Defying Gravity Read online

  “Eight minutes to impact.”

  “No, no, no!” She pushed random buttons. Something, anything that would work to stop the ship from crashing.

  “Seven minutes to impact.” The blinking lights still alternated between red and white. Several cabinets opened and close, but nothing she did halted the ship’s descent.

  “Six minutes to impact.”

  She tugged at her hair while trying to think. Her antennae quivered, and she bounced from foot to foot. How could she work the control panel? Then she knew, or she hoped she was right.

  “Five minutes to impact.”

  Cringing, she snatched the captain’s cold hand and placed it upon the panel. He’s not really dead, just asleep, she told herself, but his clammy flesh still freaked her out. A brief flash of light scanned his palm.

  “What would you like to do, Captain Bous?”

  “Stop the descent. Pull up. Do something!” Her voice grew higher in pitch with each word. She pressed more buttons, and the spacecraft slowed a tiny bit, but it wasn’t enough.

  “Four minutes to impact.”

  Linia used the captain’s hand to touch the screen. In all her languages, she didn’t know how to work this spaceship. She couldn’t understand the terminology. Hot tears slid down her cheeks.

  “Three minutes to impact.”

  The front of the ship glowed white-hot upon entering the planet’s atmosphere. The distant brown took the shape of mountains and valleys. Strange, jagged monoliths rose to greet the craft in its terrible descent.

  “Two minutes to impact.”

  “Do something, anything!” She banged her fist against the control panel. Scraping metal shook them.

  “Wings deployed,” the sweet electronic voice said. The ship slowed and glided toward the ground.

  “One minute to impact. Please buckle your seatbelts.”

  She pressed several more buttons to no avail. The voice counted down the seconds to crashing, and with cold certainty, Linia knew there was no more time. She shoved Mixi’s corpse out of her seat. After collapsing into the chair, she fumbled with the seatbelts.

  “Thirty seconds to impact.”

  The linguist fastened the waist seatbelt when a wing caught a protruding rock. The craft spun around and around, and her last meal threatened to crawl up her throat. Two more clicks, and she had the shoulder straps buckled.

  Her stomach heaved.

  “Five.”

  She threw her hands over her head.

  “Four.”

  Linia leaned forward.

  “Three.”

  She closed her eyes.

  “Two.”

  Oh, no . . .

  “One second to impact.” The voice was as calm as ever.

  Boom!

  The crash tossed her forward. Metal crunched, the sound echoing in her ears. The belts constricted around her chest. She couldn’t breathe. Her vision clouded over, growing fuzzy at first and then turning gray. She was going to die here. Mom, Dad, I’m sorry. She almost could feel her mom’s last hug and hear her whispering, “I love you.” The dark snatched at her mind and captured her into its embrace.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Cool air rushed over Alezandros. His fingers dug into the thin layer of dirt. If he didn’t know better, he would’ve thought he was home. Perhaps he’d just fallen out of bed and bumped his head. The pain in his chest told him otherwise.

  Something was terribly wrong.

  When he opened his eyes, he peered around his prison. The cavern’s dwelling was like home, but not. The crash happened so quickly and spectacularly that he didn’t remember much of his journey or the strange creatures who brought him here, except for flashes of a rectangular area surrounded by buildings and the fair-skinned humanoids. He wasn’t in Medusa, though.

  Nor Persea.

  He swallowed a lump forming in his throat. His breath wheezed from his chest. If he could last a day or more, he would be healed. He could cast the infamous Medusan stare and free himself from his captors.

  The heady smell of burning flesh permeated his nostrils. It reminded him of meat, but it’d been a long time since a Medusan could find such creatures. His stomach roiled at the invitation, and he wondered if the prisoners would get a bite.

  Probably not.

  Strange hairless monsters, who did they think they were?

