2. Lis

2

LIS

A s crash landings went, it wasn't her worst.

"Far from my best, though," Captain Fidelis Flynn muttered as she kicked out the cockpit's shattered windshield and slid down the nose onto the red dune it was buried in. A hiss and a shower of sparks vented from the shattered console housing the main computer.

Lis let out a low whistle, taking in the extent of the damage. The experimental spacecraft she'd been test piloting was well and truly fucked. The wings sheared off, the fuselage cracked in half, and the pieces of the ship's back end lay scattered along a flaming furrow carved through the shifting sands.

It was a miracle she was in one relatively unbroken piece, considering how screaming hot she came in and how many bounces the ship took before finally skidding to a halt. Lis took a deep breath of the recycled air pumping through her space suit, wincing as pain spiderwebbed across her torso with each inhale.

What in the hell happened? The launch was textbook perfect. With Earth in her rearview, she completed a slingshot around the moon, got the ship up to speed, and flipped on the T-drive, all well within specs.

Frowning, she remembered the lights on the front panel flashing red, and the space in front of the ship rippling before what felt like a giant hand grabbed them and flicked them away like a flat stone skipping over a lake. Then… nothing. G-forces must have knocked her out because she couldn't remember a damn thing between going into a spin and plunging back into the planet's atmo.

No matter what led up to the crash, Todd Hammond, owner of the ship and tech bro extraordinaire, was going to be pissed. He'd been so certain this latest design would be the one to carry him to his utopian bubble colony on Mars in a fraction of the time the trip currently took. She got the impression he had plans to rule the colony like his own personal kingdom, free from any outside interference. Whatever. Todd's weird life choices weren't her problem, as long as she got to fly.

Heaving a sigh, she went to rub her face, only to smack a hand against the helmet's mask. She cursed and pulled a clear tablet from a pocket on her thigh. It was cracked, but still able to check the atmosphere, giving her a welcome message:

Air quality within acceptable parameters

"Well, thank fuck for that." She popped the seal at her neck and pulled off the helmet and fitted communications cap underneath. A gust of dry desert wind immediately sucked the sweat from her skin, leaving behind a salty crust. Scrubbing a hand through her shaggy blonde bob, she tousled her flattened waves and inhaled the sweet scent of fresh air. It held an unfamiliar weight and thickness that puzzled her. With the red sand dunes and formations as far as the eye could see, she guessed she crashed somewhere in the Namib Sand Sea. But with gravity pulling on her harder than she was used to, doubt tickled the back of her brain. A heated flush of worry swept through her.

When she first came to, telemetry and guidance were fried. It was all she could do to get the nose pointed down so they wouldn't burn up in atmo. So, where in the hell am I? she thought, a racking cough catching her off-guard and bending her double. She cleared her throat, wincing at the rough scratchiness. Water first, then the rest .

Poking through the wreckage, she muscled back a piece of metal, uncovering a case of emergency rations with a little fist pump of success. She unfastened the top and drained half. The liquid was warm, but it tasted damned good on her parched throat.

She unzipped her formfitting space suit, shrugging off the top portion and tying the arms around her waist. An innovation of one of Todd's partner companies, the deep navy blue fabric, comprised of multiple thin layers, was surprisingly stretchy and comfortable. Usually, the cooling technology was pretty damned good at keeping body temp regulated, except it seemed, under the hot desert sun. Something else to pass along to the design team.

She kicked at a scorched side panel. This mission was a bust. Now, all she wanted to do was take a long shower, pop a couple of ibuprofen, and have a cold beer or three. She took another swig of warm water, trying to pretend it was an ice-cold beer. Alas, her imagination failed her.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, warning of an impending storm. "Great. That's just what I need." She shaded her eyes and peered into the sky, now tinged pinkish-purple from the setting sun. Suns. As in multiple.

Her heart skipped a beat. Two suns? No way. Obviously, she had a concussion and was seeing things.

But a growing worry squirmed at the back of her mind. What if…? She shook away the preposterous thought. The closest Goldilocks planet was at least twenty-two light years from Earth. There was no possibility she'd traveled that far, not in two lifetimes. Besides, she was currently helmetless and breathing oxygen-rich air rather than atmosphere that was mostly nitrogen, helium, or carbon dioxide. Logic said she had to be on Earth.

Right?

She dropped her water bottle to the sand and focused on her tablet. Its processing power was miniscule, but it also functioned as a redundant system, storing a backup of the last hour in flight.

"Come on," she whispered. "Tell me what happened. Or where I am. Something."

The tablet emitted sad little beeps as it struggled to do as she asked.

"Finally," she said, flicking through the data it provided. She blinked hard, trying to process what she was reading. Her heart dropped. "‘Sensors detected an anomaly .00014 milliseconds before loss of function'," Lis read aloud. "‘...anomaly appears to fit the parameters of an Einstein Rosen Bridge'." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fuck. A wormhole? Seriously?"

A sandy, hot wind whistled around her, ruffling her hair. Though there wasn't a cloud in the pink-purple sky, the unceasing roll of thunder grew louder with every passing second, reminding her she seemed to no longer be on Earth or even in her solar system. Possibly no longer even in the Milky Way. There was no telling where the wormhole dumped her.

Her knees, which had been functioning optimally until that moment, gave out on her, and she crumpled against the pitted surface of her broken ship. Lis didn't have time for a complete mental breakdown, but she figured she could spare a moment before figuring out how to survive on a — ohmygod, holy shit — freakin' alien planet.

