by Hana Starr
Now that all the dangers were truly gone, he felt his shoulders slumping. Sadness gripped at his chest, and he leaned over to stare at his hands in his lap.
Small olive-tinged fingers covered his, and he tilted his head up a little to look into Bea’s inquisitive, dark eyes. “What’s wrong?” she prodded gently.
Knowing by now that he couldn’t resist her, Jax gave it up willingly. “It’s just that I was supposed to protect you. This was supposed to be my…my chance to prove myself.”
“What do you mean?”
They were probably not going to come out of this alive, he thought dourly, so he might as well just tell her the secret purpose behind his presence. “Peace Federation has a secret unit for covert operations in the war. I had to take one more test to prove myself worthy of being allowed in, and that was to safely guide a vessel to their destination. I was supposed to protect you and now we’re stuck here.”
Her small fingers closed around his as best they could. Electric tears clung to his budding eyelashes, which were quickly burnt away again. “Don’t worry,” she whispered up into his face. Her breath was warm and somehow sweet despite the fact that this had happened when they were suddenly awoken in the middle of the night. “Your mission isn’t over yet, right? If anything, I bet those guys will be real impressed that we survived this! And I’m not hurt. And I bet I won’t ever be hurt as long as you’re here. So, you haven’t failed.”
Military life wasn’t so easy as all that, but Jax just closed his eyes and let this small, strange little woman give him warmth by cuddling her side up to his. For just a little bit, he tried to believe in what she was telling him.
He couldn’t, but it made her happy to think that he did, and so he let it go. For Beatrice, there probably wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do.
Chapter Eight
According to the crackling, half-broken radio, all of Jax’s superiors were on board the ship, which would arrive in three days’ time. Beatrice felt very bad for the alien who had become so close to her after such a rocky start but she was relieved all the same that it wouldn’t take as long as she’d been afraid of. It was going to be miserable because all their perishable supplies had been destroyed in the crash, but she was amazed that she’d managed to pull it off at all.
It was like coasting into the base without fuel, only about a hundred times more risky and terrifying. And when the atmosphere of this desolate planet took over…She had been so scared. She wasn’t sure how she hadn’t been hurt, especially when she’d blinked out for the impact and then came to, only to find herself still standing in front of her screens like nothing had happened. And she was even more curious about how Jax had gone unscathed when he was buried under hundreds of pounds of material. Maybe that was just his rock-like constitution, bolstered by his electrical abilities, but it may as well have just been a miracle.
Jax wasn’t very happy about the situation either, but there was obviously no other life on this planet besides the stranded human and alien. There was nothing that could be done for it. She’d thought she’d managed to cheer him up a little bit when she reassured him that he wouldn’t fail his very important assessment, but now he’d slumped into desolation and silence again.
Honestly, she’d never known a man to pout as much as Jax did.
The other bad thing was that the damage was so extensive that all their clocks had been destroyed, too. Their only ways to keep time were by their bodily rhythms, although even those would begin to slow down and become unreliable as the days passed.
As a girl who lived her life by a clock and never once skipped a meal, and was always on time wherever she went, Beatrice was ready to go crazy after only an hour or two of sitting in silence with Jax. She was so exhausted that her body wanted to slump down into sleep right then and there on the rocks, but her mind wouldn’t stay quiet enough for it to actually happen.
At least, she hoped it had been a few hours. There was no way to tell.
Suddenly, Jax sat up straight.
“Huh?” Beatrice grunted, jostled by the abrupt motion. “I was so close to sleeping…”
Jax hissed at her through her complaints, which she knew was a signal to be quiet. Beatrice rolled her eyes because there was no way that he could actually be listening to anything; she tilted her head to humor him, though. And then her whole entire body stiffened, and a trail of fear stroked icy-cold down her spine.
No…that couldn’t be what she thought it was. That high-pitched, nasally whine just had to be a trick of the wind over some particularly neat edge of stone, right? Except, the whole planet was actually pretty still. The dust wasn’t even moving. Neither were her clothes and hair blowing around from the sort of wind power it would take to produce that sound.
More importantly, that impossible sound was dreadfully familiar. She and dozens of other shippers were exposed to it again and again every six months or so when they went through a mandatory re-training period to keep them on the cutting edge of shipping news. Of course, the videos were the same every year. And she’d never yet heard this sound outside of those grainy, static-sounding videos. But here it was now…
It was a one-rocket engine whine, the favored fuel cell for terrestrial vehicles once upon a time. Now, however, they were used mostly by a small sect of interplanetary bandits which fought for the rebels. Their force was diverse, but they were mainly composed of slug-like aliens called Yire. No one knew how many divisions of the sect there were, or where they called home base, but they showed up out of nowhere every so often to take out lone crafts or stragglers.
