by Rebecca Pond
Emma stood in one spot just staring at the wreckage, thanking her lucky stars that she finally made it there. But, then she wondered if anyone had survived the crash and needed help to get out of the ship. It was that last thought that powered her forward one last time. She needed to find out if anyone was still alive inside the ship, and if they were, she needed to see if they could send a message for rescue.
She edged closer to the ship on her makeshift crutch, careful of any sharp pieces of metal that might cut her foot. The last thing she needed to do was cut her foot wide open. On the left side of the ship the main door was sitting slightly ajar with red and yellow wires hanging down over it like a curtain. Through the crack in the door she could see a fraction of the interior of the ship. She stood there contemplating whether or not she should try to pry open the broken metal door and see if anyone was inside the ship, or remain just outside the door and yell as loud as she could into the ship to see if she got any kind of response.
Taking a deep breath, she decided to go ahead and see if she could get the door to open any further. Balancing on her good leg and using her hip as leverage, she placed her hands on the open part of the door and shoved it as hard as she could. To her astonishment, the door slid open a few more inches. Relief washed over her as she continued to push the door again until it wouldn’t go any further. At least it opened wide enough for her to be able to squeeze through and get into the rear of the ship.
Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim light inside. More wires hung from the ceiling of the ship while anything that hadn’t been secured was now tossed throughout the cabin. Looking in the direction of the front of the ship, Emma could see that the immense windshield had been shattered and was lying in tiny pieces everywhere she stepped. The sound of the glass crunching under her feet seemed incredibly loud to her ears. She cautiously stepped through the glass and other debris on the floor of the ship in order to make her way to the pilot’s seats. They were still intact at the front. She prayed that if anyone was still sitting in the seats, they would still be alive.
Her bad leg slipped without warning on a pipe of some sort. It rolled out from under her foot, pulling her hurt leg with it. She instinctively put her hands out to brace for the fall and then felt the tiny shards and slivers of glass that embedded into her hands causing her to scream out in pain.
“Shit!” Now she had two bleeding palms to go along with the bleeding leg. “Son of a…” she was just about to finish her next bout of cursing when she heard the sound of a moan come from one of the pilot seats. She froze in mid stance as she waited to see if she would hear the sound again. She wanted to make sure it was a person and not an animal that inadvertently found its way on the ship.
“You really are dumb, Emma,” she was talking to herself again. “This isn’t Earth, and that sound could have come from God knows what kind of an animal.” Her thoughts flashed back to the animal that had chased her through the forest the night before.
Getting up to her feet, she continued forward to move forward until she reached the back of the pilot seats. She slowly moved her head between the twin seats to look for the source of the moaning sound. What she saw shocked her to the core. Two ginormous men with heads slouched over were in their seats with their bodies still held upright by the seat belts. With shaking hands, she moved forward to feel for a pulse in the neck of one of the men. His skin was warm to the touch, and she could definitely feel his heartbeat. She smiled as she reached for the second man. This one seemed to have a head wound and his head was bent to the side. Touching his neck was easy, even though there was a lot of blood that must have come from the head wound. Once again, she found his pulse and felt the warmth of his skin.
“Hey,” she shook the shoulder of the older man. “Hey, wake up. Hey!” She shook his shoulder a bit harder this time. He moaned loudly but remained hunched over. “Excuse me Sir, but you need to wake up.” She was talking really loud now to get the stranger to come around. The second man still hadn’t moved a muscle when she glanced over to him. When she looked over to the older man, she found him trying to push himself away from the control panel.
“Hey, it’s ok.” Emma helped him ease himself back into his seat until his head rested against the back of the seat. His eyes were still closed, but his lips were moving as if trying to say something to her. She pushed her body forward as much as she could so that she could turn around and face the man. She had to place her butt on part of the lower control panel in order to so, but at least she was now able to see the face of the man that sat before her.
He was much older than she was and appeared sickly, as if he hadn’t had enough to eat for a really long time. His hair was salt and pepper grey and cut roughly very close to the scalp. A long cut ran from his right eyebrow down to the middle of his cheek, and must have stopped bleeding on its own. His arms and neck were covered in small cuts that must have come from when the windshield shattered, but overall, there didn’t appear to be any injury that was life threatening. The seat restraints had done a good job of preventing him from going through the windshield as the ship crashed.
She reached out again to touch the man’s uninjured cheek with the tip of her finger. “Hey, wake up. Are you ok?” Using the back of her hand she gently patted the side of his face. “What’s your name?” As she spoke the man’s eyes began to flutter open.
Piercing purple eyes tried to focus on her face. She gasped in surprise at the color of his eyes. She had seen these eyes before.
“Gods, my head hurts!” Zirlo raised the palm of his hand to his forehead. He rubbed his hand all over his face, and yelped when he came across the cut, “Damn that hurts.” He looked at his bloody hand.” He could hear the soft sound of a woman’s voice just next to him. He looked in her direction.
“It’s not that bad.” She smiled at him.
His eyes found her face and he was left speechless for a moment before asking, “Are you one of the females?” Zirlo scanned her face. She was a rare beauty.
