The Fractured World, page 11
“I’m glad you two are finally getting along,” Casella said as we entered the cave. She unfastened her clothing and let it fall away, leaving her wearing only her birthday suit.
I can’t lie. It was a rather distracting outfit choice. Not that it would be enough to bridge the gap between us. It would take a lot longer than the better portion of a week to make Casella more than the palest of white belts. Then there was all the improvement I was seeing. Faris was a good teacher. I’d already started to get a handle on some of the basics.
“It’s better than her being at my throat all the time,” I said, removing my own clothing.
“Perhaps soon she’ll express interest in becoming your mate.”
I gagged on thin air. “Sorry?”
Casella tilted her head. “Did I say something strange?”
“Very. Me and Faris mates? Where’d that come from?”
“I’m afraid I still don’t understand,” Casella said.
“I mean, aren’t we mates?”
“We are, yes. That doesn’t mean you can’t take another. Is such a thing not common on your world?”
“Maybe in the animal kingdom,” I said.
“In my culture, it’s normal for one man to provide for a number of mates. There are only so many capable males to go around and you, my Brandon, are very capable indeed.” Her small fingers danced up my arm. “It would make perfect sense for Faris to feel the same.”
I’d… that hadn’t even crossed my mind. I was pushing my luck having one gorgeous alien by my side. Two surely couldn’t be allowed.
“Faris would never feel that way,” I said.
“Perhaps you’re right,” Casella said. “However, if she did, would you accept?”
My head spun. Faris as my mate? I couldn’t picture it. She was too independent.
Really, it was a shame. She was definitely attractive; it shone through whenever she let her guard down. When she wasn’t glaring, her charm fluttered to the surface. However, looks were just a small part of an exceptional package. Faris couldn’t be defined by a pretty face. She was an ass-kicking alien badass who didn’t mind working hard or getting her hands dirty. Anybody who wouldn’t want someone that fierce by their side had to get their head checking.
“My Brandon? Hello?” Casella said.
I snapped back to reality. “Hey there.”
Casella giggled. “You got lost in your thoughts, yes? Does that mean you’ve decided on an answer?”
“Well…”
“If you’re worried about me, don’t be. I promise I won’t get jealous. In fact, I’d love to have some sisters.”
My jaw was lucky not to be scraping across the floor.
Faris clattered into the room before my fantasies could take root.
“Miss Faris,” Casella said. “We were just talking about you.” When she noticed how out of breath Faris was, her positivity waned. “Is something the matter?”
“The sky,” she said.
“The sky?” I repeated.
“It’s… gone.”
I didn’t know what to make of her riddles. Casella and I threw our clothes back on and looked outside.
Unsurprisingly, the sky had not vanished.
“It looks normal to me,” Casella said.
She wasn’t wrong, but something about that bugged me. That’s when I realized. The sky looking normal was the weird thing. It was clear: blue.
There wasn’t a lick of snow to be seen.
“Wait here,” I said as I rushed into the wilderness.
My exceptional perception skills guided me with a precision once reserved for satnavs. I zipped through the forest until I came to a rock mound I’d had a very bad experience on.
Inspecting every crook and cranny, I scaled back to the top.
Without the snow getting in the way, the horizon was a completely different picture. A white-topped forest spread to the ends of the world, only threatened in part by distant mountains punching through the treeline.
It was a gorgeous view capable of competing with any other, but I hadn’t come to make memories. I was after results.
With the sky wide open, the needle wasn’t hard to spot. It caught the sun’s rays and lit up like a lost lighthouse.
The ship. I’ve finally found it.
It could be nothing else. Our ticket home had been discovered. It was time to finally leave this awful planet.
Chapter 13
“I thought we might never escape this place,” Faris said as she led us through the snow.
This was the happiest she’d looked since we’d met.
We set out for the ship the moment I returned to camp. Faris was very insistent on the matter. She refused to let us squander this chance.
It was a good choice. Navigating was much easier in clear weather. I could see a lot further and our every footstep seemed blisteringly loud. It did nothing to ease my tension. I suspected every shadow of conspiring against us. Every tree was a potential shield hiding one of those mantis devils.
If they thought I’d let them get the jump on my mate, they had another thing coming.
Speaking of my mate, she didn’t move with her usual energy. Casella dragged her feet while her head hung low.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “You ain’t looking too cheery.”
“It’s just… when we leave, our times as mates comes to an end, yes?”
“Yeah,” I said, biting my bottom lip. “We both knew that was the score from the start.”
“You’re right. Of course, you’re right.” Casella cradled her spear to her chest. “How silly of me…”
I’d be a liar if I pretended I didn’t know how she felt. I tried to tell myself how wonderful it would be to get home, but I wasn’t exactly skipping.
A deal’s a deal. Don’t forget it.
Don’t be a homewrecker, dude. Even if her fiancé sounds like a rich selfish jackass.
I avoided saying more than was necessary to Casella and she did the same to me. We couldn’t give in to temptation.
It made the proceeding couple of hours incredibly tedious. I busied myself by staying hyper-vigilant. Nothing was getting the jump on us on my watch. Not a thing.