As a test pilot, she willingly risked her life every time she went up in an experimental craft. When she signed on to this mission, she knew she might never return home. That uncertainty was part of the thrill — going so fast her hair was on fire, risking life and limb to accomplish something no one else had ever done before, and getting to play with all the newest toys and gadgets. Lis was an adrenaline junkie, and she embraced it.

But being stranded on an alien planet was a lot to take in. She closed her eyes and did some deep breathing exercises to center herself. It's just another mission, albeit the most challenging one of your entire life. But we can do this. Be smart. Be brave.

"I've got this," she said, startling a bronze, palm-sized lizard inspecting the tip of her boot. It trilled at her bold statement and skittered away.

Sure, her ship was toast, she didn't know where the hell she was, and she might be the only sentient being on this entire planet, but she could handle this. Challenging adventures were her thing.

Then, proving that the universe had a truly fucked-up sense of humor, she learned exactly how wrong she was when three massive aliens with mottled tan skin the same color as the desert sands stalked towards her.

Good job, Flynn. What excellent survival skills you have there , she berated herself. Pushing off her ship, she widened her stance, her hands curled into fists. And you believed you could survive out here on your own? Girl, you didn't even last a hot minute before some big, scary aliens got the drop on you .

Her first alien encounter. Dammit, I'm not trained for this , she thought.

Taking them head-on was not an option. Even the smallest of the aliens towered over her. Dressed in tattered kilts and mismatched pieces of armor, they were built like brick shithouses, bare chests and arms covered in thick slabs of rock-hard muscle, and faces that reminded her of poorly bred Frenchies, with squashed noses and beady black eyes.

The shortest, his brown hair styled in tall spikes reminiscent of 80s punk rockers, said something, his language sounding like rocks grinding against one another. The others laughed, the scraping noise making her hair stand on end.

She tried telling herself they weren't as intimidating as they looked. These were aliens, after all. She may not be a trained exobiologist, but she shouldn't jump to conclusions about their intentions just because they were unknowns. Maybe they were just as disconcerted by her as she was by them.

However, they had her boxed in, and it was three against one. Her instincts were screaming at her.

"Are you friendly?" she asked.

The three of them stared at her with their beady eyes.

Stiffening her spine, she held out her hands in what she hoped was the universal sign for ‘I come in peace'. "My name is Captain Fidelis Flynn. I'm from Earth. Can you help me out? I have things to trade." She gestured at the items spilling out of the cracked hull and across the sands.

The small one flashed huge, serrated teeth at her.

Her hand twitched. She gave him a tentative chin tip.

He shot her with a net gun.

"Asshole," she shouted, struggling to get out. The fibers were sticky, clinging to her clothes and gluing her to the hull. The more she struggled, the tighter the weave got.

The alien trio watched her efforts to break free, nudging one another and laughing.

Should have run while you had the chance, Lis , the annoying side of her brain said. What are you going to do now? She gritted her teeth, the net rasping against her neck. Honestly? Fuck if I know. But I'm not going out like this, that's for damn sure.

"I've done nothing to you. Let me go, you jackass rock monsters," she growled, trying to tune out the chorus of "Rock Lobster" that started looping through her brain. "Take what you want and leave."

Punk Rock alien said something to the guy on his left, who dug into a pack and pulled out a long silver tube. Lefty grabbed her hair and twisted her head to the side, then jammed the tube against the soft tissue at the base of her ear.

She yelped at the sharp pinch, cursing the stupid rock lobsters… aliens as her thoughts went all wibbly. Her tongue felt thick as pain wrapped around her brain and squeezed. Just as she was about to pass out, the pain receded. "What the fuck was that?" She blinked hard, trying to clear her vision. "What did you do?"

But the dickheads only laughed their rockslide laughs.

Fuckers , she thought, wishing she could shoot lasers out of her eyes and sear their asses. She'd traveled through a wormhole. At the very least, she should get superpowers.

The low distant thunder she'd heard all afternoon grew to a growling roar as four more aliens roared over a dune on super-sized motorcycles.

Wonderful , she thought. More rock monsters. This day just keeps getting better and better .

Her captors howled in welcome and slammed their fists against their chests, the impact reverberating across the desert. The riders gunned their motors in response, rattling the hull with their noise, kicking up sand that tickled her nose.

A familiar mix of adrenaline and fear coursed through her veins, sharpening her thoughts. Whatever they were planning, she wouldn't go down without a fight. Once she got out of the damned web thing, these inhospitable aliens wouldn't know what hit them.

As the aliens ignored her in favor of ransacking her ship, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. A broad- shouldered humanoid watched the scene from atop a nearby ridge.

Awesome . Another alien who saw her ship fall out of the sky and raced over here to pick over its carcass. Or, dare she hope, it was someone here to aid the survivors?

Please let it be the latter , she thought, her situation rapidly devolving from "holy shit, I'm on an alien planet" to "holy shit, I'm going to die on this stupid alien planet" and she wasn't okay with that.

She locked eyes with the alien. An odd thread of connection touched her soul, linking her to him. It was like nothing she'd ever experienced.

Hey there, she thought in his direction — not that she believed he had telepathy but, hey, alien planet so anything was possible — I'm not usually one to ask, but… a little help here ?