The Bosun didn’t want to impugn the intelligence of her fellow crewmates, but there was no way the Stowaway had botched an assassination attempt in that cave. The kid had the eyes and the reflexes of someone who knew where the body’s soft spots were, from experience.
But something fishy had gone down, and whatever their intentions may have been, the Bosun wasn’t going to give the Stowaway the benefit of the doubt.
So after the Engineer had hidden the incapacitated half of their team in the camotech tent, rendering them fully invisible, the Bosun settled herself on a slightly higher pile of rubble to keep watch over the camp and assess their resources.
They hadn’t, it turned out, grabbed that much weaponry from the ship. For one, some of that tech could be pretty dangerous if shaken too hard in a bad landing. And secondly, it really hadn’t looked like they’d need much. The moon was so benign, so empty even of megafauna, that she’d prioritized comforts on her recent trips into the supply rooms. So at this point, she had a few knives, some construction tools, the camp stove…
She’d have to get creative.
The Engineer had always had a slightly more paranoid approach, and she was angrily working electrical charges into her otherwise benign perimeter sensors.
“If that fucking child tries to put an arrow in me they are going to be feeling every nerve in their body for the next year.”
She handed the Bosun a few things to attach to her knives. “These’ll zap them even if you can’t break skin.” They both took a moment, remembering their last big foray.
“D’you think the Navigatrix has any of her guns on shore?”
The Engineer raised an eyebrow.
“You said, and I quote, ‘I don’t fuckin pick people off from a distance.’”
“Well, might not be people, right?”
“You think a mysterious blue glow seriously climbed out of that cave and is tracking them straight to camp?”
The Bosun shrugged. “Maybe.”
They worked in silence for a bit, and then the Engineer stood up.
“Fine, I’ll check her tent, but I’m not shooting anything with her rayguns; they’ve got brutal kickback.”
“More fun for me,” grunted the Bosun.