My concentration was eventually broken by something legging me up.
“My Brandon!” Casella squeaked as she fumbled her spear.
Faris jumped into a combat stance.
“It’s okay. I just slipped,” I assured them. It felt like I’d stepped on a ball. I reached down into the snow to see what it was.
It was a bad move on my part.
I trembled as I stared into the lifeless eyes of a frozen head. It was the remains of one of the guys who’d encircled us a week early. The weather had stopped the rotting and captured his dying expression. He had been decapitated and scalped before having his brains gobbled out. At least, I hoped it had gone in that order.
“What’s that?” Casella asked, tottering closer.
“Don’t!” I said.
Faris had beaten me to the punch and thrust her arm across Casella’s vision. “You shouldn’t see this.”
Casella groaned and nodded.
I returned the head to its resting place, took Casella’s hand, and guided her forward. From there on the forest became a graveyard. Most of the carnage had been buried by the snow, but dried-on purple clung to the nearby trees. Hands rose to the surface as if belonging to members of the frozen undead.
That could have been us.
If there was an upside to seeing the handiwork of the monsters I feared more than any other, it meant we’d found our destination.
In a clearing it had created sat the crumbled remains of Faris’s spaceship.
Snow masked the scar the cruiser had inflicted onto the planet, but it’d done a pathetic job of trying to hide the busted orange pyramid which towered high above the treeline.
“It’s worse than I remember,” Faris said.
“It did fall from space,” I said.
“That’s what shields are for. They’re not supposed to fail.”
“Does this mean we cannot fly home?” Casella said with wide twinkling eyes.
“That was never the plan,” Faris replied as she marched to the ship. “We’re calling for help.”
Casella’s shoulders slumped. “Oh…”
I went to comfort Casella but stopped myself. It wouldn’t help anyone.
Rather than entering through a door, we made our way inside using a gash caused by the crash. Even if it was in a bad way, and the whole thing sat at an angle, the interior was a step above my abductor’s ship. The halls were smooth and white, only sullied by the fall.
To be fair, that was a lot of tarnishing.
Panels had fallen away, revealing bare wiring. Cracks split corridors in half, letting in the cold. Worst of all, bodies lay crushed under fallen debris. Some were of the same species as the ice graveyard outside. Others had scales and similar armor to Faris.
“Ignore them,” she said.
“But—”
“We’re expendable. The mission comes first.”
“What the fuck?” I said. “I love Casella as much as the next person but that’s messed up.”
“That’s our job. We knew the risks,” Faris said, stepping over her fallen comrades and continuing on.
There was so much I wanted to say in response to that.
Faris guided us through the carnage. Neither darkness nor destruction slowed her down, with the exception of a ravaged cargo hold.
Locker-like boxes sat open, spilling their contents onto the floor.
“Damn monsters,” she growled.
“Maybe it was a survivor?” Casella asked as she clung to my arm.
“Unlikely. Only we survived.”
Casella’s trembling hold tightened.
“Could it have been somebody from another ship?” I asked. “The one I came from is still unaccounted for.”
“The one that attacked us,” Faris amended.
“Not everyone on there was a pirate. Take me for example.”
“It’s unimportant. Let’s go,” Faris said as she continued on.
Maybe not to her but it was to me. I didn’t want to abandon anyone if I could help it.
I continued after Faris until we arrived at the shattered mess known as the control room. It wouldn’t have look out of place on an episode of Star Trek, damage aside. Chairs had been ripped out of place and the massive screen shattered.
Faris tapped away at the controls. She became more irate as the seconds passed by.
“Is something wrong?” I queried.
“What do you think?!” she snarled, smashing at the keyboard.
“Easy. You’re going to break it.”
“It is broken.”
“Really and truly?!” Casella cheered.
Boy, she’s not even hiding her glee.
Faris stared a hole through Casella that made my mate behave herself. Then she went back to thumping on the console. “Work!”
“Calm down,” I said. “What exactly is the problem?”
“The power’s dead.”
“Can you fix it?”
“I’m not an engineer. They’re buried outside.”
“But it’s possible?” I said.
“Maybe,” she grunted.
“If anyone can do it, it’s you.”
She grunted under her breath. “I can try.”
“That’s the spirit. As for me… is there a way I can get to the top of the ship?”
“What are you plotting?”
“I’m going to look for the other ship. If all we need is a radio, why not use theirs?”
“A pirate’s radio?” Faris said.
“Do you want to get home or don’t you?”
“Completing the mission comes before everything,” she said like a robot failing to break its programming.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Faris grunted and pointed. “There’s a service ladder behind that latch. Use it.” She grabbed Casella’s arm. “You’re with me.”
Casella squeaked. “Ah, but…”
“I’ll be back before you know it,” I assured her while fighting back the desire to kiss her absorbing lips.
Her small fingers gradually peeled from my hand before she tottered off after Faris, glancing back my way as she did so.
