Chapter Five
Vera woke again but she didn’t panic that time. She was snuggled firmly against a big bulk of warmth with a heavy arm firmly anchored around her back. Roth, her alien, was still there.
She inhaled, certain it was him. He smelled nice. The rumbling noise he’d made wasn’t there any longer. She heard faint voices though, coming from somewhere else. Utter blackness was the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes.
“I am here, Vera,” Roth’s voice softly assured her.
“I can’t see anything.”
“It may not be you this time. Computer, slowly raise lights on.”
The room began to grow brighter, and she stared at an off-white colored material in front of her. She reached out, running her fingers over the shirt Roth wore. “I can see.”
“Look at me.”
She had to move a little to raise her chin. Roth looked down at her. She stared into his golden eyes. They weren’t human but they were fascinating, especially against his dark complexion. He had long, thick black eyelashes. A very fine layer of fur covered his skin. She wasn’t even sure if she could call it that. It felt velvety soft.
She took in his wide nose next. His lips were what she’d call nibble worthy. She hated thin ones. He was a good-looking alien. Almost human in appearance, but there was no mistaking that he wasn’t.
She lifted her head off the pillow to get a better look at his pointed ear. Vera stopped caressing his cheek and reached up.
Roth pulled his arm from around her waist, gently catching her hand with his. “I am real. You shouldn’t touch a male’s ears.”
She gazed into his eyes. “I’m sorry. Would it have hurt you?” That was the last thing she wanted to do.
“They are extremely sensitive. How do you feel? You’ve been asleep for nearly fourteen hours.”
That shocked her. It must have shown on her face.
“You were exhausted. The amount of the drug in your body is decreasing. They have been taking blood tests. Doctor Kane predicts that in fifteen more hours, it should be completely be gone. She hasn’t found any lasting damage inside you. The black of your eyes isn’t shifting in size anymore, and they match.”
She had to think about that. “My pupils?”
“The black centers. They were doing bad things, but now they appear normal for a human. Are you feeling better? Do you see or hear anyone that isn’t here?”
She bit her lip and broke eye contact with him, turning her head. They were in what appeared to be a hospital room. The door had been mostly closed but not all the way. One wall held clearly marked cabinets for supplies. There was also a bathroom. No bigfoot, werewolf, or her father shared the room with them.
She peered back at Roth before speaking. “It’s just us in here. Did anyone else survive?”
His lips pressed together and his golden eyes narrowed. “My grouping and the human tactical teams sent to the planet’s surface discovered the source of the drug.”
She noticed that he hadn’t answered her question, but she really wanted to know how she’d ingested the drug. “What was it?”
“Your oxygen source was from the planet, but being filtered through a machine.”
“The air recycler. It makes sure none of the pollen or other pollutants come inside our living spaces. One of our scientists checked it. He said it wasn’t that. Was he wrong?”
“There was another machine that circulated the air inside your pods.”
“The pumps. We thought those were okay too. Then again, everyone was losing their minds. It was the pumps? The drug was airborne?”
He hesitated. “There were large canister devices found inside the vents that connected the different sections of your facility. Those devices dispersed the drug in a mist form. Doctor Kane ran some tests. The early results she shared is that the drug would have been absorbed through skin. It also would have gotten on your tongue, in your eyes, and inside your nose from breathing. Anything you touched near those vents immediately after it sprayed would have also infected you.”
Vera closed her eyes and put her face against his chest. Tears filled her eyes but she tried to fight it back.
None of her team had thought to check the vents. Just the source of where the air was being filtered and the large fans that pumped it though the pods. The vents were all located in the ceilings at the top of the pods, and they weren’t big enough for a person to fit inside. They wouldn’t have been able to check them thoroughly even if they’d wanted to.
“How did they figure it out?”
“The males were all given scanners programmed to detect the drug. The air vents turned on and they could see it coming from them. They tore out the ceilings and found the canisters.”
