The suit can’t handle the heat down here. The outer yer is nearly melted through. Soon the second yer will go. Then the scanner blinks silver and I’ve got what I came for. I almost didn’t notice.

  Dizzy and drowning with shrill stress, I pull myself away from the drills. Hand over hand, I tug my body up, going fast away from the dreadful heat. Then something catches. My foot is jammed just underneath one of the gears near a drill finger. I gasp down air in sudden panic. The dread rises in me. I see my bootheel melting. The first yer goes. The second bubbles. Then it will be my flesh.

  I force myself to calm down and remember the bde. I flip out my hinged slingBde from its back holster. It’s a cruelly curved cutter longer than my leg, meant for taking off and cauterizing limbs stuck in machinery, just like this. Dawn gave it to me after the pitviper incident, she stole it from a helldiver she hated. The poor woman couldn't afford another and died shortly after.

  Most women panic when they get caught, and so the slingBde is a nasty halfmoon weapon meant to be used by clumsy hands. Even filled with terror, my hands are not clumsy. I slice three times with the slingBde, cutting nanopstic instead of flesh. On the third swing, I reach down and jerk free my leg. As I do, my knuckles brush the edge of a drill. Searing pain shoots through my hand. I smell crackling flesh, but I’m up and off, climbing away from the hellish heat, climbing back to my holster seat and ughing all the while, crying tears of joy and disbelief.

  This is probably the craziest thing I've done in my life until now. Never have I felt such intense emotions before. Men live retively sheltered lives: fighting, thrill-seeking, and such are frowned upon, against the way their gender is supposed to behave. But this comes with a loss of freedom and a boring life.

  Dawn is furious, out of her mind with anger and fear, "Are you out of your bloodydamn mind, Lucian?!" she shakes me with all her strength, rattling me, "I'm never taking you with me again after this! Never! We had a deal that you'd listen to me and you broke it!"

  The comms are exploding with chatter. They think Dawn did it, not me. Some call her a Maniac, others cheer.

  "Rex, Dawn. Everything went fine. Easy as pie. Scan turned out minimal gas. Go drill and lets win that Laurel."

  Dawn hasn't forgiven me yet, she is seething with anger, but she knows I'm right and she wants to win that Laurel just as much as me. She knows what it means. Victory. Sweet victory. I can't wait to see the faces of those Gamma fools when they realize we won.

  The haulbacks pull the drill up. Dawn then pushes herself out of the drill, leaving the drill down in the tunnel for the nightshift, and climbs onto the rope others threw down.

  I stay behind on the drill while she makes sure the coast is clear. I hear through the comm that Kiera and Lora approach her. After a few words they leave to join the rest at the gravlift.

  When they are gone I climb out and join Dawn. We head to the gravlift together. She is so mad that she doesn't want to entertain conversation, so I just let her stew in silence.

  Our cn and Gamma’s three hundred women already have their toes under the metal railing when we reach the rectangur gravLift. I avoid my Aunt—she’s mad enough to spit. Dawn catches a few dozen pats on the back for my stunt. The young ones like me think we’ve won the Laurel. They know our raw helium-3 pull for the month; it’s better than Gamma’s. The old turds just grumble and say we’re fools. I make sure I tuck my feet in.

  Gravity alters and we shoot upward. A Gamma scab with less than a week’s worth of rust under her nails forgets to put her toes under the railing. So she hangs suspended as the lift shoots up six vertical kilometers. Ears pop.

  “Got a floating Gamma turd here,” Bar ughs to the Lambdas.

  Petty as it may seem, it’s always nice seeing a Gamma squab something. They get more food, more burners, more everything because of the Laurel. We get to despise them. But then, we’re supposed to, I think. Wonder if they’ll despise us now.

  No one moves to help him. When the lift finally stops he crashes to the floor to communal ughter.

  Up top in the staging depot, a big gray cavern of concrete and metal, most people pop their tops and drink down the fresh, cold air of a world far removed from molten drills: I'm one of the few who doesn't for obvious reasons. Lights flicker in the distance, telling us to stay clear of the magnetic horizonTram tracks on the other side of the depot.

