by Smith, S. E.
* * *
Holy shit. How do we get through this? Lyra stood on the edge of what was apparently the shoreline. Problem, there wasn’t any water.
A giant sheet of frozen dark grey lay before her as far as she could see. Wind blew over the surface, stealing her breath and chilling her face. She drew the warm parka tighter around herself, looking down at K’mi, who was unfazed by the cold.
K’mi opened her mouth to say something, when A’ryk blew past them, strolling out on the ice in long strides. “Can’t figure out what to do?”
She balled her fists. The man was like an itch that couldn’t be scratched. She walked onto the ice just as K’mi yelled, Wait!
Feet slipping beneath her, Lyra found herself staring at the sky from the ground. A’ryk’s smug face appeared above her. “You might want to put on some spikes first.”
Dropping something on her chest, he strode away, no sign of difficulty with slipping.
Lyra rolled to her side, groaning. “You’re an asshole.”
The object, or rather objects, on her chest flopped onto the ice next to her. They were a pair of crudely carved metal triangles woven into what looked like sandals.
Put them on your feet, K’mi said. On the bottom of your shoes. Then you won’t slip on the ice.
Lyra did as instructed, then got to her feet. The spikes gripped the ice; impressive.
A’ryk handed her the axe. “Chop through the ice with this. When you hit water, use these.” He handed her a ball of string with a hook and a set sticks with a flag, then headed in the opposite direction.
She held up the sticks and looked at the string. One problem at a time. Break through the ice, then figure out the rest.
Blaster fire echoed across the frozen expanse. Dropping everything but the axe, Lyra ran back to shore, diving behind the nearest snow bank, heart racing.
There was no other sound for a second, then booming laughter. It rang and echoed against the mountains. She looked over the snow, A’ryk laughing so hard he was bowled over.
What was that idiot doing? He wasn’t even trying to avoid the danger. When the laughter turned to choking guffaws, she stood up, brushing herself off.
The sound of blasters rang again and she ducked, A’ryk pointing at her, “You should see your face!”
K’mi was sitting next to him, not laughing, but definitely wondering at her actions. And H’tch was standing on the shore, looking nervous. Lyra realized he hadn’t been on the ice at all. Was he afraid of it?
There was the sound of a ricochet followed by a zing that echoed as far as A’ryk’s laughter. What the stars?
There was no way she could recover her composure, so she decided to say exactly what she was thinking. “Sounds like someone is shooting at us.” Shit, that came out more high-pitched than she intended.
“It’s the ice,” A’ryk said.
K’mi ran along the shore before running straight at the ice, sliding over the surface of the frozen lake, pure joy infusing the bond. Her sire nervously paced, never stepping foot on the ice.
“It makes that sound as it strengthens and grows,” A’ryk said. “Since we’re heading into deep winter, it’s getting thicker.”
“Heading into deep winter?” Lyra hugged the warmth of the fur around her. “How is this not already winter?”
K’mi joyously slid past her, twirling in circles on her stomach, legs and paws sprawled in four directions from her body. H’tch sat on his haunches, whimpering softly.
“H’tch hates the ice,” A’ryk said. “I’m sure you already know that K’mi loves it.”
A genuine smile crossed his face and Lyra felt warmth in her heart. What was happening here? Focus. Food. Fishing. That’s what was happening.
Holding up the axe, she strode out on the ice, “I’m hungry, so—”
“Good luck with that,” A’ryk said.
Lyra kept walking. Not only would a little distance from this man be good, but she figured bigger fish could be found where there might be deeper water. K’mi trotted after her, sliding around her in wide circles.
Let’s try over here, K’mi said.
Lyra swung the axe downwards. When it hit the ice, vibrating pain shot up her arm into her elbow. Holding her arm, she saw a divot. That was something.
K’mi jumped high in the air and dove straight back down onto the divot. When nothing happened, the mogha scratched at it. It was comical enough that Lyra forgot the pain in her arm.
