Planet Sand (Planet Origins Book 5) Read online

Ilara’s beautiful, sand-smeared face twisted in guilt at her part in convincing me to come on this voyage. But I wasn’t frustrated with her. None of this was her fault. She’d been the pawn of powerful men all of her life, just as I’d been for most of mine. I smiled reassurance with cracked lips, but stopped when Ilara looked alarmed. I must look more of a fright than I realized.

  I sought out Lila, who knew Aletox better than any of us did. Even if I might turn out to be the man’s son, she’d worked with him. “Aletox said he’d had the capsule stocked for our travel ahead of time. Surely he must have some kind of healing kit.”

  Lila nodded her agreement, mousy brown hair tumbling around her face. Immediately, she looked regretful of her movement, her face contorting into a sour, nauseated expression. It’d be a while before she could go searching for anything.

  Dolpheus said, “If he’s breathing and seems otherwise okay, other than the fact that he’s laying unresponsive, on the floor in a pool of vomit, let’s just wait a bit before we try to do anything. I feel as if I could fall over at any minute myself. How about the rest of you?”

  Instant mutters of agreement filled the cabin.

  I said, “I’d love to rinse my eyes or something, though. I can’t keep them open. They sting like hell.”

  “Aye, mine too,” Dolpheus replied.

  “I don’t think there’s any part of me that isn’t stinging, aching, throbbing, or swirling,” Lila said.

  “Ugh, aye,” said Kai. “I’ve never felt worse in my entire life.”

  Ilara said, “That man must be truly nuts if he thought traveling like this was a good idea. Maybe he passed out because he was trying to pretend it didn’t mess with him.”

  “Maybe,” I said, pensive. I had no idea what could make a viper like Aletox pass out. He was as wily and mean as they came. Men like that didn’t have real weaknesses, certainly none they ever allowed others to see.

  Kai said, “Well, if he thinks I’m doing that to get back, he’s out of his mind. There’s no way in hell I’m ever doing that again.”

  But I knew Kai would do it again. We all would. Because it was the only way for us to get back home. Assuming our pilot lived. Come on, Aletox, wake up, I willed.

  Life had a nasty sense of humor. The lives and well being of those I cared about now depended on one of three men on all of Planet Origins that I knew with certainty couldn’t be trusted: King Oderon, Lord Brachius, the man I’d believed was my father up until recently, and Aletox, who might be my true father instead.

  How had I let myself be so foolish? It was true, I allowed my gut to guide me, to lead me where I had to be. But how could it have led me so astray? And what was I doing permitting Ilara and Dolpheus to come along with me, to an alien planet— alien to all of us, I hoped—where we were dependent on Aletox to get us back?

  I scooted back to lean my head against the bottom of my seat, where it thumped so heartily that I couldn’t continue questioning my impulsive decision. All I could do was hope that Aletox woke up and that the sand monster outside our door retreated.

  4

  The time passed slowly and our wits returned gradually. But by the time Aletox finally began to stir from his ignominious bed on the floor, covered in sand and the contents of Lila’s stomach, we were all impatient for him to awaken, just not for the same reasons as before.

  Yes, we were all relieved our pilot would survive to navigate this death ship another day, even if we didn’t want to think about that day just yet. And yes, we were still furious at him for luring us into this voyage with him without warning us of the effects of the journey. But now that Ilara had a chance to explain some of the difficulties of landing in the Sahara Desert, we all wanted to throttle him.

  He’d better hurry up and get better so I can break every bone in his body, Dolpheus said to me through our private channel. Even though none of our friends would balk at what he said—it was obvious they all agreed with Dolpheus’ anger—as our brains began to cooperate with us, we grew appropriately mindful of watching our words around the viper. Aletox might be infirm, but that state would only last so long. Aletox would remember any slights and who made them, even if every one of them was well deserved.

