Perhaps since the Calamities, that thought arrowed through my brain with a jolt. Yessss, that was possible. I’d take samples to be sure. My claws were already touching the Revenant-smoothed ice, working to select good spots to extract the samples I needed. When the handscanner beeped, it indicated it had found something of interest. I pulled it free again to peek and drew in a surprised gasp.
That powerful energy signature might be gone, but there was still something aboard that ship with a little hum of energy. Some ancient system was hanging on with the faintest bit of power. This could be it. This ship. I had to know more.
I forgot all about samples to ascertain the era in which this ship had been frozen. My hand found my multitool instead. It didn’t take me long to locate the nearest spot where the energy originated, and then I started cutting. Power hummed from the tool as it melted the ice in a fist-sized circle. It would take a while, but I didn’t have to go far.
My tail ached from the cold by the time I reached the hull of the ship. I wriggled it fiercely back and forth to improve circulation, but I knew I was playing with fire, or frostbite, rather. Much longer, and I’d have to take a break to warm up in my tent. The gap was barely big enough for me to fit through, but I was too curious and wedged myself inside anyway.
The ice-cold metal of the ship’s hull was silver and unblemished by time, as if the ship had been constructed at a shipyard just yesterday, not, as I suspected, close to a thousand years ago. Though I had to admit that I’d never actually seen a brand-new ship. All the ships the Shamans had were as ancient as the Calamities were by now: restored and meticulously repaired so they could serve us through the years, but still as ancient as this ship likely was.
I thought I would have to get a stronger cutter to get through the hull of the ship and enter it, but I discovered that, by sheer luck, I’d cut my hole straight toward the airlock. There was a recessed handle I could pull free, and with a wrench, the whole panel came free. No, not an airlock after all, but a panel that couldbe removed all the same. I’d exposed more cables and metal plating, but my multi-tool could handle this.
Even though it cost precious time my numb tail warned me I shouldn’t be wasting, I was careful not to cut any wires, just the plating to get through. There was no way we could ever free this ship from the ice so it could fly again, but I hated damaging anything. Then, just as I was ready to give up, I was suddenly through. Cold air, stale and old, rushed out through the hole and blew into my face. Darkness lay beyond, but my eyes adapted, saw enough.
A narrow space like a path, and the outline of a pilot chair beneath a pale canopy of ice. The roof of the ship was transparent, at least in parts. All systems were dormant, powered down; that wasn’t what my scanner had been picking up. When I slithered into the narrow path, I managed to free the scanner and peered at the readings. Accurate, this close-up. They were coming from an oblong boxshape opposite the pilot seat. My heart skipped a beat at the sight.
I’d never personally laid eyes on one of these, but I had listened to the stories of the Haven warriors who’d found the first humans. I’d heard what had been inside the massive crashed ship Artek had rescued his mate from. This was a stasis pod.
How was this possible? I slithered closer, drawn to that shape, unable to resist. Hope pounded fiercely in my chest. Could it be? Could it really be? The odds of finding a human here, in the ice, seemed astronomical—unless you believed in things like fate. Mating marks flaring with light across a male’s body was considered fate by some. So why not this?
I raised my light above my head and peered at the panel at the top of the pod. It should have been transparent, but ice had frosted it over almost completely. It was impossible to see through. What I did know was that my scanner indicated the faint power coming from this device was failing. It was faint, and it was dying.
If I did not free whoever was in stasis inside this pod, they would die. Then again, they might already be dead. How long could one really slumber in stasis, after all? Surely not a millennium. The idea that maybe someone could, it would not leave me. What was the risk anyway? Dead or alive, I had to find out.
It was not nearly as simple to free the occupant of this pod as Zathar had made it seem in his stories when he rescued Vera. That had sounded like touching a few buttons and an automated process booting up. This pod had wires and other interesting exposed components along the sides. It didn’t look finished, if I were honest. It looked like something hastily slapped together at the last moment. The kind of thing Altare might rig for some asinine plan at the last moment.
One thing was certain: as much as I wanted to open this pod and free whoever was in it—if there even was someone inside—I simply didn’t have the right tools with me. Not only that, but even if I did manage to revive a slumbering person, a human, they wouldn’t be equipped to handle the cold. They’d die from exposure just as readily as they’d die from this failing power source.
It pained me to slip from the ship, as if I were leaving behind something, or someone, very important. My mind, or perhaps my heart, had already decided that there was a human in thatpod, and that she was alive. A female, fated to be mine, because why else would I find a ship that wasn’t Naga and get banished after helping my friend gethismate? This was my reward, surely.
