Ronan

by Leslie Chase

  “They’re still working on fixing it,” she said, trying to reassure me while pointing to the wooden scaffolding around the superstructure. My chest ached as I looked at it, but I forced a smile for Megan’s sake.

  “You’re a good friend,” I said, squeezing her shoulder. “But there’s no way. The engines are damaged, and there are holes in the hull you could drive a truck through. I’m sure they’ll patch what they can, but that ship’s not lifting off again. Not unless we find a shipyard hidden somewhere on this stupid planet.”

  Megan didn’t argue, just tightened her hug. I tried to accept some comfort from her as we looked at the heart of the colony. The Joint Colony of Crashland, shared with the prytheen who’d forced us into this system and stranded us here without hope of rescue.

  Despite the show of scaffolding and repairs, the place turned into a permanent colony a little more each time we saw it. When I first visited the market all the stalls had been tents. Solid structures had replaced those, shops with proper signs springing up. Even the optimists didn’t expect to leave Crashland any time soon.

  “Is that smoke?” Megan asked, letting go of me and pointing.

  I followed her finger to look at the landing field next to the crashed ship. We were still far enough away that it was hard to make out the details but sure enough, black smoke rose from one of the parked fliers.

  My heart flip-flopped at sight and my muscles tensed again. “Told you those things weren’t safe.”

  Megan shook her head fondly. “Becca, they’re ridiculously safe. I’ve read the engineering specs, they were designed to be flown by idiots, and there are redundant systems all over them. Flying one’s safer than walking, even without training.”

  “Sure,” I shot back. “That’s how come someone managed to crash one.”

  “Nothing’s completely safe, Becca,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I know you don’t like flying but come on.”

  That was an understatement. I hated flying, but there was no point in arguing. Picking up our baskets we carried on towards the market.

  The superstructure of the crashed Wandering Star cast a dark shadow over us, its deck tilted at an angle. Despite that, it was still the best place for the market, and humans mingled with prytheen all around us. Anything it was possible to find on Crashland was for sale somewhere in this warren of stalls, though that wasn’t saying much.

  Closer to the ship we started to mix with the crowds walking in for market day. Megan and I paused on the path and I massaged my aching hand. The weight of the fish made the basket hard to carry and it dug deep into my fingers.

  “You could have asked that prytheen to carry it for you, Becca,” my friend said with a teasing smile. “I’m sure he’d have been happy to help and besides he’s kind of cute.”

  I glared at her and her grin widened.

  “Oh come on, Becca,” she said. “You don’t have to be so serious the whole time. Those guys aren’t the enemy.”

  “We’re stuck on the wrong planet, our spaceship’s a wreck, and the aliens who brought us down are living with us,” I said, reeling off the three most obvious things wrong with our new lives. “I don’t get why you’re not angry with them.”

  “The guy who did all that is dead,” Megan said as though that explained everything. She’d never been good at holding a grudge. “These guys are friendly.”

  “Right. Too damned friendly.” The prytheen didn’t have nearly enough women amongst them, so any unattached human girls got a lot of looks and offers. Megan might like the attention, but I didn’t.

  The shadow of the Wandering Star fell over us, deep and cool, the ship half buried where it had struck the ground. I shivered at the reminder of how close we’d come to losing everything — I’d been asleep during the crash, and it was pure luck that I’d survived to wake up.

  “Cheer up,” Megan said, her bright enthusiasm failing to stir me from my dark mood. “Look, we’re still on a new planet. No human’s ever been here before, we get to be the first. I thought you wanted to see a new world?”

  “Yeah, and I don’t get to see any of this one because the planet’s too dangerous,” I retorted. “Between the wildlife and the prytheen raiders, we have to stay inside the fence. Trapped with the brutes who brought us here. It’s bullshit.”

  I pushed my way through the crowd around a maker stall, smelling the warm fuzzy chemical scent of the 3d printer. With luck, our catch from the stream would be worth enough printer credits that I could afford some new boots — mine had holes in them and squelched unpleasantly in the mud.

