by Lucia Ashta
“We don’t know if we can do it or not. We’ve never tried before.”
“Aye,” I added, “we’ve never been stranded on a hostile, alien planet before with no plan for our survival or eventual return to Origins.” I meant the barb for Aletox, although I doubted he’d care. Besides, I realized I was being a little cheeky. Dolpheus and I regularly put ourselves in difficult situations with no exit plan beyond trusting our gut wherever it led us.
Kai said, “But you think there’s a chance you might be able to make an entire transport machine of this size disappear? That’s... beyond incredible.”
“I’ve told you, Kai,” I said, “you can do incredible things too. I’ll—we’ll—teach you.”
He smiled then with such great enthusiasm that I added another reason to my long list of reasons to survive this blasted detour across space.
“And while we don’t know whether Dolpheus and I can do it—”
“That sure as hell won’t stop us from trying,” Dolpheus said, completing my thought. “Nothing ever happens unless you try to make it happen. Failure means you tried.”
“How touching,” Aletox said from his seat. He uncrossed his legs and then crossed the other one on top, waiting for all eyes to settle on him, I supposed. “Is this how you inspired thousands of soldiers to do our dear King Oderon’s bidding?”
It was a cruel attack that hit its mark. Dolpheus and I bore heavy consciences for doing what the laws of Origins—in other words, the laws of one vicious, calculating man, King Oderon—obliged us to do.
I didn’t want to give the dickhead, who knew precisely what he was doing to Dolpheus and me with his words, the satisfaction of witnessing their effect. I worked to keep my face calm and the rage I felt from showing in my eyes, the windows that liked to reveal every single thing about a person.
He slid down his seat further, something I imagined would be difficult to do since the seats had rigid, straight backs, but he made it look comfortable. He crossed his hands over his waist. “I’d like to see you try to make this ship invisible.” His voice implied that trying was all we’d manage.
But you didn’t stay lifelong soldiers in a life nearly four and a half centuries long without learning not to rise to bullies and their taunts. I wasn’t always good at following my own advice. But we were already in too much danger to allow myself to lose my head. And there was too much at stake. Too many people I cared about and assumed responsibility for, even if they hadn’t asked me to.
You think we could make him invisible while we’re at it? I heard Dolpheus’ voice.
I smiled wickedly, revealing my reactions to our inner dialogue, something I usually kept hidden.
I’d be most happy to try, I said, and Dolpheus chuckled.
I wanted Aletox to feel uncomfortable. And even though it was clear he realized Dolpheus and I were talking to each other silently, it didn’t work. Aletox was a different beast than most humans. I’d never had the displeasure to meet anyone else like him; he played by his own rules.
Lila groaned from my seat and I whisked my attention her way, where it was put to far better use than reacting to taunts, even if only inwardly. She was trying to stand.
I went to her, and although the distance I had to cover was small, every step was an effort. It wasn’t pretty, and we hadn’t even added on the challenges of a raging sun and wind that had a gigantic sandbox to play in.
I brought a hand to one of her arms while Kai lifted her from the other side. She said, “I’m fine. I don’t need your help.” But her words were empty and she did nothing more to decline our assistance. Instead, she leaned much of her weight on us, and I had to jut an urgent hand toward the wall of the ship to steady myself.
“Why’d you get up if we aren’t quite ready to go yet?” Kai asked her.
“Because I might die of old age sitting here listening to you all go on and on. We have a day, or night, or whatever of survival to get to. Let’s get to it before I whither away listening to you.”
Her point was fair enough, even if unnecessarily colorful. But she-dragons were colorful, and this one in particular wasn’t one to keep quiet about her discontent. She’d express herself fully and deny the hypocritical nature of criticizing us for doing the same.
“It’s good to see you’re feeling better,” Dolpheus said with a grin.
“Yeah, and it’s good to see you’re still standing around talking.” But she was obviously pleased at his attention. “Are we going to leave the ship or what? Or can you make it invisible with us still in it? How does that work?”
