Chapter 2
Sharp pressure against my shoulder blade pulls me from a fuzzy dream where I’d sat at my favorite coffee shop, sipping on a chai latte.
Beep-beep-beep-beep.
The alarm drills into my skull, relentless.
I groan, forcing my eyes open. The world tilts, a wave of dizziness crashing over me.
Blood pounds against my ear drum like a war drum.A quick glance at my surroundings brings everything crashing back.
Mars. My first official mission as a xenolinguist. The ancient lifecord clamping around my wrist. The fall.
Except…this isn’t Mars.
The soil beneath me is dull gray, not rust-red. Jagged rocks rise like broken teeth, streaked with gold and silver veins. Above, the sky is pure black, the stars cold and sharp.
Where the hell am I?
The alarm shrieks louder, frantic now. Oxygen. My suit’s O? sensor.
I fumble for the touchscreen on my forearm, my fingers slow and clumsy, and scan the data.
“Shit.” My voice rasps in the helmet. “Filtration failure.”
I hit the restart button at the back of my neck. Nothing. No hum of fans or rush of air.
“Shit, shit, shit.” Panic claws up my throat. Five minutes of reserve oxygen. That’s all. My sats hover at eighty-five percent in rationing mode, but they’re dropping fast.
If I don’t get somewhere safe and soon, I’m dead.
I shove onto my feet with trembling legs. No idea where I am or why my suit’s failing.
A glow flickers between two standing stones—a slit of blue light in the dark.
I stumble toward it, squeezing through the narrow gap into a cavern mouth. Artificial ionospec light pulses faintly inside. Relief hits me so hard my knees buckle.
Someone’s here. Maybe my team moved me. Whether they did or not, I’m safe. I want to cry with relief, even while I ignore the questions clawing at the back of my mind.
Wrong soil, wrong sky. Air first, then answers.
The alarm continues screaming like a metal band gone berserk as I collapse to my knees.
A shadow moves, and a figure rises from the cave floor—a towering Volderen male muscled like carved stone. “Pasen!” His voice lashes out, harsh and guttural. “Mirt nari!”
The room spins. My lungs burn. I gasp, reaching for him. “N-need…air.”
He strides closer. His face twists in disgust. Black irises blaze as they sweep me from head to toe. That color of eyes isn’t common for Volderens. The curved horns on his forehead are as white as bone.
“No,” he growls, gripping my shoulder with brutal strength. He hauls me toward the opening like I weigh nothing. “I do not know how you found me, but the High Council should know better than to trick me with a pathetic human.”
Rocks scrape my shoulders and hips as he drags me across the ground. My boots carve desperate lines in the dust.
“Please…” My voice fractures as black dots bloom in my vision. “Please…d-don’t let me die.”
He doesn’t answer. Or doesn’t care. The world narrows to pain and cold and the rasp of my own breath until everything turns black.
A smell—sweet with a hint of spice—flows into my nose. It reminds me of Sunday mornings with my brothers, when our dad cooked orange chocolate chip pancakes. The memory, sharp and bittersweet, jolts me awake faster than a cup of Volderen synthcaff.
I’m lying on a low, soft bed. My suit lays deflated across the back of a chair. I’m breathing normal oxygen, then.
The Volderen, kneeling next to me, holds my wrist in one of his humongous hands and uses a scanner pen’s light over my forearm, sealing up several abrasions.
I yank my arm away, but he doesn’t let go. “What are you doing?” I guess he had a change of heart and decided to let me live?
“The only reason you are here is because I could not stand listening to that alarm. Your…suit…is charging.” His cold, hard eyes bore into me.
I swallow and nod, looking down at my clothes. Nothing’s been disturbed, so at least he didn’t try to molest me. I can’t tell if he’s annoyed or grumpy because I’m alive. Maybe both.
A muscle in his jaw ticks. “I saved you not because I care, understand? It is just that incessant noise interfered with my concentration. I should have left you to die.”
Maybe he means to offend me with his words and tone, but I’m not. “I’m glad you didn’t. Th-thank you.”
I try to sit up, but one look from his angry gaze makes me rethink the motion.
He cuts his attention back to my forearm, scanning the bones of my wrist.
“It’s fine, I think. Nothing broken.” I twist my hand back and forth.
He lets out a grunt, then runs the scanner over my chest, his outstretched arm drawing my attention.
He wears a tunic-style short sleeve shirt, common with Volderens, if they even wear a shirt at all.
Peeking below his shoulder’s hem, the bare flesh of his pale green skin seems darker, as if scarred in the past. My gaze travels to his bicep, and the barest hint of blue light glows beneath, tracing a highway downward.
