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Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

‘Where is he?’ Harry’s face fell as they looked around the small compartment. Juno had never entered this airlock chamber. It was set up for spacewalks, with spacesuits plugged into ports on the walls. It was a tangle of wires and equipment, with only enough space to comfortably fit two astronauts at any one time.

Jesse was curled in a dark heap in the corner. When Juno approached him, his lips were blue and he was gaping like a fish, sweat soaking his shirt. ‘Jesse?’

Instead of replying, Jesse clutched at his chest as if he was choking, knocking one of the boneless spacesuits mounted on the wall hard enough to detach it. Juno’s heart pounded with panic. She turned on Harry. ‘What did you do to him?’

‘I-I…’ Harry stammered, all traces of hilarity draining from his face as he leant into the airlock chamber, holding the hatch open like a car boot. ‘I don’t know.’

When Juno pressed a palm against Jesse’s chest, she felt that his heart was fluttering shallowly.

‘Jess…’ She squeezed his damp hand and peered into his tiny pupils. ‘It’s okay… you’re safe.’ She tested his pulse, counted his staccato breaths.

‘Is it asthma or something?’ Harry asked.

‘No, you idiot,’ Juno snapped. ‘He’s having a panic attack.’ Juno remembered what she had been taught the afternoon their instructors had hauled Poppy’s shaking body out of the sensory deprivation tank. She instructed Jesse to take deep breaths.

Eliot’s pale face appeared in the doorway. ‘Should I get Fae?’ he asked quietly.

‘Yeah, do that.’

‘Don’t!’ Jesse managed to gasp, but Eliot had already disappeared. Jesse dropped his head into his hands. Juno was pleased to see he was breathing more evenly now. ‘I’m fine. Jesus Christ…’ he gasped. ‘I feel so stupid.’ His hands were still shaking. He clenched them into fists. ‘I really am fine. Don’t tell anyone.’

‘You’re okay,’ Juno said, trying to comfort him with a smile, smoothing the sweat-soaked baby hairs from his forehead. ‘You will be.’

A few minutes later, Eliot and Dr Golinsky appeared in the corridor, and they helped Jesse up to the infirmary. Although some of the colour had returned to his face, he still needed to lean on both of them to stand, the muscles in his thighs twitching uncontrollably.

Harry stood silently the whole time, pressed up against the wall near the gearbox, his face blank. Once Juno heard the sound of their footsteps fade away, she climbed to her feet and faced him. As she did, she noticed the spots of blood on the inside of the porthole where Jesse had tried to claw his way out, a greasy handprint against the polycarbonate. Rage boiled up inside her so suddenly that she flew at Harry before she could calm herself and slammed him against the wall.

‘You sadist. What were you thinking?’ Although she’d taken Harry by surprise, he was a lot stronger than she was and even in that moment Juno could feel the bulk of his muscles flex beneath his flight suit.

‘It was just a game, you know… I didn’t know he would freak out like that.’

‘You were going to throw him out of the airlock. You were going to kill him. Of course he “freaked out”.’

‘I wouldn’t actually have done it.’ Harry shrugged Juno off easily. He was twice her size, and – not for the first time – Juno resented his power over her and the rest of the Beta. The authority he’d been given under Sheppard.

‘I guess we’ll never know that,’ she said, stepping back.

‘Never know if I’m capable of killing a person?’ Harry smiled wryly. ‘Don’t be dramatic, Juma. I was just teaching him a lesson, that’s all.’

‘What lesson?’ she asked, her body still tight with fury.

‘That it takes some nerve to do what we have to do. That you have to deserve to be here.’

‘He does deserve to be here,’ Juno said. ‘And what gives you the right to—’

‘I’m the commander. Or have you forgotten?’ They stood in silence for a moment, Juno’s fists clenched.

‘Commander-in-training.’

‘Have a sense of humour,’ Harry said finally. ‘It was only a game.’ He ruffled her hair, then made to walk off.

‘You’re not fit to be commander,’ Juno shouted after him. ‘You’re not fit to be behind the wheel of a car, let alone a spaceship, if this is all just a game to you.’

Harry didn’t even turn, just spoke over his shoulder as he strode down the corridor. ‘That’s all there is up here, though. Games. And everyone chooses to play because we’re all bored out of our fucking minds.’