CHAPTER TWO
Kylie was first aware of being cold. Very cold. Opening her eyes, she found herself staring through a ragged hole in the ship at a sky that was a dull, pewter gray.
Light flakes of snow fell through the opening and landed on her face. The smell of proton fuel hung heavy on the frigid air and the interior of the ship was rapidly filling with cloying, black smoke.
She was lying on her back, still strapped into her safety harness. The seat itself had been ripped from the floor and she found she was resting on what had once been the ceiling of the craft. Something heavy and unyielding lay across her body, and looking down, she realized the Chancellor was sprawled completely across her, covering her.
"Lord Chancellor," she croaked, and pushed weakly at him.
He didn't budge.
Kylie didn't think she had sustained any life-threatening injuries, but her head felt as if she had just been bludgeoned. Reaching up, she inspected a painful area over her ear and grimaced when her hand came away covered in blood. She pushed harder at the Chancellor's limp body, gratified when he rolled off her.
He lay staring with sightless eyes through the hole in the ceiling, and Kylie could see his neck had been broken, probably when the force of the crash had torn him free from his safety harness.
She forced down the panic that was beginning to swell in her chest and instead concentrated on releasing the safety clasp on her harness. Her fingers were numb, nearly frozen with cold and it was several minutes before she succeeded in freeing herself.
Rolling weakly away from the chair, she raised herself up on her arms and tried to orient herself. The smoke was thicker now, rolling toward her from the rear of the ship. She was shaking, trembling with cold from the plummeting temperature. She had to locate a survival suit or she would freeze to death. That is, if the fuel-rich fumes didn't kill her first.
Crawling toward the rear of the ship where the sleeping pods were now on the ceiling above her, she located the locker where the survival suits were kept and succeeded in dragging one down from where it was stored.
Shivering, she thrust her arms and legs into the suit and drew the headgear over her face, fastening it securely into place. Almost immediately, she felt warmth seeping back into her icy limbs. The chemical suit was activated by the carbon dioxide she expelled with each breath. So long as she kept breathing, the suit would continue to maintain her body temperature, regardless of how bitter cold the environment around her became. The headpiece, a thick hood with a tinted plastic face visor, wasn't exactly glamorous, but it would keep the wind and snow out.
Climbing over the interior wreckage of the ship, Kylie carefully made her way toward the cockpit.
It was empty.
The windows had been blown out from force of the crash, and the interior was littered with debris. Kylie was turning away, dismayed by the fact she seemed to be the sole survivor, when a moan came from beneath a flap of dislodged structural paneling on the far side of the cockpit.
She clambered across the debris-strewn floor and shoved the metal paneling aside. Captain Terran lay unconscious beneath it, her sleep suit shredded and splattered with blood. As she bent over the other woman, Kylie was saw a long sliver of metal had pierced through the captain's shoulder and effectively impaled her to the floor. It was needle thin and razor sharp.
If Kylie were to save the captain, she would first need to remove the object. Already, the pilot's skin had a bluish tinge to it, and small patches of white were beginning to appear on her cheeks and hands. Frostbite was beginning to set in and Kylie needed to get the other woman into a survival suit.
She wasn't squeamish by nature, but she had little practical experience in dressing field wounds. She grimaced in self-disgust. As a member of the Axion royal family, her experiences ran more toward diplomatic dinner parties and dog and pony shows.
She could see pulling the sliver of metal out by hand was out of the question. She would need some kind of tool, like a pair of pliers. She also had to locate a medical kit. The captain was going to need morphine.
Scrambling back through the cockpit, she was preparing to go aft in search of a survival suit and tools, when something beyond the shattered windows caught her attention.
She narrowed her eyes and peered across the frozen wasteland that surrounded the crash site. The terrain was treacherous, bisected with a seemingly endless maze of twisting crevasses and sinkholes. A lone figure moved swiftly across the deadly landscape, negotiating the dangerous ravines and gorges with seemingly effortless grace.
Even from a distance, Kylie could see he was enormous. His long cape swirled around him as he leaped across the perilous crevasses. He was closing the distance between himself and the Dauntless at a frightening pace, and with purposeful intent. Kylie knew she should be grateful to see another human being; she had thought the planet Fresion to be completely uninhabited.
But somehow, the sight of the man who drew ever closer filled her with a nameless dread. She was certain of one thing; this man was no savior.