The group of us who are going to the base is smaller than I'd expected. At the same time, it's so much bigger than I would have hoped, for the sake of not getting noticed. We're a group of around ten. Not including me, or Eric, or Mia or Hestia, there's five. Peter, Ivan, Sinead, and two men who are part of the guard group of this place. The guards have their weapons - procured at some point before we ever arrived.
We leave on foot.
There's no kind of transportation. They've scavenged supplies for years now, but transportation, it seems, has been beyond their abilities. Either because it's too well guarded, too bulky, or maybe there's some kind of method that's used to track them?
I don't know.
I can't say it isn't nerve-wracking that we're apparently jumping from energy weapons up to a full on shuttle...
But I guess that's the messy nature of rebellions and escapes. When you have to improvise everything and it all comes down to desperation.
The guards are quiet, focused, their expressions grave.
Sinead is still smiling. Her eyes meet mine, and that smile softens, she nods her head. A small, gentle gesture.
Peter and Ivan walk near each other. Ivan's eyes are sharp, and his expression is grim. He looks focused and intense.
He's been on a mission like this before.
This is, essentially, a second attempt at a previous failed escape.
I don't know much of the details, so I can't quite say how much different this one is - other than that I am sure we're much better prepared, much more meticulously planned, than last time.
But still.
With that look in his eyes, I can't help but wonder if he's playing out that day in his mind again and again.
It's the kind of thing that I'd be thinking of. Going over. Over and over.
Wondering if I was right about where it all went wrong, if I'd fixed the plan this time, what will happen this time...
It's nerve-wracking, and I'm not even him. I can just see what's ahead of us, and I've heard from him some of the details of what happened before - although not enough to be able to answer those questions myself.
But that doesn't matter.
Because we're not going to fail.
Not again. Not at all. This will work. This is our one chance, and if we mess it up...
If we mess it up we might all be killed.
And if we're not killed.
If we lose but don't die...?
That might actually end up even worse.
But no. It won't be that.
Because we're not going to fail. It's as simple as that. It can't be any more complicated.
Ivan's gaze meets mine. His eyes soften, and his expression looks faintly sad. "Let me be the one carrying the heavy expression. We all have our responsibilities today - I can't have you taking mine." He's trying to tease me. It's obvious in his tone of voice, and his little half smile. It's not much, but it still makes my heart feel a little lighter, a little warmer, a little stronger than it did.
I swallow. "I just..." I take a breath. "I just don't know how to do this."
"It's fine." Peter says it, not Ivan.
My eyes move over to him. He looks more nervous than Ivan, although not as nervous as I do. "None of us expect anyone to have that kind of experience. If we had it...we'd probably have already slipped the leash and left the planet. So...I think it's fine to be just like the rest of us."
"Just be yourself." Eric nods at me, smiling slightly.
"You can do it." Mia smiles too, encouraging. It's not an excited expression, though. Just a...quiet one.
Hestia reaches up to grab my hand.
I squeeze her hand and take a slow, deep breath, in and out.
"Hey now..." I bite my lip. "You guys can at least pretend to be just as nervous too, you know." It's a weak tease. I can't even muster the will to make my voice sound anything other than tired and worried.
Ivan laughs.
Mia smiles. Eric offers a smile of his own. Sinead laughs softly. Peter just gives a little smile, and nods at me. Hestia squeezes my hand. I squeeze back.
We keep walking.
The location we're going to...
It's not exactly close by. It has to be far. If they'd dared to set up an outpost or home base anywhere near where the aliens actually actively operated and lived, it'd be a matter of 'when', not 'if' they were spotted and dragged in.
And I doubt it'd be a long time frame.
So.
Walking through the desert in the day is not what I'd consider particularly refreshing, exciting or...enviable at all.
Yet there is a kind of quiet excitement anyway.
Anticipation.
Despite the fear and the nervousness...
There's at least a part of me that isn't lying.
A part that really does believe we'll make it.
I don't know how I feel about that part of me, honestly. But...
Well, I guess it's not bad.
I don't want to just give in to the terror. I want to be excited about this. I want to have that confidence that I'm sure everyone else has, the confidence to walk onto a ship that can go to the stars, fly it home, and...
And just walk back into the life that was stolen away from me two years ago.
Or a really long year ago.
Or however long we've been trapped on this cursed planet.
I just.
I want to go back home.
I want to go back to normal.
And this is the only chance we've got, so.
We have to take it.
Even if we fail, and we're all dragged in...
We'll die free.
At least, I think so.
I hope so, at least.
That's the thought that's keeping me moving.
...Not really the dying part.
But then again, maybe.
Because I think if I were to dwell on the idea of being captured and sent back to that processing place again instead...
I'd just stop.