by Tammy Walsh
“She’s on the first floor of the engine bay!” a Changeling soldier hissed into his communicator. “Converge on her now! And she has a friend!”
They turned and ran from the railing.
It was only a matter of time before they reached us.
Dyrel turned and ran.
Each step sent an excruciating lance of pain up my leg. Sweat blossomed on my brow and up my back.
Dyrel dealt with his own pain and limped toward the exit.
He knew where he was heading. He glanced down the steps, his boots clanging on the hard metal floor. He rushed down one flight of stairs, then another.
I wished I could relieve him of my weight but there was no way I could walk. Definitely not at the speed he was going.
He gritted his teeth through the pain. But with each flight he completed, that pain became less evident, until he reached the bottom step.
He rolled his shoulders and snapped his neck to one side, making a series of loud pops that sounded agonizing. He grunted with satisfaction and sighed.
“Did you just break something?” I said.
“I’m fully healed,” he said.
Titans were fast healers? That was news to me!
He moved without a limp through the deep darkness we occupied. We were in the cargo hold. Huge spires of crates rose like skyscrapers. They were draped with nets.
He moved without hesitation, already operating at full capacity.
With the stinging pain in my leg, I wish I had the same ability.
“My ship is ahead,” he said. “I have a first aid kit on board. It won’t heal you but it should help.”
We were close to escaping.
My hero.
I thought I would never see him again.
As I peered up at him through the misty haze of agony, I clutched him a little tighter, wrapping my arms around his muscular frame.
“How are you here?” I said.
“I couldn’t let you leave, not without telling you how I really feel,” he said.
I smiled up at him.
Ahead, a chittering sound issued up from one of the long corridors formed by the stacks of merchandise.
Dyrel froze and immediately turned down another row. He came to a single crate without others stacked on top of it.
He placed me on it gently. Still, I felt that keen splinter of pain shoot up my leg.
He removed his jacket and placed it over me to keep me warm.
“Where are you going?” I said.
“To take out these Changelings,” he said. “My ship’s on the other side of the cargo hold. I had to enter through a hole they blasted in the side of this freighter to get onboard. We won’t reach it if I don’t take them out.”
I grabbed his arm.
“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t risk your life for me. You’re rich, from a wealthy family. They will pay your ransom and you can get out of here. Don’t risk your life now. Not for me.”
He leaned forward and ran his hands through my hair, ignoring my brow was dampened with sweat. He curled his hand around my face and ran his thumb over my bottom lip.
“You are my life,” he said. “I would not risk you for anything.”
Couldn’t he see I felt the same way? Couldn’t he see I would have gladly taken any pain so he didn’t have to?
But his jaw was set and his eyes firm. There was no changing his mind.
He was heading out there among God knew how many Changeling soldiers. He was a single Titan. Yes, he was strong and powerful, with incredible healing powers, but a single blast from a plasma rifle could end his life in the blink of an eye and burn his thread from the tapestry of life.
I pointed to a crate behind him.
“Take those,” I said.
He glanced at what I pointed at. It was a sealed crate of alcohol.
“I don’t drink,” he said. “I quit.”
“You need something to fight with,” I said.
His eyes lit up with my idea. He pecked me on the lips again.
Then he gripped the lid of the crate and tore it off with a single movement. He reached inside and took out four bottles. He held three in one hand and another in his right.
At least now he had clubs he could fight with. He wasn’t completely unarmed.
“I’ll be right back,” he said.
A steely determination crept over his face as he stepped into the darkness and disappeared.
I laid there, totally helpless, and listened intently.
I prayed I wouldn’t hear him groan in pain or hear a blaster pistol shot followed by a heavy thump as he lay dying with a hole in his chest.
Minutes felt like hours. I listened to the blackness but heard nothing.
Then I heard a shot and a creature shouted.
Three more shots followed swiftly on the heels of the first.
Then the firing stopped.
I listened with bated breath, panting uncertainly, listening again.
Footsteps tapped on the gangway floor, approaching me.
I grew hopeful it would be him emerging from the darkness without a single blemish.
But it wasn’t him.
It was one of them.
The Changeling clutched his rifle to his shoulder and aimed it at me.
The plasma rifle whirred as it powered up and shone brightly.
The light cast a cloud over him, illuminating his dark sinister grin… and Dyrel behind him, his arm drawn back.
He swung a bottle through the air. It made a loud thomp noise and struck the creature on the back of the head.
He slumped to the floor but wasn’t unconscious yet.
Dyrel stood over him and struck him again, this time so hard it smashed the bottle.
He picked up the creature’s rifle and swung its strap over his shoulder.
Then he bent down to pick me up.
I hissed through my teeth at the pain but didn’t complain.
He carried me through the corridors, heading one way and then another. In the semidarkness, I made out two figures lying sprawled on the floor.
Dyrel was a Terminator.
