Paradise 21

by Aubrie Dionne

  …

  Striker opened the hatch and stepped onto the platform of the elevator. Strange cooing noises, like whistles on the wind, surrounded him as he descended into the belly of the ship. The coral closed over his head.

  Were the gentle tones birdcalls? Striker knew no desert buzzard could find its way into the elevator shaft. The platform hit the bottom, and the door opened to the main corridor. The sounds came through an internal speaker, resonating all over the ship.

  The dead aliens spoke to him. He looked around the walls with wonder. They must have recorded their voices into the mainframe. The pattern of sounds repeated, like an ongoing message. He wished he’d found a phonetic guide.

  Bright sapphire light illuminated the once-dim corridors. Feeling as though he walked through an entirely different ship, he headed for the main shaft to the central control room, where Aries had found him soldering a broken leg on one of the high stools. The screens on the walls teemed with symbols and sky charts of systems he’d never seen before as the ship rebooted and came alive. Although Striker had no linguistic skills, he could break through code, and if he figured out the patterns in the symbols, he could learn to fly the ship.

  Excitement flashed through him and his hands shook as the blue light pulsed around him, casting the controls in a dreamy indigo glow. Striker chanced pressing a panel, and a blueprint of the ship appeared on the main screen. Symbols flashed around it, probably reporting diagnostic evaluations, but one area of the ship lit up brighter than the others. Striker drew his finger across the screen and pressed on the spot catching his eye. The blueprint enlarged that particular region and he recognized the egg hatchery down in the belly.

  Was it a warning? Striker left the control room and descended into the lower level, jumping two and three steps at a time, afraid the egg chambers might open. Since they’d lasted this long, he didn’t want to be the cause of their destruction. He needed to be sure he’d secured their contents before taking off.

  Mist flowed around his feet as he opened the door to the egg chamber and stumbled in, pressing his hot hands against the cool glass. The eggs sat exactly where he’d left them, eternally suspended in airtight containers and fog. Wiping a crust of glimmering specks from the glass, he pressed his forehead against the clear space to peer into the closest chamber.

  The egg glowed in the dim light like a tiny, stolen moon. As the ship awakened around him, the light brightened and air circulated on the other side of the glass. Tiny dust particles swirled up around the base like shimmering flies. The egg twitched, a slight teetering off center and back again, and Striker pushed his face closer, his breath blooming in foggy spurts on the glass, and waited, watching for another movement.

  “Come on,” he whispered under his breath, expecting the shell to crack and a feathery arm to reach out. Nothing happened. The egg lay as still as a fossil. Maybe he’d imagined the movement. He sighed, running his fingers through the wave of hair that always fell just above his eyes and tried to absorb all of the changes taking place around him. If it had moved, then his hope that some of the eggs were still alive was justified.

  He brushed dust off the glass of another specimen as a new litany of cooing noises erupted on the speakers. This time the sounds were more persistent, more closely spaced, with a heightened tone. A screen flashed on in the egg chamber and Striker turned to face it.

  It was another blueprint of the ship, only this time the lighted area centered on the top, near the communications tower. A blue light flashed around the hatch.

  Could it be someone trying to get in? The warning coos made Striker’s blood bubble with anxiety and he left the egg room, leaping up the stairs to meet the intruders. As he reached the elevator, the platform rose and he jumped, grabbing a handhold. He pulled himself up as it climbed to the surface. If danger waited above, he’d have only his fists for defense. His metal rod was still in the control room.

  The blazing desert sun cracked through as the hatch opened and Striker emerged from the ship and stepped off the platform. Four people stood beneath him in the sand, but his eyes focused on one as dark emotions seized his heart. He’d thought he’d never see her again, but there she was. The pain she’d caused came back, fresh and sharp.

  “Tiff. What are you doing here?”

  “Striker.” Her voice caught in her throat like a cough. His revulsion at seeing her must have come across because she looked away and breathed deeply before taking a step closer.

  “Hold it now.” Drifter caught her arm and raised a laser gun at him. Striker knew then why they’d decided to pay a visit.

