Goldilocks
Prologue: Marooned
Her gaze remained fixed on the sky for a long while, the contrail of the dead ship she'd left behind echoed in her eyes. She was unable to look away despite how they stung and ached to close. Beside her, the corpse of the roc and its babies steamed as the heat left them and this planet's night cycle approached. Embedded in the mother's chest was the spear she'd used to slay her, and from it hung the string of fangs that Runite had given her. She reached out her one good arm, which was seated beside a broken collarbone and shoulder, and strained like she could summon it to her side if only she had the will.
When she failed, she looked toward where the lifeboat had disappeared behind the edge of the nest to land on the rocky shore somewhere beneath. With her one arm, she managed to drag herself forward a few inches. Pain annihilated her brain as every shattered part of her protested the motion, and when her consciousness returned she saw that she'd spit up a small amount of bile into her helmet and that the sun was lower than when she'd begun. But she did it again, seizing one of the protruding roots on the lip of the roc's nest and hauling herself up and over.
Her bones creaked, shrapnel floating freely inside of her body. An overlay on the screen of her helmet showed fractures in her legs, her ribs, her pelvis, her skull. Her lips and tongue were bitten clean through and blood crusted her mouth and tracked down her throat.
She tumbled from the nest and down onto a spined rock that drove all the air out of her lungs and took her back to the abyss.
Uataislurn, the genocide she witnessed just before they'd departed. The Cavalier. The criminal responsible, Marcus, and his cold face as he'd boarded with the capsule that would doom them. Then the first of the Queen's brood bursting into the world.
She was on a bed of sand at the bottom of the sloped rock, now some twenty or thirty feet below where the nest was perched. The suit told her what new injuries the tumble had given her but she ignored them. The lifeboat was in sight, waiting for her like an obedient animal as she struggled to right herself. It was harder to pull herself across the sand than the nest but the shifting cushion it provided kept the worst of the pain at bay. With every damp pull against the sand, the memories returned.
Tresses and the predators. Siwili, spitted limply upon the barbed tail of the Queen's servant. Runite tearing Marcus to pieces, and the purple marks on Edmund's neck where the parasite had gripped him. Red erupting from his chest before he'd fallen away.
She awoke again, grabbed another fistful of sand and pulled.
Runite standing on the other side of the glass in the airlock chamber. Meeting his eyes, feeling his strange, molten gaze on her. And the force of decompression that had driven them apart.
Sand spilled through her fingers and she whimpered, trying to hold onto the first half of the memory even as it slipped away. She mourned it, her cries small and sad as they tried to find their way out of her battered body.
The way Tresses had turned away from her, had crippled the way to the lifeboats bay so Nasira could not escape.
A death sentence that she'd deserved but never found. She'd abandoned Siwili, had been responsible for Runite's death. Now she was here and the ship was no more.
As she approached sanctuary, the cuff of her suit sang out cheerfully and opened the lifeboat bay so she could crawl up the ramp and into the cabin. It closed behind her, banishing the sounds of the grey planet's sea crashing against the distant cliffs.
It was over. Over.
The medical pod which she'd promised would save Edmund instead took her into its cradle, ravaged heat suit and all. A prompt appeared before her.
Initiate cryosleep?
Nasira choked on a laugh, causing the caked blood down her throat to split, and hit YES. The pod sealed and two warm, orange flickering lights in the pod's glass canopy indicated the sleep cycle engaging. Her arms went up as if reaching for something that only she could see.
And then she knew no more.
Thank you to Colorful Crayola for beta'ing for me! I know it's been awhile, but I hope you guys enjoy this sequel to ALKALINE. I won't talk too much, but I'm graduated now and I'll have the time to start writing for fun again! If you want to become a patron and support me, visit /citrinenebulae on patr (e) on dot you-know-what! Visit my profile to see what benefits each tier of support will grant you, and feel free to message me with requests for benefits to add! Whatever you might be interested in. :)
This prologue and chapter 1 of Goldilocks are available NOW to my patrons. Otherwise, chapter 1 will be available on in one week!