried voices on the radio went silent. Aaron and Blevins' life signs were still moving around on the monitor behind the same locked bulkhead, but their radios had clearly died. The red spots indicating the spiders were static.

Iris tried to fight down the idiotic thoughts, but to no avail.

It's only spiders. I've taken down worse. I'm quick, and quiet. I could do it.

But why put herself in peril for strangers? Hadn't she already learned this lesson before, over and over again? Survival was all that mattered. Getting back alive and meeting the quota came first. No friends. No attachments. No regrets.

Here's the thing. Iris was resigned to being disliked.

They had all read her service record. No matter how competent she was, they all knew what she did to her last crew. And even if a squad decided they were willing to ignore her history, sometimes it was enough to put them off that she was only 5 feet tall and female. Given the choice, most crews preferred to pick stronger employees, with bigger arms and broader backs. To handle more scrap. Or carry bodies back to the ship.

For much longer than she would have preferred, Iris had been stuck doing solo runs, constantly applying to join crews but getting rejected. With three-day quotas steadily increasing towards impossible heights, facing dangers a single scavenger couldn't possibly hope to face alone, she had been getting desperate.

These guys? Crass, confident, loud. They were assholes, but some of their bad attitude was warranted. They had just lost a friend last week, and understandably didn't like being stuck with a colleague who couldn't be trusted. Luckily for Iris, though, all of their other options had been first-timers, fresh recruits who would screw up even a straightforward run.

And so, here she was.

The fact that they all hated her guts didn't bother her one bit. Iris took care of herself, and no-one else. It was better that way. All she needed to do was kill time, wait for her stellar performance to be noticed by the Company, then secure a promotion to another sector of employment. Hopefully, she'd have a less dangerous job. Maybe at a desk. With a coffee maker. Somewhere warm, with nice weather. Air conditioning. Fewer colleagues.

That was the dream. And apparently, she was willing to let everyone around her die in order to achieve it. Right.

When did I become such a coward?

She got up. 5:30 pm. It would start getting dark soon.

"You're going back in?" Sigma's eyes were wide.

Iris didn't reply. She plugged in her walkie-talkie and flashlight to charge the batteries to full, then grabbed her lucky shovel and stepped out into the darkening haze.

——|———|——

In theory, this would be straightforward. Lure the spiders away from the bulkhead, into a mine or something, then GTFO fast. In and out, stealthy and silent.

Without loot to carry, she was much lighter on her feet, kicking up plumes of moon dust as she skidded towards the main entrance. Out of sight behind the rock formations, a baboon hawk let out a haunting shriek. Dusk was setting in.

"Going in," she whispered into her walkie talkie.

"Take a right, then two lefts," Sigma replied, crackling over the radio. "Bulkhead is marked J2. It'll be dark. There's a turret on the way but I'll disable it from here. Be careful."

To be fair to Sigma, he was actually providing decent directions. The sincerity of be careful caught her a bit off guard, but maybe she had not given him enough credit for being human. He just wanted to see his friends again.

Iris opened the main doors as quietly as possible. There was a cool chill in the entryway, palpable even through her suit. The lights were out. Either Blevins or Aaron must have unplugged the generator and taken the apparatus. Everything was too quiet.

"Going quiet," she whispered, and turned off her walkie-talkie.

Scanning the room and finding nothing amiss, Iris went right. A turret flashed orange but deactivated as she crept through the next hallway (thanks Sigma). Careful not to trip in the dark, she pivoted around to check for signs of her stalker from earlier. The bracken had been on the other side of the facility before, but more than enough time had passed for the creature to skulk over here.

No need to freak out, though. This would be a quick rescue operation. Chances were good that the bracken wouldn't even notice she was back.

In the next room, there was no visibility at all. Iris flicked on her flashlight and realised there was a steam leak. Nothing to be concerned about. A quick scan found nothing dangerous. She kept her breathing steady, and searched for the sound of the leak, reaching out and finding a valve. The steam cleared, and her flashlight pierced into the corridor. Damp walls, dirty cement floors. Spiderwebs, but no spiders. Yet.

Another left. She marked the wall with chalk, but suspected her exit might be too rushed to even bother looking for marks. The facility branched out into a warren of dank passages. Motes of dust floated through the beam of her flashlight. Silvery threads glistened.

Webs almost completely obstructed one direction. Skinny beanpole Aaron might have squeezed through those tight gaps, but Blevins would have had to go another route. They moved as a pair, so they probably didn't go that way.

An extra scan, to be safe. Iris exhaled softly. She hadn't noticed it, but there was a snare flea down the opposite hallway. She did not want to have her face sucked off today, thank you very much. Best not to wake up the nasty thing at all.

Well, that simplified things. If the left route was blocked and the right was also a no-go, then -

Fuck. The bracken was straight ahead.

Caught in the beam of her flashlight, the flower man trilled softly, and rustled out of sight around a corner at the end of the passageway. Which presented Iris with quite the predicament. Now she had to creep towards the bastard. Great.

It occurred to her, at this critical moment, that she should just leave. The exit was only a few rooms away. And the bracken was not at this point in time blocking said exit. Later, there would be no such guarantee.

But hey. Fortune favoured the bold. Or something like that.

Iris straightened her back, squared her shoulders, and proceeded down the hallway. More branching paths, and down one of them, her flashlight illuminated the many legs and eyes of a pair of huge bunker spiders. One of them was dormant on the ceiling, happily waiting for some hapless fool to walk underneath. The other one was scuttling around just outside a bulkhead marked J2, evidently able to smell its prey, but unable to reach it. This area was thick with webs, probably their nest. Frankly, Iris wasn't sure how Aaron and Blevins had managed to get past the nest in the first place.

Alright. Options.

She had killed a bunker spider before, in the usual fashion, bashing its brains out with her shovel. Iris still didn't like her odds against two. And she really disliked her odds against two spiders with a bracken on the loose.

Speaking of which, the flower man was probably just a few feet away, waiting for her to back herself into a corner, at which point it would gleefully twist her head off her shoulders. A shiver passed through her, anxious sweat moistening the insides of her gloves. She could feel hungry eyes upon her. Watching. Enjoying the hunt, no doubt.

Daft little human, to return to the den of beasts after escaping.

Daft indeed, to think she could save anyone.

Screw it. She was running out of time, sick of sneaking around waiting to be slaughtered. There was a door leading into a stairwell behind where the bracken had been. She fumbled for her radio. At the sound of the device turning on, the spiders both twitched.

"Open the door in a few seconds," Iris said. The alert spider started walking in her direction. "And get ready to turn off that turret when they start running."

Sigma took a second to respond, then whispered. "Understood."

Iris turned off her radio. Go time.

"Hey creepy crawlies!" she yelled, and smacked her shovel off the ground. The clang and scrape of metal on concrete made her teeth rattle.

It did the trick. Enraged by the sound, the spiders both started coming towards her. Iris dragged her shovel, the blade screeching off the floor as she backed up. For all their many legs, bunker spiders weren't actually very fast, so Iris didn't need to run, but she also couldn't afford to get backed into a corner. She needed to lure them away into the stairwell, and either lock them in, or fight them there.

No sign of the bracken in the place it had disappeared. She threw open the door and raced up the stairs, pursued by sixteen skittering legs. Voices echoed in the corridors. Aaron and Blevins were out. Hopefully they knew the way out.

At the top of the stairwell was another door, and nothing else. Iris tried the handle. Locked. Fuck. The spiders were right under her, hissing. She had a skeleton key somewhere in her pockets, but where? There was not enough time to be searching around, but she tried anyway.

A few pieces of junk fell out as she emptied her pockets. With shaking fingers, she went searching on the dark floor, but dropped her flashlight.

Too late. One of the spiders had caught up. She blocked scraping legs and biting mandibles with the handle of her shovel, thrown back against a railing, blinded without her light source. But she could still tell where the hissing came from. Iris kicked the spider square in its eyes. It screeched and writhed, tearing her suit leg open.

The other one was on its way. She couldn't fight both of them like this.

No time to think things through. Blind without her flashlight, Iris launched herself over the railing and fell maybe ten feet onto the ground. Pain erupted from her ankle, but she couldn't stop to assess the damage. Still holding her lucky shovel, she scrambled in the pitch darkness towards the echoing human voices, and found the door.

She slammed it shut, just as something heavy thumped to the ground right behind her. Legs scrambled and shoved at the door, but Iris put her back up against it, and went searching in her pockets again. There. The skeleton key.

With the last of her strength, she held the door shut, having to yank it closed and severing at least one or two spider feet. She turned the key in the lock, and let go.

Mission accomplished. The spiders were contained. Through the glass pane, she could see the shadows of their legs thrashing around angrily, back-lit by the faint glow of her abandoned flashlight.

Iris collapsed, the agony of her ankle almost enough to make her pass out. No. No, no, NO. It could not be broken. Injuries like that were a death sentence for Company employees.

Whatever. Think of that later. No time to be thinking catastrophically. If she couldn't walk, she would just have to crawl to the entrance.

In the dark. With the bracken ready to pounce.

Where were the webs? And the snare flea? She scanned around, hoping technology would help where her natural senses failed. Nothing. Just darkness. Aaron and Blevins had stopped yelling. Aside from the grumpy insects locked away behind her, still spitting and scrabbling, the facility was silent again.

Keep calm. You know the way. Straight ahead, two rights and a left.

Why did these cursed facilities never have windows? Iris peeled herself off the door, and on hands and knees, dragged herself forwards. Her ankle throbbed. Stabbing pain lanced up her leg as her boot scraped along. The floor was sticky, making every movement difficult.

Halfway back, her scanner informed her that there was a shiny hairdryer in the spiders' nest, and maybe she was getting delirious, because her looting instincts almost kicked in for a moment. True insanity, to start extracting anything from webs right now.

Iris just kept crawling.

Everything was fine. These hallways were familiar territory. The turret from earlier would be up ahead, the exit just beyond that. Keep crawling. Keep breathing. Keep going.

Someone else was approaching from another direction. Footsteps clanged towards her, and the beam of another flashlight danced up ahead. At least one of the guys had made it, even if he had taken a roundabout route to the exit. With superhuman effort, Iris pulled on a railing and dragged herself up onto her feet.

Blevins came jogging into view, clutching the glowing apparatus under one arm, a massive grin on his face.

"Holy shit, Iris," he exclaimed, "you save-"

He stopped in his tracks, smile vanishing, his eyes focusing somewhere above her face. Like she'd suddenly been dropped into a lake on 85-Rend, Iris froze. Oh no.

He's right behind me, isn't he?

She jolted away from the source of a deep, vibrating growl. The bracken had been breathing right down her neck, so close she was surprised she hadn't been able to smell the creature through her mask. So close that she felt its growl in her own ribcage.

And then it moved right past her, a blur of solid shadow, towards Blevins.

Iris opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Blevins opened his mouth and bellowed a cry of helpless terror, but not for long. The apparatus went rolling away on the floor. The bracken was on him. There was a sickening crunch as a pair of clawed hands rearranged his spine. His feet dangled, strings cut.

Twinkling white eyes met hers for one surreal moment, framed with dark spikes. And then the bracken was gone, dragging away its prize, a drooping orange sack of flesh.

The apparatus kept rolling where it had fallen.

Ignoring the pain shooting up her leg, Iris sprinted mindlessly for the main entrance. The turret could have been on or off, she didn't stop long enough to notice. She threw herself at the doors, burst out into the open air, and fell down, heaving. Her hands shook so badly that it took three attempts to turn her radio back on.

"Did Aaron make it back?" she gasped out.

There were a few seconds of nothing, and then Sigma's agitated, distorted voice.

"Dogs, Iris, the dogs. The dogs got him. They were all around the ship. You've go-OOot to believe me. I haAA-ad no choice."

He was breaking up. Going out of range.

"…what," Iris said quietly.

"I hit the lever, Iris. Oh, <BZZZTHH>. I'm - I'm so-OoOrry, Iris. I <Kzzssshhhhh>"

She collapsed against the wall of the facility, watching as the autopilot ship disappeared into the atmosphere. Radio static continued long after any hint of thrusters were gone.

Chapter Text

There was no shortage of rumours and urban legends about employees who had spent the night on one of the abandoned moons. The Company discouraged its crews from talking to each other, but with the turnover rate being what it was, the employee roster changed all the time, ship logs were rarely purged, and whispers got around. Iris had heard it all. Massive storms, supernatural events, zombies, ghosts, you name it. One thing was clear from the stories. No-one ever survived the night alone.

For the first few hours, she tried to rationalise her situation. The survival rate of employees left overnight could not have been an absolute zero. Iris had never heard of someone getting picked up alive in the morning, but there was no logical reason for it to be impossible, just highly unlikely. The environment on 21-Offense was hazardous, but not deadly. Their suits filtered out toxins, and tanks provided extra oxygen, but even if her tanks ran out, this moon had (mostly) breathable air. Radiation poisoning was also a concern, but not an immediate one. It wouldn't kill her right away.

What would kill her was the wildlife. The eyeless dogs for instance, if they could hear her.

Iris had crawled over to sit on top of a metal walkway, overlooking the valley that their autopilot ship had landed in that morning. The dogs were down there, snarling at each other. They had eaten Aaron, bones and gear and all. She had watched it happen while the sun went down. One of the beasts had a flap of blood-soaked orange plastic stuck in its fangs afterwards, like a bloody napkin. Or an obscenely long tongue, flopping in the breeze.

It was a stupid thing to think about, everything considered, but Iris was hungry. Cold and hungry. There was definitely nothing around on the surface of 21-Offense that would qualify as a worthy last meal. Maybe that hoarding bug she had killed earlier would be edible. Unlikely. Slimy green sludge and crunchy exoskeleton didn't appeal much anyway.

The bracken was surely eating Blevins now, as well. Iris wondered what would eat her. Would she just die to exposure and slowly turn to dust over the decades to follow?

If she had to choose a way to die, maybe death by bracken wouldn’t be so bad. Quick and comparatively painless. Neck snapped, gone. No time to feel sorry for yourself.

The acoustics of the cliffs amplified even the smallest noises. Baboon hawks let loose warbling shrieks that could have echoed on for miles. Dust danced and settled across the dunes. The night sky was surprisingly beautiful on 21-Offense, clear and bright. It had been a long time since Iris had stopped to admire the stars. Company life was a soulless grind from morning to night, with no pause for anything but sleep.

Well, it was game over, now.

She had performed a cursory examination of her injuries as dusk fell. Her ankle had swollen up to nearly twice its original size, too inflamed for her to tell by touching it if it was actually broken. There was no numbness, and the angle didn't seem off, which were both good signs. Functionally, though, if she couldn't put weight on her foot, then it might as well have been amputated entirely. No walking meant no collecting scrap. No collecting meant she couldn't meet quota. The Company didn't offer sick leave, and that promotion to a desk job wasn't going to happen anytime soon. So even if she did survive the night, her life was forfeit anyway.

Honestly, it had been a good run. She had lasted longer than most. Granted, some of it was luck, especially in the early days, but staying alive long-term was more than just random chance. Iris was quiet, aware of her surroundings, consistent and careful. She scanned ahead, and never overreached. Survival, in her experience, was usually just a matter of keeping a cool head, and following the rules. Get in, grab what you can, and get out. If there was time to react, and space to retreat, then nine times out of ten, that's all you needed to survive.

This time, she'd broken all the rules, and paid the price.

Why? Why throw it all away? All her hard work and suffering? Not for those guys. Aaron and Blevins meant nothing to her. No. She'd done this out of guilt, hadn't she? Too many nights unable to escape the thought of her old squad freezing to death on 85-Rend, huddling together for warmth while they cursed her name.

By now, Iris really should have known better. There was no redemption in this life, only punishment. She'd meet the same fate, more or less. Abandoned, alone.

The wind had picked up.

It was getting too cold to stay outside. Like, hypothermic, go-to-sleep-and-never-wake-up levels of cold. Offense might have been an arid wasteland, but it was far from warm. During the night, temperatures plummeted well below freezing, and Company suits were not well insulated. There was a baboon hawk eyeing her, and birds circling the place Aaron had been torn to pieces. Iris did not want to wait for something to try to take a bite out of her. At least in the facility, she could surround herself with solid walls, and hope for the best.

Yeah. She was so dead.

Returning to the place she had witnessed a colleague get his back snapped in two was an objectively insane decision to make, but there really was no choice. It was that or freeze overnight. Iris hopped on one leg up the ladder to the main entrance, and once again opened those dreaded double doors.

Everything was quiet. It would not be for long. Creatures and demons crept into facilities through vents or cracks in the foundations, drawn by the echoes of whatever dark, twisted things happened here, long ago. Places like this refused to be silent.

Standing in the entryway, she realised that the apparatus was not far. Without any other light source, she crawled over to pick it up. Her hand dipped into something damp and sticky. If it was Blevins' blood, she preferred not to know.

It would be tough to crawl with the apparatus under her arm. Iris stood up on one leg and used her lucky shovel as a crutch. This was a lot less stealthy than crawling, but faster. Every step clanged and echoed in the hallways.

Iris proceeded in a random direction, scanning frequently for danger. It was getting colder. Her breath was starting to form mist on the inside of her mask. Every faint bump or squeak from the pipes made her jump.

Before long, she found herself in a storeroom, lined with steel shelves. After looking around, she realised that it was the place the guys had originally found the apparatus. Maybe if she replaced it, there would be some heating, and bulkheads would close up to contain monsters.

Everything was completely dark when she pushed the glowing tube back into place. The generator made a few coughing noises, and sparks flew. Iris couldn't tell if anything useful had actually happened. She was no engineer.

The atmosphere was oppressive. Blind and vulnerable in the dark, she needed to hide somewhere.

At the back of the storeroom there was a smaller compartment containing a tangled mess of large pipes. Rusty, unclean. No boiler or heater, but one of the pipes was warm. It would be a good spot to hide.

Iris briefly considered trying to drag a big steel shelf against the storeroom door, but realistically, it would just make far too much noise. The spiders might have got free by now. If something big wanted to get past the door, a shelf wouldn't be able to stop it anyway.

Besides, she was tired, and every second she spent out in the open was another second that she could be spotted by an enemy. In the alcove, curling in tight between the heated pipe and the wall, she clutched her shovel against her chest and shivered.

Sleep eluded her.

As the night deepened, Iris just grew more and more tired, eyes flicking around bloodshot in her head. She could hear movement in the facility, shrieks and growls and scraping. Things trying to get in. Things already in, possibly picking up her scent. Her skin itched, and she felt nausea rising. A fresh wave of radiation poisoning maybe. These suits did not really offer much protection, and she had been exposed to a lot of radioactive cores during the last month.

As despair settled in, she returned to the place of her nightmares, to the snow on 85-Rend, boots crunching, blizzard howling. Tripping over herself as she ran from the childlike giggle of whatever was pursuing her. Pillars of light extended endlessly through the dark, impenetrable haze. But the snowdrifts seemed to bury and cling to her feet, and her legs burned from the effort of running. She dropped everything. Tears streamed down her numb cheeks. The demon child laughed. Its voice was right there, in her skull, taunting her.

No point in running. Just lie down. Give up. Just sleep. Sleep, Iris.

She jolted awake.

Exhaustion must have won at some point. Suddenly wide awake, Iris had the deeply unnerving sense that time had passed without her permission, and that a nearby noise had woken her.

With distant alarm, she noticed that the pipe she was pressed up against was much colder. Her whole body felt numb or tingling, except for her ankle, which burned and burned. Hypothermia was setting in. Disoriented, she struggled to move, clumsily dropping her shovel to the ground. The sound the metal made on stone was obnoxious. Like it was trying to get her killed. Or trying to warn her.

Teeth chattering, fingers like useless stubs, Iris fell after it. Her helmet had become crooked while she slept, and once she had turned it around to fit properly, she scanned the area and looked up.

The scan was superfluous. A pair of eyes stared back from the darkness.

The flower man was right there.

Iris could barely make out the creature's shape in the darkness, deprived of a flashlight, but the glittering pale eyes were impossible to miss. Her scanning interface unhelpfully informed her that she was looking at 'Species: Bracken'. But it was definitely the same grizzled one from earlier. Its leafy stature filled the breadth of the alcove with shadow, larger than any bracken she had ever glimpsed before.

And it was evidently very patient. Had it waited while she slept? For what, just to snap her neck while she was awake? What was the point?

She had no chance of getting past it, and the bracken wasn’t retreating upon making eye contact. So she just sat there, frozen, shivering on the damp ground, and held its strange, unblinking gaze.

And then kept holding it. Neither of them moved. The creaking of pipes was the only sound.

This went on for some time. It seemed to be waiting for her to make the first move. Maybe it wanted a chase. Not a chance. Iris couldn't run even if she wanted to.

Eventually, she spoke.

“If you’re going to eat me, let’s get it over with."

A low rumble and a rustle of leaves. The eyes tilted sideways. The creature was cocking its head to the side, considering. Iris assumed it couldn't understand what she was saying, but whatever. Tone of voice might get something across.

"You like to play with your food, huh," she said. "Am I not making this exciting enough for you? What, am I too pathetic to kill?"

Unable to help it, her voice was coming out weak, slightly slurred. She could not be sure, but there was something a little disappointed about the bracken's responding noises. Well, the disappointment of a man-eating monster was not her problem. If anything, it might keep her alive for another few seconds if she didn't make the prospect of killing her very entertaining. Most flower men had a bit of a kink about sneaking up and catching their prey. They didn't like attacking head on. Usually.

She refused to scream. To be honest, screaming sounded exhausting anyway. Iris was just going to sit right here, and if this creep killed her, she would deny it the satisfaction of making her afraid.

More staring. Her throat was dry. She swallowed, mouth cottony.

The bracken moved. At least she assumed so. The eyes did anyway, bobbing curiously to the right, then the left. Iris offered no reaction. This was easily the most intense eye contact she had experienced in over a month, coil-heads aside.

The eyes dropped a few feet down. It was crouching.

She could just about distinguish the shapes of leaves twitching over broad shoulders. To her surprise, the big creature remained crouched, and approached her from that lowered position, making soft rumbling noises. It would nearly have been endearing, if the thing wasn't likely to snap her spine in a second. Even crouching, the bracken was probably still large enough to be eye level with her chin. If Iris had been standing, which she was not. Since she was sitting down, the creature still loomed over her.

It got close enough that she could see every silver pattern within its glowing eyes. She was shaking. Exhaustion and hypothermia did not help. The bracken stopped rumbling, and Iris flinched as she heard it inhale deeply. Was it sniffing her? It could probably smell her fear, even through her suit, even if she tried very hard not to show it.

That was assuming the flower man had a nose. Wait. Did it have a nose?

Her mind was racing, and not in any way that was useful. These were probably her final moments, and all she could think about was whether or not plant people had scent organs.

It leaned back again. Iris felt something drop into her lap.

It was…her flashlight. The same one she had dropped when she fought the spiders earlier. What the hell?

Iris flicked it on. The bracken snarled at the burst of light, and shied back a few feet. She raised an eyebrow. Really? Skittish about a few LED bulbs? Its eyes must have been sensitive. It was a night hunter. That actually made sense.

It was definitely the same plant guy from earlier. Same scattering of bullet holes on his shoulder, same hulking size. No signs or stains of…well, of Blevins' remains. The flower man squinted at her through the glare, growling steadily. Iris exhaled, and her breath misted in her mask, fogging up the glass. Witnessing a bracken return lost property was not the outcome she had expected from tonight.

She flicked the flashlight off again, to be polite, and stowed it away in its usual place on her tool belt. As if she expected to be alive to need it later.

"…thanks?"

A small rustle of leaves, and then they both just sat there, staring. Again.

Um. Okay. Yeah. Iris might have been functioning below maximum mental power right now, but even so, she was still fairly certain that this whole situation was extremely weird.

One of the pipes made a soft popping sound. Seconds passed.

Under such close scrutiny, Iris did not want to move too much. But her fingers were numb. Cold killed more subtly than violence. Already, her pulse was weakening. Iris attempted to surreptitiously rub her hands together without being obvious, but the bracken's eyes tilted, following her movement.

She sighed. "You wouldn't happen to know where I could find a sauna, would you? Or a coffee machine?"

A soft rumble. Probably a no.

Iris rubbed her hands on her legs, but couldn't summon enough strength to actually produce any decent friction. She gave up with a grunt of frustration. This was hopeless. Her skin was crawling like bugs were line dancing under her suit, which was not a good sign. Her words had come out slurred. Soon she'd be burning from the cold, she'd lose sense of where and who she was, and her body would shut down.

Iris knew the symptoms. The temperature on Offense was nowhere near as low as it was on 85-Rend, but hypothermia was still a murderer even when it was slow. She had done a lot of research on the subject after the incident with her old crew.

