The Will To Live✔️

Chapter 15: The Path To Power

"Come on, please work..." he heard Izzy murmur as she settled into the driver's seat of the snow hog. Greg found himself thinking exactly the same thing. They'd put in a lot of effort. Well, mostly Izzy had put in the effort. He'd just done whatever grunt work she'd assigned him. But all the parts were finally in place.

Izzy hit the power button.

There was a second delay, just long enough for him to really begin to worry, and then the snow hog kicked to life.

"Yes!" they both cried at the same time.

They waited a bit longer, Izzy checking over the readouts built into the dashboard, to confirm that it was actually going to stay running. And it did. As the seconds ticked on, Greg felt a tremendous sense of relief washing over him.

"It looks stable," she said. "A few of the gauges are dipping towards not great, but this is definitely doable. We should be able to use this to drive across the island. Holy crap. That is a huge load off my mind."

Greg nodded in agreement. "Think we should go now?" he asked.

"Yes, we should," Izzy replied.

He walked over to the garage door and hauled it open after hitting the manual release catch, had her roll the vehicle out, then closed it firmly behind them. They'd already tossed their bags into the cargo area behind the two front seats, between the front cabin and the rear troop hold. He climbed up into the passenger's seat and buckled in. Then Izzy drove them out of the base, (they'd left the main gate open), and hit the road.

It was a little after midday now. After an extremely pleasant night, they'd had a good sleep, and an also pleasant morning, they'd dressed, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then had made the walk back to the military outpost as soon as they confirmed there was nothing dangerous hanging around and the weather had cleared up. It had been a nice, quick walk and as soon as they'd arrived, they had decided to finally take the time to change into their new uniforms and suits of armor. They'd also taken the opportunity to wash up again and finally, feeling as refreshed as he ever had since hitting snow on this iceball of a planet, Greg had joined her in the garage.

They had a plan of action now, and he was feeling pretty solid about it.

Outside, it was clear skies and low winds. Basically paradise compared to what he'd been experiencing since landing on this damned rock. Honestly, everything was different, he realized as they drove down the road at a modest pace, wary of wildlife and anything that might be clogging up the route. If they had to, they could take this off-road at least. This place almost seemed actually nice, now that he was in the passenger's seat of a functional military-issue vehicle. Probably not having to walk everywhere was boosting his mood mightily, but also the fact that something was finally going right. It seemed like everything had gone wrong so far.

Well...

He looked at Izzy. Not everything.

"What are you looking at?" she asked. Her voice piped in to him over the radio inside the helmet. It seemed safer to use, in case he spotted something and needed to report it immediately, instead of hoping to be heard over the engine.

"You, obviously." He paused. "So is it just me, or is the sex like...really amazing?"

She laughed. "It's not just you."

"Okay, good. Because I'm not BSing you, our sessions together are goddamned phenomenal. I wonder what it is."

"I think...we just fit together really well."

"Well obviously."

She snorted. "That's not what I meant, you ass. What I'm trying to say, is that I think we fit together really well emotionally, as people. We connect."