by C. R Corbin
"Impossible, he shouldn't be this far out at this time...." I muttered, perhaps he had sent one of his scouts ahead to track me and they were closing in fast. They must have sensed us.
"What should I do?" asked Fi.
"Get Lauren in here now while I formulate a plan." I said to her. The communications cut off and I was left in the harrowing position of having to out run this lone scout. Perhaps there were more with him, I didn't know, that was the scariest part.
"Alright, alright, let's see." I muttered, I gaze at the map and see that we were fast approaching a star system, I could lose them in all the asteroid clusters near there and there was also.....a habitable planet. If necessary I could lure the scout there and kill him before taking off again, of course that was contingent on who was with him at the moment.
"What's wrong?" Lauren asked as she popped in, sitting next to me and buckling in. I turned on the shields and pushed the throttle.
"They've spotted us. By they I mean Khor and his men, hang on tight, i'm gonna try to outrun him." I said.
We were getting closer and closer to Izani, one of the habitable planets that I had structured the route to get close to. If we on the off chance got damaged or couldn't take him in a dogfight we would have to land. I was hoping to outrun him though, I curve through the asteroid field and gaze at the map to see if he was approaching and he still was.
"Shit, shit.' I muttered, Lauren glanced at the dashboard, looking it over and gazing back at me.
"Should I man the guns?" she asked and I shook my head.
"No, Fi can take control." I said.
Fi attempted to fire shots at him from our turrets but due to my irregular flight patterns she missed. It was also due to the fact that this man could turn on a dime and swivel away. He was turning with great precision, something that I hadn't expected from Khor's men from what I had seen. This man had to be special, he had to be a higher ranking officer.
"We're not losing him." said Fi.
"I know, I know." I said through gritted teeth.
"What do we do?" asked Lauren.
"Ah......" I began mumbling. From my readings he was riding a racer so he was equal to us in speed, unlike the beater ships that they used regularly, his was much, much quicker. I grimace and glance at all the possible commands......the fusion reactor was running at 50% efficiency, there was always the chance that I co-
"Ahhh!" yelled Lauren, one of the asteroids from the field had managed to get through our shields and strike one of the thrusters. Now it was only a matter of time till he caught up.
"Fi report!" I yelled.
"Nanites can't fix it, it's going to take something manual." she muttered.
As we were continuing I was concerned that this soldier would be sending in our coordinates or even worse, trapping us using a magnetic pulse. We had made it out of the asteroid field and I was merely flying on a direct course for Izani, it was our only hope to get rid of him at the moment.
"You think we can get away?" asked Lauren.
"I'm figuring it out. Right now our chances don't look that good, i'll tell you the truth." I said to her.
Fi was continuing to fire off her shots back at the man but he was dodging each and every one of them, the booster was giving out so I forcefully propelled ourselves into the snowy planet, into Izani's gravitational pull. The ship rocks and quivers as we get closer and closer, this wasn't going to be the easiest landing, especially with a broken thruster. Worst of all was the fact that it was a snowy planet with frequent storms, that meant one thing and one thing only, the ground would be practically invisible from here.
"Hold on." I said to Lauren, looking over at her as I tried to negotiate a landing. I delve deeper and deeper into the clouds, I could see that our chaser wasn't far behind at the moment. We get past the stratosphere and I see nothing but white, it would simply be a guess as to where we could land.
"Turn on all the shields Fi, retrieve our heating uniforms as well. " I said to her. She detached in her little cubic form and floated around, detaching her chip from the ships mainframe and placing it into the cube before floating away to initiate all the commands.
And soon after we struck. I could hear Lauren scream and I tensed up as the ship hit the snow. There was a small explosion in the back of the ship sounding off, my vision turned black and the last thing that I could remember was reaching out to Lauren to grab her hand.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lauren
We had crashed into a rather generous embankment of snow, for that I was grateful. He couldn't detect where we would be landing all that well due to the storms on this place, I didn't exactly know what it was. I was, for the most part, left unscathed, I unbuckle my restraints and glanced over at him. Nothing was wrong with him in particular, nothing I could sense anyways.
"What do we do?" I asked him, he gazed at the dashboard and bites his lip. That little blimp was still showing up.
"Get warm and stay hidden. Don't go outside unless I tell you to." he said to me.
I stand up, although the ship was a bit crooked due to the crash. I gripped onto the straps hanging from the walls and inch my way closer to the back, Fi was floating around, a little banged up but alright for the most part. She hands me this jumpsuit that I quickly slip on, she tells met to press a button on the collar.
"Oh it's so warm." I muttered, a thick glass shell enclosing my head as the warm air filled my suit.
"It's laced with vibrating nanites to increase the warmth. Should be perfect in this environment." she stated.
"How long is this blizzard going to last?" I asked.
"Blizzards here are much more common than regular days i'm afraid. Izani is famed for its mineral wealth but the reason no one stays here is because there's so many storms. I'm afraid this one will be lasting for about another 2 earth weeks." she said, I frowned.
"2 weeks? We can't be stuck here for two weeks! They'll find us." I muttered and Fi made a chirping noise.
"No, they likely won't be able to. The snow does a great job at hiding your location, at best they'll be searching in the dark. Besides I did some readings, by my estimate the rest of their fleet should be a couple weeks removed from this place." said Fi.
"And that man chasing us? What of him?" I asked her.
"He's attempting to land, I don't know if he'll have the same degree of success that you'll have had however. We got incredibly lucky that we didn't land in some sort of rocky outcrop." she reported.
I turn my head and look around, I needed to know where Janar was. What was taking him so long anyways? I couldn't hear his footsteps in the ship. I wandered around until I saw him gathered in the armory, gathering up all the firearms and supplies that we would be needing including a heater.
"What should we do?" I asked him.
"Nothing, we stay here until I find a way to fix the ship, that's all. " he stated, gathering up his supplies and pulling them out into the hallway.
"They won't' find us? What if they spot the wreckage?" I asked and he pulls out an assault rifle, cocking it.
"Can't, we'll be buried under the snow for the most part." He stated.
"Yeah so......shouldn't we get out? The snow might crush us." I stated and he shakes his head.
"Negative, the structural integrity will hold and I can melt down whatever excess there is. Our main worry should be fixing that booster and getting out of here before the rest of the cavalry shows up or if whoever is searching finds us here." he said and I grimaced, this sounded pretty risky.
"So that's it? We're sitting ducks? How long will it take for you to fix the booster?" I asked him.
"A week, maybe more, the damage was pretty severe and the nanites aren't going to function so well with all of this cold, especially since the reactor also got damaged.
"Anything I can do to help?" I asked him and he shakes his head.
"Just keep watch." he said to me and handed me a pistol as well as a communi
cator before walking off with the heater and his toolbox.
I spend the rest of the day pacing around the ship, packing on layers and layers in an attempt to keep warm. The jumpsuit sufficed for early on during the day but the more that this went on the colder it got. The ship was offline effectively, he would have to repair the motherboard since it was damaged during the crash and who knows how long that would take. Since there was only one emergency portable heater we had to share, though he often simply wanted me to take it at the end of the day, I ended up telling him that we would be sharing and that we would be sleeping his quarters since the rest of the ship was so very cold. It was good for keeping the rations cold at least.
"Are you feeling alright?" I asked him at the end of the second day, still no sign of anyone on the horizon, no sign of anyone approaching us.
"I'm fine." he muttered.
Over the last day his movements grew a great deal more labored, he was coughing at times and limping. I could see him gripping his head and leaning against the wall at certain intervals, tell-tale signs of a fever of some sort. He would be shivering while attempting to fix whatever he was attending to in the engine room but when I brought it up he only popped some pills and shook me off.
"I'll be fine." he said and I shake my head.
"Something's wrong. Let me take a look at you. You need rest." I muttered.
"Just leave me be! The sooner we get off this planet the better!" he hollered at me and I frowned. Why did he have to be so prideful?
By the end of the 4th day it was clear that he couldn't work.
He didn't wake that day, he only stayed in bed and groaned while rolling over the sheets. His blue skin turned a pale grey and I looked him over, frowning as I ran to the medical office to retrieve the books on Jorathian physiology that I had been reading about in addition to the medical kit.
"Need to get up." he willed himself but I shook my head.
"No, you can't. You have to stay in place." I said while drawing out the med kit to see what I was working with. I gathered the pills that I could and told Fi to tell me their makeup before slipping what I thought was necessary into his doses.
I spent a lot of those nights restless at the foot of his bed.
I wasn't a doctor, not really anyways, but through my efforts he was improving. By the end of the first day like this he had stopped tossing and turning in his bed and was lying still, glancing over at me while I sat there beside him.
"Feeling alright?" I asked him.
"Better, not alright." he muttered.
"Well.....it's going to be fine. We'll get you through this alright?" I asked him and he nodded.
"Yeah, I sure do hope so." he said.
We sit there for a while, I don't say a word and neither does he. All we do is stare at one another and glance over each other's bodies while I observe his status. His skin was still that dull shade of grey, he was still weakened, strange to think that a couple of months ago this was a warrior that had saved me from that disagreeable fate on Arasin, that had saved me from the clutches of that warlord by pulling me uip an elevator shaft with one hand. Now he could barely muster the strength to pull himself up from bed.
"I'm sorry about this Lauren. I shouldn't have gotten careless. I could have seen that guy coming a long ways before we finally crossed paths." he muttered in his stupor, I shake my head.
"Shhhh...,You need rest alright? Don't say anymore." I muttered, he rolls onto his side and I decided to see if there was anybody that was approaching. Each night I would grab the rifle from the armory and wander the ship, listening in to see if there was anyone getting close. I even took out the portable sonar reader but there didn't appear to be anyone on the horizon. As soon as he falls asleep I go to the cockpit and sit down, the window was completely obscured by snow. Fi hovers next to me as I read through the repair manuals, hoping to make sense of the complicated schematics. This ship has a completely unique build from the usual crafts we had on Earth, I suppose it was custom.
"Shouldn't you be asleep?" asked Fi, her cubic form rolling at my side while I glanced down at her and shake my head.
"No, I have to find us a way out of here. I may not know the ship that well but that doesn't mean I can't fix something." I muttered as I gazed at the engine thrusters. I knew a little bit about computers and physics but that wasn't my specialty. It didn't matter, he was out of commission and I would have to step up to the plate. "Did you go scouting like I asked?" I asked Fi who made a chirping noise.
"I did, I didn't spot any signatures in a 4 earth mile radius." she muttered and I nodded.
"Good......and the repairs?" I asked her.
"I have done what I could but i'm afraid a more dexterous touch is needed. My nanites cannot function to their full capacity with the motherboard damaged and the power out. I do not come equipped with appendages suitable for such repairs. " she remarked. There were somethings that just needed a living creature to fix I suppose.
"Fair enough...." I muttered, painstakingly reading over the rest of the notes and frowning as these strange and foreign diagrams flashed over my eyes.
I returned to bed that night and shivered, the heater was working but it still didn't change the fact that it was incredibly chilly here. I bundle up and glance over at him, his breath ragged and slow, his brow marred with sweat. The next couple of days would be difficult without him but I had to power through for his sake and mine.
I spent the next day in the repair room with Fi, she would tell me which repairs to execute and I would do them, we made a good team and made a great deal of progress. I was busy repairing the wiring of part of the mainframe when Janar poked his head in and I raised an eyebrow glancing back at him.
"Shouldn't you be sleeping?" I asked.
"I should, but i'd rather be looking at what you're doing." he said, leaning against the wall, a sheet of fabric covering his entire back.
"Rest, I mean it." I growled with a knife from the repair kit in my hands and he nodded, souring and turning back on his heel to lethargically stroll back to his living quarters.
"He cares deeply for you. More than you could imagine." said Fi and I smiled.
"I feel the same way when I look at him. That's why it's important that I get all of this done before he wakes up so we can get out of here." I muttered.
"My last master had been similar to him and nearly suffered an analogous fate. A crash landing with a death resulting from it. I was found weeks later by wandering merchants and sold off. I am glad that you two did not perish in the same manner. " said Fi.
"Are you saying that you like us?" I asked her with a teasing smile, her cubic form merely let out that familiar electronic clicking noise.
"I do!" she said and I smiled, glad to see that someone was in good spirits.
When I was not' doing repairs I was observing the storm patterns, it would be going on for several more days by Fi's estimates. I couldn't pick up any signals of enemy ships or patrols approaching, I suppose her assessment that the snow storm had hid us well was true. I made sure to order Fi to clear out some of the snow so that it wouldn't pull up and potentially suffocate or crush us. Luckily we had portable generators to charge her, too bad we couldn't run the entire ship with them or command the nanites, if we tried I think I might have fried something.
"No one on the horizon so far." I muttered, glancing at my readings once again. It was almost time to retire for the night and I was in my usual spot in the cockpit. I hear footsteps and turn around to see him standing there, leaning against the doorway.
"I feel much better, much better." he said.
"You're still sick. Don't push it." I ordered him.
"I'm not going to help. I'd probably mess it up anyways, I just wanted to watch." he said and I smiled.
"You're proud of me?" I asked.
"Well you and Fi." he quipped and I nearly tossed the book at him.
"How did I get sick anyways?" he asked me and I shrug
ged.
"Probably just the cold compromising your immune system. Jonathan's aren't meant to live in ice and snow I suppose." I muttered and he flinched when I brought up his race, I didn't understand why he did but perhaps it was the context that brought back bad memories.
"We're going to make it through this Janar." I stated and he clicked his tongue, dragging himself back to his bed with a bit less reluctance this time.
CHAPTER NINE
Lauren
That night when I returned I began shivering once more, and this time he does something unexpected.
"Come here." he stated and I looked at him with a questioning expression.
"What?" I asked and he slipped his covers up, beckoning me to come closer.
"Come here, it's warmer if we're together." he said and I blushed before accepting his offer. I crawled up and huddled near him, his breath on my neck and our green eyes locking together.
I lean into his chest and instinctively look up at him, he gazes down at me with that shade of blue returning to his face before, on instinct, I leaned in. I gasped and brushed his chest with my hand before his lips pressed against mine and that bolt of lightning struck my heart. I feel myself growing warmer and warmer as I crawled on top of him and slipped my legs around his waist.
"I've wanted to do this for so long." I muttered.
"I have as well." he admitted.
Damn the cold, I was going to have my fun.
I stripped off what clothing I had on, that being the jumpsuit and a jacket, before indulging. He slipped off his suit as well, in addition to his shirt and slacks, his entire muscular figure is revealed to me while I lick my lips gazing at him. I leaned in and kissed his lips gently as he runs a hand across my cheek and I groaned for him, his body quivered and I feel his hands clasp my backside while I moaned.
"Take me." I groaned.
Some of his strength returns and he manages to sit up and I enclose him in yet another kiss. My tongue flicks against his fangs and his teeth gently nibble my lips. I feel him grasping my bare chest, rubbing my bare breasts as his warmth flowed through me and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up from the cold. He gripped me a bit more tightly, leaning in and clasping the back of my neck with his hand and rolling his thumb over my nipples, gently flicking them.
