The world was a nightmare of flashing red lights and smoke. It tilted strangely. Jasyn coughed on the acrid smoke. Her arm ached. She looked up and saw it tangled in webbing. She fumbled with the latch, breaking a nail before she popped it free. She lay on the sloping floor and concentrated on breathing for a moment.
The alarms finally shut up. The lights stayed red. She closed her eyes, waiting for pain she was sure would come.
"Jasyn?"
Someone was calling her name. Someone very familiar. Her eyes flew open in sudden panic. She sat up, ignoring the ache in her arm.
"Trevyn?"
Clark was beside her. She reached for him, holding him tight.
"Anything hurt?"
"My arm, but it’s nothing serious."
He checked it anyway. "Not broken."
"What about the others?"
"I haven’t checked yet. The ship isn’t going to lift again without a new engine. That last burst got the tubes."
She laughed. "Dace is going to be furious." Her laugh sounded strained, half hysterical.
"Ginni?" Habim’s voice came from somewhere in the back of the ship, frightened and lost.
Jasyn and Clark stood, leaning on each other across the tilted floor. Habim was huddled next to the galley. Jasyn knelt beside him while Clark went into the cabin.
"Anything hurt, Habim?" she asked.
"Where’s Ginni?" He clutched her hand like a small child.
"Clark’s looking for her."
"What happened?"
"They shot us down, Habim."
"I can’t fix it," he said, his hands starting to whirl. "It’s too big. It’s too scary. There’s smoke down there."
She caught his hands, huge hands she cradled in her own. "Habim, look at me. You don’t have to fix it right now. We need to find Ginni and the others and go somewhere safe for a while. Can you help?"
"Somewhere safe?"
"We have to hide, until the others come to help."
He nodded, his hands relaxed in hers. She let go and used the wall to get back to her feet. She heard Clark talking with someone in the cabin. She tried to remember where everyone had been. She heard groaning from the engine room. She stumbled down the steps.
Kelly and Marik had been that way, trying to keep the ship running as long as possible.
The engine room was thick with smoke. Red lights glowed through it. She felt her way along the wall, avoiding the hot engine.
"Kelly?"
"Back here," he answered. "I think my leg’s broken. Marik isn’t answering me."
"Marik?" There was no answer.
She opened a bin and felt around for the handlight she knew should have been in there. Dace was fanatic about keeping them handy. She shifted cables and tools until she felt the smooth barrel of a handlight. She pressed the button and light stabbed out.
She found Kelly, at the far end of the room where the floor sloped the most. He was tangled in pieces of the engine. She picked her way over to him. He had superficial cuts on his face, nothing that looked too bad.
"Can you stand?" she asked. His leg was twisted. She doubted he could even with Habim’s help.
He shook his head. "I can’t move."
"You’re going to have to. We can’t leave you here." She turned and played the light over the wreckage of the engine.
Black streaks colored most of it. Tubes were split and missing. It was mangled beyond repair.
She found Marik. He was under the engine. There was no way he could have survived. She knelt beside him to make sure.
"Sorry, Everett," she whispered. Everett would want blood money for his engineer. More than that, Marik had been a good friend to both of them. She wiped her eyes. She didn’t have time to mourn right now.
"You have to come, Kelly."
"What about Marik?"
"He isn’t going anywhere. I’m sorry, Kelly."
"We knew it was dangerous, Jasyn. He went the way he wanted to. May his Spirit find peace." Kelly shifted, biting back a moan.
"Jasyn?" Clark called from the doorway.
"Down here," she answered. "Kelly’s hurt. Broken leg, he thinks. Marik," she had to stop and clear her throat. "Marik is beyond help."
He came down the stairs. "Ginni and Fergus are shaken up but nothing serious. Habim will be fine when Ginni’s through talking to him." He bent over Kelly, checking his leg. "We have to move. They’re headed this way."
"Give me a gun and leave me," Kelly said.
"Don’t be stupid," Clark answered. He pulled Kelly’s arm around his shoulder. "Ready?" He lifted the other man, supporting his weight.
