by Lucia Ashta
But no matter what I told myself, my body didn’t appear to agree. I scooted to the end of my seat and put weight on my legs. As soon as I attempted to rise, they gave out, and I collapsed on top of Aletox’s legs.
He didn’t move. He didn’t even twitch.
“Fuck,” I said, thinking maybe I should convince myself I was upset because the man, who might be my father, who was a human being (maybe), might be dead, and that I wasn’t upset because the man happened to be our pilot and our only way back home.
Another thump and Dolpheus landed on Aletox’s shoulder. “Ow,” he said, but there was no reaction from Aletox.
I managed to get a hand to cooperate enough to shake Aletox’s legs when Kai rose from his seat. He managed several steps before swaying and lowering himself to the floor urgently. Still, his achievement was impressive compared to mine. My body was struggling to interpret which way was up and which down. I closed my watering eyes and heard Kai dragging himself across the floor to Aletox’s other side.
There’d been vomit on the floor of the cabin before the sand whooshed in, but the three of us slid across the floor inelegantly without regard to it. Our problems were far worse than bile. We were in a shitload of trouble before our pilot collapsed. I had no good words beyond a string of curses that could describe the magnitude of trouble we were in now.
We had to have a pilot. Come on, Tan, I urged myself again, willing myself to focus. I snapped my eyes wide open and dragged myself up Aletox’s body until I collided with Dolpheus.
“Aletox,” I said and shook him.
“Aletox,” Dolpheus tried. “Come on, man.”
Kai dragged himself a bit closer. He perched above Aletox’s face. He drew open Aletox’s eyelids, though I didn’t understand what he might be looking for. I looked too and all I saw were red, irritated eyeballs and the same dark, unfeeling irises as always.
Kai lowered his ear to Aletox’s nose and pressed a palm against his chest and waited.
“Well,” Lila said, her voice imbued with a bit of the panic I felt. “Is he alive?”
“Shhh,” Kai said. “Let me listen.”
We all waited, hanging on the sound of a cruel man’s breath. The sand whipped against the exterior of the transport capsule. I shivered as it occurred to me that it sounded like the claws of some ferocious monster that waited to devour us.
“He’s breathing,” Kai said, and there was real joy in his voice. “He’s breathing, he’s fucking breathing.”
I shared his relief and smiled at him and then at Dolpheus.
“We still have a pilot,” Kai said, echoing my thought.
Aletox was a man who used others. It was no surprise then that our relief was rooted only in what we needed from him.
“So what’s wrong with him?” Ilara asked.
“I don’t know,” Kai said. “But his breathing is steady now. Whatever it was or is, he should recover from it and wake up.”
But Kai sounded like he was guessing, which is what I was doing too. I’d never seen a man collapse without apparent cause. He hadn’t fallen, clutching at his chest; his eyes hadn’t rolled back in his head.
He had, however, just opened the door on an alien planet.
“Don’t you have some way to make sure he’s all right?” Ilara asked. “Some fancy machine you can wave across him to heal him? What about that medical kit thing you said you usually carry with you when you go off to battle?”
I looked at Dolpheus. He shrugged. I sighed. “We didn’t.”
“What?” Ilara said. “You didn’t bring a nifty healing tool on a trip to outer space?”
“If you recall, we didn’t plan on traveling across space. We were just going to go into the splicing lab for answers about the splicing process. There were no plans to come to another planet.”
Ilara’s beautiful, sand-smeared face twisted in guilt at her part in convincing me to come on this voyage. But I wasn’t frustrated with her. None of this was her fault. She’d been the pawn of powerful men all of her life, just as I’d been for most of mine. I smiled reassurance with cracked lips, but stopped when Ilara looked alarmed. I must look more of a fright than I realized.
I sought out Lila, who knew Aletox better than any of us did. Even if I might turn out to be the man’s son, she’d worked with him. “Aletox said he’d had the capsule stocked for our travel ahead of time. Surely he must have some kind of healing kit.”
Lila nodded her agreement, mousy brown hair tumbling around her face. Immediately, she looked regretful of her movement, her face contorting into a sour, nauseated expression. It’d be a while before she could go searching for anything.
Dolpheus said, “If he’s breathing and seems otherwise okay, other than the fact that he’s laying unresponsive, on the floor in a pool of vomit, let’s just wait a bit before we try to do anything. I feel as if I could fall over at any minute myself. How about the rest of you?”
Instant mutters of agreement filled the cabin.
I said, “I’d love to rinse my eyes or something, though. I can’t keep them open. They sting like hell.”
“Aye, mine too,” Dolpheus replied.
“I don’t think there’s any part of me that isn’t stinging, aching, throbbing, or swirling,” Lila said.
“Ugh, aye,” said Kai. “I’ve never felt worse in my entire life.”
Ilara said, “That man must be truly nuts if he thought traveling like this was a good idea. Maybe he passed out because he was trying to pretend it didn’t mess with him.”
