Chapter 79
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
AIRIK
A sharp, metallic smell—like electrified rain—burst into the command hall.
The portal’s light vanished, replaced by a blackness without stars.
His eyes slammed shut—what was the point of looking?
There was no reason any of this should work.
At some point, the portal between Nora’s world and his had opened due to faulty programming, solar interference, or perhaps even divine will.
Either they emerged on the other side or died.
The sound of Nora’s heartbeat rose again, thudding in his ears before everything jolted forward. Air slammed into his lungs, forcing them to expand with turbulent force.
The drozekar stopped falling, suspended in space, bobbing like a boat in a calm ocean.
Slowly, Airik opened his eyes. A red planet spun below. It had a gray, swirling ice cap, and from the side, he could see that this world had no visible ocean. Perfect for his Nora.
Mars.
“Drozekar.” He could barely hear his own voice, but it was enough for the ship. “A planetary survey. There should be a human settlement.”
The lights in the command hall blinked in recognition.
“I’ve found a singular concentration of intelligent activity.
But I do not recommend this planet for landing.
It is inhospitable to sapient life—extremely cold, with a thin atmosphere lacking oxygen and filled with toxic gases,” the ship reported.
“This system has one sun, but I cannot detect a protective field to shield cells from solar damage. The soil is also toxic and cannot support agriculture. There isn’t enough liquid water to sustain life, but there is ice, and if you can give me time—”
“I don’t have time!” Airik pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying to think.
Fuck. Of course humans would pick a rock to colonize that would kill them. Nora’s heart beat once above him. He waited for the next beat, his chest tightening. It took too long.
Without the system charted, the drozekar had no direction. He didn’t have time to spin in circles searching for Earth. “Send out a signal—let the humans know we’re here. Use the pattern of a healthy resting heartbeat. To let them know we are the same and not a threat.”
His own heart pounded wildly as he followed the signal guiding him to the human settlement built on the bulge of the planet’s equator, in a flat plain that, from what little he’d seen, was mostly pockmarked and fractured.
A network of buildings came into view, and he lowered the drozekar to just a few hundred measures above the surface.
Domes of various sizes, connected by tunnels, sprawled in every direction, forming a small city.
Shiny black panels glinted in the dazzling but weak sunlight, arranged in a field surrounding the complex.
Some domes were transparent, with bright greenery visible inside.
Ground drones darted every which way around the complex, kicking up plumes of red dust in their wake. Airik dropped the drozekar so that it grazed the planet’s surface.
The roving machines halted their crawl. A large building ahead flashed brightly, its roof lit with cycling red lights. Maybe a pressurized hangar thought the drozekar wouldn’t fit.
“I detect fourteen optically amplified weapons aimed at us. Shall I arm and neutralize the threat?”
“No. Project my words to them.”
The scent of iilas assaulted his senses, so thick he could barely breathe as he leaned close to the audio receptor. “I am not here to harm you,” he said in English. “Not here to take anything. I need”—he paused to wipe sweat out of his eyes—“I need help. For a human. She is near death.”
The red lights blinked faster in an irregular pattern. Words or letters, he thought, that he had no hope of recognizing.
“I—I cannot understand your signal, but my—the human—she was meant to come here but got lost, was hurt. I found her, and now she needs your medicine.”
Nothing moved in the hangar to suggest they listened. Each beat of Nora’s heart was a knife in his gut as he was forced to wait.
He pressed her braid against his eyes, trying to quell the tears that formed. He clicked the audio receptor again. “I have Nora Shaw of the Abeona. Number 1178. I have technology—weapons—all of it I will give you if you help her wake again.”
The lights froze.
“My ship, it can change the weight of things. I will show you how. Anything I have—if you have use for it, I give it to you.”
Ever aware of her, Airik’s skin prickled—Nora’s heart hadn’t beaten in over half a minute.
“Please. There is nothing I won’t share with you if you help me keep her life.”
The wall of the hangar opened.
He let out a moan of relief as the wall drew back into its ceiling, revealing a wide glass door with more than a dozen suited human figures pressed against it. They were prepared—they had surveillance that must have seen him when he’d fallen through the portal.
“Connect to them,” Airik ordered the drozekar.
The drozekar sent forward self-building tendrils of metal reaching for the glass, made of the same alloy that constructed its hull.
It surged forth, a shining wave of silver, until it stuck to the hangar’s wall, making a tunnel.
There was a loud hiss as the tunnel pressurized and the atmosphere adjusted to the correct gases.
Airik shoved his sword and gun into a weapons cabinet and commanded the drozekar to lock every system. Once confirmed, he ran back to the chambers.
It took two tries for him to unlatch Nora’s chamber.
His heart dropped as the gas cleared from around her.
Blood trickled out of her nose and mouth, her lips purple and blue.
He unwrapped Lucky’s tail that had tightly wound around her wrist, then gathered her into his arms. After checking that Torren’s chamber was locked, he rushed back to the command hall.
Footsteps rattled the floor as humans must’ve been rushing up the tunnel to the still-closed drozekar’s hatch door.
Against every instinct that had ever kept him alive—innate and forged—he knelt to the floor. Unarmed, without his sword or gun. Unarmored.
Nora’s lips, again that horrible color that filled him with dread, parted. Still, he pressed his lips to hers, wanting a kiss in case he’d never have another.
He laid her down before him, supporting her neck as her airways began to swell. Raising his other hand to show he had no weapons, he said, “Let them in.”