Page 8 of Star Bright
It was Darcy’s shoulder under his. Shorter than him, but sturdy, holding him upright when horror threatened to crush him again.
“Ug, let him lean on you. Let’s go together.”
They supported him across the grand hall and out into the cold darkness. There, the gray bulk of the ship. More memories, tumbling back. He’d rented it to come to Earth because…
The thought disintegrated, torn as if by cruel claws.
“Yadira, Atsu,” he whispered. “My daughter, my son.”
“Wait here,” Darcy said as they reached the hull, half buried in the dirt.
Buried… “No,” he snarled. “I must go to them.”
With Darcy and Ug flanking him, he staggered up the twisted hatch ramp. As if in reverse, he remembered stumbling down after the crash. Before that…
“Stasis pods.” He turned toward the rear cargo area. “I was in cryo. I remember. The ship’s emergency overrides ejected me just before the crash. My fledglings…”
“If they are still in stasis, that would explain the lack of readings,” the droid said from behind them.
Hope and fear twisted through him as tiny lights gleamed ahead. “The pods, there.” He lunged forward, wrenching away from Darcy and Ug to fall upon the two pods, one arm draped over each. The lights were bright and steady. “We needed to rest, just for a while, because…” He fumbled for the pod controls.
“Stop!” The droid’s speaker was turned up much too loud for the confined space. “Do not initiate reanimation.”
Darcy knelt beside him. “Why not? Kong, what’s wrong?”
“These stasis chambers appear stable and properly calibrated, but there is something peculiar about them that they didn’t sync with the outpost systems.”
She made an odd sound. “More peculiar than…”
Caye twisted around, seeking. “My mate. Where is she?”
“One moment please.” The droid’s dome lights spun in the murk of the cargo bay. “Accessing available pod data. Cross-referencing local records. Processing…” A thin whine echoed inthe bay, somehow worse than the droid’s shout. “The time stamp and programmed duration on these units is showing a glitch that seems to have preceded the recent crash. And according to the Intergalactic Dating Agency archives, it seems your name is Vash, and per planetary solar rotations, your contract for an Earther bride expired one hundred years ago.”
Chapter 4
She’d never named anything before, no kids or pets, not even a houseplant. But Caye looked like a Vash so Darcy was relieved he’d gotten that piece of himself back at least.
But to find out he was more than a hundred years old? While she got the concept of suspended animation, and there’d been a lot more weird stuff than that, to be insensate for that long must be disconcerting. And his children were still stuck in their high-tech coffins without even a window in the sleek metal. His distraught hold on the two struck her hard.
“Cryopreservation is intended for long-term use, obviously,” Kong noted. “The units appear undamaged except for the timing issue.”
The drakling man lifted his head, his eyes wild with flames. “I don’t understand what happened.”
Ug growled, and Kong rolled forward and back. “With your permission, Ug will check the rest of the ship and attempt to identify the problem.”
When Vash bowed over the pods again, Darcy just nodded at Kong and Ug. They quietly departed.
She crouched beside the drakling man. “There must be a process for emerging from stasis that’s a little easier than a crash. I’m sure your children—fledglings—will be fine if we just go slow.”
“I can’t lose them.” He pressed a shaking finger against the unblinking lights. “My memories are still…shattered, and I’m still confused by the pieces. But this I know in my deepest fire: I cannot lose them.”
His deepest fire. Like his heart. Swallowing hard, she put her hand over his. “I’m just a temporary caretaker here, but myfriend is part of the executive team, and I know she’ll want to help however she can.”
Caye—Vash—looked at her, the flames in his eyes dulling. “How could I have a contract here, for an Earther bride? I already have a mate. Her name is Shanya.” His voice roughened, almost a growl. “Where is she?”
Like all the other novelties dumped on her in the last few hours—spaceships, robots, aliens—the wordmatemade sense in her head but felt so impossible. “Your memories are getting clearer,” she reminded him. “You’ve just had another terrible shock, but it will all come back to you.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
