Chapter 22
Steven
The alarm ringing through the shuttle snaps me out of my terrible thoughts. “What’s happening?”
“A solar flare.” My mate, Lyriana, is scowling at the screens I can’t read, touching the shuttle controls until the alarm stops. “This place is a fucking death trap.”
Ironically, my hope rises at her words. “That means Jaime could be here?”
“Maybe. If their ship got hit by a flare like we just did, it would have definitely knocked them off course. It would also explain why the distress call we received was so scrambled.”
It’s infuriating that despite all their advanced technology, aliens still can’t safely locate the source of a distress call.
All we gleaned from the faint, damaged transmission was that Jaime’s ship was in trouble, but not what kind of trouble or where they were.
Immediately, we went out looking for him.
The Supernova, with its stronger hyperdrive, is scouring the route we think Jaime’s ship took, in case they dropped out of hyperspace in the middle of nowhere.
Dart, the shuttle I’m on, along with another smaller ship belonging to our ally, is scanning the systems Jaime likely passed through, searching planets and moons for any sign of his ship.
I can’t believe I let him go alone. I should have gone with him. I should have—
“Steven.” Not taking her eyes off the screens, Lyri squeezes my hand. “It’s not your fault. We’ll find him.”
Yeah. We will. But what will we find? Most of the planets we checked were icy rocks with no atmosphere. No one could survive there, not even for a few minutes. And Jaime’s been missing for almost two weeks now. “Any signals here?”
“I’m a little busy trying to keep us from crashing,” Lyri replies angrily. “Besides, there’s too much interference to scan anything remotely. The solar activity in this system is— Wait, there’s something.”
My heart lifts, then sinks again as she shakes her head. “Not Jaime,” she says, “but there’s another ship here. They noticed we’re damaged and are offering help.”
“Just like that? Isn’t it a little suspicious?”
“Actually, according to the Universal Assistance Protocol, it would be illegal for them not to offer help. I’m going to accept. Our nav computer is scrambled, I’ll need to reset it and that will take time. We might as well talk to these guys. Perhaps they saw something.”
My hand instinctively tightens around the blaster on my thigh. “Are we sure they’re good guys?” I don’t have time to be sold into slavery again.
“They’re… Wow. Okay. This is odd.” Lyri stares at the screen with her mouth agape. “They’re Wehdi. Huh. I’ve never actually met one.”
I haven’t even heard of them, but with the number of unique alien species scattered across the galaxy, it’s no surprise.
I haven’t been off Earth that long. “Does them being Wehdi mean they’re likely to help us or kill us on the spot?
” If they’re anything like the bone-mohawk Ataxi assholes, I’m not setting a foot on their ship.
“Oh, they’re definitely with the UGC. Good guys. I don’t think they tend to be criminals, let alone slavers. There aren’t that many of them and they usually keep to themselves, but they’re known to be really smart. Like, genius-level smart. A lot of the inventions we use come from them, I think.”
“Okay…” I draw my brows together and scrutinize Lyriana’s face because her expression doesn’t match her words. “There’s a ‘but’ here, isn’t there? Why do you look so worried?”
“I’m not worried. I’m just…” With a sigh, she turns to me.
“Well, the Wehdi aren’t very popular. You know how most intelligent life looks roughly the same?
I mean, there are obvious differences.” She points to her horns while my gaze is inevitably drawn to her triboob.
Laughing, she smacks my thigh. “My eyes are up here, asshole. So we all look pretty much the same, right? Well, the Wehdi are different.”
“People don’t like them because they look different?” I ask incredulously. I wouldn’t expect something so basic from advanced species. “What do they look like? Balls of slime?”
Lyri quickly shakes her head. “No, not just because of their appearance, though I suppose it’s a part of that.
Damn, that sounds really speciesist, doesn’t it?
And they don’t look like balls of slime.
They’re basically eight-legged lizards with a lot of teeth.
The problem is that they’re rumored to turn feral.
Like, one moment you have a brilliant astrophysicist or something, and the next,” she snaps her fingers, “there’s a feral beast tearing you to shreds.
Again, this is just a rumor. I’ve never actually met any of these guys in person, but—”
“There might be a grain of truth to it,” I finish for her. “So we might be greeted by a bunch of lizard Einsteins who could help us fix the ship or even locate Jaime, but they could also try to kill us? Ah-may-zing.”
Laughing, Lyri nods. “Pretty much. Grab your gear. We’re about to dock.”
Minutes later, we’re standing by the airlock, both wearing combat armor and carrying laser rifles. At Lyriana’s signal, I open the airlock door and immediately take aim at whoever is waiting on the other side.
The alien reels back when he notices the weapons pointing in his direction, his three eyes blinking as he watches us.
He looks like he used to have four eyes, but there’s an ugly scar running down his face, slashing through an empty socket.
Other than the scar, there’s nothing threatening about him.
He’s wearing a dark red jumpsuit tailored to his eight limbs, four of which are raised in surrender.
“Um,” he clears his throat, his eyes jumping between our weapons.
Lyri lowers hers first. “We’re not pirates. We just weren’t sure what kind of greeting we’d receive.”
“Ah. Understandable.” Casting a nervous look at me, the alien slowly lowers his arms. “We’re peaceful, so…”
“So are we,” Lyri says. Under her meaningful look, I also lower my weapon. “We’re just looking for a ship that might have passed through this system about two weeks ago. Might have…” “Might have…” She hesitates and looks at me before continuing, “crashed here.”
The alien sighs. “It is a dangerous system. I’ve already filed a warning with the UGC, but it will take time before it’s distributed to all navigation computers.”
