It became harder to talk, but I spit out, “Never mind. Just what’s happening?”
“We’re landing, but we hit debris in the planet’s atmosphere.” He touched his cheek to mine and cradled the back of my head in one of his large hands.
“Then, you mean…” I gulped at the fear threatening to claw my chest cavity. “We’re crashing.”
“Yes, my pajuara.” His body wrapped around mine as if to protect me with the sheer force of his will. “We are.”
* * *
Time slowedafter his confession of our circumstances. The pod continued to spiral toward its destination. I tried to glance through the tiny screen, but with the speed of our descent and Daegan holding me so tightly against him, it was a useless attempt.
When we broke the atmosphere, the heat inside increased exponentially. Flames licked the outer shielding. I watched in grim fascination as the color brightened from yellow to orange to a brilliant white. Moments later, a jarring sensation snapped us back and forth. Someone screamed. It might have been me.
Then, I knew no more.
Days, hours, or weeks could have passed in the space between darkness and waking. My eyelids were heavy boulders weighing down my face. I struggled to pull them open. And when I did at last, I had no reference for my brain to process the sight. Greenish daylight, the color of a kiwi, shone through a thick fog. The hue danced in the mist, twinkling like starlight. The vapor, however, was a noxious gray. It smelled like burnt fuel. The scent triggered the wheels in my brain to start spinning again.
Not fog, smoke.I turned toward the direction it flowed andugh. A sharp ringing filled my ears, and my breath sawed in and out through my nose. It took more smoke-ingested air than I’d have liked to get my bearings. I rose to a sitting position, my body protesting the movement. Swatting at the smoke with one hand, I felt around with the other. A metal surface grazed my palm.
“The pod.” I stretched my arm, hoping to meet the control panels at the top, but my fingers met a jagged edge instead. Yanking my hand to my chest at the sting, I tried not to panic. My eyes began to adjust as the smoke lessened and a dot of blood pooled on my thumb. I sucked it into my mouth. The slight irritation aided in grounding me. “Right, okay, think.”
I wiggled my toes inside my sandals and shook my legs side-to-side. My body was a mess of soreness and aches, but nothing felt broken. The green sunlight streamed from above. I raised my chin toward it, and in that brief moment two sharp realizations hit me. First, the escape pod had no roof left. Second, and far worse, my alien warrior was nowhere to be seen. I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Daegan.”
I jumped up, every muscle screaming in protest, but I ignored the discomfort. The pod had been split in half, our safety straps ripped apart in the process. Beyond the jagged edges of what was left of the tiny vessel laid a vast landscape. Sand as pink as a pig’s ear stretched across the horizon. In the distance, black mountains with snow-capped peaks touched the green sky. Scattered here and there were patches of trees, each with trunks so wide they’d harbor a myriad of creatures. If I hadn’t been terrified for Daegan’s safety, I’d have admired the planet’s beauty. As it was, I traversed the side of the pod that had the bluntest break and hopped into the sand pit below.
“Where are you?” I shielded my eyes against the light glistening off the hull.He couldn’t have gotten far.If he were thrown from the ship in the crash, then he had to be around here somewhere. I refused to the think of the alternatives.What if he left you?That insidious voice slithered inside me as vicious as any viper. “He wouldn’t do that.” I said it aloud in part to will it true, and well, maybe to make myself feel better too. “Now, let’s do this.”
Walking around the pod proved a challenge as it had created a crater on impact. When I climbed over the blunt side and hopped to the ground, I had inadvertently chosen the deeper side. Traversing alien sand? Not a fun experience. “Come on.” I huffed as I sank with every step forward and slid—literally—two steps back. “Damn it!”
I didn’t have time for this. Daegan could be hurt or worse. I needed to find him.
As if in answer to my outrage, a small object twinkled near my feet. I knelt toward it, examining the shiny glow. It appeared metallic in nature, glistening like gold. I dug around it, attempting to free it from its burial spot in the sand. “All right, universe. If you’re listening, do me a solid, okay? I could use some help.” I wasn’t spiritual in nature—I’d been screwed over too many times for that—but I’d take what I could get. “With my luck it’ll probably be a cage.” I snorted. “A gilded cage.” I huffed at my own terrible joke. “Well, at least my dumb humor is intact.”
The mysterious golden metal became more apparent in shape, a curved, wicked shape. “Oh hell below and stars above!” I dug faster, the sands abrasive against my skin. A black handle molded for a warrior’s hand appeared. I clutched it in my grasp and dragged the weapon from the sands. “It’s an axe.” My lower lip trembled. “Daegan’s axe.”
Is he buried below?He couldn’t be. No way. That wasn’t possible. I poked the axe head in the sand where I had dug, careful not to stab anything that could be hidden below. Then, I went to work combing through every grain of sand I could reach. I scooped heaps of it in my arms and used the axe like a shovel. I’d shift the damn desert if I had to. All while I searched, I had the nagging sensation in my gut that I was wasting time. The feeling rose to my chest, tightening my lungs. When I could stand it no longer and had sifted through more than a meter of sand, I gave into the instinct and stopped digging. Rising, I used the axe like a walking stick to hoist myself out of the crater.
Once on the surface, I scanned the horizon for any signs of my alien. A patch of trees, no more than thirty meters away called to me. As if a voice whispered in my ear, it compelled me toward the grove. As I drew closer I spotted a mass between two enormous tree roots. It was hard to make out as it was covered in sand and soil, but my heart sped up at the sight.It has to be him.
I ran. “Daegan!”
The form stirred at my cries. As it rose, I could see red streaks along its chest and torso. The blood, now evident, elongated my strides. “I’m coming! Don’t move.”
“Pajuara,” my Rhonar said on a cough and slumped into a prone position, half crouch, half kneel.
“Stop!” Fearing he’d injure himself further, and cursing the time I’d wasted in digging through the sands, I sprinted as fast as my body allowed. Seeing him hurt did something to me, twisting my insides as if I were caught in a vice. Desperation turned my steps reckless as I crossed the sands, not watching the ground under my feet. My gaze was for my alien warrior alone.
And that was my mistake.
I had no indication that anything was wrong, until the vision of my Rhonar began to fade upward. It was as if an invisible hand had emerged from the sky and yanked him toward the stars. But, that wasn’t the case. I was falling. The sensation was so foreign, it took my mind a second to catch up with my body. When it did, I flailed—a full shimmy from head to toes with my limbs stretching in every direction. In one breath I’d been racing toward Daegan, and in the next, I was plummeting into the sands.
The last thought I had before shock took hold was I’d die without that blasted alien ever knowing my damn name.
5
Daegan
My pajuara was sinking.Fear, raw and all-encompassing, seized me in its grasp at the sight of her disappearing into the sands. My vision turned red, changing the hue of the green and pink world into a crimson planet. I’d been awake for a handful of beats from whatever state I’d been in before. My mind was addled, my thoughts set a jumble. Bruises battered my body with shallow cuts here and there. None of it mattered. My senses all heightened razor sharp with my Terran in danger.
