At least he’d said land instead of crash or splash down. She didn’t think Earth had mastered the ability to actually land something like this yet. Astronauts always seemed to just splash down in the ocean instead.
Her anxiety rose as the planet grew before them.
Ava trusted Jak’ri. She really did. If he said he could get them safely through the atmosphere, she believed him. But she’d seen so many movies in which shuttles had blown apart and rained down to Earth in balls of fire because they had entered the atmosphere at the wrong speed or angle that her heart nevertheless began to pound when the first vibrations began.
Clinging to her harness with one hand, she clamped the other onto Jak’ri’s thigh and hung on for dear life, every muscle tense. The view outside the window blurred. The vibration increased. The medic bag and its contents rattled while she waited for an alarm to start blaring.
Then all was calm.
She blinked.
Cottony clouds slipped past outside the window.
“Are we through?” she asked.
Jak’ri pried her hand from his thigh and brought it to his lips for a kiss. “We’re through.”
She relaxed. “Sorry. I hope I didn’t squeeze you too tight. Space travel is still very new to me.”
“No worries,” he said with a smile, borrowing her Earth phrase. He lowered her hand to his thigh, gave it a pat, then focused on guiding the pod closer to land.
Night had fallen on this side of the planet. But the light reflected by three moons produced ample illumination for them to see by.
“How many moons does this planet have?” she asked, peering curiously at the world beneath them.
He glanced at the console. “Seven.” Tapping the screen, he zoomed in on the continent he intended to land upon. “Computer, show topographical rendering of the landform beneath us.”
“Rendering.”
The image changed from lush trees to lumpy land bereft of foliage.
“Overlay it.”
The topographical map’s opacity reduced enough for them to see the trees through it.
Jak’ri pointed to one area she decided to deem the south. “We may be able to find caves in these hills or rock formations that we can shelter in.”
Leaning closer, she pointed. “This looks like it might be a small river or stream. So we’d have access to fresh water.”
“I’m going to land over here.” He motioned to a point some distance away to the north. “I’ll try to slip in between the trees and use them for cover, make it harder to detect the pod. Then we can hike over to the…” He paused, looked at her, then swore.
“What?”
“I forgot your foot was injured. We didn’t grab any shoes on our way off the ship.”
“Well,” she said with a smile, “we were kind of busy.”
But he seemed to be mentally kicking himself for not snagging her some footwear.
“Nothing on that ship would’ve fit me, Jak’ri. I have small feet even by Earth’s standards.” Which was why she hated shoe shopping and pretty much lived in sneakers. She could never find anything else she liked in her size.
“I’ll land closer to the hills then and—”
“No. The farther away you land, the farther we’ll have to walk and climb to find shelter, which means nature will have more time to cover our tracks. This area looks like the rainforests back home, so maybe we’ll luck out and it’ll rain. If not, maybe those millions of mammals and reptiles the computer detected—all of which are hopefully vegan—will rustle about and muck up any footprints we leave behind before the Gathendiens get here.”
“What does vegan mean?”
“They only eat plants.”
“Oh. Then yes, I hope they’re all vegan, too. But walking that distance will be painful for you and—”
“I’m okay, Jak’ri.” She caught and held his gaze. “I can do this.” Especially since the wound had at least partially healed after she’d infused herself while he slept.
He rested the long fingers of one hand on her neck just beneath her ear and stroked her cheek with his thumb. Urging her closer, he pressed his soft lips to hers in a sweet kiss that nevertheless made her pulse pick up. “Will you at least let me carry you if your foot starts to hurt more?”
“No. Will you let me carry you if your wounds begin to hurt more?” He did, after all, still bear wounds and scars from the Gathendiens’ surgeries.
He smiled. “No. Ziv’ri would mock me if I—” He clamped his lips shut. The little sparkle of light in his eyes died as his expression darkened with grief. Closing his eyes, he sighed and pressed his forehead to hers.
Her heart going out to him, Ava rested a hand on the nape of his neck and stroked him with her thumb.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I can’t seem to…”
“It’s okay,” she whispered, offering him what solace she could. “It’s okay.” They had dreamed about Ziv’ri again last night. It had been so real that both had been crushed upon awakening and realizing anew that he was gone.
Jak’ri had even ordered the computer to search for any other craft that might be near enough for her to pick up the pilot’s thoughts. But that slim hope had withered when the computer had detected none.
Something similar had happened after Ava’s grandfather had died when she was five years old. Grandpa Vic had been on Ava’s mind so much that he’d peopled her dreams for weeks, making it all the harder for her parents to help her understand that he was gone.
Opening his eyes, Jak’ri withdrew and returned his attention to the console.
Blinking back tears, Ava followed his gaze. “So what’s our Plan B?”
He guided the pod toward the designated landing area. “Plan B?”
She nodded. “If the Gathendiens do the unexpected and start looking for us here, or if the damn mother ship follows and they send whole squadrons down searching for us, what should we do? I’m faster and stronger now, but I’m guessing there are still limits to how many warriors I can fight at a time. And I doubt your rifles have unlimited fire power.”
Brow furrowing, he studied the map. “If Gathendiens descend upon the area in numbers too large for us to handle…” He started to say something, then closed his mouth again without speaking.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“The only way we’re going to survive this is if we bounce ideas off each other, Jak’ri.”
He must have agreed because he pointed to the western coast of the continent they hovered above.
And how cool was it that this pod could fly and hover without wings or rotors? She would have to ask Jak’ri how it did that once they landed.
“Here’s the region we’re hoping to seek shelter in,” he said. “Most of this coast over here consists of cliffs. Computer, how high are these cliffs?”
The computer offered up a measurement she didn’t understand.
“How deep is the water here?” he tapped the screen.
Again the computer offered up measurements she didn’t understand.
“And here?”
More meaningless measurements.
She glanced at Jak’ri. “If it isn’t in feet, yards, or meters, I have no idea how tall or deep that is.”