  Finally reaching Martin’s counter, I heaved my basket up in front of him and pulled off the cover. Megan did the same beside me, giving the big man a bright smile. Martin pushed his glasses up his nose and looked at us and our catch. Sighed.

  “Half of these are toxic,” he said. “I can use them for paste, but that’s all.”

  I winced. The nutrient paste was unpleasant stuff, and we’d all eaten too much of it since the crash. The only good thing about it was that the machines made it from anything organic, no matter how nasty. If that was all the fish were good for, they were almost worthless. So much for my dreams of new boots.

  Megan, though, smiled at the challenge and started to haggle for both of us. That was a skill I’d never learned, and I watched in wonder as she talked up the fish that were fit for more than paste. Martin seemed to enjoy the haggling as much as she did, and I stood aside, leaving the two of them to their fun. Eventually Martin threw up his hands in defeat.

  “Fine, fine, I’ll pay up,” he said, trying to sound grumpy and failing. “I’m cutting my own throat here, but I can’t haggle all day.”

  Megan grinned back. “You’re a sweetie, Martin. We’ll be back with more next week.”

  “Don’t,” he groaned theatrically. “You’ll bankrupt me!”

  He brought up a payment display and I touched my wristband to summon Athena, my little holographic owl. She flickered into existence in time to catch the thrown maker credits, then displayed my new balance. Maybe enough. Maybe.

  Megan’s holo-cat purred as she got her share of the credits, and she took my arm, opening her mouth to speak just as Athena hooted an alert. I had a message waiting.

  That was unexpected. No one ever messaged me apart from Megan — and she was right here. A quick gesture brought it up on the display.

  Please report to the bridge at your earliest convenience. Captain Joyce requests your presence.

  I blinked. The captain wanted to see me. What kind of trouble had I gotten myself into now? Had that damned prytheen reported me for swearing at him or something?

  I’d never been to the bridge before. When the Wandering Star set off from Earth, I’d just climbed into my stasis pod and been loaded aboard like cargo. I’d pictured something clean, futuristic, all white plastics and hologram displays.

  Maybe that was how it had looked once, but those days were long past, even before the crash. The scars of repair work marred the panels and old stains had worked their way into the plastic. I swallowed at the sight — if I’d seen this before signing up, I’d still be safe on Earth.

  The crash had only made things worse. I looked at the chaos of broken displays and half-repaired systems, crude rewiring getting some of them to work. The odd angle of the floor gave the bridge a surreal feeling like something out of a nightmare. Few of the lights worked, and while the front of the bridge was a giant window, it pointed away from the sun leaving most of the room in shadow. Captain Joyce’s face was lit by the slowly spinning hologram globe beside her, an eerie blue-white glow.

  I was alone with the captain. Acting Captain, really — Tamara Joyce had been the Wandering Star’s engineer before everyone above her in the crew died during the prytheen attack. Between that and the fact that the leader of the prytheen had claimed her as his mate, she’d ended up in charge of the human half of the colony.

  Not the best way for someone to get the captain’s seat, and it didn’t
exactly inspire confidence in her leadership. But then, no one would have been prepared for leading a colony on the wrong planet.

  She looked tired, pale and drawn, and I didn’t envy her the workload she had to deal with. I had the sinking feeling that I was about to get some of it dropped on my lap, though.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said with a tired smile. “I know you’ve got a lot to do, we all do, but there’s something I need your help with.”

  Great. Just as I’d expected, she was going to pull me into some damned scheme. Worse, I’d probably go along with it. I sighed and shook my head. “Why me?”

  “I looked through the colonist files, and you’ve got more experience with alien languages than anyone else. Some with their technology, too,” she said, running a hand through her hair. I frowned, not liking where this was going. The only aliens to talk to were the prytheen, and I got more than enough of that just walking around the colony.

