Chương 106: 41.Flare 41-3

The first night came fast. Not because the sun dropped quickly—because after you've nearly been cooked alive once, time compresses on you. You'd barely crawled out of the firestorm, barely confirmed that your limbs still belonged to you, and when you looked up, the sky had already gone from dirty grey to a darker, dirtier black. This planet had one rare mercy: Purgation Gales don't come at night. Of course, Federation mercy tends to run about half a grade above a curse.

Which didn't mean the night is safe—it meant you won't burn to death at night; we've arranged other methods. Very considerate. We set up our first night camp in a half-scorched buttress root zone. Slightly elevated ground, decent distance from the sweet-smelling water hollows, nothing overhead resembling a Strangler Pyre-Vine noose, no large Maw-Ferns in the immediate area. More importantly, the nearest official shelter on my HUD wasn't lit. Dark meant locked. I'd confirmed this once already that afternoon.

The physical door would be there, thick as an iron coffin built for humans—but if it didn't show on the team lead's HUD, it was a headstone. You could look at it. You couldn't use it. Anyone who wanted to gamble on it opening was really just running over to the door to catch their breath and then despair in place. I dropped the HUD projection to low brightness and crouched by a blackened root to check it.

"We're not touching any official points tonight," I said.

"We camp here." Jess dropped her pack on the ground with a dull thud and wiped her face.

"Surprising. I thought you'd say, come on everyone, let's go find out which iron door will grace us with personhood tonight."

"If you're that eager to gamble, I can drop you off to try one alone tomorrow," I said without looking up.

"Open means you got lucky. Locked means the Federation's pedagogy is working as intended." Harvey had already spread out what he'd stripped from the drop pod—thin steel cable, empty water bag clips, a few metal panels, one length of elastic retention strap. The pile looked like garbage that had decided to enlist. Maki spread the thermal sheeting and pressed the corners flat while she spoke.

"Primary nighttime active threats are carnivorous plants. If we don't disturb other mobile species, risk is manageable. Provided—""Provided we don't do anything stupid," I finished for her. She looked up at me. Didn't argue. Just made a quiet sound of agreement. Infuriating. That you finally got one right expression of hers was more aggravating than a direct insult. Harvey pulled a cable length taut, fingers moving fast, and dropped a line without looking up.

"Trip-wire perimeter around the tent. Anything touches it, it sounds." I looked at the thing. Ugly with genuine conviction—like a few pieces of scrap metal and spite had produced an illegitimate child.

"Will it work?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Fine. Ugly doesn't matter. We're not here for the aesthetics." Jess crouched beside it and gave a low whistle.

"Harvey, this looks like a refugee camp instrument."

"When something trips it at 0200, let's see if you're still laughing," Harvey said, not looking up. He spent under ten minutes running the alarm wire in two loops around the tent perimeter. Anything touching the outer line would release the tension on a metal panel clip; three thin plates would knock together and produce a low, sharp metallic tremor. Not a loud alarm—worse than that. The quiet, penetrating kind. Like someone dragging a fingernail across metal right next to your ear.

Guaranteed to bring at least half your soul back from wherever it had gone before your eyes opened. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. The tent itself wasn't much. Thermal sheeting over a frame, inner layer of moisture-barrier membrane stripped from the drop pods, four people jammed in together—like trying to fit four knives from different manufacturers into the same sheath. Cozy? No. Cramped? Genuinely.

Harvey slept by the entrance, tools and cutter within reach. Maki slept beside the supplies, water, purification tablets, medical kit, and record board all within arm's reach. Jess slept to my right, claiming it made it easier to roll over and draw. I was wedged in the middle, front position—first to raise my head and give orders, first to be complained at by everyone. Fair enough. At the water distribution before sleep, Maki handed out the processed salt-water pouches one by one, going by her log.

The stuff was drinkable, but it tasted like seawater and metal had gone through a divorce and left joint custody of your mouth. I swallowed a sip and nearly made an expression suitable for a death portrait.

