Pace

Beep. Initializing revitalizing process. Beep. Initializing revitalizing process. Beep. Initializing revitalizing process. Beep. Initializing revitalizing process. Beep. Initializing revitalizing process. Beep. Initializing revitalizing process.

"Enough already! I'm awake, dammit!"

Am I awake?

He blinked and tried to rub his face. His brain wasn't communicating with the rest of him, yet. He was in a box. Where was he?

Base. Cryo pod.

No. He was home.

Beep. Initializing revitalizing process.

"Shuddup! I'm awake."

Stiff as a board, light as a two ton bolster engine, and just as bendable. As many creaks and snaps as the Colonel's knuckles when he cracks his fingers.

Beep. Initializing revitalizing process.

Now to figure out why Jasper woke him up.

***

Celeste

"Systems are go and ready to launch," she said.

"Pilote for Scout314 you are cleared and ready for take-off," the controller answered over the voice com. "Automatic flight control in place. Launch in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Have a safe trip."

She didn't reply. The vibrations rumbling through the hopper were enough to keep her from unclenching her jaw. People bit tongues off like that. Besides, what did you reply to such inanities? Have a safe trip. She hadn't been first in her class of 3,478 students to let the well-wishes of a robot decide her fate.

The hopper fell free from the star station.

Celeste punched in the codes for visuals and pilot navigation information. The shaking lessened just as the spinning began. Egraphin glowed a green-gold smear from the viewers. The sun was rising.

Hoppers weren't designed for comfort, but for efficiency. The spinning planet in the viewers threatened the pilot's lunch. In fact, it was spinning too much, even for a hopper entry. They hit the blue atmosphere – a jerking blow. The straps on her shoulders held her in place, but would leave bruises. They were still spinning and the viewers whited out from burning gasses.

"Computer!" she yelled. "Manual override. Codes 27-Sierra-51-Victor-12."

No response.

"Computer, comply!" The ship groaned and the rattling reached into her skull, knocking about her brain. "Manual override. Comply!"

She typed the codes out on the touch pad. Nothing.

Darkness was creeping around her eye's periphery. Pilot's board reported reasonable speeds, and decelerating.

A crock of shit. She could see through the flames that they were falling too fast.

Flight simulations with out of control spinning and speeds half of what they were doing always ended badly. G-forces were dragging her under.

"Computer!" she shouted over the hopper's death throes. She typed the codes again. "Comply!" No response. There was maybe a minute left. "Computer...." She spun into white flames and nothing.

***

Pace

He debated the pros and cons a final time, took a swig of sapjuice and pushed the transmission button on his touch pad. He was awake, but he was the only one out of cryo on the planet. This wasn't regulation. Why hadn't they sent revitalization signals weeks ago?

The star station was up there – his instincts told him and his systems confirmed it. Why they were breaking protocol was beyond him. They were ignoring him and the other ground keepers, but if it was because they thought they would save on giving him his supplies and salary, they were going to have problems. Blood and guts on the floor kind of problems.

The ship had been hovering like a ghost for three days and nights now – not a bleep, not a flash of light, not even a fart. Out of sight entirely. But even without his scanner, he would have known it was there. Ten thousand dreaming souls in that giant metal sphere. They buzzed in the back of his mind incessantly. They raised the hairs on his arms at odd moments during the day or night.

You can't live for 40 years on a planet whose human population is 28 and not pick up a few strange sensory perceptions. Despite being in cryo for most of the time. Good thing he had reprogrammed Jasper to activate his wake up in case of anything out of the ordinary.

Pace tried the voice com again. Picking up the mic stick, he went to the deck for the hundredth time since he woke up to watch the sky.

"HB9-77X, calling unknown star station in orbit around planet Egraphin, please confirm audio transmit—holy shit!"

A burst of flames at the top of the atmosphere and a streak of white smoke arcing towards him appeared. Either one hell of an asteroid was on its way or a hopper was falling fast.

He raced inside to check his scanner. Unnamed vessel, it confirmed. No, Scout314, hopper, government standard and issue, blah, blah, blah. Speed maintained at 616 clicks a minute....

