Chapter 3
The doors bang shut as my mouth falls open.
My stomach clenches, and I wrap my arms around my knees. I have to get back home. My dad, my brothers…they’ll never know what happened to me. What about Dr. Rana? Does he even grasp the circumstances?
Tears pool in my eyes and run down my face.
The door swooshes up into the ceiling, and the Volderen re-enters, holding a pouch and a sealed food pack, similar to MREs used by the military. He tosses them to me.
I fumble but manage to catch both.
“Even though I should not use extra rations, especially for you, I will so you can get your strength back and leave.”
“Wow. You really know how to make a lady feel welcomed.” I wipe tears from my cheeks, a slow anger simmering underneath the sadness. An urge to throw everything in my hand at his face rises, but I squash it down. If I’m truly in another solar system, I need his help to survive.
“I am not trying to make you feel welcome. I want you to leave and let me die in peace.”
I stand, clenching the drink pouch in one hand and the food in the other. “It’s called sarcasm. You Volderens might be more advanced, but you certainly lack intelligence when it comes to humor.”
He frowns, exposing the sharp tips of his teeth, then turns and strolls to the desk and sits. Soft beeps break the silence as he taps on a holographic screen.
I move to put the food into a pocket and find the cold metal of the prototype lifecord that put me in this mess inside.
So the bracelet on the table isn’t mine?
Another glance at it shows almost an exact replica of the one in my pocket, except for a small blue light in its center.
Was he in the Martian ruins?
Licking my cracked lips, I realize it’s been hours since I’ve had anything to drink. I break the seal on the water pouch, sucking on the built-in straw. The liquid is sweet and light, and I close my eyes as it hits the back of my throat. I exhale a sigh of pleasure.
The Volderen huffs out an irritated breath, then resumes typing.
“That other old lifecord….did it malfunction, too, and leave you stranded here?”
Although I can only see the back of his head, he tilts his attention to the bracelet and gives a single nod. “I found it by accident and have yet to determine if it is a sign of my destiny, chance, or doom.”
“In my experience, things are rarely ever coincidental, so you can probably rule out chance.”
“Doom, I am sure.” He refocuses on his holoscreen, his fingers tapping and scrolling on the holographic keyboard.
I pat the food in my suit pocket, saving it for if and when hunger becomes a real issue, then stride to the desk, standing behind the alien to read his words. Translated, the text says:
‘Temporal decay accelerates. The wormhole destabilizes with every passing cycle. The artifact’s core emits harmonic pulses—primitive yet potent.
If I can synchronize its energy matrix, the breach may hold.
However, quantum science is not my field so I cannot trust my calculations. ’ – Dr. Kael Vor'ronex.
The communication is labeled as his personal log. Leaning closer, I blink, re-reading the last line. “Holy shit. Kael, you’re a doctor?”
“Stop spying on me.” He taps a control and the screen goes blank. “Gods-damned humans. You are the bane of my existence.”
“What kind of doctor are you?”
He narrows his eyes and stares at me for a several seconds.
I’m unable to stop smiling, even though I know my presence annoys the hell out of him.
“The closest field to what you have on Earth is botany.”
“I can totally see that. Keeping company with nature instead of people.” I laugh. “But you’ve been doing research on how you got here. You can help get me b-back home,” I say, excitement making my voice higher than usual.
He turns his chair and gives me a flat stare.
“You are assuming a lot, and even if I could, there is not much time. The old lifecords require charging by power cores instead of bodily energy. Besides, this moon is in a decaying orbit. In three weeks, it will collide with a lesser moon and that will be the end. The only mercy is our death happens fast if we are lucky.”
I do not want to die in some sort of moon apocalypse. No way.
“Then let’s figure out how to get back before that happens. What can I do to help?”
“Help?” His voice is a low growl before he exhales hard, head tipping back to stare at the ceiling like he’s searching for strength he doesn’t have. “Go outside and leave me in peace. I am content to die close to my ancestors’ home world.”
Anger flares hot in my veins. “So that’s it?
” My voice trembles, but not from fear. “You’re just giving up—dooming every Volderen stranded on Mars and Earth to decades in the void when you could shorten their journey?
And you won’t even try to help me?” I rake my gaze over him, the fury gushing up my esophagus and spilling past my lips. “Coward.”
The word detonates between us.
He moves like a striking snake, on his feet in an instant and towering, his chest a wall of muscle pressing closer until his breath scorches my skin. His nostrils flare.
Only an inch separates us. I have to tilt my chin to meet his furious stare, my pulse hammering against my throat.
“I could crush you where you stand for saying that.” His voice is steel, vibrating with restrained violence. “Perhaps I should.” He leans in, slow and deliberate, until the heat of him swallows the cooler air.
I stumble backward, my spine slamming into the wall. Nowhere left to go.
Dangerous energy crackles in the air.
I lick my lips. “You c-could kill me, sure, but it doesn’t change the fact you’d be abandoning your people by taking the easy way out.”
He lifts a hand—the electrical light pulsing under his skin where veins should be—and presses his palm against the wall, his thumb close to my ear. If I turn my head even a fraction, it would brush against my skin.
“You assume I care about my fellow Volderens,” he snarls, the tips of his teeth gleaming in the artificial light.
“They are the ones who did this to me.” His eyes cut to his cybernetic arm, then snap back to my face.
