4. Egara

Iwas surrounded by the warm synaptic fluid of the Desert Flower, a hideous and extremely dangerous pest that had spread throughout the galaxy and infested all desert moons and planets.

They burrowed deep in the sand and stretched their long tendrils to search for food it could snatch up and drag back to its mouth, located at the very tip of the sprawling sand dunes.

Once a creature was caught, there was little to no chance of it escaping.

Struggling only encouraged the vines to grow tauter until they snapped the creature's bones, rendering it weak and unable to shake off the vine.

The only way to escape was if you had enough strength, and failing that, you were doomed.

Unless someone came to the rescue as I had done for Agatha.

That morning, I awoke and reached over for Agatha, expecting to find her clutched in my warm arms. Instead, I found empty space.

I figured she must have gotten up to go to the bathroom. It was light and we'd overslept.

I stumbled over to the edge of the clearing and took a leak.

I groaned and leaned my head back. I peered up at the sky and rolled my neck.

It'd been a long night and the cracking, snapping bones in my neck showed how uncomfortable I must have slept during the night.

I dreamed about Agatha, and each time I opened my eyes, I was pleased to find her wound tightly in my arms.

She was so soft, so warm.

It was only when I did up my fly and turned to head back to our camp that I noticed the line etched into the sand and rose up the steep incline of the nearby sand dune.

The blood froze in my veins.

I realized immediately what must have happened.

"No…" I said out loud.

I should have headed back to the camp to grab my trusty bed pole cudgel but I didn't want to waste time.

Every second counted.

I wondered how long it'd been since the creature had snatched her.

Was I too late?

Was she already buried deep in the belly of the creature?

I sprinted up the incline and found, to my terrified eyes, that the line continued further.

I bolted further up the incline until I reached the top, praying I would see her when I crested the next rise.

I got to it, not slowing or stopping, and once again, saw no sign of her.

I followed that line, and with each shallow horizon I crossed, I drew closer to the sand dune's peak.

A cool mist descended over the sandy mountain as the heat of the approaching new day mixed with the cold air from the previous night.

The cold dampness rasped in my throat.

Running up the sand dune alongside me were tiny black beetles. They had special shells that could capture moisture from the air.

I shot up one rise after another until, finally, I saw what I was looking for.

Agatha.

Her body was bound tightly by the long vines.

She didn't struggle, didn't try to escape.

It was a good thing as her body would have been crushed to nothing otherwise.

After chopping at the vine and setting her free, I had taken her place and entered the stomach of the enormous beast.

But I knew something Agatha didn't.

Gharr moon was not my homeworld but it was similar.

We evolved in unison with this very same creature.

In the past, my ancestors struggled mightily with this beast.

When there were several of them, they could wipe out an entire Vulcarian village without much effort.

Over the eons, my culture developed weapons to overcome them.

Eventually, a special Vulcarian was born with the ability to directly overcome the Desert Flower threat with special glands in his body.

He passed the ability down to his descendants, of which I was one.

Now, I was trapped in that disgusting thick liquid in the belly of the Desert Flower.

It would consume me—slowly, over the course of many years.

I floated like a newborn ready to be born—and that, strangely, was what I was about to do.

I found that center inside myself, that soft golden light at the heart of every Vulcarian, and embraced it.

The warmth escaped my body and heated up the surrounding liquid in that giant pouch.

I listened to the rhythm of my heart and sent out pulses, simulating the process it went through when it gave birth to a Desert Flower.

As the heat rose and the creature felt me pulsing inside it, it shivered and a gap opened in its belly, spilling me across the sand.

I coughed and sputtered, struggling for air on my hands and knees.

The slimy liquid ran over me and drenched the sand.

I pushed myself up onto my feet in time to see the Desert Flower snatch Agatha again and drag her along the sand back in the direction of its quivering gaping maw.

I approached the vine that held her by the leg and rubbed the birth liquid over it.

The vine let go and set to slurping at the liquid on my body.

To the Desert Flower's mind, I was its offspring and it would treat me as such.

The moment the creature released Agatha, she kicked back to get as far from the creature as possible.

She slithered half a dozen yards before she stopped and looked up into my face.

It took her a moment to recognize me.

