by D T Dyllin
“No. No.” Baby shifted abruptly to the left, throwing him back against the wall.
“The attack on Xianfrey is a fact. It’s happening right now,” I repeated, my voice even.
“I don’t accept it.”
“The attack on Xianfrey is a fact. It’s happening right now.” I would keep saying it over and over, as many times as I needed until Mikla came to terms with reality.
“My lab!” he wailed. “All of my research!”
Good. If he’s dwelling on what could be lost then he’s a step closer to accepting things. I eyed the small case he’d brought with him, mistakenly thinking it contained backup disks of his research. “What’d you bring with you?”
Clamoring to a harness hanging beside me, he strapped himself in, his nose bloody. “Only the most recent research. Everything else is in my archives.” His head hit his chest. “This can’t be happening.”
I swallowed, staring straight ahead. There was nothing else for me to say. I couldn’t assure or console Mikla. Only his research would accomplish that. Plus, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. He was my brother, so I didn’t want for him to die, but because of the way he treated me, I felt no sympathy for him and his possible lost data. As Jane would say, he could ‘cry me a river’.
Baby rumbled and shook, the engines whining. “Something’s wrong! The controls are going haywire!” Kade shouted.
Squeaking, I pushed my hair out of my face when I found us abruptly upside down, the harness the only thing keeping me from being on the ceiling. “Are you getting any normal readings?”
“No! All the dials are spinning, and the computers are useless! The steering is still online, but I’m not sure if—“ A loud pop drowned out the rest of what Kade said.
My stomach dropped into my feet, air whistled along the outer shell of Baby, my hair whipping up into my face from the force of what had to be a freefall. Hysterical laughter bubbled up and erupted from my chest. I’d never been in any kind of crash before I’d met Kade, and then in the span of days, I was about to have my second. I hope I walk away from this one, too.
“LaLa!” Kade was in front of me, his height enabling him to reach me while his feet were planted on the ceiling. “We’re going to jump.”
“What?” That’s when I noticed the pack on his back. “No, we could get caught in the draft of the ship and get taken down with it, or—”
I fell out of my harness into his arms. “We’ll be crushed if we stay in here. We don’t have long. I hit the atmosphere, but I opened the chutes to slow us. Even still …”
“What about Mikla?”
“There are only two chutes.”
“Then I’ll jump with you.” Scurrying over to my brother, I stared up at him. “You need to pull your shit together, Mikla. Can you do that?”
Eyes wide, he nodded, stammering out, “Y-yes.” His notoriously steady hands were shaking.
“Get him down.”
Kade didn’t bother arguing; we all knew there wasn’t time for it. As soon as my brother flopped to the ceiling, Kade strapped the second chute on him, and grabbed me.
Popping open the outer door, Kade clutched me close, and jumped. My arms and legs were wound around him tightly, and my eyes squeezed shut. I hated not having control over the situation, and if I was about to die, I didn’t want to know an instant before it happened.
It was eerily silent, the wind stealing all sound from the air. Kade’s racing pulse was my lifeline, and I focused on it, each beat another moment that we were alive. He shifted, his arm moving under my torso. A moment later we were ripped upward, my stomach protesting the motion, pushing bile up in my throat.
Please let us make it. Please let us make it. Please let us make it.
And then we were drifting.
“It’s okay. I got you.” Kade’s voice was a soothing rumble directly into my ear.
Risking a peek, I opened my eyes to peer over his shoulder. Another chute drifted downward a few hundred yards away, my brother’s panicked expression visible even from the distance.
Sifting my fingers into Kade’s silky locks, I whispered, “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe we survived two crashes.”
“It’s not the crash we have to worry about this time,” he muttered in response.
Turning my head, I stared at the ground as it rushed up to meet us. Below were scads of crater-sized holes, most smoking, and others spreading fire to the plant life. No sign of movement was visible. If there’d been Galvrarons who didn’t make it to the shelters before the attack, they wouldn’t have survived. Although, it looked like Baby had gone down over a rural patch of land, so it was likely there’d been no people there to begin with. I was disoriented, confused how far we’d gotten from the launch pad. Not that any of it mattered. My insides twisted.
