She screamed. And she kept screaming until suddenly everything fell still. That stillness only pacified her for a second and then her screaming resumed.
The egg shell cracked open and Zak was there. His arms were around her. His lips were on her forehead, and then his mouth was against her ear, as he whispered, “You’re okay, Aimee. We did it. We did it.”
We did it.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and collapsed into him as the emotion came crashing down on her. Tears welled up in a tsunami of trauma and relief, her body racking with uncontrollable sobs.
“It’s okay, Aimee. You’re safe.” He continued to assure even as she was aware of voices rushing towards them.
Zak’s hand soothed down her back. Her head was tucked so tight into the crook of his neck that she could feel his pulse. She could feel the vibration of his voice as he whispered again, “you’re safe.” He drew her tighter into his arms. “You did great.”
Aimee clung to him until she was conscious of a throng of people congregated around them. She lifted her head and the first thing she saw were those golden eyes. The second thing she saw was the rugged grin on his lips. Her tears began to dry and her mouth curled up into a smile.
“That wasn’t so bad,” she murmured.
“Zak! Zak!” Men climbed through the debris.
Aimee caught her first glimpse of the wreckage around her and her smile faded. “Oh my God.”
The long nose of the terra angel had been severed and lay immersed in a glutinous substance. That same creamy liquid now seeped into the cockpit which was still intact. Strewn around the deck were fragments of the ship, some afloat in the viscous liquid.
“Wh-what happened?”
Zak jumped down from the cockpit and turned to reach for her. She relied on his hold because she was still shaky. As her feet hit the deck, she lifted one boot, noticing the glue sticking to it.
“Ginka. It is a substance used for improvised landings. It acts as a net and also douses any potential flames.”
"It's pretty much disgusting." Aimee hefted her other boot, using Zak's shoulders for balance. She was reluctant to let go of him.
"This stuff stopped us from crashing?" she asked, incredulous.
"I wouldn't say that it stopped us, but it decelerated us some. I tried to get the ship under control at the end. It fought me, but that combined with the ginka blanket..."
"We're alive," Aimee filled in with a smile.
Zak smiled back and finally dropped his hands from her waist. His eyes remained locked with hers despite the activity springing up around them. Aimee didn't want to look away. Not even for a second.
"Step away from them!" A voice boomed.
An arc of silver-suited men had circled them in celebration, but it now parted as Salvan marched brusquely into their core. Zak's hand wrapped around the small of Aimee’s back and he moved in closer, positioning himself as a shield.
"What do you want, Salvan?" Zak's voice threatened. "You don't belong on the deck."
Salvan halted a few feet away and tossed his disheveled hair back into place.
“I do now.” He patted his chest.
Salvan’s glance dropped and his lips narrowed as he noted the connection of Zak’s hand.
“You should have stayed away, Zak,” Salvan chastised. “You should have stayed on that planet. Maybe you could have saved your girlfriend.” He spat the last word.
Zak’s touch fell off her back, but only so he could crowd Salvan, glaring down at him.
“You better start making some sense because my patience is at its limit. In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve been through quite a bit of trauma, and Aimee’s been wounded. I need to get her to the Bio Ward.”
Salvan tipped his head back and met Zak’s stare before slicing his pale gaze in Aimee’s direction. He sneered as he spoke. “Oh, she’s going to the Bio Ward alright. You both are.”
Aimee jumped when she felt hands clamp onto her arms, like shackles.
“Zak!”
She was hauled away from him and saw that he too had been seized.
“Talk fast, Salvan,” Zak’s eyes turned dangerous, his biceps swollen with resistance. “What’s going on here?”
“It’s for your own good.” Salvan smiled. It was a soulless gesture. He crossed his arms and his eyes dipped in disdain down Zak’s suit. “While you were gone, the disease struck. The epidemic is astounding. We have practically filled the Jay-nine. At this point we’re just waiting for those people to die so that we can move the newly afflicted in.”
Aimee shuddered.
“You didn’t by any chance bring back a cure on your—quest.” Salvan uttered the last word with contempt.
Aimee could see that Zak was stunned. She caught the tell-tale dart of his eyes across the suits of the men around them.
Salvan read into that glance. “They have not contracted it yet. That’s why I brought them. But at the pace this epidemic is advancing, it’s just a matter of time.” He paused, and Aimee wondered if she detected sincerity in his words, or—enthusiasm. “There is no vaccine. There is no method to protect them—or you. Everyone simply waits their turn to die. But I need to get you to the Bio Ward now for testing. We need to confirm your status. I am trying to calculate a formula for the rate of advance.”
Salvan pursed his lips and added, “Vodu has asked that you take over. He—”
“No!” Zak jerked against the restraint on his arms. “Tell me Vodu is okay.”
“His suit revealed the first signs. He’s in the Jay-nine now.”
To Aimee, this was the first indication that Salvan possessed emotions. He seemed concerned for Vodu’s well-being. Or perhaps it was just that he didn’t like the idea of Zak being in control.
“Come on.” Salvan waved his fingers and Aimee felt the hands at her sides urge her forward.
Frantic, she sought Zak’s gaze, and though his was grave, his nod of reassurance boosted her feet into motion.
* * *
The journey to the Bio Ward was a silent one. No one spoke. No one looked at each other. Aimee tried over and over to draw Zak's attention, but he was tense and deep in thought, no doubt fearing the fate of the Horus’ leader, a surrogate father or grandfather.
Aimee's eyes bounced about. She could not make out the graphics on the walls so clearly with her own thoughts in a state of turmoil. Had she survived the battle with the green giants, and a near death experience with that crash landing only to succumb to a foreign disease? Was she going to die on a table in a strange space vessel so very far from home?
It couldn’t be helped—her fatalistic glimpse at the suits of oncoming traffic. She searched these strangers for traces of red at their midsections.
The door to the Bio Ward slid open. When last she was here, only a handful of beds were occupied by a few rugged Warriors. Now it looked like a homeless shelter, and there were plenty of red abdomens to be found.
Maybe it was heartless, but she had to voice her concerns. "If we're healthy, doesn't it jeopardize us to be near them?"
She wasn't sure who she directed her question to. No one was looking at her. But Salvan responded. "It's too late. If it were just one or two cases, there is a chance to keep those people locked away, but we don't know what triggered the disease in such a violent manner. Every satellite of the Horus has been impacted. Everyone has been touched. There is nowhere to go to be safe. It is as devastating an impact as the original destruction of Anthum."
He stopped and scowled at her.
"And I can't help wondering what triggered this outbreak. For all the time that has passed since the Horus departed Anthum, the instances of disease have not been epic. They were contained. Why this sudden change? What is different?" He stared hard at Aimee and she felt the air grow cold. "And the only answer I can come up with—" Salvan continued in an icy voice, "—is you."
"What?" Aimee jerked her arm free from the man clutching it. "But you tested me."
"Your g
enetic makeup is different. How accurate can my test be?"
Oh my God. If she had truly brought this destruction on...
"You brought her on this ship, Salvan. So if that were the case, which I doubt it is," Zak stepped forward. "This would be your doing. Your greed has proved the demise of these people."
Salvan leered at him. "Speaking of genetically deviant beings."
Zak stared him down and Aimee could see a muscle pump in the Warrior’s jaw. His hand clenched into a fist, but Raja stepped up and interrupted. Aimee caught the revealing dip of Raja’s glance to her abdomen. Aimee looked down as well to confirm that it was still silver.
"Test their blood to see if it has struck them yet, or how far advanced it is." Salvan ordered Raja.
"But I thought the suit lights up." Aimee aimed her question to Zak. His hard expression softened slightly when he looked at her.
"If your suit lights up, it's already too late."
Free from the grip of the sentries, she wrapped her arms around herself and jumped when Raja touched her shoulder.
"You are hurt?" The young woman looked concerned.
Aimee reached for the torn fabric. "No. It feels fine. You have enough on your hands to worry about."
Raja's smile was weary.
"Come," she said. "We'll take a look at your blood."
Raja started to usher her away, but Aimee looked frantically over her shoulder. "Zak?"
Tall and enduring, Zak’s wistful gaze told her that she had to go. She felt like crying again. She didn't want to leave him. There was a connection between them now that she did not want to sever. What if she never saw him again?
"Go, Aimee," he whispered. "It's going to be okay."
His eyes contradicted the declaration.
She held on to that glance even as Raja drew her away. She held it until a stream of patients and doctors filed between them and all she could see was Zak's dark hair above the melee.
And finally, she could not see him at all. She turned and noticed the knot of tension nestled between Raja's eyebrows.
"How bad is it?" Aimee asked in a confidential whisper.
The undertone was unnecessary with all the chaos around them. Several JOHs blocked the aisles, as patients shouted out denials. Some clawed at their suits, tearing at the condemning patch of light across their abdomens.
Raja worriedly reached for Aimee's hand, holding a silver instrument similar to a thimble over the tip of Aimee's pointer finger. After a weighted pause, Raja's frown dissolved and her shoulders slumped.
"You are clean." The woman's fawn-colored hair fell forward as she dipped in close to speak. "You are the first clean report today," she confided. "Maybe this infection will take a turn."
Aimee grabbed Raja’s hands. They were cold.
"Raja. What about you?"
There was panic in the blue eyes, and in her hand, Raja’s fingers trembled.
"How long?" Aimee asked with hushed urgency.
"It won't be long now before the color registers," Raja explained, glancing down at her own suit. "I have to keep working. The number of scientists are—" she scanned the vaulted room, "dwindling."
Fear of sounding callous was tossed aside by desperation. "I don't understand. How can you work on people? Won't you...infect them?"
"Once the infection is airborne, that surpasses human contact. You either succumb to the disease, or you are immune. But when it strikes with this severity like it did to our planet...there is no immunity."
Aimee felt her palms grow moist. "But you said I was clean."
Raja nodded, defeated. "I hope you stay that way, Aimee. I really do. But you need to be prepared. It's just a matter of time for all of us."
Aimee snapped her hand back. "No!"
"Raja?" An older man with graying blonde hair and dour lines around his mouth interrupted from the aisle. With dismay, Aimee noticed that his stomach was lit up as red as a traffic light. "We need you in the lab.”
Raja cast a plaintive look at Aimee, but Aimee just nodded. “Go ahead.”
“I’ll be right back. Please—” she hesitated, looking over her shoulder. “Please, Aimee. You have to stay here. Please be here when I return.”
“Raja, you have to go.”
A well of emotion flooded Aimee and she reached forward to hug the woman who had to be only a few years older than her. Much too young to die.
At first Raja tensed. Then she wrapped her arms around Aimee and whispered, “It’s going to be okay.”
But it wasn’t. Aimee needed to know the statistics. She needed to know exactly how bad it was going to be. She grabbed the closest JOH, and this time the blue crystal face that illuminated under her touch did not look so jovial.
“Hello Aimeeee.”
“Hi, JOH.”
“You sound sad, Aimee.”
“So do you,” she countered.
JOH’s black mouth flattened.
“JOH.” She leaned forward to exclude the patients in the surrounding beds. “Tell me honestly. How bad is it?”
His dark eyes skewed sideward and back again. “Very bad. There is a vault filling with casualties. They are trying to keep that process out of the public view so as not to cause any more panic than already exists.”
“How long does someone have if their blood tested positive?”
“In your calculation of time…two, maybe three weeks.”
Aimee’s heart lurched.
“How long do they have if their suit has lit up?”
JOH looked straight at her and answered, “Two or three days.”
Aimee clutched her fist to her chest. Oh, Raja.
“JOH, they said Vodu—”
The black orbs bulged and then poured back into place. “Not long. He is in a separate chamber being attended to by our top scientists.”
Depression was boring its way into her soul. “They said I have not tested positive. Do I stand a chance?”
JOH remained quiet.
“JOH?”
“I am not capable of lying, Aimee.”
Oh no. “Tell me.”
Another long pause and then he answered, subdued. “Even though you are from a different planet, your genetic makeup is the same as the Anthumians, making you just as susceptible as them.” Again, he hesitated. “And Aimee, even if you were not to succumb…would you want to be the only living creature left on this ship?”
A moan wrenched from deep in her throat. She shoved the JOH out of the way and charged into the aisle. A young aid grabbed her arm and urged her back onto her bed, but she yanked free and raced up the lane. Aware of curious glances, what troubled her more were the sad, desperate gawks. She ran past them, thinking that if she was fast enough, she would never make eye contact with them.
Outside the Bio Ward, Aimee collapsed against the wall. Posted beside the entrance were a group of Warriors, looking suspiciously like guards. One caught sight of her and approached to confront, but Aimee grabbed a JOH and swung it before her face, pretending to engage in ardent conversation. In actuality, she refused to tap the screen. She refused to hear any more of JOH’s condemnation.
Aimee turned and stalked down the hall with her shoulders drawn back, attempting a look of composure. The guards were too busy to pay her much heed, or too distraught to care.
She had no idea of her destination. This was not her home. She was a stranger in a world that was dying. There was no place to run to for solace. Nowhere to hide from this insidious fate.
Drawing in a deep breath, she stared at the walls of the corridor, willing herself to read them. Recognizing one symbol that might offer peace, she followed it with resolve.
Chapter Twelve
The door slid shut behind her.
Silence.
The blissful hush of solitude. A quiet born from night—a night that blanketed her.
Aimee gazed up at the atrium, into a world of glittering orbs and interstellar clouds. It was a new world, and yet it was comforting and familiar. In this f
orest, the trees might be foreign, and the animal-life unique, but this was the closest connection she had to home. Somewhere on Earth, people were looking up at stars just like these.
She moved quietly down an alley, hearing the soft cadence of her boots against marble. She was positive this was the lane she was looking for, but the path was flanked by unrecognizable trees.
There.
It stood alone, eclipsed by the black desolation of outer space. A single palm tree.
Aimee stepped up close, her eyes climbing the coarse trunk until she reached the apex, an amalgamation of balmy leaves. A coconut clung beneath the soft arc of a palm frond. She smiled, remembering the taste of coconut.
“I knew you would be here.”
The husky voice did not alarm her. He belonged in this forest as much as she. Two strangers from different worlds.
She didn’t turn around, nor did she flinch when she heard him directly behind her.
“This isn’t something we can hide from, Aimee.”
She was tired. So drained.
“I know that, Zak. But—” Defeated, she confessed, “I’m scared.”
“I know you are.” His tone was sober.
Aimee caught a reflection of them in the pane behind the palm tree. Zak was so tall. The top of her head came just below his chin. She could see him studying their reflection as well. Their eyes locked in the glass.
“Zak, how much time has passed back on my planet?”
His head tipped back as he calculated.
“Probably about three revolutions now.”
“Three years,” she said, staring at her countenance.
Auburn hair dipped below her shoulders, lustrous under the ambient light. Her face was cast in a blue glow—and yes, there was a maturity to it now. That maturity came from experience and not necessarily time. Her eyes collided with Zak’s again.
“I’m twenty years-old,” she murmured, but added with more vigor, “and now they’re telling me that I’m going to die. I don’t want to die, Zak.”
Beyond : Series Bundle (9781311505637) Page 14