The bracken made another noise, and moved towards her, this time with greater purpose. Iris tensed up, and clutched her shovel handle on instinct, but common sense prevailed, and she did not attempt to hit the flower man. Her eyes went wide as a massive arm encircled her waist, and rough claws hoisted her right off the ground. The bracken held her under its arm with ease, and carried her away, shovel still in her grip.

Ah. This was it, then. She would be dragged off to its lair, where she would die. Simple as that. Iris watched the vague details of unrecognisable dim hallways rush by. Filthy concrete, damp metal gratings, open doorways. It was undignified and quite dizzying, being carried like this, and honestly, very impressive that the bracken could move her around so quickly without making a sound. Iris was sure her dangling boots never even touched the floor.

There was a railing, and then a steep drop. Iris felt her stomach lurch, and she screwed her eyes shut. But there was no impact. The bracken swung her through a crack in the wall, dropping her for a moment to squeeze itself through. Then she was picked up again, and carried deeper into the bowels of the facility. She had definitely not been here during the day. It seemed like the walkways and stairs didn't even reach down this far.

Was the air…warmer?

Iris flinched as her feet, and then the rest of her, were deposited on solid ground. She dropped her shovel. White eyes hovered inches from her face, and clawed hands grabbed at her shoulders, shoving her towards - what? Iris lifted her hands and set them against something metallic and searingly hot. A heater?

Hardly able to believe it, she let out a small gasp. Fuck. The warmth felt so good she could have cried. Before thinking too much about it, she ripped off her helmet and unzipped her suit, peeling the cool material away from her shivering upper half. Keeping her mouthpiece in, she breathed slowly to calm down. Holding her bare hands next to the heater, Iris let life spread back into her veins, occasionally rubbing her arms to encourage circulation.

The bracken was still there, not far behind, silently watching. Iris glanced back at him now and then, checking he was still there. She could hear him exhaling when she held her own breath. Did he know that he had saved her?

This must have been his den, in some ancient part of the facility. It stank of rot and gore. Without her helmet on, she could smell something nasty, even when taking a breath through her mouthpiece. But there were bigger problems. Like getting warm.

It took a while, but soon her cheeks were flushed and toasty. Dark matted hair clung to her brow. Her head lolled. Iris tucked her hands into her armpits and drew up her knees to remove her boots. She was getting so cosy that it was easy to forget that a huge plant monster was still hovering over her shoulder.

A loud bang somewhere above them made her startle to wakefulness again. There was a follow-up crash and a distinctive roar. A Thumper? Two Thumpers? Something big and violent anyway. The bracken rose up, eyes directed upward, leaves rustling in agitation. Without a noise, he slipped away, presumably to investigate.

Iris could think a bit clearer now, although her eyelids were drooping. She zipped up her suit again and turned on her flashlight.

Tiles on the floor, peeling plaster on the walls. A dented, locked bulkhead, leading who knows where. This must have been a part of the facility once, but not any more. No furniture, but some evidence of complex electrical work, wires cut and left hanging from sockets. And of course, there was this heater. Still hooked up and functional. Lucky her. Lucky bracken.

She turned around and scanned the room.

Oh. Right.

The source of the bad smell was obvious. Blevins' body was there, in a far corner of this old room. It had been so horrendously mutilated that she could not tell right away which limbs were legs and which were arms. The torso was torn right open, ribs splayed, and all the organs were missing. Blevins was just an empty, plastic-wrapped box of flesh and bone. His head was nowhere to be seen.

The sight did not cause her to freak out or retch. Flesh was just flesh, and Blevins was already dead when the disembowelment happened. Iris had seen too much to faint at the sight of gore. But seeing it reminded her that this was the den of a monster, and she was entirely at its mercy. The bracken's motives were a complete mystery to her.

Why was she here? What kind of mind game was this?

The noises above had got quieter. Or at least more distant.

When the bracken returned, it growled at the light, and Iris fumbled to turn it off quickly. There had been enough time to catch another glimpse of powerful bark-like limbs and rows of leafy plumage. He had hoof feet, which took her a little by surprise. Iris was not sure she had ever looked at a bracken's feet before. Her brain had filled in that gap. Incorrectly.

Glittering eyes bobbed towards her.

She marvelled at the graceful way he moved, especially for such a large creature. Even a few feet away, Iris couldn't hear him at all. If it were not for the eyes, he would be utterly invisible to her. The perfect stealth killer. Beautiful, in a way.

Deadly, too. Obviously.

She jumped a little as claws dragged against the side of her leg, unclear if the contact was accidental. Mind you, he could probably see her just fine in this darkness. Everything he did felt deliberate. The bracken hovered over her, rumbling in a way which sounded akin to purring. Even unable to see, she could sense the weight of his presence, the bulk of his body, the power of tree trunk arms caging her in.

Iris couldn't help but feel a little special, to not be dead. Did he like her, for some twisted reason? Did he feel sorry for her? She was learning a lot tonight, about the social intelligence of bracken. Still, it would be naive to assume this was a friendly connection. Did her saviour intend to keep her as a pet of some kind? Or was she just alive so her flesh remained fresher for longer? Arrogant, for her to assume otherwise.

He leaned down and seemed to sniff her again, leaves rustling. Iris had the strange impulse to reach up and stroke them, or trace the ridges on his torso. It had been so long since she had embraced or touched anyone. She couldn't remember the last time she was touched in return. Some sad, broken part of her wanted to feel this creature's claws digging into her thigh again, if only to convince herself that she was still alive.

But she resisted the desire to find out what his leaves felt like. This was not a person, but a wild thing, with uncertain intentions. Like a feral cat. Even a gentle touch might not be received well. The bracken might perceive it as an attack.

After a few moments, he backed off, but not far. He crouched nearby, on the other side of the heater. A plant bending towards the warmth of a makeshift sun. Iris decided there was nothing else for it. She lay down next to the monster and dozed.

——\———\——

When she woke next, it was impossible to tell how much time had elapsed, but two things had changed. One, the bracken was gone again.

Two, there was now enough light for her to see where the crumbling entrance of the room was. That detail was important. If morning had arrived, then she needed to get outside. If Sigma brought the ship back, she had to make it obvious she was still alive. There was no point in celebrating her survival while she was still lying in the beast's den.

Iris fumbled around until she located her shovel, patted her tool belt to make sure everything was present, and then checked her ankle. Amazingly, the swelling had already gone down a bit. Maybe it was not broken after all, just sprained. She hoped so.

Time to go, if she could. Iris crawled to the crack in the wall and squinted. There was a sheer drop right beneath it, and the wall above looked slippery. It was no wonder why the bracken chose this place to hide out. Anything bigger or scarier would struggle to get over here. Climbing up to the walkway would be suicide.

She went back into the bracken's den and switched on her flashlight to investigate the walls and ceiling more closely. The bulkhead was deformed, impossible to open. But there was a small hole in the ceiling, leading to darkness. Worth a shot. Iris was short, but not the skinniest person in the world. She would have to make this hole wider to get out.

Halfway through striking the edges of the hole with the blunt end of her shovel, a shadow fell over her. Iris turned around sheepishly, flicking off her flashlight. The bracken looked down at her with an unimpressed growl.

"Sorry," she said. Terrible etiquette as a guest to vandalise his ceiling like this.

He was silhouetted against the morning light, crowned with shadowy leaves. Tall and resplendent. Iris realised she was holding her shovel up, and lowered it as a sign of peace. The bracken wasted no time before lurching forward and grabbing her. Iris grimaced as she was once again tucked under his arm and carried like a doll.

The bracken took her to the crack in the wall and leapt up to the main part of the facility with ease, dropping Iris safely onto the walkway. She got up, putting her shovel under her arm to steady herself.

She scanned the area. No enemies in sight. The bracken trilled and shuffled towards a door. Not sure where she was, and rather afraid of getting jumped by a coil head, Iris limped after him. He led her to an intersection with a turret visible around the far corner, and when she turned on her flashlight, she noticed a drying bloodstain.

Ah yes. Blevins. She knew where this was.

The bracken stood there at the intersection, watching her. The body language was clear. He had shown her the way out. He was letting her go. She didn't know what to do.

"Thanks?" was what came out of her mouth. And it was a question.

Despite all the evidence stacked up in favour of trusting her new friend, she was unconvinced. Miracles never just happened like this. It had to be a trap. A cat toying with a mouse. She would get ten steps before it would jump her from behind.

Still, Iris walked past him, close enough to brush his arm, as slowly and as steadily as physically possible while using her shovel as a crutch. As she made her way to the main entrance, circling around behind the turret, she kept glancing back, expecting to see the bracken pouncing at her, but he remained no fewer than ten feet behind, following at a respectful distance.

Iris was perplexed by him. The Company database indiscriminately described every threat in the business as ‘wildlife’, but as any employee who had visited the deadlier moons knew, there was a distinct difference between wildlife and demons. Certain entities defied biological classification. It was impossible, for instance, to think of a Jester as an animal. The same went for coil-heads and nutcracker soldiers. Those malevolent things were clearly synthetic, made by unknown but artificial means. They existed to cause harm.

Animals, while deadly at times, were not malicious. They hunted to eat, but that was not the extent of their existence. Eyeless dogs had social mannerisms. Spiders attracted mates to their webs.

For Iris, bracken had always managed to occupy both categories in her mind, both natural and unnatural, their hunting games too cruel and sadistic for them to be merely wildlife, but their appearances too organic to be constructed.

She was starting to reassess some of her earlier judgements.

At the door, she held her breath, paranoia making her certain that this was the moment of betrayal. Just when she thought she had escaped, the bracken would grab her from behind and twist off her head like yanking a cork from a bottle, that final spark of hope sweetening her blood into a fine vintage.

Iris looked back. He was still standing in the corridor, upright and proud. Not just an animal. Certainly not a demon.

She took a breath. She tore her eyes away. She reached for the door handle, pushed it down, shouldered the door open. Pale morning light flooded in. Fresh air filtered in through her mask, and she glanced back into the darkness.

The bracken was still there, eyes sparkling, just watching. She stepped outside.

And he let her go.

Chapter Text

At 8 am, Sigma brought the ship back.

He came out to meet her after it touched down, and offered his arm to help her on board. Iris shrugged him off. They said nothing to each other at first. There was no yelling. He offered no apologies. She offered no thanks. Sigma went looking for hives to sell for an hour or two, but came back empty handed. Without speaking, they silently agreed to call it a day early. There was already enough loot on board.

They ate and slept without talking. The autopilot did all the work.

During the trip to the Company building, they occupied themselves with separate tasks. Sigma organised their scrap and other goods, charged all spare equipment to full, and then wrote up a report on Aaron and Blevins. Iris addressed the issue of her sprained ankle, binding the joint with whatever fabric came to hand. Having cleaned every other bump and scrap she had acquired, she then got to work making a cast from random pieces of plastic and loose wires. It would be awkward to walk on, and running would still be impossible, but as long as she could put weight on her leg, everything would be fine.

At the Company building, she and Sigma gathered their haul up onto the counter, item by item. They were stoic and silent while the creature behind the counter valued the goods, and the intercom burped out another patronising compliment.

Your commitment keeps the Company happy :)

Real inspiring.

There were still a few valuable items left on the ship afterwards. Iris and Sigma had funds to spend, even after incurring the fine for unrecoverable bodies, so they ordered some items. To aid with her new mobility issues, Iris bought a few TZP canisters and stun grenades. Sigma bought more walkie-talkies and flashlights, then replaced the damaged teleporter with a new one.

In orbit around 71-Gordion, Iris sat on the floor, adjusting her cast. Lifting everything off the ship had been a great way to test out its structural integrity before taking it somewhere more hazardous. The cast needed some duct tape. A lot of duct tape.

Across from her, Sigma flicked through pages of the Company manual, occasionally glancing up. It felt like he was building up to saying something, so she cut him off.

"Sit down," she said. "Let me tell you what happened to my last squad."

He sat at the terminal, and Iris pulled up a box opposite him. Sigma's foot tapped anxiously. He folded his arms and waited for her to start.

It was not easy. Iris thumbed over three parallel notches on her shovel handle, carved for her old crewmates. Every notch was a reminder of a life taken in exchange for more time. Bugs, beasts, humans. These three had names - Meg, Jashan and Murdoch. Not that she had beaten them to death herself, but she might as well have.

They had been alive when she abandoned them on 85-Rend. It was impossible to pretend otherwise. The ship auto-logged crewmates with active vital signs as "Missing" rather than "Deceased", so there was no faking the report afterwards. They were alive, but still in the facility, pinned down by no fewer than three coil-heads.

As for Iris, she had been paranoid that night, jumping at every noise, hearing heavy breathing, seeing apparitions that no-one else did. She went back to the ship early, empty-handed. That would have been fine, even sensible, if she had waited. But outside the mansion, half-blinded in the snow, Iris could tell that she had been followed. Some demon shaped like a child wanted her dead, and it laughed as it chased her.

The others were smart. Resourceful. Meg and Jashan had been on the job even longer than Iris. They might have made it out, coil-heads be damned, if she had waited. But the demon was closing in. Its mocking, childish laughter turned her into a cornered animal, unable to think of anything but escape. The doors of the ship wouldn't remain closed forever.

It had been her or her colleagues. She chose herself. She launched the ship, cut her losses, and moved on. With everything they had already collected as a group, she had no problem securing quota. The Company approved. Her conscience - whatever shreds remained of it - did not.

Iris told Sigma everything, unable to look him in the eye while she did.

"So," she said finally, when her soul was bared in all its ugliness. "The way I see it, I would be a hypocrite to blame you for what you did. I did worse. Not everyone would have come back for me. You did. Let's leave it at that. There's a job to do."

Over the hum of the ship and the occasional bleep of the monitor, Sigma's gloves squeaked against his arms. After she had finished speaking, he let out a slow whistle through his teeth. His suit creaked as he leaned back.

"You forgive me?" he said. No comment on her story.

Iris nodded. Why not?

"Well," Sigma breathed out. "Aren't we just a pair of assholes?" He raised a nutrient tube in a sarcastic toast. "Here's to only thinking of ourselves."

As he sucked down on grey paste, Iris felt a weight lift from her shoulders. It was odd, but she was grateful for his flippant reaction. If he had responded with disgust and anger, that would have been difficult. If he had tried to be sympathetic, to tell her it was not her fault, that might have been worse. Indifference was manageable.

Sigma had lost his friends, and just learned some unpleasant truths about himself. He understood what mattered now. Getting back to Company HQ every three days and meeting quota was all that counted. If focusing on the job made them a pair of scumbags, then maybe that's what it would take, to survive. From now on, Iris would be the perfect Company asset. No more heroics. No more risks.

To business, then.

Unwilling to apply to join another crew by herself, Iris offered to stay on the ship to look for new crewmates with Sigma. His comms were decent, and it was in both of their best interests to stay together. If he applied alone now, his tarnished record would make him just as undesirable as she was. If rejected, they might both end up doing solo runs. Sigma shuddered at the thought, and agreed without any resistance. They logged their joint request for new crewmates, and waited for applications to come in.

"Hey," he said later, doing stretches next to the monitor. "I was scared to ask before, but now that we're on the same page, I guess I'll bite. How the hell did you survive down there? I've never heard of anyone surviving the night. On any moon."

Iris had considered spinning a tale, but she wasn't very good at lying. Besides, the truth was far wilder than any story she could rustle up at short notice.

"Remember I said there was a bracken down there?" Sigma nodded. "Well, he saved me."

"Right. And I was lifted out of the atmosphere by flying pigs."

"I'm not joking. He protected me."

Sigma shook his head. "You're fucking with me."

"I'm dead serious."

"Moon madness got you bad," he jeered, and rolled his eyes. "Okay. Say I believe you. Why would a bracken help you? What, was it lonely? Horny? You suck it off or something?"

Iris felt her face turn beetroot red. "Shut up," she said, and threw a rubber duck at his head.

"Damn." Sigma caught the duck midair and squeaked it. "I didn't read that part of the bestiary. When in doubt, offer to give the monsters head. I'll try that myself next time."

She snorted. "As if you'll ever take your fat ass off the ship."

They both laughed. It was a crass, hollow kind of laughter, and it failed to keep the despair at bay for long. Still, Iris hadn't laughed in a while. It was nice.

In the afternoon, they sat side by side at the terminal and sifted through walls of green text. Most of the employee applications they received were from first-timers. There was only one experienced duo looking to move ship. Both applicants had two weeks on the job, and in that time they had successfully visited some of the deadliest moons. In this line of work, that was far more than you could ever hope to ask for. Easy call to make.

While waiting for their new colleagues to arrive on 71-Gordion, Iris gathered together a heap of evening snacks - nutrient paste, protein bars, and a few dehydrated flakes of something dry and uninspiring. She would need all her strength for the next run. The TZP she had ordered would help too, but that stuff was addictive and often more of a drawback than a benefit.

Company 'food' left a nasty aftertaste in her mouth. Like eating sawdust. Still hungry even with a full stomach, Iris lay back on the top bunk and stared at the metal plating above her. The empty vacuum of space was just inches from her nose. Floating around in a flimsy box, starved and bruised. What a life.

She was slowly beginning to process what had happened on 21-Offense, but it all still felt like a fever dream. If the bruises on her skin were not there to serve as evidence, she might have thought it was all a dream. No-one could blame Sigma for not believing her.

A merciful bracken - who would have thought it?

Except, calling him merciful failed to account for the fact that the bracken had still slaughtered Blevins without a second thought. He was no pacifist. So why had he spared her? What specifically was so special about her? Her unwashed scent? Her despair? Her pathetic attempts to delay the inevitable? It truly felt like Iris had been spared for a reason, but her rational mind refused to understand it. She was nothing. Another unremarkable human rummaging for scraps, beneath the notice of a proud apex predator.

Was it so impossible, though, in this world of chaos and madness, that a bracken had recognised something it liked in her, and spared her out of affection? Maybe, maybe not. Iris had bruises from his claws. He had picked her up roughly and thrown her around as if she had been nothing more than a pathetic, shivering nuisance.

But who was she to interpret the subtleties of bracken behaviour? That could have been the height of gentleness from his perspective. Or maybe gentleness itself was an alien concept for him.

At any rate, she needed to think of a name for him. She couldn't keep thinking of him as 'the bracken'. However, no-one could have accused Iris of having an imagination. After weeks of battle, she had never managed to pick a name for her lucky shovel. In the absence of any better ideas, she decided to call her bracken Scars, after the bullet marks on his shoulder.

Having named him, he became more tangible in her mind. Iris was not usually predisposed towards daydreaming, but floating through space in a dull metal box forced your brain to create its own stimulation. All she could think of was Scars. Her flower man held her subconscious in a death grip, and refused to let go. The thought of him looming over her in the dark made her shiver.

Beneath the monstrous exterior, Iris imagined that her bracken might be lonely in that damp old building, craving connection. She wondered if there was any glimmer of truth to what Sigma had said. You suck it off or something? As daft as that was, given that she had been too afraid to touch him at all, she wondered if it would have been possible to give her bracken a blowjob.

You know, just to say thanks for the help. Not for any other purpose.

Asking the question presumed for a start that he had a cock, or the alien equivalent in terms of genitalia. Based on a few glances in half-darkness, his groin had seemed much like the rest of his abdomen, wrinkled, ridged and textured like bark. Nothing obvious dangling between his legs. Maybe he had a cloaca under flaps of skin, or something much stranger. Maybe he produced clouds of pollen when aroused. He was a plant, after all, not a lizard. Iris was no biologist. She couldn't assume anything.

This line of thinking was a fun change of pace from constant fear and anxiety. Working this job had a way of killing anyone's sex drive. The atmosphere was claustrophobic. The Company treated its employees like children, offering squeaky toys and goldfish to appease their need for entertainment. There was no privacy, no access to contraception, the suits were stifling, everyone had terrible hygiene, and the work itself was tiring, both physically and psychologically. Up until now, desire had been the least of any of Iris' concerns. But here she was, lusting after an alien anyway.

Paradoxically, it made her feel a little more human. But alas, just as Iris was settling into a fantasy of her bracken breathing down her neck for…reasons, Sigma interrupted her by rattling the bunk beds.

"Time to greet the fresh meat," he said.

——|———|——

One of the most important things to remember about the Company was this: they didn't care about realistic goals. If a crew of employees managed to meet one quota, the next one would be higher, and the next one higher still. The numbers quickly went from aspirational to ludicrous. No accommodations were offered to crews who had suffered casualties. All deadlines were absolute.

Employees had to learn to game the system quickly, or every quota would keep rising until it was impossible to achieve. There were a couple of well-known methods for getting around this problem, and the easiest way for an individual (or a pair) to dodge stupidly high quotas was to jump ship and join a different squad. Quotas were assigned per ship, not per individual employee. Moving to a different ship meant you lost your savings in the Company store, but nothing prevented employees from emptying their balance before jumping ship, and taking equipment with them.

Employees #5404 and #5406 must not have realised that last part, because they came nearly empty-handed. It could have been that their store balance was too low, or perhaps their former crewmates had refused to let them spend any funds. Regardless, it was not a great first impression to make.

The man was too friendly. He shook Sigma's hand vigorously and introduced himself as Carl. Iris didn't like him. He was shrill and twitchy, giggled too much, and made silly jokes about claiming the top bunk. Then he went straight for the storage locker as if he owned the place, and excitedly punched the air.

"Oh man, sweet!" he exclaimed. "You're loaded with inhalants. My boys didn't let me order any more."

"There was a reason for that," the woman said sternly.

Her name was Sandy. She was middle-aged, tall, blonde, and quick to shut down all of Sigma's attempts at 'flattery'. Sandy carried a stun gun on her hip, which was the only item of equipment they had arrived with. Iris looked at the tool dubiously.

"Do you actually know how to use that?" she asked.

Sandy narrowed her eyes. "What makes you think I don't?"

Iris shrugged. "Don't be offended. I've just watched idiots stun themselves with those things too many times. Never used one myself."

"Believe me, I know how to use it," Sandy scoffed. "Don't worry about that."

Sigma cleared his throat. "Iris here is great with a shovel," he said. "The TZP is for her, Carl, so don't take more than one canister. As for me, I'm crew coordinator. I'll man the comms and keep you all safe from right here using the terminal."

"Oh." Sandy glowered at him. "You're one of those."

"Huh? One of what?"

"I'm guessing you stay on the ship 24/7, give endless bossy instructions and never lift a hand to help carry scrap?"

"Yeah, that's him," Iris smiled.

Sandy seemed like she had her head screwed on. And she was eager for them to hit the ground running, suggesting that they head to 7-Dine as a first stop. That was definitely not a beginners' moon, and the cost of travelling there reflected that, but everyone on board had been there before, and knew the lay of the land, so they agreed.

For once, the run went off without any major issues, but that was not to say it was easy. Iris wrapped a plastic bag around her leg cast to make it waterproof, and managed to get through the snow. It was a long walk. She was slow, and it was frustrating to watch other employees moving more efficiently than her, but things could have been worse. This could have been 85-Rend.

She grabbed a painting and filled her pockets with a collection of small curios before heading back to the entrance, only encountering two big wobbly slimes, several land mines and a dormant spider. Nothing serious. In the foyer, Sandy offered to carry the painting, but Iris shook her head. She would carry her own scrap, pull her own weight.

"Your emploment record was an interesting read," Sandy commented from the stairs, effortlessly swinging a V-type engine onto her back. "Sigma's was eye opening too."

Iris didn't reply. The less said the better.

Before heading outside, she took a drag of TZP to help with returning to the ship, but even aided by the stimulant, she was desperately slow. There was an eyeless dog pacing near the light pillars, and for a frightening moment, she was unsure if she could move out of its way fast enough while still being quiet. Fortunately, a distant creature let out a squawk at exactly the right moment, and the dog raised its big mouthy head before loping away into the fog.

There were no giants. Luckily. She had a stun grenade just in case, but even with a successful throw, she would have struggled to get away before the stunning effect wore off.

Sandy and Carl passed her on their way back into the mansion for a second sweep, but Iris had to admit defeat. One pass was all she had to offer this time. Climbing up the ladder into the ship was excruciating, but Sigma was quick to open the door once she was outside. He took the painting and patted her on the back.

"Sit down, Iris. Let those fools do most of the work."

She all but collapsed into her bunk, dripping melting snow everywhere. Why were all the profitable moons so horribly cold? Where were the tropical paradises and warm sandy beaches? Why build these facilities in the worst climates imaginable?

Iris passed out quickly once the TZP wore off. When she dreamed, she dreamed of her flower man, lurking in the dark, drawn to the paltry warmth of that rusty old heater. Alone in the depths of a concrete maze. If Scars had dreams, she hoped they were good ones. She hoped she featured in some of them.

