Chapter 13
Past lives
The corridor outside felt colder than it had when they entered the observation gallery.
Darren walked a half-step behind Aelanna, not close enough to touch her, but close enough to catch her if she stumbled.
She didn’t. She moved with quiet grace, though he sensed the questions simmering beneath her calm.
Questions he couldn’t answer.
Not without tearing open wounds he’d spent years stitching shut.
They reached the junction where the corridor split toward the living quarters. Aelanna slowed, glancing back at him. Her eyes were soft, searching.
“You don’t like talking about Ohiri,” she blurted.
He kept his face neutral. “It’s not relevant.”
“It feels relevant,” she murmured.
He inhaled through his nose. He was a shadow-blinded fool, she was perceptive. Too sharp-witted. “It isn’t.”
A lie. Or half of one. Ohiri wasn’t his home. It never would be. But it was the place he was forced to survive when everything else had burned.
Aelanna’s steps grew quieter. “Is it your planet?”
“No.”
The word came out sharper than he intended. She flinched — not visibly, but he felt it, like a shift in the air between them.
He forced his voice steady. “My planet is gone.”
She stopped walking.
He hadn’t meant to say that. Not here, not now. But the words had slipped out, dragged from a place he kept locked behind bone and discipline.
Aelanna turned to him slowly. “Gone? How?”
He stared past her, down the dim corridor. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to you.”
Her voice was calm and determined. It brushed against the raw edges inside him.
“We should keep moving,” he bit out.
She didn’t argue, but she didn’t look away either. Her eyes lingered on him— curious, unbearably kind. He felt exposed under that gaze, as if she could see the ash and ruin he carried inside, in his dead place.
He walked on, and she followed, though the silence between them had changed. It wasn’t empty now. It was full... of questions, of things unsaid, of the truth he refused to let surface.
They reached her door. She paused with her hand on the panel.
“Darren,” she said softly, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t.”
Another lie. She hadn’t upset him; she had unsettled him. There was a difference. Upset was anger. Unsettled was… dangerous.
She dithered. “If you ever want to talk about it—”
“I won’t.” He softened his tone, just barely. “Relax, get a good night’s sleep. The journey will be uneventful. Much like today. You’re safe on this ship.”
She nodded, though her eyes still held that quiet, aching question.
The door slid open.
He stepped back, giving her space. “Goodnight, Aelanna.”
“Goodnight,” she whispered.
The door shut between them.
Darren stood there for a long moment, staring at the blank metal panel. His chest felt tight, as if something inside him had shifted, let in light where there should be none.
He turned away sharply.
He would not think about Yithir, about Dhelta, about the flare that swallowed his world whole.
And he would not — absolutely would not — think about the way Aelanna had looked at him, as if she wanted to understand the pieces of him he’d buried in ash.
He strode down the corridor, each step measured, controlled.
He had survived the death of a planet.
He could survive this.
But stars help him…
He wasn’t sure which one hurt more.
Aelanna didn’t sleep.
She lay in the dim cabin, the soft hum of the ship vibrating through the mattress, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. Every time she closed them, she saw Darren’s face in the starlight — calm, controlled, and hiding something vast and painful behind his eyes.
My planet is gone.
The words echoed through her chest like a bruise.
She had wanted to reach for him. To offer comfort. To ask what happened. But the way he had shut down, sharp, final, told her that whatever lay behind that sentence was a wound he didn’t want touched.
She turned onto her side, pulling the coverlet up to her chin. The ship felt safe, just as he’d said. But she didn’t feel safe from her own thoughts.
Why did she care so much? Especially after she wanted to protect her heart more than ever. Why did his pain feel like something she wanted to shield him from?
She barely knew him.
And yet… she felt as if she’d known the shape of his silence her whole life.
Eventually, exhaustion dragged her into a restless sleep.
She woke to the soft chime of the ship’s morning cycle. Nayli tapped on her door. She was already dressed and Kora joined her in the corridor.
“We’re nearly there,” Nayli said. “Blayze told me.”
Kora snorted. “Of course he did. He’d tell you the ship’s shoe size if it had one.”
Aelanna smiled weakly, and her stomach fluttered.
Nearly there. Nearly at Ohiri. Nearly at the place Darren didn’t want to talk about.
She dressed quickly, and the three of them made their way to the elevator where Darren waited.
