“Don’t let it go to your heads, scrubs,” Thrace says. Standing at attention in the practice yard, Visidion and I wait under his stare. “All of you made a good showing, but good isn’t good enough.”

He pairs us off and we train.

We’re worked so hard every day that it’s almost easy to fall into an acceptance of it. End the day too tired to hold your head up, eat, and fall asleep. Wake up early only to start the same again. Thrace is a hard trainer, fair but hard. He pushes us beyond our limits until those limits expand.

We have fourteen turns until our next match. Fourteen turns, but that’s longer than I have. I’m out of epis. Any day now I’ll start feeling the effects of withdrawal. How will my body react? I only hope I can hold the worst of it at bay.

At the end of the day, we all sit around our common fire and eat our meal. Now that we’ve made a good showing in the arena, our food is better than when we first arrived and includes actual meat, though God knows what it’s the meat of. No one is talking. All of us are exhausted.

“Ha!” Mesto says, at last, setting his plate aside and lying on his back. “No escape. No hope.”

“Don’t say that,” I mutter.

“Why not?” Todd asks. “How do we escape? You have a ship hidden in that suit of yours?”

“We don’t give up,” Visidion says. “I’ve seen it.”

“Seen it, ha,” Mesto says.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” K’sara sighs. “I’m too tired to think about it right now.”

Cenar watches everyone with mild interest but doesn’t say anything. The depression in the room is heavy, an aura of despair threatening all I’ve built.

Rising to my feet, I meet the gaze of each of them.

“It’d be easy,” I say.

“Easy?” K’sara asks. “Nothing about our lives is easy.”

“Yes, it would be,” I answer him. “Easy to give in. Go into agreement with it all. This is where we are, what we are. Gladiators. Train every turn, fight every fourteen. Eventually we’d lose, but maybe between now and then, we would build some prestige and get to retire in something resembling comfort.”

“Doesn’t sound bad,” Todd says.

“No, because it’s easy,” I answer him, rolling my shoulders and feeling the moment. They’re all staring at me, counting on me. “Easy, you see? It’s how they win. Breaking us down with the lure of easy, going through the motions. No time to look at the big picture. No time to think clearly.”

“Ha, this easy not,” Mesto says.

“But the promise is,” I insist. Visidion’s eyes dance with an internal fire flowing support to me. “The promise of a brighter future, do the routine, fall into it, and agree. We can’t do that! We can’t go into agreement because the moment we do, that’s the moment we lose.”

“Lose?” K’sara asks, leaning forward.

“Yes. We lose, they win. That’s what you have to see. They’ve designed an entire system around future rewards, pushing you to agree. There has to be a way off this planet. We have to find it. We can escape. We can be free.”

“What do you know?” Todd grumbles.

Todd and I lock gazes. Cold sweat runs down my back, and then a tremor races through my right thigh. A reminder of what is waiting for me. A race. Which will be the end of me first, epis withdrawal? Or the other. . . the big secret I haven’t told anyone.

“I know,” I say, throat dry, eyes scratchy. “I’m sick, very sick. I’m dying. Every day I wake up wondering if this is the last one. Every day I face the ease of going into agreement with the ‘way it is’ or doing the hard thing. Making the hard choices.”

Purposefully I avoid Visidion’s gaze, but I feel it boring into me. My arms shake, and I can’t look at any of them anymore. The words sit heavy between all of us.

“Rosalind,” Visidion says, his voice tight with unexpressed emotions.

“No,” I say, pulling my hand away before he can grasp it. Tears well in my eyes. “You all have to see what I see. I don’t know how long I have. It may not be long—or it might be. All I know is that every day I don’t have the luxury of easy. We have to escape. I don’t want to die on this godforsaken shit-hole of a planet, far from my people. They need me. And so I need you.”

Turning my back on them I walk out the door into the cool night air. When I’m released from their gaze, my tears fall free. I haven’t cried since that day in the doctor’s office. The day he said the words, giving me my diagnosis. Cancer. The tremors, passing weaknesses, and occasional moments of being dizzy. I’d thought it was exhaustion from pushing myself too hard. How wrong could I be?

Cancer, an almost unheard-of disease. Dr. Traven said he had to dig deep into the ship journals to identify what it was. The forefathers of everyone aboard the generation ship had gone through extensive genetic testing to screen out all possible defects. Somehow, whatever made me susceptible to this had gone unnoticed. He told me then I had a year, maybe two. Tumors were growing in my body, slowly affecting my nervous system, and the symptoms would only grow worse until one day I would be too weak to stand.

The door to our hut opens and shuts. Wiping away the tears, I cross my arms over my chest, bracing myself. Bulging arms wrap around me, and Visidion rests his head on my shoulder, pulling me tight against him but not saying a word. I stiffen, waiting for the sympathy or the questions, or any of the myriad things that come when someone finds out you’re dying. All the things I avoid because I don’t want to deal with them. He tugs me closer, tighter to his chest, and remains silent. Holding me.

The tension grows until my muscles tremble. Any moment now he’ll say something.

Warm breath breezes across my cheek, and still he’s silent. My resistance crumbles, and I melt against him. He takes my weight, holding me up. As the tension fades, the elasticity of my muscles goes with it, and I collapse into him. I turn to face him and meld to his hard muscles, and then rest my head on his shoulder. Unbidden, the tears return, and I let them fall, soaking his shoulder. I cry until there’s nothing left, and still soft sobs wrack my chest. I don’t know how much time passes in silence. His hands stroke my hair and rub circles on my back, until at last I’m empty. All the pain and fear is exhausted.