——\———\——

"How about Offense?" Iris said.

They were in orbit around 7-Dine, counting up the value of their haul. Carl and Sandy had more than proven their worth already, evading a Jester that had apparently been winding up when they left the building. The loot pile was a very healthy size for the first day of a new quota. As they settled for the night, the subject of their next destination came up.

"21-Offense also has long walks to and from the ship," Sandy said, glancing at Iris' foot. "Weather's fine, but we'd be justified staying here for another day to clear this place out."

"I know the terrain on Offense well. It's less of a risk. The loot isn't bad either."

"A-are you sure, Iris?" Sigma whispered, understandably surprised. After what happened three days ago, he probably thought 21-Offense was the last place in the universe she would want to go.

"Yeah," Iris said. "Let's go. Punch it in."

——|———|——

Overnight, there was a disturbance. Iris barely bothered lifting her head, and she was not interested in eavesdropping, but the ship was too small not to overhear. Carl was suffering from night terrors, and Sandy was trying to calm him down, with mixed success.

They seemed like friends. Given that their employee numbers were only two digits apart, they had probably signed up together. Maybe employee #5405, the missing number between them, was the source of Carl's night terrors. Iris figured it was none of her business anyway, and she went back to sleep.

In the morning, things got weird.

Carl was twitchy before, but now he was visibly shaking. Even through his visor, Iris could see the shadows around his eyes. Sandy was doing everything for him, checking tools in his belt, charging his flashlight, fastening the clasps on his helmet like he was a toddler.

The ship's doors spluttered and gasped open. Wind rushed in as they touched down on 21-Offense.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Sigma asked, leaning in close while the other two were leaving.

"Yeah," Iris shrugged him off. "Think of it as facing my demons head on. Just don't leave me overnight again."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, sitting at the monitor. "I'm right here."

Iris went to the storage locker, and picked up a new inhalant bottle. Then set it down. Wait. She picked up another one, then another. The sealing tabs were all torn.

"All the TZP canisters are empty," she realised.

Sigma looked up from swapping through inputs. "That was Carl. Sorry. Freaky little dude used them all up while we were asleep. Must be an addict or something."

Iris gaped. She looked outside, where Sandy and Carl were already disappearing into the haze. He used them all? There were four canisters. Even two would have been insane. The man had to be tripping out of his mind. It was amazing he could even stand up straight.

Whatever. If he was going to get himself or Sandy killed, Iris would stay well out of the way. Since the two of them had gone for the main entrance, she went with her usual strategy and used the fire escape instead. It was a tough climb up a ladder to get there, but Iris took it slowly and carefully, and made it to the top.

And then she was inside, scanning dark corridors, heart in her mouth.

Of course, she had lied to Sigma. Coming here had absolutely nothing to do with overcoming the trauma of being left alone, and everything to do with encountering Scars again. But now she was here, she was nervous at the prospect. Her pulse was thundering. This was a huge risk. How would he react when he saw her? How would she react?

There was a snare flea waiting on the ceiling near the entrance. Iris smacked it off the ceiling and chopped it in two with the blade of her shovel. The head kept twitching, so she crushed it under her ankle cast, and twisted her foot to make sure it stopped. Oops. Twisting her ankle hurt. And bug brains would be hard to wash out of the fabric.

Still, it was dead. That was the important part.

She went wandering through the facility, finding some of her old chalk markings from days ago, scanning every shadowy corner, investigating every nook and cranny. This was much less frightening than 7-Dine. Those creaky, twisted libraries in the snow always made her uneasy, while industrial facilities were bread and butter for experienced employees.

After mindlessly pacing for half an hour in the same four or five rooms, Iris started to regret the decision to return to Offense. She was being ridiculous. Lightning wouldn't strike her twice. Intentionally wasting her time and searching around for a bracken who was probably long gone was insanity. What happened to becoming a better asset for the Company? How many times did she have to learn the same lessons before they would stick?

Defeated, Iris went back to work, grabbing scrap, staying quiet. For hours, she kept hoping for a glimpse of gleaming white eyes in the dark. It never happened.

She had never felt so heavy with disappointment. She dragged herself back to the ship, trailing a loose flap of soiled fabric from her ankle cast. Either Scars had seen her from the shadows and chosen not to reveal himself, or he was just not here anymore. There was also the worse possibility that he had been killed by another crew of Company employees. Iris tried not to think about that.

She dumped her loot and fixed her cast, willing to go back inside for maybe an hour or two, just to be sure her flower man wasn't asleep, or being shy.

"Oh boy," Sigma groaned, typing away at the terminal. "Carl has gone past the same turret fifteen times. I'm getting a fucking cramp in my hand from punching in the same code over and over to disable it."

"Did the others see anything big?"

"Yep. Sandy's luring a coil-head away. I'll get it behind a bulkhead and we'll be good."

"Thanks."

"Hey, keep your radio on," he grinned. "I miss your voice."

"Shut up," she said, but turned it on anyway.

In the end, Iris was glad that she did. When she was halfway up the ladder to the fire exit, Sigma's voice came crackling over the radio.

"Sandy, watch out, there's a bracken on Carl."

"Shit. Okay. Am I nearing the bulkhead yet?" Sandy was stressed out. Understandable, when you were face to face with a demonic mannequin, and your friend was in danger.

"Yeah. It's ten feet to your left. Keep going, I'll watch Carl."

Iris stopped, leaning heavily on the current rung of the ladder. She had taken a glance at the monitor. She could form a reasonable mental map of where Carl was in the facility. A good employee would just keep doing her job. An employee with any sense of self-preservation would ignore what she had just heard, and go on with her assigned task.

She descended the ladder. Her past self would be kicking and screaming right now. Surviving one close encounter with a bracken was incredible. It was beyond stupid to go back for a second round. There was no guarantee that Scars would even recognise her before snapping her neck.

Iris went anyway.

——|———|——

There was no need to have memorised the layout of the facility. The echoes of Carl's screaming could have been heard on the other side of the moon. Iris did not run. Her instincts for danger were still deeply ingrained, so she kept scanning ahead, and watched her footing. That said, her pace was certainly more hurried than usual. Before Sigma started chattering over the radio again, she turned off her walkie-talkie.

When she could hear Carl's footsteps as well as his screams, she flattened against the wall and crept forwards with more caution. Carl came tumbling around a corner, flailing a big stop sign around.

"GET AWAY!" he was screaming. “Get AWAY. GET OUT!"

His voice was still high pitched from helium in the TZP. When he spun to face her, Iris took a step back, concerned that the man was hallucinating badly enough to think she was a Thumper.

And then, over Carl's shoulder, she saw him. Enormous and silent, crouched low to the ground, the bracken came stalking out of the darkness and into the dim yellow lights of the hallway. Iris clenched her shovel handle and stared, but said nothing. Her tongue pasted itself to the roof of her mouth.

Somehow, Carl sensed the danger anyway.

The man shrieked and spun around, swinging the stop sign in a wide arc. Iris stumbled back into a corner. Not even bothering to side-step the blow, Scars just raised a hand and stopped the sign mid-air. Carl yelped and tripped. A second after that, claws closed around his neck.

His body bounced and skidded down the hallway, limp.

When the bracken's gaze fell on her, Iris had already backed up as far as possible to avoid Carl.  She would have been lying if she said her bravado was unshaken. She was still human. Death still possessed the power to rattle her. But despite that, she wasn't going anywhere.

Scars' growling was steady and furious. He stalked right up to her, and lunged. Claws thudded into the brick wall on either side of her helmet. Iris flinched and shut her eyes on instinct, but felt no sudden blow. The blade of her shovel, held across her chest, dug sharply into her shoulder.

Shaking, she opened her eyes, and looked up into his face. Like an ancient, enraged god of nature, he towered over her in righteous fury. The leaves upon his back were vibrating with anger, rustling like the boughs of a great tree in a storm. Iris was small and helpless before him.

A million thoughts passed, fleeting, through her mind. Had she misinterpreted their night together as something profound when it had just been a temporary madness for him? Had she made a mistake thinking he would recognise her at all? Fuck. Was he going to kill her anyway?

No. No, he wasn't. Scars stopped growling. He leaned down, and bumped the top of her helmet with his forehead. Iris felt possibly every emotion known to humanity, all at once. Tense as a rod, she released a long shaky breath through her mask.

"You know me, don't you?" she breathed.

She was smiling like a fool. Like she was insane. Like a man didn't just die in front of her. The bracken rumbled and peered into her soul with those glowing eyes, now just inches away. This close, in the yellowed light of old bulbs, she could see every wrinkle of skin on its weird fruit-skin face. Her visor fogged up, and she wasn't sure from whose breath.

"Hi," Iris whispered.

Scars cocked his head, then poked his claws at the mouthpiece of her helmet, making a soft sound of confusion. The magic of the moment faded a little. Huh. Maybe he didn't understand how helmets worked. Human gadgets and gear were probably a bizarre and confusing concept to bracken-kind. Not that it ever seemed to stop them from eating humans whenever they got the chance.

Iris did vaguely recall unzipping her suit in front of him. Maybe he thought it was like an extra skin.

All of a sudden, the bracken grabbed her helmet in one hand and shook. Iris flinched as her head was jostled around. While the behaviour did seem more curious than harmful, her alien friend clearly didn't have much consideration for the fragility of human necks. Except when he was snapping them.

Seeking to keep her head and spine in proper alignment, she dropped her shovel and scrabbled at the bracken's wrist. The jostling stopped. Iris contemplated the raw strength in the appendage she was grasping at with her glove. Corded muscle like a centuries-old tree root. Claws like machetes. Her own soft arms would snap like twigs, if he wanted it.

"Here. Wait a moment."

It was honestly an act of sheer lunacy, but it made sense in the moment. Iris let go of his wrist, and pressed the release on the side of her helmet. With a pop, it depressurised. She took it off entirely, and shook out her hair. With no barrier of metal and plastic, she felt quite vulnerable. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of damp and rot from the facility, which was usually filtered away.

There was also another smell, more intense, earthy and strange, one she filed away in her brain as 'flower man smell'. It was much nicer than expected. Until, that is, the bracken let out a low grumble, and his breath assaulted her nostrils with hints of rancid flesh. Iris cleared her throat, and for the first time longed for the return of her helmet, and the constant stench of her own sweat.

Oblivious to her discomfort, the bracken took a few inquisitive sniffs at her face. It occurred to her that the smell of human flesh couldn't possibly be new to him, given his recent murdering. But he seemed intrigued nonetheless. Before she could really process what was happening, he opened his mouth and, without any warning, licked her face.

Her brain completely stalled. His tongue was long, red and barbed, and felt like rough wet sandpaper on her cheek, but her body clearly didn't know what to do about the unexpected sensation. A shudder passed through her, and not an entirely unpleasant one. Iris' legs almost buckled underneath her. Although, to be fair to herself, the lick wasn't casual. Or brief. Scars spent several full seconds finding out what she tasted like, enough that the side of her face stung afterwards. Staring at his tongue, red and covered in bumps, she absurdly thought of burst pomegranates, and wondered if his spit tasted fruity.

Hopefully she wasn't allergic.

Claws tangled in her hair, exploring, curious. Iris' own hands were uselessly clenched by her sides, but this was the time to be brave. She slowly tugged off a glove, reached up and set her palm on the hollow at the base of his neck. Scars tensed up instantly, looking down as if her hand had offended him. Iris thought she'd made a grave error for a moment, expecting to lose a finger, before he relaxed and grunted.

It took her a second to realise he was waiting for her to move. So she did, softly tracing the shape of his long neck. His skin might have looked like tree bark, but it was far softer, smooth like leather. He might have been a plant, but he was warm. Scars rumbled again, leaning into the touch, and she felt the deep sound vibrate right up her arm.

Iris was delirious. Here was this miraculous thing that happened to her, this act of rebellion against everything Company employment had taught her. And it had happened twice. Scars melted into her touch, pressing his entire body in closer, pinning her to the wall. Impulsive, reckless, Iris took off her other glove, wanting to feel more of his skin. The bracken trilled, and lifted one of her hands to his face. She gasped as his barbed tongue flicked out and tasted her fingers. The feeling sent a bolt of heat right between her legs.

There was a scream, down the hallway.

Iris grimaced as Scars went rigid. He snarled and clutched at her tightly, lifting her right off her feet. The points of his claws dug painfully into her neck and chest. She couldn't see past Scars' torso, but she knew the screaming must have been Sandy. More distant yelling followed - she was telling Sigma over the radio that Carl was dead. Iris tried to wriggle away from Scars' claws, but he only held on tighter. Possessively. Like he was afraid she would be taken from him. He wasn't wrong.

Iris blinked. Blue sparks started to envelop her, humming bright.

"Shit."

She had forgotten the teleporter was fixed. Honestly, Sigma had been kind of slow to react, but she should have seen this coming.

Scars made a truly haunting noise. Sorry, Iris thought.

And the teleporter spat her out.

She stumbled and caught herself on the far wall, breathing hard. Lifting a hand to her neck, it came away with a smear of blood. Damn it. In the future, her bracken needed to learn to be more careful.

Sigma was already turned around, slack-jawed. Which was fair. The monitor would have shown how close the bracken was to her. And she had fallen out of the teleporter looking like she'd been dragged through a hedge, blood smeared, face scraped, hair a mess. He pointed at her head.

"So uh, where's your helmet, Iris?"

"Dropped it."

"Uh huh. Gloves too?"

"Yep."

Sigma turned slowly back around to the monitor screen, evidently deciding not to question her any further. Frankly, that was for the best. Iris glanced at the loot pile. At least she hadn't been carrying anything too valuable.

Her stomach dropped. Oh.

No, she had been carrying something valuable. Her lucky shovel. It was gone.

Chapter Text

Carl was, incredibly, still alive when they teleported his body on board. He crumpled in a limp heap, neck broken, but after a moment, it was obvious that he was still twitching. Still breathing too, red foam frothing from his lips. Iris and Sigma looked at each other.

Sigma got up with a shovel. Iris stepped in front of him.

"No, it's not our place."

"Dude's suffering. He's not going to make it."

This was unfortunately not wrong. Iris shared the same desire to put him out of his misery, rather than prolonging such agony, but Sandy was his friend. Only she had the right to make that call.

Sandy reached the ship maybe fifteen minutes later. The moment she saw her friend was still struggling to live, she flew into a frenzy, dropping all of her loot, falling to her knees at his side, cradling his face.

"Why are neither of you helping him?" she cried, ripping open his suit to try to give him CPR.

Iris looked away. Sigma turned his back.

It was hopeless. The Company did not offer emergency medical aid. It did not offer medical aid at all. Injuries like this were always fatal. No amount of CPR was going to repair his broken body.  There was nothing to be done. Sandy could not mend his neck with rags and sorrow. Sigma started the ship, before any eyeless dogs were drawn to the sound of voices. Carl's death rattles and Sandy's sobs were drowned out by the roar of thrusters.

The doors shut, and their ship once again departed from 21-Offense.

All the intensity and adrenaline of seeing Scars had worn off quickly. It left Iris empty inside. One short moment of genuine excitement, and now it was back to the daily grind. The loss of her lucky shovel stung too, but while a coworker lay dead, she had to concede that there were more important things. Perhaps it would not be gone forever. Scars had returned her flashlight on the night they met. Perhaps he would return her shovel too.

——|———|——

Hours later, Sandy sat slumped by the door. Carl's body was in her arms. It had stopped moving shortly after they left orbit. Soon, it would start to smell.

She had not budged for hours, facing away from them, not uttering a word, neither eating or drinking to sustain herself. Sigma and Iris tiptoed around the ship, trying not to disturb her. When the monitors informed them it was midnight, they both lay down to sleep in their bunks. Iris was content to give Sandy all the space she needed to mourn. Sigma clearly couldn't.

"You can't save anyone," he said, bluntly shattering the sombre silence. "That's the job. We've all learned that."

Sandy's shoulders rose and fell heavily. When she turned her head, her eyes were red from tears.

"You could have," she said, incandescent with rage and grief. "You said you were watching him. You should have got him out. Why didn't you?"

"He was carrying loot."

"Fuck you." Sandy spat her words like venom. "And you," she said, glaring at Iris. "I came around that corner, and I saw a bracken standing there with two corpses, not just one. I saw Carl on the ground, and you already in the thing's mouth. I thought it was eating you. How are you still breathing?"

Not knowing how, Iris did not answer. Lying would only enrage her further. The truth would be worse.

"That's Iris' boyfriend," Sigma said, flippant as ever. "You caught them making out."

Iris could hear his stupid smirk just from the tone of his voice. Not the time, buddy. Sandy shook her head in disbelief.

"You're both heartless fucking assholes," she said, turning back to her friend's corpse. "Carl had his faults, but he was a good man. You didn't know him. He was decent. He cared. Perhaps too much. He was worth ten of you selfish cowards. I don't know how you can sleep at night."

There was no arguing with her. Iris had no intention of trying.

The Company would not wait for Sandy to finish grieving. They were back to work in the morning, landing on humid 61-March. It was a straightforward run. Iris was in and out quickly, despite her ankle and missing helmet. The plants here produced oxygen, although the other gases were not the same as Earth. When the moon's air started to make her light-headed, she took breaths through her mouthpiece, still attached to the neck of her suit.

A few hours into collection, she caught sight of one of Scars' kin following her, but had no real problems evading the other bracken. It was only 2 pm when she emerged, laden with items. The run was textbook efficiency, until Sandy dragged Carl's body out of the ship.

"We shouldn't stop her," Iris muttered to Sigma. "Let her grieve."

"If you say so. I guess the fine won't hurt our savings too bad. Bodies are only worth 5 credits anyway."

It took hours, but Sandy managed to dig a grave in the soft soil, and buried Carl under the dappled shade of an alien tree. Iris and Sigma searched around for hives in the meantime, taunting circuit bees and stealing their precious honey. In the evening, they tossed stun grenades at forest giants, and sprinted for safety. The ship was filthy with earth that Sandy had tracked inside.

During the hunt for beehives, Iris picked up a piece of gnarled tree root that reminded her of Scars. She placed it to her lips while the autopilot delivered them back to the Company building.

——\———\——

Despite the harsh words she had flung their way, Sandy didn't jump ship after they made quota. The atmosphere on board was tense. Blood and soil still lingered on the floor. But even if Sandy hated them both, she was a good worker, and the chances of finding anyone more experienced were minimal. Iris and Sigma did not question her decision.

There was very little friendly civil conversation happening while the ship was in orbit around 71-Gordion. Iris wished they had a window. Or even a little screen to show the outside. The rear camera didn't function while the ship was in orbit. It was like the Company was trying to wear them down with boredom. What was the point of being in space if you couldn't have a clear view of the stars?

When they landed, Iris bought a new helmet, and stockpiled antibiotics from the Company store, concerned about the state of the cuts on her neck and chest. Some of the puncture wounds left on her neck were hot to the touch, possibly infected. Not to accuse Scars of being unhygienic, but he was a plant monster living in a filthy old building with dodgy plumbing. His claws probably weren't sterilised.

On the topic of hygiene, Sigma decided on that day to purchase a shower, without telling his colleagues first. It was a big one, wide enough for a full crew of four to wash at the same time. With a shit-eating grin, he started stripping off, encouraging the 'ladies' to use it with him. The Company were, of course, stingy with water supply, so there was some logic to his suggestion. And as off-putting as Sigma's wobbling buttocks were, Iris had not actually showered in many weeks. The thought of hot water was too tempting to resist. Even Sandy couldn't deny the appeal, taking off her suit once steam started misting the glass.

"Stare too long and you'll lose your front teeth," the older woman snapped at Sigma.

Iris had little shame about her body. She was stronger than she had ever been before joining the Company, although still small, plump and unimpressive. Sigma, also plump and unimpressive, wolf whistled as she stepped inside. Iris did her best to ignore him. The shower was not as hot as she might have liked, but it was wonderful to be clean. The water swirling around the drain quickly turned brown, full of every variety of grit and grime.

Iris glanced at Sandy. The other woman was lean and muscular. She had a few silvery stretch marks and three faint incision scars on her belly, suggesting that she might have left children back home. What desperation led her to sign up for Company service?

Sandy turned and started staring at the bleeding cuts on Iris' neck and chest. Uncomfortable with the scrutiny, Iris turned her back and focused on wringing the filth out of her hair. Better to know nothing at all about each other. Focus on the job.

They greeted a new crewmate in the evening. His name was Terry, employee #5513. He was a first-timer, unfortunately, but there had been few options to choose from.

“Welcome to the ship," Sigma said, giving the tour. "I’m crew coordinator Sigma, I man the cameras and I’ll answer all your inane questions. Here's Sandy, she’s a hard ass but she's good at the job, and she's probably got some good qualities hidden deep down. And this charming lady is Iris. She’s weird, she’s quiet, and may or may not have fucked a bracken. Leave her alone and she’ll collect more scrap than anyone else, but don’t expect much sparkling conversation.”

“Hi,” said the new guy.

He was tall and gangly with big doe eyes. The kid stood awkwardly, as if he was still getting used to the length of his own limbs. Iris wouldn’t have been surprised if he had faked his age to get this job. The Company took anyone, prisoners and underage children included. What a world.

“Let him sign in and teach him to use the terminal,” she suggested. “I don’t want a child tripping me up in the dark.”

“See, told you she was charming.”

“I’ll pull my weight," the boy promised. "I’ll be a great asset to the Company.”

Sigma laughed out loud. Even Iris had to crack a smile, hearing the usual propaganda parroted with such sincerity. It was only funny for a moment, though. Chances were, they wouldn’t have the boy around for long.

For the first two days of the next quota, they landed on 41-Experimentation and 220-Assurance to train Terry. Both moons were considered less risky than most others, but that did not make them safe. On the second day, Sandy stunned a Thumper with her gun, and Iris ran in to beat the legless freak to death. Her replacement shovel was heavier than her old one, and the weight distribution wasn't as good, but a shovel was a shovel. The Thumper's skull shattered regardless.

Terry, who had been terrified of everything and anything up until that point, ran in to help. He let loose a war cry which tapered off into a squeak, and started pulverising the Thumper's already deceased remains to a pulp. Iris stepped back, amused. The boy probably would have kept going until the creature was reduced to nothing but atoms, but Sandy put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back.

"Save your strength," she warned him. "The danger isn't over until we're back on the ship."

The rest of the run was a breeze. But it was dull, and not very profitable. They were still on track to meet quota, but barely. More importantly, Iris could not convince the crew to return to Scars' territory, no matter how reasonable she made the suggestion seem.

“21-Offense looks good," she tried to say (again) after the second day.

“Oh!" Sigma sneered. "Sounds like Iris wants to visit her boyfriend.”

Please shut up. “Well, almost everywhere else is flooded, eclipsed or too damn expensive. You blew our money on that shower, remember?"

"It was a good investment."

Overhearing the discussion, Sandy walked over and glared down at Iris.

“We're not going anywhere near that place. So far I've been giving you the benefit of the doubt by assuming that this idiot is just making stupid jokes about you and that bracken, but I don't trust what happened with Carl. Pick anywhere but 21-Offense or you're going to have a problem.”

Well. That was the end of that debate.

“Um, excuse me," Terence said softly. "Sorry, what’s a bracken?”

——|———|——

During the long aching nights, Iris started to feel as if there was nothing left of her as a person but the cravings of her body. She longed endlessly for things the Company denied her - real food, the sun on her skin, freedom to rest, the passionate touch of another being. Tangible things. Real things.

Before now, she had kept herself sane with the dream of securing a promotion, sitting at a desk, sipping fresh coffee somewhere warm and dry. It all felt so far away. Iris could barely recall why she had ever clung to the idea of something so mundane. Maybe she never had, not really. Maybe it was just what she had to tell herself to keep getting up every day.

Reaching for memories of home was also difficult. Trying to remember anything which came before the Company was like peering through fog. Legend had it that the more times you visited that massive wall that pierced the storm clouds on 71-Gordion, the more of your identity was consumed. Memories faded away. Births and deaths, first kisses, weddings, graduations, successes and failures - eventually, you lost them all.

Home became a half-remembered dream. All that remained was the quota.

The Company had not stolen everything from Iris yet. She had a sister, before. Her sister had been pregnant. They had learned to knit together so they could make a blanket for the baby, making little patches and sewing them together. Neither of them had been any good at it, and there had been so little time to spare for knitting, but laughing about dropped stitches and lumpy yarn had made her sister smile, so Iris kept at it every day. It had been nice, making something, dreaming of a future where they wouldn't have to struggle to put food on the table.

Sometime after that, Iris signed up for Company service. She couldn't remember now if they ever finished that blanket. She couldn't remember if her sister had given birth. She couldn't remember her sister's name.

To spare herself the pain, Iris didn't bother trying to dream of home. Or money, or safety. Instead, when she closed her eyes, she thought only of her bracken. Iris was still shaken by the visceral sound Scars had made when she was teleported out of his grasp. A sound of loss. Something out there wanted her, missed her. The thought infected every quiet moment. Twisted desires had moved into the empty space inside her, where a soul would have been, if she had not already sold it for parts.

——|———|——

Heavy rain on 220-Assurance turned the ground to soggy, slippery mud. Iris made the mistake of thinking her ankle was healed well enough to take off the cast. The stabbing pain when her foot unexpectedly slid deep into a slippery puddle caused her to trip and fall into the mud.

Not mud. Quicksand. Iris had a big metal axle in her arms, and clung onto it, trying not to struggle. She had watched a girl drown in quicksand on Experimentation. Struggling had only made things worse. Panic was a certain killer.

Carefully, she fumbled around for her walkie-talkie, but even that small movement made her slip nearly a foot further into the mud. It was up to her waist now, sucking and dragging. She tried to reach for a grip on the edge of the pool. The rotating part of the axle, scraping off solid rock, started sinking too.

"Help!" she screamed out, praying there were no eyeless dogs nearby.

She was only twenty feet from the ship. Sigma came running out, and used the axle to pull her out of the quicksand. With a squelch and a pop, it released her legs, and the two of them flopped down onto solid ground, panting. The rain washed the dirt from their suits, drumming steadily on the plastic.

"I thought you said you couldn't save anyone," Iris said.

Sigma turned on his side and grinned. "You and I are different. Traitors have to watch each other's backs."

——\———\——

They made quota again, and with no fatalities this time, there was enough money to spend on fresh equipment and gear. Their new quota was no laughing matter, well over 1000 credits. It was getting high enough that it would soon be time to jump ship. For now, though, the numbers were still manageable.

Again, bizarrely, Sandy stayed on board. This time, it seemed like she was developing a rapport with Terry, and was unwilling to leave because of the boy's obvious hero worship of her. As competent as Sandy was, Iris almost wished by now that she would leave, if only to stop preventing her from returning to 21-Offense. It had been a week since she had seen Scars. In that time, she had nearly died at least twice. She was tired, miserable, unable to sleep.

It was the wrong thing to do. It would endanger everyone, and impact their ability to meet quota. She did it anyway. Iris crept to the terminal while her colleagues were asleep, and changed their destination from 8-Titan to Offense. The Company offered no refund for the cost of routing to Titan, and Offense was apparently stormy, but Iris was beyond caring. She accepted the consequences.

As anticipated, Sandy nearly beat her with a stop sign when she found out, but Sigma got between the two of them.

"Ladies, ladies," he said, more condescending than there was any need to be. "We still have enough cash left over to go to Titan tomorrow. We're here now. Let's just make the most of it, huh? There's a job to do."

Sandy shoved him into the wall with more choice expletives, but still gathered her equipment together and prepared to head out. The one incontrovertible truth - there was still a quota to meet. Terry, not quite understanding the specifics of the disagreement, remained silent, and waited for Sandy to get ready. Iris had been awake for hours already. She was ready the moment the autopilot ship's doors hissed open.

The weather was ominous outside. Rain poured down. The sky was dark.

"Have fun," Sigma said, winking.

Iris decided to find him something nice, an ancient jar of pickles maybe, to brighten up the ship interior. A new rubber duck, to add a splash of colour. Or perhaps a whoopee cushion to amuse himself. That would fit his sense of humour.

"Don't TP me," she told him. "Not unless I tell you to."

Sigma raised an eyebrow and smirked. Iris didn't care what he thought. He could interpret that request however he pleased.

——|———|——

Her scanner found him, alerting her with a flashing red circle to danger from above.

The bracken was crouched above her in a dark stairwell, watching from impenetrable shadows. Iris dropped what she was carrying in a place she was fairly sure she could find again, and walked carefully towards him, one tentative step at a time. Scars made no sound at first, and gave no indication that he was pleased to see her. Unblinking eyes followed her movement as she ascended towards him.

Iris was far from undaunted. Approaching a deadly predator in the darkness went against the basic survival instincts of most sensible creatures. But there had been numerous opportunities for Scars to snap her neck in the past, and he never had. Relying on blind faith, Iris unclipped her helmet and discarded it along with her flashlight and shovel.

See? She came unarmed. Vulnerable. Right into the beast's maw.

The white orbs were static. Scars remained unmoved by her performance, until Iris was just a few feet away. At first, she crouched down to mimic him, and he cocked his head in response. His dark mantle of leaves rustled once. Then she looked away, sat on the stairs, and presented her open back. The bracken was welcome to take a bite. After everything she had gone through, she would truly rather be eaten by a friend than have what remained of her be consumed by the Company.

Iris didn't hear him approach, even without a bulky helmet to muffle sounds. Claws wrapped around her middle, pulling her up against his chest. Hot breath tickled her ear. Scars nuzzled into her hair, and she was once again introduced to the sensation of a barbed tongue, this time eagerly slurping around her ear, then her neck, lingering at her pulse. Iris leaned in, shivering as a trail of saliva dribbled into her collar. She pulled off her gloves and threw them away. Thick, gnarled arms encircled her torso, and she clutched them tightly as her feet dangled off the ground.

Attempting to fight would have been futile, not that she wanted to. The bracken had her now. Iris was dragged away deeper into the dark, where she could see nothing but his eyes. Most lights were off in the facility that day, and the storm stole any useful daylight. Along the way, she recognised a few landmarks, and then the steep descent towards a crack in the foundations. His den.

It was warm there, like she remembered. The smell was not as bad, so there were probably no corpses here today. Scars deposited her on the ground. Iris rolled onto her back and looked up, trembling but confident that she would survive this encounter. The eyes were close, dual silver stars in an empty darkness. Something wet dripped onto her cheek. It might have been drool. Unless, impossibly, it was a tear. Iris shut her eyes as his tongue lapped over her face. The barbs started to sting after a few moments, so she had to turn away, shielding her face with her hands. Scars licked her palms, and then got a mouthful of hair. He drew back, growling in apparent disgust.

Iris couldn't help but giggle. Interspecies relations were off to a great start.

"Mammals are gross, huh?" she joked.

And squishy. She didn't know how much more abuse her face could take. Her cheeks were rubbed raw already. He was a carnivore, so she supposed it made sense to have such a rough tongue, to scrape meat from the bone. She had a vivid mental image of Scars gnawing on Blevins' ribs.

The bracken rumbled and moved away. She licked her lips, tasting the bitterness of his saliva. It reminded her of chewing on wild grass. Iris sat up, watching his eyes bob around, disembodied in the dark, until he returned to her side.

Something long and heavy dropped into her lap. Her lucky shovel. Somehow, she knew he would have kept it. Iris held it gladly, enjoying its familiar weight in her hands. It had been like losing a limb, being without her favourite weapon. Its notches were all present and correct under her fingertips. Every kill accounted for, from the very first snare flea she fended off as a fresh recruit, to the last hoarding bug she had encountered before meeting Scars.

There were a few extra bugs and beasts to add now. Arguably, also one human. But Carl might have died anyway, whether she had been there or not.

"Thank you," she whispered, and received a soft grunt in reply. It warmed her cold jaded heart, to know that someone cared about such a minor thing. Amazing, that he knew it was important to her.

She set the shovel aside for now. Scars was still watching her closely, as if he never wanted to do anything else. Iris bit her bottom lip, and tipped her head to expose her neck. Come back here.

The bracken stalked over. One enormous clawed hand landed directly on her thigh, and Iris shuddered. He let out a huff of frustration. Or intrigue. Scars leaned in and nipped at the collar of her suit with teeth, as if irritated that the fabric was in his way. There was a sudden sharp sting, and she was fairly certain he cut her with a clumsy fang.

Tasting her blood, the bracken tensed up and growled, low and deep. Iris was shoved backwards, pinned to the ground. Claws held her head down, and his spiny legs lay heavily across her feet. His tongue greedily lathed over the place he had drawn blood. Iris may or may not have let out something embarrassingly close to a whimper. As painful as the barbs on his tongue were, she had never been so aroused in her life. Her pulse throbbed between her legs. Her hazard suit was getting unbearably hot, even more stifling than usual.

She reached for whatever she could touch, stroking the bracken’s leathery chest, finding divots and ridges to explore. When she got braver, she reached over his shoulder. The leaves were soft, waxy, lined with veins. They rustled like feathers, vibrating with his breath, tickling her fingers. Iris made sure to avoid his right side, where his bullet scars were, and where his leaves were torn. She listened to what made him purr louder, until that constant rumble grew loud and unsteady.

The claws released her head and ventured downwards. With another jolt of arousal, Iris accepted that she was precisely the kind of freak Sigma joked she was. She desperately wanted to be touched, in the most animal way, skin on skin, flesh in flesh. The pressure of claws grasping at her belly and breasts nearly drove her insane. If she thought Scars wouldn’t accidentally slash out her innards in his enthusiasm, she would have unzipped her suit right now.

Madly, she wondered if she was somehow misinterpreting everything her bracken did as sexual, when all it might have amounted to was curiosity. Was sex even a concept for flower men? Was she lusting after a creature with no interest in her the same way? He clearly enjoyed being touched, at any rate.

There were a few surefire ways to tell. Iris could only speak the language of horny humans, not knowing the language of horny bracken, but hoped actions would translate across the species barrier better than words. She squirmed down and wrapped her legs around his waist, grinding her hips upwards.

“You want me, baby?” she whispered, feeling a little ridiculous. “Did you wait for me?”

Scars reacted with a heaving breath. He rolled his hips to meet hers. Fuck. There was definitely something big between his legs that wasn't obvious before. Scars growled deeply, his body close enough that she could feel the sound it in her bones. Iris wished she could see what was pressing so insistently at her core. No guarantee a bracken cock would look anything like a human one. It was too difficult to tell based on the pressure through her suit.

Unimportant. He wanted this. And so did she.

But even panting and light-headed with desire, Iris suspected there was no safe way of doing this naked that wouldn't result in lacerations, or the worst friction burns imaginable. And so, when Scars reared back and tried to outright tear her suit, Iris felt a burst of panic. She slapped at his arms and when that didn't work, she growled back at him. And kicked his leg for good measure.

His claws retreated from her suit. Scars went still, huffing and grumbling in frustration, but he was listening nonetheless. Good. That was manageable. Released and given an opening to move her arms, Iris unbuckled her tool belt and threw it away. She flipped over, belly down, and raised her hips in a way that would have been unmistakable for a human. Presenting her rear end, like an animal, wet and ready. Albeit through layers of plastic and fabric.

Her bracken needed little encouragement. Iris let loose a string of curses as he covered her body with his own, and thrust down, purring, his cock jabbing between her thighs. The plastic outer layer of her suit squeaked, slick with some kind of fluid.

Her fingernails scraped the edges of the tiles underneath her. Scars' drool soaked her hair. Even through the protective layers of her clothes, she could feel the pulsing heat of his rigid flesh. His thrusts jolted her roughly, the seams of her suit rubbing near where she might have liked, but not close enough.

Iris rolled her hips back to try to shift the friction where she needed it. She was drenched in sweat. Too hot. Too sensitive. She was going to expire from frustration if she didn't touch herself. With shaking hands, she unzipped the top half of her suit. Scars, to his credit, didn't try to pull it down further, but presented with new skin, he reacted how she expected. A clawed hand reached greedily for her exposed shoulders. Iris held her thighs together, shoving a hand down into her suit to rub her swollen clit. She moaned, her legs shook, and Scars thrust harder, changing angle, chasing his own release.

At some point in the proceedings, Iris was aware that his cock (or whatever the appendage could be called) was changing. It had started out one shape, but now it was bumpy, different somehow. In the dark, she couldn't tell what was happening, and she was too focused on her own pleasure to reach down and find out. Not long after the change, his hips began to judder unevenly. The bracken let out a violent snarl, vibrating so hard she could feel her pelvis shake from it. Hot, thick fluid spurted over the tiles, covering her thighs, spraying as far as her chest.

The tension in her loins was already peaking, and it didn't take much more stimulation for Iris to cum too. She gasped out a few heavy breaths, riding out the waves of her orgasm.

Scars purred and pawed protectively at the trembling human beneath him, sniffing between her legs and then the hand that she removed from her suit. He licked the damp from her fingers.

And there. It was done. She'd fucked a bracken. More or less.

In the aftermath, it did not feel much like bridging a great divide, or fulfilling some cosmic destiny. With the haze of desire lifting, Iris became more aware of pain and drying blood on her shoulder. This cut felt deep. Great. More bracken related injuries. If you were going to fuck a monster, she supposed that came with the territory. To his credit, Scars did appear to notice that he had caused some damage, and hummed with what she assumed was guilt. When he tried to lick it though, Iris hissed and made him stop. Unless his saliva had some kind of magical healing property, that was only making it worse.

Iris lay there on the tiles, bleeding, skin slick with cold sweat. The heater was doing its job, warming her aching body. She examined Scars' cum with her fingertips. Stickier than the human variety tended to be. It might be difficult to clean.

And with that thought, reality started kicking in. Languishing in a monster’s den after getting fucked (or near enough) was miles better than the prospect of returning to the ship, but she still had to go soon. There was a pile of scrap waiting along with her gear in the facility. She had to return. She had to make the walk of shame back to the ship, stained with bracken juices, and act like nothing happened. What other option was there? There was nothing to eat here. She was getting a headache from straining to see in the dark. Her current life might have been pointless and miserable, but life here wouldn't be much better. Radiation or toxic gases in the air would kill her eventually. If he got hungry enough, maybe her flower man would eat her.

Still, she decided to consider this a win for interspecies relations.

Poor Scars had wrapped his tree-root limbs around her, still purring, but softer. Iris felt his cool breath on her damp face. He must have been horribly lonely, waiting for her here. How old was he? Old enough to have survived serious wounds, and to have grown to his current size, but she knew nothing of flower man physiology. Was she the only creature, bracken or human, to have ever touched him with gentleness? Did he ever have parents, family? What did he dream of? If he dreamed at all.

She tucked her head into his chest.

"I have to go soon," Iris said, and because he didn't understand, she felt safe saying the quiet part out loud. "My life doesn't belong to me anymore, so I might not have a choice, but I'll try to come back. Wait for me, yeah?"

Obviously, he did not answer. But Iris chose to interpret the tightening of his claws on her back as a yes.

Chapter Text

Iris had always preferred to work alone. Today, however, she had a partner.

They moved like shadows in the facility, human and bracken. He led her back to the place she had deposited her equipment, and after that, they went prowling together. Their first hunt as a couple. Iris went first, scanning ahead. Every so often, she reached back to find Scars' solid presence right there. No need to check.

In the maze of tunnels, they could hear the thunderous slam and drag of a Thumper's movements. Closer, closer. Iris placed her feet carefully on the damp floor. She was nowhere near as stealthy as a bracken, but still, she was quiet enough to evade a creature with poor hearing. Thumpers might have had multiple mouths, but no extra ears. Both human and bracken easily stalked up behind the legless beast.

It started turning, and spotted Iris. But by then it was too late. The flat of her shovel blade struck its upper mouth hard. Stunned, the Thumper let out a higher-pitched roar. Twice more Iris brought her shovel down. She side-stepped a thrashing meaty arm. Her fourth strike sliced neatly into the wrinkly flesh connecting body and head. Blood spilled onto the floor.

Scars rustled his leaves behind her. He had not tried to assist. Iris was unsure how to interpret that. As she drew back to wipe her shovel, the bracken clasped her waist and nudged at her helmet, perhaps approving. Was he happy to let her do all the work? Or was he simply confident she knew what she was doing, and chose not to get in the way? If only he could speak.

Iris kept working. Without the Thumper around, the area was as safe as anyone could hope. She scanned for items, and gathered those with high value together. While she did that, Scars prowled around nearby, watchful, patient. His hooves were audible now, when he was not sneaking, soft thuds alerting Iris to his location.

It was late. Sandy and Terence were already back on the ship. Iris had stayed in her bracken's den for as long as reasonably possible, letting time slip away. For a spare few hours, she had tried to picture herself as a bracken, tall, wild and powerful, free of human concerns, sleeping safe and sated after a successful hunt. What worries would she possibly have? A full belly, a strong mate protecting her while she closed her eyes - would she have any fears at all?

No arbitrary numbers to strive for, no duties, no dead colleagues. No shame. A nice thought.

The heavy rain outside, a constant drumming audible from the upper levels of the facility, suggested that their landing site on 21-Offense was at risk of flooding. Iris was a decent swimmer, a fact that had kept her alive once or twice, on other moons. However, Company hazmat suits were not the best diving equipment. They could fill quickly with water. Iris had already had one unpleasant experience with mud and rain earlier in the week. She did not look forward to another.

The other big concern was the possibility of Sigma launching the ship early. With Scars to guard her back overnight, and the heater in his den to ward off the cold, Iris knew that being abandoned would not be an instant death sentence. Not unless the ship never returned to pick her up. It could happen. If he had done it once, Sigma could leave her again. Quota could easily compel him to prioritise going elsewhere.

But, oddly, she had faith that he wouldn't.

That was probably foolish. He was not a friend. Just an ally, of sorts, and a temporary one at that. Still, Iris had grown used to thinking of him as a safety harness. Nine times out of ten, Sigma was crass, unpleasant and useless, but it was good to have a ship guy waiting to bail you out if things became extremely grim. Most importantly, Sigma did not judge. He understood from personal experience what the job required. He understood what survival meant.

Still. Probably best not to waste more time.

Scars' claws appeared suddenly on her shoulder. A couple of weeks ago, the sight of a bracken's claws reaching stealthily into her peripheral vision would have meant certain death. There was something incredibly gratifying about transforming a source of utter terror into a source of comfort.

Iris was still wary of Scars, in the way one always had to be wary of a wild, unpredictable beast. But she also believed that he cared about her. As further proof of that belief, when she turned around, he was holding a battered sheet of corrugated metal. By the Company's standards, not valuable. Her scanner informed her it was only 13 credits, but the effort was certainly appreciated.

It was a funny quirk, for a plant monster, but Scars clearly liked to give gifts. Iris wondered if it was some kind of courting behaviour.

"Thank you," she said, and reached up to scratch his chest.

Scars leaned into her touch once again. She flattened her hands over his ridged skin. There were no nipples on the planes of his chest, and the musculature was quite different from that of humans. Iris had acquired some compelling evidence that the ridges lower on his sides were erogenous zones.

No. Don't get distracted. They had already been "distracted" twice before leaving his den.

Scars was not helping. Very interested in keeping her attention, the bracken hooked his claws under her thighs and lifted her up against a wall. Iris was still unused to being lifted off her feet so effortlessly. It made her insides turn to jelly every time. She retaliated by digging her gloved fingertips into his sides. Just once more, then. Where was the harm?

His leaves shuddered. Claws tightened around her thighs, pulling her legs further apart so he could roll his hips against her. Her tool belt dug into her belly rather uncomfortably, so she unbuckled it and let it fall onto the ground. Iris realised that she could actually see what was happening this time. That was new.

Curiosity killed the human and all that. She reached down where their bodies met, and Scars snarled aggressively. Really? He didn't want her directly touching him? Bit hypocritical, given how he'd tried to tear her suit off earlier. And a bit sensitive, for a big plant monster. What damage could she possibly do to his sensitive parts with her blunt fingers?

All the same, Iris stopped and waited, but when he didn't complain any more, she tried again a few seconds later, without her gloves. Scars growled again, but less convincingly. Iris rubbed little circles near the faint slit at his groin until his growling turned into more pleasant rumbling. If she closed her eyes, his leaves sounded like the boughs of a tree, rustling in a summer breeze.

There was a vibration in his body, and the slit started pulling open. Fascinated, Iris watched as his skin peeled back, like a protective sheath. The organ exposed was bright red, wrinkly and wet with clear fluid. The base was framed by green leaves. It was not entirely alien, recognisably phallic, with a shaft and a head. It was clearly designed to be inserted somewhere. However, Iris' immediate thought, based on size alone, was that the laws of physics were never going to permit the head of Scars' cock to fit inside her. It was much wider than human varieties, and not as round. The tip was smooth, but around it were loose green folds of velvety skin, fanning out. Like a flower. A thick, wrinkly flower.

Tentatively, looking up to check for permission, she touched the head. Scars bucked his hips into her touch. Alright. Promising. Iris palmed the swollen flesh, feeling it throb in her hand. It was a lot softer than she had expected. The head was very wide, but soft and squishy. The shaft below it was still girthy, not to mention long, but more manageable. Not impossible, she decided, to fit this monster inside her, with some effort. Just maybe not today.

Her hands were quickly soaked in fluid. 'Hands' plural, because she ended up using both. Scars leaned his head on the wall above, his body curled over her. While he watched, he was still clutching her legs, making pleased rumbles. It was quite the rush, having a powerful alien at her mercy. She took some twisted pleasure from the idea that other bracken, with their thick claws, could never touch each other this way. Only soft human hands could do this. She was turning Scars into just as much of a deviant as she was. Iris stopped touching him entirely for a moment just to see how he would react, and received a deep snarl in response. Smirking, she kept going, stroking and squeezing.

When he started moving his hips in a less controlled way, Iris noticed a change. The loose flaps around his cock head started swelling up, spreading out like green petals. She had a surreal moment trying to imagine what that would even feel like, inside her, and wondered if it would hurt. Apparently, while thinking that, she must have slowed down. Impatiently, Scars pushed her tight against the wall and rubbed off on her belly and thighs, huffing with desperation.

Some of his cum got on her helmet visor. Iris spent the next ten minutes staggering around, wiping it off. Something else she had discovered once she was back in a lit area was that bracken cum was green. Very green. It had stained her hazmat suit, particularly between her legs.

Iris dreaded seeing Sigma's reaction to that. He wouldn't immediately know what it was, but he could take a guess. He would be unbearable about it.

——|———|——

Fastening whatever she could reasonably carry to her suit, Iris hesitated again. It was definitely getting late. She had to go. Back to the ship. Back to the grind. Perhaps never to return.

When she reached the fire exit, Scars stepped in front of her, rumbling unhappily. This was becoming the running theme of their odd relationship. Iris sighed. If he stopped her physically, and dragged her back into the darkness, she would have accepted captivity without much resistance.

"I'll try," she whispered. "I'll try to return."

Ah, Scars. Whatever sense of honour he possessed clearly would not permit him to stop her with force. He growled and grumbled, but in this instance at least, it was all bark and no bite. Iris opened the door and walked out into the rain.

It was late. The sky was almost black. The flooding was worse than she had anticipated. Where there was still dry land in the canyon, either mud or prowling eyeless dogs were an alternative problem. Iris climbed down a ladder, and waded neck deep in flowing water. Her feet slid off soggy slopes.

Halfway to the ship, a dog heard her splashing, and lifted its head. Heart thudding, Iris stopped treading water, and went flat on her back, silent, allowing the current to carry her. Water lapped the edges of her visor, and raindrops obscured her vision. With all the items she was carrying, she was barely afloat at all. She could hear nothing but sloshing waves, unsure if the dog was still paddling towards her. It seemed as if the current was taking her the right way, but Iris had no idea.

And then she felt it. A rumble, a groan. In the water, in the ground. In the very fabric of her being.

Instinct took over. She rolled and swam with the current, as fast as possible. The weight of everything she carried made her sink underwater. The sound came again, a deep vibration. Something enormous.

A wave slammed into her, tossing her aside. When she righted herself in the water, and looked behind her, everything was brown and murky. Needing to breathe, she surfaced, just in time to see the shadow of some enormous creature silhouetted against the dusk sky, soaring in an arc, coming down with a massive crash far in the distance.

Earth leviathan. Giant worm.

Iris marvelled at her luck. The eyeless dog was gone. Into the worm's maw.

The ship was not far. It did not take long to reach it, even with the current swirling and pulling her down. The water level was high enough that it lapped at the door. All three of her crewmates were waiting there, silent, wide-eyed, as Iris hauled herself on board. They had witnessed the giant worm leaping from the flooded valley. They had watched as the prowling dog vanished into its mouth. If not for her life signs on the monitor, they would surely have believed her to be dead too.

"Luck of the devil," Sandy murmured. There was awe in her voice.

The atmosphere on the ship was tense. No-one made a lengthy analysis of what had transpired. No-one celebrated another victory against death. Sigma patted Iris on the shoulder, helped with her loot, and then pulled the lever. Adrenaline drained from her body as the ship lifted out of the water.