Darren’s gaze flicked to her immediately — quick, assessing, lingering for a heartbeat too long. She felt warmth bloom in her chest.
“Did you sleep?” he asked.
“A little.”
Something in his eyes tightened. “We’ll be landing soon, but you’ve got time for breakfast. Shall I escort you to the diner?”
She nodded.
To take her mind off Darren, she got to know some of the other girls at breakfast, though it was difficult; he joined his brothers who were already sitting at the next table.
The two girls who hadn’t gone into stasis were Daisy Fisher from Boston, who had curly red hair and freckles, and Prosperity Parker who came from Connecticut.
“How are you feeling today?” Aelanna asked, sitting at their table. “How was the journey? I hear you found it a bit rough.”
They nodded their appreciation and their anxious looks dissipated.
“Better today, I’m glad we’re about to land,” said Prosperity.
She was staying with her friend Daisy at the time they left for the spaceship, she explained.
Prosperity had straight brown hair, brown eyes and a serious manner, though it could have been the circumstances.
Kora breezed in and sat down next to Aelanna, placing her cup and plate of the alien version of breakfast bagel on the table.
“They have a passable coffee here. I’d like to know what it’s made of,” Kora muttered.
“I’m not sure I wanna know,” said Aelanna.
“They might not have it everywhere in Ohiri, but it’s good.”
“They must have it on Ohiri, the ship came from there.”
“Good point,” agreed Kora.
Also, sitting with them were twins from South Carolina, Shamone and Devon, who were Afro American.
They didn’t say anything and didn’t eat anything.
Stumbling through introductions, they only clutched their drinks taking a random sip every now and then.
Aelanna understood; just out of stasis, they were likely feeling overwhelmed.
Nayli sat with the brothers, though in Aelanna’s opinion she was only making it harder for her and Blayze to say goodbye.
Right now, he was blinking rapidly as she dabbed at a faint smear of sauce on his cheek with a napkin.
“You missed a spot,” she said quietly.
Blayze froze, eyes wide, as if she’d just touched him with something electric. “I — did I?”
“Yes,” she said, smiling. “Hold still.”
He held still. Perfectly still. Aelanna wasn’t sure he was breathing.
Nayli wiped the corner of his mouth with the gentle efficiency of someone who’d done this a thousand times for younger siblings or distracted friends. When she finished, she smoothed the napkin on the table and gave him an approving nod.
“There. Much better.”
“Thank you. I… thank you,” he stuttered.
Nayli tilted her head. “Are you alright?”
“Yes,” he said immediately — too immediately. “I’m fine. Perfect. Very fine.”
Kora tittered from the other end of the table. “He’s malfunctioning.”
That comment brought him to his senses, and Aelanna suppressed a grin.
“I am not malfunctioning,” Blayze protested, sitting up straighter.
“You kind of are,” Kora said, amused. “You look like someone just patted your head and told you you’re a good boy.”
Blayze’s flush deepened to a shade Aelanna didn’t know skin could reach.
Nayli glared at her. “Kora! Don’t tease him.”
“I’m not teasing,” Kora said. “I’m observing.”
“Your observations are unhelpful,” Lero growled across the tables.
Kora ignored him.
Blayze fidgeted with his cup, shoulders hunched. “I don’t mind,” he said quietly. “She can… um… help. If she wants.”
Nayli’s expression softened into something unexpectedly tender. “I don’t mind helping,” she said. “You’re very sweet.”
Blayze made a small sound — half-sigh, half-whimper — that he tried to disguise as a cough.
Darren was on her mind, though, and she wanted to know what had happened to Dhelta and why it hurt him so much to talk about it.
She mumbled something about getting more coffee to her breakfast companions and got up from the table.
She made her way to the counter and waiting until Darren had turned his attention from her, she slipped out, caught up with Pilot Joel as he strode down the corridor and she walked to the elevator with him.
He didn’t pace his stride to match hers, and she had to run to keep up.
He was smartly turned out in his cream-colored dress uniform.
“Pilot, what happened to your planet?” she asked, slightly breathless.
He gave her a quizzical glance. “Dhelta? Your bodyguards can tell you.”
“They don’t want to talk about it.”
Understanding softened his face. “Ah, too painful. Yithir, our sun, swallowed it in a massive flare,” he explained in a level tone.
“Unfortunately, Dhelta’s orbit was close to our star.
It had its advantages but being in range of the flares was a fatal disadvantage.
