The Lost Planet Series Boxed Set: Books 1-5 Page 23

A rumble fills Calix’s chest. “She is not a creature. This is Emery, my mate. She is an alien who has joined our faction at the facility along with several others. It has become necessary to mate with them in order to grow our numbers.”

  “There are more survivors?” Lox asks with interest, his curiosity about me seemingly forgotten for the moment.

  “There are, Lox. Several morts and mates. Once we conclude our business here and repair our transport, we can take you back with us to the facility. The others will be pleased to see you.”

  “And I, them,” he replies. His eyes glow from the light Calix carries.

  “How has the surgical bot fared? Is it still operational?” Calix asks.

  “It’s been many, many revolutions since it’s been used, but I’ve done my best to keep it maintained. I’ve had to salvage parts to try and repair the comms systems with no success.”

  Calix nods and glances back at me. He reaches back a hand to squeeze my own, his eyes growing concerned as he notes my breathing. With a lift of a brow, he expresses his worry, but I shake my head to let him know I don’t need to stop.

  “What is your interest in the surgical bot?”

  “My mate suffers from a breathing condition. I remember Father treating Belin here and how miraculously he healed. We have no other options and”—he glances back at me and lowers his voice—“my mate is deteriorating here. If she does not have this operation, I fear her breaths are numbered.”

  They devolve into a highly technical discussion about the surgical unit’s machines, specifically the bot, and capabilities as we begin to climb a series of crude steps cut into the cave rocks within the mountain. As the altitude increases, breathing gets even harder. I can hear it echoing off the rock walls around me.

  To distract myself, I imagine what will happen when Calix is successful at curing me. We’ll return to the facility and the other morts. Breccan and Aria will assign us a domicile of our own to begin our lives together. I fidget with the dizmonyx in my pocket. We’ll have a little ceremony with the others to cement our commitment. Then, I’ll become the best mate, because he deserves it.

  From the beginning he’s been a dream. More than I deserve.

  But if he gives me a chance to have that future with him, I’ll do whatever it takes to show him how much I appreciate him and all he’s done for me.

  I’ll spend the rest of my life showing him.

  He may be the key to saving my life, but I crave more than that from him.

  So much more.

  Love, a partner, a mate for life.

  The jagged edges of the dizmonyx cut into the palm of my hand. The hope in my chest aches almost as much as my lungs as we reach the top of the incline.

  Calix takes my elbow. “Are you well?” he asks.

  “I’m fine,” I utter, but there’s no denying the breathlessness in my voice. He starts to offer to help, but I wave it away. “So, this is Sector 1779?”

  Lox opens a rusty looking door set into the rock. “This is the airlock entrance. The filters are still working, so you’ll be able to remove your rebreathers.”

  The door comes open with a metallic clang, causing me to jump. The way the sound reverberates throughout the caves and the shadowed interior with the red light makes it feel like a bad sci-fi flick. I tell myself I’m being silly as we enter behind Lox.

  “Let me give you a tour,” Lox says. “I’ll show you to the surgical unit and the bot first.”

  Calix follows eagerly behind. “When do you think we can get started?”

  “The machines will take a while to be prepped, but I anticipate we can get started as soon as tomorrow morning.”

  Calix squeezes my hand and I smile weakly. “Thank you, Lox. We will never be able to repay you.”

  “Transport back is more than enough, my friend.”

  Lox’s thin form leads us through a hallway with flickering orange lights. If the facility’s components were decades out of date, Sector 1779 was like stepping through a door into medieval times, if they had access to technology. The walls and doors are made of reinforced steel instead of the indestructible plastic alloy I’ve grown used to. They clank and groan as we traverse through the hallways, making me think of the old suits of armor knights used to wear.

  The surgical unit itself contains a single bed, with a few monitors, dated computers, and machines that look like torture devices. Apprehension churns in my belly and my hands grow clammy.

  Noting my concern, Calix turns to me and runs a claw through my hair. “How are you feeling?” he asks as Lox mutters to himself and surveys the machines.

  “I’m fine,” I answer, but my smile is wobbly. “Maybe a little weak,” I admit.

  He looks contrite. “I have been so worried about getting here that I did not even consider how strenuous it must be for you. Lox, is there somewhere we can rest? My mate needs to gather her strength before the procedure. While she rests, we can go over what I would like to do, if you do not mind.”

  “Of course, my friend. Let me show you to our sleeping quarters. It’s not much,” he warns.

  “We will make do,” Calix replies.

  He isn’t wrong. The small, dimly lit room has a small, threadbare cot in the middle. He leaves us there and says he’ll meet Calix back in the surgical unit after he retrieves some supplies.

  “Just a few solars more and we’ll be back home,” Calix says, pulling me into his arms.

  “Home is wherever you are.”

  I let him hold me for a moment longer, then pull him down to the small cot. His thick brows crease. “What are you doing?”

  “Medicinal mating,” I tease, but that’s not it. I want to feel him, to feel close to him, one last time in case there aren’t any others. He breaks our fall like I knew he would on top of the musty smelling cot, but doesn’t kiss back with enthusiasm when I press my lips to his. “What’s wrong?”

  “You seem as though you are saying goodbye.”

  I hold him tight against me. “Never.”

  We’d shed our rebreathers when we entered the Sector, but we shove off our suits with impatient hands. I want to go slow, to savor, to memorize, but the urgency underneath my skin has me pulling him on top of me and stroking him with hands that shake. “Faster,” I say as I lick his salty shoulder. “Please.”

  “Does it hurt?” he asks. His hands make quick work of our suits when mine fail me. “I will make it stop.”

  “No,” I say with a shake of my head. “It doesn’t hurt. I just want you. Make me yours.”

  “You are already mine. We were written in the stars before you set foot on this planet. No matter what happens, Emery. You will always be mine.”

  I pull him down for a kiss as he enters me with one quick, sure thrust, then I throw my head back. It always feels like the first time with him. The first quick bite of fear that he won’t fit, then acceptance as I adjust to fit him. Joy explodes inside of me, like pleasure amplified a thousand-fold. It explodes behind my eyes like a supernova.

  The orgasm rolls over me without any prompting and I gasp its invasion into Calix’s neck as the paralysis from the toxica soon follows with his own. He soothes me as he lays me down onto the cot, his hands passing over me in reverence. If I could speak, I would have told him I loved him, but I’m glad I can’t. I want to tell him for the first time with a clear conscience.

  Tomorrow.

  Tomorrow, I will tell him.

  He kisses my eyelids when I’m relaxed enough to slip into the floaty place between dreams and reality.

  Hope.

  It’s a powerful drug.

  Hope has gotten me through terrible, awful circumstances before. I breathe it in, allowing it to fill my faulty lungs with its life-giving sustenance and let it course through my bloodstream.

  Hope will get me through telling Calix the truth.

  It will bring me through to the other side of the surgery.

  Hope will bring us back to the facility.

  If I have any
thing to do with it, hope will bring us back together again after what I have to say.

  I have to believe it.

  I cling to hope as I slip into sleep.

  12

  Calix

  “You’re up early,” Lox says as he plucks some plump fruit from a bush that is growing from a planter in what appears to be an old nutrition bay.

  “We have a busy solar ahead of us.” My gaze falls to the fruit. I’m unfamiliar with this one. Seems to be a hybrid of some sort. “What do you have there?”

  He flashes me a wide grin, his black irises darting back and forth in a manic way. It reminds me back when Draven had The Rades. I take a quick assessment of my father’s old friend to make sure he is not presenting any symptoms.

  “This,” he says as he tosses the yellow fruit into the air, “is a lembulla.” He brings it to his nostrils and inhales. “I crossbred a lemonia tree with grenus root. Between the sweet juice from the lemonia and the nutrients from the grenus, I’ve been able to mostly survive on these.” He tosses it at me and I catch it, my claws puncturing the soft flesh of the fruit.