The moment Casella was gone from view, I headed up the ladder. They’re a lot easier to climb when they’re not leaning forty-five degrees to the side. I had to use the tunnel’s walls to keep myself balanced as I headed for the light.
A blast of scalding cold, mixed with blinding sunshine, greeted me at the top. The vicious wind made the simple act of seeing a chore.
I shielded my face from the elements to give myself a fighting chance.
My stinging eyes bulged.
Green. I could see green. Not the same ice-polluted dullness that made up the treetop canopy. A lush tone that belonged to the exotic jungles of sunburned climates.
Several blinks removed any initial fears that I was hallucinating. The green horizon remained clear. It sat on the other side of the ice wasteland as if teasing me for crashing in the wrong location.
There’s more to this place than just snow? Actually, I do remember things looking pretty weird from up high…
“Work you piece of shit!” somebody snapped.
Despite repeating Faris’s earlier frustrations, the voice wasn’t hers. It lacked her raspy tones and was altogether shriller.
The roof was already occupied. The tenant was sat down, facing away from me, showing off a small round rump embraced by skintight thermal pants.
Their sudden appearance made me jump and lose my footing. I hooked onto the exit to save myself.
It all caused quite the racket.
The person I’d interrupted flinched and twisted my way. Her blue eyes widened as she spotted me.
She was… cute. That shouldn’t have been my first thought upon stumbling across another survivor, but I never sold myself as pillar of morality. And I wasn’t wrong. She was a thin girl with fair skin and a short head of shabby white hair that sat between bedhead and amateur curls. Her appearance was remarkably human, even more so than my partners, but from earth she was not. Two tails wiggled from her rear and round furry ears peeked from her shaggy mop.
I’d stumbled upon yet another alien.
She drew a blaster and aimed at me.
“Don’t shoot,” I said, throwing my hands up. Gravity rewarded me with a tug, and I had to grab back onto the rim before I took a tumble.
“Who’re you?” she said. “The fuck you doing here?”
“I’m just trying to find a way off this planet,” I said.
“Didn’t answer part one. You law? Military? Pirate?”
“None of the above. I’m Brandon. Brandon Myers. Just a normal guy looking for a way back home.”
“You friendly?”
“Super friendly. As friendly as you want,” I answered. “Let’s just calm down a little. I’m not here to cause trouble. I didn’t know anyone was up here.”
“Alright. Alright,” she said, taking deep breaths. “It’s cool. We’re all after the same thing. No reason to fight.” She lowered the gun.
An awkward silence formed between us.
“Shit! What am I standing around for?” She dropped back down and continued on her project. “Get outta here! Can’t you see you’re interrupting? I ain’t got time for visitors. Gotta do this quick. Time’s a ticking. They’ll be here any moment.”
“Who will?” I asked.
“Who’d you think? Metaleaters. It’s been too long. Must be the snow. Gotta be the snow.” She fiddled around with her device. “I’m trying to beat them but… same fucking story again.”
I shimmied around to nosy what she was doing. “Is that a radio?”
She jerked and took aim at me. “Did I say come up?”
“Easy!” I said, raising my hands again. “I’m not your enemy.”
Although it probably wasn’t the time, I couldn’t help noticing she wasn’t wearing any gloves. Or shoes, for that matter. Not that she seemed to mind.
“Yeah. Guess you’re not giving off that vibe.” She lowered her weapon.
And with it went my hands. “So, radio?”
“Yeah. Thought maybe I could get a signal up here, you know? Doesn’t matter anyway. Power’s dead. All of it. Same as everything else on this shithole. Nothing works. Damn blaster’s naught but a hunk of junk.”
“Really?” I said with a certain amount of cheer.
Her shoulders tensed. “Don’t let that give you any funny ideas. I’ll kick your ass if you try anything. Now stop distracting me. We’ve got minutes. Seconds. They could be on us at any moment.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of the fidgeting girl. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep your safe.”
“Real manly of you. I’d swoon if I wasn’t already sitting. And if you weren’t talking shit. You even know what a metaleater is?”
“No.”
“Exactly. I do. Some skinny whatever-you-are ain’t winning. Hurry and clear off before they get you.”
“I won’t leave a girl to fend for herself.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m tough as bevelinium. Been here a couple months on my lonesome. I’m still kicking, unlike this piece of junk.” She smashed the radio against the roof. “Just fucking work!”
“I’ve got a friend downstairs who’s trying to fix the generator.”
“There’s more of yous?” she said, quirking a brow. “It don’t matter. Generator ain’t broke. Been there already. It’s this damn planet that’s the problem. Something’s weird about it. It’s like—” She tensed like never before and almost toppled back. “Oh, shit!”
The clear sky was smothered by what I first believed to be a black cloud. But it was far too small and isolated above the ship.
“We need to go,” she said, jumping to her feet.
“What?”
“You blind? They’re here!”
As they descended, their shape became clear. They weren’t blizzard-alluding clouds: they were monsters. Huge jet-black creatures with gigantic wings with a span wider than a human being. Their shape fell somewhere between a raven and a pterodactyl.
If my companion’s behavior was anything to go by, probably closer to the latter.
