by Presley Hall
No. Oh God, no.
“Axen!” I yell, my heart lurching in fear as I scramble down from the mound of rubble where I took refuge. Smoke is still billowing around me, and I can hear faraway clashes of metal, snarls, battle cries, but all I can think about is getting to Axen and making sure he’s all right.
I reach him and heft one of his arms over my shoulders, forcing myself up with a grunt. He’s heavy as shit, and his dead weight feels like lifting a car, but my adrenaline is helping me plenty, and I manage to drag him away from the immediate carnage, away from the raging battle.
I collapse before I get too far, gritting my teeth when his weight overwhelms me. A shadow falls over us, and I tense in fear, certain that it’s another raider who plans to carry me off along with poor Gemma.
When I look up, I sigh in relief as I realize it’s another Voxeran.
“Strome,” I gasp. “Thank fuck. Axen is injured. I can help him if I get medical supplies, but I—I can’t carry him.”
The broad-shouldered Voxeran nods. “I will carry him.”
He drops his weapons and hauls Axen up. The injured man is so large that even his muscled friend strains a bit under his weight.
“Take him to his hut,” I instruct, thinking fast. If I remember correctly, Axen’s dwelling is far from the site of the battle, which is centered around the part of the wall Churbac and his men destroyed. Hopefully we’ll be safe there. “I’ll meet you there in a minute.”
Strome nods once and then carries Axen away. My heart keeps trying to crawl into my throat at the thought of the big warrior dying. Losing his life because he was trying to save me.
No. He’s not going to die. I can save him—I know I can.
Shoving aside the almost paralyzing fear that another raider is going to grab me and steal me away, I race toward the unoccupied building that has become the unofficial medical supply hut. Inside the small space, I pant heavily as I search through the piles of antibiotics, fluid bags, bandages, and scanners we managed to salvage from the ship, as well as some that the Voxerans already had stored here. There have to be some of those—
“Yes!”
I clench my fist in victory when I manage to find a small container full of syringes. The syringes contain some of the epoxy-like substance I’ve seen Voxerans use on more moderate cuts. It adheres skin back together like glue, stopping the bleeding and preventing infection from setting in.
I grab the entire container, remembering how bad Axen’s side looked, as well as some bandages, and a sewing kit. Even as I grab whatever I can use, I’m horribly aware of how lacking it is. If I had access to a proper medical unit…
No, I can’t think about that now.
I learned a long time ago not to waste time wishing for impossible things. All I can do is work with what’s right in front of me.
When I’ve grabbed everything I can, I run to Axen’s hut with my stash and burst inside, practically throwing everything to the floor as I kneel by his bed.
Strome is still there keeping watch, and he frowns at me. “Do you need help?”
I can see tension in his shoulders and the way his gaze keeps darting back to the door. He’s clearly desperate to rejoin the fight and help his fellow Voxerans finish the job of repelling the raider attack.
I wave him away, turning my attention back to Axen. “No. I’ve got it, thank you.”
“Very well. I will rejoin the fight.” Strome’s voice rumbles behind me, and a moment later, he slips out of the hut.
Now it’s just Axen and me, and I swallow when I see just how badly the massive warrior has been injured. Most of his wounds are superficial—grazes from falling, shallow knife wounds, bruising from punches or kicks—but the gash in his side is deep.
There’s so much blood. It’s still pouring fresh and blue down his side and soaking the bed. I don’t know if the epoxy will be enough to stop it, or if I can sew it up fast enough. And then there’s the possibility of internal injuries. He might have a burst lung or fractured bones I can’t feel. He might be hemorrhaging somewhere, except I can’t tell because his skin is so blue, and—
My hands are shaking, but I force myself to take a deep breath.
Calm down, Elizabeth. For fuck’s sake, you’re a doctor. You’ve been in high-pressure situations before. You can handle this.
Axen is just like a coding patient back at the hospital. I have to resolve the most immediate issues first, and then I can deal with the rest.
First, the bleeding. That’s the most important part. I open the sewing kit and thread a needle, mourning the loss of any proper sterilization methods. My hands are dirty, and there’s probably dirt in the wound too.
But I can treat infection later—after I make sure he doesn’t die of blood loss.
It’s been a long time since I had to stitch someone up. Even back on rotation, my normal day-to-day tasks weren’t surgical. I mostly did out-patient care and consultations before applying to and being accepted to the mission on the Foreigner II, I haven’t had to get my hands dirty, so to speak, in a while.
I feel dizzy, and my heart is racing. My hands tremble no matter how hard I try to keep them steady. The stitches are going to be ugly as sin, but as long as they work, I couldn’t care less. I have to save him.
He saved me first, after all.
When I finally finish stitching up the deep gash on his side, I loop the thread into a knot and cut it. The epoxy works on the smaller cuts, and I can’t do much for the bruising, so I leave it be. There’s a topical gel that I’m pretty sure is an antibiotic, and I smear that over the cuts too, wishing I had something stronger.
Axen is unmoving, his skin very pale, his breathing shallow.
But he is breathing.
His heartbeat, when I place my hand on his chest, feels fast but steady. I cling to that knowledge.
I close my eyes, taking in another steadying breath, and look up when Charlotte enters the hut. Ash and dirt streak her cheeks, and her hair is mussed, but she looks uninjured. She lets out a soft noise when she sees me and throws herself into my arms.
“Oh my God, Elizabeth. I’m so fucking glad you’re okay,” she says into my hair, holding me tightly.
I hug her back, aware that I’m covered in Voxeran blood. “Not dead yet,” I joke flatly.
Charlotte draws back a little to meet my gaze. “The fight is over,” she reports. “Axen took Churbac out, and after their leader fell, the rest of the raiders were basically all out for themselves. Whatever organization they had fell apart, and they fled soon after. But…” She pauses, pressing her lips together as her green eyes glint with anger and pain. “They got Gemma and Kzuri.”
My jaw clenches. “I know. I saw.”
That poor girl. Not even two hours ago, we were laughing over terrible jokes, and now she’s gone. Taken by the raiders for God only knows what. Shit.
“The raiders might come back and attack again,” Charlotte says. “But Droth and the others killed a lot of them, so it’ll be a while before they can muster up enough of a force to launch another assault.”
“Let them fucking try,” I say sharply. The fury in my voice almost surprises me. I don’t know anything about combat or how to wield a weapon, but if the raiders came back right now, that wouldn’t stop me from fighting. I’d fight with my bare hands if I had to, and I’d take as many of them down as I could.
Charlotte’s fierce expression mirrors the one I can feel on my face. I know we both feel a deep responsibility for the other women, since we were the ones who freed them from the cryo-pods after the crash.
“Did…” I draw in a deep breath through my nose, dreading the answer to my next question. “Did any of ours die? Human or Voxeran?”
She shakes her head. “No. Unless…” She trails off, and her gaze falls to Axen.
My jaw clenches again. “He won’t die. Not if I can help it. I’ve stitched him up as best I can, and it’s really just the big gash in his side I’m worried about. I’ll keep watch o
n him overnight, but if he crashes…”
I don’t finish that sentence. I just promised her he wouldn’t die.
“He’s strong,” Charlotte says quietly, putting a hand on my arm. “He’ll pull through. I know it.”
I wish I had her faith. The truth is, doctors make the worst patients because they know exactly what can go wrong. We’ve seen all the nightmare scenarios. Axen might still get infected. He might have lost too much blood. Hell, there might be a clot somewhere that’ll get to his brain. The blade that struck him might have been poisoned, for all I know.
The thoughts swirl around in my mind so fast they make me dizzy, but I push past the sudden lightheadedness.
I sigh and stand, my body feeling weak and shaky as the surge of adrenaline begins to fade from my system. “I’m sure there are others who are wounded. I need to go tend to them.”