The ice usually gives way, K’mi said, continuing to scratch at the surface. Still too thick.
“Of course it’s still too thick,” Lyra said. “I barely made a dent.”
The sound of a small motor echoed and they looked up. A’ryk was forty yards away, leaning over the spiral he brought. Spinning faster than the eye could see, it drilled through the ice like butter.
K’mi ran to the hole when A’ryk lifted the drill and dove into it the same way she tried to dive in Lyra’s divot. The ice gave way beneath the mogha and she jumped back as water erupted from the hole.
So A’ryk doesn’t actually use an axe. Could this man be any more irritating?
Seething, Lyra walked up to the Korthan. Before she could say anything, he said, “I know, I’m an asshole.”
Holding her hands out for the drill, he gave it to her and she walked back to her divot.
* * *
A’ryk watched Lyra drill a hole, K’mi diving in to break the thin layer that was already freezing back. In that moment, A’ryk forgot she was human. What he felt was more pure than anything he’d ever experienced in his life.
H’tch had finally paced off all his nervous energy and was now sitting by A’ryk as he tied a lure to his line. A’ryk attached the line to one of the flags and dropped it in the water. “We have to let her go. She is K’mi’s alpha and I can’t separate them, so we have to let K’mi go too.”
H’tch’s antennae rose. She is your mate, whether you want to say it or not. This is the most fun I’ve ever seen you have. You should not be separated either.
“Which is why it’s time for them to go,” A’ryk glanced at his longtime friend.
But, A’ryk—
He cut the mogha off, “I cannot be mated to a human. It’s just— No. This can’t be real.”
A’ryk heard K’mi barking and lifted his eyes in time to see Lyra pulling. A very large fish head came up out of the hole, but the rest of the fish was too big to fit. H’tch jumped up, excitement washing away his fear of the ice as he ran towards them.
A’ryk stood as Lyra used the axe to cut away at the edges of the hole, making it larger. She struggled, but K’mi grabbed on and the both of them were able to drag the giant out of the water.
Lyra slid backwards as the fish flopped around, falling onto her back side. A’ryk’s legs moved, carrying him towards them of their own volition. He stared. The fish was larger than any he had ever caught on this planet.
Elbowing his knee, his mogha positively vibrated with excitement, Not bad, for a human.
Hearing the snap of his flag going up, A’ryk rushed back to his own hole with a grin. He’d show her what a big catch was.
As he pulled the string, he noticed that there wasn’t much of a fight on at the other end. It popped out of the water as he pulled too hard, a fish no larger than his hand hitting him square in the face.
The echoes of Lyra’s laughter warmed his heart, lighting his soul on fire.
6
Belly full, Lyra felt the most smug she had ever felt in her life. A’ryk hadn’t said much since their fishing trip, choosing her moment of triumph as the exact time to announce they needed to get inside before the predators got them. She was under the distinct impression he was jealous.
Lyra hummed as she changed the bandages on A'ryk’s shoulder. Watching her, he had that same intensity in his gaze from before. She stopped humming, pausing to glare before touching his wound.
Healing nicely, all signs of the circuitry beneath were now hidden by
smooth skin. She let her fingers linger on the warmth of his skin before picking up a fresh bandage. He pulled away.
“Why do you stay on this vicious world?” Lyra asked.
A’ryk hesitated before saying, “I came here after The Fall.”
“The Fall?” Lyra said.
Something must have been interesting on the floor, because he stared at it. “That’s what Korthans call their loss to the humans.”
“Oh.” The floor did seem interesting all of a sudden.
“It’s tranquil here,” A’ryk murmured after a moment. “You just don’t go out at night.”
“But I like night walks,” she quipped.
A'ryk chuckled and Lyra met his eyes. He wasn’t laughing at her or making fun of her. It was the first genuine laugh she’d heard from him.
They were sitting close and her heart fluttered. She was hyperaware of his sudden heavy breathing, the features of his handsome face soft and inviting. She leaned forward—
A’ryk jumped up, brushing his hands over his thighs.
