3. Katarina
3
KATARINA
“ W e are fucked! Fucked I say! I don’t know what we are going to do. What else can go wrong? Ah, for fucks sake!”
I have to cover my mouth to hide my grin as I struggle to suppress a laugh. I know this isn’t funny, not in the slightest, but the way Dan is ranting. Stomping here and there, throwing his arms around, and it just looks ridiculous. I know it’s stress making me react this way, but even so, it has caused me a lot of problems in the past.
After we crashed, I walked out of the wreckage of the ship, sat on the sand, and began laughing. How was it I had survived? We lost a lot of people. Bodies were either lying around the inside of the ship or spread across the sand and yet there I was. Alive.
Me. Pointless, little old me. I didn’t stop laughing and crying until Nyanna came and sat next to me. She didn’t speak, only put her arm over my shoulders and stayed at my side. The two of us looked out over the rolling sands that were going to be our home.
The absurdity of it all seemed too big to comprehend. How did any of us survive? We should all be dead. The generation ship, the thing we never thought about because it was such a constant, was gone. The one unshakeable thing in the universe was ripped away, leaving what? Nothing but wreckage and a handful of survivors.
I’ll never forget the way Nyanna helped me, though. Her silence was what I needed to get past the overwhelm. I like to think maybe she needed it too. I don’t know, we never talked about it. It’s not like we were or are best friends or something. I didn’t know her at all before the crash. And now, she’s Captain Nyanna, much too busy for someone like me.
I’m a worker. That’s all I know how to do. I’m not the smartest, not that I’m dumb or anything, but I’m also not a leader or a thinker. All I ever wanted from my life was to find some semblance of happiness. My job on the ship was caretaker of one of the many parks and gardens. Watering plants, pulling weeds, cleaning up the messes people left behind because apparently putting your litter into a trash can fifteen feet away was too much effort for the general masses.
It was a good job. Simple, but good. I wasn’t going to set the world on fire, and I didn’t want to. There was a guy, of course, because I wanted kids. A family. I mean it was my duty to have two kids, but I didn’t only want them out of any obligation to a future planet I would never walk on. I wanted them because I dreamed of being a mom.
But that guy, Ryan, didn’t make it. Thankfully, I wasn’t the one who found him, someone else did, but I was the one who identified his body and helped to bury him. I thought it was strange then that I wasn’t sadder than I was when I buried him. Not that I wasn’t sad, I was. Just not as sad as I thought I should be or would be.
Standing next to Zas’tu, my Zmaj savior, Ryan seems like a distant memory. One I’m not sure was even real. He is more like something I dreamed of compared to Zas’tu, who is real. Zas’tu is very there in some way that seems like he’s more than real. He is more solid, more here, than even the walls. More than Dan and the others and much, much more than Ryan.
I’m watching Zas’tu out of the corner of my eye when I see him look down. His mouth twists into his crooked smile and he moves his hand, silently offering it to me. I put mine into his and my hand fits. It shouldn’t. He’s so much bigger than me, towering and bulky, and his hands are sized for him. Why would it? But it does. His hands are not abnormally small or something, but when he closes his fingers around my hand it’s perfect.
There are no scales on the palms of his hands but they’re still cool. His long fingers encircle my entire hand easily. The nails of his fingers are more clawlike than nails. Well, human nails. Darker and they look stronger, like they could slash through someone leaving considerable damage in their passing.
At some point, which I totally miss, having been lost in my thoughts, Dan quits ranting. I only realize it when one of the Zmaj speaks. The deeper voice and alien language pull my attention back to the room around us.
“Can we speak Common?” Dan asks. “I am not nearly fluent enough in Zmaj to keep up with this.”
Yeah, Dan. You tell them.
A chuckle slips before I can clamp it down. Zas’tu darts a glance at me and then he has his crooked smile and broken tooth on display, which make my knees weak and my stomach flutter like it's trying to grow wings and take off. I shrug as my cheeks flush from more than embarrassment.
