Three #2
He gave up trying to make himself smaller and gently took her head in his hands, rubbing small circles at her temples like he’d seen her do.
She whimpered and every protective instinct in him tightened painfully.
The pod tilted violently as one corner caught the ground and then bounced. The sails would bring them down gently enough not to kill them, but being knocked around was par for the course.
He wrapped Willow in his arms to protect her from the walls and keep her from being banged around. She took slow, deliberate breaths.
They bounced once more before finally coming to rest on their side.
The pod door opened automatically, which spun them around since they landed with it facing down.
Willow was closest to the door, and she slowly sat up and crawled out, coming dangerously close to the part of him that strained to feel her.
He took a deep breath before he followed her out.
The surface was temperate, with large-canopied trees that grew larger the higher their elevation.
The planet had an ice core and a relatively thin atmosphere, so plant life thrived further from the surface.
The ground was covered with a rocky substrate overlaid with spongy plants that absorbed water and nutrients from the ground and everything that died upon it.
Compared to home, this planet was quite charming.
There weren’t many predators—or animals of any kind really—so they wouldn’t need to worry about staying safe from native fauna.
He’d memorized the flora to avoid: a couple of brightly colored vines that emitted a noxious gas when touched, a low mat of razor-edged grass that opened flesh on contact, a tree with seed pods that exploded when startled, and a carnivorous pod filled with a substance sticky enough to trap a limb.
Renjik climbed out behind Willow and crouched beside her. She’d made it two steps before sinking to her knees, one hand pressed to her forehead while another dug through her bag.
“Injector,” she wheezed.
He took the bag from her searching hand and dug through it in much the same way she had. He found three injectors. “Which one?”
“Silver with a red cap. And maybe after that, the blue one. Red one is pain, blue is nausea.”
He snapped the cap off the red one and hesitated while he scanned her body. “Where?”
“Thigh. Don’t care which.”
He chose the one closest to him and pressed the cylinder tightly against her leg. The snap of it firing made both of them jump. After a few seconds, her shoulders dropped and she took a deep breath. “Better?”
Her eyes stayed closed. “Manageable.”
She needed a med pod. A team of Molzaeds watching over her. Instead he had a crashed escape pod, which was little help for a woman who looked like someone scraped all the color out of her.
He was useless.
The thought came sharp and cold. Familiar. He pushed it down. This was no time for self-pity.
He checked the pulse at the side of her throat and cursed when his fingers failed to be sensitive enough to feel all he wanted. He replaced them with his cybernetic ones. The metal registered pressure, heat, rhythm. The fine tremor under her skin.
Willow’s lashes lifted. “You look like you want to murder my pain meds.”
“Trying to decide if it’s working.”
“It is. As much as it’s going to, anyway.”
“Can you answer why the Molzaed haven’t cured this?”
She shrugged. “They can’t. Not without the risk of giving me a lobotomy.”
“A what?”
She chuckled. “A serious brain injury. Migraines are neurological and triggered by too many forces to pinpoint. But their pain meds are excellent. Much better than the ones I had on Earth. Good enough to keep me functioning.” She stood up and dipped with her hands out. “See? All good.”
She didn’t seem all good, but she was upright and the relief was palpable in his chest.
Renjik scanned the landing area. They weren’t as close to a peak as he’d like, but they weren’t in a valley either.
He estimated they were two-thirds of the way to the top of the mountain they stood on.
The rock was carpeted with soft green vegetation.
The mist-covered valley below was a somber contrast to the streaks of light and fire as the old station burned through the atmosphere.
Larger chunks trailed smoke and debris as they fell.
He could count losses later. Right now he had to get them rescued.
“Stay here.”
“But I was just about to sprint laps.” She stretched her legs in front of her and leaned against the side of the pod.
“If you need to vomit again, turn away from the pod.”
“Romance is alive and well.”
He’d have smiled had their circumstances been less dangerous. He assessed the pod for damage. The shell was scorched and dented, but the emergency beacon remained intact. He pried the access plate off with his hand, fisting the artificial one before it could grip too hard.
His body used to be something he could trust. So had the Rucieth awareness that warned him when a room shifted toward violence.
Now he had to be careful not to crush delicate equipment.
Not to miss heat that signaled an impending explosion.
Not to trust psychic static that might be warning or memory.
Not to seize when the memory of restraints crashed over him.
