Chapter 4
Pain pierced Alex’s head, and a muffled curse escaped her as her hand went up to shield her eyes from the sun beating down on her.
Soft sand cushioned her and blew over her skin in a constant glide that scraped a raw path across the places where her skin was exposed.
That was not even taking into consideration the red, blistering patches of flesh that had sustained direct damage in the crash.
At least none of her burns appeared to be too serious. All the same, she felt like an idiot.
She knew she should have worn her TRS. The thermal regulatory suit was damn near indestructible and would have protected her from the worst of it all.
Unfortunately, her simple jumpsuit was in tatters.
The torso was holding together well enough despite a few rips, but the left sleeve was in ribbons and the right sleeve completely missing.
As for the legs...they were a complete loss.
Sighing, Alex bent forward and tore away the fluttering bits of fabric.
No sense in leaving them in place when they would just get in her way and possibly trip her.
She promptly tore off what was left of the left sleeve as well.
She looked properly ship-wrecked now. Except this wasn’t an old story where sparkling sandy beaches led into a shady jungle with pools of fresh water and a hidden treasure.
She was in the middle of the red without supplies or any hope of rescue.
She couldn’t complain too loudly, though, because it was honestly a miracle she had survived.
But how the fuck had she ended up outside the flyer?
The flyer... fuck, what a mess that was going to be to explain.
Speaking of messes—she grimaced, wincing as she studied the mottled bruising already popping on her exposed arms beneath the angry red hue already setting in from the scrape of the sand and the sun rising higher in the sky.
She gave her body an experimental twist and hissed when pain blossomed deeper over her back and torso.
Although most of her body was still covered for the most part with what was left of her jumpsuit, she was pretty sure that her entire body was a tapestry of bruises.
At least nothing appeared to be broken, by some miracle.
Groaning, she slowly pushed herself up. Her arms were wobbly, and she felt weaker than a newborn kitten, but she forced herself into a seated position on the sand.
Her head swiveled from left to right as she took stock of her surroundings.
Her eyes widened as she stared at the wreckage littered across the sand.
Crap. The wreckage of the ship was worse than she had thought it would be. The entire flight deck had been ripped apart by the storm, and there was no sign at all of what was left of the passenger cabin. Vi. Eshash.
Fueled by panic, she lurched to her feet only to stumble across the sand. “Vi! Violet Harris!” she shouted.
Alex kicked a large metal plate jutting from the sand to dislodge it. It rocked and slid in its sandy bed before falling away. Her eyes scoured the surroundings of the wreckage. Nothing. There was no sign of the passenger hold, nor of Vi and the Seshanamitesh.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she whispered under her breath as she turned in a slow circle, her hands raised to shade her eyes.
The dark crest of the Zir seemed further away. Had the storm fractured the flyer and flung it across the desert? The wall had been of massive scale. There was no telling where the rest of the flyer might have landed.
As she turned again, she froze when something moved abruptly over the sand.
“H... hello?” she called out, her hand immediately dropping to her thigh where her registered blaster was always secured. Her hand slid over the torn material of her jumper, and her heart sank. Somehow, she had lost it in the crash.
The sand stirred as something whipped rapidly, sending a line of sand spraying into the air as it moved toward her. Alex stumbled back from it, her heart jumping up into her throat.
“What the fuck,” she croaked in a half-whisper. Please don’t eat me. Just go away.
Whatever it was, it paused, and the sand settled back into place as if there were nothing there at all. It was spooky as fuck. Almost clever as if it were reacting directly to her words and intentionally trying to deceive her.
“Yeah, that’s going to be a hell no for me. That shit’s not going to work,” she muttered, taking another slow step away from it, and then another. “I knew I shouldn’t have slept during the wildlife brief, but fuck all of this. I’m not that stupid.”
The sand suddenly began to ripple with a shrill trill, and Alex didn’t stick around to see what it was.
With a scream that hurt her own ears, she turned and bolted for the largest section of the wreckage.
She heard the sand spray up behind her and the distinctive sound of the creature whipping forward at a fast speed.
Pain stabbed deeply through her chest with every labored breath she dragged into her lungs, but she didn’t dare slow down.
With all of her remaining strength, she leaped onto the tilted side of the flyer.
She fell forward the moment her feet hit the side, but she grabbed onto a segment of raised metal before she could slide back down to the sand.
The sharp edge of the metal bit into her hands, but she ignored the sharp pain as she pulled herself up, her feet scrambling against the smooth metal side as she reached for the next handhold.
Sweat poured down her back, but at last she dragged herself to the top and slowly turned herself around so that she could look down at her pursuer.
She shivered a little and drew back further as its mandibles opened wide and it hissed aggressively at her.
Definitely a predator. Not only that, it was disturbing to look at.
The best comparison she could make was that it looked like some kind of giant mutated splice between a centipede and a spiny caterpillar.
Yet even that didn’t go far enough because it was somehow a hundred times more horrific with its monstrous serrated mandibles jutting from an eyeless head, and numerous long, insectoid hairs jutting from its body.
The hairs were a mixture of hard spines and softer, flexible strands that seemed to move randomly on its body in a creepy fashion.
“Gross,” she muttered. “I swear this desert produces the weirdest shit. Go away... shoo!” she shouted as she yanked off a loose piece of metal and threw it at the creature.
It dodged. Its entire body twisted out of the way in one fluid, whip-like motion, only for the creature to raise the front segment of its body and hiss again before delivering a shrill and angry clatter of its mandibles as it shrieked at her.
Alex’s hands slapped over her ears as she grimaced at the terrible noise it made.
Giving her a final hiss, it scurried around the wreckage she was perched on, its legs skittering for purchase on the metal.