Climbing out of the steep hole the Burrowing Revenant had created was tough without the right climbing tools, but my claws did the trick. I definitely needed a better way to haul my human out of the hole when we returned. Perhaps I needed to hurry back first, though, and rig up extra power so the pod couldn’t fail while I prepared for her. Yeah, that’s what I should do.
The trek back through the pale snow and freezing wind was over in the blink of an eye. My thoughts were so focused on the list of things I needed to do and get that I barely noticed the abysmal temperatures at all. At my tent, I shoved snow away from the entrance with several practiced sweeps of my tail. Warmth engulfed me when I entered, quickly causing my body to begin overheating beneath all the layers I’d pulled on for outside. I didn’t care. I had no time to undress and redress just so I could be comfortable.
I paid no attention to my workbench or my abandoned miniature Revenant. Instead, I yanked supplies from shelves and chests, packing a huge bag with tools, food, and blankets. I brought my hand-healing device, just to be sure, and any extra medical supplies I thought I might need. Lastly, I knew I needed to prepare an extra power source and a way to lift my precious rescue from the icy hole the Burrowing Revenant had created. A human could not climb her way out; she’d need help.
I only paused by the tent flaps once to consider the frantic madness that had gotten hold of me. What did I really know? Icouldn’t even be sure if this ship was human, or if there was a human alive inside that stasis pod. The frenetic energy coursing through my veins buzzed with anxiety. It didn’t matter; I’d packed what I needed, and I was not helpless. I could defend myself if it came down to that. It wouldn’t, though, I was certain of it.
The supplies went onto a simple bone-and-wood sled I used when I did my rounds of the farther-out sensors. The snow was picking up, and darkness was falling, but then it did that rapidly every day. There were only a handful of hours of daylight this time of year at the northern pole of the planet. It didn’t matter. I was going, no matter what. My human might not have much longer inside that pod with its dying battery. I had to get her out, now.
Of course, things weren’t going to be that easy. I should have known that. They never were.
Chapter 3
Felicia
My body ached, and my stomach roiled fiercely. I was so close to vomiting that I was overpowered with the urge to rise. I was up and hanging over the edge of the pod before I gave the conscious command to do so. There wasn’t much in my stomach—I hadn’t really eaten the morning of theFuture’slaunch—but still, bitter bile rose and splattered on the floor.
I blinked bleary eyes that struggled to focus and, with growing horror, realized that no, that was not the floor I’d just puked all over. It was a stretch of something with black scales that glittered with hints of gold and green. A tail, a snake tail, but really big. My stomach was still rebelling, and I fought back another wave of heaving. My eyes tracked the tail across the ground inside the dim interior of theFuture.That tail, it kept going, and going, coil after thick coil. It had to belong to a creature that was gargantuan, and even knowing that, I was not prepared to discover who it belonged to.
My eyes climbed from tail to a fur-clad upper body. The fur tunic, with long sleeves and a hood, was a confusing shade of lavender, edged with white and black decorative fringe at the hood and hem. A belt weighed down with tools cinched around that tunic over narrow hips, but the shoulders rising above it were wide and impressive. I didn’t think the thick fur was adding much to that, this… creature really was that big.
His face was what caught me by surprise: sharp cheekbones, a beautiful jawline that ended with a horn of pale ivoryjutting from it. That dark mouth was incredibly lush, the nose straight and ridged with scales, and his eyes… glowing a beautiful gold, his pupils narrow, vertical slits. This was definitely a he, although I was basing that solely on his extraordinary appearance and the impressive width of his shoulders. Everything about him simply screamed man, barbaric, possessive, andveryalien man.
“Fuck,” I swore, swallowing roughly as I clutched the edge of my stasis pod and stared. “You’re an alien. Aliens are real! Aliens are fucking real!” The mixture of feelings colliding in my chest was intense, and I struggled to breathe as the enormity of my discovery rushed through me. The FTLdrive had worked! It hadworked! I was beyond happy to discover that, even if I was now going to have to find my way back to Earth somehow to report back, and I obviously had no clue where I was.
I’d flown so far that I’d arrived somewhere where alien life existed, and that was the big one. Now I had proof that our efforts to explore space were worth it, there really were others out there! Others like him, the beautiful, and surprisingly humanoid-looking alien. Oh… the alien whose tail I’d puked all over not long ago. Horrified, I lowered my gaze to the evidence: pale yellow chunks splattered across the beautiful black scales of the segment of tail right next to my pod. Way to screw up first contact.
“I’m so sorry,” I said weakly. Maybe the shock of it all was getting to me, maybe it was the stint in stasis, but I felt extremely lethargic; exhausted. It was cold in here too, though my flight suit protected me from some of it. Not so cold that my breath misted in the air, but close. I tried looking around to see whatstate my ship was in, but the stranger took up so much space inside it that it was hard to look at anything but him.