She looked confused at first and then her eyes lit up when she understood what he was asking her, “You mean one of the Earth females? Yes, I am one of them.”
Zirlo nodded his head at her reply then asked, “Can you help me out of this harness?” He moved to unlock the belts that were restraining him to the seat, but didn’t have enough strength. His body was exhausted and couldn’t go anymore.
“Sure, then maybe we can try to get the other guy out.” She reached out to the struggling man. “What’s your name?” she asked as Zirlo stood up.
“Zirlo, they call me Zirlo.”
“Well Zirlo, do you think you can make it to the outside without my help? I am afraid that with my injury, I may actually need you to help me out.” She pointed down to her ripped pants leg.
“I’m ok. I will help you with Lars. He doesn’t look too good.” She watched as he leaned over the seat to grab Lars and sit him up straight, and he didn’t do it gently. “Lars, wake up you asshole.” Zirlo continued to pull hard at the man’s arm. “Your ass better wake up! You are the one that got us into this mess.”
Lars suddenly jerked his arm away from the old man’s grasp. “Son of a Bitch!”
“What’s wrong with him?” Emma tried to look but her view was blocked by the big man.
Zirlo sat back in his seat to rest, “It doesn’t look good at all, and it’s going to be a hell of a job to get his ass out of here with just the two of us.” He looked at her with an odd look. “Come to think of it, why are you out here alone?”
The heat rose to her face in embarrassment, it could have been the fever she was starting to feel, but she felt the look of shame cross her face, “I umm… I got lost in the forest yesterday.”
“You got lost in the forest yesterday! You were out here, all alone at night? How in the hell did you get stuck out here all night? Where is your mate?” She could tell he was becoming angry by the tone of his voice.
Emma was now feeling as if she was being put on
trial. She didn’t know this man from Adam, and she didn’t feel the need to have to explain anything to this man. It was none of his business anyway. Hell, she found him in the middle of nowhere, so why should he be questioning her?
“Well?” Apparently he would not give up until he had an answer.
“My mate and I had a fight, and soon after I decided to go for a walk. I ended up getting lost. Then, I was chased by some freaking ugly ass pig-like animal that chased me until I fell down a big steep hill.” She blurted the story out in one breath. “Does this really matter right now? I mean, shouldn’t we be trying to get your friend out of his seat and check if he is ok?” She was trying to change the subject.
“You’re right, but we will continue this conversation after we get him out. I want you to know that this man is NOT my friend.” Emma could tell that the last words were spoken with anger and maybe hate. Emma and Zirlo worked together as a team to get Lars out of the seat, and then move him out of the ship. It was rather difficult to move the large man who was probably bigger and heavier than the both of them combined. By the time they managed to get the injured man out of the ship, they were both covered in sweat and blood.
Outside the ship Lars was lying down on the scorched ground. Emma hobbled back into the ship to see if she could find anything like a blanket to cover the man, and maybe a first aid kit to try and clean away some of the blood.
“Little female, what are you doing in there?” Zirlo called out to her.
“I am trying to find a blanket and maybe a container with water for the injured man.” She hobbled her way back out of the ship and over to where the two men were. She held out the items in her hand, “I found this stuff in there.”
“I was beginning to think that maybe you had gotten lost again.” Zirlo smiled slyly at the strange creature that was helping to take care of a man he felt deep hatred for now. Upon examination of Lars, Zirlo could automatically see that the man suffered a broken leg in the crash along with several other lacerations to his face, arms, and upper torso.
“Can you somehow rip the leg of his pants open Emma, so that I can try and splint the leg? Maybe there is a knife in that health kit you found.” He turned his attention to his own wound for a moment because the cut along his face had started to bleed again and the blood was running into his eye.
“Here, let me do that.” Emma scooted over to Zirlo and took the soft gauze that he had in his hand. When she started to blot the blood she pressed as gently as she could. She must have thought that pressure would stop the bleeding better so she pressed hard against his face. He hissed and backed his head away from her hand.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to hurt you. Here, can you hold this a minute.” He took the gauze in his hand and pressed into his cut with a pressure that he could handle. She started to root around in the first aid kit and found some more clean gauze and what looked like an antiseptic solution. “We are going to have to do something about this gash. It’s pretty deep in several places, and on my planet it would require stitches.” She started to pour the liquid on the gauze and blot it softly against the cut as she asked him, “How did you manage to crash?”
“That fool over there was steering us off course away from Theron for some reason that is still unknown to me. I started to suspect something was wrong with his story when the warriors at the space station wanted him to simply identify himself, but he refused to tell them who we were. They gave him three chances, and still he refused. Then in a last ditch effort to leave, he turns the craft away from Theron and drives straight towards a worm hole. It took all of my might and several swift punches to keep him from his path. Turns out that I activated the auto-landing sequence in the process, and here we are.” He sat absolutely still as the young woman tenderly attended to him. Whoever she belonged to was a lucky warrior indeed.
“Do you think anyone saw you crash out here?”