  The ache intensified, but this time it wasn’t along his ribs but in his heart. Kaire and his nephews wouldn’t know what had happened to him. Did his comrades survive the Persean assault? If the Perseans sent a crew before, they would launch another attack. He was certain of it.

  Anger boiled along his spine, and his hands clenched in tight fists. He wanted to scream, shout, rage against the Perseans, his captors, his predicament. The emotion drained him as he curled tighter against the back corner of his small cell. If he could make himself small enough, perhaps they would forget he existed.

  His eyes closed, and he breathed in dirt. A cough sputtered from his lips, and pain dug sharp into his side. If he could focus on home, he would make it. He had to get stronger.

  He wouldn’t die here.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Linia’s nose wrinkled at the stench of burning metal. She coughed and gasped for breath. Scurrying and foreign shouts assaulted her ears. Pale, hairless creatures touched her, poked her with a stick. She jerked away, but the belts held her captive.

  “What,” she asked in Persean. Her mind couldn’t fathom what had happened, who these beasts were.

  Their chattering increased. One grabbed her blond hair and sniffed it. Another tugged upon her antennae.

  “Ow! Help me,” she said, this time in the intergalactic language of Anthronian.

  They swirled around her. Hands pulled and pushed her. As quickly as they unfastened the seatbelts, ropes twirled around her arms and legs. She struggled, but it was too late. A blackened-skinned creature and a white one lifted her between them. The ropes dug into her flesh, and her skin turned an angry pinkish-blue.

  “Let me go.” They either couldn’t understand her or didn’t care. She strained against her bindings. What did they want with her?

  They carried her out of the spaceship. Weak sunlight brushed against her. Cold settled into her bones, and gooseflesh appeared all over her body. The heavier gravity pressed down on her chest, but she could breathe their air. Without warning, they deposited her upon the ground in front of a gigantic humanoid beast.

  The large man knelt down and prodded her some more. A smug grin revealed yellowing teeth. “Take her.”

  His words rolled around her mind until she placed the language, a dialect of the planet Earth’s English. Could she remember the words correctly? If she could reason with them . . .

  “P-puh-lease stop.” The Earth words felt odd in her mouth, as if she spoke while chewing rocks.

  The creatures froze and jabbered, but she couldn’t understand. Why didn’t she know more? She couldn’t remember anything about Earth or its people. Tears formed in her eyes. She was too young, too inexperienced. How could she have thought she could do this, if she couldn’t even figure out Earth English?

  “Quiet.” The man grabbed her hair and pulled her head closer to his. His breath smelled fetid and rotten, like a draken had died on his tongue. She trembled under his blue-eyed gaze. He leered at her before tossing her to the others. “Take her.”

  “No, no!” She screamed when they picked her up again. One Earthling paused, and hope flowed through her body. “Please, help me.”

  The man smiled, and she heard a ripping sound. He shoved a thick, dirty cloth into her mouth. She gagged and tears leaked from her eyes. They were worse than the Medusans. The three men laughed and carried her away from the crash. With a fleeting glance, she spotted her ship. The SS Perseid had crumpled along the ground. It was useless to her.

  During the journey over the barren terrain, Linia fell in and out of consciousness. Every so often, they would knock some part of her body against stran
ge, broken rocks. When her boot caught on an opening, she realized it was a window. They’d lived in these rocks.

  She took shallow breaths through her nostrils. The planet stunk, or it could’ve been from the gag in her mouth and the filthy beasts lugging her between them. She tried to remember what she knew about this planet, but her mind drew a blank. Why couldn’t she focus on any of her studies?

  Out of the brown and gray landscape, a strange lady’s head popped into view. Spikes rose from her head, and an arm with a torch in its hand rested beside the statue, like a child’s toy ripped apart in a tantrum.

  Her eyes widened when they entered the head. Their path spiraled downwards, and she memorized their location. She had to know how to escape this dreadful place. Yes, she would escape. How? She didn’t yet know. Then an Earthling knocked her head against the wall, and she saw nothing more.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The hairless primates’ heavy footsteps pounded along the earthen tunnel. Were they coming to bring more food? Despite its terrible taste, he was hungry. Healing drained his energy, and he needed nourishment to have the strength to escape.

