“Shh, Susan. Just one more and you will be all done,” I cooed to the small girl.

Her pin-straight hair fell in clumps on her cheeks. She was covered in mud. Dark streaks crisscrossed her face from where she had tried in vain to wipe away the tears. The cut was deep, but short, thankfully. She needed a few stitches, but nothing I couldn’t handle. It wasn’t often that I’d come across an injury that my small, but well-equipped outpost clinic couldn’t cover.

“Thank you so much, Jennifer,” whispered Carla, Susan’s mother.

I smiled up at her, covering the new sutures with a bandage. “It’s no problem, Carla. I’m just happy you caught me before I headed home for the day. Otherwise, we would have had to cut it off.”

Susan rolled her eyes at me but smiled, “You wouldn’t do that to me.”

I grinned at the little girl and reached behind me, producing a small, wrapped, red candy. “You’re right. I could never do that to my favorite patient. Promise me you will stay away from the dunes from now on though, okay?”

Susan nodded her head and jumped down, her eyes glued on the candy prize in her hand. I pulled Carla aside while Susan was distracted. The little girl wasn’t out of the woods yet. I couldn’t count the number of injuries I saw because of the dunes. Vaxivia was no place to let your child wander outside of the outpost limits. There hadn’t been a war in decades, but the very planet itself was a death trap unless you knew your way around it. No five-year-old should be wandering alone.

“You will need to watch for an infection. The dunes hold sand that can eat away at the skin.”

Carla folded her hands nervously in her lap, “Okay. I know she shouldn’t have been out there. I will be dealing with Michael when I get home.”

“He’s only eight, Carla. You know he shouldn’t be left alone with her all day. Isn’t there anyone who can help you out?”

She shook her head, “Please don’t tell the guards. I promise I won’t let it happen again.”

I took her hands into mine. Her story was all too common. Work on Vaxivia was hard to find. Often the men of the family left to find work and never came back. Some still sent money back home, but many, like Carla’s husband, were ghosts in the wind. She worked part time at the small diner to make ends meet, but childcare was just too expensive. My heart ached for her and the plight that she was in.

“Why don’t you send her here tomorrow? I have some things she can do around the clinic and I can keep an eye on her wound.”

“Really? She won’t get in the way?”

I smiled at Susan who was still looking at her foil wrapped trophy. Running a clinic wasn’t easy. The last thing I needed was a young girl running under foot. Still, I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to her.

“She will be fine, I promise.”

Carla thanked me all the way to the door. I knelt to speak to Susan, “Are you going to come help me tomorrow?”

She nodded her head and ran after her mom with more joy in her eyes than I’d ever seen. As I was standing up, I saw Mikey Jones running toward me at full speed. At once my heart jumped. He never ran that fast. Slight in build, Mikey was ten going on forty. Like all the young boys in the community, he had far too much weight on his young shoulders. I turned the clinic sign over to ‘Closed’ and grabbed my medical bag. I met him at the old hoverboard parked on the road.

“Jennifer! Jennifer!” he called to me. “There’s an alien ship crashed outside of the outpost!”

The blood drained from my face at once, as I quickly glanced around. I didn’t see Courtney’s nosey eyes peering through her curtains. The last thing I needed was her running around and telling the guards that we had an alien. Not when I couldn’t be sure that Mike was right. I jumped and covered his mouth with my hand. His eyes briefly shifted to fear before he nodded his head. I winced at his fear. I had momentarily forgotten about the abuse his bastard father had inflicted on him before he skipped town.

“Okay Mikey, we will go take a look but you’ve got to keep your voice down, okay?”

He nodded his head, “Sorry, Jennifer. I’m so stupid. I forgot.”

I winced again, “Mikey, you are far from stupid. I don’t want to hear you talk like that about yourself ever again, okay? I just don’t want everyone to know about the alien just yet.”

“Got it, I will be more careful,” he whispered.

Nodding, I pressed my thumb against the scanner and the hovercraft slowly roared to life. It needed to be replaced years ago, but the money just wasn’t there anymore. It shook and rattled as it lifted off the ground. I waited there for a few more seconds, giving it a chance to warm up. Once it was about a foot from the ground I pushed the handlebar forward and we started to move briskly through the streets. Within seconds we were coming up on the outpost wall. I glanced at the two guards and sighed. This was going to be tricky.

“Mikey?” I asked my passenger. “You are going to hear me lie okay? I don’t want them to know what you’ve found until I know it’s safe.”

He nodded his head and said nothing. I knew that he wouldn’t say anything to the contrary to what I was going to say. He was another good kid tossed into a bad situation. His father wasn’t missing though, he was buried in the small outpost cemetery, a victim of the dunes. With two younger sisters and a working mother, he would run errands for me and I would slip him any payment I could. Whether it was drupees or food, he was grateful for it all the same.

