Page 13 of Crash Landed: The Daranthiki

The pod suddenly jerked downward, and Daisy scrambled into the alien’s lap, her fingernails digging into whatever she could get a grip on as she clung to him.

“A small miscalculation,” he muttered as he gently disentangled himself from her hold, like she was a particularly needy and very frightened cat. “I have it now.”

Daisy gave him a doubtful look, but he appeared to be perfectly at ease as the pod leveled out again and shot toward the planet in a gradual slope. Try as she might, she couldn’t be so confident. She stared as the planet’s topography became increasingly defined as the pod descended into its upper atmosphere and sank her fingernails into Zil’s massive thighs with every violent shake. He grunted in response, his pelvis flexing involuntarily. His attention didn’t break, however. Even when the pod began to vibrate and pitch unnaturally and the metal screeched in protest, he remained focused. All she could do was hold tightly to his legs on either side of her as she stared at the rapidly approaching ground with wide eyes, her chest rising and falling with every quick, fearful pant for air.

She felt like she couldn’t get enough air. She could barely breathe as her throat closed around a scream she desperately wanted to let loose. But somehow, she didn’t. Somehow, she remained quiet.

Baren rock rose to meet them, and the entire pod jerked violently as metal squealed and sand and rocks kicked up in a massive explosion. Zil’s arm closed around her chest, anchoring her to him as the pod rolled violently, pitching them over and over and over. The relief that she felt when they stopped rolling was so strong that she couldn’t even move for several minutes as she held tightly to the alien while her heart hammered a powerful rhythm as if it was attempting to jump directly out of her chest. She panted anxiously and jumped when Zil’s large hand stroked her back.

“Breathe.”

“I am breathing,” she shot back. “I am breathing so much that I may just pass out from it.”

She was in fact feeling a bit lightheaded. She rapidly blinked her eyes for a moment as she struggled to maintain her focus as the world got blurry around the edges.

“So I see,” Zil rumbled as darkness finally descended over her.

Chapter 11

Zil frowned at the rough black terrain surrounding them. This was the planet that the life pod had determined was capable of sustaining them until rescue arrived? Was the pod’s AI irreparably damaged? He climbed up the slope to get a better look at his surroundings and was met with disappointment. The planet did not appear to be remotely hospitable. It looked volcanically active, like some primordial soup of condensation, lava, and jagged formations of stone. How was he supposed to keep a fragile human alive in this?

His ear twitched at the sound of Daisy’s labored breathing just below his position. He glanced down curiously and struggled not to smile at the sight of the small female clinging tenaciously to the rocks as she attempted to follow him despite being told to stay put by the pod. She was clearly not accustomed to such an activity, but perhaps she was not as soft as he previously believed.

“Ouch! Damn it!” She hissed.

His long ears twitched at her sound of pain, and he squinted down at her hand, worried that she may have cut herself on the rocks. He regretted that they had not had the time to search for the gloves that humans customarily wore with their TRS.

“Have you injured yourself?”

“No.” She sighed with a little whimper and shook her hand before glancing morosely down at it. “I broke a nail.”

“I see.” He could not think of a better response. Human nails were notoriously thin and delicate, not like the talons possessed by the Daranthiki and other species. Turning away, he chuckled quietly to himself, not wishing to injure the female’s pride. No, he was correct in his original assessment—she was very soft. “It will be a challenge protecting you from physical harm if you are harming yourself this easily,” he pointed out as he bent, took her hand, and carefully hauled her up onto the rock beside him.

He did not expect the small, grateful smile she gave him. It sent a strange fluttering feeling through his chest that he could not define. The unrecognized response of emotion disturbed him, and he quickly released her hand and acknowledged her gratitude with a nod. His reaction was unfortunately not missed. She raised an eyebrow, but he was surprised anew when a rueful chuckle escaped her.

“I will work harder to not damage myself,” she said so brightly that he wondered if she was aware of how precarious their situation was. Perhaps humans were not so much a brave warrior race but rather a species comprised of utter lunatics. “And if I do, we just won’t count that against you.”

He peered at her speculatively. That was surprisingly generous compared to the terms she offered in the life pod.

“What defines the point at which I am responsible?”

“Oh, well, anything that I’m not directly responsible for. If I willfully eat something that makes me sick, that’s on me. If you give me something that makes me sick, then you take the blame. If I fall down a cliff because I decide not to follow the path you set out, then that’s on me. If I fall down a cliff because you did not check to make sure it was safe, then—”

“Your point is clear,” he rumbled. That was fairer than he had expected. “Just try not to damage yourself to the point of making it difficult for me to keep you safe.”

Her laughter echoed among the surrounding rocks, and she grinned over at him. “I think I’m going to like you after all. You aren’t the politest, and you seem to enjoy ignoring conventions that inconvenience you, but you are surprisingly amusing.”

His lips twitched faintly. He did not think he was so humorous, but he felt another warm flutter in his chest, and he wrenched his gaze away from her to scan their surroundings once more. Perhaps his systems were malfunctioning. He would have to run full diagnostics on himself at the first opportunity once they got off the planet and he could hook himself into a med unit. His eyes narrowed as he focused on a tall peak in the distance that his processors confirmed was the location of the beacon on Habtal. The irony of the planet being named Glory was not lost on him. Despite being a source of mineral wealth for the Daranthiki Empire, there was nothing objectively glorious about it. The beauty of his home planet with its vast farms would have been better suited to the name.

“This place is pretty dreary,” Daisy quietly observed at his side.

“The aesthetic does not matter,” he argued. It did not matter that he agreed with her. His own opinion of the planet did not matter either. All that mattered was surviving. Focus on the mission—that was all that was necessary. Facts would keep them alive. “The life pod would not have chosen Habtal if we could not survive on it until retrieval. It may not be pleasant, but not impossible.”

Daisy grimaced in response. “It certainly isn’t anyone’s idea of a dream vacation, that’s for sure. Someone ought to have recalibrated those things to at least some minimal measure of comfort. Clean, plentiful water would be a good starting place.”

“It probably might have if it were not for the fact that it was forced to recalibrate to compensate for its inferior state,” he reminded her with a pointedly annoyed look despite his private amusement at her observation. “Regardless, whether it is passable as a vacation destination does not matter. Survival is what is important. Save your comforts for when you can afford to have them,” he growled as if he had not made the same observation. With a flick of his tail, he released her hand and began walking.

Silence followed him instead of the female, and he was about to turn and demand to know what she was waiting for when she chose that moment to shout after him.