Red Moon Rising by K. A. Holt Page A

meant for moving supplies around in the belly of the Origin . It’s not their fault they had to be retrofitted with awful combustion engines. It is a wonder and a miracle that they have lasted this long.
    Even so, I hate them.
    Papa and Temple are just ahead. She’s small enough still to sit on Papa’s lap. Heetle’s heat armor is tied to the top of their one-man’s frame, offering them coveted shade even as it slaps up and down, fighting against the wind.
    â€œThis stink’s gonna burn out my gum nose hairs,” I yell to Boone over the engine noise.
    â€œRuns on bodily wastes, rockhead. You think it’s gonna smell like cakes?”
    I guess it doesn’t matter if my nose hairs all burn off. After hours of traveling like this I’ll be lucky if my whole nose doesn’t bounce off altogether.
    Papa waves his arm up and down twice, and slows, signaling us to pull up alongside him.
    â€œGonna stop for lunch,” he shouts over the belches and whines of both the idling engines. He points a ways into the distance at an outcropping of rock that’s been carvedby the wind. Strangest-looking thing—like a horseshoe, standing on its end, sticking up out of the prairie. Might as well be waving a flag to the Cheese. “Hey there! We’re eating our biscuits! Want to attack? That’d be mighty fine!”
    Papa lurches ahead in his one-man, Temple’s shouting laughter at almost being tossed out carries on the thick breeze. Boone kicks our beastly machine into gear and we follow after them, arriving at the outcropping in only a few minutes. While Boone helps set out the canteens and biscuits, I check the small metal cart we’ve been towing. Just like everything else made on-planet, it was put together with supplies scrounged from the Origin .
    I don’t know what part of the hull the metal pieces were carved from, but I imagine our cart came from the giant exposed belly of the ship. The silvery quality of the lightweight metal is rough and scratched from years of use—but maybe also from the glances and close calls of asteroids and other space debris. It amazes me to think of it.
    The jugs and boxes meant to carry back a season’s worth of cooling minerals for both my family and Boone and his mama are still tightly bound to the cart, despite the bouncy journey.
    â€œRae! I will eat this biscuit if you do not get here in one minute!” Temple is in a jolly mood today. She always loves a trip away from the homestead. I usually do, too, but because of the circumstances, and without Heetle, this one feels . . . wrong.
    I jog over to the rest of them and sit on a boulder at the foot of the horseshoe-shaped colossus.
    â€œSeems like a funny place for lunch, Papa,” I say, squinting at him as the suns sear the sky behind his head. “Not very subtle.”
    Boone shoots me a look. But I’m not baiting Papa. I’m genuinely curious.
    â€œIt’s not like we’re being very subtle anyway,” Papa says, gesturing at the two vehicles parked in front of us. “There’s no sneaking around in a one-man.” He takes a bite of his biscuit, swiping crumbs out of his beard, but missing a few. “We will partake of what little shade we can find. And no one’s out this way yet, so we should be safe.” He swallows his biscuit and rubs his forehead with his handkerchief. “Hopefully.”
    I cast my eyes from one end of the horizon to the next. During the season, this part of the prairie is full of tracks from travelers going back and forth to the flats. You’d think the first homesteaders would have settled closer to the crystals, seeing as how important they are when it comes to surviving the high summer, but no. Papa says our seeds won’t grow by the flats, something to do with the chemicals in the soil. I imagine the proximity to dactyl nests didn’t help much, either.
    Today the prairie is just dirt