- Caroline -

“We saw that blinking light every night for several days. And we were pretty sure it was you.”

It’s early morning the day after our wedding, and the old girls and I are sitting right outside the cave, watching the first rays of the sun light up the top of Bune. The new girls are still sleeping. The cave is very crowded now, and we’ll have to build huts.

“That was the idea,” I reply. “I mean, nothing else flashes like that here.”

“Right,” Heid says, sipping on an infusion of leave. “But the dactyls refused to get close to it. Like it scared them. Even in the daytime. So we patrolled the area around it, as close as we could get the dactyls to fly. But we saw nothing special, except that weird dry riverbed. Which we’ve seen many times before, so it wasn’t that weird to us. Of course we didn’t know it was a dragon’s trench.”

“Xark’on’s tribe used to kill dactyls from that tree house,” I explain. “Those things really fear it now.”

“They really do. So today we flew another patrol, and we saw movement and a whole bunch of guys and you. And that was it.”

“I’m really glad you did,” I say. “We didn’t have much of a chance against those guys. So you have two of those things now?”

“Yeah,” Heidi confirms. “Dar’ax actually wanted one for each of us. He’s a romantic, you see. So he’d secretly been taming one away in the jungle. He knew you guys aren’t super happy about dactyls close to the cave. He’s the one who saw your signal first, in fact.”

“A flashing light at sunset,” Sophia says, nursing little Aurelia. “Pretty good idea.”

I shrug. “It was the only thing that crossed my mind. I was cut off from you guys.”

“I sure wonder why the dactyls would dump the girls there in the first place,” Aurora muses. “And then the dragon comes right after to make sure they don’t leave.”

“Both things were arranged by Bune,” Emilia states. “Why, I don’t know. But it’s just obvious. Why didn’t all the dactyls dump their girls, though? There were more than twelve who were taken away.”

“Maybe they were dumped somewhere else,” Sophia speculates. “There might be more dragons around.”

“We’ve never seen any more of those trenches from the air,” Heidi says. “If there are any, they’re far away.”

We just sit and enjoy the morning for a while. The air is cool, and the turkeypig stew is bubbling in the pot. For once I’m not the one who’s making it. Apparently the girls feel that my honeymoon has started already. That’s fine with me.

“That tree house sounds great, though,” Sophia sighs. “Nice view and no dactyls.

“It's really nice,”I confirm. “Some brave dactyls will scream at it from a distance, but that's as bad as it gets. We don't think the tribe will come there. They don't like leaving the village. Xark'on will claim it as his if they show up, and then they can decide if they'll fight him for it. It's only fair. His father pretty much built it.”

“So is he cast out now, or what?”

“He assumes that he is. He’s not going to ask. He doesn’t want anything more to do with them.”

“I don’t blame him,” Aurora says. “That tribe is bad news. Especially that chief. What happened to him, anyway?”

I shrug. “Xark’on knocked him out, and someone dragged him away into the jungle. We don’t really care. I think having to stay a virgin is punishment enough.”

“Xark’on not the vindictive type?” Delyah asks carefully.

“He’s not,” I state with some pride. “I actually never saw him kill anyone or anything, except for the dragon. He’s good at using non-lethal force, looks like. That hammer of his helps with that.”

“A sword is pretty much on or off,” Emilia agrees. “If you use it, someone usually dies. There’s no middle ground. It’s either in its sheath or sticking out of someone’s chest.”

“Can’t someone invent the taser?” Heidi suggests. “I’d buy one.”

“Someone should,” I agree. “But we first have to invent electricity. Can we, Delyah?”

Delyah shrugs. “We can. In theory. We have iron, and that’s a good start. We’d need some copper.”

“Okay,” I decide. “Let’s invent the taser today. Delyah will mine copper and make electricity. I’ll make plastic for the casing. Emilia, you make the battery. Aurora, you have to come up with a cute design for it. I’m thinking something unicorn-y?” Yeah, I’m a little giddy today. I’m married! To Xark’on!

The girls take my silliness in stride.

“If we have batteries, that kind of opens the door to certain other inventions,” Heidi says. “But I’m not going to expand on that.”

“Like toy cars?” Sophia deadpans. “Talking dolls? Cellphones?”

Heidi nods. “You’re a mother, so of course you’d think something dirty like that. Yeah, no. I had something else in mind. But you’re all such innocent young girls, I’m not going to tell you what.”

“She means vibrators,” Aurora whispers very loudly. “You know, to massage your shoulders after a long day in the fruit mines.”

“Ooh,” I coo. “Sounds wonderful.”

