Part 2
### Chapter 1: Chapter 1
“You’ll never make it, little rabbit,” he rumbles and the sound of his voice shivers down my spine.
I make it two steps. Maybe less. Then I’m grabbed from behind and spun around. My back slams painfully against the metal door and a huge clawed hand closes around my throat.
He bares his teeth but I don’t dare look. When he rips my throat out, I want to think instead of his stunning, summer eyes.
After being forced into participating in a classified scientific experiment, I thought I would be killed immediately. Instead, I'm disposed of onto a hostile planet, where my death could be dismissed as an unfortunate accident during quarantine. By some miracle, I survive.
The people that put me here notice.
And they come for me.
[Originally written in English. Translations are generated using Inkitt’s AI translation feature.]
Complete Chapters 26
Rating 4.9 ( 7 reviews ) Age Rating mature
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Chapter One
Amara
I’ve been hurting for a long time in this darkness. The pain buzzes across my skin and sizzles in my veins. It pulses— zzzZZZ zzzZZZ —in time with my heartbeat.
I don’t know if my eyes are open or closed. I can’t even use my hands to check if my eyes are still there.
I wonder if I’m in pieces, connected by the barest strings of sinew, viscera clumped over there, lungs flayed and spread over there.
Sometimes, between wishing I could die and raging at the rest of the world for living, I can remember things. Quick gasps of memory. Voices. Faces. Well, just one voice, really.
At first, I tried to distract myself. I imagined that I had a book, a real book with tangible, tactile pages. Delicate and thin, raspy when you coast a finger over them. The words still and so beautifully permanent on their paper. I pictured the pages full of all the facts I’d spent almost all of my twenty-eight years collecting, the fantastic histories, the miraculous evolutions across galaxies in response to salvation efforts and biological advancements.
I was so naive. I had believed we were doing amazing work in the name of science and the survival of our species. Of so many other species. The Directorate called the Meridian Consortium’s purpose such beautiful things.
My wide-eyed excitement had carried me far. After my studies, I was quickly ushered into a highly sought-after apprenticeship. And I had done it all on my own. Without anyone the wiser about who I was.
I was always too curious, diving in without looking back.
And here I am. Reaping my punishment.
When the rumbling starts, I think it’s my heart finally rupturing. For so long, the only thing I could hear was my pulse and internal whisper of air forced in and out of my lungs.
But then the world around me shudders and my skin, sizzling before, starts to boil in agitation. I can’t scream past the tube lodged in my throat, but that doesn't stop me from trying.
I feel gravity shift my insides as I’m suddenly falling, my little world assaulted on all sides as I plummet.
Yes , I think even as my brain starts to white out from the pain. I’ll die on impact.
But as with so many things in my useless life, I couldn’t be more wrong.
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### Chapter 2: Chapter 2
“This does not feel stable,” the Vaesh across from me grits through his teeth.
Over the turbulence of our rapidly plummeting pod, I shout, “Exciting, right?”
Thanks to Critex-9’s plasma-active magnetosphere and a glitchy suppression grid, our ship can only be used once we report our mission a success. Otherwise, too long on this pretty marble’s environment would ensure we never made it out. So, for now, the ship stays in high elliptical orbit and me and the rest of the squad get to take the more adventurous option.
All that’s to say, we have a bumpy ride down to the surface.
The descent for me feels like hooks unraveling my body. The suit that keeps my molecules nice and regulated is built to withstand incredible external distress, but it doesn’t account for the internal chaos going through me during our 12 G vertical descent.
The sound of the retro thrusters roaring to life sings into my flickering bones. I look over at Truce, his serpentine body strapped to the wall and his long tail coiled and safely pinned down, and I envy the solid knocks to his frame and the rebound of his scaled skin. The tangible don’t know what they’re missing, really.
The pod’s flashing screen opposite our one and only exit counts down the time to impact. Forty-five seconds.
The drag petals on the outside of the pod flare out farther, and I can feel myself ripple at the sudden change in velocity.
Truce hisses. His green eyes stay fixed on the screen, face tense. I bet if I booped him right now, he would try to bite me.
I force myself to breathe deeply, even as the edges of me strain and flash. I focus on my hands, curl the fingers tight in their gloves, and brace for a rough landing.
Even though I expected it as a possibility, the forced recalibration once we land feels like being thrown into a pit. It only takes seconds, but I still dream.
I didn’t even think I could do that anymore.
I dream that my human body is whole. Holly straddles my lap, laughing as she wiggles her fingers against my side.
Ah, that’s right. I used to be ticklish.
Her long red hair is a fiery halo as she tries to stay steady under my bucking. Then she kisses me long and slow, and her fingers start to explore me with different purpose.
It’s a cotton candy dream. Sweet and quick to dissolve.
The reboot is disorienting for 0.62 seconds. I wake up with the phantom sensation of Holly’s lips brushing against an eyelid I no longer have.
My optic overlay reinitializes, data bright across the vision of my right eye as I reconnect to the squad telemetry and automatically check the signal to the ship.
I hear him as I open my left eye. There is a faint edge shimmer to Mac as my eyes recalibrate to each other. My right quickly assesses his surface biometrics—jugular carotid movement, body heat fluctuation. My left takes in his physical appearance—big and angry as he pants under the harness. The automatic release had failed.
“I’m good,” I confirm. “I’ll help you out.”
There is a whine and click in my brain as the signal between me and our ship—and consequently, our employer—fizzles to nothing. I ignore it, using my carbon-lattice arm to free myself from the restraints that kept us from breaking all the organic bones in our bodies.
When I’m free, I step down from my platform and reach the short distance to Mac. I decouple him and then force the lever to the pod door until we hear a loud thunk and the door swings out.
Critex-9 is a shit pile. There’s probably a better name for it, but that’s the phrase that fits best.
I step out first into the grassy valley and then Sever does the same. We look up at the roiling mass of clouds above us. Every few seconds, webs of lightning skitter their way from one horizon to the other. There’s a small open patch in the sky, the one I figure we shot through about twelve minutes ago. It’s already far west of where we’re standing.
That was our window. It’ll be another thirty-seven hours before our commander can send or receive any data. And the company sure as hell won’t do anything else until we confirm a successful retrieval of Dr. Something Anthonus. How he drew the short straw to study this waste of mass is a mystery Sever can keep to himself.
I focus on the terrain. It’s hilly and we’re at the base of two rises. I lift my nose and inhale deeply. “Lots of weird shit in the air,” I mutter. “I can’t tell if it’s organic or machine or what.”
I growl at the onslaught of strange scents and snap at the air. My ears press back against my head. The charged wind through my fur feels wrong. It makes me want to run and tackle and bite something.
“It’s the atmosphere,” Sever says. His composite eye keeps flashing as his systems take in the new data. It probably feels like sand through a sieve right now, with his connection so compromised. “There’s higher ionization levels here than on your planet. Along with the chemistry overwhelming individual scent markers, most organisms here share similar metabolic adaptions.”
“You’re a thrill, you know that?” I grumble. I finally pick something up in the air that smells familiar. “Truce and Ghost are this way.”
I start to speed through the dense, stiff grass, trusting Sever at my back.
I feel her the moment the door to the world opens.
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Authors can write and upload their manuscripts on Inkit for free and writers retain 100% of their copyrights while writing on Inkitt
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