  “The map.” Striker shot Tiff another nasty stare. “You’ve come back for me because you found the map.”

  “That’s right.” Drifter cocked his gun and stared through the site. “You’re going to tell us how to break the code. We’d like to have your ship, too.” The lanky man spit on the ground, and his lips turned into a self-satisfied grin.

  Not only had these lowlifes abandoned him here, but now they’d come back to use him and steal his ship, all five years of his hard work. He wished he had an arsenal of laser guns, but blasting them with all that power still wouldn’t ease the sense of injustice and betrayal in his heart. Striker considered how long it would take for the hatch to close before the platform reached the belly of the ship. They’d probably all be able to jump down with him, and he didn’t want them wrecking his only hope to get Aries back.

  Striker stared Drifter down as coolly as he’d once stared down Aries’ colonial officer. To his surprise, the oldest member of the group, a scraggly-haired man, held up his own gun, turning on Drifter.

  “Put down your gun, Drifter, or I’ll blow a hole in your gut,” the old man said.

  “Reckon?” Drifter seemed more angry than worried. “What are you doing?”

  “Choosing sides.” The old man looked up at Striker and flashed a black-toothed grin. “Your pop’s hired me for ya, Striker. I’m on your side. I’ve got the map. Brought it to you.”

  Drifter moved to fire, but Tiff pointed her gun at his head. “Put the gun down.”

  “Tiff?”

  “I’ve chosen my side as well, and you’re not on it.” She gestured to the younger boy, and he raised his gun against Drifter as well, although not as boldly as the others. She raised her thin eyebrows. “Mutiny. It’s three against one. Even if you shoot one of us, the others will kill you.”

  Drifter swore and put his gun down. “Well, aren’t you the fickle ones.” He shook his head at Tiff. “Miss Opportunist here has just chosen her man.”

  Tiff spoke to the boy. “Loot, take away Drifter’s gun and tie up his hands.” When she looked at Striker, there was a glimmer of pleading in her gaze. “We need your help. Our ship is wrecked and we can’t decode the map.”

  “Wait a minute now.” Striker felt as though his head had been struck with lightning and all the dust from the past had been stirred up to clog his eyes. Emotions swirled round and he couldn’t separate the good from the bad. If his father had sent the old man they called Reckon, then he had a duty to make sure at least one of the pirates had a way back to the station. The boy looked young and innocent, but the thought of helping Tiff and Drifter after they’d abandoned him made no sense. “You think you can come back and I’ll help you out?”

  Tiff looked away as if he’d hurt her and Striker wanted to shout at her until she woke up to the fact she’d hurt him. Not the other way around. She’d always thought about herself, a single-minded, egocentric point of view.

  She looked at him with a steely gaze. “We’re asking nice, and we’re the ones with the laser guns, remember?”

  As much as his hate ran deep for Tiff, his love for Aries was greater. As he looked down at them, an idea flashed through his mind. Aries was his goal. He needed help to get her back. Striker looked into the easterly wind to where the New Dawn had disappeared.

  He crossed his arms. “Let’s make a deal. Those colonists have stolen someone from me, an
d I’m going to do whatever it takes to get her back. You help me rescue her, and I’ll fly you all out of this hellhole and to Refuge. My word on it.”

  “What?” Drifter asked. “Go after the same colonists who murdered all those lizard men and baked their homes? No way. No way are we going up against them. Not for some woman.”

  Striker knew they had no choice. He called their bluff. “Then there’s no deal. That’s where I’m headed, and I’m not going to crack that map open and go to Refuge without her. You might as well kill me now and be done with it. Before you do, keep in mind I’m the only one that can fly this alien ship and decode the coordinates. Don’t worry, though, you’ll have a lovely life here on this rock. I should know.”

  They stood before his sarcastic wrath, squirming in indecision. Tiff’s face soured as if she’d swallowed poison. The boy’s eyes darted back and forth from Tiff to Reckon, and the old man held his gun as though it were his lifeline. Drifter glowered.