She looked into his deep purple eyes as he said, “Oh, I am positive of it.”
Emma dug into the kit again and came up with something that looked like band aids. Opening the package carefully so that she wouldn’t drop it on the ground, she pulled the gauze away from his head and replaced it with the band aid. Several actually, because it was a very long cut that marred his handsome face. After she finished placing the bandages, she turned her attention to the man lying face down on the ground next to them.
As she worked on Lars in silence, she could feel Zirlo’s eyes watching her every move. It was actually starting to make her a bit nervous to have this much of his attention, but she continued working on the other man. The sudden sound of his voice startled her out of her quiet thoughts.
“What did you say the name of your planet was?”
She kept her eyes on the wounds on Lars’ face as she dabbed them with clean gauze, “I’m from Earth.” She gave the sleeping man the same gentle treatment she had given her first patient.
“But…how did you come to be with the Theron people?”
“I was abducted by your men, and then a couple days later I was sold at an auction.” She tried hard to keep her voice steady as she thought back to what she experienced just a few of weeks ago. The reaction she got from Zirlo was not what she had expected.
“Abducted and sold? I understand that we were short on women for mates because of the war, but why would the warriors resort to kidnapping females from other worlds and then sell them?” Zirlo was outright disgusted by what Emma had just revealed to him. Never had he thought his people would choose to do such a thing. Taking unsuspecting females for their own needs was not how the Therons were taught to live. They were a proud and strong race and he would make it his priority to uncover every detail as to why they had to resort to such a heinous act.
“How long has it been since you were taken from your planet and brought here to Theron?” He wanted to get as much information from of her as he could so that he could formulate all of the necessary questions that he would ask the council.
Before Emma answered, she needed to sit down and get off her leg. The throbbing had only intensified since she had come across the ship. But before she said anything else, she was going to get a fire started. She didn’t want a visit from any unwelcome animals, especially freakishly oversized mutant pigs to happen upon them, because it was fast becoming dark again.
She dug in the health kit, but didn’t find any matches.
“I will tell you anything you want to know on one condition.”
Zirlo eyed her suspiciously, “And what would that be?”
“Do you know how to build a fire?”
A smile spread across his freshly bandaged face, “That, little female, is one of the skills that I am excellent at doing.” He stood and searched around the wreckage, in order to gather branches that would keep the fire burning for a long time. Living in a prison camp had taught him many things, and building a fire was one of them. If you didn’t have a fire, you would be in the dark for most of your miserable life there.
Once he had the fire roaring, and it didn’t look like it would going out, he sat down near the edge of it and called for Emma to come sit near him.
“Emma, come let me look at your leg. I can see the wound is causing you a lot of pain.” He patted the ground next to him and reached for the health bag. “Did you rinse the wound or anything?” he spoke as he positioned himself better to clean her leg.
Emma sat down next to him on the ground uneasily. She was exhausted and her whole body was aching. She just wanted to go home, to Brylon’s home. “I didn’t have any water when I first injured it, but I did try to pick out as much dirt as I could. I think it might be getting infected.” She bit her tongue when Zirlo peeled away the fabric of her jeans that had adhered to the gash, and this caused the scab that had started to form over the wound to peel away that drew fresh blood.
“Geez that hurts,” she said through her clenched teeth. Spots danced before her eyes as she breathed through the stinging pain.
“I am sorry.
I didn’t mean to hurt you, but your wound doesn’t look very good.” He poured some of the water they found in the ship, and then took one of gauze pads and patted around the outside edges of the gash. “There’s not much else that I can do for it other than keep it clean. Hopefully we will be found soon and we can all get some proper medical attention.”
A low moan came from Lars as the two of them sat by the fire. The man was out cold from hitting his head on the way out the ship. He really needed to stay out if he knew what was good for him. The leg that was broken was in awful condition. The femur of his right leg had snapped in half and was protruding from the skin. Zirlo had stopped the flow of blood with tourniquet wrapped near his groin, but there wasn’t much he was going to be able to do with the bone. He didn’t have the strength left in his arms to be able to pull the bone back into place then splint it correctly. The best thing he could do was to keep the area clean and still with a makeshift splint.
“I could kill that bastard. I should just let him die,” Zirlo said as he tied some strips of fabric around his leg and a straight branch that he laid against his upper thigh. Emma seemed surprised with the amount of venom that spilled forth from his mouth.
“What’s his name?” Emma asked.
“Lars. He was in the prison with me. I thought we were allies, but that is obviously not the case. I need the bastard to wake up so that I can find out why he wouldn’t tell the station who we were.” He stared into the fire.
When Zirlo had said the warrior’s name, Emma felt the color drain from her face. How was it possible that the one man responsible for Avery’s injuries, ended up with her in the middle of a damn forest? If they were ever rescued, Zeb was sure to kill the man whether he was injured or not. This man had been the one responsible for giving the Drylons their location, and causing the attack of the ship on their journey to Theron. He was also responsible for the deaths of several Theron warriors and Pernmocks. Zeb had to chase the traitor across the galaxy in order to rescue his mate.