When I’d woken with the other women on the ship, it was too late. Too late to go back. Too late to hope that someone would rescue us like a goddamn movie.

I thought of the fate of the women on the sand planet and wanted to punch something.

It could be worse, I reminded myself darkly.

It became a mantra as my boots drove through the snow.

It could be worse. It could be worse.

But saying, “It could be worse,” only got you so far when you were desperate for things, for people, to be better.

I was so overwhelmed with hatred and grief that it stopped me dead in my tracks as I crested the hill. My lungs burned, my breath heaving. I squeezed my eyes shut, but luckily, there was no sign of tears now. The anger inside me became hot and rocky, like an ember. My eyes were dry when I opened them again.

This hill really was huge. It tumbled downward, another hill of similar size rising up across from it, creating a flat, snowy valley between them. In that valley rested the dome of the ship that had brought us here. Recent snowfall had turned it into a small white hill of its own.

Looking at the ship made bile rise in my throat. I almost wanted to laugh at the bitter absurdity of the situation. I was an astrophysicist. I’d dedicated my life to space and the stars, dreaming of what it would be like to travel among them, not even knowing the technology already existed, the possibility all too real.

My wish had come true in a dark and twisted way. I’d left Earth and travelled light years...

And all I wanted to do was go home.

If I squinted in my goggles, if I ignored the slightly pink tint to the sky here, I could almost pretend this was Ontario in winter. The sun this planet orbited gave off more red light than we were used to back home, which caused the pinkish hue in the sky. But otherwise, despite the odd animals and the crystal trees, this planet shared quite a few commonalities with Earth. It had a breathable atmosphere, and I’d studied enough data by now to know that it had distinct seasons. If I really let my gaze go hazy, the crystal cones that dotted the valley and hill beyond could have almost passed for towering spruce trees. Spruce trees that came in shades of pink, purple, and silver as well as green.

Other civilian women, escorted by soldiers, were in the valley, too, analyzing the trees closer to the ship. I was far enough away that I couldn’t hear any of their activities. And unless one of them looked at a life sign scanner and saw my little dot up here, they probably wouldn’t notice me.

I’ll have to get back soon...

I rubbed my wrist through the puff of my parka’s sleeve, deciding what to do. I already knew I wasn’t going down into the valley or to the ship. But I definitely wasn’t ready to get back to Major Corey, either.

I settled on walking a little further along the ridge of the hill before turning and clomping back down into a new patch of forest. There was no wind today, and it wasn’t snowing. I’d be able to follow my footsteps back pretty easily, so I wasn’t too worried about getting lost. The pale pink sky was clear, the alien sun shattering into infinite spangles along the glittering ground and the shimmering trees. In another lifetime, I would have called it beautiful.

A beautiful prison.

In that moment, my prison became my sanctuary. The hushed, sunlit forest on this strange and foreign world welcomed me, sheltered me, let me escape, just for a few precious moments. The push and pull of the sensation left me breathless. I was trapped here, in this place. This forest. This winter. This world.

And even so, even shackled to its hard trees and sinking in its snow, I begged it for solace.

I reached the bottom of the hill I’d climbed up before and collapsed onto my ass. My stiff snowpants made a crinkly sound, muffled by the snow I smooshed on the way down. My quads were on fire after the hike, my chest tight. With a sigh that felt like surrender, I arched back until I was lying on the ground.

My limbs akimbo, I stared up at the clear pink sky. Even though it was afternoon, the colour reminded me of dawn. A tired laugh bubbled up in my throat when I realized I was in the perfect position to make a snow angel. Not that I had the energy for it. Now that I’d flopped down here, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get back up again.

But something revolted in me at that. Something hard and urgent. Something that told me to fuck the exhaustion, fuck the grief, and make the snow angel anyway. Suddenly, I couldn’t get the idea out of my head. The idea that I’d leave something of myself, my childhood, my life, out here in this hidden stretch of snow. A secret human angel left by a trapped interloper – half rebellion, half apology. It wouldn’t be an indelible mark. Fresh snow and wind would wipe it all away. But I would know it was there. And maybe the forest would, too.

With a burst of strength, my arms and legs pushed through the snow, swiping back and forth. The snow was powdery, not too wet or heavy, and I could soon tell by the feel that I’d made a perfect snow angel. My cheeks ached, and I realized I was smiling.

My flare of energy began to fade. My legs came to a quivering stop, my arms resting in the hollow of the angel’s wings. I gazed upward, the pink of the sky so bitingly clear it didn’t even look real.

Except...

Wait.

The sky wasn’t all clear.

Shit. Storm clouds?

I tipped my chin further up, driving my hood harder into the snow as I craned my neck back to better see. The sky over the valley beyond the hill looked... wrong. Darkening, as if with clouds. But it wasn’t clouds. Was it? No, it looked like...

Stone.

Anxious energy spiking into my limbs, I clambered onto my hands and knees and then stood. It was impossible. It made no fucking sense! But somehow, my instinct seemed right.

The sky was turning to stone. Right in front of me.

A dark grey, opaque oval hovered, somehow immune to gravity despite its rocky appearance.

Before I could even try to figure out what the fuck was happening, a thunderous boom so loud it made my skull ache crashed through the air. My breath caught in a stuttering gasp as the cause for the boom became clear.

The stone had cracked. A deep, dizzyingly dark chasm had opened up.

And something was coming out.

OceanofPDF.com

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER FIVE Torrance

Fuck. Fuck!

This couldn’t be real. And yet, it had to be. We’d gotten off way too easy on this alien planet so far. No alien hostiles, no weird viruses, no natural disasters the likes of which we’d never seen on Earth. Something had to give. Something had to eventually come and bite us in our arrogant, ignorant human asses.

And clearly, ass-biting time had come.

Gunfire cut through the air, the sound of it shocking me into movement. Just as something – a figure? – hauled itself fully out of the crack and dove through the sky, I spun and started running. As much as I could, anyway, with the snow clogging every step I took.

I didn’t get far. A catastrophic surge exploded through the ground, earthquake-like in its intensity. Like a goddamn meteor had just made contact. I couldn’t even cry out before I was flung forward, throttling through the air until I collided face-first with the ground. Thank God it’s winter. Without the deep, pillowy snow to cushion my landing, I definitely would have broken something. Probably my neck. As it was, I was mostly alright, aside from the fact that the wind had been knocked out of me. Having my face pressed into the snow didn’t help, and I fought to right myself. For one queasy heartbeat, I felt like I was in quicksand. Sinking and flailing.