  “It’s just a hobby,” I protested. “I’m not an engineer or anything.”

  Tamara laughed, though there was no joy to it.

  “Yep, that’s what it says here.” She gestured to the holographic cat at her side, and he obligingly brought up a display. My file, everything the Arcadia Colony Company knew about me — including my history of learning every alien language I could. “Sure, there are better technicians around, but no one else with your language skills. At least, no one we’ve made contact with.”

  Our arrival had scattered human colony pods around Crashland. I’d been lucky enough to end up near the Wandering Star, but others hadn’t been so fortunate and there were still plenty of pods that hadn’t been found. I winced at the thought of trying to survive out there in the wilds, without any backup.

  Silence filled the bridge for a long moment. If there was one trait all the colonists shared, it was that we didn’t like to be reminded of the losses we’d suffered on our arrival on Crashland. We’d all woken in the cramped and uncomfortable confines of our stasis tubes, struggled free to find that instead of landing on Arcadia Colony like we’d planned for, we’d come down on some unknown world full of dangers.

  And not everyone had made it down alive. We still didn’t know how many of us had died on landing, only that the number was far too high.

  “Fine, okay, I know a bit about alien tech,” I said. “What’s that got to do with anything? It doesn’t work here, the prytheen batteries drain faster than we can charge them.”

  Which was probably the only reason the blue bastards hadn’t finished conquering us. Their weapons and ships didn’t work on Crashland, and ours did — except we had no industry to fix or replace damaged parts. If it couldn’t be printed by a maker, we had to do without.

  Captain Joyce didn’t respond straight away. Instead, she turned to her hologram cat and looked thoughtful, as though choosing her words carefully. Why did so many colonists choose cats? Okay, the shimmering little projection was cute, but it was so overdone.

  “We found a signal,” she said, breaking the awkward silence. “It’s hard to detect with our equipment, but it’s there. Someone on this planet is using advanced technology.”

  I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. That might mean a way off this damned planet. Rescue. Safety. The captain held up a hand before I started reeling off questions.

  “It might be nothing,” she said quickly. “That’s why we’re not spreading the word yet. The last thing we need is for everyone to race after a desperate chance to escape — our position’s precarious, and if we don’t gather a lot of food before winter sets in we’ll have trouble feeding everyone. I want to check this out quietly, see what’s there, and that’s where you come in.”

  “Why me, though?” I gripped the edge of a console to steady myself and tried to think clearly. It wasn’t easy. “You’re an engineer, I’m just an amateur.”

  The captain groaned and ran a hand through her hair. “I’d give anything to go, but this is my job now. I can’t leave the colony, everyone would realize something’s up if I did. Plus, you’re better at alien languages. There’s a good chance that’ll be more important than technical skill.”

  The possibilities spread in front of me and my heart hammered as I tried to control my excitement. An alien colony? An automated transmitter? An emergency shelter? A mysterious signal might mean anything, and I had the chance to be the first human to see it.

  Crashland was in space claimed by the Taveshi Empire, but aside from the name we knew almost nothing about them. Powerful, ancient, and insular, the Empire stretched all the way back to the time of the Eskel, the earliest civilization in this part of the galaxy.

  One thing we’d learned when we arrived was that they had technology powerful enough to swat the prytheen out of the sky casually — which meant I liked them already. Without that, we humans would all be prytheen slaves or worse.

  “Okay, so how much of a trek is it?” I asked, looking at the hologram globe that dominated the bridge. Unfamiliar continents floated there, the edges fuzzy. Our maps were based on the rough scans the colony pods had made on their way down, and too much of it was guesswork.

  “Too far to walk,” Captain Joyce said, a flick of her fingers changing the display. Ripples spread across the globe, green points of light appearing to mark where human colony pods had come down. Red marked known prytheen settlements that hadn’t accepted the peace between our species — the ones who kept to the lifestyle of bandits and raiders.