Alex turned her body slowly in place so that she always had the thing within sight.
Thankfully, it didn’t seem to have the ability to climb up the side of the wreckage.
That observation eased some of her concern, but not enough to give her back to it.
And so, she sat, slowly moving in place as she followed its movement while the sun marched its way across the sky.
The thing was nearly motionless for long periods, but then would erupt into sudden, frenzied movements around the wreckage that would send adrenaline spiking through her once more.
She tipped her head back, her eyes narrowing on the descending sun.
Her skin felt tight and raw from sand and sunburn, her throat dry, and her head was pounding with the onset of a headache.
Dehydration would soon set in. Oh, joy of joys.
Sighing heavily, Alex rested her arms on her knees as she watched the menace below twitch and whip its body as it chittered.
“You’re just not going to give me a break, are you?” she asked it.
As if in response, its upper body rose, and it lunged forward against the wreckage, its claws scraping wildly before it dropped once more into the sand.
It gave a shrill sound and began to writhe in one spot, tossing sand everywhere until it was half buried within the sand.
She snorted to herself, her eyes drifting from the odd insect out across the desert.
The red did look majestic in the fading daylight.
She hadn’t seen this sight the previous day because the flyer had been brought down late in the afternoon and she’d lain unconscious until sometime after sunrise.
It was breathtakingly beautiful. More than that, it seemed to slowly come alive in ways that she hadn’t unexpected as tiny, withered-looking brownish-red plants suddenly bloomed as the sun sank lower in the horizon, and the distant sounds of active wildlife drifted across the sand.
She shivered in response. Damned if wasn’t luck that she survived the previous night.
She wrapped her arms around herself as the evening air began to cool, but the sound of the creature lurking below drew her gaze in time to see something fat and furry with four big saucer-like ears creep out of a hidden burrow.
Alex watched it curiously. It was almost cute.
The general shape vaguely resembled a chinchilla except that it somehow had a more exaggerated roundness, especially in its ears, it had no tail visible outside of its extreme fluff, and there was a smattering of protective scales on its nose and face around its eyes as well as on the tops of its paws and forelegs.
“Aww. Who would have thought something so cute lived on this hellhole?” she observed as she leaned forward to watch it, a smile on her face.
The little floof nibbled on the blooming desert flowers, slowly drawing closer to the wreckage as it worked its way from one little patch of growth to the next.
Its ears twitched as it busily ate, and Alex was just wondering if she could hand-tame it when the sand suddenly exploded within feet of the animal as the insectoid leapt at it, its body coiling around it as its pointed tail segmented.
Alex jerked back in surprise as the tail repeatedly stung the fluffy beast, her mouth gaping in horror as she watched the predator drag its prey beneath the sand.
“Fuck that,” she whispered. “Oh, hell no. I didn’t sign up to be in an episode of Interplanetary Geographic. Someone get me off this fucking rock!” she shouted to the uncaring heavens.
She groaned, her eyes slowly closing as she dropped her head and allowed it to hang. Who was she kidding? She was stuck on the planet just as much as any other sucker who got assigned there.
The repetitive sound of loud, leathery snaps shocked her from her pity-party as she became aware of something larger circling her. She focused on the barely visible shadow shifting over the ground. Wide wing-span and long tail. Did she dare hope—
“The vawenda took is prey quick and clean. Is it the reason that you a perched here?” a feminine voice inquired from above.
A female Seshanamitesh? Alex’s heart dropped into the vicinity of her stomach. Fuck. Nothing good came from the shinara.
Slowly she raised her eyes and caught a flash of blue scales before the female dropped, her massive coils folding and curling as she settled on the wreckage just a few feet from where Alex sat.
They regarded each other silent for a moment, and the female cocked her head, the numerous almost pearl-colored blue fans of her gavo rising in an expression of curiosity.
“You are oddly very red. I did not know humans could come in this pigment,” the female said, her amber eyes openly scrutinizing Alex.
“It’s the sun,” Alex croaked in reply and winced at the roughened sound of her own voice.
“The sun,” the female repeated, and a look of comprehension spread across her face. “Oh yes. Your flesh burns in the sun.” She leaned forward and studied Alex a bit closer. “You also require food and water more regularly than those of the Aglatha.”
Alex nodded. It was easier than forcing another word out.
“I see.” The female glanced back toward the sand. “You are far from Raza. It is not safe for a human to be out here, especially not at night. I shall take you to the shinara. My sisters will know what to do.”
Alex hid a grimace. The last place she wanted to go was the shinara, but she didn’t want to get left in the desert to die either.
She doubted that the female would be willing to carry her all the way back to the colony.
At least there was a chance she could arrange communication with Raza about the flyer and the unknown whereabouts of Vi and Ehsash.
“I don’t suppose you saw another human out there while you were flying?” she asked hopefully.
The female frowned and dipped her chin in a stark negative. “Just you. Are there others out here?”
Alex nodded grimly. “Vi Harris. She was with me when the flyer went down.” She refrained from mentioning the male with her friend.
She recalled that the relationship between the females of the shinara and the male hunters was a strained one, and she didn’t want to risk any potential delay in starting a search.
“Very well. We should return to the Aglatha immediately then,” the female said as she moved forward with surprising speed and gathered Alex into her arms. She looked down at her curiously, her gavo rising slightly. “What do I call you?”
“A... Alex Taylor,” she replied.
“Alex,” the female hissed, and she smiled.
“I am Kitanara. Do not worry. You will be safe soon. I will report your companion’s disappearance to my sisters, and then we will see to it that you recover well.
Do not worry, Alex Taylor. All will be well,” she said almost sweetly as she spread her wings and sprang into the air, carrying Alex over the darkening sands of the red to the uncertain dangers that awaited her.