Those eyes. The way he looks at me…
“We have bigger problems,” the Zmaj at the front says which pulls my attention away from Zas’tu.
“Bigger? We don’t have a source of water. Maybe you and yours can be okay with that but we humans won’t last long without it. This is bad.”
“Yes,” the Zmaj says.
“Right, so what are we going to do about it?” Dan asks, pacing back and forth in front of the group of Zmaj.
“Bigger problem,” the Zmaj says. “But will address both. We must move.”
“Move?” Dan exclaims, his voice cracking, jerking to a sudden halt.
I jerk back too, looking at Zas’tu. He’s watching the spectacle up front but must sense or feel my gaze because he turns towards me.
“Move?” I whisper.
His smile flashes as he shrugs, but I can’t tell if he understands me or not. He tightens his grip on my hand in a way that at least feels reassuring but who knows what he’s thinking or intending. I regret even more not learning the Zmaj language. I never saw the point in it but who knew I’d fall for one of them?
“Yes,” the Zmaj at the front says.
I should have learned who they were too. I’ve been self-absorbed in my own little world, ignoring everything else. The Zmaj have been fine, but also peripheral to me. I’ve spent my days doing the tasks assigned without giving much thought to anything else. How could I?
Anytime I tried to think about the future it seemed so bleak and empty that it made me not want to get out of bed. I tried staying in bed a couple of times but that won’t fly with any of my fellow survivors. We all have to pull our weight.
It’s been long enough now since the crash that life has become routine. Sleep, eat, work, and hang out sometimes with a group. Sometimes I’d hook up but nothing that mattered. The hookups I’ve had have all been out of lustful need with no more meaningful connection than that for either of us. A bit of distraction that lasts as long as it takes for one or both of us to get off then awkwardly part ways, usually with as little eye contact as possible.
That’s probably been me more than them. I know a couple of guys tried to hang out after, but I did all I could to push them out of my room. No commitment because that would require looking ahead and that’s not something I’m willing to do.
Darting a glance at him though… there is a glimmer. A glimmer of hope, of something more to come or… I don’t know.
“How are we supposed to do that?” Dan says loudly.
I realize I’ve lost track of the conversation going on between him and the Zmaj. Lost in my own thoughts again which is not unusual. Navel gazing my dad would call it. What’re you doing, Kat? Navel gazing? It was his gentle way of pulling me out of my head and getting me to look at the world around us.
That’s why my job was good for me too. It made me get outside and forced me to look. Can’t clean up an area if you’re not looking at it. I was happy doing that work. The work since the crash is not just work though. This is survival. There are no frivolous activities because there’s no time for them. The Zmaj have made things easier because they’ve been hunting for us and helping with a lot of the bigger problems but that didn’t put an end to the daily struggle.
“We will send scouts,” the Zmaj who seems to be the leader says. “Find the place, then figure out how.”
“Find a place? Where? There’s nothing but sand for kilometers!” Dan is throwing his hands around but now Nyanna walks over and places a hand on his arm.
“Dan,” Nyanna says. “We don’t have a choice.”
She has a calming influence. He drops his arms and the brightness of the shade of red on his skin tones down a couple of notches. He shakes his head slowly and as he does it looks like he is deflating. Somehow taking up less space in the room than he did a moment before.
“We’re only now getting to a semblance of normal,” Dan says, speaking softly.
So much so that for a moment I’m not sure I heard him right. Only when Nyanna pulls him into a hug do I know I did. And he’s not wrong. It’s taken a long time to establish routines and daily activities that not only everyone agrees with, but that work for the entire group.
They don’t hug for long. It’s a quiet, intimate moment, long enough for me to feel like I’m an intruder. I look away at the only thing of any interest in the room, Zas’tu. He’s also turned inwards so we’re facing one another. He has both my hands in his, which I don’t remember happening. We stare into one another’s eyes.
Kiss him.
The thought and the urge hit so fast and so unexpectedly that I’m rising onto my toes without planning it. Intent on pressing my lips onto his. Curious to know what his taste like. I like kissing, but most guys are terrible at it.