  Beyond all of those, in an otherwise-empty space, a white light blinked. Half a world away from us.

  I crossed my arms and glared. “No way.”

  “You’ll take a flier,” she told me. “A long trip, but it’s safe.”

  I gritted my teeth and shook my head, pulse racing. “No. Send someone from the nearer colonies, they won’t have to go so far.”

  Tamara winced. “There aren’t any nearby colonies. The pods that came down near there went silent soon after landing. Probably attacked by rogue prytheen.”

  I swallowed and rubbed the back of my neck. “Great. Fantastic. Just the place I want to take a vacation. There’s got to be someone closer you can send.”

  “No one with the language skills you have,” she said. “I don’t want to risk a flier, and I refuse to risk a colonist — I wouldn’t send you if I didn’t think it was safe.”

  That made me snort a bitter laugh. Easy for her to say when she wasn’t going herself.

  On the other hand, this was the first time I’d thought we might leave Crashland. That had to be worth taking a chance for, right? For a good reason, I could overcome my fear of flying. I’d already done it once to get into space after all.

  And look how that turned out, a little voice whispered in the back of my mind. I tried to shush it.

  “That’s a long way, though,” I said, trying to keep the fear out of my voice. Drawing a finger across the globe I traced the distance from our colony to the new mark, letting out a slow breath. The fliers were meant for short journeys only, and this was anything but. “The shuttles can’t fly this far, can they?”

  “Normally you’d be right,” Tamara said. “For this we’ll make it happen. We can pull the batteries from the other fliers, and you’ll have the solar cells. You’ll get there on one charge, then once you’ve recharged you’ll be able to get back.”

  I nodded reluctantly. That would work, though it would mean leaving the colony without fliers while I was away. And that meant no rescue if something went wrong. I tried to hold on to Megan’s reassurances about how safe the fliers were but I couldn’t stop trembling.

  There was one last objection to try, though it was also the weakest and I was certain the captain would have an answer. “I can’t fly a shuttle.”

  She grinned. “Anyone can fly a shuttle, but you won’t have to. The prytheen won’t let us have all the fun, so they’re sending their best pilot along. A joint mission.”

  Every muscle in my body tensed at that and I bit back a swearword. I wanted to sa
y no, to storm out, but… a chance to leave Crashland might be worth putting up with one of the blue idiots for a few days.

  If I could conquer my fear of flying, I could survive a few days in a shuttle with an alien. I tried to look on the bright side: at least with someone else along, I wouldn’t have to fly the damned thing. With a sigh I nodded my agreement.

  “Ah, here’s Ronan now,” Tamara said, gesturing behind me. I turned and froze, staring at the figure that filled the doorway.

  Dark blue skin taut over powerful muscles, every one of them perfectly defined. The prytheen hadn’t bothered with a shirt and no wonder — who’d want to cover up a torso like his? My eyes tracked over his six pack, down where the vee of his muscles led to a bulge under his tight pants. A huge bulge.

  Warmth spread through me and I dragged my eyes back up to his face, hoping he hadn’t caught me staring. Golden eyes, slitted like a cat’s, met mine, and I thought I saw a spark of humor there. Was he laughing at me? My chest tightened, blood rushed to my cheeks, but he said nothing. Just looked at me with an intensity that lit my soul on fire.

  3

  Ronan

  Inside, the colony ship smelled of old fires and burned plastic, the last traces of the crash impossible to remove. Less than half the lights worked and the deck tilted at an odd angle.

  The wait while Auric’s khara selected my human companion had been too long, and I itched to be in the sky again. Cooped up in this small space with so many others was a visit to hell. These too-small corridors didn’t suit me, and outside, the Joint Colony was worse. So many humans and prytheen crowded into such a small space would drive me insane. A single trip to the market was enough to convince me to stay away.

  I needed to fly, to have space around me. By the time that Auric summoned me to the bridge, I was ready to tear someone’s throat out if they brushed against me without permission.