GalacticFlame

by Mel Teshco

  His stare swung to his blood father, Maddox. He shared much of his stature and looks from his father and knew they could easily pass as brothers. Though it was Maddox’s knowledge of plants that had touted him a genius, Genesis was only pleased his father’s brilliant mind had been passed along the genetic line as well.

  Maddox was a man he was beyond proud to call his father.

  His eyes continued on to his connect-fathers, Dar and Ezra. He swallowed a lump in his throat, loving the people equally who’d raised him and molded him into what he’d become. It had to be painful to them too, knowing they’d soon lose him to foreign parts of Carèche.

  He turned back to his people, resolute. “Eckn’a, my people,” he greeted, his voice strong, calm. His people stared up at him with rapt attention. “My time of disbandment has come.” He let his words settle over the people below. “I have been assigned to rule the people of my province bloodline. Pyracade is my new land of choice.”

  As many of the younger males cast each other disbelieving looks, he noticed quite the opposite from the elders. He’d done his research well. Since the mothercraft’s airwave transmitter had been broken beyond repair in an unchartered meteor collision, their whole species might well rely on their world’s tallest mountain to find future Earth women.

  His smile was all on the inside as he absently mulled over the innumerable challenges ahead. “Many of you are aware that my promised intended is waiting for my arrival.” He nodded at their excited murmurs. “I’ve had a purpose-built craft designed for her retrieval…but I have hopes it will be later used to claim other Earth women once they are located.”

  His eyes connected with Trasean and then Auron, younger brothers to his connect-fathers. He was well aware the two powerful males from different provinces would be his best chance of help in exchange for the possibility of an Earth woman. They were full-blooded alien males, two of the youngest to have survived the virus, and they were beyond eager for a woman.

  Better yet, Genesis knew they would gladly share.

  “The men of my province will be kept busy rebuilding and protecting a new society. He ran his eyes over the unattached males, aware more than just Auron and Trasean wanted an Earth women. “In exchange for the use of my craft, I need two volunteers from other provinces to build an airwave transmitter device atop the mountain.”

  As many of the males dropped their eyes as they thought over the obvious dangers, Trasean and Auron stepped forward with bent heads and their arms crossed.

  Genesis nodded at the two men. “Then it is decided.”

  The males nodded in return and stepped back even as the mothership drifted silently overhead. As a snowy-white shield dropped from its underside, the people of his province, including those already gifted with Earth women, headed to the shield that would take them aboard..

  And to Pyracade. Their new life.

  A life he’d soon share with his intended.

  A shiver of presentiment trekked up and down his spine even before he turned back to his mother. She stepped toward him, tears glistening in her eyes. “I know you will do us proud, my son.”

  Maddox moved beside her, an arm closing around her shoulders as he focused on Genesis. “You have only a short time before Ally and Renate assume you will arrive on Earth to retrieve their daughter.”

  Genesis nodded, all too aware of the excitement that clawed deep within, anticipation that’d been ignited long ago and burned hotter and hotter as the time had drawn near. “I have had many cycles of the suns to plan this day. There will be time enough to have my people settled, the crops planted and my craft tested and ready before leaving to find her.”

  Dar nodded and spoke up. “I’ve had my men recall the navigation history from the mothership into your craft’s finder. You will return to the exact last known location of her parents.”

  Ezra’s eyes glistened, revealing much emotion. Though perhaps the toughest of his fathers in many respects, he’d had Ezra wrapped around his finger as a child. Time hadn’t changed things overly much. “Be safe, my son,” Ezra murmured, standing behind the queen and wrapping his arms around her waist, a comforting touch.

  Genesis felt his smile slip. “And you too, my family.”

  When he turned, the few people of his province, as well as Trasean and Auron, had already stepped onto the shield that’d whisked them into the bowels of the mothercraft.

  He vaulted neatly off the dais and stepped onto the shield the moment it slithered to the ground. It settled around him and then pulled him up through the air as though a slingshot.