“Maybe,” I said, pensive. I had no idea what could make a viper like Aletox pass out. He was as wily and mean as they came. Men like that didn’t have real weaknesses, certainly none they ever allowed others to see.
Kai said, “Well, if he thinks I’m doing that to get back, he’s out of his mind. There’s no way in hell I’m ever doing that again.”
But I knew Kai would do it again. We all would. Because it was the only way for us to get back home. Assuming our pilot lived. Come on, Aletox, wake up, I willed.
Life had a nasty sense of humor. The lives and well being of those I cared about now depended on one of three men on all of Planet Origins that I knew with certainty couldn’t be trusted: King Oderon, Lord Brachius, the man I’d believed was my father up until recently, and Aletox, who might be my true father instead.
How had I let myself be so foolish? It was true, I allowed my gut to guide me, to lead me where I had to be. But how could it have led me so astray? And what was I doing permitting Ilara and Dolpheus to come along with me, to an alien planet— alien to all of us, I hoped—where we were dependent on Aletox to get us back?
I scooted back to lean my head against the bottom of my seat, where it thumped so heartily that I couldn’t continue questioning my impulsive decision. All I could do was hope that Aletox woke up and that the sand monster outside our door retreated.
Chapter 4
The time passed slowly and our wits returned gradually. But by the time Aletox finally began to stir from his ignominious bed on the floor, covered in sand and the contents of Lila’s stomach, we were all impatient for him to awaken, just not for the same reasons as before.
Yes, we were all relieved our pilot would survive to navigate this death ship another day, even if we didn’t want to think about that day just yet. And yes, we were still furious at him for luring us into this voyage with him without warning us of the effects of the journey. But now that Ilara had a chance to explain some of the difficulties of landing in the Sahara Desert, we all wanted to throttle him.
He’d better hurry up and get better so I can break every bone in his body, Dolpheus said to me through our private channel. Even though none of our friends would balk at what he said—it was obvious they all agreed with Dolpheus’ anger—as our brains began to cooperate with us, we grew appropriately mindful of watching our words around the viper. Aletox might be infirm, but that state would only last so long. Aletox would remember any slights and who made them,
even if every one of them was well deserved.
Even Lila, who was perhaps the closest thing Aletox had to a friend among us, seethed. She was back to looking like her usual she-dragon self, all the allowances she made for Aletox as a person to be feared and perhaps also admired, suspended. I was surprised smoke didn’t curl from her nostrils. Maybe that was just because they were clogged with sand.
When Aletox groaned and dragged himself up to sit, leaning his head on the edge of his seat bottom, all eyes bored into him. When he brought a hand to his temple, I assumed he must have bumped his head when he fell, and I thought, good. He deserved a little bump to the head.
He opened his eyes slowly and visibly started, something he’d probably never done before. Aletox was cool, always in control of his emotions, or if not, at least able to pretend that he was convincingly. But not this time. “What is it?” he asked.
I smiled despite the severity of the situation. We’d managed to intimidate the man who didn’t care what others thought of him and certainly didn’t allow others to compel him into anything.
My lips hurt when I moved them, and I could feel sand like a film of grime across my teeth. But it was worth it to see Aletox’s reaction to my smug smile, which must look as deranged as it felt.
“What?” he repeated.
I was too angry to formulate coherent thoughts.
Lila, however, seemed to do just fine. “You made every one of us wish we were dead, several times, and probably almost killed us. Then you almost die and strand us here on this forsaken planet. But we can deal with all that later. Because right now, we have to figure out how the hell we’re going to get out of this Sahara place. And this most immediate of our problems could’ve been avoided if you’d just given us the opportunity to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of landing here, because let me tell you, there are heaps of disadvantages. If you’d just heeded Ilara’s warning, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Why couldn’t you’ve just waited a minute before flinging us to into a hellhole? Really? That’s all the deliberation you allowed a decision as important as this one?”
Lila was mad, and for once, I entirely agreed with the she-dragon.
Aletox didn’t even bother looking apologetic. He cupped his head as he said, “I had to do what I did. The stabilizer function on the transport machine was damaged when we jumped across space. We didn’t have time for deliberation.”
“So we really did almost die?” Kai asked.
“Yes,” Aletox said, again without sounding remorseful.
“No wonder,” Kai said.
“No wonder what?” Aletox snapped. “I realize you’ve just survived a harrowing ordeal”—he dragged out the word “harrowing” as if we were spoiled children making a big deal out of a scraped knee”—but will you speak with clarity and stop dumping the contents of your addled brains to join the vomit on the floor for examination?”
Kai’s face grew pink, emphasizing the orange of his hair, but he said nothing.
I didn’t know what to say anymore. Now that my mind was working again, it wouldn’t stop with the irate thoughts, then the confused ones, closely followed by despondent ones, and then back through the cycle again. But none of it seemed particularly useful.
We were on a planet I knew far too little about, and we were apparently in some of the most inhospitable territory on the entire planet. The way Ilara made it sound, we’d managed to land in the Wilds of Planet Sand, and if they were anything like the Wilds of O, we were in for a shitstorm far worse than the sandstorm that greeted us when we arrived.