Aside from her life, Iris he could be thankful for one other thing - that the flood water had washed away all traces of green bracken 'slime' from her suit. No visible evidence of her perversions. Except directly branded onto her skin, in shades of ruby and jade.

——|———|——

In orbit, the silence did not last for long. Sandy was not simply willing to let bygones be bygones. They had barely finished counting up the value of their haul before she returned to the argument from that morning, accusing Iris of endangering everyone by changing their destination. Of course, she was right. Iris knew it was beyond frustrating to have a coworker behave the way she had, but there was no believable excuse that sprung to mind.

Sigma tried to cover for her, but Iris hushed him.

"I'm sorry for doing what I did," she said. "But we still have two days to make quota. Two days to spend on Titan. We'll manage."

"Explain why you did it."

"I can't."

Sandy shook her head, clenching her fists. Thankfully, she did not knock Iris' teeth out, resorting to just kicking the side of the ship. Seeking to escape the altercation entirely, Iris climbed into her bunk with a few snacks and fresh bandages, and faced the wall. She spent time patching herself up, and added missed notches to her shovel handle.

Sandy paced around the ship for nearly an hour, muttering, agitated. Sigma, for once, had the good sense to keep opinions to himself. Terry, who had never talked much, anxiously offered to stay awake and guard the terminal overnight, to prevent any more destination changes.

"That won't be necessary," Iris said.

"Hey, hey," Sigma protested. "The terminal is my territory."

"Do it," Sandy ordered.

So Terry stayed awake. He sat next to the terminal through their sleep cycle, holding Sandy's stun gun. Iris was unconvinced that he would actually try to use it, if confronted, but she wasn't about to test his loyalty. Tonight, she needed her rest. They'd be heading for Titan in the morning. Those tall stairways and ladders required a good night's sleep.

Lying in her bunk, drifting off, Iris acknowledged the soreness of her body. Muscles burning, scratches and scrapes stinging. The places where Scars had cut her with his claws were throbbing, both those that were half-healed, and the newly bandaged laceration. The ache of her sprained ankle was duller now, but the joint was far from fully healed.

Each pain was inconvenient, but also warm, life-affirming. They were battle injuries, hard earned, and they made her feel grounded, real. Alive. Few humans could claim to have survived what she had. If there was a way out of this mess, Iris convinced herself she would find it.

She fell asleep with a small glimmer of hope.

In the morning, a cold dose of reality. Sandy was awake early, and Terry was dozing in his bunk. At some point, they had traded places. And now, the ship was already in orbit around a moon. It was not a moon Iris had ever wanted to return to.

85-Rend.

Sandy smugly pointed out that they only had enough funds to route to one expensive moon, and they needed to take the risk for a greater reward. Their quota was just too high not to. No changing the destination now.

Yeah, right. Whatever Sandy said, this choice was obvious and intentional. The older woman had definitely read Iris' employment record. This was revenge.

Well, if that was her game, Iris would give her no satisfaction. She said nothing, produced no emotional reaction. She just went about her business, wrapping her ankle, prepping her equipment and eating breakfast (grey paste, yum). To all appearances, Iris considered nothing to be amiss.

Everything was amiss. Her heart pounded as the doors opened and snow blew in.

While she was tying the laces of her boots, Sigma surprised her. He plopped down beside her and started gathering his own set of field equipment - flashlight, tool belt and all.

"I've got your back," he said. "I'm going in."

Iris blinked. "You're not staying on the ship?"

"Moral support or whatever," Sigma shrugged.

Deeply ingrained habits of solitude nearly made Iris order him to stay on board, to tell him that she worked better alone. But the truth was, she was terrified. Out there, in the frozen wastelands, that demon child might still be waiting, biding its time. Worse, the skeletons of her former crew could be lying out there in the snow, their ghosts lingering, vengeful. She had heard bizarre legends of Company employees returning from the dead to haunt their living crewmates.

Would having an ally at her back really be so bad?

"Thanks," she said. Sigma went with her.

The weather as as unpleasant as always. All four of them were caked in snow when they entered the weird old mansion, and it melted off them while they worked. Damp footprints led back to the doors. Iris and Sigma stepped cautiously around dusty old shelves stacked with ancient books. At any moment, she expected to hear hoarse breathing, to turn around to find a creepy little child glaring at her from the corner of a room.

Sigma was clumsy. He made noise knocking into furniture, kept clearing his throat, and occasionally shone his flashlight into her eyes. They were little annoyances, but they added up to distractions. Perhaps she was grateful. At least it kept her from thinking constantly about the past.

"Should I distract you by talking?" he said at one point.

"No."

Iris knew enough without actually speaking to Sigma. Talking was not a thing they did. Their understanding of each other was based in grunts and dumb jokes. He kept talking anyway.

"So what is it you see in your flower man, huh?" he asked. "What does he have that I don’t?"

Iris grabbed his sleeve and yanked Sigma back from a land mine. "Self awareness, apparently," she muttered. "I’m starting to see why you usually stay on the ship."

Sigma had joked so many times about her and Scars that Iris was now convinced he knew. He had to, at this point. The radar would have told him how close they were in proximity to each other, more than once, and here she was, intact, alive.

"Do you want to know the real reason?" Sigma asked.

For staying on the ship? Cowardice was the obvious answer. Iris rolled her eyes.

"I know the real reason," she said, scanning a painting. 104 credits. Nice.

"Doubt it," Sigma chuckled.

Iris wasn't going to ask him to clarify, but after they had moved into another room, and started checking out a box of old children's toys, he kept going.

"I signed up with my father," he said. "We were both out of work. I'd just got out of prison, and he was too old to head into the mines. Jobs were hard to find. We hadn't eaten in a day or two. This seemed like easy money. Day one, he says to me, Sigma my boy, promise me that you’ll stay right here, and man the cameras. Pass the time. Don't take any risks. Then I’ll be able to say to your mother that I kept you safe and sound on this job."

Iris said nothing. His tone was a forced kind of casual, masking pain.

"I wasn't very good at first," Sigma laughed. He shook a baby's rattle and tossed it aside. "Dear old dad died before we even met our first quota. But I’ve kept my promise."

Uncomfortable, Iris cleared her throat. Why was he telling her all of that?

"…that’s rough," she said. "Sorry."

Sigma laughed again. "Don’t be sorry," he said. "I’m better off without him. Better off without Aaron and Blevins and Daryl too. I’ve got you now. It all worked out."

Once they had finished picking out a few children's puzzles, Iris realised that between the discomfort of hearing that story, and watching the doors for bracken or coil-heads, she had been fully distracted from the fear of demons and zombified crewmates.

As for what he said, Sigma clearly hadn't processed his losses, but Iris hadn't either. There was just not enough time to do so. It didn't make either of them psychopaths. Just survivors. Right.

They piled their haul at the door, took what they could carry, and made a first delivery to the ship. When they returned, Sandy and Terry were shouting about coil-heads in the entrance. Iris and Sigma helped them reach the doors, backing up while the possessed mannequins jolted forwards bit by bit, every time all four sets of eyes looked away or blinked. Terry was through the doors first. Then Sigma. Iris and Sandy were the last to flee. At first, neither of them moved.

"Go on," Iris said. "I'll be fast enough to bolt the doors."

Sandy hesitated behind her.

"It's not some kind of trick," Iris insisted, keeping her eyes on the coil-heads. "Get out."

Sandy kept hesitating. She took a step forward.

"I know what you did," she hissed in Iris' ear, and then ran.

For a horrifying moment, Iris wondered if she had bolted the doors to lock her in. But when she reached them, they opened. No creepy big doll was going to end her life today. Iris slammed the doors shut and pulled the bolt across. No going back in. Time to head back.

She wondered how Scars dealt with coil-heads back on 21-Offense. Did he lure them into a ravine? Did he just vanish into the shadows and give them the slip? Iris had heard on the Company grapevine that even a shotgun blast did relatively little to coil-heads. Even partially intact, they could still crawl after you. Scars was strong and powerful, but even he must have been unable to properly demolish one.

There were two giants near the ship. Iris only had one stun grenade. It was a narrow escape, which meant it was one of a very long list of narrow escapes in recent times. The ship was already halfway through liftoff when she tumbled through the doorway, evading a grasping set of hands.

On the second day of their charming trip to 85-Rend, Sigma stayed on the ship, and Iris kept her walkie-talkie on. Sandy and Terry were talking to each other during the walk to the doors. Iris could only just see them through the blizzard haze, up ahead, but even through the snow, she could tell that they were glancing back at her. It made her skin crawl almost as much as any demon ghost child.

I know what you did.

What did she mean? Carl? Iris' former crew? Was the rumour of her being with Scars enough to condemn her in Sandy's eyes? Six weeks of relentless danger was shattering Iris' moral compass. Nothing she had done to the older woman felt evil enough to warrant such suspicion.

What a false sense of righteousness, to judge her for staying alive. Predictable and disappointing. Sandy was, overall, one of the more competent coworkers Iris had worked with. The amount of loot she brought back was reliably solid, she made no foolish mistakes, and she never seemed afraid. She didn't smell strange either, which was a plus. But, unlike Iris, she had miraculously managed to get this far with some sense of honour still intact.

Iris could not hate Sandy for being human. Of course not. But her attitude was becoming a problem. It was bad enough having to watch your back for beasts and unholy abominations from the facilities. It was unbearable having to watch your back for vengeful colleagues.

Preoccupation with crew dynamics actually took her mind away from the past. No demon came to claim her soul. The ghosts of 85-Rend were apparently far less haunted by her than she was by them.

Halfway through scrap collection, Iris heard a book fall over behind her. She turned, and caught a glimpse of pale eyes in the darkness, before the bracken slinked away. It would indeed be quite ironic, to end up murdered by one of her lover's kin. Not if she could help it.

"Bracken on me," she said into her radio.

"There's a few things near you, actually, Iris," Sigma said. "I'd get a move on if I were you."

Okay. Non-specific, but helpful. Iris scanned around. There was a snare flea out in one corridor, and a large undulating hygrodere in an adjacent room, but she saw nothing else to begin with. Then she went down a staircase and nearly ran directly into a Jester. It paused in her path and started winding up.

Fuck. Well, time to go.

"Jester winding-"

Sandy and Terry came barrelling around a corner straight towards her. Iris put her walkie-talkie in her belt, and clutched her shovel handle. Nervous energy coursed through her. For a few seconds, she braced for a physical assault.

"Where's the bracken?" Sandy demanded right away.

Iris pointed vaguely in the direction she had come from, and then more emphatically at the Jester actively preparing to tunefully destroy them all.

"Don't we have a bigger problem?"

Terry nodded anxiously. "Yeah, Sandy, I really don't like this plan. Can't we just go?"

Hefting her stun gun, Sandy stalked up the stairs, completely ignoring the Jester and the noise it was making. To Iris' utter amazement, she raised the weapon at a shadowy spot, and started charging it up.

"Terry!" she barked, and the boy scrambled up the stairs to defend her.

The bracken lunged towards Sandy, a second too late. A blast of electrical charge from her gun stopped the flower man in its charge. It writhed and burned, covering its face. Terry was ready. And stupidly loyal. The kid raised his weapon and started slamming it down on the bracken's head, over and over again.

"Fuck this," Iris muttered.

She turned away and ran, before all hell broke loose. The Jester's tune became more frantic. If the bracken escaped Sandy's electrical beam, or if the Jester reached the end of its wind-up, Iris was not going to be there to witness any of it. She went right for the doors.

Out in the snow, running from danger, she remembered how she had felt on that awful day, weeks ago. Moments from death, thinking only of survival. Perhaps, all this time, she had been less afraid of the demon child, and her fallen crew, than she was of the darkness in herself. 85-Rend could not hurt her any more than any other moon. Death was everywhere. But shame existed somewhere she could not hide from.

On the ship, she looked over Sigma's shoulder. Incredibly, Sandy and Terry had survived.

"They killed something," he said. "Don't know what based on just the radar."

A bracken. They'd killed a bracken.

They did not take too long to reach the ship. By then, an eyeless dog was nearby. Sigma signalled for silence. Sandy dropped her loot, and then turned around, confused. No Terry. She peered into the snow for a few minutes, baffled.

Iris glanced at the monitor. Oh, shit. Terry's life signs were just…gone. His body was static in the snow. Sigma was frowning, and shrugged when Sandy made hand signals to ask what happened.

Since the teleporter was very loud, Sigma waited until the eyeless dog was a reasonable distance away before retrieving the body. Sandy went back out to pick up whatever the kid had dropped. With the extra items on board, they launched the ship. In orbit, the three of them stood around Terry's body.

"He was right behind me," Sandy said numbly. "He was fine."

The boy's head was…missing. Like it had been ripped clean off his neck, or had just exploded. Iris had never seen a death like this one, and she had seen many bodies. Coil-heads replaced a head with a coil. Snare fleas suffocated anyone foolish enough to wander into their traps. This was not a Jester kill, either. Too clean. Giants ate their victims whole. Dogs tore a person limb from limb.

There was something icy and horrible in Iris' gut, looking at Terry. She had an odd feeling that this was precisely what would have happened to her, if she had stayed on 85-Rend that day she sacrificed her crew.

Chapter Text

The Company building and the sky were one and the same. The wall was so enormously high that it pierced the clouds above, its true height unknowable. It was similar to the stormy seas under the landing bay in that way. Iris stared into those thrashing depths, and imagined them endless. Perhaps the wall extended down, as well as up, built fathomlessly deep into the water, out of sight.

Each human worker was just a minute speck in the face of its enormity. There was no better way to remind you just how pathetic and worthless you truly were to the Company than to stand there, dwarfed by the wall, perched between boiling fog and raging ocean. Screams would be swallowed up by the howling winds. If you jumped, the waves would thoughtlessly smash your body against concrete pillars.

Iris stood right there, at the edge of the walkway, where the sea spat and moaned. She could hear whatever lay beyond the wall, nearly drowned out by the elements, but undeniable. Occasional groans, a writhing rumble. It sounded angry. It sounded hungry. Never satisfied, never whole. She knew the feeling.

There was a shout behind her. Iris turned to see Sigma jogging towards her, waving.

"Hey! I've ordered us a new victim!" he shouted.

Iris closed her eyes and let out a breath. Fuck. He had been so quick to make that call. She should not have left the ship and let him make the decision alone, but it was just so oppressive on board. She had desperately needed a moment to herself. Iris left the edge of the walkway and strode towards Sigma, glaring at him through her helmet.

"Why did you do that without asking if I'd rather be reassigned?" she yelled over the wind. "And what do you mean, one victim? Sandy is staying? Again?"

"Of course she is," Sigma shrugged. "She knows we're better than any other crew out there."

No. Oh no, that was definitely not her game. Iris had seen too much to believe that.

"We should have jumped ship, you and me," she said, gesturing between the two of them. "Our quota is too high already. And I don't trust her."

Sigma raised his hands defensively. Infuriatingly.

"Alright, alright," he sighed, leaning in and setting a hand on her shoulder. "Well, I guess maybe it's time to…y'know." He mimed a slice with his other hand and made a clicking sound with his mouth.

Iris gaped at him. "What?"

"You know. Time to feed her to your boyfriend. Like Carl. Like Blevins."

The ocean crashed and roared. Iris blinked, struck dumb by the calmness of his words.

"That is not what happened," she said, stunned. "Do you seriously think that's what happened?"

"Isn't it?"

"No!" She wrenched her shoulder out of his grip.

There were still only three notches on her shovel handle for humans. She had given herself grace for the men killed by Scars. Her presence had only been incidental. All she could have done in either instance was die in their place. Sigma pulled a face and threw up his arms.

"Well, fine, if you say so, I guess it isn't," he said. "But your bracken does have a habit of killing our crew. Maybe just, like…make sure Sandy and him are in the same room. Or whatever."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Iris blurted out.

"What's wrong with me? I'm not the one banging a bracken." Sigma raised his voice, but corrected himself after a moment, seeing her face darken in anger. "Which is fine by me, if that's how you want to spend your time," he said. "But I thought we had an understanding here."

The storm was screaming. Not just out there in the darkness of 71-Gordion, but in her mind. Iris paced around in a circle. Mentally speaking, Sigma was apparently much further gone than she had realised. And far worse, she was almost willing to agree with him.

She needed a way out. A way to escape. She glanced at the edge of the walkway again, the water below, but shook her head. She turned back to Sigma.

"We can't just keep going for higher quotas," she told him. "That's not how this works."

Sigma was quiet for a minute. He looked up, up, up at the Company building, thoughtful.

"Maybe it is," he said. "I've been thinking a lot. What do you suppose it wants from us?"

"Scrap," Iris said. "That's all it wants."

It was impossible to think anything else, standing there. They were just motes of dust, clinging onto to a damp concrete surface. Soon to be wiped away, replaced with more. Always more to take their places. Expendable.

Sigma shook his head. "Think about it, though. Maybe it's a test. We have to prove our resolve. What's the highest quota you've ever heard someone get?"

"I don't know. A few thousand." She put her hand on his elbow. "Sigma, that's a dangerous game. We can't do that. It'll get us killed."

He glanced at her hand, then back up at the hidden heights of the wall. After a while, he just started walking back towards the ship. Iris felt the wind tugging at her suit. She was light-headed after that conversation, but there was no comfort from the storm. With nowhere else to go, Iris walked back.

Sandy was leaning in the doorway of the ship. The older woman's eyes were red behind her visor. She had not slept. A blood vessel twitched in her forehead.

Iris walked up to her. "Why are you still here?"

Sandy examined her with a dead-eyed expression. Her hand was on her zap gun.

"To bear witness," she eventually said.

——|———|——

Employee #5519, otherwise known as Celina, arrived on 71-Gordion by Sigma's request.

Young, frail and shy, she was barely better than a first-timer. The girl had a single quota under her belt, still freshly traumatised by culture shock. Ghosts lingered behind her tired eyes. Her original crew of first-timers had not made it more than two days. Celina had been the sole survivor to make it back to the Company building alive.

Iris would have questioned why Sigma chose her over potentially better options, but when he immediately started flirting with her, that question was answered. He made tasteless jokes about being so 'lucky' to share a living space with three women, and then made far too much eye contact with Celina while they took an uncomfortable group shower.

Iris told the girl to ignore Sigma. Sandy told her the same, but added that Celina should punch him in the teeth if he tried anything, or better yet, she would punch him in the teeth on her behalf.

It would have been risky to travel to an expensive moon right away with a new colleague in tow. They had a few hundred credits worth of spare loot after two days on 85-Rend. For the sake of decent weather and a change of pace, the ship was routed to 56-Vow. It was not an 'easy' moon. There were no easy moons. Celina was grateful nonetheless, not be thrown straight into a situation she was unequipped to deal with.

Sandy took the timid girl under her wing immediately, commiserating over her losses, and Iris was unsure how to react. Normally, she would have given anything not to talk to coworkers, but with all the tension brewing under forced politeness, watching Sandy talk to their new crewmate was suffocating.

When Sigma met her gaze, she felt sick. They had talked so little, and all this time she had assumed they understood each other perfectly. But at some point, he had actually come to the conclusion that she was an unrepentant murderer, sacrificing coworkers to a monster for her own gain. And worse, he was fine with that. How was he fine with that?

When they touched down on Vow, their 'crew coordinator' strode outside and removed his helmet to breathe in the floral air. Sigma winked obnoxiously at Celina as she went past. Iris wished he wouldn't. The girl was clearly uninterested, not to mention at least a decade his junior.

The air on these forest moons was sweet, sure, but also toxic. However, it was still far from the most toxic or radioactive substance that the Company exposed them to. During the walk through the trees, alone, Iris removed her helmet. You had to keep things in perspective. Things which killed you slowly were acceptable.

Vow was beautiful, exotic. Iris moved slowly through the foliage, taking her time. Winding vines covered gnarled alien trees. Roots split the moist soil. Insects hummed in the air. It was warm. And it was alive. She wondered if Scars and his kind originated in a place like this. Were his ancestors taken away from their homes, long ago, doomed to wander inhospitable places? Iris could picture baby bracken sprouting here from the fertile earth during the night, mewling at the bright stars. 21-Offense, as barren and empty as it was, seemed like no fit place for anything but dry grass to grow.

Was there a way for her to escape into these wilds? If so, she would take Scars with her. They could build a hut, farm vegetables, grow old together.

Another nice thought. And only that. The atmosphere itself would kill her within a week, and she would die gasping for breath, coughing blood, hallucinating.

Scars might be happy, though. That would be something.

Iris did her job as usual, this time dodging a coil-head on her way out of the facility. It was a shockingly quiet run aside from that. When she returned to the ship, Celina and Sandy were picking up two beehives for extra profit. Afterwards, they both twitched and complained of static shocks. They had been stung quite a lot in the process. Probably lost some brain cells.

Oddly, it was Celina now who held Sandy's stun gun, carrying it gingerly, as if the contraption would burn her. The girl's demeanour had completely changed. If she had seemed nervous before, now she was entirely closed off, shoulders hunched, downcast. Sandy must have said something to her. Iris had her teeth clenched while they counted up the value of their items, waiting for something to happen. Something had to happen.

In an incredibly suspicious tone of voice, Sandy offered to go to 21-Offense.

"Since it's your favourite moon, Iris," she said, smiling.

A flash of teeth made Iris think of bared fangs. She glanced at Sigma. There was blood in the water. They could all smell it. But which one of them would be the shark?

——|———|——

Overnight (if there can be any real concept of 'night' in space) Iris could not sleep, even when she desperately wanted to. Quietly, while the others were in their bunks, she got up and paced barefoot over all the junk they had gathered so far.

Here were the facts. Sandy had been training Terry to kill a bracken. She was angry, vengeful. She would try to kill Scars, given the opportunity. Iris was almost certain that the attempt would now involve poor Celina. So what was she to do?

Maybe if she found Scars herself, quickly, and went to his lair, Sandy would never figure out where they went. Iris would have to keep Scars occupied for the entire day, however, and then there would be no time left over for collecting her own share of loot. They needed more. Their quota, creeping up on 2000 credits, would not meet itself.

Another course of action would be to not enter the facility at all. If she did not lure Scars into harm's way, perhaps Sandy would never have an opportunity to attack him. But then, if Scars did decide to hunt Sandy, as he was likely to do either from hunger or territorial instincts, then Iris needed to be there.

To protect him. To protect her. To intervene, if possible.

It was hopeless. One way or another, Iris knew this would end badly.

She slumped down next to the beehives. The smell of honey filled her nose. Would Scars enjoy a piece of honeycomb? A fair gift, for all the trouble she was bringing his way. She searched around and found an old jar. There were pickles in it as some point, if she recalled correctly. She scooped some honeycomb into the jar, and tucked it into her pocket.

Taking some of the honey would mean fewer credits towards their quota. But if Scars had any memory of an ancestral home, somewhere warm and green, maybe a sweet taste of home would bring it back.

——|———|——

Day came. As it had to, eventually.

While they prepared to head outside into the wasteland of 21-Offense, Sigma made meaningful glances between her and Sandy. Oh, fuck you too, Iris thought. He might as well have been making neck-slicing motions and cackling maniacally.

As it turned out, Sandy lacked subtlety as well. Iris had assumed that the attack on Scars would be more of an ambush. But right out of the ship doors, Sandy and Celina were clearly following her, and making no secret of that fact.

"We can cover more ground if we go in separately," Iris said, turning around to acknowledge them both. Celina avoided her gaze. Sandy just stood there, furious, holding a shovel still stained with Terry's blood. Perhaps Carl's was there too. It was hard to keep track of the origins of stains after a while.

Iris kept walking, sick to her stomach. She could run towards the fire exit. That was an option. But then she would be running right into unknown dangers, blindly. And there was no guarantee that Scars would find her before he found the others. In an attempt to avoid the confrontation, she might hasten it by accident.

The others followed her up the ladder towards the fire exit. Iris stopped a few paces before the red door, watching as they approached. Sandy halted, hands on her hips, sneering.

"See?" she said to Celina, pointing at Iris' bulging pocket, full of honeycomb. "She's taking our hard-earned goods to that monster. Just like she took my cousin."

Celina was wavering, afraid. The girl had barely said two words in anyone's direction. Iris knew nothing about her, her life, her personality. Wrong place, wrong time. She had haplessly stepped into a shit-show, and now here she was, wrapped up in a deranged quest for revenge.

"Turn back, Sandy," Iris said. Please.

"And what are you going to do if we don't?"

Iris had no idea. She hefted her shovel between her hands. To her horror, Sandy nodded at Celina, and the girl started charging up the stun gun. Shit. Beams of light aimed in her direction, scanning for a target. Iris sprinted for the fire exit. She didn't hear the gun actually go off, but the threat was more than enough.