“The High Council and the humans—especially XVU—can go fuck themselves. Humans took my arm, and the Council gave me this abomination as a replacement without my consent. I am not whole, and I will never be whole again. So, tell me…why should I care what happens to them, to me, or to you?”
The mental image of XVU removing and using his arm for one of their grotesque alien-human experiments makes my stomach roil. No wonder he’s so angry. Who wouldn’t be?
His chest rises and falls as he breathes, and he continues staring, as if daring me to deny his words, to give him any reason to justify hurting me.
No matter what I say, it won’t be the right thing. Time to switch tactics. If I’m going to die, I might as well get an early start .
I grin. “So, you hate the Council, the humans, and me. That’s a lot of rage for one cybernetic arm. D-did it come with an anger management app?”
He grinds his teeth together, opening his mouth for a retort, but freezes, as if processing my words. “Wh-what?” he asks, the anger in his eyes fading into confusion. He straightens and takes a step back, his frown melting.
“Oh, now you’re the one with a stutter. Glad it’s not just me anymore.”
The corners of his lips quirk. A loud guffaw bursts from his mouth, and he claps a large hand over it, his eyes widening into surprise.
The deep sound of his baritone laughter rumbles through the small shelter and into my chest.
With a nod, I push past his enormous bulk and stand next to his desk. “Now that we’ve established you’re capable of smiling without the world falling down around our ears, let’s figure out a way to not die and get me back home.”
“You-you are not like the other humans, Ellie. I cannot remember the last time I…” He scratches his head as he locks his attention on the terminal, lost in thought.
I shrug. “People either love me or hate me. Growing up with a stutter made me different than the other kids. I had to develop thick skin to survive in school. My humor got me out of a lot of situations, and when it didn’t”—I tap my temple—“I used this.”
He looks at me, trailing his fingers over the artificial arm. “I do not like being different. I feel lesser with this, as if everyone stares, as if I am no longer Volderen.”
In a way, I can understand. As a kid, how many times had I wished I could speak normally, to not be made fun of in class? “Different isn’t always bad. That arm’s better than mine or any Volderen’s. How much can you lift? Two, three hundred pounds?”
“Five hundred.”
I whistle. “I bet that’s handy.”
He narrows his eyes. “Is that another… joke?”
“Naw. It’s a pun, so it’s punny, right?”
A grunt is my only answer.
“Okay, now that we’ve shooed away the elephant in the room, let’s get down to business.
If you want to stay here and die, I can’t change that, but I have no intention of giving up.
I have family and friends who would miss me.
Plus, I’m sure your people can figure out how to stabilize this wormhole if we bring them back these prototypes and whatever you’ve researched. ”
With a heavy sigh, Kael stares at his terminal. “I am not doing it to help you. I am doing it to help me. If it means getting rid of you quicker, then I will do everything I can.”
“That’s the s-spirit.”
The ground under my feet rumbles. The adjoining shelter shifts a couple of inches. I stumble as I try to stay upright.
Kael reflexively reaches out and grabs my upper arm, giving me enough stability to remain standing. The metal desk rattles and moves an inch or so. Falling rocks and dirt outside, in the case, patter onto the ceiling with bangs and clangs. The shaking stops.
“Was that an earthquake?”
He nods, his dark eyes locked on the area where his cybernetic fingers curl around my skin.
His touch, firm yet gentle, gives me a sense of belonging, of safety.
“Gravitational flux from the orbital decay is increasing every few hours. The gravity from the other moon will only up the instability.”
“Then let’s use these lifecords and get back.”
He shakes his head, raising his gaze to mine. “I have tried. They are programmed to return to the Volderen solar system. For a return trip to Mars, they need to be reset to your solar system’s coordinates.”
“Well, let’s get to it.” I debate pointing out he still holds my arm, but I don’t want to break our momentary truce. Plus, if I’m being honest with myself, I like the way it feels.
“I need a ship for that.” He points his chin toward the ceiling. “This is only a temporary place to protect us from the elements connected to a leftover base from my ancestor’s olden days.”
I glance at the light, the terminal, the other minutiae telling me the place still functions. “Well, is there anything here you can use, or maybe a ship nearby?”
A line forms between his eyebrows. He slowly releases my arm, a look of regret or something else flickering across his face. Tapping his fingers on the desk, he sucks on his bottom teeth. “I-I do not know. The thought never crossed my mind.”
“You’re set on going down with the planet so it makes sense you weren’t really thinking ahead. Probably because you hate that arm so much, even though I think it’s beautiful, that you’re beautiful” I snapped my mouth shut. I didn’t mean for that last part to slip out. What the hell, Ellie?
Kael clears his throat. I can only see his side profile where a bright spot of color flares on his cheek.
“You have a strange idea of beauty.” He begins typing again.
“However, I can use the computer and my modern lifecord’s scanner to see if there are any ships with a power core.
If we find one, we can bring it back here, which should allow me to attempt reprogramming, although, I still do not know what triggered the wormhole to open. ”
“Then how did you get here?”
“I…I holed up in one of the caves on Mars—”
“So you were hiding and sulking?”
“No, I do not sulk. For your information, I was testing the limits of this arm by lifting boulders and stalagmites. In doing so, I found my own version of the lifecord prototype and put it on as a test.” He gestures to the room. “Whatever triggered it sent me here.”
“Then we need to figure out what triggers it, and replicate it ourselves once we get the power core.”
Hope flutters its wings in my belly, and for the first time since I found myself stranded on this moon, I feel relief. Doing something, anything, is better than staying here and waiting for the end.