I'll just be more careful. I won't say anything until Neo's awake - if he wakes up.

Another day without change to pass onto a cloudless horizon. Rainbow webs reflected through the stars. Izerva sat outside with Thuni around the hasty campfire, cleaning off their blaster while things chirped and yowled in the night. Nova hugged her knees to make herself smaller and to not disturb Ulin, who slept soundly without the uncertainty of Neo.

"We're going to head out and take a look around the area tomorrow, see if we can't pick up a stronger signal for Ulin," Thuni said from the entrance.

Nova jolted. "Wait, what about—?"

"Teimea?" Thuni frowned. "Ulin will stay here and keep in contact with us through our comlines."

Nova crawled out of the opening. "Are you sure it's smart to leave them alone?"

"If I had another choice, I wouldn't," Thuni grunted. "But the longer we stay here waiting for him to wake up without finding a way to get off this planet... the longer we're stuck here. We aren't going to be helping him like this."

"Okay, I can stay here with Neo and Ulin can go with you," she argued, though tasted the bitterness of the facts.

Thuni pressed his lips together. "Think about it for a moment, Spacyn. You're the one who experienced what happened on the B.H Supernova — you also know how to work an anomaly scanner and we don't. I think I can hold my own in a tight spot. Izerva is trained personnel. Ulin can stay here and act as a two-way for us all. It's the only way we can get anything done. We're not leaving Teimea defenseless." Thuni nodded at Ulin. "They won't leave him."

Nova poked the fire before twisting around to study Neo's prone shape, who slept like nothing else mattered. "Fine."

"Also, it's not like we're heading straight to the scout," Thuni explained. "We need to get a good layout of the area. We'll come back and make a map — and then we head for the scout if possible."

"And what if something goes wrong here?" Nova dug her boot into the dirt. "What if something attacks Ulin while we're gone?" Embers fell around her, and she winced at the sharp pain underneath her knee, a reminder of Neo's sacrifice to save her. "Or, what if something happens to us and they're stranded? Would you expect Ulin to leave and come looking for us, thus leaving Neo alone when he can't defend himself?"

"Ulin's not going to do that," Thuni insisted. "It would be easier if Teimea was awake, but he isn't. Izerva's insistent we leave him like that."

"How do you know that?" Fire layered over her tongue and burned her words. "You don't know that. Things happen. Things change. In the heat of the moment anything could happen."

Thuni stopped, and folded his arms. "I can't make you come with us. I just think it'd be more efficient this way."

Her argument fluttered into the coals, and she pressed herself against the rocks. Frustration lodged a knife into her heart, and Thuni's brow furrowed in the silence. He stood up, and she scrambled to get out of his looming shadow. He gazed down at her. "You don't have to take my word for it," he said. "Let's discuss this tomorrow when we're not half-asleep. Wait until our heads are clear." He shuffled into the cave, taking his usual spot at the door to wait for his turn on watch, slipping Ulin's headpiece over his own ears to fiddle with the datascroll.

Wait...? Nova bit down on flames when the world darkened on its edge. I got so used to not having any time to wait.

So what do I do now? Sleep?

Alarms screeched.

I had to ask these questions over and over.

People screamed and moaned.

If I didn't...

It fell silent.

Someone died. Neo died, and then I was left wondering what question I wasn't asking. Until he gave me his to ask, and then it made sense. Nova shuffled into the cave to take her spot beside Neo, but nothing cleared out of the dark world. Every question weighed with a thousand lives lost. Nova jolted at the close sounds of alarms, but morning dew danced on starlit grass, sending them upwards into mist. Outside, Izerva paced the immediate perimeter while Ulin and Thuni sat on the rocks outside, with Thuni taking several instruments from his friend in the distance. Left alone, she studied him

Neo remained fast asleep, but when she crept to check on him, he took in a deeper, stronger breath. A heavy sigh of life.

"Neo?" she asked.

No response.

Nova squeezed his hand, but even that lacked any sort of acknowledgement. "I want to go home," she said to him. "And I need you to wake up."

He breathed softly.

Nova echoed his breathing. "You must've been so tired," she whispered. "I am too." Agitated burrs stuck to the back of her tongue, but she sighed them outwards. "Do you think we can go home? Maybe we can do something when we get back? I just want to get away from this... I want to go home. I want all of us to get home."

But in the end, I can't do anything. Out of her makeshift bed, she shambled from him to join the others. "You have a direction in mind?" she asked before any of them could fret over her. "Any idea how far you want to go from here?"

Ulin pointed eastwards. "I'm picking up some sort of signal in that direction. I gave Thuni a tracker to pinpoint it," they explained. "I don't expect you to find much right now. I just want some geographic data and I should be able to make a rough map. I'm also going to see if there's a way we can pull your droid and the core out of the lake. You three can head in that general direction and I'll let you know if I pick stuff up."

Thuni nodded and adjusted the heavy instruments on his belt and around his wrist. "You scoped out the area, right?" He nodded at Izerva.

"Yes." Izerva swept their tail to the underbrush. "I will take you to where I stopped exploring. We can go a little farther before returning."

Nova hesitated on the edge when Ulin shuffled into their shelter to place their datascroll flat against the ground while Neo continued to sleep. Anything could happen, but Thuni's right. The longer we stay here the less chance we have to survive. Nova drove her fingers into her palm and followed the two into the brush, and the cave disappeared from sight. Tongue held in her teeth, she kept her silence while Thuni held out a small, spinning antenna.

Izerva rounded trees with their tail grazing the crisp bark. "It's quiet," they signed. "Try and contact Ulin."