Jasyn moved in on his other side. Kelly hopped on his good leg, trying hard not to show how much it hurt to move.
They made it to the lounge, still eerie with red lights. Habim saw them. He stood away from the wall. He said nothing. He picked up Kelly and headed for the hatch.
It was open. Ginni tugged Habim through, guiding him. Jasyn could smell the wind, dead and dry and desolate. Clark took her hand. Jasyn looked back at her ship, what was left of it.
"I hate leaving it," she said. "Not like this."
They heard the whine of a flitter engine headed their way.
"We have to move, Jasyn, now."
She didn’t say anything else. She grabbed the emergency pack from a locker by the hatch. Clark took a second one and followed her out.
It was early, the sun rose in a sky the color of copper. Shadows made the jumbled landscape even stranger. Walls that connected to each other in a confusing maze ran everywhere. They’d slid along a rise in the ground. The ship came to rest on the far side, tilted at a crazy angle. Ragged tails of smoke still stained the sky.
"Fergus found something." Clark tugged her hand.
They picked their way across the rubble behind Habim and Ginni to the waving figure on a far hilltop.
"How did he get that far so fast?" Jasyn asked, panting as they climbed another hill.
"It’s not Fergus," Clark said. "Too late to hide, they’ve seen us."
"Is that good or bad?"
Stones rattled behind them. Jasyn whirled around. The person behind them was muffled head to toe in camouflaged body armor. The rifle it carried was pointed at the ground, not at them. Jasyn decided that might be a good sign.
"Jasyn?" the figure asked. It removed the helmet. Blond hair cropped short and gray eyes were slightly familiar. "I don’t think you remember me. Paltronis," she introduced herself. "We’ve got a base not far from here." She looked overhead. "We need to hurry."
Jasyn looked back. Another of the camouflaged soldiers waited near Ginni and Habim. "They’re on our side, Ginni," she said. "Go with him."
Ginni still looked doubtful but she tugged Habim into motion behind the soldier. They moved as quickly as they could through the rubble.
"We picked up Fergus already," Paltronis said. "Anyone else on your ship?"
"One, but no one can help him now."
The wind gained strength as the day warmed. Thin rags of clouds drifted across the sky. The wind sobbed through the broken walls echoing the sorrow she felt.
They followed Paltronis as she picked her way through the tumbled maze. It went on for what felt like hours. They twisted their way across the senseless ruins of an alien race no one had ever seen. Jasyn tripped over blocks of stone, tired and worn from days and weeks of strain. Clark took her hand, helping her stay on her feet. The warmth of his touch was comforting.
They wound their way into a tunnel. The light faded and died. Paltronis took Jasyn’s hand and tucked it into her belt. Jasyn kept Clark’s hand in her free hand. They picked their way through darkness.
"Duck," Paltronis warned her. The stocky woman’s hand pushed on the top of her head. Jasyn ducked.
They passed a low doorway and through a hanging curtain. The warm glow of a handlamp set up on a slab of rock lit the room. She could still hear the mournful howling of the wind, muffled by the stones they hid under. Arched ribs of stone stretched up the walls, like the bones of some alien beast.
The others were there; Fergus, Ginni, Habim, Kelly, and three soldiers in Patrol camouflage, a dirty orange brown that blended with the stones outside. She stumbled after Clark into the glow of the lamp. Paltronis came after them.
"Sit," Paltronis said. "We tracked your ship in. There should be backup here in about two days."
"Our backup should be here in a few hours," Jasyn said. "Forty trading ships with crews ready to fight."
"They’ll be slaughtered," Paltronis said.
"So we found out," Jasyn said. "Do you have any kind of signal beacon? Some way we can send a message?"
Paltronis nodded. "Vey can take you later." She indicated the other woman in camouflage.
One of the men crouched next to Kelly, examining his leg. He had a portable medkit opened on a slab of stone. The other man opened self heating cans of food.