“It does,” Heidi agrees. “So Xark’on’s never going back? Didn’t he have a cave or a tent in that village? Some belongings?”

I fill a hollow stone with the hot infusion. “He only cares about his art supplies. And he has those. He wishes he had his sewing set, he says. The night before the trap was ready he went back to the village, got the skin and left. But then he changed his mind, went back and then spent the whole night in his tent, just sewing my new dress. Says he wanted it to be a small goodbye present in case he died trapping the dragon, and he didn't think that just the skin was enough. The dress turned out nice, too.”

Sophia frowns. “Did he really intend to use himself as bait?”

“He did for a while. Then he changed his mind and wanted to think of something else. But the bait had to be alive to be effective. And human. When it came down to it, he just couldn’t wrap his mind around actually using someone for that.”

Some of the new girls are waking up and shuffling out of the cave, rubbing their eyes. We greet them and give them a place to sit among us, food and hot drinks that are nothing like coffee.

“So how’re you holding up?” Emilia says softly. “After you had to kill that guy?”

“Pretty good,” I say honestly. “He would have killed Xar’kon. I did what I had to. It’s the way of the jungle. Sometimes it’s kill or be killed. This planet has hardened me. I mean, I’m sure we’d all develop PTSD like all hell if we were back home. But Xren allows no weakness. It gives you no time to dwell on the bad things.”

Aurora hands out leaves full of not-sheep stew. “So when are we going to Bune to straighten things out once and for all?”

We all look at Delyah. She’s the expert on those things.

“We’ve had it with Bune,” she says. “That dragon was the last straw. We’ll get Emilia’s delivery out of the way. And then we’ll see how long it takes to make weapons for all of us. Crossbows and knives and swords and spears with long steel blades. We’ll make steel armor for the guys. I want the new mothers and the visibly pregnant to stay here. When we go to Bune, it’s not to chat with whichever entity is toying with us. It’s to take over the whole place. Because this? This is is war.”

It’s very quiet, and I’ve got goosebumps. I’ve never heard Delyah speak with such coldness.

“They made Delyah mad,” Sophia finally says. “I think that’s the last thing they’ll ever do.”

- - -

It’s a long walk to the tree house. The trench is still there, but now the glass is broken and there are little green shoots all over it, finding their way up from the sand. The trench will soon be a pleasant little valley.

“We should cut the vegetation down here regularly,” I suggest as we walk through it. “It will be like a road. We can walk much faster down here.”

“A road in the jungle,” Xark'on muses. “Not just for survival. But because it's better. Yes, we will do that. Perhaps Troga was good for something in the end.”

We walk around the trap, keeping our distance. I have no desire to go anywhere near it again.

When we come to the tree, we spend some time making damn sure that there's nobody up there. The ropes are hanging there like usual.

Xark'on takes the rope off the nail. “My father forged that nail. And he hammered it in right there. Using this hammer.” He knocks on the head of his sledgehammer.

“I'd say that this is your tree house,” I state. “That tribe doesn't have any claim to it. Sacred or not.”

When we get up there, everything is the way it used to be. Well, most things. I take some time to rub away Xark'on's dried blood from when he'd been hit on the head.

Then I stand by the railing and feel the breeze. The worries and the dangers of the jungle just melt away up here in the fresh air. I can feel my shoulders lowering as I take a deep breath and just relax.

We'll be here for two weeks until Heidi signals to us that Emilia is about to give birth. We want everyone to be there for that. It seems like a tribal thing to do.

I help Xark'on hang up his pictures all over the inner wall of the house. Then we eat a good dinner, drink a little of the krunik and just watch the sun setting over the jungle.

“Tomorrow we'll hunt together,” I say. “Get food and water. We'll make more blue color. Enjoy the peace and quiet. You'll paint. I'll see if I can do some writing. Do you know what that is?”

“Yes, of course.

I frown. “You do?”

“Oh yes. I do that all the time.”

“You write?”

“All the time.”

I scratch my head. “It's just, I've never seen you do it. And there's no written language on this planet.”

“We have many of those. All written. The languages. Especially the one by the pond.”

He's lost me good. “By the pond?”

“Yes. Written language. It's very nice. Kind of grainy. I've seen better, though. Some tribesmen saw a very large one over by Berion Hill. Just a season ago.”

I think for a minute. “Is any of this true?”

“No.”

I punch his shoulder. “You're terrible. But okay, fine. I get it. I'll stop patronizing you. I'll show you what writing is tomorrow. I intend to develop the written version of cavemanese. Can't be that hard. I'll test it out on you until you beg for mercy. You'll be the first tribesman who know how to read.”