Charlotte nods. “I’ll come with you.”
I don’t have the energy to argue with her. I know she needs to feel useful just as badly as I do. We humans aren’t as big and strong as the Voxerans, and we’re not nearly as good of fighters. If it weren’t for Axen, I probably would’ve been captured and carried off just like Gemma was. We’re not safe on this planet without their protection, so if there’s a way for us to pay their kindness back, well, I can’t fault her for wanting to help.
Besides, I’m still feeling a bit dizzy. Adrenaline and fear and the heavy smoke make my head spin and my stomach roll, but I push it aside to concentrate on what needs to be done.
“Thanks,” I tell my friend. “I could use some help carrying the supplies.”
By the time Charlotte and I are done, the epoxy is all used up, as are most of my bandages and antibiotic gel. We’re going to need to scavenge for more soon, though I have no idea where we’re going to find the supplies we need.
I force myself not to think about it. Once again, that’s something that can be dealt with later, after the patients are all stabilized and we’re out of this fucking mess.
It’s so late it’s technically early by the time I make my way back toward Axen’s hut, having sent Charlotte off to get some sleep. Working on other patients has kept me busy for the past several hours, but part of my mind has stayed with Axen the entire time. He was the most badly injured in the fight, the only one I’m worried might not actually make it.
The inside of his hut is dark, his unconscious form just barely visible in the ambient starlight that filters into the small space. I creep in as quietly as I can and sit beside him, reaching out to check his forehead for fever. His skin is hot, but only mildly so. If he has a fever, it isn’t spiking yet.
He’s strong.
I repeat those words to myself like a mantra. He has to pull through. I have to be able to thank him for saving me, at the very least.
I drag in a rough breath, examining him in the starlight that spills through the window. Someone has come in and given him a blanket, and I peel it back to check the stitches in his side. They’re holding well—he hasn’t tossed and turned and opened them up. The stitches have thick blue scabs clotting around them, which is a good sign. I pour some water onto a cloth and clean them thoroughly, mindful of irritating them or waking him.
“I’ve never seen anyone fight like you do,” I whisper. I’m not even sure what I’m saying, but it’s good to talk to patients while they’re unconscious. I have to think of him as just some other post-surgery patient, not as someone I consider my friend, my rescuer. “You were like an unhinged beast. You were…”
My words trail off as I shake my head. There are no words to describe how he looked, crouched over the body of a kill, panting, sweating, snarling like a primal beast.
I’ve seen him fight before, of course, but never anything like that. Never anything so deeply, viscerally powerful.
To kill a man with his bare hands…
I look up at his face. His eyes are moving a little beneath his lids, but they don’t open.
“You can’t die, Axen,” I whisper. “You can’t. All right? Stay with me. Please.”
I want to touch his face, to trace the strong lines of his jaw, but I resist the impulse. The desire to be close to him, the urge to keep him warm with my own body, is as powerful as it is irrational.
Instead, I settle for wetting a fresh cloth with water and wringing it out above his lips in the hopes of hydrating him a little. I bathe his face and wash the dirt from his shoulders, pleased to note that the wounds I glued together are healing nicely.
It’s reassuring to see that his body is healing relatively well. If only he would wake up. I need to check him for internal injuries, and that will be a lot easier to do if I can give him an exam. If he’s conscious, he can react and tell me if any particular area hurts more than the others, so that I can address any potential internal bleeding, burst organs, and the like.
The night passes slowly, and I stay by his side, checking to make sure his fever doesn’t spike and that he’s kept hydrated. I barely sleep, dozing off and on when exhaustion overtakes me, my head resting by his thigh on his bed. I jerk awake at dawn, roused by the sound of the rest of the village coming to life and cursing myself for falling asleep.
I kneel by his head and put my hand on his brow, breathing out harshly in relief when I detect no fever. He’s definitely strong. He might actually pull through this. His lips are parted, his breathing steady and slow. His heartbeat feels much more powerful and strong.