“It is time for you to leave my world,” he blurted. “I do ask that you contact the colonists and tell them your report is faulty. Tell them this world is uninhabitable.”
Lyra’s eyes felt wide enough to fall out of their sockets. H’tch and K’mi chose that moment to stride through the door, no doubt honing in on the emotions of each of them.
“I told you, the comms on my ship don’t work; I can’t contact the colonists,” she said. “And my ship is completely scrapped. Unless you have an extra ship lying around, I’m stuck here.”
K’mi snickered and then started laughing.
“What so funny? Did you come in here just now to laugh at me?” Lyra shook her head at the mogha, throwing her hands in the air.
A’ryk pulled back the saber-bear skin rug on the floor, exposing the same hatch where he got the fishing supplies. The wood panel door creaked as he pulled it up. “I have something to show you.”
As they entered the space, Lyra wrinkled her nose. There was a carcass of some kind in the square hole cut from the ice. A’ryk picked it up by its tail, some sort of squirrel.
H’tch yapped and barked. Lyra looked at K’mi.
H’tch went digging for ground squirrels last night, K’mi clarified.
“You know I don’t like for anyone to go out at night,” A’ryk chided his mogha, putting the squirrel back in the makeshift freezer.
He was feeling inadequate because we caught such a big fish, K’mi said.
Lyra’s lip curled. “I’m not eating that. We can just go fishing again.”
A’ryk grabbed a flashlight from a shelf. “You don’t catch a fish every time you go fishing.”
“You don’t, maybe,” Lyra said.
Both moghas and the Korthan disappeared into the darkness. She heard slapping, like the sound made when a faulty flashlight is repeatedly hit over the palm to get it to light. Then there was light and she saw they were standing by a heavy metal door at the back of a room the same size as the front room she first woke up in. Exactly the same, the walls and ceiling of ice with wood slabs melted in, serving as shelves. Boards lined the floor.
Lyra followed them to the door, eyes drawn to the folded flight suits and space helmets she saw before. Feeling tapping on her arm, she looked up as A’ryk handed her a pair of ice spikes. “Put these on.”
A’ryk removed several locks from the metal door. “Predators can get in through here too, so we keep it locked at all times.” He raised the crossbeam that came down over the door. “I would ask that you never use this door, but with luck you will be gone in a day or two.”
Lyra blinked. Gone in a day or two?
The Korthan handed her a flashlight, blaster raised as he opened the door, sound echoing in the darkness beyond. Rushing through it, he swept his light and gun from side to side. He lowered them. “All clear,” voice echoed.
H’tch joyfully howled and barked, the sound bouncing from a high ceiling. K’mi joined in the fun before A’ryk’s echoing voice chimed in from somewhere deeper in the cave, “Stop doing that.”
As she walked through the door, she was standing on ice. No boards in this room.
Bending down, she slipped the spikes over her shoes and swept her flashlight over what appeared to be a very large cavern. Huge columns of ice stretched from ceiling to floor. They glittered as the beam from her flashlight touched them. Something else glittered in the beam and her breath caught in her throat.
Standing slowly, she just stared, the light from A’ryk’s flashlight adding to her own as he pulled a lever and began cranking, a ramp slowly emerging as he did so.
“Are you just going to stand there with your mouth open, or would you like to come on board?” A’ryk smiled, roguish and charming and smug all at once.
“You have a ship,” her breath came out a whisper.
It was the most beautiful ship she’d ever seen. Triangular in design, sleek, dark red with black accents, it was too big to be a fighter, too small to be a freighter. Her first thought was that it might be a leisure ship, but as she approached it became clear it was a warship.
Of course it was a warship; that should have been her first thought. It was just so striking, startlingly so. Every human warship she had ever seen was clunky and drab.
“How do you think I got here?” A’ryk still worked the crank and finally the ramp touched the ground.