She clutched at his shirt. “Fuck!” It made her so mad! There were multiple vents in every pod, even inside the connecting corridors that linked them all. That drug had been raining down on them in mist form every time the pump kicked on to blow fresh air inside the pods. Why hadn’t they noticed? Seen it? The ceilings were at least fifteen feet high inside the pods, but only about nine feet in the hallways.
Roth put his arm around her and gently patted her back. “Do you remember any of the other humans working on the vents? Carrying long canisters?”
She shook her head against his shirt. “No. There’s surveillance cameras though.”
“The fleet is going over the recordings. That will take time. When was the facility built?”
“A little over two months ago.” She pulled herself together.
“Did any humans leave recently?”
“No. We came on the Dalton. It’s a freighter. New Worlds shipped us, the pods we lived inside, and the workers that assembled everything. Once we were stocked and had all our equipment on the planet, the freighter left. Heftner estimated that it would take us seven months to complete phase one. That’s when we were going to be picked up, and the secondary phase workers would have relieved us.” Her voice broke and she swallowed hard. “We had less than five months to go.”
“Heftner?”
“Gary Heftner is our project manager.”
“He was on the surface?”
“No. Heftner is our boss. He’d never want to be stuck on some planet for that length of time while we’re doing the initial survey. He’s the one we send updates to, or who yells at us if we fall behind schedule.”
“Schedule to do what?”
“New Worlds won the bid on Biter. That’s what we’ve dubbed the planet. All the animals, and even some of the plants we discovered, want to bite us. Most of these types of planets don’t get registered with an official name until after the initial survey is completed and we’re already being sent somewhere else. At that point, the claim is established.”
Roth kept stroking her back. “I don’t understand. Bid? What phases? And what claim?”
She inhaled and lifted her face away from his shirt to peer up at him. “If alien life isn’t present on a planet that gets found by Earth ships, companies like the one I work for can bid to send teams down to survey them. The first phase is to gather information on the wildlife, the terrain, vegetation, and minerals. I’m always assigned to phase one, since I fly drones to map and record the surface. Once we finish, phase two teams take what we’ve learned and begin to resource what they can.”
“Resource?”
Vera hesitated. “Two jobs ago, our mineralogist on our survey team discovered something that excited him. Don’t ask me what it was, thought I saw some of the samples he kept hauling into his workspace. He must have collected three dozen large crates of those rocks. They looked like chunks of green metal. All he’d tell us was that New Worlds was going to give him a raise and they’d easily make their money back on that project.
“Phase two teams are sent in to collect and ship whatever excites the bosses back to Earth, or to whoever my company can sell stuff to. As long as whatever they take doesn’t damage the planet, it’s fair game to resource green metal roc
ks or whatever. That’s how companies like New Worlds make money, if we find good stuff. They get to claim the rights for three years, to sell what they can after we complete our initial survey, and they register it with Earth and any allied alien races in that sector of space. Once the claim ends, Earth sometimes opens colonies on those planets.”
She took a deep breath and blew it out. “You never answered me. Did anyone else survive?”
Roth stopped stroking her back and cupped her face. He leaned in closer, his gazed locked with hers. “You need to focus on getting better. We will talk once you are fully recovered.”
Tears filled her eyes and she didn’t bother to blink them back. “I’m the only survivor. You just don’t want to say it. They all died.”
A monitor beeped, making her startle. Something creaked, and she gasped, twisting her head.
A man and a woman wearing dark blue uniforms with medical patches on them had entered the room. The man spoke.
“I’m Doctor Mead. I see you’re awake, Miss Wade. Please try to slow your heart rate.” He moved to the top of the bed, shutting off the alarm. He stepped back and studied her. “I can see that you are upset, but it’s imperative to avoid stress right now.” His gaze moved to Roth. “Did Mr. Roth say or do something to you? I can have security remove him.”