  Even Lila, who was perhaps the closest thing Aletox had to a friend among us, seethed. She was back to looking like her usual she-dragon self, all the allowances she made for Aletox as a person to be feared and perhaps also admired, suspended. I was surprised smoke didn’t curl from her nostrils. Maybe that was just because they were clogged with sand.

  When Aletox groaned and dragged himself up to sit, leaning his head on the edge of his seat bottom, all eyes bored into him. When he brought a hand to his temple, I assumed he must have bumped his head when he fell, and I thought, good. He deserved a little bump to the head.

  He opened his eyes slowly and visibly started, something he’d probably never done before. Aletox was cool, always in control of his emotions, or if not, at least able to convincingly pretend that he was. But not this time. “What is it?” he asked.

  I smiled despite the severity of the situation. We’d managed to intimidate the man who didn’t care what others thought of him and certainly didn’t allow others to compel him into anything.

  My lips hurt when I moved them, and I could feel sand like a film of grime across my teeth. But it was worth it to see Aletox’s reaction to my smug smile, which must look as deranged as it felt.

  “What?” he repeated.

  I was too angry to formulate coherent thoughts.

  Lila, however, seemed to do just fine. “You made every one of us wish we were dead, several times, and probably almost killed us. Then you almost die and strand us here on this forsaken planet. But we can deal with all that later. Because right now, we have to figure out how the hell we’re going to get out of this Sahara place. And this most immediate of our problems could’ve been avoided if you’d just given us the opportunity to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of landing here, because let me tell you, there are heaps of disadvantages. If you’d just heeded Ilara’s warning, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Why couldn’t you’ve just waited a minute before flinging us to into a hellhole? Really? That’s all the deliberation you allowed a decision as important as this one?”

  Lila was mad, and for once, I entirely agreed with the she-dragon.

  Aletox didn’t even bother looking apologetic. He cupped his head as he said, “I had to do what I did. The stabilizer function on the transport machine was damaged when we jumped across space. We didn’t have time for deliberation.”

  “So we really did almost die?” Kai asked.

  “Yes,” Aletox said, again without sounding remorseful.

  “No wonder,” Kai said.

  “No wonder what?” Aletox snapped. “I realize you’ve just survived a harrowing ordeal”—he dragged out the word “harrowing” as if we were spoiled children making a big deal out of a scraped knee—“but will you speak with clarity and stop dumping the contents of your addled brains to join the vomit on the floor for examination?”

  Kai’s face grew pink, emphasizing the orange of his hair, but he said nothing.

  I didn’t know what to say anymore. Now that my mind was working again, it wouldn’t stop with the irate thoughts, then the confused ones, closely followed by despondent ones, and then back through the cycle again. But none of it seemed particularly useful.

  We were on a planet I knew far too little about, and we were apparently in some of the most inhospitable territory on the entire planet. The way Ilara made it sound, we’d managed to land in the Wilds of Planet Sand, and if they were anything like the Wilds of O, we were in for a shitstorm far worse than the sandstorm that greeted us when we arrived.

  “If the stabilizer function is shot, can we return to Origins?” Lila said, sounding like her usual intelligent self again. At least one of us was able to focus on the important points.

  “Only if I manage to fix it,” Aletox admitted begrudgingly, causing Dolpheus to
groan roughly.

  “And do you have whatever you need to fix the ship on board?” Lila continued. I had every confidence she’d be able to nail Aletox down so he’d give us all the information we needed. If I’d learned anything about this particular she-dragon, it was that she was a skilled ball-buster. Even a slippery serpent of a man like Aletox must have balls she could crush to force him into submission.

  “Not exactly.”

  “And you tell me to be precise in my answers,” Kai muttered.

  Aletox seemed not to hear him except for the pulsing vein at his temple.

  “What do you need to fix it?” Lila persisted.

  “Materials I don’t have on board, materials that might not exist on Sand. But once we’re out, I’ll likely be able to scrape what I need together from whatever’s available.”

