The Alien Reindeer's Flight (A Winter Starr Book 14)

by S. A. Ravel

  Let him tire himself out. It's not like his plan'll work.

  5

  Haj’erel

  It was midday by the time Haj'erel finished clearing the ice from the highway. When he left Audrey to break her fast in the den, he had intended to shift to his quadrupedal form. His hind legs would shatter the ice–and likely chunks of the pavement with it. But as he neared the road, he heard her door creak open.

  Naturally she would try to observe him, if she believed he could not complete the task.

  Haj'erel clenched his teeth. He couldn't doom himself to death for convenience’s sake. There was more than enough trouble waiting for him on Tarandus when he returned already. Failure to provide proper protection. Reliance on human aid without a treaty. Taking chir under murky pretenses. Any one of those could result in banishment when he went home. If he could get home.

  The tools in Audrey's shed were crude even by human standards. The heavy hammer was slowly deteriorating into a pile of iron dust, but it held together as he pounded against the thick sheet of ice. And so he went, swinging the crumbling tool to break the ice, then moving it to the side of the road. On and on, until the sun was high overhead.

  His muscles ached with each swing. He needed nourishment, but between Audrey's breakfast and her bitter chir, there wasn't nearly enough in that dwelling to sustain him. Even if he could somehow convince her to give it.

  “You're still at it?” Audrey called from behind him. She sat in the main seat of her vehicle, smiling at him through an opening in the side.

  Her voice was like warm honey in his ears. The smile of astonishment on her plump lips almost made Haj'erel want to cry out in triumph. A tingle moved through his body, this time moving not just between his thighs, but through his core, gnawing at him.

  “I may have underestimated the resilience of the weather.” Haj'erel rose to his full height and stretched back, trying to soothe a stubborn knot from his back. After he moved the last slabs of ice, he joined her inside the vehicle. The interior smelled so strongly of her, Haj had to resist the urge to close his eyes and inhale, or risk drawing too much attention to himself.

  Audrey steered toward the main road in silence. In the daylight, it was obvious that far more of her community had been abandoned than Haj'erel originally suspected. The main road was no better. Every transport they passed–and there were many–had been abandoned. A few had left behind their lighter possessions too. Things one might save, unless the situation was so dire a life was the only thing salvageable.

  “Sorry for leaving you out there so long,” she said. “Honestly, I figured you'd give up hours ago.”

  He might have, if her tortured face hadn't torn at his heart. If he had never tasted her chir and did not know she was his aijan. He was already beginning to crave her chir again. He wanted to lean over and claim her lips, bitterness and all. There had to be some way to sweeten her.

  “What happened here?” he asked instead.

  Audrey glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, her brow furrowed. “Same thing that happened everywhere. The drought just hit harder in this part of the world, so people left it quicker.”

  “I mean no offense,” he said.

  “I figured,” Audrey shrugged. Her voice had the same brittle tone it had in her kitchen, but her posture remained relaxed. “This area wigged out about ten years before most other places. When they started loading people onto the ships, most people couldn't line up fast enough.”

  Audrey attempted to keep her voice light as she described the state of her world, but Haj'erel could hear the sadness in her words.

  “But you prefer not to go?” That didn't match her tone. It didn't match the panic he saw in her when she thought she had lost her last chance to speak to her sister.

  “Not a good candidate,” she said, licking her lips. “But hey, thanks again for doing this and I'm sorry again about...crap.”

  Haj'erel followed Audrey's gaze to the mirror near her head, then turned to look through the back window. A truck twice as large as Audrey's sped toward them. The owner had painted the thick panels of the body with flat gray, so it resembled a charging reptile from the southern islands of Tarandus. A predator, with a metal hide thick enough to survive the end of the world.

  He didn't need to ask whether Audrey knew them. Her relaxed posture vanished. She leaned forward, twisting her fingers around the steering wheel.

  “Friends of yours?” Audrey asked.

  “There are none here I call friend other than you.” Haj'erel clenched his hand into a shaking fist.

  “They must be looking for people trying to hoof it into town because of the storm,” she said through clenched teeth. Little by little, the flat gray mass of metal drew closer.

  Haj’erel’s stomachs clenched. If he shifted into his quad form, he could disable their pursuer. But he couldn’t do it without being seen. How would he explain it to Audrey? Could he jump the distance properly with his vision so impaired? The last mattered least. His quad form was massive enough to destroy the pursuing vehicle on impact. He wouldn’t survive, but neither would they. And Audrey would survive…to be hunted by another predator.

  "Can you outrun them?" he asked.

  Her eyes flicked to the control panel of her car and back to the mirror near her head. She shook her head. "They've got a better engine than I do."

  Haj'erel swore the Joyful Mother laughed somewhere.

  Audrey unbuckled the straps across her lap and chest. "How's your aim?" she asked.

  "My what?”

  "My rifle's in the backseat," she explained. "If we look like more trouble than we're worth, they may look for someone else. How's your aim?”

  "Unimpressive...." It would have been more accurate to say nonexistent. Of all the random pieces of information on human life Tarandian wajirae and warriors were given to prepare them for the harvest, it had not included human martial weapons.