Holy shit. Too fast. They were insane or the comps aboard were fried. He asked Jasper to calculate the trajectory. His landing pad.

Holy shit from a holy cow.

"Jasper, make contact!" His personal assistant beebed in compliance, searching for the computer on the hopper.

Pace's eyes strayed from the unsettling numbers on his scanner to the even more unsettling sight of his brush covered landing square right outside.

This was going to end badly.

"Jasper, do you have them?"

"They refuse contact. They will not acknowledge my call."

"Can you override the automatic pilot?"

The control panels that hid Jasper – a stationary robotic brain – continued to flash pale blue. "Negative. Impact in 45 seconds."

"Bypass the main computer and talk to the propulsion engines! Tell them to reverse, they have to reverse!"

He hated computers. That was why he had entirely rewired Jasper (and gave him a name). Otherwise he couldn't ask his robot to do something not exactly regulatory. You couldn't always stick to the rule book on a newly terra-formed planet with no one but yourself in the case of an emergency.

"Confirmed. I have bypassed the main frame computers—"

"Impact time?"

"In approximately 50 seconds."

"Estimated damage?"

"Persons on board will sustain minor to life-threatening injuries. Casualties may occur. Landing square and all or part of this building will be heavily damaged."

"Impact time?"

"In 29 seconds."

"Goodbye, Jasper."

"Goodbye, Pace."

He barely caught his robot's last words as he ran for the deck, flew over the rail and rolled to his feet. He ran his ass for the jungle. The booming impact seconds later sent him flying straight into a bin-bin tree. He felt more than heard cracking in his body. He fell to the ground and couldn't move.

It took a minute for him to come to his senses. Everything hurt and he regretted not being able to manually shut down his brain. Ears ringing, something dripping and burning on his forehead, lancing fireworks from his back all the way through his toes and fingers. Yes, even his toes hurt.

What was broken? Under his side, where he was laying on the soggy ground, something poked through his ribs. He carefully slid his hand down his chest and to the side. A big branch.

One huge, friggin' branch.

Don't let the whole thing be imbedded in my lungs....

He could breathe, so maybe it was simply a sharp end. No blood.

He chuckled. He hadn't been in pain for about 10 years – cryo was terribly comfortable – and he had forgotten what it was like. He pulled the branch free. He'd broken it off the tree and had landed on it was all. Just bruises. He stood up, cracking bones and joints back into place. Shaking off his dizziness, he headed for the smoking inferno that had recently been his home and landing square.

No signs of life. Maybe the station had jettisoned it on accident. Maybe everyone in the star station was already dead. It would explain why they didn't want to talk to him. He wrenched a half-broken door off. Smoke and dust assailed his nostrils and he covered his nose with his arm.

"Anyone here? Anyone alive?" he yelled, coughing.

Through the clouded air, the flashing signals of cryo pods announced that at least some of the travelers should be alive. He went to the nearest one and typed in a standard reanimation code. The pod didn't respond. He hit the emergency release. Nothing. He found a broken metal pipe and forced the damn thing open.

"Oh. That's nasty. Fanfuckingtastic."

He forced open three more before throwing the pipe away in disgust. They must have been on autopilot. The whole ship must have malfunctioned. But there were precautions against that happening. Then again, if the pods thought the occupants were alive....

He doubled in half, gagging. He needed air. A soft groan stopped him at the door. It came from the back of the craft. A pilot? There was a blood puddle on the floor, and when he got closer, a body strapped to the pilot chair. Her hands fluttered.

She was in bad enough condition that even he could see carrying her out over his shoulder would be a dumb move. There were locks on the floor and he popped them open. Then, dragging the chair screeching across the floor and outside, he got the pilot to the fresh air and muddy ground. He wouldn't be able to go further like this. He checked her pulse and breathing and decided she was better in the chair than on the mud.

If he couldn't find medical supplies, she was one dead pilot, though. Which would be a real shame because it appeared that under the burns, smoke, dirt, blood and grime she was the hottest thing to ever land on this planet.

He couldn't think about that now, though.