Inside the facility, a pair of hoarding bugs skittered away from her noisy intrusion, angrily buzzing. She scanned frantically for other threats, stumbling into a railing. Sandy and Celina came in just as she managed to move behind a wall, out of sight. Would they actually kill her? Iris was not sure she wanted to find out.

"I didn't kill Carl, Sandy," she shouted. "That's not how it happened."

And when Scars killed him, the act was not done out of malice. Just instinct. A hunter stalking prey. A beast defending its territory. When the bracken snapped his neck, death should have been instant. The suffering that resulted, slow and agonising, was a mistake. Just an unlucky quirk of biology.

"If you didn't kill him, then you stood by and let him die," Sandy said.

Her voice was much closer, shaking in fury. Iris swore internally, and scrambled to get away. She emerged into a large room, full of cobwebs. She nearly ran face-first into one. Scanning over and over again, she looked for a bunker spider, but saw nothing. Just a turret in the next room, out of range.

Iris scurried into a corner, then noticed wooden beams above her. No spider there either. Good hiding spot. With a burst of strength, she hooked her shovel on the beams and levered herself up above.

Iris watched in darkness as Sandy and Celina entered the room. She ducked down as Sandy's flashlight arced towards her. One of their radios crackled. Iris could faintly hear Sigma's voice, calling out a warning. Or perhaps he was just cheering on the fight.

There was a clattering noise. Iris glanced down, and saw that the two figures below her were further apart. Celina had knocked over a box. The girl was jumpy.

"Celina," Sandy snapped. "Where are you going?"

"I-I saw it. Right o-over there. The eyes." The girl was terrified, pointing somewhere into the darkness. "I can't - I don't think I can do this."

"You can. Just like on Vow. Get ready. Hold it steady."

Fuck. Scars, no. Both of her colleagues were facing away from Iris. She started silently creeping down from the ledge, edging forwards. To do what? She did not know. All she knew was that losing Scars would be the final straw. The bracken might have been a monster, but he was her own miracle, the only source of excitement left in her miserable existence.

All three humans tensed up at the sound of his growling, deep, primordial. Under that, the angry rustling of leaves, then the bleep and hiss of the zap gun powering up.

Iris clutched her lucky shovel, but hesitated in revulsion at the thought of striking the back of Celina's head. She was just a girl.

Scars charged out of the darkness, an oily shadow turned corporeal. Monstrous, eldritch. There was a click, and bolts of light burst from Celina's hands. The bracken's growling halted. He tried to flatten himself to the ground. Too late. He presented far too large a target. Yellow fire crackled and burned over his flesh. The bracken writhed.

Sandy raised her shovel. Iris raised hers.

Something primal and desperate took over. Her aim was true, striking Sandy's wrist, shattering bone. The older woman screamed and dropped her weapon, but she recovered fast, whirling around, shoving Iris against a railing. Nothing but a sheer drop below. They struggled together, both gripping the same shovel. Even one-handed, Sandy was strong.

The stun gun spat and buzzed. Celina watched the altercation, but could do nothing. She couldn't lower the beam or risk being killed by an angry bracken.

Sandy struck forward, knocking their helmets together. She kicked Iris' feet out from under her. With a yell, Iris dropped her shovel as she lurched backwards, gripping the railing to stop herself tipping over it. Sandy stepped back and raised the weapon high.

And hesitated.

In that split second, Iris saw it, a mirror in her wide eyes, that same panicked realisation. I'm going to kill a person. That fear, that there would be going back afterwards. Then Sandy would be no better than she was.

Behind Sandy, Celina let out a shriek of terror. The beams of electricity sputtered and died, leaving only a web of bright after-burns on their retinas. Knowing what he was capable of, Iris cried out for Scars to run, but of course he didn't. Not when his skin still smoked and his leaves were singed. There was no stopping what happened next.

To be fair to Sandy, she stood her ground. But she was human. There was no chance of winning this fight now. The bracken batted her attack aside, and grabbed her by the neck. Sandy struggled and kicked in the air. She jabbed Iris' shovel into his chest, a sharp edge of the blade slicing into his flesh.

With a snarl, Scars grabbed her head with the other hand and twisted. Hard. Blood sprayed and muscle tore. Sandy's head thumped onto the ground, followed by her body.

Celina screamed and ran. Iris had no time to process anything. She threw herself at Scars as he prepared to pounce after the fleeing girl.

"Not her!" Iris tried to shout. But when she seized his arm, he lashed out on instinct, sending her flying halfway across the room.

Something with a sharp edge struck her side, and she fell into a corner full of sticky webs. Fuck. Stunned, she struggled to stand again, webs tugging at her feet.

As Iris staggered, a big arm wrapped around her, steadying her. Scars had not chased after Celina. He was still here. The girl's footsteps echoed softer, going out of earshot. The bracken made no eye contact, head flicking from door to door, alert for danger.

Iris tried not to be offended by the way he had lashed out. He was bleeding. His chest heaved. The bitter smell of burning foliage filled her nose. Still dazed, Iris tried to soothe him with soft touches. She couldn't stop from looking at the torn remains of Sandy's body. She was someone's mother. Someone's daughter.

So pointless. So unnecessary. Why couldn't she just let it go?

Iris and Scars were both jostling the nearby webs, so it was no surprise when skittering legs appeared from the gloom. The spider had taken its time, but here it was, seeking captured prey. It halted and twitched its mandibles when it saw it was faced with a bracken, as well as a human.

Scars, already alert to threats, snarled at the huge insect. He grabbed Iris and retreated through the facility to his den. The darkness there was a relief. Something was cutting into her leg, but it was a distant thing, a mild irritation. When she put her hand down, she realised the jar of honey in her pocket had shattered. A sticky shard sliced into her fingertips. Maybe she was in shock. She felt nothing.

"Your gift is ruined," she said numbly.

Scars was an uncontrollable wild thing, agitated, injured. The bracken was still panting, alert, pacing around and around the room in a way that might have been intimidating, to someone else. Iris ignored him.

She didn't know what to do about the broken glass while she couldn't see anything further away than the tip of her own nose, so she took off her suit entirely, and walked into a corner of the room to try to shake it out of her pocket. Pieces tinkled onto the tiles. Everything was sticky. Everything was hopeless.

Everything…hurt.

She balled up her suit and threw it aside. Blindly, she walked back to the warmth of the heater, and the eyes watching her. Swaying, cold, she just stood there. Sandy was dead. Celina was surely back on the ship by now, telling Sigma the story. The story of Iris the murderer. The traitor. Defending a monster over her own people.

She let out a shaking breath. Another. She started laughing. And then crying. Iris slumped onto the ground, half-naked, tears streaming down her face. She hadn't cried since…she had no earthly idea when. The Company had taken those memories, along with joy, along with hope.

Hot pants on the back of her neck made her shiver. Scars lifted her up into his lap, caging her in between his knees and his chest. Iris felt the pressure of his claws through the thin material of her underclothes, and it should have made her afraid of lacerations, but right now, she did not care. Limply, she just leaned back against his chest. All strength had left her. He could do whatever he liked.

Scars rumbled and arched his chest away from her. Oh. Right. He was wounded too. Iris rubbed his thigh, a halfhearted attempt at comfort. The smell of burning was still on his skin.

"Wouldn't blame you for being mad," she said. "I did this."

It must have been very confusing for him. Iris stayed only for short periods of time, took her pleasure with him, then left. When she did return, she brought trouble. What did he think she did, during her absences? Did he resent her for leaving?

Claws pressed to her visible skin. He had never seen her so exposed. Scars explored her arms, her torso, her legs. Weak, soft, human. Fragile. He licked her neck and shoulders, still covered in scabs and marks, several that he'd put there himself. The barbs of his tongue tore open a scab, and the bracken rumbled at the taste of her blood, clutching tightly to her legs as he slurped at her wound. Iris felt the sting, the sensation of warm liquid rolling down between her breasts, but did nothing to stop it.

Claws rose up her thigh and pressed between her legs. Not painful, but rough and unexpected. Iris hissed and wriggled, but he pressed harder, growling low. Her ass was rubbing back against his crotch, so she felt it when his cock emerged, hot and thick against the small of her back. Damp soaked through her clothes.

Iris whimpered as he rocked up against her, the enormous head of his cock trying to find something to enter. Unsuccessful, Scars let out a snarl of frustration, pawing roughly between her legs. She shuddered as a sharp claw caught on her inner thigh, ripping the fabric open. A little deeper and that might have severed a major artery. In the interest of self preservation, she reached down and shimmied halfway out of her leggings. Scars nuzzled against her head and neck, purring into her ear.

When she held onto him, there was a certain amount of trembling in his arms that she wasn't used to feeling. Was he also trying to escape a darkness in his own mind? This was better than feeling sorry for herself, at any rate.

His cock slipped wet between her thighs. The angle was wrong for trying to take him inside her, and the size difference was a whole other problem she wasn't willing to deal with right now. Still, she could feel the heat and weird texture of his skin rubbing against her vulva. Scars lifted and manipulated her body with ease. Iris didn't even have to move or support her own weight. He just lifted her up and down like a toy.

Just before he came, she felt the petals on his cock expand and grasp at her skin, trying to hook on to something. No success. Biology confusing itself for the sake of pleasure.

Satisfied nonetheless, Scars rumbled and ran his claws through the mess he had left on her belly, before lifting her down onto the tiles. He licked her face once, and went back to pacing the room.

Iris stared up into nothing. Her head swam. She had definitely acquired new injuries in the last few minutes. Those claws had been everywhere, digging in too harshly at times. Her stockpile of antibiotics would come in useful again. Back on the ship, there would be more patching up to do.

Back on the ship. Right.

Given time, Iris supposed she would find ways of rationalising Sandy's death. Just like all the other deaths before, she would find ways of coping with it. She would file it away under 'shit happens' and keep fighting. Day after day, moon after moon. But what was the point? The Company would never care. Iris would keep surviving, pretending that survival was all that mattered, until her luck ran out, and nothing in the universe would change. Someone else would suffer in her place. The Company would consume another body.

So what was the way out?

One obvious way. Just stop. Give up. Bleeding out on these tiles, covered in bracken cum - that was perhaps as good of an end as she could hope for. Getting up again felt like too much of an effort. Iris just lay there in the dark, feeling her own willpower drain away.

Wasn't this easier? Wasn't this kinder, to herself?

Scars came back over and touched her again. Darkly, Iris hoped for a moment that it would be the last time, that he'd use those claws on her neck, but this time squeeze too hard, slice open her jugular and drink her dry.

Instead, his claw pressed gently to her lips. A sticky, sweet texture. Honey. Iris licked up a little, and despite everything, she smiled. The taste reminded her of something. A flash of almost forgotten childhood joy, perhaps. A simple pleasure. Formless, barely coherent, but her mind latched onto it.

This is real. Not the darkness. Not the despair. She wouldn't let the Company win.

Iris sat up, licking another dab of honey from her lover's claw. He rumbled gently, nudged the top of her head. Human and bracken leaned on each other, broken things, existing together. Tears fell once more down her cheeks, but not out of despair.

"Thank you," she whispered.

——|———|——

When they returned to the scene of the crime, Sandy's body was gone. This was no cause for concern. Either the bunker spider had wrapped it up and dragged it off, or Sigma had teleported it back onto the ship to avoid the fine for unrecoverable corpses.

Iris found her lucky shovel in a darkening pool of gore. Her stomach flipped, seeing how the drying blood clung to the handle. She wiped it clean and steeled herself. These were the consequences of her actions. There was no choice but to deal with them. She carved a fourth and a fifth notch in the handle, next to the three for her old crew.

One for Sandy, and one for Carl.

"Sorry," she said to the pool of blood.

It was not enough, but nothing ever would be. Back to surviving. Back to work. Scars helped her to gather loot again, following her around, guarding her back. Iris moved in a robotic fashion. Scan, walk, stay alive, attach valuable junk and scrap to herself when she found some. The usual. It was tedious, but going through the routine settled her thoughts. She had some control here, if not much.

Having gathered enough items together, she left half of the pile at the door, and prepared to carry the other half. Iris looked up to see Scars just standing in a dimly lit corridor, watching. He was not trying to stop her this time. Was that because he trusted her to come back? There was no way to know. Iris said nothing.

She picked up half of the scrap, and slowly and painfully dragged it back to the ship. Hours had passed since the morning. Oddly, when she got there, Sigma was nowhere to be found. Maybe after Celina had explained what happened, he had gone into the facility to help her gather more scrap? Iris had kept her walkie-talkie off all day, so there would have been little for him to do on board.

Sandy's body was there, covered with a blanket. He had recovered it, then.

Iris went back in to gather the other half of her scrap. They were still pitifully under quota. Tomorrow would be a desperate scramble to meet it.

Scars was waiting right inside the door, and his leaves rustled when she arrived back. She noticed a hoarding bug retreating around a corner. Little thief. It had decided not to confront a territorial bracken, at least.

With everything picked up, Iris leaned in and bumped her helmet against Scars' chest.

"See you," she said.

It was tough, to leave. There would be nothing but misery waiting for her outside. But a plan was starting to form in her mind. A way out. Holding onto that spark of hope, Iris descended the ladder into the canyon. She watched the sky darken. A speck ahead of her was moving towards the ship. Sigma, returning. Alone.

Iris made it back on board without further incident. There was still daylight. No dogs. Only one distant baboon hawk made itself known, too cowardly to do anything but squawk from a ridge. Iris bared her teeth at it and kept walking.

On board, Sigma turned in the terminal chair to acknowledge her, smiling, foot tapping while he whistled a tune. Iris could not help but notice that he had barely added to the loot pile. The haul was almost entirely due to her own efforts. No sign of Celina.

"Good job," Sigma said, pulling the lever and launching the ship.

Iris froze, confused. Celina was gone? Had she stumbled into trouble alone? Not an unlikely outcome for a newbie. She could have tripped onto a mine, or set off a turret. But then, if the girl was dead, why had he not recovered the body?

A sense of dread fell over her.

"Where's Celina?" she asked, forcing a casual tone.

Sigma leaned back and kicked his feet up onto the terminal.

"Don't worry," he said. "I took care of it."

The ship rumbled and lifted off the ground. A gust of arid wind kicked dust inside as the doors sealed behind Iris. She stood there, speechless, blindsided. Sigma, seeing that she had not moved, frowned.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "I thought we had an understanding."

"We did," Iris said. Not like this.

"That's right," Sigma smiled, ignoring her reaction. He turned back to the terminal, the picture of nonchalance. "You forgive me. I forgive you. We protect each other. No matter what."

Chapter Text

There would be time to consider what had happened, later.

For now, there was a larger issue - namely, the glowing green numbers looming over them like the eyes of a cruel digital god. The screen was the only constant in Company life. After counting everything up, arranging their scrap in organised piles, they currently had only half of their quota. There was a single day to find enough to meet it. No doubt about it, this was going to be a scramble. From a purely numerical point of view, losing Sandy was a heavy blow.

They could do it, though. It was a challenge, but Iris had collected more than a thousand credits by herself before. With Sigma watching her back from the ship, she knew it was possible. And anyway, they had no other choice. Failure was not an option. No-one really knew what happened to crews that failed to meet the Company's standards, but it could be assumed that whatever happened, it was unpleasant.

Thankfully, they still had spending money, so they routed the ship to good old 8-Titan. More loot, at the cost of greater risk. Great.

Overnight, Iris sat under the sickly glow of monitor lights, sewing shut her torn pockets and bandaging her wounds. While her helmet and gloves were newer, her suit was the same one she had worn every day and night for seven weeks, and by now it was in a sorry condition, threadbare in places, torn and stuck back together with tape. If her sanity was a tangible thing, it would likely be in a similar state. Iris was unsure how many more patches she could sew in.

Early in the morning, she and Sigma ate a sombre meal together, ignoring the sight and stink of The Body, wrapped up tightly and shoved aside. Sigma sorted out what remained of their equipment, notably three functional stun grenades and Sandy's zap gun. He tried to make a joke about using their grey breakfast paste to seal shut a cracked panel on the side of the terminal. Iris just grunted in response.

Together, they worked out a system. Like usual, Iris would head inside while Sigma guided her from the ship. Then she would take all the stuff she had gathered outside, and to save time and energy, he would climb up the massive winding stairways to carry those things down. For safety, Iris would rest outside while Sigma wasn't watching the cameras, and she would only return inside when he was ready at the terminal again.

The key component of their plan was efficiency. 8-Titan could get more than just mildly dangerous late in the day. Things would get deadly if they lingered much more than six hours. Iris pushed all other thoughts from her mind, and got to work.

While she was doing most of the physical labour, Sigma did his part too, turning off turrets, opening and closing bulkheads to trap coil-heads, figuring out the fastest routes through those ancient corridors, scanning to locate valuables. He didn't complain about the climb up and down the stairways, even when he was sweating up a storm, heaving and cursing when he reached the top.

For Iris, being alone in that maze of a facility was harrowing, to say the least. As much as she usually hated the jarring noise of her radio activating, today she appreciated that anchor to reality. The brain could play tricks otherwise. Empty shadows would start writhing like smoke in her peripheral vision. Faint demonic whispers would hiss in her ears, making her turn and raise her shovel, only for the ensuing silence to fill with the drum of her own heartbeat.

Anxiety by itself could drive a person insane. It was worse now that Iris was starting to form an escape plan. There was something for her to lose.

Between runs, while she waited at the top of the outdoor catwalk, she gazed out over a milky soup of grey mist. With nothing else to focus on, she ruminated on the facts of Celina's death. According to the ship log, they were getting fined for an unrecoverable body. The girl was recorded as being deceased when Sigma launched the ship. Examining the log closely, it seemed like her life signs had gone dark hours before liftoff.

There was one other important detail. Sandy's zap gun had been left on board, neatly placed into the storage cupboard. Celina had been holding it when Iris last saw her, so at some stage, she had definitely returned to the ship, and after that, the gun was left on board. So either Celina had decided not to take the gun back into the facility, which, under any circumstances, seemed like an insane choice to make, or - and Iris strongly suspected that this was the case - Celina had never left the ship alive.

Really, the concept should not have been so difficult to wrap her head around. This was no murder mystery. Sigma had pretty much confessed to her face that he had killed Celina. He took care of it.

'It' being what? The fact that Celina would never trust either of them again, that she would present a problem? A weak excuse for murder. It didn't sit right with Iris.

"I'm back," Sigma whispered, panting over the radio. "Break's over."

It was her fourth trip inside. Hopefully the last one. There wasn't time to take a full inventory, only to estimate the value of their haul. It would be far better to overshoot their target than the alternative.

Somewhere below her in the facility, she could hear the loud mechanical whirring and clunking of nutcracker soldiers. They were loud, fortunately, and easily gave away their positions. It was the subtler threats that Iris worried about. She followed her own chalk markings deep into the facility, retracing a path already traversed, and carefully used a broken beam to jump across to an unexplored area.

She resumed scanning and gathering. Her entire body ached. Her ankle, healed but still stiff, occasional made her wince. It had been six or seven hours, with only three short breaks. A pair of coil-heads had slowed her down in the morning, and things had not become easier since then. It was time to GTFO, as soon as she could find another one or two hundred credits' worth of items.

Iris was getting used to hearing Sigma's comms. Maybe too used to his comms. His warnings were making her complacent. When she turned around after picking up a big engine (45 credits) she halted. There was someone there, in the beam of her flashlight. A person. In an orange jumpsuit. Facing away from her, just standing there, twitching.

Iris opened her mouth to call Sigma's name, but stopped herself. It wasn't him. Couldn't be. She had heard of this sort of mimic before.

The orange jumpsuit turned around, and sure enough, it was wearing one of those creepy theatrical masks. A dead employee, possessed. Iris dropped the engine and readied herself. The zombie came walking towards her so casually, its gait so believably human, that Iris shuddered.

If she did not know for a fact she was the only person alive here, it was possible she might have fallen for that ruse.

The zombie didn't go down easily, grabbing her sleeves, then dragging her ankle when it was on the ground. Iris was already tired, and while her lucky shovel was reliable, the weapon could not swing itself. By the time she beat the masked person into submission, she was exhausted. Her arms were trembling.

"Sigma? Come in," she said into her walkie-talkie. No response.

There were probably dogs near the ship, or something worse. It was getting dangerously late. Iris decided to call it quits. She was only carrying a hundred credits of items, but the previous runs had been better. What she had now would have to do. It would all add up. It had to add up.

When she caught sight of a Jester wandering around in an adjacent hallway, seeking a target, Iris knew she had made the right call. To further prove her instincts correct, she heard the deranged echoing patter-patter of a coil-head on the loose.

Yeah. Time to go. Time to run.

Outside, she all but collapsed with her items. Blood (not her own this time) soaked her arms, making her gloves slippery. Iris bolted the doors and waited outside for a long time, hoping that Sigma would respond to calls on the radio.

But there was no response. Not a good sign.

She had to carry the loot down herself. No choice. Halfway down the catwalk, the problem with comms became clear. There was an enormous forest guardian on the stairs, and multiple dogs loping around the ship, in and out of the mist. Sigma was either trying to be quiet, or he was dead.

The giant was just sitting there on the steps, blocking the way entirely.

Iris grimaced. She considered the height of the stairways and the depth of powdery snow down below. Hmm. Jumping was not a good idea. Not while carrying so much. Alright. She had two stun grenades. Sigma had one, assuming he was still alive down there. This would be a close call. There was no good way of getting past.

Suddenly, there was a rumble, and the burn of thrusters cut through the gloom. Golden light descended from above. Iris couldn't help but murmur a quick "thank you" as the delivery craft landed near the ship, and started blaring obnoxious tinkling music. Excellent diversion.

The eyeless dogs, with their sensitive hearing, were not impressed. The pack surrounded the delivery ship to sniff and bite and snarl. The giant, far more curious than upset by the noise, got up and ambled slowly away from Iris. She followed at a 'safe' distance for as far as she possibly could, and then tossed one of the grenades. It knocked against creature's foot.

Although her arm ached, it was a good throw. She started running just before it went off, covering her eyes to protect herself from the flash. Still, the blast caused her to bite her tongue, and the coppery taste of blood filled her mouth. As she reached the ground, once again being pursued, Sigma came out of the ship and tossed a grenade over her head.

In the end, it was as perfectly executed as any exit could be, given the circumstances. The giant was stunned again, just long enough for Iris to scramble on board, and the dogs did not have enough time to give chase before the two humans slammed the doors shut and launched the ship. They could hear claws and fangs scraping hungrily at the doors, followed by pained whining and yelping as the thrusters flared to life.

Just another day, another narrow escape. Iris and Sigma slumped down side by side. With their backs to the doors, they sat there, breathing in, breathing out. The silence stretched endlessly, full of things better left unsaid. As work partners, they had never been closer. As people, they had never been further apart.

He set his hand over hers, on the filthy floor. She pulled away.

——|———|——

Iris slept for sixteen hours, dreamless, and woke to discover that the ship had already landed on 71-Gordion. All of their loot had already been off-loaded while she slept.

The ominous overhead screen informed her that they had exceeded quota by a minuscule 13 credits. It was the narrowest margin of success Iris had ever witnessed. Not a single sellable item was left on board. Their stockpile was utterly depleted.

There was a post-it stuck to the screen of the terminal.

Gone out for delivery :) Spending our $$$!

Since Sigma wasn't around, Iris decided to shut the doors and have a shower. Alone, for once. She stepped out of her suit and clothes, wincing as oozing scabs tore away from the fabric they had clung to. More patching up to do, but what was new? She opened the door and stepped in, reaching to turn on the water. Something stopped her.

Iris blinked through bleary eyes. On the opposite wall of the shower, there was a dark, dry bloodstain. And a clump of hair.

She just stared at it for a while, simultaneously knowing exactly why it was there, and refusing to accept the truth. The blood looked smeared, as if with a dry cloth. As if someone had done a bad job at cleaning it up.

Iris reached over and knocked the hair off the wall, turning on the water to flush it down the drain. It was the same colour as Celina's. Fuck. It was Celina's, why bother trying to skirt around the issue? Sigma killed her here. They fought here.

Water sprayed down over Iris' aching shoulders. She watched the drain, the swirl of filth and blood. Why do it here? Why kill Celina in the shower of all places? Why not just abandon her, lock her behind a door or lead her into danger using the terminal? That would have been cleaner, safer even. It would have been impersonal. Just business.

Sigma had not recovered the body. That was the strangest part. What did he not want Iris to see? Not the fact she was dead - hadn't he been all too eager to share that part? No. He didn't want Iris to know how she died.

Sigma was an average sized man, with an average amount of muscle definition. Iris had never properly considered his physical strength before that moment, simply because she usually never considered him in any context outside of his role as guy-in-the-chair. He might as well have been a floating head, for all it mattered on a daily basis.

