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HW14-3 was blessed with not just one, but three moons—and all three were out that night, a string of pearls draped across the sky. The brilliance of them was awe-inspiring, and a tiny part of her regretted that she wouldn’t have time to, at least for a few moments, enjoy the ethereal beauty of the trio of ghostly orbs.
No, time was a very precious commodity, and she’d need every second of it.
Taking one last look over her shoulder, she watched him, her heart already beating fast.
He was curled over on his side, the mouth-watering curve of muscular buttocks illuminated in the moonlight, the sharp horns at his shoulder just visible in the low light. His great chest rose and fell at a slow, regular cadence.
It had been odd, sleeping in that bed with her captor, her body curled up next to his huge frame. His heavy erection rose and fell several times during the night, and each time she felt its hot length stir against her, she’d tensed, waiting for him to act on it, to take her again.
Each time he hadn’t, she couldn’t understand the mix of relief and disappointment that warred within her.
As she looked upon him then, in the dark of the night, something felt wrong, off, as if there was something unfinished, a hard truth she either wouldn’t—or couldn’t—face.
Stop it. This is Stockholm syndrome talking. Nothing more.
Then she left him, a tightness in her chest she couldn’t explain.
The moonlight was truly a boon for her plans, the light so bright it approached that of twilight. Though she was practically naked, the night air was still warm enough to ward off any chill, and the wood of the steps mercifully smooth against the soles of her feet.
She knew with a grim certainty that the forest floor wasn’t going to be nearly as forgiving.
Round and round the massive tree she descended, the height so dizzying, she concentrated on her feet only, on not stumbling, something made that much more difficult owing to the fact the stairs had obviously been constructed for a being significantly larger than her.
The breeze was blessedly cool against her skin, a subtle, fruity scent resembling cherries carried upon it that she found unaccountably pleasing.
She paid very close attention to the path he’d taken through the jungle from that grassy hillside, and meticulously retraced his route. Every few seconds, she winced as the soft jungle loam gave way to rock or sharp twigs jabbing into her soles.
It was the most serious problem with her plan, and already she could see she’d badly misjudged the peril it threatened.
Her feet weren’t going to last long out here.
As she climbed up to the top of the slope, the entrance to the cave complex yawned, jet black. Though it represented at least a theoretical path to escape, she knew what it really was.
A honeypot. A mirage. Death in salvation’s guise.
Turning back, and heading down the hillside once more, she gazed out at the vastness of the jungle. No, there was only one real way out. Glancing up at the sky, she muttered the truth of it.
“If you’re up there, that is.”
In survival training, they’d taught her to pay attention to topography; the crests of slopes and ridges often provided means to pass through forest, and afforded a way to look for waterways.
That was her one chance. If she could find a river, a creek, even a tiny stream, it would be a way out, eventually. The survey had showed plenty of ocean covering the surface of the planet. And where there were oceans? There were almost certainly rivers too.
Somewhere.
The question was: how far would she have to trek into the nighttime jungle to find one?
Mercifully, the underbrush was surprisingly sparse, and the canopy was blessed with plenty of openings that allowed moonlight to flood in. Still, the sounds of the jungle at night, while in a way quite familiar, didn’t sound right, the growls and yips and cries unsettling her, while in the background the steady buzz of insects filled the air.
There were things out there that were not found on Terra.
And she was essentially helpless against whatever beast might leap out from those dark places all around her.
Stay alive. Do anything you can to stay alive.
Even if it meant facing the elemental, instinctive fear of the dark.
That wasn’t the worst of it though. It was the gnawing sense, growing by the minute, that she needed to turn back, that safety was found in the bed, even the arms... of Malcolm.
Her conscious mind fought it, could see the absurdity of it, but her body was another thing entirely. It was as if something deep inside her was aching, the further away she drew from her erstwhile captor.
Still she pressed on, no matter how wrong what she was doing felt. The increasing throbbing of her feet only complicated matters more. She wasn’t certain she wasn’t bleeding in a few places, so many times had she been jabbed and poked and scratched by the soil of the jungle floor.
You’ve got to get off these feet.