His bunker had a medic center in the underground level, if he could get down there. He limped off, hoping the crash had scared away the mosquitos. If one showed up, it would be a full-blown disaster.

A quick inspection of his base proved that it was impossible to reach the underground floors without digging equipment. He watched the jungle closely on his return to the hopper.

No signs of mosquitos or kittens.

The hopper, thankfully had several storage units in the back which were relatively undamaged. Nano bandages, organic scanners, disinfectant, cleaners, biocells injections, and cast foam. Nothing edible, though. The computers were fried; he wasn't going to be making any calls, but at least he had a chance at saving the pilot.

He went outside and dumped his things to find a knife and cut the straps. He had his knife in hand when he heard the distant mewling.

Funny fact about kittens; they are more attracted to flying branches than anything else and they have been known to eat bin-bins instead of people if you peel it for them. Otherwise, they peeled you.

And it was just his luck that he was close to a bin-bin tree full of fruit and broken branches. He sidled up to the tree in question, pocketing his useless knife. Finding a bin-bin and the branch he had fallen on, he walked backwards to the pilot, ear trained for more mewling and growling.

Kittens liked to play with their food before eating it, and making noise was one way of doing this. He waved the bin-bin and branch.

There was a click of a glazer behind him.

"Drop your weapons," the woman ordered.

***

Celeste

Her brain was swimming in smoky waters, unable to focus or make sense of what was happening. She had crashed. The hopper had crashed, but she wasn't sure why. She remembered yelling and spinning. But now she was still spinning and moving through the hopper.

The air changed and it was easier to breathe. She tried to move and to open her eyes. Everything screamed with cuts and burns. Were her arms and legs broken? She couldn't move except to wiggle her fingers.

A man was breathing heavily over her. He was prodding her head and chest. She kept her eyes closed, listening, and searching with her fingers to find her glazer – the standard issue mini laser gun that personnel wore when travelling to planet surfaces.

She wrapped her fingers around it and pulled it free when the man walked away. She blinked her eyes and tried to focus. Trees and jungle growth. Smoke and debris. She was tied to a chair, the wrecked hopper behind her. What kind of sick pervert would tie her to a chair after she survived a crash?

A grounds keeper. Sometimes, the isolation drove them insane. He was a couple of feet away, his ass well defined in his crouching position and muscular shoulders wide. He had wild, masculine aspect to him that made her mouth water.

What? She must have hit her head a bit too hard. Why was she thinking about how much sexier he was than the artificially bubble-muscled soldiers she trained with? This was not the time.

She aimed her glazer for his back and cocked it for firing.

"Drop your weapons."

He spun around in surprise.

His tight clothing outlined his V shaped torso. He was even better from the front.

This was not the time. He was threatening her with some sort of weapons.

"I said put the branch and the...banana down," she repeated. She thought it was a banana. It was neon green where it should be white.

"I would, but there's a kitten out there, and I'd rather it eat the banana than us," the man said.

Whoa...how hard had I hit my head? "A kitten?"

"Furry things, with pointy teeth and claws. Like cats but smaller," he said. A distant rumble came from the woods. It could have been rocks rolling or thunder from far off.

The man spun into a crouch. "Don't move."

"I'm tied to a chair. What kind of advice is that?"

"It wants you to move. If you stay very still, it might get bored."

"I thought it would eat the banana," she said. Attractive or not, he was obviously crazy.

She angled her glazer to the lap strap, determining if she could cut through it without burning herself. Her soft armor would help her some, but it had been damaged in places from the crash. As she craned her neck, her head began to spin. What she really needed was medical assistance. "As per regulation 45F in case of personnel injuries, you are required to prioritize—"

"There it is," the man whispered. He pointed the stick towards the impenetrable foliage.

"I don't see it," she whispered back. There was a tiny triangle of space she could exploit on the strap. She clicked the glazer on the lowest setting and began cutting. It sliced through the plastic in only a second and the red dot of the glazer flashed to the trees. At that distance, it couldn't cut much, but a line of smoke wafted upwards.

As she fiddled one handed with the glazer, the grounds keeper cursed. A massive feline paw snaked out from behind the bushes to scratch at the tree.