"Egara?" she said.

She got to her feet and beamed with joy.

"Egara!" she said, throwing her arms around me. "I thought I'd lost you! I thought it ate you and… and…"

She pulled back and looked at me again, tears already shimmering in her eyes.

She had no other words she could think to say and leaped forward once again to wrap her arms around me.

"I'm so pleased you're okay," she said, her voice so soft and gentle it took me by surprise.

That golden light in my chest swelled as I took her in.

She was a little scuffed from the sand and vines that'd dragged her across the desert but she was otherwise okay.

"What happened to you?" Agatha said, peeling her hands off me and the thick goo coming with it. "And why are you covered in goop?"

"It's the creature's stomach fluids."

Agatha's face screwed up in disgust.

"Stomach fluids?" she said, peering at the stuff on her hands and chest from where she'd hugged me.

"I convinced the creature I was her child who needed to be birthed and… well, here I am."

She just stared at me like she didn't understand a word of what I'd just said.

"Your mom?"

"Well, not exactly like a mom—"

Her eyes bulged and she stabbed a finger toward my leg.

"Look out! The vine! It's trying to grab you!"

"No, it's not. It's the Desert Flower. She's cleaning me off, the way she would with one of her newborns."

"Oh."

She wore a frown. I doubted she would ever fully understand what I was trying to tell her.

The vine stretched out and reached for Agatha's leg.

"So, I guess it's no danger to us anymore?" she said.

The vine snapped around her ankle and set to dragging her along the sand again.

"It's no longer a danger to me," I said. "But it is to you."

I smothered the vine in the goo and once more, it let go.

"Let's get the hell out of here," Agatha said. "I don't want this thing to be my mom."

I was about to explain to her that couldn't happen unless she went through the same birthing process I had but she didn't much look like she was interested in learning that.

I took her by the hand and led her away.

I glanced back at the vine.

It rose and swayed side to side. I could almost have mistaken it for a wave of goodbye.

Or was it a wave of hello?

We returnedto our camp and packed up.

Agatha moved faster than I had ever seen her.

She kept glancing at the floor and hopped when she thought she felt something slithering around her feet.

Her skin crawled and she didn't stop checking over her shoulders until I told her the Desert Flower's tendrils couldn't reach the distance we'd traveled.

I didn't tell her that we would almost certainly be within the territory of another Desert Flower by now.

"How much further to the shuttlecraft?" she said.

"About a day's walk if we don't stop too often."

We watched as the twin suns rose and pirouetted across the sky, dancing in each other's everlasting embrace.

It was mid-morning by the time Agatha began to wheeze and struggle to breathe in the oppressive rising heat.

She would have removed her shirt but it provided her with some much-needed protection against the blistering suns.

For me, the temperature was about right for a nice stroll through a desert.

I kept my focus on the sky for any blinking lights or signs of the guards' drones that could be circling overhead.

I didn't want them to get the drop on us the way they had last time.

It was blind luck they hadn't discovered us instead of the other prisoner.

I really had no idea how the other prisoner had managed to escape Ikmal.

He couldn't have come through the same gate we had.

The guards wouldn't have made the same mistake twice and allowed it to remain open.

There must be another way out but for the life of me, I couldn't think what it was.

Hopefully, I wouldn't need to know.

I had no intention of heading back to that place.

Especially not when I was so close to escaping for good.

"There's something I've been wondering," Agatha said.

"What?"

"You're the captain of your crew, right?"

"Right."

"So, why were you the one to get caught and sent to this place and the rest of your crew got away?"

"They didn't get away. I did."

She frowned at me.

"So, how did you end up here?"

"I handed myself over to the bounty hunters."

She came to a stop.

The beads of sweat gathering on her forehead broke rank and abseiled down her face.

"You did what?"

"I handed myself over."

"Why would you do that?"

I shrugged.

"My crew got caught."

"What's that got to do with you? They should have been more careful."

"They got caught because my plan didn't work. It's every captain's duty to protect his crew. Besides, the bounty out for me was far larger than what was on their heads."

Agatha shook her head.

"So much for you being mutinous pirates," she said, resuming her walk.

"We are pirates."