  "Crap. Okay, we'll do this the hard way. Switch places with me!" Audrey pressed a button on the steering wheel. She pulled her booted feet up to her seat, moving into a kneeling position as she balanced her hands on the wheel. The vehicle continued forward without losing speed.

  Haj'erel watched her lithe movements in wonder. He had never seen a human female move so fluidly.

  “I have…not operated a vehicle such as this….” Haj’erel was beginning to think the Grand Hidren had underestimated the level of preparedness warriors needed to complete a harvest.

  They hadn’t counted on a warrior so prone to failure as him.

  "Just hold the wheel steady. It practically drives itself."

  Somehow, he doubted her claim.

  Audrey clicked her tongue at him. "Hey! Come on, we don't have a lot of time here!"

  Nodding, Haj pressed his body against the control board and slid across. As he moved, Audrey scooted into the passenger seat in the space behind him. From the darkness on his right side, Haj'erel heard Audrey retrieve something from the backseat. Metal pieces slid against one another with a low screech before they clicked into place. She grunted softly.

  Her weapon assembled, Audrey took a deep breath. Her door clicked and the window opened, filling the interior with a rush of frigid air.

  "Just keep the car steady and drive as fast as you can," she shouted. Then she was gone.

  Haj'erel looked away from the road and to her. Audrey kneeled on the passenger seat, using it for balance and height as she leaned through the open side portal. She aimed at the predator and fired. Without turning his head, Haj'erel checked the mirror. The gray truck did not break off its pursuit.

  She fired again and again. Her third shot penetrated the predator's front glass. The hulking truck swerved and screeched to a stop. Haj'erel kept his hands on the wheel and continued driving. As the predator receded in the mirror, his heart rate lowered, but the tight sensation in his stomach would not ease.

  How had his aijan lived alone among such random and fearsome prey for so long? For how much longer
could she?

  Audrey whooped in triumph. The window slid closed and the interior descended into momentary silence, save for her soft pants of exertion.

  "Just keep going until the highway splits," she said once she had caught her breath again. "If they're not still following us, we'll change places again. And if they are...well...we'll think of something then.”

  If the predator still followed them, it would find an enraged Tarandian warrior in full quad form ready to stamp its hide into crumpled metal.

  To his disappointment, the predatory truck was not following them when they reached the fork in the road. They switched places. Neither of them spoke on the hours long ride to what she called the supply depot. Perhaps, despite the predator's failure to reemerge, Audrey didn't trust their good fortune. Haj knew he didn't. He turned to watch the path behind them often, and each time he did he was sure the gray truck would speed toward them again.

  When Haj'erel wasn't watching the road, his gaze wandered to Audrey. The wind had blown her hair into a frenzy, leaving her neat braid askew. The rosy glow on her cheeks had intensified from the cold.

  Once, Haj’erel caught Audrey watching him out of the corner of her eye. It was only for a moment before her cheeks flushed deeper. She sat up straighter in her seat and turned her attention back to the road.

  Perhaps the warm color was just part of her. If it was, Haj'erel believed he liked it.

  The sun began to sink toward the horizon and they traveled on. He watched Audrey. She tried not to watch him. After a long time, Audrey pulled her truck off the main path and toward a squat building in the distance.

  "And there's the depot." The relief was evident in her voice.

  As they got closer, the size of the structure became more plain. All of Hidren Thule, two hundred members strong, would fit inside the building and still have room to offer space to others. But there were no signs of life in the building. There were no lights in its windows. No smoke plumed from its chimneys. Even the surrounding land was abandoned.

  She said the region is almost empty. Perhaps this is normal.

  As if to answer him, Audrey sucked her teeth. Her mouth fell open and her eyes widened. She turned the truck onto the paved land in front of the building and brought it to a screeching to a halt near the front entrance. Not normal, then.

  Audrey's fingers trembled as she undid her safety straps. Haj'erel reached out to take her hand, but she slid from the seat, leaving his fingers grasping empty air where she had once been. He hurried after her, turning his head to scan the horizon for the predator truck.

  "You should be cautious," he said as he approached Audrey. "Something might have happened.”

  "Something definitely happened," she said, gesturing to the sign on the metal door. Haj'erel couldn't read the words, but from Audrey's slumped shoulders, he could guess what they meant. "The clerk took off for Jericho Town. The depot's closed for good. Doesn't even look like the security system is on. He must have turned off the generator.”

  "A smart traveler would have taken what he could carry. A responsible one would leave the rest behind for others to do the same.”

  Her brown eyes stared hard at the paper. She strode over to it and ripped it down, then turned to Haj'erel. Her chest heaved with emotion. But Audrey sank her teeth into her lip and shook her head, glancing from the paper in her hand, to the door, then to the ground, and back to him.

  Her lip trembled, but still she held the tears back.

  This was why Audrey had survived. It was admirable for a human, female or male, to survive without a herd to support them.

  It was also foolish. She could not survive on these lands forever. The weather was too harsh and unpredictable. Her spirit was strong, but her body was too soft and fragile.

  I cannot leave her here.