Celeste's stomach turned and her heart rate skyrocketed. Claws the length of butcher knives dug white furrows in the trunk. The red glazer dot landed on the back of the paw and for a few rapid heartbeats nothing happened. Then the fur burst into flames and a screeching roar cut into their ears. The ground vibrated as the kitten raced off through the jungle.

The grounds keeper stood up straight. He nodded in approval at her. "Security established, we can get to that head wound now."

"Head...." Her eyes rolled up and she was falling.

***

Pace

With the kitten gone and the glazer in his pocket in case it or a furry friend returned, he was able to apply the nano bandages to the woman's head wound and several other cuts. He ran an organic scan for internal injuries and didn't find anything too serious. Just to be safe, he injected her with biocells to reconstruct anything that might be bleeding or damaged.

There was one fun moment right after the injection when the pilot opened her eyes and screamed, "Get the little buggers out of me! Get them out!" before slumping to the side unconscious again.

The star ship should have realized right away that the hopper had crashed – unless the com systems were screwed or the crew was dead.

He watched the sky for incoming aircraft. Anything. An hour passed before the pilot regained her wits and coughed at him.

"Status report on cryo pod personnel."

"Nice to see you awake again. I'm Pace. Grounds keeper HB9 on Egraphin."

"Pilot, third class, Celeste from Star Station RC29. Status report?"

"They're all pretty much dead," he said.

She stood unsteadily from the chair, and Pace had to focus on her face and not her gravity defying curves.

"I understand you've been living alone on this planet for a few years at least, but I expect you to use correct terminology as per the regulations laid out in—"

"Forty years," he said, breaking in. "I've been awake for about 8 of those. As for terminology, your personnel is showing signs of advanced decomposition. Status report? They are dead, dead, dead and turning into pools of slime. We have to get on the move if we prefer not to join them in the afterworld."

He watched as she stomped off to the wreckage, climbing around upturned concrete and boulders and broken pieces of the hopper. A few minutes later, she was back, grey-faced and weak.

"How is that possible? Their vitals were fine when we launched. There are security systems in place to prevent—" She leaned over a rock and spilled the contents of her stomach. He was just surprised she hadn't thrown up earlier.

"Celeste," he said. "We have to get moving. Life forms on this planet didn't exactly evolve the way they were supposed to. I don't have any repellant, weapons, or any way to contact my fellow grounds keepers. Can you walk?" He rubbed her back while she huddled on the rock.

"Walk?" she asked, stunned.

"We have to move or we'll attract all sorts of bugs."

"Into the jungle?"

"It's fine. There are few tricks to remember, such as if a mosquito shows up, you have to—"

A streak of light appeared in the sky above them. Five more appeared, one after the other, each arcing to a different destination.

"They've sent search parties for us. Probably four man strikers." She relaxed against part of the wall that was standing.

"We need to get under cover, now," he said, taking her arm.

"In the event of distress or attack, stay in a secure area and be prepared to alert any search parties to your presence and any possible danger. Plus, why would we hide from people rescuing us?"

"This is off, everything about today is off. The star station didn't wake the grounds keepers, your hopper was out of control on entry and I had to order my computer to put the brakes on your propulsion engines, now two hours after your crash rescuers are showing up?"

"What did you say?" she asked.

He took a deep breath. "The star station didn't—"

"You illegally accessed my pilot controls and commanded the engines? You caused us to crash?" Her hand flashed to her side, searching for her grazer. When it came up empty, she held out her hands in surrender. "You will have to answer to an interstellar committee for perpetration of hacking with intent to harm, destruction of government property and the premeditated murder of a dozen personnel members!"

"I invite you to prove I killed men who have been stewing in their own juices for months while their cryo pods beeped merrily along. Think about it. You're a smart girl. Something is wrong here and we need to go before those rescuers show up."

The striker craft was descending fast. It would land in seconds.

"Don't make me kidnap you," he said, leveling the grazer.

She held out her hands as he approached. "Don't shoot, I'm coming." She pushed away from the wall and walked towards the jungle.