He reached his shuttlecraft and climbed up the ramp and into the back. He placed me on the sofa. The blankets were still there from our trip to the country. He wrapped them around me.
He grabbed the first aid kit box and opened it.
“The hatch door!” I said. “Close it!”
It hung too open and wide for my liking.
He slapped a hand on a button and returned to the first aid kit.
“Let’s get out of here first,” I said. “I can wait until we reach the planet’s surface.”
He hesitated. This time, he didn’t listen to me.
He used an electronic device and ran it over my whole body.
“It’s broken all right,” he said. “And a couple of your ribs don’t look in good shape either.”
So that was why my breath was rasping in my throat.
He tore open a packet and withdrew some bandages. He wrapped them around my chest and leg. I wondered what good they were meant to do. Then he pressed some invisible buttons on the material and they began to glow. The warmth seeped into my body.
“It will help with the pain and speed up healing,” he said. “But you’re human, not Titan. I don’t know how well it will work on you.”
“It feels better already,” I said. “It feels itchy.”
“Healing always does.”
He leaned down and kissed me on the lips. No passion, just pure love.
“I’m going to get us out of here,” he said. “The ride might get a little bumpy. I’m going to strap you in as best I can. It might be a bit uncomfortable.”
I nodded. He wrapped the straps around my stomach, waist, and shins.
He dashed over to the pilot seat. When he turned the lights on, they illuminated an army of Changelings rushing through the endless cargo hold corridors toward us.
They raised their weapons and opened fire.
The shuttlecraft shuddered as it took the blows.
“Hold on!” Dyrel bellowed.
He spun the controls, throwing the shuttlecraft’s ass out and striking a stack of crates. They spilled over and cascaded like a wave down on the Changelings.
The ship bolted forward and collided with a dozen other Changelings. They carried blowtorches and wore special suits as they finished patching up the hole they’d made in the cargo hold’s wall. It glowed yellow, still hot from the heat.
And still soft.
“Direct all power to the front shields,” Dyrel said.
He increased speed and zipped toward that orange section of wall. The Changeling engineers turned their welding tools on. They glowed so hot they turned white, and struck at the shuttlecraft when it passed close.
Dyrel took us headlong into the wall.
It took the blow and didn’t break.
Dyrel growled and hit reverse.
The shuttlecraft shuddered as it took more strikes from the Changelings’ welding gear. And behind us, the Changelings scrambled over the crates and opened fire. Bolts of multi-colored plasma screamed past our ears.
“Hold on!” Dyrel said.
We shot forward.
The straps on my legs shifted position and pressed on my broken leg. I screamed in pain and almost lost consciousness.
The shuttlecraft smashed once again into the wall. Through the windshield, I watched as the metal cracked, then splintered. It tore open like a wound and sucked us into space, along with a handful of crates that’d been knocked from their fastenings, and dozens of Changelings that opened fire as they spun end over end into space.
We were free.
Dyrel angled the shuttlecraft toward his planet and, within minutes, we were burning up in its atmosphere.
Dyrel took no prisoners when he zipped through the atmosphere and flew—fell, really—directly into his city.
My breath wheezed in my chest. I thought my ribs might have driven into my lungs. I could barely gasp each beleaguered breath.
Hearing my distressed breathing, Dyrel called a doctor and told him to meet us at his apartment.
He zeroed in on his apartment building. By the time he sat the shuttlecraft down, it was half-melted, with multiple holes in its hull, and hissed with fire.
He placed me on his bed and fell to his knees beside me. It felt strange to be back there. Surreal, as if I’d stepped into a dream.
He opened a chest of drawers and grabbed a T-shirt. He dumped a glass of water over it and used it to dab at my feverish forehead.
I think he feared as much as I did that despite his heroic efforts, this might well end up being the end.
“Hold on,” he said. “The doctor is on his way.”
Once again, time bent and distorted the way it always did when death approached.
Each breath I drew into my lungs was a painful gasp. The other times when death felt close, it never really felt real. I wasn’t injured then. I was merely sailing over the edge of a cliff in a minivan or over the railing of an engine bay. I was alive and otherwise fit and healthy.
But now, I was seriously injured.
This time, it felt very real.
“I… I’m…” I managed to say.
Dyrel shook his head.
“Save your strength,” he said. “You’re going to be okay.”
His eyes swam with tears. I could see the concern etched on his face.
I wasn’t afraid. Whatever was going to happen would happen.
“I… I’m glad you came,” I said. “I wanted to see you one last time before… before…”
Tears streamed from the corners of his eyes. He snorted through a nose thick with sadness.
“Don’t talk like that,” he said. “You’re going to be okay.”
But we both knew I wasn’t.
He took my hand in his but I could hardly feel it.
I wanted to reach up and touch his face, to feel him one last time, but I didn’t have the power.
I was so close to the end, and yet, I wasn’t full of fear, but love.
Complete and utter love for this Titan male beside me now.
My Titan.
The doorbell rang.