As I slowed to a stop, the younger of the two men sauntered over to me. I had to resist the urge to roll my eyes. Instead, I plastered a smile on my face. He was the last person I wanted to deal with knowing how the heavyset man felt about me. My numerous rejections of his advances never seemed to dull his attraction to me. No matter how one-sided it seemed to be. It was the same story with most of the other single men in the outpost. I didn’t want to deal with any of them. The pool wasn’t very deep on Vaxivia.

“How are you doing Zach?” I asked casually.

He winked at me, leaning against the hoverboard. “I’m doing a whole lot better now that you are visiting, Jennifer.”

“Well, unfortunately, this isn’t a social visit. I need to get out to the Jones’ homestead. One of the girls has a bit of the flu. I just want to check on her to clear my mind.”

He glanced around the hoverboard and saw Mikey for the first time. His mood changed at once. As soon as he realized he wasn’t the center of my attention I knew that he was going to be a hard sell.

Zach shook his head, “No can do, Jennifer. We got word today that there might be hostiles in the area. Aren’t supposed to let anyone in or out.”

I gritted my teeth and batted my eyes. Letting my fingers trail off the controls and over to his. He twitched but didn’t move his hand. His eyes lit up and a wide, white grin crossed his face.

“That’s a shame. I was hoping to slip out there real fast, then be back at Sammy’s by quitting time,” I whispered.

He cleared his throat, the smile still on his face. I hated to lie but I knew if he thought I would be at the local pub later, he would let me go. He waved to the man at the gate and they slowly started to open.

“Thank you,” I whispered to him.

He winked at me, “You can thank me later, honey.”

My cheeks flushed red but not out of admiration. I didn’t like having the attention of any man, least of all him. Blushing was my defense mechanism but he didn’t need to know that. My skin felt like it was crawling from where I’d touched him. I was suddenly grateful for the sterilizing solution I had in my bag. I gave him one last smile as I slowly pulled through the gates and let them close behind me. As soon as I rounded the forest and I was out of sight, I pushed the throttle as hard as it would go.

“Where did you see it?” I asked Mikey once we were finally clear.

He pointed to a clearing in the forest, one that hadn’t been there before. It didn’t take me long to realize that the clearing was the aftermath of a large wreck. My stomach started to flutter. I couldn’t believe that Mikey was telling the truth. He wasn’t prone to lying, but your eyes could play tricks on even the most discerning child, especially one with a wild spirit like him. I swallowed hard and followed the trail. The closer we crept to the wreckage, the more I was regretting my decision to bring Mikey with me.

“Whatever you do, stay behind me. Do you understand?” I asked him as we parked.

He nodded his head, ducking between my arms and trying to see the wreckage. I’d never seen a ship like it before. It wasn’t large, maybe a few dozen meters in width without its wings. I briefly glanced around but didn’t see the wings anywhere.

“Why don’t you go find the wings and other wreckage for me. I don’t know what we are going to find when we open the hull, okay?”

Mikey nodded and disappeared off into the woods. The black craft was badly damaged, looking more like an ancient, buried torpedo than a ship. I looked for a door, following a trail of steam as it seeped from a thin seam. Still in shock that Mikey hadn’t been lying, my attention turned to determining if there were any survivors. I was no stranger to aliens, but I kept my small gun close at my side just in case. The ship wasn’t an Infernian vessel, that much was evident.

A low whistle escaped the pod and I stumbled backward, watching in stunned silence as the seam widened as a door opened. In a puff of smoke, the door creaked back on its dented hinges and my mouth fell open. There was someone inside of the pod, and from the small hole poking through the fumes, I could see a man’s chest slowly moving up and down.

“Thank God,” I whispered. He was alive.

When the last of the smoke cleared, I was once again stunned into silence. There wasn’t much blood, less than I had expected. What gave me pause was the alien’s stunning looks. His body was rugged and muscular, with olive-toned skin that I could see where his uniform had torn open. Swallowing back my words, I let my gaze travel up his body to his face. Though his eyes were closed, I could only imagine the beauty that they would behold, if they matched the rest of his figure.

His dark, auburn, hair fell loose down to his shoulders. A strong jaw and thickly lashed eyes rounded out one of the most attractive faces I’d ever seen. When a groan slipped past his lips, I jumped. As his head listlessly turned to the side, I saw the reason he was unconscious. A gaping wound cut through the side of his head. I quickly pushed my fear and wonder aside and reached into my medical bag. Any emotions that I had before were now gone. He was injured and nothing else mattered but keeping him alive.

“Mikey!” I called out.

The child was at my side in a flash. I looked deeply into his eyes, praying there would be enough strength to lift the alien between the two of us.

“We have to get him back to my apartment, and fast,” I whispered to him.