by A. G. Wilde
Squeezing her hands together, she tried to still the tremble in her bones.
This was terrifying.
Everything.
The scene in front of her and the fact that she had no idea what was about to happen next.
She couldn’t see where she was heading, but she assumed she was heading to that planet, Muk, or whatever its name was.
And she believed her assumption was correct when a harsh light lit up the sides of the escape pod.
They were entering the planet’s atmosphere. She could almost feel the heat of the entry, as she gripped the sides of the seat and held on with all her might.
The pod to her right, the one that had Crex in it, had what looked like a fire underneath it as it entered the atmosphere and she assumed the same was happening to hers.
“Oh, please, please, just stay intact,” she whispered to the pod.
It was an escape pod after all. It was built for such things.
But, as if her worries weren’t enough, she realized Tasqal fighter jets were heading in her direction, aiming for her pod.
Green laser bullets riddled the little pod, making the small structure shudder with each hit.
“Oh, why don’t you just fuck off!” Damn them to hell. She had enough on her plate falling through space. Having them in pursuit was an inconvenience she didn’t want.
Screaming at the attackers, she gripped the seat tighter, glancing at Crex’s pod.
They were also attacking his pod and she could feel the start of tears in her eyes.
If the fall through the atmosphere didn’t kill them, these motherfuckers surely would.
As the bullets kept coming, her heart lodged in her throat as the onslaught seemed to start making headway.
Her pod was compromised. She watched with horror as it crept across the glass.
A crack.
There was a crack in the only thing that was keeping her away from the vacuum of space, keeping her away from the torrent of bullets heading her way.
A frickin’ crack that seemed to etch its way in the glass, growing by the second right in front of her eyes. She was going to die because of this thing? This most unpredictable of things?
She could see it now…
Death by crack…and not even the crack that she would have liked.
* * *
As another crack appeared on the glass, Piper glanced around the small pod looking for something, anything that could prevent the glass from giving.
“Come on!” She screamed as she searched frantically.
“Some alien super glue or something! Anything! Fuck, I’d take Duct Tape right now.”
But the small pod was scant. It was hardly more than a seat for her to sit in.
It was getting hotter outside and now they were falling faster, being pulled by Muk’s gravity.
She could see the effect on the fighter jets, because they two had flames all around them.
They were still firing, but then the bullets suddenly stopped and the ships retreated.
It was unexpected, but Piper breathed a sigh of relief.
Maybe their ships weren’t made for entry.
If that was the case, thank God.
It seemed as if the pod was falling incredibly fast now, the speed of the fall pressing her back against the seat.
“Engage landing gear,” the same voice as the Elysium’s said.
“Landing gear. Landing gear. Where the fuck is the landing gear?!”
She could hear the panic in her voice but given the circumstances, how else did she expect to sound?
There was a lever by the door but she wasn’t going to go pulling levers she didn’t know about. What if she accidentally opened the door? Then she would be dead.
Really and truly.
Maybe she’ll be dead when the pod finally landed anyway, but one thing at a time missy.
“Where the fuck is the landing gear?” There wasn’t much in the pod so it shouldn’t be that hard to find.
“Elysium,” she chanced, “I’m normally very polite but WHERE THE FUCK IS THE LANDING GEAR?!”
“Would you like me to engage the landing gear?” The pod asked instead.
“Yes!” That would work. “Engage the landing gear.”
The little pod was starting to shudder now and Piper assumed that with the speed of entry, if the landing gear wasn’t engaged now, she would go splat against the planet. Literally.
“Engaging landing gear,” the voice said.
Then, a second later, it added, “The landing gear is damaged. Manual control requested.”
“Wait. What?”
In the next second, the pod rotated so she could see where she was headed, and thank the heavens she was not afraid of heights.
This was a thousand times worse than skydiving.
She could see the ground approaching, and it was approaching fast.
Thank goodness it wasn’t jagged mountains, but still, falling flat against the surface wasn’t an option.
A slat opened in the bottom of the pod and what looked like a yoke emerged.
There wasn’t time to think.
If she didn’t act now, she was going to die.
Grasping the wheel, she pulled it toward herself and when the pod seemed to slow down a bit, she found more confidence.
Pulling harder, she assumed it worked similar to a plane.
If she pulled the yoke toward herself, it should raise its nose into the air and slow her descent.
Except, this wasn’t a plane and the pod didn’t have a nose.
Although her efforts were having some effect, the pod was still heading toward the surface too quickly.
“Reduce entry speed,” the Elysium’s voice ordered.
“I’m trying! Fuck!” Piper gritted her teeth.
“Probability for crash impact: ninety-nine percent.”
