Chapter 2
Ryzer
It was going to be a terribly rotten day no matter what happened.
The wind was stiff and cold. Thus, the cattle were stubborn and refused to move from their comfy barn to the yard.
Which made Eddy late from mucking the stalls to help Ryzer prep the machines.
That put them further behind on an already bad season full of dying crops, no babies, and one less farm hand than he had last year.
It was growing rougher and rougher to keep Bitterroot Fields afloat.
Between the weather on Arcon growing less ideal for the type of crops he could manage with his short staff and them leaving his farm for freighter companies, he was going to be the last Bitterroot to man these rotten fields.
Not to mention he’d not been able to secure anyone desperate enough to wed, then bed, a grumpy Taurian like himself.
A fact Deirdre reminds me of every night at dinner.
But all that he could have muscled through and figured out if not for the giant freighter that crash landed in the backfield.
Granted, ain’t nothing out there but dry soil and dehydrated husks.
It was the principle of the matter. He was never going to be able to fix the soil after all that oil and coolant spilled into the ground.
Might as well just dig a crater and fill it full of fucking rocks.
He didn’t even have time to say a word. Ryzer was in the middle of telling Eddy what to do with a machine, and they both heard a loud bang, followed by several sputters.
They were distinctly not guns, and he’d know the mad spitting of a rickety machine anywhere.
He and the green scaled Scorpik watched as a freighter whizzed through the clouds, descending too close to the ground.
Ryzer bulldozed—pun intended—through paper-thin stalks to find half the field smashed under metal rubble.
It was like the ship split apart at the seams. Six different parts smoked across an acre of land, while all the little bits that weren’t attached to something spilled onto the scorched field.
Eddy stood to his side with a fire-extinguisher, but Ryzer put a palm on his farm hand’s head to stop him.
“I’m gonna need a bigger extinguisher,” Eddy murmured.
“Go back to the house.” Ryzer swallowed the lump in his throat. Thankfully, it was a freighter. That meant he wasn’t about to find a hundred bodies spread out in his field. “Call the Agriculture Council, and Aviation, tell them what happened, tell them to send a cleanup team.”
Eddy stared up at Ryzer with wide eyes. “What did happen?”
“A freighter fell out of the sky, Eddy. Or do you not see the giant hull smoking in our back field?” Ryzer snapped, glancing at the shell-shocked boy.
He couldn’t be too mad, Eddy was just out of school, no more hardened than the baby scales on his body.
With two large, yellow eyes, his fork tongue slapped against one and licked away the tears he was clearly holding back.
All four of his hands were wrapped deathly tight around the extinguisher.
Ryzer sighed, plucking the little cannister from his farm hand.
Eddy’s wavering eyes snapped up to Ryzer’s mean muzzle.
The Taurian arched a fuzzy brow. “Do what I said, Eddy. Check in with Dee-dee, make sure she’s okay, and call the council’s please? ”
“What are you gonna do?” Eddy frowned, his little beard cutely waggling in the cold, stiff wind that brushed overtop them.
Scorpik’s are lizard-folk, usually sporting four arms, big puppy dog eyes, scaley skin, forked tongues, and dangly little beards that show their age.
Eddy’s was small, still firm, and vibrant green.
Unlike the salt-and-pepper-streaked fur that raced over Ryzer’s head and down his chest. Though, Aunt Deirdra says I’m predisposed for it.
My old man looked like a grizzled old bull before he was middle aged.
“I’m gonna—”Ryzer never got to finish that thought because a bubblegum pink girl fell out of the front windshield of the ship.
The glass was gone, the pieces of it covering the dead field.
Ryzer caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and bolted from the spot.
The extinguisher fell to the ground with a heavy thud.
His hooves carved through the destroyed crop stalks and dried soil.
With seconds to spare, he caught an Aquaterranian girl in a ratty flight suit.
Her short, choppy, pastel hair fell against his black fur like tinsel.
Her flight suit said ‘Sturdy Bird’, but he couldn’t tell what company she belonged to or her station.
Ryzer stepped back from the nose of the ship, trying to spy up into its windshield for other people.
No one. She was a singular sack of flour in his arms, limp.
Brushing his fingers across her cheek, he found a circular face underneath all her sugar spun hair.
Small button nose, lips in a hard frown, smudged liner around her lids, a streak of grease across her brow, he felt the air blowing out of her nose and his shoulders softened.
Her two antennae bobbed weakly on top of her head, her finned ears looking a little rough around the edges.
Ryzer pressed a finger to her jugular, feeling the pulse below, and exhaled heavily.
Her brows furrowed, then her eyes cracked open.
Giant pools of blue, like a crystal-clear ocean, studied his face.
There was a pinch in her forehead that said she wasn’t fully there, but it was better than nothing.
Her pulse picked up sharply, and he could feel all her muscles react to the sudden realization.
Ryzer cupped the back of her head as support as he spoke, “Hey, hey, breathe. You’re safe.
The ship crashed, but you’re alright. Can you tell me your name? ”
“Daisy,” she croaked, trembling from head to boot.
“That’s good. Daisy, can you tell me where the other people were in the freighter?
” He stepped backward more to continue his inspection of the ship.
From up close, it was a medium sized ship.
Likely one of the ones landing at the base to pick up pallets of food, a lucrative business despite Ryzer’s bias.
If freighters didn’t just steal all my good workers, I might be less pissy about it… might.
“No…” she spoke with a whine, a hand moving to her stomach. Ryzer stopped short to stare at her for any signs she might be bleeding. He’d have to take her to a healer, ensure her insides were where they were supposed to be.
“That’s alright I’ll just—”
“There’s no one else,” she winced.
Ryzer’s eyes widened as he stared down at the woman in his arms. There’s no one else? He couldn’t help the words spilling out of his mouth. “Why the fuck not?”
Real nice. Real kind there, sport. Just bully the lady you caught falling out of a crashed ship.
Daisy didn’t answer, instead groaning and clutching her stomach.
Ryzer cursed under his breath, booking it away from the ship.
He’d have to ask again later why the pretty, pink lady in a ratty flight suit was manning a class 4 freighter all by herself.