Dolpheus said, “We have no idea how it will work. But we should probably try to do it with the transport machine empty, right Tan?”
“Aye. It seems best.”
“And you’re going to be able to manage this in the middle of a sandstorm? Because it still sounds like there’s a battle for our eternalities going on out there,” Lila said. She was able to transport, so she understood the need for complete stillness to be able to tap into the energy of things. Without this stillness, it might not be possible for us to attempt anything that required we access the matrix that wove together the pieces of all life. Stillness was required for clarity and to extend beyond ourselves. I was convinced it was one of the reasons most Oers couldn’t do what we could. They were always running from one place to another, their comms attached to their heads, distracted by the superficial differences of life instead of seeing the threads that connected every single thing together.
Fuck, Tan, Dolpheus said. Lila’s right. This sandstorm will make it hard to focus, and if we can’t, we can’t do this.
Dolpheus sounded defeated, something he rarely did. Even though he had plenty of reason to be, his defeatism inspired me to rally him toward our potential. Olph, when have our lives ever been easy? We’re used to doing the impossible under impossible odds. This is no different.
But of course it was different. We were on a different planet. I continued, ignoring the contradictions in what I said. If anyone can do this, it’s us. Besides, you know us, we always like a challenge. Keeps life interesting, right? Well, there’s no greater challenge than surviving this experience.
Well that’s for fucking sure.
To everyone—except Aletox, I wasn’t going out of my way to include Aletox in anything—I said, “Let’s get out of here and Dolpheus and I can try to hide the machine from outside. We’ll do our best.”
“And if you can’t manage it?” Lila asked, leaning against the wall beside my seat.
I shrugged. “Let’s not go there unless we have to. After all, wasn’t it you who said we should finish with the talking and get to the doing?”
“Of course. I’m ready.” She stepped away from the wall and swayed a bit before holding herself upright.
“All right then,” Dolpheus said and began to hand out the bags of supplies. “Remember, don’t drink your water unless you absolutely have to.”
When Dolpheus tried to hand Aletox a bag, Aletox said, “You can just put it on the floor. I’ll wait in here.”
“Wait for what?” Dolpheus said, sounding genuinely confused.
“For you and Tanus to attempt your little plans.”
Dolpheus froze in place for several drawn out seconds, the bag hovering a foot from the floor. He let it drop with a dull thud. “Fine. As you wish. But when Tanus and I manage to do what we set out to do, as we almost always do, we’re not coming back in to get you.”
His fucking Vikas viper ass can roast in this vunter can for all I care, Dolpheus said to me, smart enough not to insult out loud the man who might’ve become the most dangerous man on Sand once we landed here. If we get this death trap to disappear, we’re walking away without him.
Deal, I said.
Dolpheus marched back to his own bag, flung it across his back, went to the door, and unsnapped the snaps that locked it closed. With a hand to the handle, he asked, “Is everyone ready?” His eyes regarded all of us but Aletox.
I t
ightened my bag across my back and nodded.
We all stood, bags on and wobbly, but filled with as much resolve as we could muster. But when quitting wasn’t an option, we had to move forward, one step at a time, no matter what those steps might be, as long as they carried us in the right direction. Or at the very least, not toward death.
Once we opened this door, death might swallow us before we had much of a chance to fight it. But we’d fight with all we had. I’d fight with my last gasping breath.
I reached for Ilara’s hand, squeezed it hard, and said, “We’re ready.”
9
Dolpheus turned the handle and put his shoulder into the door, the sheath at his waist clanging against it. When he pushed the door open, it was as if he was opening the door to hell itself.
A wave of hot air, as thick and solid as a physical wall, hit me so hard it knocked my breath loose. I was impressed that Ilara managed to spring into action despite it. She stepped around Dolpheus to push the pile of offending sand out the door with her boot before the wind could blow it back inside.
“Come on,” she said, taking control as the rest of us struggled with the heat and wind. She covered her mouth with the translucent shirt she wore over the more revealing sleeveless one underneath.
