Beneath the Red Sand

32 || Chapter Thirty-Two

Overhead, a blue light blinks on, bathing the command center of the alien habitat in its soothing glow. We all stand around the place where the power source is supposed to go.

"All right, now," Mr. Gryffin says. "Here goes nothing."

He places the new power core we fashioned on the pedestal in the center of the room. It sparks to life, but after about a minute it sputters and dies. The team captain pounds the wall in frustration.

"We're going to have no shot at staying here if this keeps up,"  he says.

"Don't think like that!" I snap. "We're going to make this work. Let's try the next one."

I set the next power source into its place. This time, it takes several minutes for the power to flick on with a hum, and the power stays on. My gaze flicks to the  display grid, and I sigh in relief as it indicates the power and lighting have spread out from the command center to the habitat. Best of all, the sensor shows the atmospheric pressure and oxygen level rising.

"Why do I have a feeling we're taking a step backward?" Noah says, eyes narrowed on the display, and as if on cue the power sputters and dies again.

"How did you know?" I ask.

"Lucky guess."

"Oh, you listened in on the tech-heads' gripe session last night."

Noah smirks. "Guilty as charged."

"All right, so the first two attempts were a bust," one of said tech-heads, a petite brunette woman who's partnered with the team captain, reports. "We've developed a better mixture over the past couple of days, so we have to figure out how to move forward from here. Rest assured, we will get it right."

She sounds confident, but I hope she can back up her claim. Back then, some of the first power cores they tried may have been stable enough to last overnight, but time will tell if one will last longer — time we don't have.

"We'll do all we can," the team captain says.

Great. That's reassuring. I bounce on the balls of my feet and paste on a tight smile to pretend I believe it'll all work out, even if my helmet hides my fake optimism from others' view.

"Make it happen," the team captain says, scowling. "All right, everyone else disperse. Go see what else we can find in this habitat. Explore every square inch and leave nothing out."

"Yes,  kids, knock yourselves out," an older guy who looks to be in his twenties smirks at us as we all file out of the room. I scoff when we exit the room and out of his sight.

"Kids? The guy is barely older than we are. What's his great claim to maturity?"

Noah laughs, a bright, infectious laugh, and I can't help but join in. I'm way more mature than this twentysomething, anyway, so there's no need to flaunt it or let his dismissiveness upset me. "Come on," Noah challenges, and races down the hallway.

"Cheater!" I shout, taking off after him,  and then we were both running and laughing so hard we could barely breathe in our determination to win a race we hadn't even officially declared.

We round a corner and skid to a stop in the green atrium when we notice Mr. Gryffin leaning against the far wall, an eyebrow raised as he takes in our antics.

"Can we go exploring, sir?" I ask, out of basic politeness in the hopes he won't hold our recklessness in tearing through the habitat against us.

"We've done everything we can do in the control room, and Anderson's monitoring everything. He doesn't need us, sir," Noah adds.