“Yeah, a warning would have been nice. How long have you been here?”
“Have you seen my brother?” I ask impatiently. Lyri gives me another look I don’t know how to decipher, so I shrug. “What? They’re clearly not some feral lizard monsters. We might as well ask them right away instead of wasting time with pleasantries.”
“Ancestors…” She sighs and rubs her face, and I get the distinct feeling she thinks I’m an idiot. “My apologies…?”
The alien smiles, which is quite a disturbing sight. “Rokesh. And no apologies are necessary. I’m well aware of the rumors going around about the Wehdi. Sadly, they aren’t exactly unfounded. But you’re safe on this ship. I can guarantee that. Everyone is tested regularly. Please, follow me.”
Shaking her head at me and giving me a look that promises a sexy punishment later, Lyri takes off after Rokesh, leaving me with no choice but to follow. “I don’t mean to pry,” she starts carefully.
“But you’re curious,” Rokesh says. “It’s a natural reaction.
In short, my kind suffers from a genetic disease we were unable to eradicate or cure.
It affects random people at random stages of their life, taking over their higher brain functions until there’s nothing left but the individual’s primal instincts.
Eat, sleep. Fight. Kill.” Absently, he touches the scar on his face.
“We call it the red fog. Anyone affected is isolated and placed in stasis in the hope that one day a cure will be found, but… It’s been centuries, and no one has even been able to identify what’s causing the red fog.
Various potential cures were tested, but no one has ever improved. ”
“That’s terrible,” Lyri says.
I agree, but keep my mouth shut to prevent myself from saying something stupid.
If Rokesh is telling the truth, the shift into ferality isn’t instantaneous, and we should be safe here, which means I don’t really care to hear more about it.
Finding Jaime takes priority over discovering weird facts about aliens.
Lyri seems to have a different opinion. “I take it you have a…personal experience with one of the affected?” she asks softly, pointing at Rokesh’s scar.
His shoulders slump. “More personal than you think. Here.” He brings us to the cockpit where two other Wehdi work on their stations.
“We’ve been scanning the system for several days now.
If your brother’s ship passed through here, it must have been before we arrived, because we would have detected it.
The interference makes long-range scanners nearly useless, so we’re sending probes to the planets and moons that allow it, but there are three gas giants here. ”
I’m not well-versed in astrophysics, but I get what he’s suggesting. If Jaime’s ship went to one of these planets, there would be nothing left for us to find.
“These are not scientific probes,” Lyriana notes as she looks at the data. “They’re search and rescue. You’re looking for someone here?”
Sighing, Rokesh nods. “My brother. Five years ago, he took off in a shuttle and disappeared. We’ve scanned hundreds of systems in our search for him. This is one of the last ones within the shuttle’s range.”
“He’s the one who gave you that scar,” I say. “He went feral, didn’t he?” Five years. Rokesh has been looking for his brother for five years. Jaime hasn’t even been missing for two weeks, and I’m already going crazy. I can’t imagine what it must feel like for Rokesh.
“Yes, he’s suffering from the red fog. When he tested positive, I thought he would enter a stasis pod, but he refused. He said there was no hope and that he wanted to end his life instead. Some afflicted choose to do so. I didn’t let him. We argued and…”
Lyri shakes her head. “If he wanted to die, he could have guided the shuttle to crash on purpose. And even if he was alive, it wouldn’t be him anymore. Why—”
“Because it’s his brother,” I answer in Rokesh’s stead, because I understand.
Of course I fucking understand. “He needs to know for sure.” I know the odds of finding Jaime alive are astronomical.
We’ll be lucky to find a body, or even a trace of the ship.
It doesn’t stop me from searching, either. It will never stop me.
“Exactly,” Rokesh nods at me. There’s a connection between us now. A solemn companionship. “At least it puts me in a position to help you. Maybe something good can come from this hopeless quest.”
Another Wehdi approaches and squeezes Rokesh’s shoulder in a silent offer of comfort.
Rokesh smiles at them before returning his attention to the screens.
“Let’s look at the data from the probes.
This green gas giant has several moons with atmospheres.
If your brother’s ship was damaged, the pilot might have tried to land on one of them to increase their chances of survival.
With the amount of interference here, the probes have trouble transmitting, but we do have some data. ”
Alien squiggles appear on the screen closest to me. “I don’t suppose you can switch that to English?”
“Oh, apologies.” A few seconds later, the screen does indeed start showing English words. I still don’t understand half of them, mainly because they’re scientific jargon.
“It’s ironic, you know?” Rokesh chuckles, gesturing to the screen. “This is Rizven’s work. He was—is a linguist. He was the one who introduced human languages into the translation databases.”
“All of them? Wow. He sounds like a smart guy.”
“He is,” Rokesh agrees, his look growing distant. “He taught linguistics at university. Words were his passion. That’s why the red fog weighed so heavily on him when it stole his ability to speak. I should have—”
“It’s not your fault,” I echo Lyriana’s words. “So, what am I looking for here? And if we do find something, what happens next? Can we land there to pick my brother up?”
Lyri frowns. “The solar activity is insane here. We’d have to time the approach for when the moons are shielded by the planet and we’d only have a short window to go there and back.”
“But it’s possible?”
“Yes,” she says, but the sadness in her eyes tells me she doesn’t share my hope. My mate doesn’t believe we have a chance of finding Jaime alive.
Well, I’ll prove her wrong. Nothing can stop me from saving my brother. “I’m coming for you, Jaime,” I whisper as my eyes fly over the text on the screen. “Just hang in there. I’m coming.”