"This has real military academy spirit." Jess snorted against her pack.

"What spirit?"

"The kind that makes you say thank you no matter what garbage they hand you." Harvey added briefly: "Don't drink too fast."

"I know," I said, flattening the pouch and putting it away.

"I still want to be alive enough to yell at people tomorrow." The night forest outside was quiet. Not the comfortable kind. This quiet was like a damp cloth laid over scorched earth, over dead branches, over everyone's nerves that had been scraped raw by the day's heat. Distant leaf friction occasionally—slow and strange, like something in the dark was dragging its fingertips across the ground. I hadn't had my eyes shut for half an hour before the alarm went off. Ting.

The sound was thin, but it went straight through the eardrum like a needle. All four of us came awake almost simultaneously—no shouting, nobody throwing off the sheeting, just every breath suddenly pulled in. I spoke first, voice very low.

"Frost 01 to 04—if you're awake, don't play dead. Jess, left side. Harvey, tension. Maki, check for scent source."

"Awake." Jess had her knife in hand but wasn't moving. Harvey's fingers rested on the inner trip-wire, held there for two seconds.

"Outer line, low contact. Moving slow—not a large animal." Maki's hand went to the supply bag first, then to the bloodied bandage Jess had changed out earlier. She stopped.

"Found the cause," she said quietly.

"The blood dressing wasn't fully sealed." Jess made a sound in the dark.

"Shit." I nearly echoed her, but held it. This wasn't the time to curse—getting rid of whatever had teeth out there was more important. Soft friction sounds from outside the tent. Not claws on ground. More like wet leaves pressing against the fabric, testing it slowly. The thing was close—close enough that I could picture a carnivorous plant working its way along the tent's outer edge like a sick old creature that had caught a whiff of fresh meat and was feeling its way toward it.

"Don't cut it," Harvey said first.

"The fluid could be worse."

"I know." I put my hand on Jess's wrist before it could come up.

"Maki, extract the blood dressing. Jess, throw a stone to the right, three meters off. Light throw. Harvey, wait for it to turn." Maki moved quickly, pulling a pair of grips from her tool kit, working the bloodied cloth out from the edge of the supply pile centimeter by centimeter. Her hands were steady—steady enough to make you wonder if she ran drills even in her nightmares. Jess found a small stone on her side and tossed it out. Click. Barely a sound, but enough.

The friction outside paused for one second, then slowly drifted right. Through the narrow gap at the bottom of the thermal sheeting, I caught a dark leaf edge sliding past—fine white calcified teeth along its margin, like a mouth that didn't think it had enough people to eat. Maki used the moment to fling the blood dressing far out and away. A few seconds later, a faster rustling rose outside. The thing took the scent and left. The tent went quiet again.

I counted ten seconds before I let the breath out of my throat. Jess settled back, muttering low.

"First night and it's already trying to take a bite. Very polite."

"New rule," I said, wiping my face.

"Bloody material does not stay near the tent at night. Water residue and food waste get sealed together and stored centrally. Double-loop alarm wire stays. Next time this happens, I start with whoever made the mistake." Jess rolled her eyes in the dark, but her voice came back honest.

"Understood. That one's on me." That she admitted it that fast was mildly surprising. Harvey re-tightened the alarm wire, voice still flat as a verdict.

"One more. Night alarm—listen first, assess second, act third."

"Add it," I said. Maki scratched two quick lines in her record board and said quietly, "Logged." I leaned back against my pack without closing my eyes again, staring at the tent ceiling where the night air had pressed the fabric slightly inward. Still each with their own problems. Jess with her mouth, Harvey like a piece of ice that could fix things, Maki talking like she was dictating model answers to an exam. But when the alarm actually went off in the middle of the night, nobody got the whole team killed first.

That was a low bar. In the Evaporation Forest, low bars were a luxury.