  “And if you don’t find what you need? If it doesn’t exist?”

  “Then I’ll tear apart a non-essential part of the transport device and piece things together until I make it work.” Aletox was getting angry.

  Good. Fuck ’im. There wasn’t a single thing in the vunter death trap that didn’t look essential to our survival. Already there was nothing to spare, every part folding or fitting into a compartment meant only for it, encapsulating it perfectly.

  “Well, it sounds like we’d better get busy then,” Lila said. “And I hope you intend on being more specific with what you need, because it sounds like you need all the help you can get, and I’m your best bet at getting it.”

  The viper met the eyes of the she-dragon and offered her a single, tight nod.

  “Good. Now that that’s settled,” I said, even though it wasn’t settled at all. “Let’s move on to the really urgent part of it.”

  “And what’s that?” Aletox said.

  “We’re apparently in the middle of an enormous, hot, arid region that’s completely unsupportive of the survival of human life. And if we’re lucky enough to find a way past the sandstorms and the beating, blinding sun, oh, and the lack of water or food, then we’re in one of the most dangerous, unstable political regions on Sand.”

  “At least that’s one thing we’re skilled in,” Dolpheus offered. “You and I know how to battle our way past aggressive tribes and rebels.”

  “True,” I conceded. “But we’re on a different planet. We can’t yet predict how that will affect things.”

  “True,” he agreed.

  Ilara said, “And once we manage to find the way to leave the ship, because oh, by the way, people will think it’s an alien spaceship and we’ll be lucky if some government doesn’t confiscate it while we’re gone, if we somehow survive the most dangerous desert on Earth when we’re completely unprepared for it, and if we somehow then survive open guerrilla warfare and kidnappings, we’ll need to find documents to get us out of here.”

  “Documents?” Kai asked.

  “Yes, identification documents. To get us from here to wherever the fuck we’re actually going. Because I didn’t see a princess out there getting beat up by a sandstorm. Which means we need to go someplace else to look for her.”

  Ilara glared at Aletox. Even with the overpowering stinging in my eyeballs, I had trouble looking away from the storm that brewed in those cosmic irises.

  “Shit,” Kai said, even though neither he nor I nor any of the rest of us that weren’t from this planet knew what identification documents were. “We’re fucked.”

  Yes, we were. And not in the fun way.

  5

  A few beats passed during which the weight of our current circumstances settled heavily onto our already-burdened shoulders. Then Kai asked, “What exactly are identification documents? And why do we need them?”

  “You don’t have anything like that on Origins?” Ilara asked. “Some paper... never mind, you don’t have paper. If you don’t have paper, I guess some kind of device or thing that tells authorities who you are and where you come from. What country you’re from.”

  “Country?”

  “And you don’t have countries either,” Ilara said. “Origins is under the rule of just one person? The King?”

  “Yes,” Kai said. “Your father.”

  “Right, my father, the king,” she said. “I’ll continue trying to process that bizarreness another time, when our lives aren’t in imminent danger. On Earth or Sand or whatever you want to call this planet, there are many, many countries. And to travel between countries, you need ID, identification, telling the countries who you are and whether you should be approved to enter. Some countries require visas for entry, basically special approval to enter the country. So we might need visas in addition to IDs, and I honestly have no idea how we’ll manage to get any of this.”

  “Well,” Lila asked, “how do people on Sand get these things? IDs and visas?”

  “As soon as babies are born, they’re given a number. After that, you need to apply for everything, and it’s a ton of paperwork, uh, things to fill out to give them information about you, and a long wait for everything to get processed. I’m sure many people have died waiting for paperwork to be approved.” Ilara laughed awkwardly. “Surely you have something like this on O. I mean, how does the King or whoever know who’s who?”

  Lila said, “Each of us possesses unique identifiers that are specific to us. Although, honestly, I don’t really know how this works with holograms from parallel dimensions. If you and the Princess turn out to be different people, then you may still have the same identifiers, but you may not. The most common identifiers checked are skin and eye patterns—and certainly your eyes are as unique as they come—and some places like the splicing lab step up their security even more by adding breath and blood patterning.”

  “So you’re inputted into the system with biometric patterns as your identifier,” Ilara said. “That’s smart. It sure would save a lot of trouble if they did that on Earth, even though I wouldn’t want most people in the government to have access to any more information about me than they already do. I don’t trust the governments on Earth.”

  “Well then it seems as if things aren’t all that different between Sand and O. I don’t trust the rule of the monarchy either.” Lila spoke treason. To the Princess—or maybe the Princess. But I supposed we were too far away from our planet for it to count.

  We couldn’t be ruled by the King if we didn’t share the same planet with him. I thought that might offer me some relief from the oppression I’d long felt from the King’s rule while on Origins. But I didn’t. Instead, a seed of panic germinated. We were on the other end of space from home and we had no immediate way to return even if we wanted to undertake the journey of death again.

  I tried to regain some control. My brain might not yet be as sharp as usual, but I could think again, enough to list all of our apparent dangers and organize them by urgency. “We need to get organized and moving. If we need these IDs and visas, we’ll find a way.”

  “But—” Ilara started.

  “No buts. We’ll find a way. We haven’t come this far to let something like identifiers stop us. Right now though, we need to focus. Ilara, is there anything else we need to know about this Sahara Desert before we set off into it?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like... how long are the days and nights here? And does it get cold at night here like it does in the Wilds of O? Are there any animals we should watch out for on Sand, especially is there any animal like a mowab here? Is there—”

  “Wait. Mowab? What’s a mowab?”

  Dolpheus answered. “A big, ferocious, mean beast as tall as a horse.”

  “No, there’s nothing like that in the Sahara. At least, nothing I know of. But there are plenty of poisonous insects and snakes that can kill you if they bite you.”

  “Great,” Kai said and leaned back in his seat, crossed his arms over his chest, and unleashed a ferocity I didn’t realize he possessed in a stare directed at Aletox, who didn’t even flinch.

  Ilara continued, “As to the nights, I haven’t
been in the Sahara before, but it’s my understanding that it does get cold at night, although I don’t know how cold, certainly not freezing, I don’t think. Gah!” She threw her hands up.

  “What is it?” I asked, concerned at this outburst of emotion.

  “If I just could access the Internet or something. Anything. The truth is I don’t know much about the Sahara and this region in general for fact. I’ve never had reason to travel here before, mostly because it’s dangerous. I have no problem with the dangers of nature. But of men? Nah, I don’t mess with that. I appreciate having all my body parts exactly where and how they are far too much.”

  “I appreciate them too. Very much,” I said, and our eyes met. We were overdue for some more alone time. My body responded to the idea with an appreciative twitch.

  Ilara grinned back a bit voraciously and I was suddenly ready to take her right then and there—to hell with foreign planets and imminent doom. A man had to die someday. If I went out in a blaze of glory, deep inside her, then it would a far better death than most.

  “Really? Are you guys serious right now?” Lila snapped.

  Dolpheus covered for me while I disengaged. “Can you blame them?” he said, and I thought I might have made out a twinge of jealousy I’d never heard in his voice before. Where did that come from? Was the Dolpheus, who swore off love for nearly four and a half centuries, finally softening to the idea? If he was, he’d better keep the hell away from Ilara. He and the Princess might have tainted what she and I share by their lustful indulgences before she and I fell in love. But this Princess, this Ilara, was all mine. At the very least, she didn’t remember sharing her body with Dolpheus.

  But she remembered sharing her body with me in the hut in the village. The memories of my skin against hers, touching her and filling her everywhere, were dancing across her face, and sparkled in her eyes. It seemed impossible to think that was only a day ago, and already it felt like a lifetime since I’d been inside her.