Chapter 3

“From now on you’re not just my best friend, you’re my lover.”

These words float through the darkness of Rayna’s mind. She stirs. Her muscles are sore, her body is wet and her throat is scratchy. Slowly, she opens her eyes. The light from Terra Verdure’s twin suns setting on the horizon pierces her eyes, forcing her to blink several times to adjust.

What the fuck happened?

The last thing she remembers is being swallowed whole by the plant. Rayna turns her head toward the plant to see it still sitting where it was before. The thick stalk with the toothless pod sitting atop is quiet and unmoving. For a moment, Rayna thinks she just imagined to whole event. That is until the pods turns toward her. Rayna, for the moment can swear it smiles at her before turning away.

She shakes her head to clear it.

You’re imagining things.

She crawls up to her knees and eventually to her feet. She stumbles over to where her equipment is and quickly collects it. Darkness is quickly covering the planet and so far, not one of her team has been outside home base after dark. There are reasons for that and because of those reasons, Rayna picks up her pace. Through aching muscles, she dresses and heads back up the trail she took to get her to collect her rifle and the rest of her armor.

-

As darkness settles over Terra Verdure, Nikki Marks and Riley Mack are in search of a place to take shelter. Not long after turning back toward home base both their equipment had a sudden failure and it is only by luck that they found each other. Neither of the women can explain it, but with complete failure they had no navigation or radio support.

“I don’t understand,” Riley says as she drops down from a tree. “We’ve had equipment failure before but nothing like this.”

“Long range isn’t picking up anything?”

Riley shakes her head. “Not a thing. Did you find cover?”

“There’s a cave just over the ridge,” Nikki says, pointing in the cave’s direction.

“We’d better get there then before it gets too dark,” Riley states.

Nikki simply nods her head and heads for the cave.

Upon reaching the cave, Riley takes point. Since all their electronic equipment is dead, this includes their flashlights. Riley doesn’t let this hinder them, however.

“You stay and keep an eye out,” she says to Nikki. “I’ll go as far as I can. With any luck this cave is empty.”

“I doubt there is anything alive on this planet,” Nikki argues.

“What about the animal noises?” Riley asks. “What about the animals the scientists have found?”

Nikki rolls her eyes. “So far they have only found harmless animals no bigger than rats. We’ve been here for what two weeks and we haven’t seen anything, alive or dead.”

“We’re not going to forget Rayna’s golden rule,” Riley says shaking her head. “Never dro...”

“Drop your guard,” Nikki says, cutting the other woman off. “Alright, alright. I’ll keep watch. You just be careful.”

Riley throws her a wink. “I always am.”

She turns and heads further in, rifle at the ready. The light stretches a fair distance into the cave, but as the two suns set and the deeper she goes, the faster it gets dark. The cave seems to stretch on and on and it is eerily silent. After several minutes, diminishing light and no end in sight, Riley turns back around to return to Nikki. As soon as she does, she hears the noise of crunching rocks.

She spins back around, finger sliding off the guard and to the trigger. She points her weapon at the origin point of the noise. Despite the noise bouncing off the walls and echoing, Riley has been highly trained to be able to pin point a noise no matter the environment. She hasn’t been wrong yet.

Her heart starts to race. Nikki is right that they haven’t had any contact. But something made that noise. Then suddenly, she feels the solid ground under her feet shift. By the time she realizes what it means, the ground is no longer solid and she finds herself falling.

Unable to hold the rifle and prevent herself from falling into the newly made hole, Riley lets go of it the grip the edge of the hole. “Nikki!” she shouts.

Nikki makes remarkable time getting to her. She heard the noise before Riley’s shout. Quickly, she drops to her knees and grabs her hands. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Riley huffs as she starts to climb up and out. “Lost my rifle though.”

Nikki opens her mouth to give her a round of sarcasm when the hole widens and the ground swallows the two women up. The hit the bottom pretty hard, landing in about two feet of water. Riley looks up to see how far they dropped, but it is so dark she has no way of even guessing.

“Well, it looks like we’re going to have to find a way out other than up,” she says.

“At least we have light,” Nikki remarks as she looks around.

She is right. All around them are little blue plants that seem to be emitting some kind of glowing light. It isn’t a whole lot but it is enough to cast a blue haze a few feet in circumference.

“Let’s get out of this water before we freeze,” Riley says upon seeing a dry section of ground just a few feet away.

The two quickly crawl out of the water and over to the dry area.

“Maybe we should get some rest before we try to find a way out,” Nikki suggests. “We’ve been walking all day.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more.”

They settle in next to each other against the cool stone wall. Luckily, their rations aren’t electronic in any way because right now they both are hungry. They soon settle in, pulling out rations and begin munching down on them.

“It’s pretty chilly in here,” Nikki complains several minutes later as she rubs her hands together before bringing them up to her mouth to blow on them.

“It’ll probably get colder. Our clothes being all wet isn’t helping any,” Riley says, agreeing with her. “The first aid kit has a heat blanket. Take off your gear so we can let it dry.”

The two women strip down until they are in their standard issue white cotton panties. Riley can see Nikki shivering as she wraps her arms around herself, her teeth chattering slightly. Riley places the blanket around them both, it barely covers them. Riley then rubs her shoulders, trying to cause some kind of friction to warm Nikki up.

After a while, Riley notices that her shivering has finally subsided, but they remain motionless as if any kind of movement will stop the warmth they have built. They simultaneously turn their heads to look at each other and Nikki quickly averts her gaze and just as suddenly as it had begun, the moment is broken. Whatever it is that just passed between them, instantly evaporates. But what is it exactly that has passed between them?

Was it just a figment of my imagination?

Riley isn’t sure. Maybe it is just her, but looking at Nikki with her wavy brown hair, expressive blue eyes, full lips, voluptuous and shapely body, she can’t help but feel a bit turned on. And while she would never admit it, Riley has always wondered what it would be like to have her body pressed intimately against hers. But Nikki has never shown any such inclinations toward such actions.

Fuck it.

Riley, controlled by nothing but impulse, reaches out to slowly push her hair aside, exposing Nikki’s delicate neck. She wraps her arms around Nikki, nuzzling her face against the smooth, warm skin. She feels Nikki stiffen and gasp sharply, and for a moment, she is afraid she went too far. But to Riley’s surprise, any tension the other woman has leaves her body and she relaxes to lean back and release a long contained sigh. Nikki molds against her and it feels natural, like it supposed to be this way.

Encouraged, Riley tightens her hold, her arms encircling Nikki’s waist. Nikki reaches up and covers Riley’s hands with hers to rest against her belly. Nikki tilts her head back so that their cheeks are pressed together and they stare ahead into the darkness.