Xianfrey is burning. And we might end up burning right along with it.
I climbed higher in Kade’s arms, studying the chute. “We need to figure out a way to steer this thing.” Moment of moroseness over. I wasn’t going to let our unknown enemy defeat us that easily. Kade and I would get off of Xianfrey in one piece. I’d find a way.
“Blocking my view isn’t a good start.”
Glancing down, I realized my middle was pressed against his face, and my legs squeezing his chest. “Oh, well …” I didn’t see any way around the awkward position. I lacked the kind of upper body, or lower for that matter, strength that would allow me to climb around to Kade’s back. I was currently relying on Kade to keep me from falling, his grip on me reassuring.
Shimming up another few inches, I stretched to reach the ropes attaching the chute to Kade.
“Mmm … never thought having your crotch in my face would be an unpleasant thing. This is not working.” His fingers dug into my ass as he attempted to pull me down.
I swatted at his head. “Stop. I’m almost there. If I can just—” A gust of wind lobbed us to the side, and I lurched forward, falling over Kade’s head. My stomach lifted into my throat, my hearts about to explode.
I was freefalling.
Air whistled up my nose, chilling me to the bone, my arms and legs numb. I couldn’t take my eyes off the ground. I wonder if it’ll hurt much? Will I know when I hit? Will I have any last thoughts?
A feral roar filled with anguish and terror sliced the silence. Oh, Kade, I’m sorry.
“I got you. I got you. Fuck. I got you, LaLa.” His hot breath fanned over my face as he delivered scorching kisses along my cheeks, eyes … anywhere he could reach.
Opening my eyes, I glanced around in confusion. We were on the ground. “H-how did you do that?” I wasn’t even sure what he’d done. All I knew was that one moment I was about to create a Zula-sized crater in the earth, and the next I was in Kade’s arms, safe, and on the ground.
Tightening his grip around me, Kade pressed against me, as if he was afraid I’d disappear. His scent surrounded me, enveloping me in comfort while my hearts slowed to a normal rate. “I’m not sure what happened, and I don’t care. You’re safe, and that’s the only thing that matters to me.”
“What do you mean you’re not sure what happened? Explain.”
“I-I saw you falling, and I wanted nothing more than to go to you—to stop it—to stop it from happening.” He laughed. “And then I was there, grabbing you from the air before you could hit the ground.”
“And you have no idea how you did it?”
“None.”
Suspicion needled me. Did it have to do with his partial dragon DNA? As a species, they were rumored to possess mythical power levels, one being able to sift through space at the blink of an eye. I blew out a frustrated breath. My brother definitely knew more than he telling us, that was evident by his reaction when he’d discovered us naked in his lab. But what’s the point to the all the secrecy? At least from Kade? “I wish you would have figured out that handy little ability before we jumped out of Baby. Maybe even before we crashed on Zeffrin. It also would have been useful when—”
&
nbsp; His lips slanted over mine, stealing my words and current thoughts. His fingers dug into my back painfully, not that I minded at the moment. We’d faced death several times in the past hour, and somehow against all odds, we had managed to remain unscathed.
“Did you hit your heads? We don’t have time for this kind of nonsense. We need to seek shelter.” My brother’s voice was higher than normal, although his haughty attitude was back. I never thought I’d be glad for that.
Reluctantly pulling away from Kade, I nodded at Mikla. “You’re right. We need to find shelter and then figure out what’s going on. We have no idea how bad the rest of Xianfrey is.” For all we knew, our military was able to overpower our would-be invaders or destructors. I wasn’t sure what our unknown enemies had intended as their endgame.
Glancing around, Kade grunted, “Any ideas on where we should go? This terrain doesn’t offer much as far as shelter or a hiding place.”