"Not if you believe in honor and duty and all that jazz. Pirates on Earth are out for themselves. They would never hand themselves over to protect their crew."

"It's the Vulcarian way."

"Well, it's not the traditional pirate way, that I can tell you."

I didn't know how human pirates operated on their planet but out here, there was a certain code of conduct.

"You really handed yourself in to save your crew?" Agatha said.

"It was my duty as their captain. Besides, breaking one member out of prison is a lot easier than breaking out six."

She smiled and shook her head in disbelief.

She coughed and barely managed to turn her head to one side before she let rip with a full-throated bark.

It was the lack of oxygen in her lungs, making it difficult for her to breathe.

I slapped her on the back but it didn't help.

There was only one thing that would.

I spun her around and pressed my lips to hers.

She stiffened in my arms and pushed me back, gasping for air.

"I can't breathe!" she said. "Kissing me now isn't going to help!"

Except she was no longer gasping.

She sucked oxygen in through her nose and mouth, her passageways already clearing up.

She frowned at me.

"Yeah, well, it still doesn't give you the right to kiss me whenever you want!"

"I was the victor, remember? Technically, you still belong to me."

She poked her tongue at me.

It was a strange thing. In my culture, it meant she was sick. It clearly meant something else to humans.

"I don't belong to anyone," she said.

"That kiss I gave you won't help you for long. If you want to pass through this planet's atmosphere for longer periods, we're going to have to do a lot more than that."

"You would say that!"

I shrugged.

"It's the truth."

I couldn't bring myself to believe she hadn't enjoyed our sex the first time we did it, nor did I think she disliked the kiss from the night before.

I wondered why she was resisting me.

"Kiss me more," I said, "and you won't have to kiss me again. By the time we get to the shuttlecraft, we can program the computer to create the right atmosphere for both of us."

She screwed up her face.

She might not like it but she didn't have much choice if she wanted to reach the shuttlecraft in one piece.

"Fine," she said. "But remember, it's purely for medicinal purposes."

She puckered up her lips and stuck them out.

She had her eyes shut and I couldn't help but smile.

I wrapped my arms around her and, taking her by surprise, she opened her eyes and pulled back.

I buried my lips on hers.

She struggled but I was intent on enjoying myself, so I added a little tongue to the mix.

She slapped me ineffectively with her hands but her attacks weakened.

Her lips pressed against mine harder, and she sucked in oxygen through her nose and gave herself to the kiss.

She even made soft "Mm" noises, though I was certain it wasn't voluntary.

I reached down and grabbed her ass with one hand.

It was soft and I squeezed hard.

She slapped my hand but it wasn't angry or aggressive enough to stop me.

I swelled in the front of my pants and ground hard against her.

"Mmmm," she said once more, involuntarily.

Her arms felt at the muscles on my back and her tongue came out to play.

I meshed it with my own.

I couldn't get enough of that thing.

She took my tongue in her mouth and sucked on it, licking it slowly and seductively.

She made me rock hard and I wanted nothing more than to dive deep inside her right then and there.

Strictly speaking, we didn't need to kiss like this, or for this long, but she didn't know that.

And I sure as hell wasn't about to tell her!

I was never one to pass up a good opportunity.

And she was a better opportunity than I'd had in a very long time.

When we parted, I was the one gasping for oxygen.

Agatha seemed none the worse for wear.

"What's wrong?" she said, arching an eyebrow at me. "Need a kiss to help you survive out here?"

And with that, she turned and sauntered into the desert.

I growled in the back of my throat, watching that ass as it sashayed through the endless desert.

It deserved to be ridden day and night and I tried to think of a way I could do that before this whole adventure was over.

I hustled after her and we walked side by side, casting the occasional glance at each other.

The smile on her lips matched the one on mine, even if she didn't intend for it to come across that way.

We encountered no guards and, thankfully, no drones as we completed the final leg of our journey.

The twin suns were beginning to set on another long day on this moon when we rounded what I thought should be the final corner.

No problem, I thought. The shuttlecraft will be around the next corner.

I thought that four times before growing worried.

The problem with the shifting sands of the desert was they, well, shifted.

There were no landmarks that would not disappear.

The tallest sand dune would become the smallest, given enough time.