The second his eyes strayed to the landing striker, a fist jabbed into his neck. He fired a warning shot over Celeste's shoulder.

Or tried to.

She twisted the grazer from his hand and aimed for his forehead. "It only responds to my command. Keep them up, jungle boy. My rescuers have landed."

The striker's double wings folded up and the doors hissed with the released pressure. Four armed soldiers jumped out, guns ready.

One spoke into his com set on his shoulder. "Scout314 pilot sited along with a possible grounds keeper. Both alive and conscious. Orders?"

Pace threw himself at the stubborn pilot before the answer was given. He knew perfectly well what would happen next.

***

Celeste

She hit the ground, Pace covering her before she heard the explosion of fire. Her subordinates were shooting. At her?

"Cease fire!" she yelled. "Officer in the line of danger!"

"Yeah, I think they know that," muttered Pace.

She could hardly breathe; he was too heavy. "Off! Get off!"

"I'm trying to hide us both behind this rather small—" explosion and spray of rocks, "chunk of concrete."

"Get off!" she ordered. How had this man survived with no one telling him what to do? She elbowed him aside, waited for the shooting to go quiet. The soldiers were splitting. A two and two divide and conquer.

She adjusted the setting on the grazer with her thumb, stood and fired exactly four times.

Even the jungle hushed in awed silence. Paced raised from the rubble, whistling in appreciation. "Hot damn, woman, you can shoot."

"Language, grounds keeper; keep it regulatory. We'll need a log to record these events for our report. I'm sure you have one."

"Let me say one last time, pilot third class Celeste, I don't have jack shit. Your hopper that I hacked in order to save your ass destroyed everything I own. And put in your report that I don't recommend stealing the striker."

"It isn't stealing if I work for the government."

"Not sure the government considers you a valuable employee anymore. Someone wants you dead."

She glared, marching straight to the small ship. A low whirring arrived on the wind.

"It won't help us escape, Celeste, we've got more strikers coming in."

"I can outfly them," she said.

"They'll track you."

"Let them. I'm returning to the station to report this directly to this sector's mayor," she said.

"You can't trust anyone," he said.

"He's my father, I'll take my chances."

"Celeste, you'll never make it to the station."

Red spots zipped about on the ground like hyperactive bugs.

"Run!" he shouted.

"Grab the guns!" She dove into the striker as the incoming craft attacked, burning holes its wings.

He scooped up two of the guns from the dead soldiers and fired at the circling striker. Celeste reappeared with a bag in hand. Pace followed her, breakneck speed to the jungle. The striker's lasers burned lines in the ground at their heels; the grounds keeper didn't bother to aim as he waved his gun and fired behind his head.

Under the protective covering of the jungle canopy, the laser fire ceased. Pace took the lead, telling Celeste to be ready. He didn't say what to be ready for. Another kitten? The soldiers who were supposed to protect her?

She remembered the grey-black sludge and floating bones in the pods. Those men had been under her command. Not only was she responsible for their deaths, she should have been dissolving in a pod just like them.

Panic grabbed her hard and she hit a tree. She couldn't breathe with the fear of dying twisting her apart from the inside. There had to be a way off this planet and back home. Her father – she had to let him know. He would send someone for her. In the year it took to travel here from his base.

She was heaving and gasping. Hands held her to keep her from running off.

"Celeste!" Pace said. He was repeating her name. "Celeste, breathe, you can do this. Celeste?"

"Pace?" she asked. "I'm losing it."

"I noticed. It's all right. You've had a shitty day. Even worse than me. Those biocells can accelerate your heartrate and do some other medical stuff I'm not aware of."

"I know," she said nodding. "Do you have any water?"

He passed her a bottle from his sack. "Not too much, I'm low on purifier, and we're a couple of days away from the nearest grounds keeper station."

"What if the soldiers kill the other keepers?"

"I sent wake up calls and alert status to everyone before you trashed my place. With a little luck they won't get killed."

"You saved my life. Thank you." He nodded. "What now?"

"Now we walk. And if I say mosquito, you run for the nearest tree and latch on it like it's your one true love."