  It was the oddly drawn out motion that made him realize he was dreaming about his past, even as the pain of the present sucked him into full speed wakefulness.

  ~

  Eden woke with an all too familiar cramp in her belly and stickiness between her thighs.

  Oh, hell.

  But there was no denying the evidence and wishing she was pregnant wasn’t going to make it true.

  Forcing back a wave of desolation she forced her shaky legs to support her weight and stumble outside, into the bright and colorful world she barely noticed. Her focus was all on locating the long, straggly plants with their tiny red berries, which she’d read would stop a menstrual cycle almost immediately.

  Discarding the noxious berries, she chewed on the bitter leaves until they were a near unpalatable wad, before she forcibly swallowed.

  Colin had followed her outside and sat amongst a row of plants to watch her, his unblinking eyes saucer-round with concern.

  “Thanks for the sympathy, but you really wouldn’t understand,” she said, but somehow the trite words spoken to the animal had her succumb into grief. She sank to the ground, hot tears pouring down her face and her emotions so tangled she wondered if she’d ever feel normal again.

  Bad enough that she’d lost her family. But to lose her intended and now the chance of ever having his baby…it was unbearable.

  At its cruelest level, justice had been served to her.

  She swiped a shaky hand across her eyes and loudly sniffled. Perhaps she would have been better to have watched her sister taken away from her instead of losing all she’d fought so hard to keep?

  No, better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. She’d read that quote in one of the many Earth books her parents had salvaged and stored in their huge house library. Though the words seemed fitting somehow, she drew no real comfort from them.

  Would Genesis send her to a new province of mostly men the same as he had with Sala? No, he might be ruthless but he wasn’t cold. He’d be more likely to banish her back to Earth and exchange her for Aline, his rightful intended.

  And that’s better?

  She dropped her face into her hands as pain, raw and intense, lashed her heart.

  Though it hurt even more to admit it, she didn’t blame Genesis if he did just that. She’d shown him nothing but deceit and half-truths right to the end. Aline’s honesty would be good for him, refreshing after all the lies she’d embraced.

  And you’re still lying…lying to yourself. You don’t want to lose Genesis any more than you want him to be with Aline.

  She pressed her fingertips across her eyes, grimacing at the vision instantly coming to mind of Aline and Genesis, wrapped in one another’s arms, kissing…making love.

  She shook her head on a pained groan and dropped her hands that’d curled into fists. “I can’t let that happen,” she said aloud. “I can’t give Genesis up.” She stood, determination firing through her veins, “Not without a fight.”

  Fate had seen them thrown together before she’d even thought to lie. And she wouldn’t forget how the shields had recognized her as his!

  Colin abruptly snarled and slunk into the undergrowth of a shrub with overhanging leaves.

  She looked up, searching for what had caused his alarm. Her eyes narrowed at the distant, twin cercannes moving fast their way. Thanks to the green surroundings, the usual dust trails hadn’t been ma
de to warn of someone’s approach.

  She peered harder, her heart in her throat as she waited to face who she assumed was her intended. She took a deep, steadying breath. It was beyond time she explained herself fully…and beg him to stay with her.

  She frowned as the cercannes drew close. Where was Genesis? Hope surged. Had he sent these two men to bring her home?

  She waited impatiently, stifling the urge to yell at them to hurry the hell up. But it was unnecessary anyway, she realized. Their speed alone suggested an urgency that had something deep within her scared.

  As the two males dismounted from their cercannes she asked quickly, “Where’s Genesis?”

  She stood silent and confused when they failed to meet her eyes and didn’t answer her question, each of them slinging a one-handled bag over their shoulders and striding past her to the garden. Only as they began to pluck the leaves and berries from various plants with fast, economical hands, did she take note the foliage was purely medicinal.

  She hurried after them. “He’s been hurt, is that it?”

  When they continued to ignore her, she grabbed the muscular arm of the nearest male. “Please as…as your princess, tell me the truth.”

  He nodded stiffly. “We cannot take you to him until your time here is done.”

  “If he’s hurt I need to go to him now. Immediately!”

  But the men had turned back to stride to their cercannes, clearly in a hurry to return and weren’t hanging around to give her answers.

  She crossed her arms, watching the men straddle their cercannes before spinning them around and pushing them into full speed. Her heart fluttered anxiously. Just how badly hurt was he?

  “He needs me,” she whispered. This once she wasn’t about to let him down. She’d be there for him when he needed her and not a moment after.

  They belonged together.

  She turned to where Colin was hiding. “We’re leaving.”

  Eden stuffed various plants down her dress, enough food to last her a few days, before grabbing the last two bottles filled with rainwater from the storm and sliding her footwear back on.

  She felt all kinds of crazy striding through the bolishta herd, who were stamping their feet and looking more than a little nervous with Colin stalking behind at her heels.

  Simon trotted toward her, ignoring the zadmet and trying hard to push his face into her already-occupied hands with weird, whale-sounding vocals of greeting. “At least someone is glad to see me,” she said with a smile.

  But her smile faded at seeing his still-visible wounds. “I wish you could take me, but it’s much too soon for that,” she murmured. She turned, scanning the herd before finally selecting one who was well-muscled and a little larger than most.

  “Karsh,” she ordered. The animal sat and she clambered onto his back before calling Colin. The zadmet bounded onto her mount in front of her and the bolishta jerked to its feet and sidestepped fearfully.

  She didn’t blame it for being skittish, it was with good reason that every one of its flight instincts would be coming to the fore.

  “Keep doing that and Colin’s claws will come out.” Besides which, it was all she could do to hang on herself with her hands clutching the water bottles.

  When the bolishta settled a little, she looked in the direction she’d seen the cercannes head, aware the flowers and grasses had already wilted under the relentless heat of the three suns.

  It was only when they left her donya and the bolishta herd far behind, and the terrain was as much a mystery to her in its current state as it was when barren and lifeless, that she really began to question her decision to find Genesis and his camp.

  With her passion for growing things, she’d always been the rational one, the practical and diligent one. Perhaps the air on this planet induced some kind of personality disorder?

  Nothing to do with the man who’d turned her life upside down and inside out.

  Tucking one of the bottles under an arm, she unscrewed the other one and tipped it to her lips, the water sliding effortlessly down her throat as the heat of the suns scorched from above. As Colin snuffled anxiously, she poured a little of the precious liquid onto her palm and offered it to him.

  He lapped noisily and she couldn’t help but giggle at his comical expression of relief. But even he couldn’t keep her humor up for long. As the endless day burned hotter and hotter and nothing around her looked familiar, she knew she was in trouble.

  Big trouble.

  An interminable amount of time later, she realized she’d had no idea what trouble was until she reluctantly tipped the last of her water to her mouth, saving a few licks for Colin.

  Had the situation not been so dire, it would have been laughably ironic that she was lost in an oasis of once thriving plants with not a drop of water to be found. Even the mountain hadn’t seemed so forbidding with the knowledge somewhere high up there was water to be found.

  When Colin had licked her hand dry, she pulled a fimordh from out of her dress, and sucked at its sap. She might well lose her vision, but she had no choice but to keep hydrated when the suns wilted everything in their path.

  She wriggled, trying to get comfortable on the bolishta, but where everything didn’t ache, it burned. Her skin mightn’t be red or blistered, but it sure as hell felt seared. She blew out a breath and resettled onto another thick patch of her mount’s pelt, which indented with her weight.

  She itched to get off and walk to relieve her stiff and sore muscles, but riding meant using minimal exertion; minimal thirst.

  Ahead the flat expanse of land with its slightly wilted colored grasses and flowers seemed endless. She closed her eyes, thinking back to the terrain. There’d been a downhill run on the cercanne each time before the land and flattened out and they’d headed toward the mountain. She needed to find that sloping land if she had hope of locating Genesis’ camp.

