Alien Survivor: Stranded on Galatea

I woke when she whispered my name.

That isn't the whole truth: part of me was roused from the depths of my slumber when I felt her

soft, sturdy form pressed against my own, when I felt the weight of her breasts in my hand. But I couldn't hold her there, as much as I wanted to. I had to let her go.

But when she whispered my name, I climbed up from my dreams and started to listen. The second time she said my name, I opened my eyes, and by the time she shrieked, I sprang into action.

I'd seen a Ribomax only once before, and at a great distance, charging paralyzed prey some hundred meters off. And I had the good sense to run before it ever turned its attention to me. But there I was, finding out firsthand that a pistol isn't a sufficient weapon to defend against an aggressive Ribomax, and also that they are significantly faster than I had been told. Maybe, I thought as I got into the rover beside a paralyzed Araceli, they told us that because a smart, gigantic, mean, fast monster was just a little bit too much.

My heart raced, pumping blood through my adrenaline-saturated system at such a rate that I thought I might pass out. And the speed on the rover didn't seem like it was going to cut it. I looked back in the rearview and saw the beast gaining on us, pressing the pedal to the floor of the compartment because that pedal was the only thing between being eaten and being not eaten.

"Ara!" I shouted, wanting to keep her conscious, but it was to no avail: her head lolled to the side as she lost her last shred of consciousness, and maybe it was for the best. Maybe it would be a blessing to be unconscious if we were eaten.

But then, the beast slowed. First to a trot, and then altogether, its hump heaving madly in the air as it attempted to catch its breath. All right, then: the Ribomax could be quick, but only for small bursts of time. The thing collapsed where it stood, plum tuckered out. I cheered where I sat, pumping my fist in the air as I put safe distance between us and the beast.

"Ara, we got away," I shouted, hoping the good news would break through the fog of the paralytic. But my heart was still beating madly because I didn't know how permanent her situation was. After I drove for a solid half hour, I pulled the rover to a stop in the tall grass, checking to see if I could hear the Caromays singing (I could) before unstrapping Araceli from her seat, and climbing out myself. I rounded the rover and opened the passenger's side hatch, sliding my arms beneath her body and lifting her easily out of the compartment. I'd seen her dive out of the way, seen how the paralytic had splashed on the dirt at her feet and ended up on the inside of her left calf and thigh. Examining it, I saw that the spit was acidic in quality, and had eaten through the leg of her pants, and burned her flesh down to the muscle. Horrible third- degree burns, like splatter paint, on her otherwise impeccable skin.

"Gods above," I murmured, and fetched the first aid kit with as much speed as I could muster. "Ara," I said, not knowing what else to do, "we outran a Ribomax." I pulled out some disinfectant, burn salve and gauze. "You and me, we outran one, together. I don't know of any other living soul that can say that."

She made no response, of course, she couldn't even move. And I hoped that she was asleep, instead of trapped like a prisoner inside a body she couldn't command.

Without giving it a second thought, I plucked off her shoes and socks, and tugged down her pants, discarding the destroyed fabric in the tall grass next to us. "I'm sorry about this next part," I murmured, and unwrapped a disinfectant wipe before pressing it to the worst of her burns. They were red and angry, and I knew that if she had been awake, cleaning them out would have made her wail in agony. Honestly, I would have preferred it over her silence.

Once they were clean, I opened the tube of salve and squeezed a generous portion out onto my fingertip. It was a clear sort of gel, and I smeared it liberally over her inner calf and thigh, before wrapping gauze around the worst of it.

"Ok," I whispered, "wake up now." I stared at her as though my will could command her, but she didn't move. I lifted her head and poured water onto her lips, but it just pooled there and dripped down her chin. I was at a complete loss.

I collapsed back onto my ass in the dirt, and watched her, her eyes still wide open but unseeing.

It was horrifying, the most horrifying thing I'd seen during those last few days, and I had seen the contorted grimace of a half-exploded face, and this was still worse.

This was worse because there was nothing to be done for those poor people, they were already gone. But Ara...and I couldn't help but feel that, in more capable hands, she would have been fine. If I'd been better prepared, or if I were smarter. If I were a healer like the women of my clan, maybe I could have done something for her.