“I can't wait,” Xark'on says drily.

“You'll love it,” I assure him. “All kinds of stuff opens up if you can read.”

“Does it? How about this? Does this open up?” He places his hand right on my pussy.

I spread my legs so he can grope me good. I'm very ready for it. “That thing there is always open for youuoohoohhhhh yeaaaaaahhhh...”

He soon tires of fingering me, so he pulls the dress off me and lifts me into the hammock.

Gods, I missed this. He'll fuck me good, and then I'll come as hard as I ever have. Now he's mine for good. Forever and for all.

I'm going to scream out my ecstasy and my joy right out over the jungle. It tries to kill us every day. Now it'll know that life is still winning. And that our victory is too sweet for ordinary words. It has to be screamed.

I spread my legs and open myself to my husband. “I love you.”

His eyes are warm and dark and infinitely deep. Like all the rest of him. “And I love you.”

He places his cock a my entrance and I'm shaking in expectation.

He grips my hips and I spread more.

Then he thrusts.

- - -

© Calista Skye 2018

- - -

To be continued in fall 2018 with Part 6, Caveman Alien's Secret, which is Delyah's story.

Sign up to my to be informed when the next part of this series is available!

- - -

Meanwhile, try my completed Fire Planet Warriors series! Here's an excerpt:

: Part One of the Fire Planet Warriors series

––––––––

Chapter 1

- Harper -

“I'll never get tired of that.”

Harper stroked an errant wisp of hair out of her face and took a breath of thin, dry alien air. The sky was dark, but the planet Bry was clearly visible as a crescent right above her head. Half of the planet was in darkness, and the other half was lit up by the white sun. On the dark side of the planet a thin, yellow line of light was clearly visible as it pulsated erratically along its length.

Ava glanced up at the sky. “Looks like it's picking up steam.” She opened the door to the biodome. “Must have hit a dry area.”

Harper squinted. Ava was right – the huge wildfire that circled Bry's one continent was brighter than it had been the night before. Seen from Gideo Station on one of Bry's moons, it was just a jagged yellow line, but even so it was obvious to everyone who saw it that it had to be an enormous fire.

The blaze never went out. Bry's single continent was a rough O, with a giant lake in the middle. The fire raged around and around the continent like the minute hand on an antique clock, and the vegetation just had time to regrow before it was burned again as the fire completed one more lap.

It was one of the most mysterious things in the universe, and being able to look at it every day from pretty close was one reason why Harper had volunteered to go into space to set up Gideo Station. Maybe one day she would even be able to go to Bry itself and see the blaze from even closer ...

Ava kicked the dust off her boots, stepped inside the biodome and held the door open for Harper. “You coming?”

“Just a moment. I've never seen it this intense before.”

“Suit yourself. I'm not staying out here on pizza night.” Ava let the door slam shut and Harper was alone on the sand outside the station. She couldn't hold back a happy smile. Outside the station on an alien moon many light years from Earth. It still blew her mind every time she thought about it.

It was hard work being a space colonist, with many sixteen-hour days and a multitude of problems that had to be solved every day. But it also let her see things that no Earthling ever had before. Like that eternal fire that just went around and around, once every four hundred days, and no one knew exactly why or how it was even possible. That was why they were there in the first place, monitoring the strange fire planet from this base on the planet's moon. A moon with an atmosphere, even. The opportunity to establish a base here was too good to pass up for Earth's Space Expansion.

A thin whirring noise reached Harper's ears and she glanced behind her. The main telescope was adjusting its angle slightly to get the best possible view of the fire. It was controlled by a computer, but still there were four humans here to set up the station and then take care of the equipment until the computer could handle everything on its own.

It was the best job Harper had ever had, even though she had been skeptical when first she learned that by coincidence, this base would have an all-female staff. There were only four of them, but they had great chemistry and they were all good friends by now. Base chief Ava was the oldest of them, and she made sure that everyone was included in everything. She would not tolerate any infighting at all. That woman was just born to be a leader. Just like Charlotte was born to be a shuttle pilot and Lily was born to be a computer nerd. Harper herself probably wasn't exactly born to be a biologist, but she loved it. They were a great team-

She frowned. One of the stars in the sky above her was moving. No, it couldn't be a star. It moved fast across the night sky. It got brighter, too, as if it was coming closer. It was very white.

A shuttle? No, that didn't look right. And there was no sound, either.

Harper took a step towards the biodome door and grabbed onto the door handle. Now the light went back and forth across the sky, like it was searching for something. It moved insanely fast, then suddenly grew much larger. It had to be coming right for her!