Dyrel was up in an instant. He bolted out of the room and came back a moment later with a doctor in tow.
“What happened?” the doctor said upon seeing me.
He opened his bag and came out with a scanning device.
“She was on-board the passenger ship when the Changelings attacked,” Dyrel said. “She fell a long way when I caught her. She’s got a broken leg and something’s wrong with her ribs.”
The doctor finished scanning me. He reached into his bag and took out a syringe. He filled it with transparent liquid from a tiny bottle.
“What species is she?” he said.
“Human, from planet Earth,” Dyrel said.
“I want to administer a shot of adrenaline. If she were a Titan, I wouldn’t hesitate, but I don’t know how her body will react to it. It might make things better or it might make things ten times worse. You have to decide what you want to do. Now.”
“Is there anything else you can do?” Dyrel said.
“No. In her current state, if the adrenaline doesn’t work, nothing will.”
Dyrel looked at me.
I spoke and my voice rasped as liquid-filled my lungs.
Probably my own blood.
“Do it,” I said.
What other choice did we have?
The doctor took my arm and injected me with it.
I felt the keen pinch of the needle as it pierced my skin, and the liquid as it flooded my body. It was cold and spread up my arm. The moment it hit my chest, it exploded across the rest of my body.
Initially, it did nothing.
Then, suddenly, I felt the kick.
My body shook and I bolted upright.
The doctor leaped back, surprised by my reaction.
“We need to hold her down,” he said. “I’ve never seen a reaction like this before.”
The doctor pressed his weight to my shoulders. Dyrel pinned my legs as best he could but was anxious about touching my injured thigh.
I gave one final thrust of my hips. My back arched and I relaxed back into a resting position.
I felt exhausted.
But I was breathing, and it came a lot easier than it had just a moment ago.
The doctor picked up his scanning device again and checked me over.
“Better,” he said with a faint smile. “Much better. I suggest we let her heal naturally and in her own time. I don’t know enough about the species to make a good diagnosis at this point.”
“But will she live?” Dyrel said. “Will she recover?”
“Yes. But it will take some time.”
Dyrel fell to his knees beside me and clutched my hand in his.
I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open.
“You’re going to be fine,” he said, stroking the back of my hand. “Does she need to go to the hospital?”
“It’s not a good idea to move her right now,” the doctor said. “But she’ll need frequent check-ups.”
“Tell me what she needs and it will be made available to you.”
The doctor nodded.
“You don’t need to show me to the door,” he said. “She needs you now more than ever.”
Dyrel kissed the tips of my fingers as my eyes fluttered shut and I drifted into a deep and dreamless sleep.
I awoke sometime later, my eyes opening like rusty shutter doors.
The first thing I was aware of was the sound of voices being raised. Shouting. Not in the bedroom, but behind the door in the next room.
It took me a moment to orient myself. I was in Dyrel’s bed. My entire body hurt, but more than that, it was lethargic and numb.
My breathing felt fine. A little harder than usual, but not too bad.
I identified one of the raised voices as Dyrel. Someone was trying
to speak to him calmly.
It took me a moment to understand the words coming out of their mouths.
“I can’t go to the police station now!” Dyrel said. “I have to take care of Vicky!”
“We understand that, sir,” the police officer said. “But we have some very serious questions to ask you. Questions about where you got your shuttlecraft illegally chipped, why you broke international law by crossing into spaceport airspace, and why you did it right then when the Changelings attacked—”
“You think I’m part of some kind of conspiracy? You think I’m in league with the Changelings? Are you insane?”
“We’re not suggesting anything, sir. We simply have to ask you some questions down at the station.”
“You can ask your questions here. There’s no one I can call to take care of Vicky. There’s no one else who can watch her. You’ll have to drag me out of here kicking and screaming if you want me to leave. And you’ll need a lot more than just the two of you to get me to go.”
“Dyrel?” I said, cutting through the argument.
Dyrel appeared in the doorway and shoved the sliding door aside. He looked disheveled and very tired. I wondered how long I’d been unconscious.
He dropped to his knees at my side and took my hand in his.
“How are you feeling?” he said.
He placed a hand on my forehead and felt my temperature.
“Your fever’s broken,” he said. “That’s good. That’s very good.”
The police officer and his partner filled the doorway behind him.
“They’re the police,” Dyrel said. “To rescue you from the ship, I had to take certain… actions. They’re not strictly legal. I hold my hands up to that but they want to take me away from here, away from you. But you need me to take care of you.”
I didn’t want him to leave me but I didn’t want him to get into further trouble either.
I peered over at the police officers.
“Is there any way he could answer your questions here?” I said. “Or maybe wait until I can move around? I can promise you, I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m afraid not, ma’am,” the police officer said. “We have to take him down to the station for questioning. It’s of a very… sensitive nature.”
“What is of a sensitive nature is you removing the only care she has in the entire Titan empire,” a voice behind the officers said.