Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

Pain.

Pain and seriously aching muscles. That was her existence now.

And then there was a throbbing headache, the misery radiating out from the back of her head.

Olivia’s first senses to return after her very impromptu departure from Raxxian captivity were physical in nature, and they were not pleasant.

She groaned as she took a quick accounting of the myriad pains in her bruised body. What the hell happened?

She tried to sit up, finding her body reluctant to oblige, but seemingly intact and functional enough to eventually do her bidding. At least, mostly. Something was pinning her legs and hips down. Forcing her eyes open, she worked hard to shake off the daze in the dark compartment. There was the faintest hint of illumination flickering from one lone panel in the buckled wall, but it wasn’t nearly enough to properly take in the scene.

Olivia changed positions, reaching down to shift the load pressing uncomfortably on her legs. “Oh, man. I feel like I was hit by a train. How did?—”

She stopped cold, her hands slick with still-warm liquid. She’d felt something else. A body. A broken and battered corpse resting on top of her.

“Fuck!” she blurted in shock, pushing hard and scrambling back from the deceased woman’s inert form, holding back the scream building in her chest with all her might.

Olivia pressed her back against the bulkhead, forcing herself to stay motionless and silent despite every cell in her body telling her to run, far and fast. Somehow, she managed to overcome the instinct and just sit still, listening intently. Her eyes began adjusting to the lack of light. It wasn’t as absolute a darkness as she’d first thought. Aside from the faintly flickering panel, there was another source of light. Of light, and of air.

The metal of their compartment had buckled in many places, and the sturdy metal had even torn open at some point in their landing. Looking up at the alien night sky through the opening, she could see stars.

At least the sparkly lights aren’t a concussion , she grimly mused as she willed her breathing to slow and her ears to focus. Logic kicked in, her senses sharpening rather than spinning out of control. She didn’t think there would be any Raxxians storming in to recapture them so soon after their ship was blown apart, but one could never be too cautious. But somehow they were on solid ground, separated from the main ship, and that meant they were free. At least, those who had survived.

She looked at the blood on her hands. It was hard to tell for sure in the dim light, but she was pretty sure it was blue. This was Morzinga’s blood. Her blue-skinned friend was dead. They’d only been confined together a month or so, from what she could tell given the absence of clocks or calendars, but as survivors of Raxxian abduction, the five women in her compartment had all bonded over their shared trauma.

And now there was one less.

Urallia had perished in the crash as well, she was sure of it. Olivia had seen the woman’s body violently tossed about the compartment as they fell from space. There was no way she’d survived it. Not with her delicate build. As for Garggoxx, she was the sturdiest of the aliens, but last she’d seen her, she was sliding across the deck, unconscious. And in that state, there was no way she’d managed to grab onto something for the truly turbulent part of their descent.

That left Harper. Though she’d been shaken loose as well, at least it had happened much later in the crash. Olivia had blacked out shortly after, but there was still a chance her human friend was still alive.

The faint sound of a pained groan hit her ears like a gong in the silence of the ruined vessel.

“Owww,” a familiar voice uttered faintly.

Olivia felt her spirits soar. “Harper! Hold still. I’m coming!”

She confirmed her legs were still functional as she scrambled to her feet, her long getaway sticks wobbly from the ordeal, not to mention the massive surge of adrenaline, but somehow holding her upright without buckling. With careful steps, she made her way toward the area she’d heard the sound, avoiding debris as best she could in the dimly lit wreckage. Her foot nudged into a soft form. Soft and motionless.

Fuck , she hissed to herself, looking down and recognizing the broken form of Garggoxx, stepping over the deceased woman and continuing on toward Harper’s likely location. Toward what she had now confirmed to be the only other survivor of the crash.

Olivia moved quickly but carefully, Harper’s groans guiding her way. There was a faint tinge of smokiness to the air, but there was no scent of an active fire. Whether it was the craft’s hot exterior burning whatever they’d landed on, or if it was remnants of some sort of rocket afterburner system that had miraculously kept them from going splat into the planet’s surface, was anyone’s guess. All that mattered was they were alive, and with what seemed to be breathable air, safe on the surface of some new world.