The women of my clan.

I reached out and swiped her eyes closed with two gentle fingers before springing to my feet and scooping her up into my arms. Depositing her back in her seat in the rover, I took care to remove her black jacket and drape it over her bare legs, tossing her shoes and socks and ruined pants into the rover at her feet before strapping her in and resuming my spot in the driver's position. Then I floored it again, north, because I knew what I could do to help her. The village we were headed toward: It was my village.

I drove straight through the day, focused and intent, and not caring about anything but arriving

at the gates of my hometown until a low battery light starting to blink on the console of the

rover.

"Come on, buddy," I muttered, "don't crap out on me now."

It was a small miracle that the rover made it all the way to the gates of Hiropass, the town where I'd been born and raised. The sentries at the gate flung them wide for me, as the gates were meant to keep predators out, not other humans or Galateans.

I drove through the center of town, too concerned for Araceli's health to stop and appreciate the scenery for nostalgia's sake. On and on I went, throwing the thing into park right by my parent's front door.

I scooped Ara once more into my arms and banged on the intricately carved wood of my family home. Banged like my life depended on it, because it did. Banged until my sleepy mother came to the door.

Her eyes were wide when she threw the door open, ready to scold who so ever disturbed her slumber. But when she saw me, and the precious cargo I carried, she stepped aside to grant me admittance.

"Put her there, my son," she said to me in Galatean, her tone formal with her urgency, and indicated a plush divan in the sitting room. I laid Ara down as gently as I could and stepped back to give my mother room for her ministrations.

"What happened?"

"Ribomax," I explained, crossing my arms in front of my chest, even as I saw my father

descending the staircase to join us.

"Danovan?" He questioned, eyes wide. "What are you doing here?"

"He has brought an injured woman," my mother said. "A Ribomax, you say?"

I gave a sharp nod of my head. "The paralytic ate through the fabric of her pants and burned her flesh. She's been unconscious since the attack"

"When was this?" My mother asked, hugging her silk floral robe tight around her and tying it at the waist before moving past me to the communications system by the door. It was a small touch screen, but it connected this house to all of the others in the town, one great web of support and supplies.

"This morning," I said, and she looked at me, shocked. "I drove all day to get here."

"I don't understand. What about the ship...?"

"It's a long story."

I watched my mother's fingers fly across the communication device, and I watched her set the message in red, a high alert. It would only be a matter of minutes before other healers burst through the door with their supplies.

"Olander, take Danovan. I will need my space with the girl," my mother said, ever in command. I didn't hesitate to do as she bid, trusting her implicitly.

"One question," she said, one finger held aloft. "What is the girl's name?"

"Araceli," I said, her name catching in my throat. "Dr. Araceli Cross. I...I call her Ara."

My mother nodded, and bent over Ara, cooing gently in her ear before my father caught me by the elbow to lead me into another room.

Ours was a manor house, old and proud, with fine detailing carved into the wood, the likes of which could not be found elsewhere on the planet or, for that matter, the universe. The facade was a slate grey stone with windows edged in Quaridium Drolide, oxidized to a beautiful, rosy gold. The door was made of Cendran wood, a single slab, etched and sanded into a beautiful carving that told the story of the Goddess of the Hearth. The bannisters were webbed Cendran bannisters, and I remember that I got my head stuck in them once when I was a child. I couldn't help but smile at the thought of it.

The house was a pleasant mixture of the modern and the antiquated: the furniture was all natural, woods and natural fibers, and all exquisitely rendered by hand by local craftsman. But we would not be disconnected from the greater web of our community, both locally in Hiropass, and regionally in Pyrathas. Pyrathas was the heart that pumped blood to the outer villages like ours. Though we were self-sustaining, we never wanted to feel cut off.

The comm system in the house was new in the last decade or so, as my mother was prone to being rather traditionalist in nature. But my father insisted on keeping with the times, and after he had secretly installed a news feed in his office, she finally gave in.

Sitting in that self-same office with him now, I switched on the news feed, scanning the headlines for anything that could shed some light on our situation.