While Dolpheus, Lila, and Kai moved to follow her lead, stretching fabric or lifting hems however they could—Lila didn’t manage either in her soiled one-piece lab suit—I stood still, riveted, the breath catching in my lungs now for entirely different reasons. With the top layer pulled across her nose, a tantalizing section of Ilara’s bare stomach and the swells of her breasts were revealed.
“Tanus,” Dolpheus said, knowing better even than Ilara the affect she had over me. “Let’s go.”
I snapped my attention away from Ilara’s bare skin, even though I’d much prefer to remain there than take on the latest version of the impossible.
I pulled the hem of my shirt up to cover my nose and mouth and noticed that Lila’d given up on her lab suit, which was intentionally thick to protect the skin from accidents in laboratories.
I twisted awkwardly around the bag across my back and ripped the bottom from the back of my shirt. “Here,” I said to her, “Try this.”
“Thanks,” she replied, a word I didn’t think I’d heard her use before.
I nodded. Perhaps I was finally on track to evening the score between us. Circumstances had forced Dolpheus and me to kidnap her. But then we’d traveled to the splicing lab—which indirectly led us here, to Sand—mostly because she asked us to. Offering her a strip of my shirt wasn’t much, but it counted toward satisfying our debt to her.
Her attitude toward us had softened some in our jump across space. I wasn’t deluded into thinking it was a permanent change, more likely an effect of her current physical weakness. But I could hope. She was often belligerent, overbearing, and insufferable. But she sometimes showed a different facet of herself. There were things about her I could learn to like, and I found myself hoping she gave me the chance. She’d already proven herself trustworthy. On Origins, she could’ve turned Dolpheus and me in to the Royal Guard—or worse, to Aletox or Brachius—but she did neither.
Lila smiled weakly at me. I smiled back. Perhaps this could be the start of a friendship.
Dolpheus said, “The wind seems to have slowed for the moment. Now’s the time.”
“Make sure to close the door behind you,” Aletox said.
We didn’t spare Aletox a glance. While Dolpheus was right and the wind had quieted some, it was only in comparison to the howling ferocity earlier. Sand whipped and spun in small eddies of hot, oppressive air.
We hadn’t exited the ship yet and already my eyes watered against the brightness of the sun and the dryness of the air.
Dolpheus jumped down from the ship with a clank of swords, knives, and bag. He reached a hand up to help the rest of us down. Ilara went next. Graceful even in these ungraceful circumstances, she took Dolpheus’ hand and landed like a cat, with her balance intact even though it was clear she still wasn’t back to her usual self.
Kai signaled that Lila should go before him, and she did, allowing her hand to linger in Dolpheus’ by exaggerating every one of her physical weaknesses. When she swooned into his open arms, I laughed, but the wind drowned out the sound. I’d yet to meet a woman who could resist my best friend and renowned ladies’ man. Even though he was handsome enough, though not much more than me, there was something unquantifiable about him the ladies found irresistible. If I could bottle whatever it was that made ladies’ panties burst into flame at the sight of him, I’d have enough pure sand to fill the transport machine and bury Aletox in it.
Even stranded on an alien planet, Lila wasn’t going to miss her chance to be in his arms. “Are you feeling all right?” Dolpheus asked, sounding genuinely concerned. As intelligent as he was, he didn’t always see women’s manipulations for what they were. As an outside observer, I caught most of them.
Lila put the back of her hand to her forehead in the universal sign of the helpless damsel and leaned further into his arms, bulky bag on her back notwithstanding.
“Oh puh-lease,” Ilara muttered under her breath. Then louder, for Lila’s benefit, “Would you like to lean on me so Dolpheus can help the others down?” Ilara batted her eyelashes at the other woman, who reluctantly stood up.
Lila put a lingering hand against Dolpheus’ chest, slid it across the length of it, then finally stepped away, regret that she had to do so plastered all over her face. It seemed that she’d forgotten about the jump-caused sickness and the Sahara Desert—everything but him.
Kai leaned over to speak near my ear, “Are all women like this with him?”