But Sigma was undeniably capable of carrying heavy metal objects down multiple flights of stairs. She had watched him lift bodies that, for her, would have been difficult to drag. If Iris was honest, despite the muscle mass she had gained from seven weeks of hard work, he was still probably a lot stronger than she was.

He was definitely stronger than frail little Celina.

Visceral, repulsive images filled her head. The bloody hair clump was not helping. In the brief time she had been on board, Sigma had been leering at that poor girl every spare chance he got. And Iris had written it off as part of his dark humour, his weird personality.

Fuck. Fuck.

Her hair was still dripping wet from the shower when Sigma came back on board, cheerfully dragging a cluttered box of new supplies. Most of it was sensible - grenades, some TZP canisters, backup shovels and flashlights. But on top of useful supplies, he had also purchased an ancient gramophone, and some LED lights. Eagerly, he began to decorate the ship.

"No-one else could have done what we pulled off yesterday," he said. "After everything we've been through, I thought we deserved a little treat."

Iris just watched as he scurried around, arranging the lights around the terminal and monitor screens. After that, he set a record into the gramophone. The sound of odd, slightly off-kilter saxophone filled the ship. Sigma let out a contented sigh, and sat down in his usual chair, fiddling with an elastic band on his wrist.

He and Iris observed each other cautiously.

"I want to be reassigned," she said, raising her voice over droning jazz.

Sigma blinked and crossed his legs. "I'm afraid while you were asleep, Iris, I went ahead and signed us up again. And I've applied for new crewmates."

Decorating a ship you were about to depart from would not have made any sense at all, so this did not surprise her. Still, she pointed out the obvious.

"Trying to score over 2000 credits is insanity."

There was something deranged and steely in his expression.

"Look," he said, clearly with some grand speech prepared. "The way I see it-"

"No-one ever said this was permanent," Iris interrupted him. "We're not partners. We're not even friends. We're just coworkers who happened to be thrown together one time."

"If we give up now," Sigma said, rising to his feet, "then everyone we’ve climbed over to get here died for nothing. Your people, my people, Carl and Sandy, Terry, all the others."

"You can’t even say her name."

"And Celina. She knew what you were." He shrugged. "She had to go."

Iris resisted the impulse to glance at the shower, and then wondered why. She had never been afraid of Sigma, and she was not about to start being afraid of him.

"I know that’s not why you killed her," she said darkly.

Sigma's jaw twitched.

"You’re focusing on specifics," he told her. "On useless guilt. Notches on your shovel. Forget them. None of it matters, not when we win."

Win? There was no winning. There were no promotions, no rescues. Those were the tales of fools. Iris knew. She had been one herself. The disgust and pity must have shown on her face, because Sigma abruptly changed tactics. He sat back down and brought up a ship log from over two weeks ago. It was her ID, #5225, and the word Missing.

"Iris, when I left you on 21-Offense, I almost gave up," he said, looking up at her like he was making a confession. "I almost lost hope. And then, like some fucking miracle, you came walking out of the morning haze like nothing happened. You forgave me." The man's voice had the nerve to crack. "And I knew, right then, that it’s meant to be you and me. We’re the team that wins. I save you, and you save me. That’s how we escape this. We’ve both been fighting and suffering for so long. It’s got to mean something, in the end."

Iris opened her mouth. Her traitorous throat had a lump in it.

"It means more bodies for the Company," she managed to say. "That’s all there is."

Sigma stood up again. After a second of hesitation, he set his hands on her shoulders, imploring.

"If you really believe that," he said, "then why have you been fighting so hard to stay alive?"

Iris had no answer to that. Not one she could explain in words, anyway. Sigma interpreted her silence as a victory. He smiled and walked out to the front of the ship.

"We have to keep going," he said. His eyes were on the clouds, on the unseen reaches of the wall. "We'll…we'll find ways of coping with it all," he said, flicking the elastic on his wrist, "and we'll keep faith. It's a test. I know it is. We can't jump ship now. Not until we've passed the test."

Well, that was it. His little speech was over. So decisive. Irretrievably doomed. Iris stood there for a while, listening to the gramophone screech out a few seconds of white noise. The record was scratched, because of course it was. Sigma kept staring up at the Company building. She watched his hands. She didn't remember him wearing anything on his wrist before. The band he was fiddling with was red, springy. Like a hair elastic. Celina had long hair.

Iris gritted her teeth. Her hands closed into fists. Was this how Sandy felt, when Carl lay dying in her arms? Powerless? Violated? This was not despair. This was rage, and it gave clarity.

The jazz kicked back in. Letting her anger simmer under the surface, Iris walked outside, past Sigma, into the howling wind. She strolled out to the edge of the docks and looked down into the dark waves.

Alright. Honesty. Why was she fighting so hard? Even now? Iris shut her eyes and thought of the toxic forests on 56-Vow, beautiful and serene, reclaiming space once stolen by industrial buildings. She thought of Scars, waiting for her out there in his lonely abyss, denied warmth. She thought of never again having to return to another claustrophobic metal prison.

Maybe she didn't deserve to escape, at this point. Maybe she deserved to step off this ledge, to let the storm have her. But a softly burning spark still burned inside her. It refused to accept surrender. In that moment, Iris wanted to live purely out of spite. She glared at the Company building, at that dreaded alcove with its bell and patronising loudspeaker.

The monster behind the wall had already taken so much, but it hadn't done a good job stealing this final spark of rebellion from her.

——|———|——

Once more, they waited on 71-Gordion until new colleagues arrived. Employees #5458 and #5487, Addy and Baz, came as a duo. They seemed like decent guys, strong and dependable, with two to three weeks of experience each. Iris let Sigma do the initial introductions, and all the rest of the socialising after that. The men came on board joking and laughing with their 'crew coordinator' but when they took a single look at the quota up on the screen, their faces drained of mirth.

"That's even higher than the quota we jumped ship to avoid," one of the men groaned. "Fuck me. I thought you two were experts."

"We are," Sigma said, swaggering. "And that's how we're going to succeed."

Iris had already heard the speech. She zoned out while Sigma gave it again. Hope was a funny thing. It took whatever fuel it could get. Maybe he stood a chance of convincing these guys to have faith. Maybe not.

Instead of listening, she went to the terminal and started delving into the the dusty corners of the Company database. She searched for moon-related words, maps, trivia, hoping for something useful. Especially about 21-Offense. Iris was unsure exactly what she was searching for, but she kept looking anyway.

…21-Offense is categorised as an asteroid moon and seems to have not existed on its own for more than several hundred years. The industrial artifacts here have suffered damage…

The database told them almost nothing about the moons and their history, but the Company was notoriously bad at purging the hard drives of ship terminals. If you looked hard enough, there were secrets to be found. Stories, professional tips, the locations of stashes of contraband. Iris went combing through data, reading snatches of information, finding clues. Something about an old reservoir, unclear whether it was still full of water. A note about hollow pipes and where they led. Brief diagrams of-

"Hi," said a voice next to her. "I'm Baz."

One of the new guys held out his hand. Iris gave it a look but shook it anyway, after a moment.

"Iris," she grunted.

"My eyes nearly fell right outta my head when I read your service record," he said. Iris tensed up until he continued. "Over fifty days," Baz wolf whistled. "That's twice as long as Addy, and I thought he was special."

Iris was never the best at reading social cues, but he sounded…admiring? There were stars in his eyes. It made her a little uncomfortable, actually, but the two men appeared mostly sane. Whatever insanity lurked under the surface, they were keeping it subtle. But there was always something. Unless she was just projecting now.

"What's your secret, eh?" Baz asked

Iris shrugged. "Eat when you can, sleep when you can. Don't take risks. Sorry, there isn't anything more groundbreaking than that."

Baz nodded, actually taking her words seriously. Iris braced for Sigma to make some crass joke about her and Scars, but today he didn't. He did, however, start hovering possessively over her shoulder.

"We take care of each other," he said. "That's our secret."

The other guy, Addy, cut in with curiosity. "So are you two, like, together?"

Iris answered quickly. "No."

"We might as well be married," Sigma grinned, a beat later.

The men laughed at the discrepancy between their answers, and started talking about food instead. With so many eyes on the screen in front of her, Iris had to stop her data search for the night. But as she slept, her dreams were full of secret pathways through ancient canyons, hidden paradises nearly within reach.

——|———|——

With such an enormous quota, there was no question about going to an expensive moon. As it turned out, 7-Dine was the best option for weather conditions, so they prepared to freeze their asses off for a while. In a whispered aside, Sigma assured Iris that they would go to 21-Offense on the third day.

Naturally, it didn't turn out that way. Nothing in this line of work ever went to plan, a fact that Sigma had wilfully forgotten in his pursuit of greater quotas.

The first day on Dine was a complete disaster. It had barely been a hour before they had to leave the facility, fleeing a Jester that had already started winding up. Trying to return afterwards was incredibly risky. They were forced to stay close to the exits, within sprinting distance, and therefore didn't manage to find more than 300 credits total. That would have been perfectly acceptable on a regular day, but it was dismal given what they were aiming for.

Sigma kept making dumb jokes to lighten the mood, but no-one was happy.

Iris stayed up while the group slept, researching again. There were dried up riverbeds on Offense, and a bog, apparently. The ecosystem was competitive, likely supported by small creatures, maybe even fish. Travellers used to talk about marsh creatures, and tides bringing in a variety of wildlife.

Was any of that still there? Inconclusive. Iris went to sleep.

Day two on Dine was more successful. There were dangers galore, but nothing that seasoned employees couldn't handle. Iris found quite a few small items, easily carried, and of high value. Things were looking better. At the end of the day, Sigma helped transport their haul from the doors to the ship. 1150 credits, more or less, which brought them to 1450 total.

If they could recreate the successes of day two, then everything would be fine. But, given the amount they still needed to gather, staying on 7-Dine was deemed the safer bet. Iris accepted that decision. At night, she intended to continue her research, but stayed in her bunk when she noticed Sigma was awake. He was standing next to the shower cubicle, staring through the opaque panel. The water wasn't running.

Iris turned away and faced the wall. Better to ignore him, whatever he was doing, for her own sanity. The soft glow of LED lights cast spiked shadows onto the back of her arm. She closed her eyes and imagined the comforting presence of claws resting there, an arm around her. If she focused enough, then she was already somewhere safe and warm, guarded by her bracken, breathing in his earthy scent. Free.

Day three came. Iris considered Baz and Addy while they got ready. The atmosphere on board was tense, agitated. Everyone knew what was at stake. The men were not as good as their records might have made them seem. In Iris' opinion they were simply too cautious, too careful. It was ironic, given the advice she had offered when they met, but the guys simply did not bring as much scrap as they needed. Quota was still miles off.

They might have been thinking the same. Addy picked up Sandy's stun gun at the last minute.

"Do you know how to use that?" Iris asked him during the long snowy walk to the doors. He grimaced.

"Not really, but we have to take risks today, don't we?" he said. "I'd rather have some extra defence on my side."

She wiped some snow from her visor. "Good luck."

"You too."

Within three hours, Addy was dead. Iris was on the other side of the facility when it happened, with her radio off for the sake of keeping a low profile, so she didn't find out for a while. Only when she was back in the mansion foyer, tuning back into the comms, did Sigma tell her the bad news.

The two men had tried to battle a nutcracker soldier, and lost. Iris could hear the mechanical demon still, marching on the floor above. There were a pair of bunker spiders near the foyer as well, already dragging away one of the bodies.

Sigma babbled over the radio about scrap already piled at the doors, contingency plans, suggestions for how they could proceed. And for a minute or two, Iris listened. She was coming up with her own plans too, mentally mapping the corridors she had already explored. But then she realised that there was a choice.

Maybe they could make quota. But there would be another after that. It was obvious that Sigma would not listen to reason. Iris turned off her radio, and discarded it on a table. She was done listening. He would drag both of them down into the void if he had his way. She would not go quietly along with him.

Iris dumped all the heavy things she was carrying, and headed towards the sound of rusty hinges and clanking.

That was it, then. End of the road. It was a quiet thing, accepting what she had to do next. There was no creeping dread, no sudden slam of realisation. No malice, just the cold facts of the situation.

Chunk-chunk-pop.

Scraping, mechanical sounds echoed down the staircase. The nutcracker was already weakened from its battle with Addy and Baz. Iris had never personally taken one down before, but she knew how to. She just needed the right angle, and the right timing to strike its vulnerable eye. Every few clunking steps, its wooden mask parted to reveal that glistening weak spot, scanning around for threats. The solider was an artificial thing, constructed, predictable in its behaviour.

Iris crept up the carpeted stairs, clinging to the shadows. Her footsteps were silent as she moved past Addy's corpse. She barely dared to breathe when the nutcracker paused to look around. It didn't see her.

Clunk-clunk-scrape.

Behind a bookshelf, Iris held her lucky shovel at the ready. If it had ever actually possessed any luck, she summoned it now. Whatever qualities of a hunter Scars saw in her, she would do her best to live up to them now. She had promised to try to get back to him. It was time to make good on that promise.

When the wooden soldier came around the side of the bookshelf, Iris stepped out of her hiding place. She reared back, lifting her weapon, and swung right as the mask opened, making contact.

The nutcracker hissed and cocked its shotgun. Iris ducked back behind the shelf. Splinters and chunks of wood scattered in the blast. Her pulse thundered in her ears.

Marching music, shrill and deafening, blared out as the demon went on the attack. Iris scrambled away from its thumping footsteps. Another blast, and shredded paper exploded from the shelves, fluttering down in a dusty cloud.

A pause. A click.

It was reloading. Iris sprang from the shadows and slammed the edge of her shovel blade into its open mask. The soldier fell backwards, hissing and spitting. Then silence. Adrenaline coursed through her body.

Victorious, she wrenched the shotgun from its grasp. One shell already loaded. Two more lay inside an open storage compartment in the soldier's mechanical body.

One would be all she needed. But still, it was better to be prepared. She loaded the extra shell, and pocketed the other to be safe.

Iris strapped her shovel to her back and walked calmly to the exit. Spiders, already wrapping Baz's body, watched her go. In the foyer, as she departed the mansion for the last time, she bothered to look up. The chandelier in the foyer was really quite beautiful. The tiles sparkled and shone underneath. She had rarely taken notice of details like that before.

How wonderful, to walk back to the ship without being weighed down with scrap. How freeing, to go at her own pace, to admire the blizzard and the soft golden haze around pillars of light, leading her home. Even the cold was oddly pleasant.

There were no beasts around the ship yet, but it would only be a matter of time. Iris intended to do this quickly.

There was no sound as she climbed the ladder up to the ship entrance, just the whine of wind whistling through parts of her helmet. Iris had triple checked that she had the safety off. Ready, she held the double barrel up at head height. She had never fired a shotgun, but how hard could it really be?

Unfortunately, Sigma was ready for her. Her radio silence, after that battle with the nutcracker, and seeing that she was returning to the ship early had all combined into suspicion. No-one could have accused him of being stupid.

Iris had not even fully come around the corner when a shovel swung out of the doorway, right for her head. She lurched backwards, firing wildly on instinct. The recoil sent her stumbling back into the railing, gasping.

Something in the wall of the ship creaked and sparked. Sigma stood there, shovel falling from his hand. Iris watched red trickle down his orange sleeve. She had shot him in the arm.

A second later, he tossed a grenade, pin clinking on the ground. She retreated, rolling away from the ship entrance. The blast knocked her off her feet, and her head swam. Fuck. That must have stunned him too, though, right?

The doors of the ship banged shut. For a moment of panicked disorientation, Iris was afraid that he'd lock the doors and take off.

But if he had wanted to leave her here, he'd have done that already. He didn't. Because he couldn't. They did not have enough to make quota. Leaving now would be a death sentence.

As the ringing in her ears subsided, Iris realised he was talking, muffled through the doors.

"Iris, please think about what you're doing. We can still manage this. We can go back and find more scrap together. It's not over."

The doors hissed open again. Not knowing whether it was a trap, and not wanting to try her luck in hand-to-hand combat, Iris clambered up onto the roof of the ship. Sigma could surely hear where she was, but at least from above, she would have the advantage.

"Listen to me," he called out into the blizzard. "We can still make quota. I know what you must think of me, Iris, but we can't just give up. Everything we've both done, all the evil things we're both responsible for, don't you see? It'll all be wiped away if we just hold on a bit longer. We'll be made clean. We'll be free."

Iris loaded the spare shell into the shotgun. If he walked outside, she would fire. This was just a waiting game. He couldn't do anything to her from in there. All she needed to do was bide her time, waiting for Sigma to screw up.

It didn't take long. Out of the snow haze, at first just a dark blob, but lumbering into focus, an eyeless dog approached the ship. Drawn by the sounds of her shotgun and his grenade, it perked its head up, listening to Sigma's voice. He was still ranting.

"Just one more quota!" he pleaded. "One more. Why throw everything away?"

Then he went quiet. He'd seen the dog. The doors slammed shut again.

Iris knew they wouldn't stay shut forever. The hydraulics on the ship doors were inconsistent that way, when on the ground. The beast, curious and hungry, stalked around the ship, drool half-frozen in strings from its gaping maw. Iris fished around in her pockets. Among all the junk she'd been gathering was a child's toy. A stuffed bear, with a speaker in its chest. She crept forward to the edge of the ship, finger on the button in its soft belly.

The doors opened. Iris pressed the button and threw the chattering toy into the ship.

The eyeless dog roared and lunged after it, right through the doors. Anticipating Sigma's next move, Iris covered her ears, just in time for another stun grenade to go off. It was his only recourse, that close to rows of snapping teeth.

Sigma ran out of the ship, vaulting off the railing into the snow. Iris stood up on the roof. He stared at her for a second, and then ran out into the snow, tripping over his own feet in his haste. Carefully, she climbed off the ship, and followed the trail of his tracks. There was nowhere to go out there. He knew that as well as she did.

In the end, he didn't go far. She caught up with him maybe a hundred feet away. Sigma was kneeling in the snow. He was sobbing, his visor all steamed up.

In her thoughts, and in her heart, she had already killed him days ago. There were things she had wanted to say. Most of them would be poorly expressed in words. Iris was not going to waste her breath with a long monologue.

Crying, Sigma raised a hand. "Iris," he begged. "Forgive me?"

She blasted his skull into pieces.

Behind her, the eyeless dog was no longer stunned. It came snarling and slobbering towards Sigma's voice and the shotgun blast. But Iris had already moved out of its way. The smell of blood was distraction enough for the hungry beast. She didn't look back as it located Sigma's body.

It was a surreal feeling, returning to an empty ship. Half of the furniture and equipment was torn to shreds. LED lights flickered on and off in a snarled mess on the floor. The bunks were tipped over, nearly blocking the lever to launch the ship. Iris managed to reach it anyway.

In the depths of night, while she searched through the database one last time, the loudspeaker crackled on, insisting that she needed to route the ship to the Company building. Immediately, it said, a barely concealed snarl in the synthesised vocals.

Zero days to meet quota, no mercy, no pity.

Iris was shaking as she typed out a desperate 'ROUTE OFFENSE', asking the ship to land where she needed it to. Please, she begged silently. This was the last thing she would ever ask from the universe. She prayed that this dumb collection of metal and plastic had no loyalty to the Company, that it might listen to her plea, one last time.

Thrusters activated. The hull groaned. It had listened.

On a rainy morning, Iris stripped apart everything useful she could salvage from the ship. She scribbled a map onto the back of a page from the Company handbook, and tore it out to take with her. Ripping a sheet off her old bunk, she gathered food, water and medicine, bundling it all up to carry on her back, fastening the sheet with wire.

With a lightness she had not felt in two months, Iris disembarked the ship forever.

Crews that arrived on 21-Offense after that day would find a Company-issue shovel wedged between two rocks near the landing site. Not simply abandoned, but planted there, upright, defiant. There were so many notches carved into the handle that some had started to overlap.

Chapter Text

Iris was weighed down with supplies, a shotgun hanging off her shoulder with a single shell loaded up, supply bags full of medicine, food and water on her back. Regardless, her feet floated on moon dust as she walked through the facility.

Iris didn't have to search for a long time to find the entrance to her bracken's den. He found her first, and this time, Scars almost managed to sneak up on her in the shadows. But despite everything, Iris' instincts were built deep, and she was not about to slip up and get herself killed on the very first day of her freedom. The bracken got within a few feet before she caught a glimpse of his shadow, and turned around.

Scars rustled and reared up to his full height when she met his gaze. Eight feet of alien botanical menace, and she couldn't have been happier to see him alive. Iris stepped right into his embrace, grinning. His leaves fluttered as she leaned her helmet on his chest.

"Kept my promise" she said.

Claws hooked under her legs to lift her up, bags and all. Scars nudged his face into the seam where her suit met her helmet, tongue snaking out to lick.

It was around midday. Nothing dangerous had tried to hinder her progress into the facility, except for him. He was welcome to hinder her all he liked. Iris had no timetable now. She would never need to pick up scrap for a faceless organisation ever again. The relief of it was making her light-headed. She never needed to return to that dreadful building on 71-Gordion. She never needed to answer to anyone.

It was too good to be true. She was finally free.

As for the cost of that freedom, she would learn to live with it, assuming she had enough time left to learn anything new at all. Survival was not guaranteed, even now.

Unable to reach any of her skin with his tongue, Scars grew impatient. With a growl, his grip tightened, and he carried her off further into the bowels of the building. Being dragged away to a bracken's den had become a familiar experience. Iris just held on tightly to her bags of supplies.

In his lair, Iris barely had time to drop the bags and set aside her shotgun before she found herself grabbed again, pinned to the tiles. Claws groped over her belly and thighs. Scars was silhouetted against the faint midday light coming in from outside, hulking, mantled with spikes. Hot breath steamed up her visor.

She wanted to see his eyes better, reaching to depressurise her helmet, tossing it aside, along with the corresponding mouthpiece and breathing apparatus. Practical thoughts intruded for a moment. Her supply of clean air would run out in a day or two. The air on 21-Offense had acceptable amounts of oxygen, although much less acceptable amounts of toxins. A problem for the future.

For now, she was just happy to breathe in her flower man's earthy, wild smell, to see him properly, unfiltered. Scars shoved his face right into her hair, inhaling deeply. Iris threw away her gloves too. She clutched at his neck and shoulders, fitting her fingertips into the divots and hollows of his leathery skin. The bracken rumbled appreciatively. Claws slipped under her ass, lifting her hips up. He was already hard. His wet cock slipped between her still-clothed thighs.

The plastic of her hazmat suit rubbed and crinkled as he thrust, his face still pressed into her hair. Iris tightened her arms around his neck, turning her head to press a kiss against the flaring slits where a nose might have been. His tongue flicked out, scraping her face and jaw.

Iris chose to take it as a compliment that he had not even waited for her to take off her suit, just like the first time they had sex, awkward fumbling in the dark. It was validating, giving further proof that Scars had longed for her as much as she longed for him. Craving this animal intimacy was a kind of love, she supposed. Unsophisticated, uncomplicated.

Fangs scraped up against her chin. Iris recoiled from the smell of his uneven breaths, leaning her head back as his movements got sloppy. Scars let out a trembling growl, leaves twitching as he came.

To her surprise, he dropped her quite quickly after that, shuffling backwards into the shadows until all she could see were a pair of unblinking white eyes. Alright. No cuddling today, apparently. His loss.

Iris put her hand down, feeling the stickiness on her suit, still warm. After a moment of consideration, she lifted some of it to her lips. Scars' spit tasted like wild grass, so she wondered - nope. Bad idea. Very bitter. Too sticky. Bracken cum, as it turned out, was not a tasty snack, despite being plant-based. It would probably make her sick anyway, or turn out to be hallucinogenic. Iris would have to manage off Company food for a while longer, at least until she figured out an alternative source of sustenance.

Across the room, Scars was just watching her, as he tended to. As he had been, back in the beginning. Iris cocked her head at him, a little baffled by the sudden distance. He'd dropped her as if she had burned him. Was he sulking? Why?

Oh. Right. The bracken probably thought, since they had sex, that she would be leaving soon afterwards. That was how things had gone in the past. Quite a sensible reaction, to put distance between himself and the thing that could hurt him.

Iris smiled. Well, he'd realise soon enough that she wasn't leaving him anymore. There was nowhere else for her to go. Not today, anyway. She had no intention of staying in this dingy old building forever, but for now, she just wanted to rest. Rising to her feet, ignoring her flower man's sullen attitude, she took off her suit. It would be nice to discard it forever, casting off the last vestiges of Company life, but then she would have nothing to wear. 21-Offense still got cold at night.

