Page 1 of Alien Desire
Chapter one - Emma
As we tear through the atmosphere of this planet, I know instantly that something is wrong. Before all the alarms start to ring and the lights flash, turning the cockpit into a cabin of disco lights, I smell it.
I smell something in the air of the ship. Something wrong. Off. Different.
We hurtle uncontrollably towards the fast approaching planet as Georgio screams instructions and Ling stabs at buttons and tugs at levers frantically. Jacob turns in his seat towards me. His mouth flies open and shut, but I don’t hear the words screaming from his lips, don’t comprehend what he’s trying to tell me by the wave and jab of his hands. I just stare back at him, frozen in my seat. Behind him is the window and the view of this world, an ice planet so white it’s blinding.
It starts as a little dot, morphing and spreading, engulfing the whole of the pane of glass, bigger and bigger, brighter and brighter.
Piercing white and Jacob’s frightened eyes are the last thing I remember, and then my world goes black.
I don’t know how long I’m out, but I think it’s the cold that finally forces my mind back to consciousness and I wake shivering. The world is still dark and for a fleeting moment I wonder if I’ve died. But my heart aches in my chest and pain radiating through my still present body.
I can’t see though. I can’t see a thing and I blink rapidly, fearing I’ve lost the use of my eyes before bright lights begin to appear in the surrounding blackness, emerging from the darkness. Pin-pricks of brightness scatter like rice and I understand I’m staring up at a moonless sky, at a galaxy of stars that are not my own, far from my own solar system and my own planet, Earth.
I struggle to move, held in place by the strong straps of my pilot seat, and I scrabble with frozen fingers at the buckle, forcing my cold digits to work. Finally, the mechanism pings open, and I slump forward.
“Georgio!” I yell, my voice loud in my ears, ringing through my head. “Georgio! Ling!”
Running my hands over my body and my limbs, I pull myself up to stand. My body complains at the action, every part battered and bruised, sore and aching. But I stagger up regardless, trying to peer through the night.
Around me is the wreck of our spaceship, smashed to smithereens by the impact of our crash. The landscape is littered with warped, jagged metal, twisted grotesquely out of shape, some of it simmering red, distant flames curling into the sky.
Despite this dying fire, the air is bitterly cold and beneath my feet is compacted ice. I wrap my arms around myself, and stumble through the wreckage, calling the names of my crew mates. The carcass of our ship sprawls for what looks like a square mile, and fire flickers in the distance.
I find Jacob first, close by, his lifeless body hanging from the straps of his seat. His eyelids remain open and he glares at me as if he’s still trying to make himself understood. I shudder and try to clamber up to free him and close his eyes. But it’s no use, I can’t reach, and I remind myself that the others might need my help.
Focus on the living, Emma. The dead can wait.
Georgio is next. Sifting through gnarled shards, I find his body almost severed in two, the white ice around him stained a sickly scarlet. I jump away, turning my back on him, and retching bile that burns my throat.
He’s dead too.
The blood rushes in my head, so loud it is almost deafening and my heart beats rapidly, my vision swimming.
Ling, where’s Ling? She has to be here. She has to be alive. I can’t be the only one. I can’t be alone.
I don’t want to be alone.
“Ling!” I scream into this cold silent world as I race through the wreckage, my cumbersome space boots sliding on the ice; determined I’ve heard her groan, certain I’ve seen a movement.
I have no idea how long I search. The black sky lightens at the horizon, and some other sun — so much smaller, feebler than my own — creeps into the sky. As its first weak rays spill over the jagged landscape, the ice sparkles to life and the shards of metal light up in golds and silvers.
Then I find her, crushed beneath the weight of a fuel tank. One hand, her plain wedding band wrapped around her third finger, the only part of her that remains.
I sink to my knees, defeated.
Defeated and alone.
I reach out and clasp Ling’s stiff hand, her fingers rigid in place. I don’t care. I grip it anyway.
And I’m suddenly taken back there. To that forest. We’d gone for a walk through the countryside, me, my parents and my older brother and somehow I’d lost them. Probably it was for mere minutes, but surrounded by the never-ending trees, spinning around and around, so dizzy I hardly knew which way was up or down, every tree the same, crowding in on me, I’d tasted that first fear of being alone.
It had been a premonition of what was to come. When I was to lose them for real.
And here I am again, alone.
Alone. Alone. Alone.
