Chapter 42

Chapter Forty-Two

Empty, the shuttle had a completely different feel to Connor. It was a utility vehicle, a means of dropping fast and silent to a planetary surface. Now his boots clomped on the steel deck and bounced off the scuffed and stained walls, which now had a tomb-like quality.

When he stopped at his bench seat, Martienne shoved past with an indecipherable grumble and trudged to her pilot’s seat.

None of them wore environment suits or carried oxygen bottles with them. Every little bit of mass mattered, and asphyxiation was the least of the threats facing them.

The planet had left its stench on all of them—a foul mix of death and blood and the thick sweat it had drawn from their bodies. Even Drew, whose jumpsuit bore stains from the bug gore and the lubricant she’d smeared on the landing gear struts, had that fetid, primal reek.