“If the stabilizer function is shot, can we return to Origins?” Lila said, sounding like her usual intelligent self again. At least one of us was able to focus on the important points.
“Only if I manage to fix it,” Aletox admitted begrudgingly, causing Dolpheus to groan roughly.
“And do you have whatever you need to fix the ship on board?” Lila continued. I had every confidence she’d be able to nail Aletox down so he’d give us all the information we needed. If I’d learned anything about this particular she-dragon, it was that she was a skilled ball-buster. Even a slippery serpent of a man like Aletox must have balls she could crush to force him into submission.
“Not exactly.”
“And you tell me to be precise in my answers,” Kai muttered.
Aletox seemed not to hear him except for the pulsing vein at his temple.
“What do you need to fix it?” Lila persisted.
“Materials I don’t have on board, materials that might not exist on Sand. But once we’re out, I’ll likely be able to scrape what I need together from whatever’s available.”
“And if you don’t find what you need? If it doesn’t exist?”
“Then I’ll tear apart a non-essential part of the transport device and piece things together until I make it work.” Aletox was getting angry.
Good. Fuck ’im. There wasn’t a single thing in the vunter death trap that didn’t look essential to our survival. Already there was nothing to spare, every part folding or fitting into a compartment meant only for it, encapsulating it perfectly.
“Well, it sounds like we’d better get busy then,” Lila said. “And I hope you intend on being more specific with what you need, because it sounds like you need all the help you can get, and I’m your best bet at getting it.”
The viper met the eyes of the she-dragon and offered her a single, tight nod.
“Good. Now that that’s settled,” I said, even though it wasn’t settled at all, “Let’s move on to the really urgent part of it.”
“And what’s that?” Aletox said.
“We’re apparently in the middle of an enormous, hot, arid region that’s completely unsupportive of the survival of human life. And if we’re lucky enough to find a way past the sandstorms and the beating, blinding sun, oh, and the lack of water or food, then we’re in one of the most dangerous, unstable political regions on Sand.”
“At least that’s one thing we’re skilled in,” Dolpheus offered. “You and I know how to battle our way past aggressive tribes and rebels.”
“True,” I conceded. “But we’re on a different planet. We can’t yet predict how that will affect things.”
“True,” he conceded.
Ilara said, “And once we manage to find the way to leave the ship, because oh, by the way, people will think it’s an alien spaceship and we’ll be lucky if some government doesn’t confiscate it while we’re gone, if we somehow survive the most dangerous desert on Earth when we’re completely unprepared for it, and if we somehow then survive open guerrilla warfare and kidnappings, we’ll need to find documents to get us out of here.”
“Documents?” Kai asked.
“Yes, identification documents. To get us from here to wherever the fuck we’re actually going. Because I didn’t see a princess out there getting beat up by a sandstorm. Which means we need to go someplace else to look for her.”
Ilara glared at Aletox. Even with the overpowering stinging in my eyeballs, I had trouble looking away from the storm that brewed in those cosmic irises.
“Shit,” Kai said, even though neither he nor I nor any of the rest of us that weren’t from this planet knew what identification documents were. “We’re fucked.”
Yes, we were. And not in the fun way.
You can continue the story in Planet Sand. Thanks for reading!
THANK YOU
Thank you for reading and allowing me to take you on this adventure. Creating magical, exciting stories is one of my great passions, but it wouldn’t be nearly as rewarding if I didn’t have anyone to share them with. That you give your time and attention to the worlds I’ve created means so much to me, and I appreciate every single one of you.
If you enjoyed this story, will you please consider helping other readers find out about it? There are many easy ways to do this, here are two. You could:
Tell a friend (or better yet, several), in person or social media.
Write a
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Again, thank you! I wish you blessings on your journey, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a magical day.
Lucía
TITLES BY LUCÍA ASHTA
THE WITCHING WORLD
(YA fantasy)
Magic Awakens
The Five-Petal Knot
The Merqueen
The Witching World Omnibus, Books 1-3
The Ginger Cat
The Scarlet Dragon
Mermagic *
Spirit of a Spell *
PLANET ORIGINS
(Space fantasy)
Planet Origins
Original Elements
Holographic Princess
Planet Origins Omnibus, Books 1-3
Purple Worlds
Planet Sand *
Mowab Rider *
THE LIGHT WARRIORS
(Visionary fantasy)
Beyond Sedona *
Beyond Prophecy *
Beyond Amber *
Beyond Arnaka *
The Prophecy of Arnaka
The Secret of Namana
A Betrayal of Time
Whispers of Pachamama
“Daughter of the Wind”
“Immortalium” *
The Unkillable Killer *
(* coming soon)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lucía Ashta, a former attorney and architect, is an Argentinian-American author who lives in Sedona with her beloved and three daughters. She published her first story (about an unusual Cockatoo) at the age of eight, and she’s been at it ever since.
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Lucía on the web:
LuciaAshta.com
[email protected]
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph