by Elin Wyn
I closed my eyes as I felt his large hands on me, his touch soft and gentle, and my mind started spiraling out of control. I imagined how it would feel to have his hands wandering all over my naked skin, and I— “Holy shit,” I cried out, my bones popping back into place as Sa'lok applied just the right amount of pressure on my shoulder.
“Better now?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I replied, hesitantly rotating my arm. My shoulder felt sore, but functional. The moment Sa'lok let go of me, though, I almost fell over.
My right ankle struggled with my full weight, and if weren’t for Sa'lok’s quick reaction, I would have fallen face first to the floor.
“Careful,” he said, both his hands on my hips. “You must’ve sprained your ankle, as well.”
“Looks like it, yeah,” I muttered, while at the same time, a loud sound echoed throughout the chaotic chamber, like stones grinding together.
“It isn’t safe here.” With one hand wrapped around my waist, Sa'lok carefully adjusted my left arm and draped it over his shoulders. “We have to leave before there’s another cave-in.”
“But the Puppet Master—”
“There’s nothing we can do right now, Teisha.” He shook his head. “We have to leave and let the general know about what’s happening. These anti-alien guys brokered a deal with the Gorgos, and the Puppet Master might be dead or infected. We need to act fast before the Gorgoxians go on the offensive.”
“Fine,” I relented. It felt like giving up, but Sa'lok was right. There was nothing left for us to do here. Using him as my support, I limped toward the one tunnel mouth that hadn’t been covered by all the falling rock. “Do you know the way out?”
“Not through this specific tunnel, but we’ll figure something out.”
“Right,” I nodded. I didn’t know if getting lost in a maze of caves and tunnels and dying of thirst would be much better than dying in a cave-in, but I said nothing else and continued down the sloping tunnel, my flashlight struggling to keep the darkness at bay.
After half an hour of walking, we finally sat down to catch our breaths. The backup team the general had sent was probably already making their way through the tunnels, which was good, but we didn’t have any way of reaching them—Sa'lok’s comms unit had been destroyed during the cave-in, which meant right now we were cut off from the rest of the world.
When it was finally time for us to stand up, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.
It was a small vine tendril lying on the ground, hidden by an outcrop of jagged rocks. “Look,” I cried, elbowing Sa'lok while I pointed at the vine. Before he had any time to say something, I limped toward it and kneeled next to it.
I exchanged a glance with Sa'lok, then he reached for the plant with the tips of his fingers.
“I don’t feel anything.”
My heart sunk as he said it, but I still reached for the vine all the same. I wrapped my fingers around it and, just like Sa'lok had said, I didn’t feel a thing. The Puppet Master’s presence had faded.
“Do you think the Puppet Master has—?” I stopped speaking as the vine gently started moving, coiling itself around my wrist.
Its movements were heavy and slow, almost as if whatever force was inhabiting it was starting to fade, but it was a positive sign, all the same.
“No, I don’t think he is,” Sa'lok replied, never looking away from the vine as it moved. “But he’s not speaking, either, is he?”
“No, he isn’t,” I agreed. Closing my eyes, I tried to still my mind and attempted to feel the Puppet Master’s presence one last time.
For a fraction of a second, I thought I felt something faint and tenuous in the distance, but it could be just my imagination. “What do we do, Sa'lok?”
“I have no idea.” It was slightly disconcerting to see a guy like him admit that he was at a loss, but I didn’t blame him. I also had no idea what we should do. “We’ll update the general on what happened, and then go from there.”
“If we manage to get out of here alive,” I added, but quickly regretted saying it. I only meant it as a joke, but Sa'lok’s exhausted expression told me he was considering my words as a real possibility. Great.
Thankfully, his mood brightened after a couple more minutes of walking.
“I think I recognize this place,” he said, arms folded over his chest as he peered at the walls of the tunnel we were in. “I’ve been through here before. I think that if we make the next left turn, we’ll be on our way out of here.”
Turned out, he was right. We made a left turn, walked for twenty minutes, and came across the rescue party the general had sent, a burly Skotan I didn’t recognize leading them.
“No use in pushing ahead,” Sa’lok told them. “The main chamber has caved in. If you guys want to go in there and look around, you better have some machinery with you. Just get us out of here.”
No one bothered arguing with him. Two members of the search team split off to secure the chamber, and the rest of us trooped along the tunnel in a single file.
A few minutes later, we were stepping outside, the bright afternoon sun baking everything underneath it.
“Where to?” the team leader asked Sa'lok, and his response was a prompt one.
“Nyheim,” he said wearily. “I need to speak with the general.”
Sa'lok
Teisha fell asleep shortly after we took off. Her tired body was leaning against mine, her head resting on my shoulder. Dust and small pieces of debris were covering her disheveled hair, but I thought she looked beautiful, all the same.
Tired and exhausted, too, but those things did little to diminish her beauty.
“Rest,” I whispered, even though I knew she couldn’t hear me, and draped one arm around her shoulders.
The letdown from the adrenaline dump couldn’t be pushed off any further without risking damage to my systems.
We were safe now, I reminded myself.