***

Pace

He found some ripe breadfruit and added it to his sack, hoping she had rations from the striker. Things would get awkward if not. He had some sapjuice leftover in his pocket flask; it could dissolve the DS-Bac pills that were kept in an emergency pouch of his bag. He hadn't needed them in years, his system had finally adjusted to the food of this environment. But taking one for the first time...he was more worried for himself. A man shouldn't have to face these things...alone.

Keeping his eyes open for gin berries and anything that might be stalking them, he led the pilot through the jungle on the shortest path (hopefully) to his nearest neighbor.

Not the kind of guy you hit up for barbeque and beers on the weekend, but better than armed soldiers with order to kill you on sight.

"It's been two hours. Time for water and rations," Celeste said.

He tensed. Let her have rations.

She kneeled at her bag, carefully digging through it. Over her shoulder, he noted basic survival weapons and equipment: knife, gun, mini pop-up cover tent, reflective blanket, and useless things like flares (flares on Egraphin? Might as well stick it in your mouth and get it over quick), whistles and fishhooks.

She tore into a rations bar and took a bite. Spitting immediately, she reached for the water to wash out her mouth.

"The hell!" she muttered.

"Let me guess. Budget cuts. The protein-carb bar has turned bad." He should have known. His basement had been full of the inedible bars until he'd used them as fire starters.

"Set my mouth on fire and my lips are numb. That can't be right. These are the same as our on-board rations, and they never expire." She checked the package, cursing. "It should be fine. Made on Polorium."

"Polorium. Last time I was awake, they were burning the government officials by strapping them to the backs of hover skeets."

"The rebellion was resolved years ago. What do you have to eat?"

"I don't have anything to eat." He hid the breadfruit and beetles he had collected for his meals.

"I saw you get food. Do you have to cook it?" Her eyebrows pinched in annoyance and he decided she was even more attractive than he had originally realized. No. No food.

"I'm going to be honest with you. I can't let you eat anything without proper medication first. The bacteria in your gut can't handle it. But I won't eat until you do. Deal?"

"No, that's nonsense. You should eat if you can because you might have to carry me or go for aid. And what medication? No one spoke of this."

"If I have to carry you or go for aid it will already be too late. The DS-BaC pills. Digestive System Bacterial Correctors? I thought it was common knowledge."

"Do you have any?"

Honesty was for idiots. "Like I've already said everything I owned—"

"How many hours until we reach another outpost?"

"Another day and a half to two days."

"Then get marching," she said, throwing her useless bars to the ground and shouldering her bag.

By nightfall, I caved. We had made camp and I risked a half-buried fire to toast the breadfruit and beetles. She assured me I should eat so that I would be useful. I was beginning to either hate her or admire the shit out of her.

After the roughest day imaginable, she was going to watch me eat.

"What would happen if I ate it without the correctors? I mean, how bad would it be? The runs? And then I adjust naturally?"

"If you are lucky, you have a couple of days of pure agony. If you are unlucky, after all that agony, you end up in a shallow hole in the ground. Shallow because of the tree root canvas, not because you don't deserve more."

"Damn it." Her stomach growled audibly.

Was I a man or wasn't I?

He had faced a team of kittens his second year in, had outraced countless mosquitos, went swimming with the fish to escape a hive of batlings, and had been on his own for forty years. And that was the problem. That's a long time to be alone.

Was he a man or not?

"If I happened to find a DS-BaC, you should know there are side-effects the first couple of times."

"What? You have the pills and you let me go hungry all day?" She dropped the bedding she was pushing into shape. "This will be on my report. Now, as your commanding officer, you will give me the necessary medication, and paper work so that I can eat."

He handed the tiny packet from his bag. She popped the lid to the small, airtight container, unscrolled the e-paper work and read the minuscule manuscript. "Dizziness, mood swings, temporary hormonal fluctuations, do not go swimming for at least one hour. What exactly is the problem?"

"There is no problem."

"Good," she said.

"You might want to dissolve it first with some sapjuice first. It's a fermented drink, it makes the process go...smoother."

"Are you suggesting I drink an unknown alcoholic beverage in an unsecure environment? It says to take alone with water, wait five minutes and then eat as normal."