And this moon had nothing but time.

Ikmal prison would be buried beneath the sands too if the supervisors didn't keep the area around the prison clear.

It'd been six months since I memorized that map.

But how old had the map been when they showed it to me?

They must have made sure to find the most recent map they could, didn't they?

The sands couldn't have changed that much…

Unless there had been a storm or two that completely rewrote the map…

My stomach fell through the soles of my feet.

What if the shuttlecraft was buried beneath a deep and impenetrable mound of sand?

There was no way for me to know where it was, never mind how I might dig it up.

We rounded another corner.

My breath caught in my throat at the sight of a statue carved into the shape of a Desert Flower.

I ran to it and ran my hands over it.

"What is it?" Agatha said. "What is it?"

"My crew left this here for me to find."

"They did? Then where's the shuttlecraft?"

I didn't know but it wouldn't be far away.

I moved behind the rock, circled it, and then ran to the top of the nearest sand dune.

Agatha remained below in the valley.

All the way here, we'd avoided the tips of the sand dunes to ensure we didn't run into any Desert Flowers or drones.

Now, I flaunted that rule.

I peered at the rolling dunes and the valleys that sawed between them.

I knew any moment, I would see something, a flickering of sunlight off the pristine white roof of a shuttlecraft.

It would be right there.

But I saw no shimmering white rooftop.

I saw no isolated chip of modern technology.

Only the empty rolling hills of endless sand dunes.

My shoulders slumped.

It wasn't here.

We were trapped on a prison moon with no way to escape this damn rock.

Fuck.

The walkdown the sand dune was a lot harder than the one up.

I needed some time alone and I wasn't up to the task of having to tell Agatha she'd teamed up with a loser.

How could my crew have left me out here in the middle of nowhere with no way of escape?

They gave me their word.

Maybe they had a change of heart and decided the best option was to keep the ship and the booty we'd amassed for themselves.

They were pirates after all.

Maybe we had more in common with the human pirates than I realized.

Or maybe they assumed the ship would only have gone to waste if they left it here for me.

Or maybe they never thought I would escape Ikmal in the first place.

My good for nothing crew.

I'd been certain they would help me, certain they wouldn't leave me high and dry like this.

Instead, they left me on a desert planet with nowhere to run and nothing to cling to.

Almost nothing.

I had Agatha and in a slightly better setting—a secluded island out in the middle of nowhere, for example—it might not have seemed so bad.

But here and now, while we were trapped on a Creator-forsaken desert rock in the middle of nowhere?

Agatha waited patiently at the bottom of the mountain dune, hand raised over her eyes to block out the worst of the sunlight.

"Well?" she said expectantly. "Did you see it?"

I growled under my breath, unable to tell her the news.

I wasn't sure even I believed it.

If it was true, I didn't know what we were meant to do now.

I stalked past her and fell into the shadow cast by the Desert Flower statue.

I ran a hand over my face, having begun to perspire from the descent down the sand dune.

I wiped my palm on the leg of my pants.

Agatha stood over me.

"Well?"

I didn't say a word and didn't look up at her.

Agatha's arms flopped to her sides.

"It's not there, is it?"

There were so many ways to respond to her, so many things I wanted to say.

But only one word could form on my lips.

"No."

Agatha fell to her knees and stared at the shadows between my feet.

"Then what happens now?"

"Now? Nothing. That's what happens now. A big fat nothing."

"I thought your crew was supposed to leave a shuttlecraft here for you?"

"Yeah, well, they didn't," I snapped.

"Maybe the guards found it and took it away."

"If they had, they would be all over the place now, knowing we would come here looking for it. We would already be in their custody."

"Then what happened?"

"My crew lied to me," I said, biting off the words one by one.

"But you said they were a good crew."

"They were. At least, I thought they were."

Agatha was on the verge of tears and the sound of her being so upset—because of me, no less—drove a spear through my heart.

"I'll find another way," I said. "I'll figure something out."

"We're on a desert moon in the middle of nowhere," Agatha said, heat rising to her cheeks. "You said this would be our chance to get away from here!"

"I was wrong."

I reached up to run my hand through her hair.

She slapped me away.