Through the window, I watched the desert underneath us turning into a blur as the aerial units zoomed through the skies, wisps of clouds lining the way ahead. Two ships were escorting ours, while the remaining two and their occupants had remained behind to ensure no one else would try to get back into the tunnels.
I closed my eyes and finally allowed exhaustion to embrace my worn muscles. The bruises I had all over my body were tender spots of flesh that had started turning blue, and my forearms and stomach were covered in caked blood. Some of it was mine, some wasn’t.
It didn’t take long before I drifted off, the steady rumble of the engines lulling me into sleep. I dreamed of the Puppet Master, its honest and caring voice replaced by hollow silence, and I dreamed of the Gorgos and the possessed.
I saw the possessed ravaging the countryside, hordes of furious figures claiming the planet as their own as they advanced upon the cities and their prey.
“Are you alright?” A soft voice cut through my dreams, and I felt delicate fingers grasping my arm. Opening my eyes, I turned to the side to find Teisha staring at me, her eyes two round pools of lively green. “You were talking in your sleep.”
“Sorry.” Laying my hand on top of hers, I gave it a squeeze. “I can’t stop my mind from racing.”
“Are you worried?”
“Not exactly,” I lied. “We’re gonna figure something out. We always do.” She saw through my lie easily enough, but she didn’t say anything. She was worried, too, probably thinking of her sister and her nephew and niece.
Away from a well-guarded city like Nyheim, they were probably more vulnerable to a Gorgo attack than anyone else. Then again, who could be sure?
As far as I knew, the Gorgos would focus on laying waste to the cities first. There was just no way of knowing what was going through their ancient minds.
“We’re landing in five,” the Skotan pilot announced over the comms, and Teisha rested her head against my chest once more. This time she was awake, though, her alert eyes looking out the window and taking in the city.
>
Nyheim’s tall glass towers glinted under the afternoon sun, and even from a distance, I could see the chaotic air traffic enveloping the city. Slowly but steadily, the city was recovering from the war against the Xathi, a sense of normalcy finally returning to it.
I didn’t know if that would last.
We landed in a secluded part of the hangar, and I immediately spotted the general waiting for us near the landing pad. His usual retinue of aides and assistants wasn’t around, and his expression was a stern one.
He stood with his back straight, hands folded behind his back, and his crisp military uniform—a blend of human traditions and those we followed aboard the Vengeance—gave him the look of a man that was ready to wage war by himself.
“Sa'lok,” he said, clasping my forearm in a warrior’s salute. “I’m glad to see that you’re alive and breathing.” His eyes darted to the wounds covering both my arms and stomach, and I uncomfortably shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “I’ve already heard a simplified version of what happened, but I wanted to hear it directly from you. Is it true that we’ve lost contact with the Puppet Master?”
“Yes,” I nodded. “I don’t believe that he’s dead, but he’s not communicating, either. The anti-alien faction that we faced in the tunnels tried to infect him with a Gorgo, but I don’t know if they were successful. There was a cave-in and—”
“I’m aware,” General Rouhr nodded gravely. “You gave me a lot to think about, Sa'lok. I want to hear the full details of what happened first thing tomorrow morning, but right now I want the two of you to get checked out at the med bay.” He glanced at Teisha and smiled. “You did well.”
“Thank you, General,” Teisha and I said in unison.
“Evie’s already expecting you,” he finished. “Don’t make her wait. You know how she gets.”
With that, he was gone, walking across the hangar with his head bowed and his hands clasped behind his back.
Not knowing what else to do, I led Teisha out of the hangar and into the main building, navigating my way through the floors until I saw the clear doors of the med bay.
Evie, a young woman wearing a white coat, stood in the doorway with her arms folded over her chest. Her auburn hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, and her blue eyes shone with frustration.
One of the most capable doctors in the building, she had been the first human to establish contact with the Urai, and one of the first to deal with the hybrid epidemic that ravaged the continent during the Xathi invasion.
“What is it with you people?” she sighed, shaking her head in a disapproving manner. “There’s always someone getting stuck in ruins, caves, and tunnels. It’s as if you people don’t like being out on the surface.”
Deciding to move forward without any kind of small talk, she led the way into a small room inside the med bay and told Teisha and me to sit on opposite stretchers. “The only reason my bay’s full all the time is because you people just have to go underground, no matter how stupid or dangerous it is.”
“It’s part of the job,” I shrugged, and Evie gave me a resigned shake of her head.
“That’s what Sakev keeps telling me,” she sighed. During the Xathi war, she had grown close to Sakev, a heavy-hitter on Vrehx’s strike team, and to everyone’s surprise, they’d become mates. “You ask me, you guys hide behind ‘duty’ to go out and blow things up.”
“That’s a fair assessment,” I laughed, but my laugh was immediately replaced by a groan as Evie started stitching up the wound on my stomach.
“Deep down, they’re just boys,” Teisha added with a laugh of her own, and the two women exchanged a knowing glance. Even though I didn’t think they had met before, I could tell these two would get along well if given the chance.
“You, go get into the repair unit for the damage to your components while I fix up your friend here,” Evie ordered me. “Move fast, or I’ll tell her how to deactivate you.”