“Son,” he said quietly, putting his hand on my arm. I didn't shrug him off, but I wanted to. I wanted to know what was going on, to feel like I had any semblance of control over things. But I didn't. Not at all. I heaved a sigh, and dropped down onto a plush down cushion, nearly twice my size, and hoped that I might vanish into it. "What is going on?"

I laughed a dark, wry laugh. "I wished to the Gods that I knew," I said, my tone full of spit and acid.

My father was a handsome man, from whom I had inherited the brushed nickel tone of my skin. But his brow was not so pronounced as mine, and he had ridges on either side of his mouth that had deepened with age. His eyes were a peridot green so fine they almost glowed, and they were slated like a lizard's. It was a regional thing. My mother's eyes were blue, like Ara's; her skin was pearl white, like Ara's. And she had only recently begun to develop smile lines around her eyes and the gentle curve of her mouth. My mother was a beauty by Galatean standards, but she likely would have been by human standards, too, when she was young. Her brow ridge was subtle in the front, and pronounced at the back, making it look like she had short-cropped white hair that was always perfectly styled into a little point at the back of her head. Her form was lithe and lean, and my father always called her his 'precious opal'. She'd bore two children, she ran a clinic, and she had the run of my father, that was for sure. I loved them dearly.

"The Leviathan was attacked," I said at length to my father, who sat on the edge of his desk with the shock of the news, pressing his fingertips to his mouth as he did so. "It fell...just...straight out of the sky."

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"I saw it." I sighed and made myself look at the news feed, reporting only small local tragedies, nothing on the carnage Ara and I had witnessed. "And when we went to the GenOriens base..." all I could do then was shake my head.

"What happened?" my father urged.

"Carnage," was the only word I could eek out. "Someone is trying to get rid of GenOriens, and all

of their research. And they are coming very close to succeeding."

"You will stay here, then," my father said, coming around to clap me on the shoulder. "It will be good to have you."

"No," I shook my head. "I can't do that. I have to help."

"Help?" my father echoed, his brow furrowed. "But what will you do?"

I looked back into the room we'd just left where my mother was bent over Araceli, who remained unconscious. "Everything I can," I said.

And with that. my father's expression changed. It warmed, softened, and he gave me a knowing nod. "Ah," he said. "You are in love."

"Yeah-" I paused, snapping around to look at him. He had a smug look on his smug face, and I steeled myself against it. "No, she's just a friend."

"Is that so?"

"It is so she's engaged to my boss."

"Who died in the crash of the great ship?"

"Well. It hasn't been concluded definitively." I itched absently at the back of neck. "I should go check on Ara."

"Leave your mother to her work."

"I'd feel better if I were sitting by her side."

"Because you love her." My father was relentless. He was getting on in years, and I knew he wanted to see me settle down with the right girl. But I had to admit, even I was slightly surprised that he was so accepting and excited about the prospect of my mating with a human. Such unions were not necessarily openly discouraged, but they were rare.

It hadn't even occurred to me up until that very moment that anyone would have anything in particular to say about a relationship between Araceli and myself but plenty of people would have much to say, I was sure. I frowned.

"Come," my father said at last, switching off the news feed. "We will find no answers here. But perhaps we will find them in a cup of bull rose tea."

We passed through the foyer and into the sitting room where my mother was working, a bowl of crushed herbs in her hand that she was crushing into a paste. I paused to watch her for a moment, swallowing hard as I tried to get a grip on the errant emotions that were roiling through my body. I found myself casting silent prayers to heedless gods in an empty heaven, as my mother's deft fingers went to work smearing the paste across Araceli's forehead.

I drew in a deep breath, willing her with every ounce of force I possessed to open her eyes, just open your eyes, open your eyes...

Jaelle cal'Darian, my mother, and the most powerful healer Hiropass had ever seen, began to chant quietly just below a register I could easily discern. There was an element of the magical to her work, but when pressed, she would admit that it was the science of it that saved her patients. "But faith," she would amend, "is not to be discounted."

My mother's low hum came to an end, and I was just about to join my father in the kitchen for that cup of promised tea, when my entire universe whittled down to one focal point: Araceli had opened her eyes.