  “I see,” I say with a polite smile. “Very clever.” When he turns to pick more fruit, I pocket mine and shift my eyes down the corridor where I left Emery sleeping.

  Grenus root is something that was eradicated many revolutions ago when it was discovered to have adverse effects on morts. It is known to cause extreme delusions. There are not any nutritious qualities at all. I have read Galen’s notes on any and all plant life, both available and unavailable. I remember being fascinated by his notes in that section regarding the grenus root.

  Currently, I am not intrigued.

  I am worried.

  If Lox has been living off this fruit, that means he is unwell. Unpredictable even. I will have to watch him carefully. I would feel better if I had his assistance with her surgery. Without his help, the surgery won’t be an impossibility, but will be more difficult. And I don’t want that.

  “Will you show me where Father performed Belin’s procedure?” I ask, keeping my voice normal and unconcerned. The last thing I want is to provoke him if his mind is fragile.

  He takes a bite of the lembulla and slurps loudly. The yellow juices run down his chin. Lox doesn’t bother wiping it away and it makes me cringe. I follow him down the deteriorating corridor to a large room as he devours his meal along the way. This room is in better shape than the others, which makes me thankful.

  We spend the next couple of hours discussing the machines. I am able to connect their purposes with each piece of technology based on my father’s notes. Once familiarized with the room, we set to giving it a fresh scrub down, cleaning it from top to bottom. While we work, he asks questions about the facility and our faction. He’s especially curious as to how the females arrived in our possession.

  “Theron and Sayer,” he says as he washes some tools in a basin. “I don’t remember them.”

  “They are several revolutions younger than myself. Probably nothing but nipple sucking mortlings pissing their undersuits when you met them.”

  “And they have a ship?” he inquires. “I didn’t realize those even existed anymore.”

  I let out a sigh. Lox may be an odd one, looped up on a hybrid hallucinogenic fruit, but he’s still one of us. “Yes, the Mayvina is Theron’s mate.”

  Lox snorts. “Does his mate ever leave the facility?”

  “It is how we…” I trail off. Stole. Aria, Emery, the others. We stole them. “It is how we acquired the females.”

  “Ahhh,” is all he says. “So this metal mate of his. Does she still fly?”

  “A little old, but certainly gets out there some.”

  Theron flies out when the weather is fair to other reaches of Mortuus when we need supplies. Recently we’ve been made aware of other beings traveling within our atmosphere. Theron and Sayer sometimes do less than honorable things like rob from these vessels. They are skilled and usually are gone with their loot before the beings passing by even realize what hit them. Many times, Theron has brought up to Breccan about catching a ride on one of these larger ships to a new, more habitable planet. But despite our dwindling numbers and lack of females, that world outside of ours is unknown. Unknown creatures, unknown pathogens, unknown air quality, unknown threats. We cannot risk our race over an impulsive whim.

  “Can you hand me that carpal knife, Phalix?” Lox asks, nodding his nog to another table.

  “Calix,” I correct, tilting my nog to the side to study him.

  He blinks several times and a shudder ripples through him. Then, his unusual grin is back on his face. “Calix. I apologize.”

  While he finishes up, I pull my zenotablet from my pocket and reach for my glasses that have been perched on top of my nog. I place them on the end of my nose and use my stylus to skim through my notes.

  “As soon as we perform the procedure, we’ll need to ready the terrainster and head back to the facility,” he tells me as he dries his old, bony hands.

  “It has been smashed to bits, remember?” I told him this last night after Emery had gone to sleep. I told him everything. It is as though he has forgotten our entire conversation.

  He blinks at me and then his eyes narrow as though he doesn’t believe me. “Nothing a little hard work can’t fix.”

  “We are going to have to find a way to haul it into one of the bays on this side of the mountain. And we certainly cannot do anything until the geostorm clears.”

  His features screw up into a scowl. “Are there more terrainsters?”