He was right, too. We were currently out in the open. No mountains or forests, not so much as a large tree for us to conceal ourselves from aerial views. “I got turned around, I’m not even one hundred percent sure where we are.”
Mikla spun in a circle, his eyes narrowed. “We came from that direction.” He pointed behind us. “Which means if he head south we should hit some wooded areas. If they’re still there.”
Kade took my hand within his, intertwining our fingers. “We’ll be able to find supplies in a forest, like food and water.”
“In a forest? Without proper tools how will you gather uncontaminated water, and how will you—”
Kade smacked Mikla on the back. “Never underestimate a bounty hunter. I’ll take care of everything.”
A small smile curled up my lips as I snorted. It was comical how in a lab my brother had everything all figured out, but in the wild, despite his extensive IQ, he had no idea how to survive. On the whole, my people severely underestimated street smarts. It required a different kind of intelligence, one that my man had in spades. My man? Is he my man now? Stop. It’s not the time or place to worry about such things. Survive this ordeal and then you can ponder your relationship status.
Yanking my arm, Kade jogged around a smoking crater, tugging me along after him. “Keep up, Galvrarons. This is my element, and my rules are law out here.”
“Stop being all grabby,” I growled, twisting out of Kade’s grasp. I appreciated all he’d done for me, saving my ass on multiple occasions, but I wasn’t an invalid, injured, or even having an emotional breakdown caused by the plate, since it’d been removed.
“I’m just trying to keep you safe.”
“I’m perfectly capable of running on my own, thank you very much.” Tripping over some debris I didn’t see until too late, I skidded to a stop on a patch of grass, dirt and dust flying up my nose. I sneezed several times in a row.
Offering me his hand, Kade smirked. “Yep, seems like you got the running thing all figured out.”
I glared at him, awkwardly getting to my feet without his assistance. “I didn’t see that,” I kicked the small piece of metal, “there.”
“Mmm …” He was holding in laugher, his face contorted with the effort.
“Hurry up! Why are you standing around?” Mikla surged past us, stumbling a bit, but managing to stay upright.
“Like sister like brother, I suppose. Or is it that those massive brains make you top heavy?”
“Shut up,” I snapped, jogging after my brother. “You know, it would be helpful if you could figure out how to work that nifty little power you used before. Then you could just poof us to the forest.”
“Poof us to the forest,” he muttered in disbelief. “She wants me to just poof us to the forest. I wish.”
“Maybe try concentrating on being there, envision it.” I swiped the back of my hand across my forehead, the sun’s rising heat causing rivers of sweat to drip down my face.
“Whatever I did was triggered by blind panic and fear. I’m settled now.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Are you then? Because we’re still in danger. We have no idea what’s going on, and for all we know, a bomb could drop out of the sky, incinerating me on contact at any moment.”
Kade snorted. “Not likely. If whoever it is wanted to annihilate the surface of Xianfrey, they would have led with that instead of dropping what little they did.”
“Oh, you’ve got it all figured out then?”
“Just the basics.”
“And what would—”
“Would you two stop bickering already? It’s irritating,” Mikla spat. “I thought you liked each other. Wasn’t the word love volleyed about?”
Pinning my brother with a death glare, I said, “And what would you know about love? People in love can bicker.”
“You might want to reconsider bonding with someone who you can’t seem to get along with. Is this the kind of thing you want to deal with for the rest of your life? This is exactly why you should never have copulated with it.”
“Stop calling Kade an it. He’s more than a subject. He’s—”
“To you maybe. But to me he’s nothing more than a subject in another experiment. I was originally only planning on helping him to help you.”
My stomach twisted. “Was planning? You can’t back out now, he saved your life. You owe him.”
Mikla stumbled as he shifted the small case under his arm. How he had managed to hold onto it despite everything else was a testament to how important it was to him. Wheezing a couple short breaths, he glanced at me. “I’ll still help if I can, but most of the data is back at the lab.”