“Well, I just—didn’t know. You’re so ‘This is my world,’ that I haven’t really thought about it,” Lyra said.
She traced a Korthan etching on the side, near the front. It was followed by a cybernetic fist enclosed in a triangle, a sharper version of the tattoo on A’ryk’s arm. “What does this mean?”
“I’m a member of the Korthan Cyborg Corps. Each of us had our own ship.” He gestured at the ramp as both moghas bound up it.
“You are a cyborg,” Lyra touched her lips.
“I’m Korthan,” A’ryk countered.
Lyra gave a nodding shrug as her eyes wandered over the ship. That much was obvious.
There was more writing nearer to the cockpit, over her head so she almost didn’t see. She pointed, “And this?”
No answer. She turned to see that he had already boarded.
* * *
You’re going to let her take your ship and not even tell her what it is? H’tch knew that A’ryk blatantly ignored Lyra’s question about the markings by the cockpit.
“She doesn’t have to know what it is to get off this world and contact the colonists.” A’ryk did not want to argue. “Then I’ll look after her through the ship.”
And how long do you think that’ll last? Especially when she goes back to the humans? You should tell her. Stars, we should be going with her.
“You know I can’t,” A’ryk said.
I protected your secret, to the detriment of your health. Feelings from the mogha spiked, fear he might have lost A’ryk weighing him down.
A’ryk rubbed H’tch’s ear. “I’m fine. The nanites worked well enough on their own.”
That’s not the point. It’s time to stop running, A’ryk. Tell her.
A’ryk said nothing, emotions a maelstrom as they intermingled with H’tch’s.
The mogha pointed at him. You know, you've really outdone yourself this time. Being separated from your mate and your ship? Has to be the worst punishment imaginable. Why are you doing this to yourself?
“You know why,” A’ryk paced the floor, stomach churning. “I couldn't protect the mogha world or Korth.”
It's not your fault. And it’s not your responsibility to protect this world. Live your life. We can go with her. You've punished yourself enough.
Leaning on his fist against the bulkhead, A’ryk swiped his face with his free hand. He was asking a lot of his mogha, but exiling was always the right course of action. “Will you stay with me?”
H’tch rocked back, Of course. We are bonded. Leaving you was never the question.
&nb
sp; * * *
Lyra marveled at the control panels in the cockpit. Everything on this ship, from the moment she walked up the ramp, was more advanced than anything she’d ever seen. The cylindrical chamber in what appeared to be a cargo hold was puzzling. But more puzzling was that there wasn’t a pilot’s chair or anything on the control panels that indicated how to even fly it. She couldn’t see out, so there must have been blast doors covering the windows.
K’mi walked around the inside perimeter.
“He expects me to fly this?” Lyra asked.
You’re a pilot, K’mi said. And you have what it takes.
“But this is—”
“Unlike any ship you’ve ever been in?” A’ryk came through the door.
“How do you fly this ship?”
Swiping his fingers over a panel on the wall, a hologram appeared with what looked like some sort of read-out. “Flight lessons later.”
A cable accented with light came out of his wrist and connected to a round console that rose from the middle of the floor. “Everything is in working order, but I can’t power the ship on my own. Not with the fuel cells drained.”
Powering the ship on his own? The fuel cells were drained— “You’re stuck here. You couldn’t leave if you wanted to.”
“Good thing I don’t want to leave, then,” A’ryk countered, disconnecting the wrist cable before walking to the middle of the room.
K’mi laughed. He was looking for a tropical world he heard was somewhere in this part of the galaxy. He ran out of batteries on this planet before we could find it.
Lyra marveled at how much the mogha found humor in the situation. K’mi wasn’t bitter about being stuck here, but thought it was funny how A’ryk touted his love for a world that was the complete opposite of what he sought.
“What did she say?” A’ryk said.
“Oh, nothing. Keeping going,” Lyra said, filled with mirth.
“Your ship might be scrapped, but one engine remains intact. I can use the elements in those fuel cells to recharge mine.”