#freyes

Vetra and Liam won’t stop talking. Ryder should probably put the kibosh on  that sort of thing seeing as how they’re in the middle of a mission, on initiative business, but she doesn’t have the energy. Anyway they’re professionals—more than she is—and she’s confident that the minute things turn serious they’ll button it up.

She wonders for the hundredth time if that sort of lenience makes her a good boss or just an amateur who doesn’t understand how to be a leader. She wonders how her father would have handled a team full of chatty cathies.

They set up on a section of ridge with a good line of sight and Vetra takes aim. The report of the rifle is loud in the frozen air, punctuated by reverberance of the ice all around them. She shoulders her weapon and stands. The minute she’s finished, Liam starts up again.

“There’s no way that’s a potato, Vetra.”

She glances over at him, then away. “I mean…I’m not an expert. Obviously. It just looks like an earth potato to me.”

“Okay but the color? That’s weird right?”

She sighs and it sounds long-suffering. “I don’t know, Liam. Like I said I’m not really a big potato gal…not really a big fan of the whole violent death by toxic shock thing.”

Okay, no. Her father definitely would have killed them by now. Straight out an airlock. No question.

Ryder lowers her scope and looks back over her shoulder. Liam is turning something over in his hands, studying it closely. Vetra just watches him for a beat, then reaches over and pokes at it experimentally, her expression broadcasting mild disgust.

“You humans and your starch obsession. Nasty.” She turns away and fiddles with a setting on her rifle. Pops the sink and replaces it. The barrel is still glowing softly, a dull greenish blue ebbing into nothing.

Liam leans down and grabs the exhausted heat sink out of the snow. “Hey, no littering. What’re you, the Kett?”

Vetra doesn’t give any indication that she’s heard him. Ryder sends silent blessings her way.

At least they’re getting along? Sort of? It was dicey for a little bit there. For a while Ryder was always half tuned in to the possibility that Vetra might literally kill him.

She raises the scope again and surveys the damage. One, two…three down. No additional movement.

“Three Roekaar down. Three shots.” She stands up. “Good looking out, Vets.”

“Hey, you know how I feel about waste.”

Liam mutters something about litter again. They both ignore him.

“Let’s clean it out and call for extraction. It’s too fucking cold out here and I’m literally dying.”

She feels a nudge at her arm and turns to see Liam there with his hand outstretched.

“Whaddya think?”

Ryder looks at the potato. It’s clearly a potato. She looks up at Liam.

“It’s a potato.”

“Is it, though? I’m not sure it—”

“It’s a blue potato, Liam. They exist. Cora probably picked it up from Vorn last time we were on the Nexus. She’s got a thing for like…” She grunts as she shuffles over the edge of the hill and initiates the clumsy climb-slide down the slope. “heirloom varietals or whatever.”

She can hear the two of them following, knocking pebbles and bits of ice loose as they go, huffing and puffing softly as they make their way down into the valley. She pushes off and jump-jets the last 20 meters or so, landing about a stone’s throw from the closest Roekaar dropped by Vetra. A woman. Ryder can just make out the bluish-purple swell of her lips, half open and unmoving. There’s a near-imperceptible curl of steam rising up and out of her mouth, dissipating in the frozen air. Ryder toggles the visibility settings on her helmet and turns to the others.

“Liam, I feel like I’m going to regret asking this but why did you bring a potato on an op?”

Vetra laughs as she jogs to catch up. “He was holding it when you called us for load out.” She angles her head back at the ridge. “He just held it all the way down that hill.”

Liam shrugs. “I was hanging out with Cora and shooting the shit about her whole…galactic garden thing. Just kind of forgot I guess. Stuck it in my pocket without thinking and reported for the drop.”

Ryder stops walking and turns to Liam, her expression grave. “You stole a potato from Cora’s lab?”

Liam balks. “I didn’t steal—“

Vetra is laughing again. A little too gleefully. “You’re a dead man, Kosta. She’s going to turn you to fertilizer.”

“I didn’t—“

Pathfinder, I am detecting additional heat signatures just beyond the structure to the North

A high-pitched whine echoes off the rock face behind them and a half second later a crack and a whistle, then a sickening thunk. A soft sprinkling of ice and rock dislodged by the bullet.

They seem to be armed

“No shit, SAM.” There’s a rush of blood to her head. That familiar spike of adrenaline and the freight-train charge of SAM’s combat protocols engaging. “Look alive, people. We’ve got more cleaning up to do.”

“Got it.”