She pushed the handle down and opened the door, ready to dive inside if something threatening were to happen.

Something more threatening, she corrected herself. Because that thing there wasn't just a light. It was something big and dark that totally obscured the stars behind it. It had to be huge.

And suddenly it had many lights! In all kinds of different colors, blinking and flashing and rotating and twirling in a pattern so splendorous that Harper had to gasp at the impact it had on her senses.

She realized that she was gawping, but she found it impossible to take her eyes off the thing. It hovered silently in the air above the sand, and it had to be the size of an apartment building. It was very beautiful and the lights were extremely friendly.

Harper slowly let go of the door handle and just stood there, staring.

Yes, friendly. It only wanted what was best for her ...

- - -

She came to and immediately knew she was in big trouble. She was tied on her hands and feet, and she was lying on her side on a metallic floor.

She knew she had been asleep. Or unconscious. But now she was awake, and she felt no ill effects. She wasn't even drowsy.

She got up into a sitting position. Yeah, this wasn't the inside of Gideo Station or any other place she had ever been. This was ... alien. But not alien in any way she had ever expected. The metal floor was rusty in patches, and the dim light was yellowish. There were uneven walls with strange-looking consoles and lights and technology that had to be advanced, but still managed to look old and even dirty.

But the most alien thing was the aliens themselves.

There were four of them, standing around her in a circle, just silently staring at her in a way that was so creepy it sent shivers down Harper's spine. The were roughly human-shaped, with two legs and two arms that were so long they reached almost all the way to the floor when they stood upright. Except they weren't really upright – they were all hunched over in a way that made them seem unhealthy. Their skin was a yellowish pale that was translucent in places, showing greenish internal organs inside. Their heads were small and pointy on top, and there was no hair, just brownish scales that grew down the sides of their faces.

They had six muddled, dirty white eyes each, on short stalks that hung limply from their low foreheads. That more than anything else made Harper want to shrink away from them. That and the obvious fact that they were clearly aroused. They had dirty loincloths on, but they were all clearly pitching tents in them. Not huge tents, but there was definitely something going on there that Harper really didn't want to know more about.

There was an unpleasant smell in the room and the whole situation just felt unhealthy to her. Very unhealthy.

She cleared her voice. “So if you could take these ropes off me right now, that would be great.”

The aliens looked at her impassively. She noticed that they had some kind of yellowish drool running from their tiny mouths and it almost made her retch. Their hands had two long, pale fingers and no thumbs.

She struggled against the wires binding her. “I'm not kidding. Let me go or there'll be hell to pay.”

Harper felt panic bubbling up, but she was getting angry, too. She had been taken in by the light display from the UFO, probably hypnotized by it, and then somehow she had ended up here in a not too clean spaceship with aliens ogling her. What the fuck did they think they were doing?

“Hey! I'm talking to you!”

They were looking at her. Maybe. Their milky eyes hung down and had no irises, so it was hard to tell. Maybe they were blind. But they did move, so they weren't dead. Still they reminded her of zombies. Alien zombies, sure, but there was something dead about them.

And they were definitely aliens. That in itself was huge. No one had ever met aliens before. She was the first. She groaned inwardly. So of course they had to be the crappy kind of alien. No beautiful elf-like beings with wisdom and extraordinary technology for Harper, like she had sometimes dreamed about in her fantasies before she actually went to space. No, these were dirty beings with knock-out-lights and drool and loincloths and probably hard-ons.

Still they didn't react, and Harper went through the contents of her jump suit in her mind. Maybe there was something she could use to cut the wires. They looked like plastic fiber of some kind.

Okay. She had chewing gum, she was pretty sure. A couple of spare tampons, probably. Her comms unit. A stylus, maybe, unless she had misplaced it like she always did. Chapstick. Medkit.

She glanced down at her utility belt. Oh yeah. And a little ceramic trowel for the plants that they were growing for food in the biodome.

That was it. No knife, no gun, no pliers. Just all kinds of stuff that was useful in their own way, but not for escaping from ties while being maybe watched by aliens that might be blind but probably weren't.

They hadn't tied her that tightly, but the position was awkward. She really had to keep her anger seething, because right underneath that lurked panic.

Harper took a deep breath. “Okay. This is your last warning. Take these wires off me or I'll report you so hard you'll think you died and went to hell- hey, stop that!”

Two of the aliens took clumsy steps towards her and lifted her up. Their arms were so long they didn't have to bend down to grab her and pull her to her feet.

“That's bet- uurgch,” Harper said, because right then the stench from the aliens hit her and she couldn't suppress the dry-heaves. Her mouth filled with saliva and her eyes filled with water, and she had to fight to not just throw up right there.

The aliens didn't loosen the wires that held her. They grabbed onto her upper arms and dragged her over to some kind of contraption crudely made from shiny metal bars. Harper had to concentrate to breathe through her mouth to not feel the sewage-like smell they exuded, but when she had blinked the nauseous tears from her eyes, she noticed that the thing had straps on it and that the aliens were clearly adjusting it to her size. She saw a metal tray with some rusty-looking tools on it that vaguely reminded her of surgical equipment.

“Hey,” she yelled, “what the hell do you think you're doing!” She struggled against the grips the aliens had on her, squirming like a worm, but they were surprisingly strong and held her easily.

They loosened the bindings on her wrists and ankles, but they held on to her so securely with their hands that she couldn't move much. “Let me go, you fuckers!”

One alien crouched down and held her leg, then fastened a strap around it. Another one did it to her other leg, and now she was tied with her legs spread pretty far apart.

Shit. In a flash she realized that the contraption was a rack for holding her securely while they- she didn't want to finish the thought. But she couldn't ignore the fact that they were clearly aroused behind those loincloths. “Stop that! Stop that now! I do not agree to this!”

Harper was dimly aware that there were more people in the room now, more aliens with long arms and a hunched posture. The stench intensified, but now she was too concerned with her immediate future to care much.

She yelled and squirmed and yanked her arms to get them loose, but nothing helped. And now the anger was giving way to real panic. These beings clearly didn't have her best interests in mind if they had to strap her to something.

They bent her forward and strapped her wrists to the metal rack in front of her, so she was standing bent over with her butt in the air. The aliens' intention was becoming pretty clear.

And all doubt disappeared when they loosened the lower half of her jumpsuit and pulled it down as far as it would go, and then her panties, so she was standing with her bare butt in the air. And she was pretty sure they weren't just going to give her a beneficial vaccine or check her temperature. Curse the practical design of that jumpsuit that allowed it to be split at the waist!

“Damn it,” she yelled in a last attempt, “I don't want this! You're not allowed to do any of this or anything you have in mind! I don't agree to this!”

But the aliens huddled together behind her. The metal construction was so shiny that she could see them as in a mirror – they were all studying her rear end with great interest.

And then they started prodding her flesh with cold, alien fingers and she screamed in anger and fear.

Her scream partly drowned it out, but she was aware that there a tremendous crashing noise right at the same time. And the aliens were no longer prodding or looking at her.

She stared into the metal 'mirror' and saw that the wall behind her had collapsed. It had a hole in it now, a jagged hole with darkness behind it. She struggled against her binds. If that was open to space, she would be dead in no time.

The aliens had their backs to her and seemed to be staring at the hole in the wall in obvious surprise and fear. And then there was movement. A leg and a body and arms – someone was definitely coming in through it. The aliens clearly hadn't expected it.

Harper didn't know if it was good news, but anything that would postpone the rape the aliens were clearly planning was okay with her.

The light was dim, but that person that just blew a hole in the wall and came in sure looked like a human. A pretty spectacular human. Harper couldn't make out any details in the reflection, but it sure looked like a man with a bare torso and muscles from here to Andromeda. And an axe. Definitely an axe.

And here she was, tied down with a bare butt and practically presenting all her charms for him. She struggled against the straps, but there was no give in them.

She stared into the shiny metal and tried to make out what was happening behind her. It didn't seem as if anyone was that interested in her anymore.

The room had been pretty quiet until now, with only a creaky hum coming from somewhere. But suddenly there was a terrible cacophony of high-pitched noise, a screechy sound that made Harper want to clasp her hands over her ears. But she couldn't, so she just groaned and clenched her jaw, still staring into the reflection. Then it dawned on her what was happening: the aliens were talking. That was how they spoke. Like nails on a chalkboard. Well, it fit perfectly with the way they looked.

And then she heard another voice. Yep, that was a man, no doubt about it. The voice was deep and calm, but still had a note of pure menace and extreme danger. It was no language Harper had ever heard, but it was melodious and had some hard consonants.

There was screeching again. Shit, they were talking more. And from the pattern of the conversation, Harper was pretty sure that they were haggling.

Over her.

Because the aliens were definitely holding fistfuls of shiny metal up to the newcomer, as if trying to tempt him. And they were all gesticulating in her direction. Except the man. He was just glancing at her, not too interested in the shiny things they were shoving in his face. The ugly aliens were very agitated, but he was calm and icy.

