Sam was thankful that the blonde doctor had taken his seemingly immortal comrade from his shoulder. He was even more thankful that he hadn’t wound up on the ground with blood circling his head like a halo in an old religious painting like that other poor bastard. Eavesdropping on the conversation between Doc and Red painted it clear who not to rub the wrong way, although he had already decided that it would be best to play nice. While he had no scientific evidence to back it up, Sam believed that people, usually, are less likely to bash your goddamn brains in if you’re not an asshole. Odds of survival went up even more if you brought something useful to the table. Looking around, Sam could tell he wasn’t the brightest or the strongest. He had no knack for leadership. Besides, Doc was already seeming to step into that role with her plans and demands, although he felt Ristachev might have something to say about it once his mouth wasn’t full of blood. Still, he could at least help steer the ship. 

While having a large group was nice, it also added more unpredictable variables to the situation. Sure, all of them were obviously very dangerous prisoners, but he doubted the scrawny basement dweller or the glum teenage volunteer were waiting for everyone to look away so they could jam a shiv into their neighbor’s ribs. Since he wasn’t surrounded by a sea of corpses, it was safe to deduce that most of the people right now didn’t want to turn things into a bloodbath. In Sam’s mind, that meant that with every addition to the group, like the man who wanted to come and sing kumbaya, they risked having the balance shifting from a tepid peace into a thrill kill free-for-all. If what Elmina said was true, if Prime was royally fucked, that meant Sam had already survived the first round of shit hitting the fan. He doubted his luck would let him survive the second. First act as helmsman: establishing supply lines and routing.

Routing first:

“I know it’s not my place, but mind if I offer a suggestion?” said Samuel, approaching Elmina and the redhead and keeping his voice low to dissuade others from listening. “I’m sure you’ve noticed, but we’re drawing attention just sitting here. Even if Prime’s not looking, I’m sure somebody may have noticed the giant f-fucking spaceship crashing down to Earth. Regardless, we still got prisoners pouring out of that thing. Only a matter of time before a group of them come and decides that our guns belong to them. Before some of us go inside to forage or whatever, we really should move our wounded into the woods and leave some able bodies to guard them.”

“I’m staying with my friend there,” said Sam, pointing to Ristachev. It was a good excuse to not rush back into the dangerous Apox. “And I’ll make sure nobody comes to harm Pretty Boy or New Guy there. And if you’re trying to keep everyone on your side, then I think we’d trust you a whole lot more if you make the other girl with the gun stay too. I refuse to have us be undefended, and while I’m dumb I’m not dumb enough to think she’d actually give me her gun. So Blondie stays too.”

Sam held up his hands, ideally to stop them from injecting. He had something that would upset them much more than leaving behind one of their fellow girl scouts. Now for supplies:

“You two might not like it,” said Sam, trying to stifle his stutter as much as possible, “but if you think there will be a decent supply of food and water then perhaps you should take the Big Guy with you. Don’t take this the wrong way, but he looks like he could carry more than the four of you combined. You could even make a makeshift knapsack out of our dead friend’s jumpsuit and turn Big Guy into a pack mule. It’s clear from his attitude that he isn’t up for teamwork; you can use this as an opportunity to assert yourself and get him to fall in line. If he doesn’t want to help, Red can just threaten to shoot him. If he tries anything funny, Red can just actually shoot him.”

He knew they wouldn’t like the idea, but hopefully they would be able to see his logic. The current group of volunteers looked like they were strong enough to bring back maybe box of juice and a bag of chips--the small kind, like the ones found in vending machines. Hardly enough for a group that was just shy of a dozen. Sam had worked hard to make it out of the Apox alive. While there was no way he was ever going back in there, he certainly wasn’t going to go hungry despite all of his hard work. 

“Of course,” he said, stepping back and no longer whispering, “ I have no real say here. I’ll trust you to make whatever you think is the best course of action.” He smiled. “Might hurt my feelings, though.”