“Most,” I said.
“Wow.”
“Aye. It’s even worse with the courtier women. They undress him with their eyes. It’s creepy.”
“I guess that would be, although I’m not sure I’d mind it.”
“Oh, trust me,” I said. “You’d mind it with some of them, the ones that look like they’d eat you alive if it could benefit them in some way.”
“I suppose so,” Kai said, but he didn’t sound as if he believed it. I imagined it to be the voice of inexperience. I’d been with enough women before Ilara to realize that there was only type of woman worth my time, and that was the woman who was worth loving.
My eyes veered to Ilara, who continued to press her shirt over her nose and mouth even though the wind remained less. There wasn’t a time or a place when I didn’t want her however I could get her.
“Kai,” Dolpheus said, Lila still hovering at his side. Dolpheus offered Kai a helpful hand and he took it.
I sensed Aletox’s stare against my back, but I refused to turn to confront it. Why did some people have to be so difficult? It seemed that life would become more enjoyable even for him if he’d divert from the path of asshole.
But that was his problem, not mine. I didn’t owe him a damn thing, father or not.
I hopped down from the ship, ignoring my friend’s hand in favor of his shoulder. “Thanks, Olph,” I said, words muffled by the hem of my shirt.
“Anytime, my friend,” he said and slammed the door shut. He didn’t spare Aletox a final look either.
“So how are you going to do this?” Ilara asked right away. The resolve in her voice reminded us all the time for leisurely discussions was over. Our bodies would have to cooperate and we’d need to move as soon as possible. We were across the universe in the middle of a scorching hot and dry nowhere.
I snapped my eyes to Dolpheus. He was thinking the same thing I was, I recognized it in the swirls of his brandy-colored irises. We’ll try to do it like we did with the force field, I said.
Try to change the makeup of the transport machine’s framework, aye, he said. Alter the physical manifestation of the thing.
To Ilara, I said, “It will be best if Dolpheus and I can sit in whatever quiet we can get out here, preferably in the shade.” I tilted my head
up. My eyes smarted even more as I located the sun, slightly off center from the middle. “Ilara, I take it the sun’s position means we still have a bit less than half a day left?”
“It looks like it, thank god,” she said.
Kai said, “And how long did you say the day was?”
“I didn’t say for sure. I’ll have to guess, but since none of you have any idea, it’s the best we’ll get.” She brought a hand over her brow and examined the sun. “I’m thinking we have six hours of light left, maybe seven, if we’re lucky. And if we’re unlucky, well, then we’ll have a lot less. Because, as I explained, the length of day is determined by the time of year.”
“All right,” I said. “Ilara, will you work with Kai and Lila to determine in which direction we should go once Dolpheus and I do our thing?”
“Sure,” she said. “But I’m warning you, it’ll be a wild guess. There are no landmarks to judge by, even if I were familiar with the area. Even if we had a compass, it wouldn’t help since I don’t know where exactly we landed. I have no way of knowing which direction is best. We might be only a few miles from a settlement in one direction and head away from it, into the vast nothingness of the Sahara, where the amount of water we have definitely won’t be enough. Any decision we make will be a shot in the dark.”
I went to her. She dropped her arms to her sides and her shirt fell back to her waist, revealing something more beautiful than patches of bare body. I grasped her shoulders and stared into those cosmic eyes I’d rather get lost in than talk. But with the sun beating upon my head, I remembered where my focus had to be. “When you first arrived on Origins, you told me you followed certain feelings within you that led you up that mountain, in that storm, and into that lake that you traveled through to reach me. You followed your intuition and it led you to me.”
“I did.”
“Well I do that kind of thing all the time, and so does Dolpheus. So even though it might seem like we’re lost with no real hope of getting out of here, that’s not true. You have this to guide you.” I trailed the tip of a finger from her hairline, down her forehead and the ridge of her nose, over her lips, until it reached the space between the swells of her breasts. The pulse of her beating heart traveled through my finger, exhilarating me.