Chapter 5 Aera
Someone heard me. I barely catch the sound of glass breaking and crack open my eyes to bright light and furious cybernetic eyes. A monstrosity of a Titan. Shattered glass. Hands reaching inside.
Panic strikes my nerves, but my body does not respond.
They’re close, but I am so very cold, so close to death.
Heat has shut off. The only thing left is what remains of my oxygen, and I’m down to seconds.
I breathe slowly, not by choice. I feel the space reaper’s grip around my lungs: frigid, firm, and numbing.
Consciousness slips my grasp. I’m just not strong enough to hold on.
“Ten seconds remaining,” my suit’s automated system informs me.
I know. Tears try to form, but I am too dehydrated, too cold…too far gone.
I suck in another haggard breath that rattles my lungs because there is so little oxygen left.
“Five seconds.”
Please…
A large arm wraps around my waist as my suit shuts down.
“Goodbye.”
Something snaps into my suit. The click is distant in my fading mind, but the rush of oxygen that pours in is a sound that I cling to.
A memory of my mother filling pink balloons for my seventh birthday party comes back to me, then fades into darkness.
Whoever has found me is large and far taller than I am. They tap something in my helmet.
“Hey. Can you hear me?” a voice booms over the coms.
My heart charges in my chest. I gasp for air and strain to lift my heavy eyelids, but I still feel drunk. I manage only a breathy groan.
Someone binds me to them.
The Titan.
I found one.
I manage to crack my eyes open to see stars and my little, dark SunFlux attached to the belly of a larger Solcrue Skysprinter.
Fear rouses my mind as I look up at my captor.
I expect a slender male, scales, olive skin, and vehemence in green eyes.
I find broad shoulders with blue eyes that glow as they inspect me.
And skin like polished metal. His brow creases with concern, like his metal exterior is as flexible as living tissue.
He asks me something, but I’m still coming down from my rush of adrenaline, thinking I’d been captured by the enemy.
“What is your name?” he asks again as he lands us inside a small airlock and closes the exterior door. The moment the chamber pressurizes, gravity kicks on, and my body sinks in my suit. But he doesn’t let go.
“Ae-r-a,” I wheeze.
“Aera, daughter of a CyberGuard Mother and a Titan Engineer?”
I try to nod, but I barely manage any movement at all.
He lays me down on the floor. “I am Evo. You are on a stolen ship. I have limited medical supplies here, but you will survive if you work with me.”
“M- col—ny…”
He kneels beside me and pulls a tablet out of his armored thigh and shows me the flickering map. “Did they send you here?”
“Y-yes.”
“Why?”
“Dying.” I choke as convulsions take over my body.
Evo swears somewhere close, but my eyes slam shut as I try to endure the misery.
“I can’t transport her like this, Rebel. The storm is spreading. I won’t risk it.”
“She’s in shock. Her body is too cold,” another voice replies inside the ship. “Show me.”
The Titan crouches over my violently shivering body. He steadies my helmet and opens it. Then he hangs his head and grimaces. “Yeah, I know. Hypovolemic. I see it.”
He unsnaps and frees my helmet, then rips open a bag and hooks up an IV. “I’m not going to hurt you, but I have to take you out of your suit, Aera.”
It wouldn’t matter if I disagreed. I can’t respond through my shaking. And I don’t care what he has to do. I just want my misery to end.
Evo finds the seals and unlatches my armor. He only takes off the top half, enough that he can reach my arm. I don’t even feel the pinch. All I sense is the burning hot liquid that pumps into my veins.
Then he grabs a bandage and presses it to the side of my head. The pressure of his contact sends out a throb of pain that makes me blink and forget to open my eyes. A tight feeling over my sternum wakes me up.
The Titan, Evo, pinches my skin.
“Stay with me, Aera.”
Evo looks me over and, with one hand, rips a heater out of the wall of the ship and sets it on the floor beside me. “Were you sent here?”
The intensity of the tremors eases. “Y-yes.”
“So they couldn’t come, but they knew about us?”
I muster a hum through a fresh surge of agony in my head.
“How long do they have left?”
“D-days.”
Evo continues removing my armor until my worn shirt and cargo pants ripple in the hot air. The heat stings, and it’s wonderful.
He looks at something beside him. “Heart rate is stabilizing. Sounds like there are more humans out there in her condition.”
“Hun…” My dry mouth makes me choke on my tongue.
“You’re moving fast, Evo,” a new voice teases.
Evo wrinkles his nose above me. I can’t sort out what they’re talking about.
“How many in your colony?”