“Hang in there,” I whisper, unable to hide the desperation in my voice. I was a fool for falling asleep—if something happened to him during the night, I would never have forgiven myself.
He’s okay, I repeat to myself. He’s alive, even if he hasn’t woken up yet.
I wring more water into his mouth and absently wipe his lips, biting my lower one as I look over his strong, muscled body. Of all the Voxerans, or at least the ones I’ve seen up close, Axen has the most intricate markings, swirling along his biceps and forearms. Some of the markings are scarcely more than dots, and other swaths of them are thick and wide as they spread across his chest. They glowed brightly while he fought.
I sit back on my heels, breathing hard, as it strikes me how close I came to never seeing them glow again. Never gazing into those wild amber eyes. Never hearing his voice. My stomach churns with a visceral rejection of these thoughts.
And then it churns with something much more urgent. A wave of nausea rises up out of nowhere, surprising me with its intensity as a coppery taste hits the back of my tongue.
Oh God. I’m going to vomit.
I rise quickly and stumble from his hut, holding a hand over my mouth until I manage to circle the hut, out of sight, and empty the meager contents of my stomach into the grass. I gasp, shivering and covered in cold sweat as I stare down at the little puddle, my eyes wide.
Fuck. Maybe I am getting sick. Maybe I caught a parasite or something.
We don’t have enough supplies if I get sick. We don’t even have enough to take care of Axen if he takes a turn for the worse, and I’m determined to give him all the antibiotics we have, should that happen.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, the intense nausea subsiding and leaving behind a low-grade chill. It would be just my luck if my attacker had poisoned claws or something. But no, when I look down at the ankle he grabbed, I just see some faint pink lines. No broken skin and nothing hinting at infection.
A frown tugs at my lips. What made me throw up? It can’t just be stress. I’ve been stressed before, and it’s never made me vomit. Nothing the Voxerans have given me for food has caused this reaction, so it can’t be food poisoning. And if it was, I wouldn’t be the only one sick.
I’m still staring at my puddle of vomit, my heartbeat gradually calming, when a thought strikes me so suddenly that it almost gives me whiplash.
Dizziness.
Nausea.
Fainting, tiredness, vomiting.
My mind races as I think back several weeks, ticking off the days in
my head. I count backward to before the crash of the Foreigner II. Back further, to the night before I left Earth…
I haven’t had a period since a week before that night.
My eyes widen, and my entire body goes numb with shock. No, that can’t be right. I was careful. I used protection.
But I can’t think of any other explanation. I’m the only one in the village who seems to be experiencing these symptoms. I missed my last period, which I initially just chalked up to stress and all the changes my body has been through. But now, with the symptoms I’ve been having?
My heart stutters in my chest, my breath escaping in an unsteady gasp. I close my eyes, reaching out blindly to press a hand against the side of Axen’s hut. I’m not aware of consciously deciding to kneel, but it’s like my legs give out from under me. I hold my heaving stomach as my bare knees hit the dewy grass.
Maybe there’s some other reason for my symptoms. Maybe I’ve picked up a virus, or I’m allergic to something on Nuthora. But somehow, I know none of those possibilities are true. I know the reason I’ve felt off for the past week, and why my stomach rebelled in the early morning hours.
I’m pregnant.
6
Axen
Blood.
Sweat.
Heat.
In my feverish dreams, I relive every battle I’ve ever fought.
Dust streaks my hands and face. I can taste it on my tongue. I know nothing but the fight, the scorching sun, the ground beneath my feet, and the scent of fear and rage.
The landscape of the battle changes in the morphing way of dreams. First, I fight against the large, overgrown stinging vines that grow around the settlement on Nuthora. Then I find myself fighting our enemies on Vox in service of the king, Droth’s father. When the world shifts again, I battle six-legged aliens and creatures with tusks and beady black eyes, things with far too many tentacles or fangs, and monsters whose snarls grate against my ears.
But it doesn’t matter. I will fight them all, and I will win.