They were known as cowards who would flee at the first sign of a return fight, or reinforcements.
Normally, Beatrice would not have been afraid. She could just send out a call for reinforcements –the Yire would intercept the signal and then turn tail rather than risk it.
This time, things were different. She and Jax were alone. Their reinforcements were three days away. And what could they fight back with?
The whine grew louder, like cicadas screaming at dusk. Beatrice clamped her hands over her ears. Jax leapt to his feet and began to back away from the edge of the scree, grabbing at her collar to take her with him, but he was a bit too slow because in that moment, the Yire appeared.
They were every bit as hideous as they were in diagrams and blurry photographs, with dripping green skin and tentacle limbs. Their eyes were on stalks, and swiveling independently as one-by-one, they pinpointed where Beatrice and Jax were standing.
Her whole body froze. She couldn’t move. Jax felt her resistance and instead came forward to stand at her side. A low growl rose in the back of his throat, and she saw lightning gathering in his palms.
Their vehicles looked like flat, blocky motorcycles that glided above the surface rather than across it. Every single pair of eyestalks stared up at them. Nothing could be heard but for faint squishing sounds, and gasping.
Distantly, Beatrice realized she was providing the gasping.
These creatures were not just merciless: they were also cruel, and were said to delight in torture of other species.
She felt her mind start trying to hide from fear, backing away from the situation. Jax must have sensed it too, because he wrapped one arm around her shoulders and held out the other defensively. The light hairs on her arms prickled from the static, but she pressed her head against his shoulder and tried to hide against him. He must have understood, because he only held her closer.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “We’re safe up here. They can’t…”
Beatrice’s eyes went wide at how wrong he was but she didn’t even have enough time to tell him, before the Yire proved it for her. All wenty-three of their force suddenly revved their insect-whine engines, and then shot forward for the side of the scree.
Beatrice screamed and tried to run, but Jax held his ground. Terrified, she tried to push him away but he only continued to stay right where he was. It was obvious that he thought their vehicles couldn’t
make it. He didn’t know how they worked, though!
The entire pack swerved around the bottom of the cliff, heading around the other side. Jax started to smirk, perhaps believing this proved his point, when suddenly one vehicle broke away from the rest.
It mounted the steep incline with ease, shooting up it like a motorcycle on a ramp. The front of it slammed full-force into Jax’s shoulder. Blood sprayed, and lightning flew everywhere.
Beatrice screamed again, and they fell back over the edge. Jax wasn’t holding onto her anymore, and falling down all that way was like the ship crashing all over again. Holding her arms around her head and folding up her legs, she felt each contact of her body against the sharp outcroppings. Something tore in one place, and she went numb in another. Heat flooded over her arm. There was nothing to see but the spinning dark behind her tight-shut eyes.
And then she came to a stop against a strong, firm body.
“Jax!” she cried, because it felt very slick and wet. Terrified that he was badly injured, her eyes flew open –and she saw an expanse of dripping green right in front of her.
She had landed right in the arms of one of the Yire.
“No!” she screamed out. “Jax!”
Looking around wildly, kicking and flailing as impossibly powerful tentacles wrapped around her body, she saw him lying in the dust. His body was bent at an odd angle, and there was violet-tinted, clear blood spilling out across the stones beneath him. Then, the Yire surrounded him and she lost sight.
Her arms and legs were restrained now by tentacles. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t do anything but scream.
And scream she did, louder and louder, until her voice went hoarse, until she couldn’t make a sound at all, as the one-rocket vehicles rode away from the crash site. They were taking her further away from the remnants of everything she’d known for years.
Taking her away from Jax…
Right about the time that her voice broke entirely, Bea just let her body slump against the damp, mucus-y side of the slug who was carrying her. On and on they rode, off to the horizon hidden behind one of these damnable mountain ranges. The path was never straight and seemed to wrap in on itself so constantly that her mental map was quickly a mess. Too much of a mess to ever help her, if she escaped.
Why are they doing this? she thought desolately, tears streaking her face. Where are they taking me? Why didn’t they just kill me when they had a chance?
Their rumored penchant for cruelty came back to her. With a sinking feeling, she knew that she would probably be begging for death by the time this was over.
From out of nowhere, their hideout appeared. It took her a long time to notice it, so much so that she actually managed to feel surprised at how close it was when she finally did see it. It was hewn of the same brownish-grey stone which covered all of this unnamed planet out here in the Path of Nothing.
It was squat and rectangular, but very long. From one end to another, it was nearly as long as one of the ever-present mountain ranges. As they rapidly closed in on the hideout, she was able to pick out more details: the fanned tail-end of a stolen Peace Federation ship sticking out from behind the largest building, a line of dust-smeared vehicles out front, and finally a gaping opening just beyond.