“No.” Vera didn’t like the doctor for assuming she was upset over something Roth had done. She was upset because she suspected all her coworkers were dead. “Roth stays.”
“I’ll get you some water.” The woman rushed to a large cabinet door and opened it, exposing what looked like a sink with shelves above it. She filled a cup and offered it to Vera.
It meant having to sit up and letting go of Roth if she accepted the cup. Vera wasn’t sure she was willing to do that yet but her throat felt dry. “I’m seeing and hearing two people in this room with us. I’m not imagining them, am I?” She looked at Roth.
“They are real,” he confirmed.
“You won’t leave me, right?”
“I won’t leave you, Vera.”
She tried to sit up but she felt shaky and uncoordinated. Roth moved to sit up first, and then he gently helped her until they both sat side by side on the edge of the bed with their legs dangling.
She looked down when Roth suddenly draped a blanket around her front and over her shoulders, to keep it from falling to her lap. That’s when she saw her exposed legs where the blanket didn’t cover.
Memory returned. “I’m naked still?”
“Mr. Roth refused to allow one of the nurses to put you in a patient gown,” Dr. Mead informed her, his voice cold.
“I kept her covered,” Roth growled. “I swore I wouldn’t let her go. I keep my word.”
“It was highly inappropriate, and I have written a report. I sent copies to Commander Bills and to your team superior, Mr. Roth.”
Vera glanced between Roth’s tense expression to the doctor’s angry one. She had to carefully get one of her arms out from under the blanket to keep it in place. One side still began to slip.
Roth grabbed the blanket before her breast was exposed, and he flattened his hand high on her chest and curled his fingers around her upper arm to pin it in place. She shot him a grateful look and then replayed what she’d just heard. It slowly made sense.
She frowned at Dr. Mead.
“I’m not upset that I’m naked. I just forgot that I was. Do you have any idea what I’ve been through?” More tears blinded her from thinking about what had happened in the pods. It frustrated her that she was about to break into sobs. Then she got mad again. “I don’t give a shit that I’m naked. Zero fucks given. All my friends are dead.” She leaned into Roth, pressing her body against his side. “You can take your report—which I assume you wrote to get Roth into trouble—and eat it. He’s my hero.”
Dr. Mead’s mouth fell open and his eyes widened. The nurse, or whatever she was, had the same reaction.
Roth leaned back a little, keeping his hand on her and the blanket, but then he wrapped his other arm around her back. “It’s fine, Vera. I am not in trouble.”
She twisted and pressed her face against his shirt. “That guy should eat a bag of dicks. Then choke on them.” She mentally pictured it and started to laugh. It was funny as hell to her.
Roth growled. “Vera.”
The laughter turned to sobs, and she hugged Roth around his middle, clinging to him. “I’m having mood swings. I’m not crazy. This feels like day four of when I have a really bad period, except way worse. Oh shit… I’m still messed up. You’re real though. I know that for sure. I think all my friends down there died. It’s not right that I’m the only one who made it and this is so screwed up! Don’t let me go!”
Roth held her tighter. “I have you, Vera. I won’t leave.”
“That guy is a dick, though. I’m not imagining that, am I? I don’t like the way he spoke to you. And who gives a shit if I’m naked? Give me a break. He didn’t see people killing each other and themselves. I did. What’s a bare ass compared to that? I hate stupid people. He’s an idiot.” She kept crying, unable to stop.
“Leave us,” Roth snarled.
His deep voice didn’t scare her. He was her alien, and he wouldn’t hurt her. “You are my hero, Roth. I feel safe with you. Why can’t that idiot figure it out?”
Roth’s chest started to vibrate, and he made that rumbling sound.
She turned her head more, pressing her ear to his shirt. “I like that sound. It’s so soothing. You’re too good to me.”
He held her tighter and kept vibrating, making that noise. It helped her stop crying.