"Right." Thuni tapped his compiece. "Ulin?" Another tap. "You reading me at all?"

"There's some white noise, but I am," Ulin answered without a second of hesitation.

Nova huffed. "Will you let us know if anything happens over there?"

"Will do," Ulin replied. "Keep going on your route so I can set this up."

I have no other choice.

Deep into the mysterious, anomaly riddled forest, she held Neo's scanner closer to her heart as they ducked beneath carved roots to giant trees. Under rocky outcrops and twisting around in a green maze. Nova scowled at the buzz of silence, and no music filled the gaps. "How far are we supposed to go?"

"Only a bit farther." Izerva scaled to a low-hanging branch when the ground sloped. Another second, and they hopped to the ground with ease and led the rest of the way. Thuni lifted the antenna higher with his own tired scowl.

"I am getting some distinct pings from the suspected scout, but no direction yet," Ulin reported through chopped noise.

"Losing you," Thuni replied when they slid down the small ravine and went deeper.

Air webbed into her lungs, and she jolted when Neo's scanner beeped against her chest. In her hands, it glitched and sputtered. Fearful uncertainty crashed into her sore knees when Thuni and Izerva stopped to wait for her. "I'm—I think we're getting a strong anomalous reading as well," she said, and it came out a shaky waterfall. "It's not saying the class..."

"Is it broken?" Thuni asked.

Nova trembled when it glitched, a repetitive word, incomprehension. She smacked the back of it. "No. No. Neo takes care of it." Another vigorous shake, but it continued to spit out fatal data.

"It's possible we are close to the interference that is blocking Ulin from pinpointing the exact location of the scout." Izerva pointed at the air. "Is there a direction on the scanner?"

Lines fluttered when she held it out to them. "Up ahead," she replied, and it let out a weary beep when she dragged it through its own exhaustion. Onto the glitched path with uncertain steps, tension wrapped into her shoulders when Izerva went ahead, leaving Thuni and his lumbering footsteps behind her against metal panels. Nova forced herself to not look behind ever again. Neo's scanner rippled as they closed in on the field of disturbance.

Leaves curled out of their way when they stumbled into a grove. Silken threads of white and green hung around bare branches to create a shield around the clearing and left a few openings. Something squelched underneath her boot when she stepped through the threads, and she stopped when the scanner hummed into silence. Her breath caught in her throat, but she tucked it close, to hold it into an embrace before pulling her foot out of the sticky mud.

Thuni stepped in her place to hold out the antenna. "This it?"

Nova turned the scanner over, then closed it. "This is it, but I don't think this is what's causing that much interference."

Thuni stepped through the webs, then lifted his boot at the familiar squelch. Pale slime slobbed over his boot. "Ugh." He grimaced and shook out his foot, but it left thin strings on his heels. "What the fuck?"

Nova brushed the turquoise threads out of her face when they rattled with the wind, but kept herself at a distance while Thuni swept the antenna around in a cursory sweep. "Ulin?" he asked. "Are you getting anything?"

"A little, where are you?"

"That's a good question..." Thuni took another cautious step forward. Another squeeze of slime, and he cursed when a bubble popped underneath his foot when he pressed his weight deeper. "Fuck."

Izerva's ears flicked and they lifted their head to the threaded canopy. Nova tugged out the scanner when their eyes narrowed. One more attempt, she switched it on to read past the glitch.

Through the loop.

It beeped once, twice, in time with a living reading. Nova jolted when small pearls along the thread expanded into balloons while Thuni tried to free his foot from the exploded bubble with his own string of curses and complaints.

"Thuni!" Nova snapped when the datalines went red. "Get out of—"

Always too late.

Thuni snapped his head upwards to investigate the breaking tangles when the balloon above his head popped. Slime sprayed on top of him, and Nova dove into cover when a pearl nearest her expanded and burst. Izerva released a startled chirp when the slime tangled into their brown fur, and their tail whisked from side to side to send strings outwards from the explosion as Thuni groaned and shook out his arms.

Nova hauled herself out from behind the tree. "Are you two okay?"

"I'm alright." Thuni swung his hand through the air, and the goo whisked off his fingers.

"What happened?" Ulin snapped through static. I lost connection to my geomap."

Thuni used two fingers to pull the antenna out of the slime pit before trying to wipe it with his own slicked clothes. "Awesome," he hissed then stomped back to them. "Let's get out of here and get back to camp."

Izerva made their own chirping noises of complaint as they tried to shake out their fur, which stood on end in clumps.

I'm always too late.

Nova sighed out her own spiderwebs as Thuni and Izerva crawled out of the slimy grove. Neo's scanner continued to beep out a late warning for a living organism. Nova studied the two. "Are you sure you two are okay?"

"Other than uncomfortable?" Thuni shook out his hands with a grimace. "Ugh, it kind of burns. Is the anomaly scanner saying anything about it?"

Izerva clawed at the clumps of their fur.

"N-No," Nova stammered and she fumbled to show them. "I don't know. I only know how to work it, not how to read its information."

Thuni scowled at something in the distance. A soft curse left his lips when he pushed them further from the boiling grove. "I hope this stuff isn't acidic," he grumbled as they raced from the danger.

"It's still burning?"

"Yes."

"Well..." Nova dug her fingers into the sides of the anomaly scanner. "We could... ask Neo."

"Teimea isn't awake." Thuni wrung out his clothes. Izerva rubbed against a tree with an agitated hiss. "Never thought I'd say this—" He wiped his hands. "We need an anomalous scientist."

Nova pressed the scanner closer to her heart as the two took the lead and stumbled in pain through the forest.

But will he wake up? We need him... I need him to talk to me.