  Would his space cruiser fly him out of here, though?

  He thought back to the crash, how the craft skimmed through a graveyard of buildings. This planet was so like his own. There was an opened space, and he set the ship down amongst a bed of dead grass. Could he find it again? He didn’t know, but if he could get to the spaceship and if he could start the engine—where he would find the power to electrify the sphere, he didn’t know—then he could flee this forsaken excuse of a planet.

  If, if, if! If he could have a coin for every if . . .

  The steps thumped closer. Would they pass by his cell? Please, don’t let them come for me. He needed more time.

  He slithered over to the cell’s barred door. Two men neared him, and he caught a glimpse of gold drifting between them. No, not quite gold, more wheat-blond in color. A soft moan passed through the creature’s lips, and he spotted antennae sticking out through the hair. Her flesh was blue. Her eyes were closed, but he bet they were golden like the sun.

  Anger, pity, and hope swirled within him as a dangerous cocktail threatening to boil over. She—well, technically her people—were the reason his ship had slipped into a wormhole and crashed here. The Perseans had ruined his people’s lives enough, but he remembered that surprised glance when she realized how her own people had betrayed her. The way her eyes widened just so. Pouty lips puffed into an “O.” She’d never survive this place, and at that moment, he wanted to protect her from this world’s horrors.

  Please don’t take her far.

  The men stopped in a cell beside his own, and his hope surged. Seconds later, she was discarded in what he would guess would be a forgotten heap upon the dirt floor. Was she injured? Would she wake soon?

  The Perseans had powers, although he didn’t know exactly what they were. The stories were vague and scary. Gifts involving the dead.

  But he’d give anything to have someone on his side right now, even a Persean.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  What an odd dream, Linia thought as her eyes opened to a nightmare. Unbound, she discovered the Earthlings had imprisoned her. Dull light peeked through the heavy, metal bars. Her hands searched the ground and walls; they were hard-packed dirt. When she scraped some dirt away with her fingernail, she struck rock. Claustrophobic panic rose within her as she realized they’d trapped her underground. She had to get out. Now! Her fingers clawed the floor as she crawled forward. She yanked on the bars, but they didn’t budge, not even to rattle under her ministrations.

  “Help!” Her scream echoed down the corridor. She called first in English and then in Anthronian.

  “You speak their tongue, and yet you’re captured here as well.” The slow, breathless hiss of Anthronian uttered behind her and to the right.

  She flung herself away from the bars and ran toward the voice. When her head struck the wall, she fell.

  “Ow.” Groaning, she rubbed the spot. The last thing she needed was another head injury! “Who are you,” she asked in Anthronian.

  “My name is Alezandros.” He paused. “You speak their language? What’s your name?”

  Her fingers brushed against the wall, and she found the tiniest crack in their prison’s defenses. She lay flat and peered into the hole, yet she only saw darkness. “I’m Linia, a linguist.”

  She listened to him, and his breath wheezed. Was he ill? “Are you all right?”

  A deep, rumbling chuckle answered her before sputtering into hisses. “For the moment.”

  A tendril of fear tickled her spine and caused the hairs on the nape of her neck to rise. “What do you mean for the moment? What are they going to do to us?”

  A scream rose from the earthen tunnel.

  “We’re dinner.”

  The shrieks grew louder before the Earthlings dragged another creature before her prison cell. She recognized the purple flesh and plump figure as a Junian. They passed by her as she crept toward the bars. From this angle, she couldn’t see far down the tunnel. Moments later, his horrible yells ceased altogether. When the stench of burning flesh struck her nose, she burst away from the door as if electrocuted.

  “They’re going to eat us?” She huddled against the crack.

  “Yes.”