"You forced me through the door! You grabbed me!"

"You didn't have to follow me through!" I spat.

"I thought you were my ticket out of here!"

"That makes two of us!"

"Do you have any idea what they'll do to me? Back at the prison? They'll sell me to the lowest bidder and I'll get sent to a pleasure house."

She was afraid, scared.

She needed comforting.

But I couldn't see that through the red mist that descended over my eyes.

I saw only her disappointment in me.

"Come off it," I growled. "You've been working at a pleasure house ever since you arrived here."

"It's not the same," Agatha said defensively.

I knew it wasn't the same but my own sense of disappointment had dulled my mind.

"Nothing will happen to you," I said softly. "You'll tell them I kidnapped you and forced you to come with me. There will be no way for them to prove otherwise. I grabbed you, remember? So what's to say I didn't pull you through the doorway too? They'll put you back in the Prize Pool with the other girls. Things don't have to be that bad for you."

"Not so bad? Not so bad? I was abducted and brought here. They forced me to become this… this thing."

She wrapped herself in her own arms.

She needed comfort and warmth but I couldn't be the one to give it to her.

Not after I had let her down so badly.

"And you…" Agatha said. "What'll happen to you if they catch you?"

"They'll put me in solitary. If I'm lucky."

Solitary was the very worst place to be.

A single cell with nothing to keep you engaged.

Even if you had the strongest mind, eventually solitary would strip you of it.

Being completely cut off from everyone else had a terrible effect on the mind.

I wouldn't get to socialize with the other prisoners.

I wouldn't get to fight in the pits.

And I would never get to see Agatha ever again, and that was the greatest pain of all.

What would I have to think about each night in solitary?

The idea that each time the moon rose, another fighter would be taking his turn with Agatha.

It was enough to drive a Vulcarian insane.

The best I could look forward to was hope I would lose my mind quickly.

Or else take matters into my own hands and cut short my sentence with a sharp blade, length of rope, or dash my brains against the hard tile floor.

I wouldn't be the first to do that, I was sure.

And I wouldn't be the last.

"It was supposed to be right here," I said. "Right here. Beside this statue of a Desert Flower."

Agatha was the first to see through her cloud of emotions and shifted position so she sat beside me.

She wrapped her arms around me and I rested my arm over her.

I didn't deserve this kindness, this warmth from her.

But it sure felt good to have her so close.

We sat there with my back against the statue as the suns eased over the horizon and took their heat with them.

We fell asleep and awoke in grey twilight.

I checked Agatha was beside me and was relieved to find she was.

She lay with her legs out straight and turned at ninety degrees at her hips with her head on my chest and one arm draped over my stomach.

I leaned down and kissed her on top of the head.

In a desert of emptiness and death, she was all I had.

She was all I wanted.

And still, I managed a smile.

It was big considering the situation we found ourselves in.

I had zero reason to smile.

Except for her.

Her stomach growled and she mumbled in her sleep as she sat up and blinked awake.

She ran her hands over her face.

"Hungry?" I said.

"A little," she said, which was another way of saying she was starving. "Do we have any jerky left?"

"We ate the last of it today. But there might be something I can rustle up…"

I got up and Agatha stretched her arms and legs and massaged her back.

I would have to get my fingers into her muscles later and work out the kinks.

I approached the Desert Flower statue.

"Are you going to perform more of your desert Kung Fu and find another fish in the desert?" she said.

"Maybe, if I have to. But I might not need to."

I ran my hands over the Desert Flower statue's rough contours until I came to one of the large petals.

Please tell me my crew aren't complete assholes…

I slammed my palm into the petal and it sunk in an inch and then popped out again, falling to the ground.

I reached inside the hole.

Inside was a small cubby with a pile of food wrapped in rags.

I pulled it out and dumped it on the floor.

Then I placed the petal back in position and banged it into place with my fist.

I picked up a handful of sand to rub around the petal so no one could tell I'd opened it.

Agatha picked through the food.

"Wait. You're capable of magic now?"

"No magic. I found it hidden here in the statue."

Agatha rolled over the food and tossed it in the air, whooping and screaming with joy as if she'd found a secret trove of ancient gold.