I start gagging on my dry mouth. Evo seems to realize what I need and grabs a bottle from a storage cabinet. Then he eases himself down beside me. “I’m not going to hurt you. But you need help.”
I can’t stop shivering. I was cold for far too long.
Evo props me up, slides his muscled body in behind me, and rests me back against his proud chest. Then he steadies my head with one hand, the bottle with the other, and helps me drink.
It is only one bottle, but it is more than I am used to.
When I start to splutter and reach a shaking hand for the bottle, he pulls it back.
“Too much?”
I gasp in air as the warm liquid soothes my throat and calms my heart.
Evo’s body is warm against mine, and it makes me sad when he lays me back again.
“Aera?” the other voice calls to me.
I languidly drag my aching vision toward a screen and see another Titan with glowing red eyes looking out at us.
“Where is your colony?”
“Deep Black, beyond the system fringe.”
“How many?” Evo asks again.
“Nine hundred when I left. More gone every day.”
He studies the tablet and reports to another voice coming through the screen of the red-eyed Titan. “About twelve hours, SunFlux flight time.”
Evo studies my tablet. “What kind of power systems do you have? Your SunFlux is not a model we’re familiar with.”
Talking hurts, but I force my ragged voice to work. My people need help. “Because it’s from Earth.”
“Right, but does it take…”
“Alkaline membrane,” I offer. “But a few of the decks have been converted.” I stop for a breath. “They take standard Solcrue Crackle Cells.”
Evo gives me an odd look like he’s never heard the term.
“Compressed Shalecor from Plutoas. The pressure makes it generate heat and electricity.” I stare up at the ceiling of the ship, impatiently wishing I could skip all the details and just get someone en route to my colony.
But what they bring is important. “Solcrue utilize both thermal and electrical properties. There is some Shalecor on Earth Minor. They only started mining there because it was an easier world to house humans on. That’s why the CyberGuards were imprisoned on Plutoas, to mine the ore. ”
“Rebel…”
The red-eyed Titan moves aside as a glittery black unit joins him. “How do you know where our CyberGuard brothers are?”
“Only some of them,” I admit. “We’re Rebels, descended from Omega Force, of the resistance, of Titan staff.
We had a whole network until months ago.
” My shivering finally fades, and I lie on the hard floor in the heat, thanking the stars that Evo heard my call.
“Then everyone started disappearing. We think CSP got someone to talk. We tried to reach out to those left and got ourselves too far out of the system, trying to outrun a patrol squadron that somehow knew our location. Solcrue cut off our last supply line. They didn’t find us, but they gave us a death sentence, anyway.
I have to get back to them as soon as possible with any aid you can spare. ”
The Titan called Rebel sighs. “We don’t have much either. We just survived a battle with Solcrue and took on several hundred humans. But we can spare some fuel, water, food, and medicine.”
“We need to confirm with Commander Savage first,” the glittery Titan counters.
“Chasm,” Evo gets up. “Contact Rebel Leader Toriszi. He has the portal. We can jump many small ships with supplies.”
“We are locked down until the storm passes. The electromagnetic disruptions should end at that time.” Chasm gives Evo a serious look. “Care for your patient. I will discuss this with Toriszi and Savage.”
Rebel’s face fills the screen again. “When her vitals meet these benchmarks, give her the synthetic booster from the kit. I only had time to make a few while we worked on Armor. There should be one in that ship.”
Evo memorizes the screen Rebel flashes at him, then he digs around in the kit and lifts an injection gun.
“That’s it. Just get fluids in her and warm her up, slowly. I’ve got to go help the other females now.”
“Thank you, Brother.”
Rebel studies him closely. “How are you operating?”
“Within parameters,” Evo replies.
“Let me know if anything changes.”
“Understood.”
The screen darkens, and Evo looks down at me. “How are you feeling?”
Feeling? I never thought I’d be this close to a Titan. Ever. The more unsettling part is my growing attraction to him. He is a cautious Titan, less orderly, more observant, and concerned with how I feel, not just how I am operating.
He fidgets like he isn’t sure what to do with himself. Evo checks the injector, my vitals, stares off into the distance, then does it again.
My stomach burns with only a small amount of water to dilute the acid. I lethargically curl onto my side and savor more of the gloriously hot air. I get close enough, my skin starts to turn red.
“Aera.” Evo rests a gloved hand on my shoulder and gently guides me back. “You will damage yourself further.”
I don’t know why, but I start crying even though I don’t have enough moisture to form tears. I’m exhausted, relieved, in pounding pain, and fearing what is happening back on my mothership.