"If that's what the document says..."

Pace schooled his face for perfect indifference as she threw back the pill and washed it down with a swig of water. He had five minutes to grill the breadfruit and bugs.

"Strange. The jungle gets hotter in the evening," Celeste said. She removed her soft armor vest and long sleeve shirt revealing a fitted tank.

Pace kept grilling. He knew better than to argue.

"I think we could have taken the striker and shot down the other pilots. They deserved firey death and pain, don't you think?"

"Do you like your beetles warmed up or crunchy? I go for crunchy, personally."

"I don't eat bugs, I'm an...an...what's it called when you don't eat bug protein?"

"Non-insectivore?"

"Right. It is so damn hot." Now she was down to black, boxer style undies and a tank.

Pace was sweating; she was right, it was getting hotter. He had been alone for such a long time.

"Tell me more about these mosquitos and kittens, Pace. Importing mosquitos on Terra planets is illegal, not to mention dumb, why do you have them here?"

"One of the first implant scientists had a different view – mmmphf!"

She had launched herself on him, sealing his lips with her own. Soft skin and tight muscle rubbed on his torso, setting his body aflame.

He had been alone for so, so, so long....

He pushed her aside and stood up. "Pilot Celeste, this will be going on my report. Undesired sexual contact – whoa, slow down there. Put the top back on this instant."

His breadfruit was burning in the pit, but he was afraid to move. With everything she had exposed, any touching would be his doom. "Celeste, put your shirt on."

She was crying. Better than attacking him in any form.

He talked her back into some of her clothes and onto her bed pile.

"You have no idea what kind of pressure I've been under, the mayor as my father. All the males in my family are high ranking and medaled, my mother wanted me to get married, so I have to prove not only to them that I can fly, but to the entire star station. Well, the handful of people who were awake the same time as I was, anyway. Always saluting when I arrive and making jokes when I leave. I'm a natural blond, but that's not my I. Q."

"I understand." He fished the breadfruit from the fire with his foot. He could cut off the blackened parts.

"I was so scared when that kitten's paw-thing came out of the jungle, I almost peed my pants, but you were amazing. So cool with your big, green banana thingy."

"I appreciate it. I hope you put it on your report."

"I will. Because you are so unbelievably hot. I want to lick you from your neck down to your—"

"Oh, look, the beetles are done."

"I don't eat beetles."

"Would you like some breadfruit? It's not exactly the same as Earth breadfruit, but—ow!"

She ducked her head, somewhat ashamed. "Yes, please some breadfruit."

"Only if you promise not to bite. Again."

He tried to pass her a leaf with the food, but she was crying and needed to be held. He put her head in his lap to stroke her hair. Her reactions to the DS-BaC were similar to the other grounds keepers he had seen, but more weepy. He didn't want to think about the men running buck naked through the jungle, singing loudly, though.

"Is the breadfruit good?"

She nodded.

"Want another bite?"

She nodded.

"You'll have to stop sucking on my fingers so I can get you some."

She released his fingers from his mouth with a slurp. He managed to not groan in desire. "You saved my life several times today. I would be dead without you."

"All part of the job."

"I think I love you."

"I think tomorrow you'll have a colossal hangover and a different view of me."

"If someone is trying to kill me, then they'll try to kill you and the other grounds keepers. Why?"

"There are riches to be had on this planet for the mineral deposits, but I don't know why they have to kill you."

"Then it's just you and me for at least a year until help can arrive. Don't you want to bang me against a tree? Maybe just a little?"

Pace stared down at the woman, her skin lusciously sweaty and hair tousled. He wanted her against the tree more than just a little. And she was right, it was only the two of them against a star station if things had soured in the leadership.

A flicker of red and blue caught his eye from the shadows.

"Celeste, I need you to run for the nearest tree."

"Now you're talking, cowboy!" She started to pull off her shirt.

"Celeste, it's so you can become Egraphin's newest tree hugger," he said. He was almost thankful for the monstrous insect's arrival. "Mosquito."

And there was no one he'd rather be squeezing against a tree.

The end!