  “Back at the facility, but—”

  “Then we make communication. We tell your people to rescue us.”

  Our people. I want to correct him, but refrain.

  The geostorm is one of the worst I have ever seen. Even if we could communicate with Breccan and the rest, it would be a suicide mission to send them into the heart of this catastrophic storm.

  But explaining this to a mort who has been trapped here for countless revolutions, and is half crazed on a lembulla diet, would be wasted breath.

  And right now, every breath counts.

  Her breaths.

  My mate.

  So, I give him hope. It is all I can offer.

  “We will work to make contact after the procedure. Emery will need rest and we can do this while she heals,” I tell him, my tone placating.

  The flickering in his eyes discontinues and he flashes me another grin. Easy and calm. I try not to flinch each time I see that mouth that is only half-filled with teeth. “Let’s get to it, son.”

  “Lox?”

  He approaches and stands too closely. “Yes?”

  I mull over how I want to ask this question. It is one that has plagued me for many revolutions. Why did my father leave? Belin was healed. He brought him back. But then…then, he left me. Again. That time, he never came back. Not long after he left, one of the other elders who later caught The Rades and died was the one to discover his body. Nothing but a half-eaten carcass. I was not privy to the details as of how he died. Whether it was a sabrevipe or the elements or illness, I’ll never know.

  “Why did my father go back here?” I blurt out. “He never made it. I want to know why.”

  Lox blinks at me several times before answering. “Once Belin was healthy, he wanted to look through some of the other tools and machinery here. See what he could take back with him to the facility. Of course, being his assistant, I went along with him.” He lowers his nog. “He never made it.”

  It is on the tip of my tongue to ask how. How did my father die? But do I really want to know the details? Do I want Lox—already fragile in mind—to relive something so horrific? After my father’s death, and Lox’s assumed death, he was left to rot in Sector 1779 all alone. Perhaps later I will discuss this with him. Much later. When my mate is healed and we are in the company of the other morts. And where I can have Avrell assist me in weaning him off his beloved lembulla.

  “I’m going to fetch Emery,�
� I tell him, clasping his shoulder in an affectionate way. “And the Haxinth.”

  Luckily, Haxinth was something that Galen, Avrell, and myself were able to concoct. I kept the vials with our rations. With the Sector being old and what we thought was abandoned, finding Haxinth that hadn’t rotted was a risk I didn’t want to take. Because of Father’s notes, we were able to recreate the “living corpse” medicine. The technology is far more advanced at the facility and our microbots usually take care of most of our ailments, but considering the microbots have been a failure on my alien, I could not risk it.

  Lox’s brows lift. “You have Haxinth?” The greedy glint in his black eyes sends a shiver of unease skittering down my spine. It takes everything in me not to let my sub-bones crack and pop in warning.

  “Only enough for the procedure. But back at the facility, more can be concocted,” I assure him. I am not sure what his interest is in it. Unless he has some need for that as well. Much like his lumbella. Much like Breccan’s sun addiction. I suppose some morts have something they crave, even if it harms them. “What purpose do you have for it?”

  He gives me a sheepish smile. “Sometimes I can’t sleep. Haxinth helps me sleep.”

  Like a corpse.

  I shudder at that thought.

  “I see.” I give him a forced smile. “We will make sure Avrell gets you what you need when you arrive. In due time, friend.”

  I leave him alone and hurry down the corridor to the room Emery was resting in. I find her sitting on the cot pale and dazed. The raspy wheezing in her chest sends alarm blaring through every nerve ending in my body.

  “Lilapetal,” I murmur, striding over to her and taking a knee in front of her. “Look at me.”

  She lifts her nog and her dulled blue eyes meet mine. “Hi, my mate.”

  My heart warms at her words. I want nothing more than to take her right now. Right here on this cot. But with Lox looming nearby, I do not want to chance it. Besides, she needs this procedure immediately.

  “It is time,” I tell her. “But I need to warn you.”

  She presses a cold finger to my lips. “I know there are risks.”