Of course it is. And he wouldn’t think to grab something that was important to me. Who knew what he’d considered priority enough to make it into the little case he clutched desperately under his arm. “I forgot to mention before when I brought up Telvin … well, it doesn’t exist anymore.”
Mikla tripped over his own feet, hitting face first into the ground with a grunt. Bewildered, he turned himself over, chest heaving as he stared up at the sky. “What happened to this place? This place called Telvin?”
Skidding to a stop, I stalked forward to stand over him, hands on hips. “Oh, come on. There’s no point in pretending anymore. I know Telvin was yours. It has your brand of ‘science’,” I raised my hands to form air quotes, “stamped all over it. My only question is, do Mother and Father know?”
His lips flattened into a thin line. “They don’t know. I only made arrangements with the Denards to run Telvin so I could do some of the work even they didn’t approve of. In exchange, I’d turn a blind eye to whatever they wanted to do in my absence. The caveat being that I had the right to access all records.” He sniffed, pushing himself up into a sitting position. “Not that they were doing anything I’d care about.”
“No? And what about what they did to me? Maybe they were looking for an opportunity to discover our kind’s weaknesses so they could eventually use it against us. You may think you’re fooling the Denards, but is it possible that they know not to trust the Galvrarons? Is it possible that they’re just letting you think that they don’t have a clue?” I crouched down. “After all, is there any more devious species than a pure-blooded human?”
Mikla stared at me, his eyes widening slowly. “The plate in your head did give me pause, especially considering its origins. Which was why I wanted as much information about it as possible. I-it may be possible that our arrogance as a species left us vulnerable.”
Kade came up to stand behind me, his knees knocking into my back. “Well I’ll be damned. That may very well be the smartest thing I’ve ever heard you say. I bet this attack was brought about by the same thing … Galvraron arrogance. You think you’re untouchable because of those massive brains, which makes you as a whole ripe for,” he opened his arms wide, motioning to the wreckage around us, “attack.”
He was right, as much as I hated to admit it. Galvrarons, me included, had a blind spot because of overconfidence. Just because we had IQs proven higher than a
ny other known species in the Universe, didn’t mean we were infallible.
“Come on.” I yanked my brother to his feet. “It shouldn’t be that much farther to the shelter of the forest.” Hopefully.
“Well there goes that idea,” I panted out, hands on knees as I attempted to catch my breath.
The forest we’d been hoping to find shelter in looked like it’d been flattened by a large spacecraft of some sort. Nothing was on fire, or even burnt, but the cover it would have provided us was destroyed nonetheless.
“What are we going to do?” Mikla glanced between Kade and me, his flushed skin somehow managing to blanch. “If we don’t get water soon, we could face dehydration. And being out here in the open without protection from the sun could lead to sunburn and sunstroke, with no equipment or medication to heal us. We could die from a simple—”
“Stop,” I gritted out. “You need to get yourself under of control. We’ll figure out a new plan momentarily.” As soon as I get my dizziness under control. Mikla wasn’t far off about us needing to get out of the sun.
“I can make us some shade with what’s left of the forest,” Kade offered, his gaze roaming over the smashed greenery. “It’ll be small, but will give us a break from the sun, and some time for me to collect water. At least we’ll be out of sight while we think up a better plan.”
I nodded. “Yeah, we’ll all feel better once we get some rest and some water. Tell me what I can help with.”
Leaning down, he whispered in my ear, “You need to sit and get your brother under control. It’s not going to do us any good if he has another breakdown. Or if you pass out. You’re not looking so good.” His hand flitted briefly to my forehead, wiping at some of the sweat with his thumb. I swayed into him, my body yearning for sleep. He smiled, his gaze soft in understanding. “Let me take care of the rest.”
Grunting, I moved away from Kade’s comforting presence, grabbing my brother’s arm. “We’re going to sit while the shelter is built.”
“Ah, LaLa?” Kade hissed. “We have a problem.”