“We can’t give her a sedative yet,” the woman whispered. “Can you get her to drink some water, Mr. Roth? I’ll go handle Mead. He looked pretty upset when he stormed out. He’s just trying to protect our patient. You have to acknowledge this isn’t exactly something we’ve seen before.”
Roth unwrapped his arm around Vera. “I’ll get her to drink this. Can we be alone? She is calmer when we are.”
“Sure. I don’t think you’re going to molest her or anything, but I can’t close the door all the way. Those orders came directly from Kane. I’ll be close. Call out if you need assistance or she feels hungry. She should eat something. Those nutrient patches we have on her are helping but they aren’t equal to a real meal.”
“I will try.”
It amazed Vera that Roth could talk and still vibrate, with that rumbling noise coming from his chest. “You’re so talented… You’re a superhero.”
“I’ll leave you to it,” the woman whispered. Something creaked, probably the door again.
“I have water,” Roth said quietly. “Will you drink it for me?”
Vera felt emotionally overwhelmed again. “I’d do anything for you, after all you’re doing for me.” She hated to move her ear away from his shirt and that soothing sound, but she did it, opening her eyes.
Roth met her gaze. “I’m going to adjust your blanket. It’s slipped.”
She glanced down, and he was right. One of her breasts was exposed. Not the side he’d held. It likely happened when she’d hugged his middle. She leaned back farther and grabbed it, covering her boob. She quickly glanced at him, but he was staring into her eyes. With his other hand, he lifted the cup to her mouth.
“Small sips at first.”
“Right. I don’t want to puke. I’ve been rationing what I had for…” She took a sip of water and swallowed. It was a little cold. She took another sip but then eased back. “I lost track of days.”
“It was intelligent of you to avoid eating food that could have been contaminated.” He stopped rumbling.
She missed the sound but didn’t complain. “The start of everything going wrong was triggered during a meal. The first person who killed someone was our cook, and his victim was eating. I started linking death with food and didn’t want to eat anything that New Worlds had supplied us with. We all had access to the company kitchen and food storage rooms.”<
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“Take more sips.”
She complied. “I can’t think of anyone on the pods who would have done this. I mean, they were a suicidal idiot if they did.” She took another sip. “Unless they were killed by one of us crazies.”
“Don’t think about it.”
“I can’t stop. Doctor Jeth and Doctor Hazel tested everyone. We all had that drug in us. Myself, Nancy, and Doctor Hazel had the lowest dosages.”
“Did the three of you work or spend time in areas without vents?”
She frowned at him. “Um, no. The vents are all over the pods. I had two in my sleeping room and one in my private bathroom. They’re everywhere. One was also near my workstation. I used to complain about how cold I’d get when it blew on me. I would…”
She paused, her mind racing.
“Vera?”
“I would put on extra layers. You know, wear two long-sleeve shirts instead of just one. I always pack some because I’ve been frozen out before.”
“Frozen out?”
She gave a sharp nod. “Sorry. Um, they keep the temperature too cold. Security always oversees that. I was on this ship a few years ago and I swear, it was like living inside a refrigerator. They kept the temperatures that cold. We almost had a mutiny. Not really, but a lot of us were pretty mad that they wouldn’t bring up the heat a little so we’d be more comfortable.” She paused. “I also traded Gene for two extra blankets to keep me warm while I slept. I burrowed under them at night like they were a tent. Maybe that’s why I was less exposed?”
“Gene?”
“Gene Tiddle. He was our go-to guy in the pods to get extra supplies. He was the site manager. I gave him my desserts for two weeks. The cook is under orders to limit us to only one after dinner, or we’d go through our supply too fast. Like rationing. Gene had a sweet tooth.”
“What about the other two females? Were they also cold and wearing layers? Did they trade for more blankets? It would mean more of their skin was covered.”
“I don’t know about that, but Doctor Hazel and Nancy went outside often with whatever security officer was assigned to drive them.”
Mission: Planet Biter (Veslor Mates Book 4) Page 6