  Her lashes flicking open, she turned around, searching the landscape and for the first time considering turning back and trying to retrace their steps. But there was no visible trail through the once vibrant plants. No recognizable path at all.

  And after everything you’ve risked, do you really want to turn your back on Genesis again when he needs you most?

  Her mount abruptly swung around, heading the way she looked. Eden jerked back the other way even as Colin abruptly lost his footing at the sudden change of motion. He tumbled from the bolishta with an ear ear-splitting yowl.

  She wasn’t sure what happened next. She guessed either Colin had snagged the bolishta with his claws, or his loud vocals had terrified the poor animal. The bolishta reared, its eyes wild. Eden toppled from its back and landed in the grasses with a hard thwack.

  As her steed took off running, she lay unmoving in the grass. “Well…fuck.”

  The breath came back to her lungs before she was able to sit, groggy but lucid. The bolishta was already a distant speck when she yelled hoarsely, “I wish I’d ridden Simon!”

  Yeah, as if the animal really gives a hoot that you prefer one of his comrades.

  Colin slunk toward her, his eyes wide. She reached out, running a hand over his head. “It’s okay, mate.” Her hand stilled on his head. “Who am I kidding? We’re in all sorts of trouble.”

  A flock of winged, batlike creatures flew overhead, away from the mountain. Her hand dropped from Colin and she jerked to her feet, her eyes following the flight of the animals.

  On Earth, living on the driest habitable continent in the world, a person could depend on birds and animals to stay near water. It would surely be little different here, in a desert environment? The winged creatures had steered clear of the mountain. Were they one of the few animals who’d adapted and were immune to the toxicity of the lake water? Is that where they were going?

  She strode in the direction they’d flown, Colin automatically trotting behind her. She pulled out another stem of the fimordh from her dress, sucking its bitter juice. She’d keep hydrated at the risk of losing her
vision. She’d be stumbling around blind anyway if her body was starved of water.

  Yet as she walked, all she could think about was Genesis, her heart as if a stone in her chest. His men had come and snatched the medicinal plants needed before leaving again in all sorts of a hurry. As much as she’d been trying not to think too deeply about it, he must be hurt bad.

  Dizziness suddenly assailed her. Oh shit. A curtain of semidarkness obscured her vision and she stumbled, then fell. She landed hard, her forehead smashing on something hard in the grass.

  She lay still, battling to stay conscious even as nausea pressed at her from all sides. Worse was the panic that followed soon after as an overwhelming inky blackness set in, stark contrast to the bite of the three suns.

  But nothing could stop the inner darkness from dragging her into its arms and into the blissful chasm of oblivion.

  ~

  She was lost, totally lost, floundering in a world with red skies and red sand.

  She searched frantically for Colin, but he was nowhere to be found. Seemed he too was lost.

  Biting back a sob, she took a step—tried to take a step—but her feet were too heavy, weighted. She looked down, her heart thumping into double time when she realized she was stuck…and sinking.

  Holy shit! Quicksand!

  She fought to lift first one leg, then the other, but the squelching, suctioning sound told her that struggling further would only make things worse.

  Much worse.

  Panic suffused her from the inside out, clutching at her throat and taking away all ability to scream. Then she did, her voice shrill, piercing. “Help me! Someone, help me!”

  But there was nothing on this world but a sea of red, her eyes jerking back and forth as she hoped, prayed for someone to magically appear. She coughed fitfully, her throat burning with thirst. Damn it! She couldn’t fail Genesis now…he needed her!

  The larger-than-life figure stepping into sight as though through a vortex was a godsend. Her one and only hope. Her blood pressure spiked, some inner knowing revealing that the person stepping robotically toward her wasn’t going to be of any assistance. Her eyes narrowed as uncertainty besieged her senses. “Genesis?