The truth is out there. He knows.

Straightening, I wipe my cheeks dry, unable to meet his eyes. Shaking my head to clear it of the cottony cloud filling it, I take several deep breaths until my lungs fill and empty without catching on the last of my emotions. Feeling back in control at last, I rest a hand on his chest, staring at the chiseled muscles. I let my fingers follow the lines, their tips tingling as I trace the edges of scales that overlap across his skin. One of his large hands cups my cheek, and I nuzzle into it without further thought.

His other arm is around my waist, and it strikes me that I’m encircled by him. Not just physically, but emotionally too. Soft but intense waves of love and concern wash over me, and somehow it’s a physical sensation. My skin burns as it washes over me, warming to his feelings. Slowly I raise my eyes towards his. My stomach is clenching as a cold ball of fear forms, fear of what I’ll find in his eyes. I don’t want to see it, but it’ll be there. Sympathy. The one thing I don’t need. Unable to avoid it any longer, I meet his gaze.

It’s not there.

Not a sign of sympathy. Concern and what I can only label as love shines from his eyes, but not a hint of sympathy. His fingertips trace the line of my jaw and cross my lips, pulling them open as he passes across them. Soft, gentle, a touch filled with desire, but more, it conveys feelings below the level of words. Tightness in my core throbs with sudden, unexpected need.

Rising on my toes, seeking his lips. I find them and we kiss, causing exploding fireworks through my thoughts, blasting away trepidation. His lips move against mine, devouring doubts, reservation, and worries. Through his lips, he gives himself to me and I cannot but respond the same.

Wrapping my arms around his neck, I lift myself into his kiss, and then he lifts me off my feet, matching our heights. When I lock my legs around his hips, the bulge in his pants presses hard into my core, fanning the flames higher. Desire runs through me with a wracking shudder.

His tongue drives past my lips, claiming my mouth as his. Giving myself to him in ways I’ve never opened to another, I am his. This moment, right now, nothing else matters.

Disagreements, worries, duty, all crumble before the assault of his lips on mine.

My hips grind instinctively, seeking relief for the pounding need in my pussy. A deep, empty ache that calls to be filled. Never in my life have I felt such burning desire.

Keeping an arm hooked behind his neck, I force my other hand between us, into the tiny gap between my hips and him, sliding it under the binding of his pants. I touch his cock for the first time. A sigh bursts from my lips when it jumps under my touch. He hisses pleasure, and I push my hand further between us without easing the grinding of my hips against him. I encircle his dick with my hand —there are the ridges I’ve only heard about. I find its soft underside and stroke it lightly.

He groans into our kiss, thrusting his hips forward hard, pinching my arm between us. His tongue, more insistent, drives in and out of my mouth. One hand curls in my hair, tugging, and I stroke his cock faster, responding to his desire.

His hips thrust faster, harder in response. The pounding deep in my core consumes me.

“You there!” an outside voice intrudes, jerking my awareness back to our surroundings.

Visidion hisses, loud and angry. He sets me on the ground and steps in front of me, facing the intruder.

“Back in your hut,” a guard says.

There are four of them, part of the nightly patrols.

Stupid, how did I let this go so far? I should have known this would happen. Visidion tenses, hands balling into fists, tail rising.

Stepping around him, I place a hand on his bicep, hoping to calm him.

“Sure,” I say, eyes downcast but keeping the patrol in my gaze. “Right away.”

“Good,” the guard says, hand on his sword.

Unlike the weapons we’re issued as gladiators, the guards have steel with sharp edges. Our wooden, blunt weapons wouldn’t stand much of a chance against them. Even if we did, it’s not these four I’d be worried about, it’s the dozens more on the walls and scattered throughout the compound, ready to come at a moment’s notice. We’re outnumbered. Visidion tenses, leaning forward. Tightening my grip on his arm, I will him to stand down.

The tension drains from his muscles at last. I open the door to our hut and let him walk in first. The guards stand staring at us until the door closes on their gazes. The common room of our hut is empty—everyone has retired to their own spaces. Visidion takes my hand and leads the way to our room.

He settles on our bedrolls on his side, head propped on an arm gazing at me.

“What is it that’s wrong?” he asks at last.

Swallowing hard, an urge to lie races through my thoughts. Almost, I do. Something stops me. I can’t do it. Having come this far, there’s no point in holding back now.

“Cancer,” I answer.

“What is cancer?” he asks.

“Mutation in my cells that causes them to grow too much,” I answer. “It creates growths, called tumors, that destroy the cells around them.”

Slowly he nods, pursing his lips.

“Epis,” he says at last.

“What about it?” I ask.

“Epis has healing properties,” he says. “You said you wondered every day if that would be the last.”

“Yeah,” I agree, not grasping his point.

“How long ago did the doctor tell you that you would die soon?”

How long had it been? I’ve lived with this so long now without examining it that I don’t know. We’ve been crashed on Tajss for how long? We’ve had babies. There has been time for them to grow in the womb and reach walking age, at least. Three Earth years? Five? None of us have adjusted our time sense to Tajss. Since there are no seasons, it’s difficult to judge things like that. Over a year… I should be dead.

But the tremors still come, the weakness still hits me.

“It hasn’t grown worse,” I whisper. Visidion nods but remains silent. “Could it be?”

“Maybe,” he says.

A dim light of hope lights inside me, and I grasp to it like a child to its mother. A chance, a last, glimmering chance and I’m not going to let it go.