The crease of his elbow reveals three smooth circles of metal, and further inspection of his fingers reveals the tips of metal.
It's a cybernetic arm!
The technology to create this, to seamlessly integrate with his nervous system, must be extraordinary, even for these advanced aliens.
I reach out to touch it, for a moment forgetting where I’m at.
He flinches and jerks backward.
Our eyes meet, and his expression conveys strong displeasure and embarrassment.
“Oh. I…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Never touch me again, human, or I will drag you back outside and gladly watch you suffocate.” His tone is filled with pain and anger.
I’m not sure why he’s so furious. Maybe he’s ashamed, and sees his arm as a deformity?
“I th-think it’s beautiful.” I nod to his hand, then meet his stare, letting my eyes travel across his face, his silver-white hair, his full bottom lip. He’s the most striking Volderen I’ve ever met.
His shoulders relax, and he clears his throat. “Do not stare at me like that, human.”
A smile forms on my lips. “I do have a name, you know.” I point to my suit, where my name tag rests on the sleeve. “Elaine Myles, but I prefer Ellie.”
His black irises watch my mouth.
The silence feels too silent. “I’m part of a small team of xenolinguists sent to examine older Volderen outposts to find ancient tech and review it with your scientists.
Kind of a joint mission to test out our new alliance.
We’re hoping to prove we can work together and bring everything out in the open, instead of keeping it secret like XVU has tried to do, which is a disaster so f-f-far. ”
At the mention of XVU—earth’s secret, or not so secret anymore—shadow military branch called Xeno Vigilance Unit, his lip curls. “We should be ridding ourselves of XVU, and all humans who support it.”
I push myself up and sit, testing out my arm and wrist. No pain or blood, so that’s good.
“I agree about the XVU part. But I think they’ll end up imploding from the inside out.
President Channing is p-p-pissed at how much death and reputational damage they’ve caused.
She’s made it a top priority to hunt every member down and bring them to trial.
Good riddance, I say.” The room, about twenty feet wide and fifteen feet long, is empty in the middle.
Smooth white tiles cover the walls, and bright blue light glows from the seams, where the walls meet the ceiling.
At the farthest end, a desk meets the wall.
On the right, information scrolls across a portion of the area; a mix of news articles from Earth and Mars in the Volderen language.
On the left side, a seven-foot-tall replicator station takes up the entire corner.
A set of doors next to it lead deeper into the shelter, I assume.
It strikes me as strange. This place feels too vast, too quiet for one person. “Where’s the rest of your research team?” My voice echoes faintly against the smooth walls.
He slips the pen-sized scanner into a pocket on his cargo-style pants, his movements sharp, controlled. Then he folds his arms across his chest, the muscles taut beneath his pale green skin. “Team?” His tone is a blade. “I do not need one. I do not want one. I am alone.”
His gaze locks onto mine, black eyes burning. “At least, I was alone…until you.” The curl of his lip is pure contempt, but there’s something else buried there, something raw. “I do not know why I brought you back. Humans are nothing but trouble. Nothing but pain.”
I swallow hard, my pulse hammering, but force a smirk I don’t feel. “Well, I have no plans to stay. Loan me a sparrow, and I’ll fly myself out of here.”
His eyebrow arches, slow and deliberate, and for the briefest moment, the corner of his mouth tilts—almost a smile, but sharper, like a predator amused by its prey.
“Where exactly,” he murmurs, voice low and dangerous, “do you think you are?”
I think back to the ancient lifecord falling onto my arm.
It now lies open on a small table next to the bed, and I remember the falling sensation; of waking up in a dark, dusty, rocky area where the stars shone brightly overhead.
The dirt didn’t carry the normal reddish quality of Martian soil, which means it had probably been impacted by a recent crater, which would’ve burrowed beneath the iron-rich topsoil.
“That old lifecord must’ve teleported me to a crater, so…
I’m…hmm.” I tap a finger against my lips, thinking.
Doctor Rana and I had been working in Reull Vallis, which meant the Hellas Basin hadn’t been too far.
This also explains why the Volderen post had been built in that area since water flowed underneath the surface due to the lower pressure of the impact crater region. “You work here in the Hellas Basin.”
“Not even close, little human.” He taps his lifecord, and it projects a hologram of a green planet and three white moons above his wrist. “You are here.” He indicates the smallest moon, then nods to the planet.
“And that is Voldera.” Tossing a square, white packet onto my lap—a temporary blanket to stay warm—he strolls to the metal doors and opens them, pausing to glance at me.
“Which means you are not in your solar system any longer. You will die here, like me. The sooner you accept the situation, the easier it will be.”