The Scozid had taken their time cutting off his arm. Cold light flared behind his eyes. The click of Scozid voices was loud as they discussed tolerance thresholds as if he were a malfunctioning engine.
“Renjik?”
Willow’s voice cut through the memory. She was watching him, eyes worried despite her own pain.
“I’m fine.”
“That sentence has never been true in the entire history of language.”
“The beacon appears to be damaged.”
“How damaged? Is it fixable?”
He looked at the transmitter. Several wires were loose. The power coupling was crushed. “I can fix it.”
“That’s optimistic.”
He grunted and started rerouting power from the pod’s main cell. He needed both hands. He held the panel steady with his cybernetic hand while he fixed wires. The servos whined and he froze.
Willow noticed. Either the noise or him going still, he wasn’t sure which. She pretended not to, digging through her bag with performative muttering.
He appreciated it.
A few minutes later, the wires were joined and the pod’s power brought the beacon to life. The frequency was set to alert Denchui military. He added his personal security code. The beacon pulsed three times before sputtering to death in a shower of sparks.
“That looks bad.”
“The signal sent.” He sighed. “At least once.”
“Once is better than never.”
“Not if it’s not received.”
“I’m trying to be positive.”
“Don’t strain yourself.”
Her laugh turned into a hiss. She put dents in her temples with her fingers and squeezed her eyes shut.
Renjik moved in front of her. Every instinct in his body wanted to protect her, shelter her, hunt the thing hurting her and tear it apart.
There was nothing to fight, and it made him feel more useless than ever. “The meds aren’t helping.”
She waved him off with a weak hand. “It helps. But it works best in conjunction with cold water, a dark room and ideally someone to perfect a skull replacement procedure.”
His lips quirked. “We have one of those things.” He retrieved the pod’s small kit and pressed a pouch into her hand. “Water.”
She drank slowly, allowing time between each sip. After three, she handed it back to him.
To his right, the moss moved.
He was in front of Willow, his graj? in hand in one fast movement. The ground bulged again, with a soft, wet sound. Something moved under the carpet of green.
“Please tell me that’s a very large, very friendly bug,” Willow whispered.
“No.”
“Of course not.”
A small armored shape emerged from the green. It was no larger than Willow’s satchel, with overlapping plates of blue-gray shell and too many curling limbs tucked beneath it. Lights glimmered under the armor like trapped stars. Enormous black eyes stared at them.
This... wasn’t in the known fauna list.
Renjik aimed.
“Wait.” Willow curled a hand around his lower leg.
He didn’t lower the weapon. “It could be dangerous.”
“So are you.”
“Willow.”
“Renjik.” She sighed. “Look at it.”
“I am.”
“You’re deciding where to shoot it. That’s entirely different.”
The creature moved, gliding over the ground with hesitant pauses every foot or so. It stopped a foot and a half from Willow’s outstretched foot.
Willow reached a hand toward it. “Hey, little guy.”
Renjik growled.
The creature stretched out a thin tentacle and tapped the sole of Willow’s boot.
“It’s okay.”
It could be deadly and she was crooning to it.
It flowed over the ground and wrapped itself around her thigh.
Renjik growled again.
“If it bites me, you can say you told me so.”
He grunted and lowered his weapon. He couldn’t shoot it without hurting her. He moved close enough to grab it with his cybernetic hand if need be.
The creature moved into her lap and lifted several limbs toward her face. Willow held still as it climbed higher and settled around the back of her neck.
Her eyes widened. She took a deep breath and breathed, “Oh.”
Renjik moved closer. She held up a hand to stop him.
“It’s cold.”
“I’ll remove it.”
“No, don’t!” She smacked his hand away when he got near. “It helps. It’s helping. The pain...” She shook her head.
The creature’s lights dimmed and brightened in slow pulses. Willow’s breathing steadied and some of her color returned.
Renjik stared at the small thing wrapped around his rhun’s neck and made several revisions to his earlier plan to kill it.
A temporary stay of execution now seemed reasonable.
WILLOW DECIDED THAT being stranded on an alien planet with a migraine, a twitchy warrior, and an affectionate armored land octopus was still preferable to the negotiations.
The creature around her neck pulsed another cool wash of relief directly at the base of her skull.
Accounting definitely wouldn’t have gotten her an emergency cephalid scarf.