“Thank you. Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Likelihood of injury: eighty-five percent,” the Elysium’s voice continued.
“Yep. That’s exactly the news a girl wants to hear.”
“Likelihood of death: seventy-five percent.”
“Can you just shut the fuck up!”
She was pulling hard on the wheel, gritting her teeth and willing the pod to slow down.
By God, there was a twenty-five percent chance for survival.
Twenty-fucking-five percent.
She was going to die.
She’d come all this way, traveled across the galaxy, gone further than most humans would ever have in their lifetimes, and it was all going to end with a splat like a fly on a windshield.
“Taking evasive measures for improved survival” was the last thing she heard before the pod spun again, turning the glass away from the collision.
The impact shook the small vessel as it collided with the surface of the planet.
The contact was so hard she felt her body become airborne, breaking through the glass of the pod, as she was flung through the air.
Her head hit something hard then, as her body landed to the ground.
Then everything went black.
Chapter Nineteen
It was like watching everything in slow motion. Her pod hadn’t engaged its landing gear and all he could do was watch as it hurtled through the air towards the surface.
As it crash-landed and burst into flames, Crex felt his heart clench hard.
It was as if the jagazen was squeezing the blood out of the six chambers, rendering him lifeless.
No.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
His pod couldn’t land quickly enough before he was out of it, dashing towards the fiery blaze.
It was hot, but he didn’t care for the pain.
Pain was something he was used to. It was something he’d lived with feeling since he was a boy.
But the Piper. She had made him feel something new. Something he hadn’t had the chance to investigate yet. And now she was gone.
He could still save her.
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Somehow he would.
He had to.
That was all that was on his mind as he rushed into the fire, ignoring that the flames were eating into his skin.
But when he reached the small cockpit, her body wasn’t there.
She wasn’t in the pod.
Mild hysteria took him then as he exited the fire, running his hands over his head as the feeling of madness overtook him.
In the process, his hands killed the flames in his hair. Flames he didn’t even feel.
Flames he, frankly, didn’t care about.
Falling to his knees, he stared into the brown sand.
The glass had been broken. Had the fighter jets been that effective before retreating?
Had they managed to break the glass, causing her to be pulled into space?
He hadn’t seen in happen, but it would have only taken a second.
No.
He couldn’t accept that.
It had to be anything except that.
The thought of her body floating in space was something he couldn’t entertain.
No.
Not that.
Not his Piper.
Rising to his feet, his eyes scanned the area.
That’s when he saw the lump in the ground several feet away. She was already partly covered in sand but the rainbow-colored hair was undeniable.
It was a feeling he’d never felt before.
Such relief had never rushed through his veins even after seeing all of his brothers alive after fighting with the enemy.
Rushing over to her body, he pulled her into his arms, his eyes scanning her for injuries.
But it wasn’t hard to miss.
There was a massive wound to her head.
Her red blood had dyed the sand beneath her and the blood was still pouring.
He needed to fix it and fast.
She was unconscious too and that was never good.
Rushing back to his pod, he laid her gently on the sand as he rummaged in the storage compartment for the first aid kit.
Pulling out the small box, he got to work.
He moved quickly and with practiced precision. It wasn’t his first time tending to horrible wounds.
The only difference was that this was the Piper. He wouldn’t forgive himself if she didn’t survive.
As he cleared the blood, the extent of the gash to her head was evident. It was much deeper than he’d expected and he knew that the supplies he had could only go so far.
The wound looked like a fatal one, but her heart was still beating.
He was going to save her.
He had to.
Glancing around, he scanned the area quickly for any of Muk’s famous healing flowers, flowers that, when applied to a wound, could hasten the healing of any being.
But there weren’t any close by, at least, not that he could see. He was sure he could find some, but he wasn’t about to leave her alone and go hunting for any. Plus, the extent of her injury might be too much for even the flowers to heal quickly enough.
There were predators on Muk and she’d lost so much blood already, he was sure they would smell it sooner or later and come looking for their next meal.
There was only one thing he could do now.
Grabbing a sharp blade from the first aid kit, he sliced his hand, hardly reacting to the pain.
As his blood began to flow, he held his hand over the gash, allowing his blood to fill the wound.
It wasn’t something he liked doing but the situation was one in which he didn’t have another choice.
His blood was unique. So unique that his species were once hunted just for their blood to be drained because of the unique healing properties it possessed.
The only downside was that, in sharing his blood, there was a chance the recipient would receive some of his DNA.
It was a small chance but a chance nonetheless.
His blood had the propensity to bond with the blood cells of almost any other species, evolving in the recipient while healing them, yet still holding some DNA of the original Ceqtaq.
That is the main reason he’d never done this before.