I laughed and shook my head. She was one crazy cookie.

"It's a feast!" she said.

"Compared to Desert Fish, yes. But don't get your hopes up. There won't be any human delicacies here."

"I don't care. I could eat anything right about now."

"That's fortunate because even the best-tasting food goes a little off after it's been stored inside a desert rock for months."

We gathered the packaged food and moved away from the statue and deeper into the desert.

Agatha focused her attention on the food and couldn't stop picking through it until she decided what she was going to eat first.

We turned a corner and came to a stop at a crossroad of sand dune valleys. It would make seeing those who approached a lot easier.

"Here," I said, handing over a large bottle of squirlatch juice. "We can use this to wash in. But save some for drinking later."

It was unique in that it didn't evaporate like most liquids and was a delicacy in my culture.

Agatha downed a huge gulp of it and sighed with satisfaction.

I checked the coast was clear before letting her wash beneath the stars.

I couldn't help but glance at her naked body that glistened in the moonlight.

Once she was done, she handed the bottle over and I washed.

I thought I heard a footstep around the corner from where Agatha was waiting but each time I turned to look in her direction, she wasn't there.

I must have imagined her gazing at my naked body the way I had hers.

We settled down and began munching away.

"It seems strange," Agatha said, chomping on a ghax snack.

"What does?"

"Your crew didn't leave a shuttlecraft here and yet they took the time to put food in the statue? And had the statue carved so you would recognize it? Why would they do that?"

"To irritate me? To show they only have a little love for me? Maybe it's some sick and twisted game."

"Maybe," Agatha said with the air of someone who didn't quite buy it.

I guess it did seem a little strange. If they didn't expect me to escape, why provide me with food resources like this?

And if they thought I could get this far, they must have known there was a chance I could get off the planet.

And if I could do that, there was no reason I couldn't find them and my ship.

So why not boobytrap the statue?

I shook my head.

Because my crew wasn't like that, I told myself. My crew were good men. Honorable.

If they agreed to leave a shuttlecraft here, they would have done it.

Something must have prevented them from doing so.

It didn't help me much with my current situation but it cheered me up a little, at least.

We munched on our snacks, a welcome break from the Desert Fish jerky we'd eaten all day.

I loved watching Agatha.

She was most interesting when she didn't know I was watching.

She liked to peer around at her surroundings and take it in, thinking and considering, her lips making invisible words she didn't speak out loud.

Then she would turn and glance at me and her smile would fade from her face.

"What?"

"Nothing."

She frowned and pursed her lips.

Yes, I thought. Being stuck out here with no shuttlecraft wasn't good but it was far from the worst fate I could imagine.

At least I wasn't alone.

Even better, I was here with her.

"What'll we do tomorrow?" she said.

"Keep moving through the desert. We need to do some surveillance and see what we're up against. There are other prisons on this moon. They might not be as intense security-wise as the one we came from."

"Wait. Are you suggesting what I think you are?"

I grinned at her.

"You want to break into a prison?" she said.

I wiggled my eyebrows, causing Agatha to laugh.

"You're serious?" she said.

"I rule out nothing when it comes to getting out of here."

She shook her head.

"You're crazy."

"Maybe. But maybe we need a little craziness if we want to escape."

"You might be right there."

She lifted the juice and downed another mouthful.

She filled her cheeks and extended the bottle to me.

I shook my head.

"You Vulcarians really don't eat much, huh?" Agatha said.

"And you humans eat a lot."

"Not all humans. Only me."

"I don't know where you put it. You're skinny."

"I put it in this hole in my face. It gets a lot of usage. And I'm not as skinny as I used to be."

"That's a good thing. I like a girl with a little meat on her bones. Otherwise, you'd only be good for picking teeth."

Agatha chuckled.

"Thanks… I think."

She cleared her throat and rasped a little with her breathing.

"Are you okay?" I said.

She tapped her chest with her fist and nodded.

"Clear as a be—" she said, but she coughed before she could complete the word "bell."

"Sounds like you need another dose of me," I said.

"You think?" she said, coughing again.

"I'm certain of it. Come here."

She shuffled over and plonked herself beside me.

She got comfortable and tossed her hair over her shoulder.