Yithir was a red dwarf, you see, and the thing about dying stars is they sometimes flare. ”
“How come you don’t mind talking about it?” she asked as they reached the elevator. He pressed his palm to the panel to call it.
“I left home early to join the military. I became a pilot and I spent more time on this ship than I did on Dhelta. When I heard the planet was no more, I offered myself, my crew and my ship to the emperor, and he accepted me with open arms.”
The elevator arrived and the doors slid open.
The pilot bowed.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have a ship to land.”
“Of course. And thank you.”
He glanced at someone behind her, returned his gaze to hers and smiled before he stepped inside. “My pleasure.”
She turned. Darren had followed her out.
“I will escort you to the lounge,” he said, his brow crinkled.
The ship descended through Ohiri’s atmosphere with a low, vibrating roar. Aelanna gripped the armrests as the stabilizers engaged, but Darren’s solid presence beside her steadied her nerves. They were in the lounge, a room with a panoramic screen to show them Ohiri as the ship came in to land.
They weren’t allowed on the bridge, though Darren had been kind enough to ask, but Pilot Joel had given permission to use the lounge, a special privilege that was normally reserved for VIPs.
The other seven girls had joined them and were buckled into their seats, their eyes glued to the screen, but she didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to be friendly with them right now. She would greet the three she hadn’t met after they had landed.
Then the ship broke through the cloud layer —
— and Aelanna drew in a sharp, audible breath. Kora and Nayli, Lero and Blayze, turned their heads to her, giving her worried looks, and Darren’s concern was expressed in a frown.
Kora asked, “You all right, babe?”
Aelanna nodded furiously and tried to stop the sinking feeling inside her.
Ohiri was nothing like she’d imagined.
The city below was a sprawling blaze of color and movement — bright neon lights, towering structures of metal and glass, buzzing air traffic weaving between them like insects. The ground was a patchwork of harsh angles and glowing pathways. Nothing easy on the eye, nothing quiet, but overwhelming.
It was the opposite of the Dheltan ship’s ethereal, muted elegance.
The landing platform was in the military sector, a stark contrast to the color and bustle of the city. It rose to meet them, and the ship settled with a heavy thud. The engines powered down. They made their way from the lounge down to the airlock by which they first entered.
The ramp lowered and Aelanna squinted into the blinding daylight.
Ohirins were waiting.
Aelanna froze.
Lizards. Ohirins were lizards.
They were tall — taller than Darren and his brothers — with broad shoulders and long, sinuous tails that swayed behind them.
Their skin was covered in scales that shimmered in the bright light, patterns of green, gold, and deep red.
Their eyes were slit-pupiled, sharp and predatory.
Some had crests and they all had what she could only describe as fringes of flesh instead of hair on their heads; some had the fringes partway down their backs.
Their smart military uniforms strained over powerful limbs, and when one shifted, he wasn’t wearing gloves and she glimpsed curved talons.
“Oh, fuck me sideways,” Kora breathed.
Nayli made a small, strangled sound.
Aelanna couldn’t speak at all. She stood there in shock.
This couldn’t be happening. Dapkey had promised them no reptiles.
The lizard men looked like something out of a nightmare — dignified and statuesque but terrifying all the same.
One stepped forward in the humid, heavy air, his tail flicking. “Welcome to Ohiri,” he said, voice deep and rasping.
Aelanna’s heart hammered. He shouldn’t have stood that close. An indefinable meaty smell reached her nose, though she could have imagined it.
Darren moved subtly in front of her, blocking part of her view. Instinctively protective. The brothers did the same for Nayli and Kora.
She clutched the strap of her bag, caught up to him and stood by his side. “Darren… are these—?”
“Ohirins,” he said through gritted teeth. “This is their world.”
“But the ship — your ship — it’s Dheltan,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“And you’re not—”
“No,” he said, voice strained. “We’re not Ohirin.”
She looked up at him, searching his face. “Then why are we here?”
“Because this is where we serve.”
“But—”
“Aelanna.” His voice was low and firm. “Not now.”
She swallowed hard.
The Ohirin warriors watched them with unblinking reptilian eyes.
In the relative calm of the military space port, the city blazed behind them — flashy, loud, alien.
And Darren stood between her and all of it, shoulders tense, expression unreadable.
Something was very wrong.
And she was starting to realise that whatever Darren wasn’t telling her…
Ohiri was at the heart of it.