New worlds can be dangerous.

EVA TOOK ANOTHER STEP toward the launch bay, stopped, and put her hands on her hips. A strand of her diamond-blue hair floated in her large helmet. She ignored it, but accepted the soothing effect of its nearly inaudible song. The hair of her people looked like silk, but was as coarse and musical as a violin bow across the strings of life.

She wasn't the only colonist considering the launch bay opening. Fifteen meters wide and ten meters high, it was large enough to accommodate one shuttle at a time. With her left hand, she reached up to check the neck of her environmental suit. The alloy bands protecting the seals looked and felt new. The helmet visor was so clear she could believe it wasn't there.

She dropped her hands, but hipped them a second later.

“Nervous?” Jax asked from her left.

Eva had grown up with the woman, who was one year older, then attended the ad hoc Exploration Fleet Academy her father designed post-exodus. Like most of her crew, she had spent most of her adult life on one starship or another.

Jax would always be Eva's rival. Despite her superior age, Jax had always lived in Eva's shadow. Jax was human, and an average human at that. She didn't have the snow-white skin and diamond-blue hair of Eva's people.

Ten years after the Empyrean war, they'd grown into a deeper friendship and a harder rivalry. The reason wasn't obvious or distinct. Raised together by nannies, bodyguards, and teachers, neither of them knew any other way to interact.

Jax stood taller, with the more robust form of an earth-born human. She had larger breasts and curvier hips. Her hair was blonde or chestnut, depending on how strong the ship lighting was at the moment. Eva had overheard enough of the men on the colony ship talking about Jax to know that the young woman was attractive. Depending on the narrator, she was a hot-blooded nymphomaniac or an ice-cold sex machine.

The same men who claimed to have slept with her also said she was a force of nature who never admitted to being wrong. Hot or cold, but always fierce, she intimidated the crew easily.

Eva smiled. She didn't look back. It was better if her friend and rival didn't see her expression. Eva suspected Jax was still looking for her first kiss.

“Of course I'm nervous. Planetfalls are dangerous.”

“Then why are we making one? We don't have resources for this type of thing. The orbital survey of this rock doesn't suggest it'll be a fun place to live, even if we can survive here.”

“I already gave the order. We're going down to check it out. You don't have to come if you don't want to.” Eva paused. “Have we had communication with the fleet?”

Jax made a negative sound. “What do you think?”

They stared down on the stratosphere of the planet as pilots and mechanics reviewed checklists on the two shuttles she had selected for the mission. The same routine had been followed prior to pumping the launch bay atmosphere into storage containers. Everyone wore their environmental suits. This part was easy. Eva felt safe even with butterflies dancing in her stomach. On the planet, gravity would make the suits cumbersome and stifling until they were sure it was safe to breathe the air.

“I think I'd like to know what happened to our comm system,” Eva said, knowing exactly what went wrong with it but hoping nobody else did.

Hello Dear Reader,

Spiderfall is a 30 page short story originally published in the best-selling Explorations: Colony anthology. This continuation of Eva and Pyr's story was a blast to write. Should it be a book series?

I'd love to get your feedback on the idea. Learn more at www.scottmoonwriter.com on the Spiderfall page.

Thanks,
Scott Moon

#HandOfEmpyrean #WriteTheAssassinPrimeBook #ScienceFictionAssassins