I hope he’s a good one. If not, maybe I can teach him?
That’s a new thought that I’ve never bothered trying before. Whether that was laziness or a general lack of interest in the guy I’m not sure. I prefer to think it’s the latter, but I also know myself well enough to know I can be lazy.
“Zas’tu!”
Zas’tu whips away so fast it makes my head spin. He turns on his heel and straightens to stiff attention, staring straight ahead at the front. There is a military precision to the motion and stance. It’s the only way I can describe it. I saw the pilots and other military members more than enough times to recognize the signs. They used to march in the mornings through the gardens when I was working.
There is a rapid-fire exchange in the Zmaj language between Zas’tu and the other one. I can’t understand the words, but it feels tense as if it is getting more heated the longer it goes. Zas’tu is shaking his head and almost growling. Finally, he points at me.
I’m rocked back onto my heels even though I don’t know what is being said. I look from him to Nyanna. I feel how wide my eyes are while my stomach does acrobatic flips. Zas’tu turns to face me, maintaining the military-style crisp precision.
“Yes?” he asks.
“Yes?” I query, hating the way my voice quavers even on a single syllable.
“Come, you?” he asks.
“Come? Come where?”
Fear explodes from somewhere in the center of my head. Ice- water rushes through my veins, chilling my limbs. I shake my head, not in denial, but in confusion. I shrug, raise my hands, drop them, sputter as I try to find more words, and finally snap my mouth shut.
“Scout, with me,” Zas’tu says.
Everyone in the room is looking at us. Their eyes carry an impossible weight with them as if their very gaze is pressuring me to say yes. Yes, to what though? Scout? Out there? Into the sands?
Some of the other girls have gone with Zmaj on missions. I never, not once, even considered it. Leave the air-conditioned remnant of the ship that has become home? Not only the comfort but the relative safety? Every one of those who’ve gone out has returned with harrowing tales of barely surviving the desert and its threats.
Hell, we barely survive here. Only since the Zmaj arrived have, we stopped losing someone at least once a week. That’s probably the best part of them showing up, the graveyard is filling up a lot less fast than it was.
“Uh,” I say, stalling as my thoughts continue to spin.
I look around. I’m not sure if I’m looking for an answer or a way out. I’m entirely too discombobulated to be certain of what I want. Fear disperses every coherent thought before it fully forms.
Nyanna walks over, pushing past the bodies in her way, coming to a stop in front of me. She places her hands on my arms, staring into my eyes. She smiles. Her brilliant, sharply intelligent smile makes me feel like it will all work out, somehow. I giggle, eyes filling with unshed tears.
“You don’t have to,” she says, speaking soft. “But he doesn’t want to go without you. And I’ll be honest, we need you, Kat.”
“I…” I trail off, swallow as I try to force moisture into my mouth, “I’m scared.”
“I know,” she says. “Me too. Terrified. But we don’t have a choice.”
“Why?” I ask and once again a single syllable manages to break, partly because I half-laugh in the middle of it which should be theoretically impossible but, here I am, the impossible girl.
“The Zmaj believe that the cult they escaped, the Order, are going to be coming for us,” Nyanna says.
Behind her Zas’tu and a couple of the others out of my line of sight growl.
“For us?”
“Yes,” Nyanna says.
“Why? Why now?”
“Because Shana and Shukach… they ran into an Order outpost. It was destroyed during the encounter, but they managed to bring one of them back.”
The rumors are true!
Rumors had been flying that there was a Zmaj prisoner being interrogated. I hadn’t paid much attention to them because I didn’t really care. But if they have a prisoner, if they know these bad guys, this Order is coming…
“How soon?”
“We don’t know,” Nyanna says. “But the Zmaj say that the ship is not defensible. If they come, we will lose. We need to move to a safer place. Somewhere we can defend ourselves.”
I nod understanding but when she flashes a brilliant smile and Zas’tu jumps, pumping a fist into the air I realize they both took it as agreement to go.
Oh. Shit.