  “What do you say, guys?” Tiff’s voice came out weak. She looked as though she struggled to hold herself together. Striker knew her well enough to read through her broken façade. Something about his speech had thrown her. Was she jealous at his plan to go after a woman? Or just afraid of the colonists?

  The boy looked up to Striker and gave him a nod. “I say we go. We owe it to him if he’s going to fly us home.”

  Reckon nodded as well. “I’ve already chosen my side.”

  Tiff cringed like a cornered desert rat.

  Drifter tried to weasel his way in. “Don’t do it, Tiff. He’ll kill us all for some woman. Come back to me and we can sail away together on that ship.”

  “No.” Tiff shook her head. Her words were tense through gritted teeth. “None of you can fly it and none of you can decode that map.” She looked back to Striker. “I’m with you. Let’s go.”

  That was it. No further apology for marooning him here. Then again, Striker hadn’t expected one. Tiff had never been good at apologies.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Stolen Heart

  “Now, Aries, tell me again about this mysterious man on Sahara 354.”

  The psychologist raised her pen above a clipboard and studied Aries like she was a specimen in a lab experiment. The doctor, with her puffy hair styled in the old-woman fashion of her parents’ generation, reminded Aries of Mrs. Tanker, one of her classroom teachers who had erased her drawings of plants and animals on her lap screen. Aries exhaled slowly. She’d already explained three different times with three different doctors, and yet this woman persisted, trying to catch any inconsistencies in her memory. “He’s a space pirate. His crew exiled him there five years ago.”

  “On Sahara 354?”

  “Yes, Doctor Pern.”

  The tight-lipped woman scribbled something down and peered through her red-rimmed glasses. “Tell me, how could he have beaten the New Dawn halfway across the galaxy? You know as well as I do we left those not fortunate enough to be chosen for the New Dawn behind three hundred years ago.”

  “He found a wormhole and jumped through space.” Aries knew how crazy she sounded, but talking about Striker was all she had left and the only way she’d find out any information as to his whereabouts.

  “I see. None of the search and rescue teams reported finding a human of any kind.”

  Aries scrunched up her bed sheet in each fist and her voice rose. “That’s because Astor Barliss deleted it from the records and told his men to keep their mouths shut.”

  The doctor put her pen down and leaned forward. “You mean to tell me a highly respected lieutenant lied and covered up evidence in his reports?” Her eyes dared Aries to challenge her.

  Aries sat back and crossed her arms. “Yes.”

  The doctor shook her head and stood up, jotting something else down on the clipboard. “I’m going to put you on another medication. Let’s start with Clozaril.”

  “Will it get rid of my bad dreams?”

  Doctor Pern peered over the rim of her glasses in a cold stare. “No, it’s for hallucinations. It’s the most effective antipsychotic available aboard the New Dawn and in short supply, mind you. Of course, we’ll have to monitor you for symptoms of agranulocytosis—”

  “Please.” Aries stood up from the bed. “I don’t need any more drugs. I need to get out of here. Please, you’ve got to believe me.”

  The doctor ignored her and pressed the door panel. As the metal disappeared, she gave Aries one last look filled with pity. “You’re very sick, my dear. The only way for you to secure your release is to prove to us you’re cured of your delusions.”

  The woman disappeared with a swirl of white fabric. Aries slumped on her bed, heaving a sigh of frustration. Her emotions toward Striker ran so deeply, they were rooted in her heart. She couldn’t deny them as much as she couldn’t deny his existence to anyone. Even though she remained adamant with the doctors, her hope of seeing him again diminished with every day that passed. A dark, dreary urge to waste away in the cell threatened her resolution. The only thing she held onto was the fact Striker was real. By giving up her freedom, she may have saved him from Barliss’ wrath.

  Aries pressed her forehead against the wall and closed her eyes, feeling the rumble of the engines underneath her as the New Dawn coursed through space, taking her farther away from the man she loved.

  A new certainty dawned on her. If Barliss had killed Striker, he would have used that to break her. He would have shown her the evidence and forced her to face the fact that Striker was gone. But Barliss hadn’t mentioned him.