Harper felt a small spark of hope come alive. That guy was clearly not a good friend of those aliens. Maybe he was here to save her? Some kind of space police, maybe? He did look pretty human, but she was also sure he was not from Earth.

The screechy noises increased in pitch and intensity, and from Harper's point of view it looked like that aliens were about to attack the newcomer. But he held his ground effortlessly, and she even thought she recognized a smirk on his face.

Then she stiffened. The stranger sauntered over to her, sliced the straps with his very sharp axe and took hold of her wrist in one large and callused hand. It had four fingers plus a thumb, Harper counted quickly to some relief as she straightened up and hurriedly pulled her pants up with her free hand.

Then she looked at the man holding her.

She had to look up at his face, because he was tall. And wide, with densely packed muscle. The face was definitely human, but the eyes were absolutely not. There were no whites and no irises, just a cold, blue light that sent shivers down Harper's spine. He looked at her with no expression on his face that she could detect. But he was definitely studying her with those radiant eyes. She felt like an insect under a microscope. A handsome and rugged microscope with golden hair and blue eyes that could light up a room.

This was getting ridiculous. Finally she found her voice again. “Umm ... hi?”

The man didn't reply, just loosened his grip on her wrist so she could pull her pants up all the way and fasten them. She got a grip on the gardening trowel in her belt. The ceramic blade was blunt and dirty with artificial soil from the biodome, but it might also be used as a weapon. Somehow.

The man said some words to her and pushed her in front of him with at firm hand, towards the hole he had come from. Beyond it was dark, and Harper wasn't too sure about going in there. But staying among the ugly, stinky aliens in here wasn't much of an option, either.

The man quickly tied something around Harper's wrist. It was a loop of a leather-like material, and he held the other end in his hand. Had he put her on a leash?

“Hey, what the fuck are you do-”

The man placed a hand at the small of her back and pushed her in front of him towards the hole in the wall, and she stumbled towards it.

Shit. He had definitely put a leash on her. That had to be a bad sign. Had he bought her from those ugly aliens? Harper had been to enough supermarkets to know that a transaction of some kind had taken place here, and that the item being bought and sold here was her.

She turned as well as she could. “You know, these guys kidnapped me and tried to rape me. I'm here completely against my will. I don't agree to any of this. You have no right!”

The man frowned and gave her another push, then said something in his own language, something that had a rough sound to it.

Harper was in two minds. On one hand, this guy hadn't tried to harm her yet. On the other hand, she had no idea what he might have in mind. Maybe these stinky guys just wanted to rape her and then let her go. Sure, that would have been pretty terrible. But maybe this guy would always keep her on a damn leash.

She reached the hole in the wall. “What are you going to do with me?”

The man just nodded once, then placed a large hand at her back and pushed her through the jagged hole.

On the other side was a hatch into another spaceship. This one looked less alien and had a better smell. It was probably smaller, but it was surprisingly bright and even had a huge window out to space. Parts of it reminded Harper of the shuttles that ferried people from the Earth to the Moon back home. Outside, she could see the fire planet Bry and a moon that had to be Gideo, where her base was located.

The man led her over to a hi-tech chair that looked like a co-pilot's seat, and she plopped down in it when he put a little pressure on her shoulders. He was so casual about it she felt like a piece of cargo.

“I know you don't understand me,” she said as he fastened a safety web around her, “but unless you're taking me back to the base, you're just as guilty of kidnapping as those aliens were. I think,” she added. She had never had any reason to look up the details of interstellar law when it came to kidnapping, but it seemed reasonable. “And if you think I won't report you, then you're sadly mistaken.”

The man ignored her and got into the seat next to her and hit some buttons. A hard jolt went through the cabin, and then Harper was pushed back hard in the seat by powerful acceleration.

She glanced over at the guy. Apart from those remarkable eyes, he had a face that was more distinctive and striking than downright beautiful, with a strong jaw and straight eyebrows. His back and one arm were almost completely covered with an intricate tattoo pattern what was so well integrated with his body that Harper wasn't sure if it wasn't a natural part of him. It looked like infinitely fine metal threads under his skin, thousands of them. He was wearing pants made from some kind of reptile skin, it looked like, and it had a pattern of fur here and there.

He had placed his axe in a special holder on the ceiling, and his hair was an anarchy of gold and darker tones. He looked like some kind of warrior out of the past, Harper thought. Out of the distant past, even. But here he was, piloting a spaceship with what looked like pretty good skills.