Plus, the Piper was human.
He’d never encountered humans before her.
There was no telling how receptive she’d be to his blood.
But as he watched his blood meld with hers, he could almost see the change before his eyes.
The wound seemed to not be bleeding as much as it was before.
That was a good sign.
Removing his hand from the wound, he wrapped her head with gauze and put the first aid kit away.
They had to get moving.
Sand cats were attracted to blood and there was a lot of it here.
Not only that, but the Tasqals were bound to send the Hedgeruds after them. With the blazing fire from the pod serving as a giant beacon, this wasn’t the best place to stay.
Crex looked up at the twin suns high in the sky.
It was daytime.
He needed to find them somewhere to rest so they could trek in the night.
Sleeping in the night on Muk was a death sentence unless you managed to find your way to one of the outposts, the only safe spots for members of the Restitution on this planet and anyone who didn’t want to be ripped apart while they slept in the night.
Glancing down at the Piper, he knew he would have to carry her.
That wasn’t the problem. But he had to find a way to carry her comfortably while also carrying the supplies from the pod.
Rummaging in the storage compartment, the only thing he found was some rope.
It would have to do.
Wrapping the other essentials in a sack, which he slung over his shoulder, he lifted Piper onto his back piggyback style.
Using the rope, he secured her to him, wrapping it under her legs and wrapping the rest across her back and shoulders.
When he was happy with it, he turned his nose to the air.
He could smell it.
Water.
It was far away but he could make it before nightfall.
Muk was a desert planet, so that only meant one thing.
They’d landed close to the planet’s northern pole—the one place on the planet that had liquid water above ground in its only, massive lake.
He could almost feel his skin itching to go in the direction of the liquid.
He was attracted to it like a moth to a flame and it didn’t take him long to decipher which direction to head in.
It was probably best the Piper was unconscious. That meant he could run and he was sure there was no way she would have been able to go at the speed he could.
As he set off, taking one last look around them, he bolted in the direction of the water.
He’d be there before the twin suns set and hopefully, he could make a shelter good enough to protect the Piper while she healed.
* * *
There was cold wind on her face despite the fact that her skin was hot.
And her head, fuck! Her head was pounding!
Piper blinked as she came to. She was moving. Fast.
In her disassociation, her first thought was that she was on a motorcycle or something.
Raising her eyes to the sky, she blinked.
She was seeing double. There were two suns.
No wonder she was so hot.
But wait. That didn’t make sense.
Dust rose and fell as the motorcycle sped through the sand and as she raised her head, dark hair tickled her nose.
Frowning, she looked at the hair.
Hadn’t she dyed her hair last month?
But wait, it wasn’t her hair.
And she wasn’t on a motorcycle.
It all came flooding back to her then.
The Elysium.
The explosions.
The pod.
Hurtling through the atmosphere.
Twenty-five percent chance to live.
Pushing herself upright, she reali
zed she was tied down by something.
A rope, it seemed.
And the hard things she was pressing her arms down on, they weren’t handlebars; they were muscles.
Very hard muscles.
Dark hair. Hard muscles. Moving faster than should be possible.
Crex.
He was alive.
They were alive!
The realization made a burst of relief flood through her.
Burying her face in his hair, she wrapped her arms around his neck.
He seemed to slow down for a second before continuing his speed.
“You’re awake,” he turned his head to say.
“Yes,” she smiled before bursting into laughter.
She was more than awake. She was alive!
Take that, twenty-five percent!
Then the horror of it all came crashing down.
“The others! What happened to the others?! Do you know?”
She couldn’t see his face but she felt his shoulders stiffen, even while he was moving. “We won’t know until we send a signal or meet up again. For now, we have to lay low.”
Piper tried to swallow back the worry that was swimming in her throat.
Lay low.
The Tasqals were still after them.
All she could do was hope that neither they nor the others got caught.
Looking around them, all she could see was brown. Brown sand everywhere.
Every-frickin-where.
“Is this planet by chance a big desert or did we just land in the bad bit?” She asked.
Crex grunted or was that a laugh? “It is a desert planet.”
“Great,” she mumbled. Well, it was better than being blown up in space. Anything was better than that.
“So it’s a desert planet with sand everywhere, right?” She asked.
“Yes,” Crex answered.
Touching her head wound, Piper grimaced.
“Fuck me for falling on the one hard object this planet has on its surface,” she muttered.
She heard the sound again and, this time, she was sure Crex chuckled.
“It’s nice to have you awake, the Piper,” he said.
“Why do you keep calling me that?”
“What?”
“The Piper.”
“Because that is your name,” he answered.
“No, my name is Piper. Not the Piper. Just Piper.”
He went silent for a second.