Excerpt: Whispers on the Wind

It was too dark for daytime. The sand whipped around Sona, seeking to scour her skin, and, finding itself foiled by her survival armour, howled in protest. Her helmet muffled the sound, but she still heard the muted howl.
"****," she muttered. The read out on the sensors was becoming confused by the moving landscape of the storm, and her suit, configured to keep her cool in scorching conditions, was past chilly and getting to frigid. Resisting the urge to shiver, she scanned the area again, looking for the deep violet that meant deep pockets of cool. Nearly impossible with the storm howling around her.
She trudged onward, the wind to her right, and tried to find the lee side of the dune. Sand pummeled her helmet, and she heard the distant pings. The visual sensors overloaded for a moment and she stopped, waiting for it to clear, then realized that it was the sand.
"I'm never taking a job from Friedman again," she growled out loud. She shifted her feet, kicking the sand off the tops of her boots. For half a moment, she found herself listening and cursed again.
Ten years and she still expected to hear his voice over her communications chanel. Her heart clenched and she took a deep breathe. "Get over it, Sona," she whispered into the storm. She scanned the area again, concentrating on the fuzzy visual. Sand whirled, and the temperature in her suit dropped. Shivering, Sona turned to the south. "Hole-in-the-Wall is the nearest," she said, to make herself feel better, and started off again.
With only the wind howling around her, and the monotany of her own footsteps, she found herself thinking about him again. "Bran," she whispered, just to hear his name. Her audio recepters crackled and her voice sounded odd, relfected back to her ears by the little electronics.
Her helmet was his gift to her, a survival tool no one else had. "This is your life," he'd said as he jammed it onto her head.
"Yes master," she'd replied while twisted it so that it felt right. "What is it?"
"Never mind what it is." He'd helped her adjust the controls to her smaller features. She'd been twelve at the time, he'd been fifteen. Later she'd learned that anything he didn't actually know, he'd say, "Never mind."
She laughed to herself. "Never mind, Bran," she told his spirit. Her visual overloaded on sand again, and she stopped, waiting for it to clear. "Wind is getting worse," she told Bran.
Sometimes she swore she'd not talk to him anymore. When she was among people, and felt part of the community.