Of course, she hadn’t even known they were anywhere near a planet when the attack had occurred. As mere livestock, windows were not a feature of their holding compartments. But now she could see outside. And the air, though tinged with smoke and death, was nevertheless the smell of nature, and with it, of freedom. They’d made it through the hard part. The crash behind them, now they just had to manage to survive on this planet, wherever the hell that might be.

“Where are you?” Olivia quietly called out, still unsure if there might be any threats outside within earshot.

“Here,” Harper’s weak voice replied.

Olivia hurried to her, climbing over a large piece of buckled decking to find the woman leaned up against the wall. It was quite dark even with her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, but the look of pain on her face was plain to see. She crouched down beside her injured friend.

“How bad is it? Can you move?”

Harper shook her head. “I broke my leg, but that seems to be the worst of it,” she replied, but with an unexpected Scots accent.

“Why are you talking like that?” Olivia asked as she gently moved debris to get a better look at the woman’s injury.

“Like what?”

“With that accent.”

“I always talk like this.”

“You didn’t before.”

“Yes, I did. It’s just the translation rune makes everyone sound like they’re speaking your home dialect, is all.”

“But you sound different now.”

“I’m telling ya, nothing’s changed.”

Olivia cocked her head in confusion, the movement making the crusty spot scabbing behind her ear crack a bit uncomfortably. “Ow,” she grumbled, gently touching the area with her fingertips.

The scab was fresh and there was caked blood in her hair and on her neck. Suddenly, it all made sense. Apparently, during the crash, she’d hit her head and damaged the rune. There were plenty of other nicks, cuts, and bruises, but this one was of particular note. She’d accepted that whatever the aliens had done to her upon her capture had given her the ability to understand other languages, though she’d still been a bit skeptical. But now? This was cold, hard proof. And, just her luck, though she didn’t know how the weird tattoo tech worked, the damn thing was apparently broken.

Olivia shrugged. “Huh. I guess I never did ask where you were taken from. You said you were walking home after drinks and that was the last thing you remembered, and I just left it at that.”

“Well, to be fair, we did have a lot of more pressing things to talk about.”

“Fair, that.”

“How long have we been here? Hang on, I smell smoke.”

“It’s fine,” Olivia replied. “It’s been fading. Whatever was on fire is out. How long is anyone’s guess, but I’d think less than an hour.”

“How can you be sure?”

Olivia swallowed hard. There was no gentle way to say what needed to be said. “The bodies are still warm.”

Harper sat silently. She’d seen the others tossed about during the crash, but knowing was far different than wondering.

“Any idea where we are?” she finally managed to ask.

“Not a clue. It’s night, so I don’t think it’s smart to venture outside in the dark, and we wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway. Plus, who knows what might be out there, not to mention we’ve got no idea how long the days are on this planet. Sunrise could be an hour from now or it could be dozens. Maybe longer.”

“So, we just sit here?”

“I’ll splint your leg as best I can, but besides that, yeah, I think we ride it out until there’s enough light to see what we’re dealing with.”

“And then?”

Olivia felt a burbling surge of adrenaline, fear, and uncertainty churning in her gut. But she was the relatively uninjured one. Whatever came next, she was going to have to take the lead.

“And then we make plans from there. Day by day is how we’ll play it as we get our bearings. For now, let’s get that leg padded and bound. Once that’s done, we wait out the night.”

Olivia set to work at once, scavenging what she could from the ruined craft to fashion a makeshift splint for Harper’s leg. It was a closed break of her lower left leg, so fortunately there was no broken skin or protruding bones. Pulling it back into place before splinting, however, was something that would hurt no matter what. There was no way around that unpleasantness.

Harper grit her teeth and took it like a champ, but she was clearly spent. To be fair, as the adrenaline wore off, so was Olivia. That one pressing task accomplished, she curled up with her friend and lay her head down to wait for morning, whenever that might be, and eventually drifted off into a restless sleep.