Panic just beginning to whisper at the edges of her mind, she stopped in her tracks.
It was the distinct murmur of water.
Running water.
Trying to step as quietly as she could, and lamenting the background din of jungle life, she followed the sound.
Soon enough, she emerged from the undergrowth onto a bank. It was a river, a narrow one to be sure—no more than twenty meters across to the opposite bank—but it was most definitely a river.
“Oh, thank God.”
Now, she really did have a chance.
A chance to escape, or a chance to fuck things up even more than they already are?
She ignored the thought, trying to banish her ever increasing anxiousness. Why was this so hard? The discomfort of her aching feet paled in comparison to the storm of uncertainty and second-guessing whirling within her.
There was zero chance of a rescue, if they couldn’t find her. So why was it proving so difficult for her to resolve to be found?
Wading into the dark waters, she gasped. The water was cold, but not frigid. She would be able to stay in for some time, but had to be careful to head back to shore before hypothermia became a concern. Alternating between backstroke, sidestroke, and simply treading water, she let the surprisingly swift current take her along. The feel of having her feet off the rough ground was positively heavenly. The garlands she wore, surprisingly, seemed to aid in her buoyancy slightly, and at times, she was able simply to float on her back, calming herself and conserving energy. Now and then, something would brush against her back or legs, and she told herself they were only tiny fish—or whatever passed for fish on this alien world.
It was surreal, and yet stunningly peaceful, floating along in the current’s embrace, a sense of well-being settling within her out of all proportion to her still-dire situation. Perhaps it was the fact she’d actually found a waterway, that there was some conceivable way she could still extricate herself from her predicament that bolstered her spirits.
Or maybe the river’s alive too—and watching over you until he finds you again.
The thought made her lose her concentration, and her head slipped beneath the surface. Drawing in a partial lungful of water, she coughed it out, cursing as she did so, paddling her way back to shore. She forced the last of it from her chest, then collapsed on a flat rock along the bank, the night comparatively warm against her now seriously chilled skin. Exhaustion was beginning to set in, her muscles heavy and lethargic.
“Just rest... for a while.”
You fall asleep here, and you’re liable to roll over into the river while you sleep. That’s a recipe for drowning. Get the fuck up, Marks.
She’d floated at least several kilometers downriver. She hoped it would be far enough to buy her sufficient time.
The place she’d come ashore had a wide clearing on her side, with a very large opening in the canopy, a sea of stars twinkling through it.
It would do.
The problem was finding the materials.
After several minutes searching around the edges of the clearing, she began to lament her chances of finding any wood that wasn’t either green or water-logged.
As she trudged back along the shoreline, she saw it, unable to believe her stroke of good fortune.
A bundle of snarled, tangled branches had been washed up onto some rocks lining the bank—and they’d been so baked in the sun, they were practically gray.
Perfect.
Utilizing the fire-making skills they taught her in survival school—and a lot of patience—she used the friction of two dry twigs rubbed together to finally get a small blaze going, only a few paces from the river. She picked that spot to maximize the opening in the canopy and to allow her to splash water directly upon it from the river if she needed to.
The flickering firelight instantly banished her night-adapted vision, the jungle around her plunged into almost inky blackness—but the warmth and illumination made the trade-off well worth it.
Piling more and more brush and fallen branches upon the flames, she had a strong bonfire. She purposely mixed in green branches with any drier brush she could find, in an effort to make the smokiest fire she could manage.
That smoke was the key.
With any luck, she was far enough from Malcolm that the flames would be obscured—and in the dark of night, the smoke would be almost invisible.
But dawn wasn’t far away, the eastern sky just beginning to pale.
She gathered a bed of leaves, taking time to extract any twigs that might poke her, then she laid down upon it, curled up, staring into the flames, luxuriating in the warmth.
If she’d planned it right, the fire would still be hurling clouds of billowing white smoke into the sky by the time the brilliance of sunrise occurred.
Any rescue would be actively scanning the entire globe from dawn to dusk, with visual, IFR, and UV sensors.
The chances were better than even that the rescue would pick up the smoke and fire almost immediately.
And then they’d pick up Warrant Officer Selena Marks too.