"We need to go now," Jasyn said. She was so tired and the food smelled so good, she wanted only to eat and sleep and wake up to find this was just a bad dream. The others had to be warned though.
"They are searching for you. You’d be spotted immediately," Paltronis said.
"Then we’ll go tonight."
"No one travels at night," Paltronis said.
"Why not?"
"People disappear on this planet, especially if they’re walking around out there in the dark," Paltronis said. "Make of it what you will. But don’t try it. We’ll leave at dawn." She pushed Jasyn down onto a rock, gently but firmly, and handed her a can. "Eat," she ordered.
Jasyn gave in, she was too tired and numb. Too much had happened. She stared dumbly at the can in her hand. "How long have you been here?"
"Three days," Paltronis answered.
"Where’s Dace?" Jasyn asked. Paltronis worked for Lowell, she had to be almost as omniscient as he was.
"I don’t know," Paltronis admitted. "I was hoping she’d be with you."
"Jasyn, eat something," Clark urged. "Then try to sleep. You’re too tired. You’ve been up for a day and a half."
She had, standing watch in the cockpit, waiting for that moment when the ships cruising past would finally recognize them. She lifted the can and sipped, without tasting it. It was hot. It melted the numbness inside. Tears slid down her cheek.
"You want anything?" the man with the medkit offered.
She shook her head and he moved on.
Ginni watched her, eyes huge and frightened. But Ginni was tough, she’d proven that. Jasyn tried to smile for Ginni. It didn’t work. She was still crying, without even realizing it.
Habim was asleep, curled up next to Ginni. He had his hands tucked under his cheek. Vey spread a blanket over him and offered one to Ginni.
Kelly was asleep, his face slack from the pain meds. His leg was wrapped tightly, the white bandages contrasted with his dark shipsuit. Fergus sat next to him, sipping a can of hot drink. Fergus stared blankly at the ground. He must know about Marik, she thought fuzzily, he must know why Marik wasn’t here.
She bowed her head, feeling tears drip hot and wet on her clenched fists. Clark draped a blanket around her. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her next to him. She leaned into him.
"Why can’t they just leave us alone?" she whispered through tears.
She fell asleep still crying, an exhausted sleep that was mercifully dreamless.
Clark shook her awake what felt like only moments later.
"It’s almost dawn," he whispered.
She shivered and huddled closer in the blanket. He snuggled with her, holding her against him. She closed her eyes, listening to the dying wind’s last lament.
"We’re moving out soon," Paltronis said quietly.
She pressed a steaming cup in Jasyn’s hand and moved on. Jasyn sipped. The warmth was welcome. Light was just starting to creep into their shelter, a thin gray light that did little to lift her spirits. Not much could have lifted them. She felt as bleak as Xqtl, dead and arid inside.
Paltronis stood near the entrance and watched them. "One person. We’ll move quickly."
"I’ll go," Clark said.
"I have to," Jasyn said. "You don’t know what to say."
Fergus looked at her. "I can go."
"It isn’t your fight now, Fergus," she said, "but thank you."
"You aren’t going without me," Clark said flatly.
"I wouldn’t want to," Jasyn said.
Paltronis frowned at them before shrugging. "Vey will go with you. We’ll stay here and watch."
"What about me?" Ginni asked.
"You stay here and keep Habim safe," Jasyn said. She looked at Paltronis. "How safe are you here?"
"Fairly safe," Paltronis answered. "We’ve got a series of boltholes prepared all along this area. We’ve been searching for three days, looking for you."
Jasyn stood, letting the blanket slide to the stones. "We’ll come back for you, Ginni. I promise. You’re Family now. You and Habim." She went to Ginni and hugged her. Ginni was so small, so fragile looking. "Stay here and stay safe, Ginni. For me."
Ginni nodded, letting go reluctantly.
"Let’s go," Jasyn said.
Clark took her hand as they left, hanging on as if afraid he was going to lose her. She didn’t mind. She welcomed the warmth of his fingers laced in hers.