The Yire who held her suddenly sped up ahead of the rest. Dropping his vehicle off behind the current line, he held her aloft and his eyestalks seemed to glow with pride and arrogance.
Beatrice was to be a gift, then. She was a conquest for some reason, to be handed off to someone else. But why? As a trophy? A slave?
Her skin crawled with revulsion to even just think about it. Then, still easily holding her up with tentacles that didn’t shake or tremble, the Yire started to creepily crawl its way through the entrance. Her gorge rose as she noticed it left a trail of slime behind it, but then she shook her head.
What’s wrong with me? Jax is hurt. I can’t count on him or anyone else to rescue me.
Then, she hesitated. Her hopes, which had been bolstered by her own dreaded optimism, were beaten back by a wave of doubt.
If I can be rescued, she amended dourly, I’m the only one who can rescue me. I have to pay attention.
Luckily, the interior of the base was much easier to navigate than the route there. The halls were blank and barren, but they were always straight and led true to their intended destination. This time, Beatrice successfully kept track of all the twists and turns.
Those were going to be important to remember, since there were no distinctive markings anywhere.
Occasionally, other Yire watched from within doorways. All were silent. She also saw a few other types of aliens, which did make sounds and murmur amongst themselves, but they always stood apart from the slug-like aliens as though one did not wish to be associated with the other.
Finally, the slug carrying her came to the only sealed entrance she’d seen so far. Her heart leapt up into her throat, and she squirmed around with ugly nervousness, but when it slid the stone open, she saw that it was just an empty room. The walls and floor were smooth, lacking features of any kind. There was a single flickering light in the ceiling, obviously old and on its last legs.
The tentacles wrapped around her body contracted, and then there was a sensation of falling once again, before another hard contact as she hit the flat ground.
When she managed to look up, the door was shut.
Standing up and rubbing her side, thinking very sourly that all this was going to leave her with a fear of heights or something, she went over to the door. The light was so bad that she had to feel around with her fingers, but her fears were confirmed. There were no creases on this side, which meant she couldn’t even try to open it.
All she could do now was wait and try to formulate a plan for what she would do when the door opened again. Yet, when she sat down, all she could think of was Jax. Weeks of being at his side left her feeling so much more alone than she’d felt on all of her solo trips thus far.
She missed him.
Chapter Nine
The first thing Jax thought upon having a two-ton vehicle slam into his left side was that Bea had been right when she wanted to move. He thought that he knew better than her but he should have taken the precaution anyway. Now he was flat on his back with one arm entirely numb, ribs certainly cracked, and his knee folded up at a painfully awkward angle under his body.
The whole world was pain and chaos. As he lay there, utterly stunned, several of the slug-like aliens –weren’t they called Yire or something? It had been ages since he was tested on all the common races which made up the resistance to Peace Federation- swarmed down upon him. He heard screaming, and it pierced him straight through the chest like a laser beam.
“Beatrice!” he cried, or at least tried to. He didn’t have enough breath for it. He could hardly turn his head, and when he managed to all he saw was an expanse of filthy green. And then all he saw was dark blue, as his anger spiraled rapidly out of control. Struggling, he started to work his knee out from under his body.
A coil of slimy green wrapped around his wrist.
In an instant, he dropped his control entirely. The reward outweighed the risk in this one simple scenario, and he just dropped all the normal aspects of casting his lightning that he usually considered. There was no time.
It was like a lightning bolt dropped from the sky and struck his body. Crackling arcs of blue leapt outwards across the ground.
The slugs vocalized, which he had never heard of before. The sound was hellish and panicked, and then slipped and slid all over themselves to get away from him. Luckily for them –and unfortunately for him- that electricity is drawn towards the ground through the most direct route. Since he was on the ground himself, there was no danger of them being hurt. He was about to fix that.
Or he was going to try, anyway. Staggering up, Jax realized just how hurt he was. His people were fast healers, and he supposed he could break into the supplies on the broken ship if he had to, but that wasn�
��t going to help him right now. His left arm was out of commission, and his left ankle felt wrenched all the way up to the waist. His ribs strained with the movement, and a waterfall of fluid pattering down that same side and soaking his feet told him that somewhere in that stew of numbness and pain, he was ripped up pretty bad.
Beatrice was still screaming, but it was fainter now. She was being taken away, the horrible whine of many engines ricocheting across the mountains. Hs heart ached. His brain rebelled against letting her go, but he was no use to her dead.
Summoning static from the air, Jax shut off the part of his mind that was chasing after her, and focused on his adversaries. Four of them had remained to face him, three of which had reclaimed their vehicles while the other two were simply on the ground. None of them seemed to have weapons on them, which was surprising.
Their lack of weapons was not quite as surprising in the next moment however, because the nearest slug whipped out a tentacle. It was like rubber, stretching as it lashed out, whistling through the air.