Settling down, Iris ate some bland, disgusting Company food, and drank some water. She tried to remember the taste of roast meat, or fresh vegetables, or steaming bread straight from the oven. The concepts were there, but it was difficult to remember where she had eaten those things, or with whom, or exactly how they had tasted. It was a stinging loss, to know she would never eat anything like that again.

There were noises from the upper floors. Human and bracken both lifted their heads, but the thumps and creaking sounds up above were of no concern. Down here, nothing would find them. Still, Iris kept extra quiet. It wouldn't be ideal for a Jester or an agile coil-head to figure out there was a human down here.

Scars was still sulking in his corner, watching her eat. Iris wrapped up her supplies again, and sat cross-legged, facing him. Here they were, just the two of them.

She leaned to one side, then to the other, pulling faces, trying to provoke some kind of reaction. His eyes narrowed a bit, unimpressed. Iris made a soft rumbling sound, mimicking him. The eyes narrowed even more. Grinning, she flopped down onto her back and let out a long sigh. The bracken remained where he was.

Stubborn. Well, fine. Iris was stubborn too. After a moment or two of consideration, she pulled down her leggings and underwear. Instant regret. The tiles were unpleasantly cold against her bare skin. She moved closer to the heater, set her leggings down as a barrier, then put her shoes back on. After that she managed to sit again without flinching.

Scars' glowing eyes moved, but not towards her. With an irritated growl, he stalked around the edge of the room, eyes never blinking, or leaving her. Iris bared her teeth at him.

"I'm not leaving again," she whispered. But of course he wouldn't understand. Not until she proved it, somehow.

Iris rubbed her hands together to warm them up. Heat prickled at her back from the ancient contraption behind her. Maintaining eye contact with Scars, she put a hand down between her legs and started touching herself. The flower man grumbled, and his eyes tilted sideways, curious. But he had more self-control than Iris had been counting on, still just watching from a distance.

Maybe it was a kink. Bracken did like stalking, didn't they? Waiting for the right moment to strike? Iris wet her fingers with saliva and rubbed her clit in slow, unhurried circles. Having Scars watching her was exciting. After a while, she wasn't doing it to provoke him anymore. Every twitch of movement from his hovering eyes sent bolts of arousal through her body.

Masturbation with clawed hands must have been difficult. Risky, at any rate. Iris wondered if Scars had ever touched himself while alone, in the dark, remembering how her soft hands felt around his shaft, frustrated to be unable to recreate the sensation. She wondered if he fantasised about fitting his cock inside her.

She was getting close, skin turning clammy, legs trembling. In the dark, Iris couldn't tell if her actions were having any physical effect on Scars, but they were definitely having an effect on her own body. Tension rose, peaked and overflowed. Iris let out a heated gasp, her muscles fluttering and relaxing.

She closed her eyes for a second.

And then Scars pounced at her. She didn't hear or see him approach. Suddenly there were claws on her thighs. The bracken yanked her legs, pulling her onto her back. Iris clamped a hand over her mouth as she inadvertently let out a yelp of surprise. Scars stuck his face right between her legs, inhaling her smell. His tongue snaked out, delving right between her damp folds. Oversensitive, not to mention fearful of friction burns, Iris lashed out and kicked his bark-like shoulder.

Scars snarled at her, leaves rustling, but he released her legs. Iris rolled away and glared.

"Oi," she hissed, but the annoyance left her really quickly.

As unpleasant as sharp teeth and a barbed tongue were, that had been hot. Scars was panting. Iris patted down her legs, feeling the sting of a small scrape, but no serious injuries. Her sensitive bits had survived as well. Blood rushed in her ears. Adrenaline and arousal made for a heady combination.

It turned into a game after that. Iris would open her legs and relax, Scars would pounce, and then she would squirm away again. Bait and retreat, over and over again, in some twisted reflection of their original dynamic as predator and prey. Iris was sweaty and breathless, holding back laughter. Something stirred in her memory, beyond her reach. Previous lovers, perhaps? There had been others, human others, that she was sure of, but their faces and bodies were lost to the haze.

Eventually, Scars had enough. An arm like a thick branch pinned her elbows to her sides, pulling her on top of him, up against his chest. Iris wrestled and fought, more for show than anything. Honestly, she was getting sick of bruising her knees on the hard tiles. Climbing into her bracken's lap was a welcome change.

Scars purred as she went limp, resting her hands on his chest. She could feel the damp press of his cock head on her inner thigh. Iris shifted so it pushed up against her entrance, bulbous and throbbing. Dumb idea. It felt impossible that it would fit inside. However, a shudder passed through Scars' whole body, feeling her sex directly up against his dick. Iris swallowed a whine as his hips jolted up on instinct, but rather than going inside, his cock took the path of least resistance, and slid up against her vulva. There was so much wetness, more on his part than hers, dripping down her legs.

After all the play fighting, they were both pretty wound up. Scars wrapped his claws all the way around her waist (thankfully not too roughly) and thrust clumsily against the damp heat of her loins. Iris grit her teeth, extremely aroused but semi-fearful that he might accidentally get the angle right and push inside her.

Now a familiar signal, she felt the 'petals' around his cock head expand and twitch against her swollen flesh. Iris bit down another loud noise. When she arched her back, the slide and unexpected texture drove her right to the edge of pleasure. Their mismatched bodies, a little confused but rolling with the punches, managed to pull off the greatest interspecies stunt of all. Iris and Scars came at the same time.

With his pride truly dismantled, her bracken permitted cuddling.

Iris spread out the sheet she'd been using as a bag. Close to the heater, warm and satisfied, she leaned back against his chest, bracketed in by his legs. None of the disconcerting thumps and crashes up above in the facility could bother her. Iris let herself relax. Like an aged tree, Scars sat still while she dozed, supporting and sheltering her. It seemed like she was forgiven.

A second later, Iris shuddered at all the associations she now held with that word. She never wanted to hear forgive me ever again, not even in her own head. Especially not in her own head. Those words would forever sound like Sigma's voice.

Today she wouldn't allow herself to mourn. Today she was just an unrepentant monster, recently unchained. She had abandoned her beloved shovel for a reason. Sigma had been right. It was a symbol of guilt, and Iris was tired of agonising over should-have-beens. She had survived. She was here now, with the being who had given her hope, who had loved her enough to watch over her while she slept, and continued to love her enough to let her leave, always keeping faith that she would return.

For his sake, Iris would let go of her humanity.

——|———|——

They were together all day, and then throughout the night. Every few hours, Scars would leave, either to patrol his territory or to find something to eat. Whatever the bracken did, he returned to her side every time. Half-asleep, Iris woke periodically to hear him purring, settling down nearby. She rolled over to breathe in his smell, wild and natural. In her dreams, she was transported to beautiful forests and sparkling lakes. More things she would never see again.

In the morning, she gathered her supplies, zipped up her suit and found the scrap of paper she had scribbled a map onto. Iris tried to explain her intentions to Scars, but vague gestures and reassuring touches didn't really seem to be getting the point across. The bracken hoisted her out of the chasm where his lair was hidden, and silently followed her while she searched around. Iris found an apparatus and removed it from its place in the generator. Scars hovered over her as she approached the exit.

His leaves were hanging limp, downcast.

"I'm not leaving you," she said, one hand on the exit, the other reaching back. "We go together. An adventure. Just the two of us."

Rays of sunlight made him hiss, covering his eyes. Scars retreated back, clinging to the shadows he knew. And there he stayed, immovable, rustling in frustration. Iris tried everything she could think of to convince him to leave, but eventually, the sun was high overhead, and other creatures started shifting around in the dark. So, on that day, she gave up. Fine. She owed him this much. They would stay until he was ready.

Back in his den, she paced around, bored, flicking her flashlight on and off, much to Scars' disapproval. The apparatus made him growl, so she placed it in a corner, under a bag. Iris found herself restless, with nothing to do. Investigating the ancient lower belly of the facility might have been interesting, but there was no exit from here. There was nothing left to do but sleep and eat, and occasionally fuck.

Over time, Iris grew agitated. There were only so many push-ups a person could do to stave off the boredom. She disliked all this wasted time. Left to her own thoughts, the darkness started playing tricks with her mind.

Another day, another night. In the morning, she tried again to convince him to leave. Scars reached his arm into the sunlight, more curious perhaps, but he still eventually grew stubborn, unmovable. Iris, tired of the stink and damp of the facility, went outside for fresh air, propping the door open in the hope that he'd follow. No luck. The bracken was damn stubborn.

Why did flower men have leaves at all, if they never saw sunlight? Seemed unnecessary, somehow. Iris scowled at the open door, but lost interest.

Two baboon hawks squawked and scurried around in the canyon below. Locusts hummed, and dust hissed across the weather-smoothed rocks. Iris picked up a stone and scraped it against her boot, dislodging grime and dried goop and who knew what else. The soles were worn down.

She examined the hawks from above, casually assessing how difficult it would be to hunt one. Sharp claws and mandibles, skittish but aggressive if provoked. Maybe with a net or something, she could do it. They might taste like chicken. Her mouth watered. Of course, it was significantly harder to kill anything without her shovel. She could still see it, sticking up like a lance near the landing site.

48 hours, and she hadn't gone far, huh?

Iris had considered travelling at night instead, for the sake of her bracken's eyes, but no matter how she tried to rationalise that choice, it would be a death sentence. Between the freezing cold and all the wandering nocturnal creatures, it would be too much danger to deal with.

There was a loud clang from the doorway, and Scars started growling steadily. Iris walked back over, and realised there was a coil-head twenty feet away in a corridor, staring him down. Fuck. Well, that put an end to trying to leave for today. With the door propped open, Iris managed to lure the demon mannequin outside, then slammed the door in its face. She and Scars went back into the shadows, vanishing from sight.

"You were what I dreamed about," she whispered, pressing her forehead against his. "But I can't stay here. Don't you want to find someplace better than this?"

The bracken responded by licking her neck and chest until she was distracted.

During the night, Iris failed to get any sleep. Her hair was greasy. Her skin itched and crawled, covered in filth and scrapes. A massive headache pulsed behind her eyes. The near-constant darkness was throwing off her internal clock, straining her eyes. Meanwhile, good old Scars seemed to hardly sleep at all. Occasionally he'd go eerily still, and his eyes would shut, but if that counted as sleep, then he always did it while sitting upright, never lying down to rest.

A number of hours later - who even knew how long at this point - Iris heard human voices up above, moving around in the facility. It was a bizarre role reversal, to be in here, just one of the monsters lurking in the depths, while Company slaves went searching for scrap right above her. Scars was leaning his head on top of hers. His stomach growled. A string of drool dripped down into her hair.

Such a weird feeling, knowing that her lover was thinking about eating a person. He got up. Weighing up the odds of success, Iris considered stopping him from hunting these strangers. But he was hungry, and this was how he survived out here. Was it really her place to tell an alien what it could and could not eat?

Scars left. Maybe an hour later, screams followed.

It came as no surprise, when he brought a body back to his lair. Still, Iris would have preferred not to hear the wet sounds of the bracken ripping through fabric and flesh. She definitely would have preferred not to smell the gore and blood. At least, in the darkness, she didn't need to see it.

Iris couldn't remember her pre-Company self very well, but she was fairly certain that this would have disgusted her. As for post-Company Iris, she was still figuring out what crossed the line. Cannibalism, apparently, was still going too far. Scars tried to offer some of his 'dinner' to Iris after he was finishing chewing. Her obvious revulsion must have given him some understanding of the discomfort he was causing, because the body vanished while Iris was asleep. How considerate.

Morning was slow to arrive. Tapping her foot in agitation, Iris picked at her various scabs in the dark. There was a single bottle of clean water remaining in her supply bag. Time was running out, and she couldn't fool herself into being satisfied with current circumstances. She might have dreamed of Scars, but she had also dreamed of sunlight and the stars. This was not where or how she wanted to die.

As much as it was painful, Iris began to accept that she possessed neither the power nor the right to change Scars' nature. This was his home. If this was how he wanted to spend the rest of his days, then this was how she would leave him.

She clambered into his lap again, stroking over the deformed bumps and dips of his bullet scars. The bracken purred softly, claws tugging her closer.

"Look," she said, "I wanted us to go off together, but I'll go by myself if I have to."

The bracken trilled in response, clutching her like she was something precious, like he was afraid to lose her. Iris was overwhelmed with gratitude for the connection she had known with him.

Morning approached, mere hours away. Their caresses turned rougher. Iris stripped off her clothes, naked as the day she was born. She trusted him now, not to tear her open.

If Scars refused to follow her into the light, then this would be the last time they had sex. Bravery got the better of her. Already wet from cumming once, she positioned herself over his cock. Despite being close to finishing, once he realised her intentions, Scars went quite still. Shockingly obedient, but his uneven purring suggested that obedience was going to be a temporary situation.

Iris relaxed and took a harsh breath. She reached down and lined herself up, before very carefully lowering down. At first, it seemed like nothing was going to happen. Flesh simply refused to yield.

But then it happened, with an alarmingly sudden pop. The bracken's squishy cock head squashed down just enough to breach her entrance. Inside her, it stretched out again, squeezed tightly by her inner walls. Scars growled and reared up, pulling her down his shaft an inch or two further. Iris realised she needed to breathe. Fuck. It was a satisfying sensation, being so full. Intimate, vulnerable. Not very painful, although the prospect of detaching their bodies again was intimidating.

Almost right away, she felt the shape of the flower man's cock changing inside her. Scars grabbed her waist roughly and thrust up a few times, leaves shaking so hard they sounded like a rushing waterfall. Iris nearly bit through her tongue with jolts of discomfort. This was manageable, though. It was fortunate he produced so much natural lubricant, otherwise this would have been horribly painful. The budding petals inside her, swelling up, seemed to cling to her insides. She could feel his pulse throbbing.

When he came, Scars trembled, leaned down and pressed his face into her neck. Hot fluid flooded out of Iris where their bodies were joined. Slick with his cum, she took that opportunity to try to get off his cock, before dryness made disconnecting unpleasant. It was only moderately painful. Okay. Task accomplished.

She was unsure if it had been worth it, but Scars was certainly happy, flipping their positions to cage her in with his arms. Iris lay back and let him examine her stretched hole, until he tried to get his tongue involved, because that was absolutely not happening. His claws rested briefly over her abdomen, strangely tender.

"Do you think you got me pregnant?" she joked.

With an odd rush, Iris realised that her words might never be heard again by human ears. Her jokes would never be understood. No-one would ever roll their eyes or laugh if she said something sarcastic. No-one would ever tell her a joke in return.

She belonged to the wilderness now.

Hours later, cleaning herself up as much as she could without spare water, Iris got dressed and prepared to leave. She gathered her bags, attached her gear to her belt, and put on her helmet. At the entrance to his lair, Scars physically stopped her. Not violently, but by refusing to carry her up to the walkway. He stepped in front of the crack in the wall, blocking the sunlight.

Iris didn't back down. They stayed in a deadlock of clashing wills for a long time, until finally, he grumbled and picked her up. The walk to the exit was long and miserable. Outside, it was raining. The sky was dull, full of ominous clouds.

After spending days in the dark, it hurts her eyes too, but adventure awaited. The cool air was refreshing, even through the filters of her breathing apparatus. Iris propped open the door and looked back, not really hoping anymore that Scars would follow.

He stood in the opposite hallway, upright and proud. Neither demon nor beast, a god of shadows. Iris truly did not want to leave him, but there was nothing left to say. Either he followed her, or he didn't.

The ground was slippery, and so were the enormous ancient pipes that cut through the canyons. Iris climbed up on top of one of those pipes, balancing carefully on the wet metal surface, testing the grip of her boots. Adjusting the weight of her bags and the apparatus a bit, she felt steady enough to proceed.

The drumming of raindrops on her helmet filled her ears. The canyons below were full of puddles. Iris didn't take out her scribbled map in the rain, but she knew it by heart anyway, and all the landmarks marked down from her frenzied research. There was no way of knowing if any of the things on that map still existed, if they ever had to begin with. There was no guarantee she would find any of them, but it didn't matter.

Iris looked out towards the horizon, where shards of sunlight split the clouds. She was ready for one last adventure. Whatever it brought.

The wind whistled in one of her ears. Something told her to look back once more.

Maybe a hundred feet behind her, damp and grouchy, but perfectly silent as it balanced on the rusty old pipe, a dark shape followed her. Iris smiled, and kept going, no longer alone.

——|———|——

Built into the side of a dried-up water reservoir on 21-Offense, there is a small wooden hut. Almost invisible from the muddy valley floor below, the entrance is concealed by an outcropping of orange rock. At night, if you looked in the correct direction from the other side of the valley, you might see golden light flicker through gaps around the rickety old door. You might catch sight of a flashlight dancing on the canyon wall, or the dark shape of a skulking shadow.

Two creatures live here, two hunters. Their den is out of the reach of forest giants and eyeless dogs. A pack of baboon hawks have tried to penetrate the defences before, smelling food and smoke. And now, there are two baboon hawk skulls hung up over the generator.

Yes, there is a generator. And solar panels up on the rocks above. Iris is no engineer, but she never needed to be. Someone else lived here, over a hundred Earth years ago, a scientist using a boat to survey the fish that used to survive here. There are no fish now, only nets, broken lab equipment, and the bones of a dead man. Iris sleeps in his old boat, and uses his ribs to hang up tools.

The apparatus she stole from the facility was a remnant of the same old civilisation as this generator. As a standard battery, it slots right in. Like it's meant to be. There's heat and light, even a grill to cook on, when she finds enough food to justify cooking.

At the back of the old hut, there's a pathway down to what used to be a dock. Without the water in the reservoir, it just leads to an empty chasm instead. There are caves down there that stretch for miles, full of ancient stalactites and weird twisting crystals. Most of them are dark and treacherous. During the day, that's where Scars lives, if he's not out hunting. At night, she'll dim the lights in the hut, and he'll climb up to meet her. One of their compromises.

There's a lot to be found in the caves, but Iris is concerned mostly with a stream of fresh water that runs through a jagged tunnel. There's nothing left in the reservoir but mud, yet underneath, water still flows. Boiled and sterilised, it keeps her alive. Iris uses a crusty prehistoric lamp to navigate in the dark, collects the water in a bucket. She lays nets and finds bugs of various kinds, alien crustaceans, wriggling eel-looking things. Some of them make her sick. Others actually taste decent.

She's basically a carnivore now. On a good day, she traps manticoils, those double-winged birds, baiting them using insect guts outside. Dehydrated Company food serves to supplement her alien-meat-based diet. Not that good nutrition will matter too much in the long-term.

Her Company uniform is in pieces, cut up over time into rope or patches. The helmet remains on a table, minus the breathing tubes. Iris still uses the mouthpiece, down in the caves, where the air makes her light-headed. Instead of the old suit, she wears the skins and feathers of multiple baboon-hawks. She didn't do a good job skinning them. There are holes everywhere, and the beasts stink, but their hides are warm. She and Scars have gradually been replacing the smell of dead animals with their own scents.

Iris and her bracken navigate a union day by day. They have a home here, not just a grimy den. She doesn't know if that matters to him, but it does to her. These are her tools, her furniture, her space. In return for him respecting her boundaries, she respects his. The two of them are surprisingly good at that. Hunters co-existing, protecting overlapping territory, not messing with each other's stuff.

Well. Unless messing around is encouraged. They have fun. That's the most exceptional part of their bond. They play hide and seek, splash and chase each other in the caves, climb around near their hut. When it gets dark outside, and they need to stay quiet, there's always time to fuck in the boat-bed.

Theirs is a sterile union. Obviously. But Scars might not know that. Iris sometimes wonders if he instinctively expects offspring to result from their sex, and keeps trying because it never seems to work. If so, she hopes the animal pleasures they experience together are enough of a salve.

It's an innocent existence, out here in the wilds, devoid of complication. Iris surprises herself almost every day, finding joy and wonder in simple things. She stares at clouds, observes weather patterns and sits for hours just listening to the sounds of nature.

And she makes 'art', silly pointless things out of bones and spare materials. She uses different shades of mud to paint patterns. There’s no-one to judge her for it, no-one to answer to. Iris doesn’t think she’s ever experienced that feeling before, or if she did, she can't remember it. Freedom.

There’s a peace, in isolation. Her eyes are open, her mind is unburdened with humanity, even as her body decays.

Yeah. That's the stupid part, honestly. Of all the things to kill her, radiation poisoning wasn't really what she expected. It could be something else, too, the slow build-up of other toxicity in her blood and in her liver. Doesn't matter.

Point is, Iris knows she's dying. Her body is degrading. It's nothing dramatic, more an irritation than anything else. Some days she's so nauseous it's unbearable. Other days, the hut swims around and her head throbs. Her skin itches and peels. Her fingers tingle. Her breath gets reedy and strained.

Leaning in a corner of her hut is the shotgun from 7-Dine. One shell still loaded. Iris has thought about using that shell a few times. When things get worse, she'll probably think of it again.

Her flower man understands that she's getting sicker. Sometimes, she must stink of illness. On days when she doesn't get out of her bed, he curls up around her, and brings food or blankets. Twice, he has carried her to the water's edge to drink. It's love, from what Iris can recall of love. He does what he can to provide physically for her needs, even if he can't remotely comprehend her emotional needs.

The last time she was too exhausted to move, delirious and dizzy, she woke to the feeling of her shoulder being nudged, and found herself mumbling out loud.

"Thanks Sigma," she said.

Iris snapped wide awake when the realisation kicked in, and sobbed into her lover's shoulder, much to his confusion. At least Scars wouldn't know what she was crying about.

The poor bracken didn't understand her distress, or where it came from. Sigma haunted her more than the others. When she forgot everyone else who had ever loved her, there he was, kneeling in the snow.

There's no justifying the slaughter. It was all for nothing, and that's the cold truth. Iris doesn't try rationalising the senseless deaths. What did they all die for, except a few pay cheques sent back to grieving families? Iris doesn't do any of them the disservice of thinking that it was cosmic fate, that they died just so that she could live.

The cosmos did not align simply so she could be sitting here.

They died because of the indifference of the Company. And Iris lived because she managed to find something to live for. That's all.

It's fine. Iris is far from bitter.

She likes to imagine her soul is casting off its pain before she passes away. Right at the end, she's returned to a strange, child-like wonder for the universe. Just cooking a meal or washing herself with a warm rag are acts of great reverence. Hearing Scars purr contentedly after they're done fucking is soothing.

21-Offense is beautiful, from the right angle.

Today, something interesting has happened. There's an eclipse, which used to be a source of dread and fear. Now it's just something cool to observe. With all the day's tasks completed, she and Scars have climbed up the canyon to a high vantage point. Iris has a flask of soup to sip, and offers him has some manticoil meat from yesterday.

The wasteland stretches out around them, alive and terrifying. In the distance, they see a Leviathan soar through the air. The crash of it hitting the ground rattles Iris' teeth even miles away. Day turns to night. Solar flares light up the atmosphere in blazing colours. Beautiful. It starts to get cold, and Scars is restless, but she doesn't want to go back inside yet. The stars are gorgeous, wreathed in glory.

Around one of them, there's a planet, and on that planet, there are people who once knew her. She can't remember them anymore. There's a sense that someone was waiting for her, needing her, but it's hazy. The Company has stolen her memories of them. It doesn't matter. Even if she could remember where or who home was, Iris can't return there. And anyway, she wouldn't want those people to see her in this state. She wouldn't bring anything home but trauma and pain.

Somewhere along the way, Iris became a monster, and so she lies with one. This is where she belongs. This is where she'll end.

Tomorrow, she thinks she will start carving her story into the walls of the hut, so if someone comes by in a hundred years, they will know she existed, and survived here for a while. It's all she can lay claim to.

Poor Scars. As the flares burn overhead, he growls and protectively puts his arm around her. Iris laughs. Does he intend to fight solar radiation for her? Romantic. She kisses him and nudges him out of the way. His leaves are spoiling her view.

In darker moments, she wishes she could find a way to send him to a better place, where he could find one of his own people. He won't leave her side, though, and she's too weak to try to leave him for his own good.

"Eat me when I'm gone," Iris tells him sometimes. "Take my strength."

It's only partially a joke.

But she fears that he'll be beside himself, that he'll be so consumed with grief that he'll stop going out to hunt, that he'll starve to death by her side. Hopefully, though, she's just being egotistical, thinking that. Chances are, the bracken will be fine without her. His emotions aren't human. It's possible he'll just shrug, remember her fondly, and endure.

Iris doesn't need to think about that now.

For now, she's at peace. She'll make the most of the time she stole from the Company. And while she still has a pulse, it's enough that they can sit out here watching the stars together, children of the universe adrift in space, two grotesque and twisted creatures lucky enough to find each other.