Half an hour later, Evie was discharging us. She pushed us out of the room with warnings to ‘have a couple of days off’ and ‘be more careful next time’, then ushered her next patients in with a quick wave of her hand.
“She’s intense,” Teisha said as we walked out of the med bay. “I like her.”
“I thought you would.”
I kept on walking down the hallway that led to the teams’ quarters when I suddenly realized that Teisha probably didn’t have a place in the city where she could stay. She didn’t say a thing about it, though, and I immediately realized what her plan was. “You’re not thinking of flying back home today, are you?”
“Of course I am,” she shrugged. “I asked one of the guys from the strike team that retrieved us to tow my hovercraft in. It should be here before night falls.”
“No way.” My voice came out more sternly than I had intended, but I pushed through, all the same. “I’m not going to let you fly like this. You’re all banged up, and you’re exhausted. You need a good night’s rest before you even start thinking of stepping foot inside a hangar.”
Her shoulders sagged.
“Fine, you’re right,” she sighed, to my surprise. Teisha never accepted my suggestions this easily, especially when it came to flying.
She had to be dead tired. “I’ll see if I can book a hotel room nearby, and then I—”
“Nonsense,” I cut her short. “My quarters are just around the corner. You can spend the night there.” I looked at her just in time to see her green eyes widen with...something. I couldn’t exactly tell what was going through her mind, but I noticed the way her cheeks started turning a pale shade of red.
We didn’t say anything as we walked toward my room, and only when we stepped inside it did I notice there was a problem with my idea: there was only the one bed.
Normally, I wouldn’t even have had that. For years, I’d slept in a maintenance chair, like most K’ver.
But since we’d been on this planet, we’d advanced the technology, making it smaller and able to be integrated into small field devices.
Now, instead of needing the bulky chairs, every K’ver could choose to sleep on whatever surface was convenient.
Given my fascination with humans, I’d been curious to try sleeping in a bed, but it took up so much of the room, I hadn’t been able to fit much other furniture into the small room.
I’d never thought much about it before.
Of course, I’d never had anyone else staying over before, either.
Maybe I should have kept the chair, and then I’d have the bed to offer Teisha.
Too late now.
“Are you trying to trick a defenseless damsel, Sa'lok?” Teisha laughed, punching my arm while she cocked one eyebrow up. “You’re a rascal, aren’t you?”
“It’s nothing like that,” I hurried to say, and now it was my turn to feel blood rushing to my cheeks. “You take the bed and I’ll just sleep on the floor. Honestly, it’s not that much different than a basic maintenance chair.”
She shook her head. “I’m tired enough I’m not even going to argue.” She gave me a slight smile, then walked past me toward the bathroom. “I’m just gonna take a shower, alright?”
“Of course. I’ll set some spare clothing out for you.” I shrugged. “They’ll be too big, but they’ll be clean.”
“Sounds heavenly, but no peeking,” she called over her shoulder.
“Of course not,” I said, but once I started hearing the sound of the running water, my mind immediately started imagining every single curve of Teisha’s naked body. In my mind’s eye, I saw the warm water cascaded down her petite body, caressing her breasts and hips, and my body started heating up.
When she finally emerged from the bathroom, a white towel wrapped around her body, I could no longer think straight. She stood in the doorway, hands on her hips, and gave me a questioning glance.
“No clothing?”
“What?” For a moment I couldn’t think of what she was talking about. “Oh, right.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked me, but the little smile that was tugging at the corners of her lips told me she already knew the answer. “You keep on looking at me like that, and you might burn away my towel.”
“Would that be such a bad thing?” I found myself saying, my heart pumping so hard I couldn’t even hear my own thoughts.
More than anything, I wanted to go up to her and kiss her cherry lips. To pin her against the wall and feel her body under mine, her fingernails clawing at my back. To stop that from happening, I looked away from her and down at my feet.
“Sa'lok...Is there something wrong?”
“You know, when I woke up in the cavern and didn’t see you anywhere...I thought I had lost you,” I admitted, finally looking up into her eyes once more. “And it hurt. It really did.”
Slowly, I took one step toward her. This time, she didn’t tease me or come up with some silly joke.
She just watched me close the distance between us, her green eyes reflecting the dim light of the room, her lips slightly parted. Why did she have to be so beautiful? “It was then that I realized...this planet is worth saving because you’re on it, Teisha.”
“I don’t even know what to say to that,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have—”
She didn’t let me finish. Taking one step forward, she went on her tiptoes and crushed her mouth against mine.
Teisha
In the end, Sa'lok didn’t sleep on the floor.
We cuddled under the sheets, our bodies pressed together in the darkness, but exhaustion got the best of us.
I arched under his caressing hands, but far too soon, he pulled me tight against his side.
“You’re exhausted, Teisha. You need to sleep.”
“I need something else,” I argued, letting my hand drift down his side until it brushed against something impossibly hard and thick.
He gently pulled my hand back and rolled us until his broad chest curled against my back, my arms crossed in front of me.
“I’d be happy to give you everything you need,” he murmured into my hair, “just as soon as we both get some rest.”