  His voice was her one salvation from breaking into pieces. And yet his answer was not comforting, despite knowledge being power.

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re tasty.”

  “That’s n-not funny.”

  “I know it isn’t.” His soft voice caressed her ears.

  Silence fell between them, and tears trickled down her cheeks. The sound of footsteps drew near and stopped at her cage. She wiped her face—smudging dirt across it—and saw the tall, blue-eyed man from earlier. Her entire body trembled.

  “Open it,” the Earthling said.

  Two men came around him. One fastened a key into the lock. The bars rolled to the side, and the men entered.

  Rock bit into her back. Her feet slid in the dirt as she attempted to back as far away as possible from them. If she could’ve melted herself into the wall, she would have.

  “Help me,” she whispered to Alezandros.

  “Drink the liquid without any trouble,” he said.

  Liquid? What liquid?

  The men grabbed her and dragged her forward. Dirt packed into her nails, and one ripped, oozing blood from the wound.

  “N-no, no, let go.” Her linguist abilities froze in her brain, paralyzed by terror. She slapped at their hands to no avail.

  “Open wide.” The leader removed a vial of some gray, sludge-type liquid.

  The foul-smelling beverage made her gag when she caught a whiff of it. It was worse than sewage combined with her cousin’s dirty feet. She pressed her lips together and bit them down with her teeth while shaking her head from side to side.

  “I love when they struggle.” The leader chuckled.

  The men squeezed her arms tight against them.

  Linia tried to squirm free. She kicked toward the vial, but she missed. Her knees cracked against the floor when they forced her to the ground, and she gasped in pain. When they laid her down, the leader sat on her lower body. Sweat and body odor radiated off him, and it was almost more overpowering than the liquid’s scent.

  The leader grasped her hair and yanked it back. Her mouth parted. He shoved the vial past her lips, and it clinked against her teeth. “Drink up, sweetheart.”

  The liquid, if it could be called that, fell in chunks into her mouth. Her throat tried to close, but the mixture slipped down her esophagus. She was drowning in the retched stuff.

  When it was over, he clasped her chin and squeezed it. “Good girl.”

  They released her. With a metallic clang, the bars shuddered closed, and the men left.

  Linia lay there breathing. Her stomach twisted and churned in protest to what she’d drunk. She wanted to make hersel
f sick, but she was too weak to do so.

  “You struggled.” Alezandros’s voice cut through her pain and fear.

  “I had to.” She scooted over to the crack. Each movement made her knees ache. Her finger had stopped bleeding, though. “What was that stuff?”

  “It’s to fatten you up.”

  “How can you be so calm about this?” She shivered.

  He paused, and a long hiss fell from his lips. “I am resigned to Fate, but I do not welcome it. I won’t go quietly.”

  She lifted her head at his words. For a nanosecond, she thought his voice sounded familiar. No, her brain was trying to grasp anything safe. She didn’t know him. How could she? “Do you plan to escape?”

  “If there was a way, I would take it. My ship wasn’t badly damaged, so I believe it’ll fly again. If I could get there . . .” He allowed the thought to dwindle, before adding, “There is no escape. They’ll come, and we’ll die.”

  “We’ll find a way.” Even she didn’t believe her words.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Alezandros had heard them coming to administer their vile drink again. He’d taken it valiantly, but a sputtering sound erupted from the cell besides his. His heart went out to the poor Persean. Her determination surprised him, but his own had sunk with each passing hour. His wounds were nearly healed, but there were so many Earthlings. How would they escape these solid bars? He couldn’t protect Linia or himself.

  “How long do you think we’ve been here,” she asked.

  “A couple days perhaps. No one lasts long, I think.” His voice pressed through the tiny crevasse. He’d stayed beside it as much as possible. His hand pressed against the rough wall. Did she know who he was? He should’ve told her that first day he was Medusan, but he didn’t. Fear kept his secret. His lone friend would hate him.