He was concentrating intensely on flying the ship, and he was also staring intently at a screen that seemed to show a picture of the ship the aliens had. There were no flashing lights on that ship now, and it just looked like an egg-shaped black spot in space. With a large hole in it where some unhealthy-looking yellow light was streaming out.

“You really blew a hole in that thing, didn't you,” Harper said unnecessarily. The adrenaline in her veins made her want to say something, even if she knew the man couldn't understand anything.

She yelped as all of space around them seemed to be criss-crossed by intensely white beams, and the man said something that sounded suspiciously like swearing. Harper leaned over and looked at the screen that showed the alien ship. “Damn, are they shooting at us?”

The man hissed something and yanked one end of her safety harness, so that Harper was pulled back in her seat and the webbing tightened so much she had to gasp for breath. Well, at least he had let go of the leash he had fastened around her wrist.

The ship tumbled through space as the warrior pulled the controls and kicked pedals, probably trying to jerk the ship around so much that the aliens couldn't get a clear shot at it. The planet Bry spun wildly in front of them, and Harper realized that it was they that were spinning, not the planet.

She clutched the armrests with her fingers. That planet was getting a lot closer very fast. “Umm ... yeah, so any time you'd want to pull up from there would be fine ...”

The warrior didn't look at her, just fought with the controls. Still the space around them was full of intense, white beams that seared lines in Harper's retinas. The ship suddenly jolted once, so hard that Harper was thrown forward in the safety harness, and then it was followed by another jolt and another.

Then the white beams were gone. It was suddenly very quiet in the cabin, and the control panel in front of them went dark. The warrior fought furiously with the controls, but it was clear to Harper that the ship was completely out of control and that the engines were probably broken. The warrior swore again, then stared straight ahead, where the fire planet Bry was now filling the entire screen. The gigantic fire was clearly visible as a thick, pulsating, uneven band on the night side of the planet.

The warrior sighed heavily, then turned his head to Harper and looked right at her for a moment. Then he said something in his alien language, and it sounded regretful.

“Yeah,” Harper said, “I'm not to happy about this either. I'm sure you don't happen to have any parachutes or things like that? Pa-ra-chutes?” She tried to show him what she meant using hand signs, but it was a challenge.

The warrior stared at her, and now it seemed to Harper that he was frowning, as if puzzled.

“Hey, it doesn't have to be parachutes. Ummm ... it's not that I mind the attention, but maybe you have some emergency plans for this? Like, trying to break our fall or doing something to not die? Anything at all?”

The warrior looked at her for three more heartbeats, then reached over and pulled the same strap as before, tightening the harness even further. He growled something into her ear at the same time, and while the sound of his voice was pleasant enough, she had no chance of deciphering what he was saying. But it had to be something like “I can't believe the trouble you got me into” or “this is what I get for rescuing someone”.

The planet was filling the whole front screen now. Because of the spinning motion, Harper lost track of where exactly the fire was. A screaming sound as from air rushing past the window increased in pitch until it was just a deafening roar, and Harper saw intense flames stretching out from the hull outside the window. Alarmed, she looked over at the warrior. “So we're not going to reach the surface at all, are we? We'll burn up long before we crash.”

Her mouth was dry and scared tears were burning in her eyes. But the warrior calmly took her in with those spectacular eyes, and then he reached over with a hand and placed it on her shoulder. It was a heavy hand, but it was also warm and gentle. She didn't mind that touch at all, now. The touch itself seemed to ground her, to send a physical reassurance through her body.

He growled something again, something that somehow sounded mild and certain. And inexplicably she calmed down and the tears didn't run after all. This was alarming, but they were in it together.

The warrior then started talking to her, and his deep voice was clearly audible even over the roar from the air they were falling through. He spoke calmly and mildly, looking her right in the eyes the whole time. And his eyes – hadn't they been a very vivid blue before? Now they were definitely taking on a purple hue. But maybe it was just a trick of the light in the cabin.

Harper was pretty sure the whole spaceship was on fire – outside the windows, there were only blue flames to be seen, as if the hull itself was burning brightly. She only registered it in the background, because most of her attention was occupied with the warrior and his face and his voice and the purple light in his eyes. He talked to her still, his deep voice calm and monotonous, his language so melodic that the hard consonants added depth to it. And then he smiled. It was not a grin, just a calm and reassuring smile that warmed her up while he gently squeezed her shoulder.

And then they crashed.

It was just a bang that rattled the whole cabin, but it held together. Then there was another bang, and Harper was thrown against the webbing that held her securely. The warrior calmly took his hand off her shoulder and then pulled a lever. The next bang was different – flatter and harder, somehow, and suddenly Harper was completely alone and in darkness and cold, moving so fast through the air that she had to clench her eyes shut because of the wind.