  Maybe Striker was still out there somewhere, still alive.

  …

  Tiff gazed up at her former lover. He stood on the alien ship like some demigod on his chariot, the wind whipping his dark hair across the strong cheekbones of his suntanned face. When she’d first seen him again, his presence had stopped her breath. She couldn’t believe she’d left such a gorgeous man behind.

  Of course, learning about his mission to recover another woman stung like a scorpion’s tail right through the middle of her heart. When he looked at her, all she saw was the hate she had put there.

  His voice was hard and gritty. “Listen up. If you’re coming with me, then you have to accept me as your captain. Drifter, Tiff and you, what’s your name?”

  “Loot, sir.”

  “Okay, Loot, as well. Start digging up as much of the ship as possible. We need to clear the engines and the wings first. Reckon, I’d like to talk to you down in the hatch.”

  “Yes, sir.” He nodded, wispy hair blowing around in the breeze. “Captain, sir.”

  Tiff averted her eyes as Reckon passed her with a pleased smirk plastered on his face. Taking out her frustration on the nearest target, she yanked Drifter forward by his shirt collar. “Come on. You heard the man. Let’s get started.”

  She cast one last, melancholy look in Striker’s direction. He didn’t seem to notice her. Clasping Reckon on the back, the two of them descended into the ship’s belly and the hatch closed with a final snap. She wanted to be there under Striker’s arm instead of Reckon, but he’d left her in the desert heat, about to haul sand up to her waist.

  “I’m not helping anyone get anywhere.” Drifter whipped his head back to fling his long hair out of his eyes, since his hands were still tied behind his back. “Go ahead, Tiff. Go help your new man.”

  Tiff reached her breaking point. Using her grip on his shirt, she threw him down in the sand. “Fine. I’m not untying you.”

  She took a swig from a bottle of water and waved Loot over. The boy smoothed his hands over the helm of the starship in awe.

  “Loot.” Her voice came out weak and she hated herself for being so vulnerable. She hated Striker for loving another woman, and she hated Drifter for convincing her to follow him five years ago. Loot ignored her, entranced by Striker’s new digs. She wondered if she’d lose him, too.

  Tiff dug her hands into the sand around the ship. They had no tools, so she used her arms,
pushing sand back. As she looked down the length of the hull, the enormity of the job overwhelmed her. A mound of sand covered the bottom half of the ship and she couldn’t tell to what length the hull ran underground.

  Tiff decided to focus on one spot above the right wing. Sweat dribbled down the indent in her back. She pushed heaps of sand off the wing. Loot waded through the sand and joined her, shoveling with a piece of metal he’d pulled from his backpack. His presence calmed her. Maybe she hadn’t lost everything, after all.

  “As good a guy as he looks, I know you better than to think you’re gonna follow him into the colonists’ clutches.” He huffed, throwing a handful of sand over his shoulder. His voice came down to a whisper. “What’s the plan, Tiff?”

  She shot a glance back, but Drifter was too busy sleeping in the shade of the hulk to pay attention to anything. She leaned in close, wiping sand from her cheeks. Like the heap of sand burying the ship, her plan seemed enormous and impossible. She had to take it step by step.

  “I’m going to get Striker back. Convince him he doesn’t need to go after this other woman. Then we all go home, free.”

  She expected Loot to support her, but instead the boy shook his head.

  Tiff paused, knee-deep in sand, and clapped her hands together to free the grit working its way into the cracks in her skin. “What is it?”

  He bit his lip as though he wondered whether or not to tell her.

  “Come on, Loot. You know you can tell me anything and I’m not gonna get mad. I’m not like Drifter. I won’t hold it against you.”

  Loot sighed. “It doesn’t look like it’s gonna go that way. That man’s determined. I saw it in his eyes. Whoever this woman is, she’s stolen his heart.”

  “And his common sense.” A gust of wind shot sand into her mouth and eyes and she coughed and spat. “Don’t you think I can win him over?”

  The boy shrugged. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “I’m a pirate. Someone stole something from me, and I’m gonna steal him back.”

  …