She smiled as we pressed our lips together.

It was slower this time.

We each raised our hands and ran them through each other's hair and down the back of our necks.

She couldn't stop smiling and neither could I.

It was me that let out the soft sigh of contentment this time.

Our tongues massaged each other, both fiery and soft in equal measure.

Finally, we pulled apart and I opened my eyes.

She did the same with a big smile on her face.

"Will that do you?" I said. "I wouldn't want you to overdo the daily prescription."

She looked me in the eye.

"I might have already."

"Oh?"

"I have a confession to make. I didn't really cough because my throat was closing up. I coughed on purpose."

I beamed and shook my head. I couldn't believe this girl.

"And why would you do that?" I said.

"I think you know why."

We kissed again.

This time, she leaned into me, pressing me back onto the sand dune.

She kissed me on the lips and worked her way down my neck to my chest.

She straddled me and I watched as she drew her shirt off over her head.

She gently folded it before placing it on top of the food packaging we ate earlier.

Then she helped draw my shirt off over my head.

I slurped on her nipples, licking and caressing them with my lips and tongue.

She placed her hand on my head and guided me in closer, to encourage me to take her breast in her mouth.

I abided.

I wrapped my arms around her and goosebumps sprung across the surface of my skin as her skin touched mine.

She was stupendous.

Magnificent.

And she was all mine.

I slipped my pants down and she removed her own.

She slid on top of me, guiding me inside her.

She braced herself with her hands on my chest as she rocked back and forth.

Delicious.

Hot.

She rode me, each time taking an extra inch, until she took all of me.

I felt her ass on my balls.

I leaned back and watched as she worked me, drilling me the way I had drilled her that first night.

Then she got serious and rode me hard, bouncing up and down with her breasts floating in front of my face.

It was sometime later, after we were drenched in sweat, with her lying on my chest and fingering the tiny sprigs of curly black hair that she asked me:

"How long do you think I'll be immune to this planet's atmosphere now?"

"I'm not sure. About ten minutes."

She chuckled and leaned her chin on my chest.

"Are you just saying that to sleep with me again?" she said in a mock sour voice.

"Yes."

"Good."

Neither of usslept much that night, me least of all.

Agatha lay sprawled across me and snored gently.

Her hair lay tossed and curled around her face and tickled my nose.

I ran my fingers through her hair and wondered how I had managed to live this long in my life without her by my side.

That golden glow in the center of my chest was brighter and bolder than it ever had been before.

My skin burned hotter and I had never known a girl like her.

I became more certain than ever that she was the one.

My fated mate.

To think I had met her here of all places.

She never should have been within a thousand light-years of this place.

She should be living in a mansion on Arcturon Prime, not abducted and dumped in this prison to service aliens.

I thought about how I would feel to let her go once we got off this moon after I returned her to her home.

I thought about how I would never see her again.

It made me sad, so I shoved it from my mind and kept myself in this single exquisite moment.

I needed to take a leak, so I shuffled out from under her and crossed the clearing to a sand dune on the other side.

I leaned back and enjoyed the rush of liquid evacuating my body.

The soft splatter of urine made a tiny stream that washed away part of the sand as it rolled down the incline and further into the sand dune valley.

Then the sound turned hard and thudded like rain on a roof.

I looked down and spotted a circle of plastic mostly submerged beneath the sand.

I shook myself off and tucked myself away.

I bent down and gripped a fringe of wood and yanked it from the sand dune.

It was a square box with a familiar symbol on the front.

I opened it and discovered a bunch of items a doctor would use in emergency situations.

A cold feeling washed over me as I slammed the box shut and turned it over.

I ran my hands over the outer casing until I came to the identification marks along the bottom.

I couldn't believe it.

It was the first aid kit from the shuttlecraft.

It was here! The shuttlecraft had been here!

I turned and quickly scanned the area.

I didn't know what I was looking for but I knew I would recognize it the moment I saw it.

There.

Was the edge of that corner a little sharper and more angular than the other dunes?

As if something had passed over it and left a groove in the sand?

Yes.

That was where the shuttlecraft went.

No, that was where the shuttlecraft had been taken.

My crew hadn't let me down after all.

Someone had stolen it.