Wind. She was no longer inside the spaceship.

She opened her eyes to little slits and saw an arrow-shaped object crash into the rocky ground far below her feet. Flames shot up from it as it tumbled across the surface, rolling around and shooting sparks and fire like a Catherine wheel that had gone insane.

She realized that she would also be crashing into the ground very soon, because she was very high up in the air. Before she had time to panic, there was a noise above her and she looked up in the night sky. Ah. That was probably a parachute. It was not like any parachute she had ever seen, but it was clearly attached to the webbing around her very firmly and braked her descent so well that the wind she had felt was now completely gone. She was no longer falling, just descending gently through the cold night air on the alien planet Bry.

Bry. The fire planet. Not a planet Harper would have chosen to crash land on. Sure, landing on Bry very gently, ideally on a luxury space liner with a good spa and a decent restaurant, along with friends and experts to look at the fire from pretty close up, but not so close that it was dangerous at all – yeah, that she would have liked. If there were firefighters among the group. And a couple of fire trucks.

But this, landing on the surface alone after being thrown from a crashing spaceship, with no way of getting off it and only a garden trowel to fight the eternal fire with ... yeah, this she would not have picked.

The crashed spaceship had come to a rest on the ground, and the wreckage was still burning fiercely. But it was clear that Harper would land a good distance away from it.

And the warrior pilot? She looked around, but she couldn't see another parachute. It was pretty dark around her, but the burning wreck beneath her illuminated her own parachute just fine. So it should have been possible to see his, too.

Shit. What if he had crashed with the ship? What if he was at this very moment burning to death in the wreck? Maybe there had only been one parachute on board, and he had let her have it. He had been so careful and firm in tightening the harness around her, like a father fastening his child in the seat belts in a car and pulling them taut so they'd work as well as possible.

She knew nothing about the warrior. He might be an axe murderer. The fact that he was absolutely carrying an axe around with him was a pretty good indication, Harper couldn't help thinking. But still. He had been decent to her. More or less. Sure, putting a damn leash on her wrist and then dragging her into his ship was perhaps not the absolute peak of gentlemanly behavior. But that was probably just theatrics for the benefit of the stinky aliens. So Harper was willing to give him the benefit of doubt.

Yeah, she knew nothing about him. But she really wished she wouldn't have to be alone. Alone on the fire planet.

She glanced to the horizon. The sky was definitely brighter there, and it did seem to be pulsating. It looked like the eternally wandering fire wasn't that far away. Well, maybe it had been here not so long ago and it would be a year until it came back. If so, then she was probably pretty safe for now.

She was getting close to the ground and would have to prepare for landing soon. She could see bare rocks where the wreck of the spaceship had now pretty much burned itself out. That was a good sign. One thing that was known about the fire planet was that the intense fire burned all the vegetation completely away, so if it had passed by here not to long ago, bare rock and ashes was probably exactly what could be expected. And that was what Harper was seeing underneath her.

And in front of her -

She gasped and leaned back reflexively, but because she was hanging in mid-air it only started her dangling back and forth. She only had time to give a panicked yelp before she smashed into a huge tree  that she had only discovered at the last second.

The tree trunk was smooth, and she couldn't get a good grip in it, even if she tried to dig her nails into the bark. It was thin enough that she could clasp her arms and legs around it, but it was so smooth that she slid down the trunk in a display that seemed pretty undignified. She didn't meet any branches on her way down to the ground, and after a few seconds her butt encountered hard rock as she plopped down.

She was about to get to her feet when a silent sheet of silky fabric draped itself over her and made everything very dark. She panicked and flailed wildly against it before she realized what it was.

Ah. The parachute. Of course.

She pulled the fabric off her and looked up. That was a tall tree she had slid down. She was lucky she hadn't hit it further up, because the crown looked huge and even spiky.

There were many other trees just like it all around her, along with a thick underbrush of bushes and smaller trees. The chemical smell was very strong, as if she had landed in the middle of some kind of alcohol spill. The fumes were making her nauseous, too.

She got to her feet and stood on shaking knees on the surface of the alien planet.

The surface of Bry. The fire planet. There was vegetation all around her, so ripe with flammable organic chemicals that it was plain that the fire hadn't passed through here for months. But it would soon be here. The horizon pulsated with yellow light.

A hand shot out from behind her and Harper squealed as someone grabbed her wrist and quickly tied a rope around it.

She looked up. It was the warrior. His eyes were flashing red. And he wasn't smiling anymore.

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