As hazard team leader, Enna was well used to babysitting.

She slapped her neck in irritation as some pain the ass insect tried to bite her and sighed. She’d just preferred that duty to be anywhere but a hot as freaking hell jungle planet in the middle of nowhere.

“Are we there yet?”

“Jeezus, Len, we just beamed down. No, we are not there yet.”

The group of ensigns behind her had been squabbling and bickering since they’d materialised on the planet. Actually, it was mostly Len complaining and the others telling him to shut the hell up.

She turned as she walked, scanning their surroundings in a practised movement and catching the eye of Vanny, one of her team members bringing up the rear of the group. Amusement crinkled the corners of his eyes as he turned away, keeping an eye out just the same as she was.

“Dammit, freaking bloody insects! I swear to all that’s holy, Jez, if I get some weird jungle fever or something, I am so throwing up in your bunk,” Len started up again and she tuned it out.

To be honest, the four ensigns with the science shit they were carrying were the least of her worries. No that particular honour went to the man at the front of the group, confidently leading the way through the jungle ahead.

As if he knew she was looking at him, Captain Murphy turned and looked over his shoulder. Then he grinned, that cheeky smile turning him from merely blindingly handsome to devastating.

She scowled. No, not going there. No way, no how. She was too annoyed with him for that. He was not handsome. He was an ictarian toad. Scaly and slimey and irritating. She’d filled her brother’s bed with them when she was a kid once, when he’d annoyed her, and then had to go to a formal function with the rash practically glowing on his face.

That did make her grin and she started to pay more attention to their surroundings. Perhaps she could find something similar here? But then there was the challenge of getting them into Murphy’s bed.

Junvenile, yes, but she let the idea fill her mind as they walked, heading downhill all the time. He deserved it for making her come down to this place, with the heat and the humidity. Her hair was going frizzy as well, which irritated her even more. The sweat drip-drip-dripped down the back of her neck, each drip making her grit her teeth even more.

If she considered it as an objective… how to breach the captain’s quarters without the system registering. It could be an interesting challenge for the hazard team, framed as an exercise in case the ship was ever taken over by pirates… yes, that could work.

“What was that?”

Len again. One of the other ensigns sighed.

“What was what?”

“That noise. The rat-a-tat-tat noise.”

“I don’t hear anything. JP?”

“Nah, I just hear jungle, and Len’s whining.”

“You sure? There it is again… you’re telling me you don’t hear that?”

She focused, letting her eyes unfocus for a moment as she concentrated on her hearing. Nothing. Turning, she met Vanny’s eyes and he gave the slightest shake of his head.

Turning back to face front, she cleared her throat to get Murphy’s attention. “Sir? How far to the first objective?”

He turned slightly, holding out a hand to stop Steele, walking just behind him, from walking right into his back. No surprise there, since Steele had his nose stuck, not in a book as he usually was when he was waiting for the ‘toads to start practise (although she had no idea where he got actual books like that), but in the readouts on the padd in his hand.

“Should be just down the—“

“There it was again!” Len practically shrieked from behind her. “It’s closer!”

“Half right,” Vanny barked out from the back of the group. “Rocks, two o’clock.”

She snapped around, her rifle in her shoulder as she zeroed in.

“Lieutenant, what are we looking at?” Murphy asked after a moment.

“Not sure, sir, hold position,” she clipped out, using hand signals to move Vanny closer to whatever it was. Whatever it was, she couldn’t see anything. No moment, no nothing.

She’d have dismissed it as a jumpy ensign on his first away team…

If the jungle hadn’t just dropped as silent as a grave.