  We don’t mingle with the Gammas as we head for the horizonTram in a staggered line of rust-red suits. Half with Lambda Ls, half with Gamma canes painted in dark red on their backs.

  A cadre of Grays eye us as we trudge by over the worn concrete floor. Their Gray duroArmor is simple and tired, as unkempt as their hair. It would stop a simple bde, maybe an ion bde, and a pulseBde or razor would go through it like paper. But we’ve only seen those on the holoCan. The Grays don’t even bother to make a show of force. Their thumpers dangle at their sides. They know they won’t have to use them.

  Obedience is the highest virtue.

  The Gray captain, Dana, a greasy cunt, throws a pebble at Dawn. Though her skin is darkened from exposure to the sun, her hair is gray like the rest of her Color. It hangs thin and weedy over her eyes. The Sigils of his Color, a blocky gray symbol like the number four with several bars beside it, mark along each hand and wrist. Cruel and stark, like all the Grays.

  I heard they pulled Dana off the frontline back in Eurasia, wherever that is, after she got crippled and they didn’t want to buy her a new arm. She has an old repcement model now. She’s insecure about it.

  “Saw you had an exciting day, dog.” Her voice is as stale and heavy as the air inside my frysuit. “Brave hero now, are you, Dawn? I always thought you’d be a brave hero.”

  Dawn and Dana hate each other like cats and dogs. “You’re the hero,” Dawn says, nodding to his arm and smiling condescendingly.

  “And you think you’re smart, doncha?”

  “Just a Red.”

  She winks at Dawn. “Say hello to your little birdie for me. A ripe thing for piggin’.” Licks her teeth. “Even for a Ruster.”

  Dawn could give her a witty reply, but all that will earn her is a beating. Dana won't escate things if she thinks she is winning the verbal sparing. Instead she starts walking away from Dana.

  “Wait, where you going?” she asks. “A bow to your betters won’t go awry, doncha think?” She snickers to her fellows. Careless of her mockery, Dawn bows deeply. Both Aunt Carol and I see this and turn from it, disgusted.

  Lora and some of the other younger divers start arguing about raw heliuum-3 count with the Gammas. The Gamma's say they got 9821 kilos. Hearing this I lean back and grin. We've got them beat. I hear cheers from the younger Lambdas. The old hands don’t react. I’m busy wondering what we'll do with sugar this month. We’ve never earned sugar before, only ever won it at cards. And fruit. I hear the Laurel gets you fruit.

  Someone even shouts "Send your men to our township for sugar this month." Hearing this provocation, the Gamma leader, an old crone called Daga, snaps.

  "Still won't win," she says with absolute certainty. "Raw count doesn't matter."

  After disembarking the horizonTram, the crew funnels into the Flush. The pce is cold, musty, and smells exactly like what it is: a cramped metal shed where thousands of women strip off frysuits after hours of pissing and sweating to take air showers.

  I wait and loiter with Dawn outside bidding my time for everyone else to leave. When asked why we wait, Dawn tells them so we don't have to share with the rest.

  Aunt Carol stops in front of us, looking at me suspiciously, "I've seen you a couple of times before pipsqueak," she says to me, "But you're clearly not one of us. Either you are a helldiver from another cn or you are one of us and not supposed to be here since none of the workers on sick leave are as short as you. Take of your mask."

  When I don't immediately move to take it off, my Aunt gets angry and makes a grab for it herself.

  Dawn comes to my rescue and stands in front of me, knocking Carol's hand away. "Just let it be, Carol. Pipsqueak here, believe it or not, is the reason we won the Laurel. Just let them off this time."

  "No, even if that's the case, I need to find out who she is and tell her parents about this reckless foolishness before someone gets killed." She squares off against Dawn, pressuring her, "Step away and let me see who it is or I'll kick you off the helldivers."

  It's an empty threat and Dawn knows it. She is the best helldiver and being groomed to be next headtalk. They can't kick her out. So, she stays there defending me. Carol knows she can't win in a fight against her, so she just grits her teeth and leaves.