  6

  Audrey

  Audrey waited for the panic to bubble to the surface. This wasn't just bad, it was an epic failure on a scale she'd never experienced. A little piece of her had worried the whole ride north that her luck had run out. She figured it would be something less drastic, like Frankie having sold the last battery off or forgotten to order them.

  She hadn't expected him to pick up stakes.

  Screwed didn't cover it. Audrey looked to the ground, if only to avoid Haj's probing golden eye. There might be questions in that eye. There might be pity. She didn't have answers. She couldn't stand pity. Not from him.

  "Well, you held up your end of the bargain," she said. "I guess this is where we say goodbye.”

  "Goodbye? No, escorting you here only half repays my debt. By my reckoning I owe you a battery, yes?”

  Audrey jerked her eyes up to him in disbelief. The smile on his lips was gentle, but also mocking. The same smile he'd worn that morning when he woke up. No...when he'd caught her watching him sleep like a lovesick teenager. What was it about that smile that made her knees weak and her core burn?

  "The next depot is a day's drive away, at least. My truck won't make it that far on the charge it's got.”

  "The sun has grown low." Haj'erel glanced over his shoulder as if to confirm the state of the horizon then turned back to the sheet of metal covering the depot's sliding doors.

  Audrey didn't like the twinkle in his eyes.

  "I will camp here tonight before I move on," he said as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "You should do the same.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, but closed it again. What would she be defending? If Frankie had bosses, he would be in trouble for a lot more than a break in. Like abandoning however many people were still in the region.

  What if it's just you after this? What if when Haj walks away...that's it? No more hot aliens. No more people.

  "I don't have a good argument," she admitted. “It just feels...wrong. Like one more line to cross, you know?”

  His brow furrowed. "If the clerk thought the building needed defending, he would have activated its defenses. He meant for people like us to take and use what we need. But if that answer doesn't quiet your heart, as I can see it does not...wait here.”

  Haj tilted his head back and looked at the roof, and nodded. "Yes, wait here."

  He walked away from Audrey and the parking lot, disappearing around the far side of the building. Several minutes later, the metal security gate slid up, a beaming Haj standing beneath it. With a sharp tilt of his chin, he invited her inside.

  Skylights in the massive metal ceiling lit the interior of the depot with beams of natural light. Every inch of space held a high metal shelf stuffed to the brim with toilet paper, disinfectant, emergency meals, heaters, matches, and medicines. The things people still needed to keep going, but couldn't make themselves.

  What are we going to do without the depot? What am I gonna do?

  Automated robots hung motionless from the steel ceiling, ready to zoom between the towering shelves. In the center of it all was a circular gray console. Audrey could almost see Frankie standing at the center, a beanpole of a man with unruly black hair and yellowish skin. He'd even left his personal heater behind.

  Haj padded toward the central console. "Let me guess, we enter our request in here and the machines up there find it for us?”

  Audrey nodded. Her eyes searched desperately for anywhere to look but at the lifeless machines suspended in midair. They fell on Haj. She felt a sudden odd desire to go over to him and bury her face against his chest and feel his scorching warmth against her cheeks.

  “I can tell you the things that go bad are near the front and what doesn't is towards the back. So are the bathrooms,” she said. "Other than that, the robots always moved too fast for me to see where they went.”

  "You said he only turned the generator off, yes?" When she nodded Haj smiled. Audrey's heart melted. Not for the first time that day, the giant looked pleased with himself. "Then in the morning we'll turn it on, gather what you need and turn it off for the next traveler."

  And then Haj would go wherever he'd been g
oing in the first place, and Audrey would go back to Colton Hills. Alone.

  He slid out from behind the console, glancing at the shelves as he followed the path back to the front of the building. Audrey waited. After a few minutes, he came back and dropped an armful of dehydrated meal packs and ration bars on the console. He disappeared again without a word, but with a determined look on his face. Ten minutes passed. Then twenty.

  Audrey busied herself with organizing the food and splitting it between the two of them. She'd never held so many of the silver meal packs before. They were tastier than the ration bars–if only by virtue of being saltier, a little fattier, and much easier to chew–but they cost twice as much. As a single person on a tiny homestead, Audrey didn't get many credits. It seemed smarter to spend them on things she might need, like wool or seeds or batteries.

  "There's no need for that," Haj said when he came back. He set his armload down on the console. This time, he'd come back with blankets and sleeping bags.

  "You earned it," Audrey insisted. "If not for you, I wouldn't have found out about the depot being closed for another few months."

  Raiders would have stripped the building down to studs by then. He had been a bumbling idiot when he'd done it, but Haj'erel had saved Audrey's life. Again. The least she could do with part with some food.

  But Haj just stared at her. He tilted his head to the side. "I will accept on one condition.”

  Audrey furrowed her brow. “You're putting conditions on taking rations?”

  "Just one," he nodded. "In the morning, you load the truck with as many supplies as it will hold and continue on to Jericho Town.”

  He loomed over her, and while there was no threat in his posture, Audrey's shoulders tensed. Haj seemed to sense her fear. He moved to his knees in front of her, hunching his shoulders and tilting his neck down until they were almost eye to eye. A warm gust of air from the heater carried his smell to her. Cinnamon and evergreen, a heady combination that made her reel.