vignette

Shurl hadn’t know her partner long. Well, she’d heard of him, his reputation anyway, for several years, but hadn’t met him until this assignment. So far he seemed to be an okay, hard-working guy. She supposed it was only a matter of time before his hard-ass side came out, but so far so good.

They were posted in the unexplored sector this year and, thank god, the tour was about over. She was tired of being around the same 12 team members, several of whom were extremely hard to work with. But being partnered with Dak had kept her out of the worst of the infighting, and she would have enough saved after this tour that she could ground down and take a home job. She never in her wildest dreams would have chosen a home job, but yeah, now the time was right.

Things were quiet today. The small planet they were charting was pretty and interesting, a good combination. The team had scattered in the double-shot formation which took a little longer, but was always a good choice .... fewer chances of being caught off-guard or having to deal with a problem by yourself.

Dak was using the scanner while she took notes. She preferred taking notes, actually, since it gave her time to really look around at things. A pale blue sky, breatheable atmosphere, land, water, vegetation, animals -- this little planet had it all. Which wasn’t that unusual, really. When men finally left Earth and spread out through the universe, they discovered a large number of liveable planets, most of which were so similar to Earth as to be siblings. It was a happy surprise, especially since things on Earth had gotten so rotten there at the end.

History lessons wandered through her mind along with her observations about this planet. It was so new, so peaceful, so happy. “Dreaming about possibilities?” asked Dak quietly.

Shurl took a deep breath and sighed, “Yes. It just seems so .... so clean, so untouched by evil. I like it here.”

Dak studied her a moment longer, then shifted his attention back to the scanner. She was okay .... smarter than the other females he knew and pretty good about keeping her mouth shut. He couldn’t stand being around women who yakked and yakked and yakked -- drove him crazy. But out of all the partner choices, she was the best -- even better than the guys. God they had some dumb ones along on this tour. He couldn’t wait to report back to headquarters then take a long-overdue 3-month vacation .... all by himself.

It was another couple of minutes before he noticed the solid red light on his display. That wasn’t good. He checked the levels, scrolled through the read-outs, looked at the possibilites, figured the odds, micro-grieved his missed vacation, then turned to Shurl and calmly said, “We’re stuck in this place. The ship has mysteriously disappeared, 8 of the others are dead, 2 are missing. We are alone, unable to call for help, and unaware of what, specifically, happened to the others. We’re going to have to stay alert and cover each other’s back.” He watched as it moved across her face -- surprise, alarm, curiosity, humor, resignation, somber readiness. He continued, “Come on kid, let’s find a place to secure a camp. Your untouched place has some kind of evil after all.”