Page 18 of Alien Guardian's Vow
I stood, orienting myself toward where I believed Rivera had fallen. The pang in my lifelines pulled me forward like a physical tether. For now, I would follow it and hope it led me to her.
Rivera. The human engineer. My responsibility.
Nothing more.
RIVERA
Darkness greeted me first, then pain. The fall knocked the wind from my lungs and left me sprawled on cold stone. I blinked, waiting for my vision to adjust to the dim emergency lighting that flickered erratically overhead.
"Varek?" My voice echoed through the chamber, bouncing back at me mockingly. No answer.
I pushed myself up, wincing as my elbow protested. The floor collapse had dropped me at least ten meters down, into what looked like a maintenance sublevel. Above me, the jagged hole I'd fallen through showed nothing but darkness. No sign of Varek.
"Varek!" I tried again, louder this time. Nothing but the groan of failing machinery answered me.
The silence in my head felt wrong. The connection, that strange resonance between my markings and his lifelines – gone. Or at least muffled beyond recognition. The absence left an emptiness that disturbed me more than I wanted to admit.
A shower of sparks erupted from a nearby conduit, briefly illuminating the chamber. Damaged tech surrounded me – ceiling panels hanging by frayed cables, swinging like macabre decorations. A maintenance drone bumped repeatedly into a wall, its navigation systems clearly fried. Another one lay on its side, legs moving uselessly in the air.
I pulled out my scanner, hoping against hope. The cracked display flickered weakly, showing intermittent readings before dying completely.
"Perfect," I muttered, shoving it back into my pocket.
My markings tingled, responding to the chaotic energy signatures all around me. Silver light traced patterns along my forearms, providing better illumination than the emergency lights. But the signals they sent to my brain felt scrambled – danger warnings blending with system readings in a confusing jumble.
I took a deep breath. Panic wouldn't help.
Okay, engineer. Assess. Survive. Solve the problem.
First priority: determine if there was any way back up to where I'd been separated from Varek. I studied the walls, looking for maintenance ladders, access shafts, anything. Nothing. The walls were smooth, and the ceiling too high to reach.
"Damn it, Varek," I hissed, irrationally angry at him for not catching me, for not being here. "Some protector you turned out to be."
The moment the words left my mouth, I regretted them. Not his fault. Not mine either. Just bad luck and ancient, failing tech.And he had tried. He'd lunged for me. He'd gotten us through that energy field. He'd been... reliable. Infuriatingly so.
I missed his presence more than made sense. His silent confidence. His strength. Even his irritating protectiveness.
A distant crash echoed through the ruins, followed by the groan of shifting metal. This place was actively falling apart around me. Standing still wasn't an option.
Two corridors led away from the chamber – one bathed in flickering red emergency light, the other nearly pitch black. My markings pulsed stronger toward the darker path. System noise or genuine reading? No way to tell.
I chose the lighted corridor. At least I could see where I was going.
The corridor curved gradually downward, taking me deeper into the ruins. Condensation dripped from the ceiling, creating small puddles that reflected the stuttering emergency lights. My footsteps echoed too loudly in the silence, accompanied by the occasional skittering sound that I desperately hoped was just more malfunctioning maintenance drones.
After twenty minutes of careful progress, I came upon a junction. The corridor split three ways, with a damaged console set into the wall at the center point. Unlike everything else I'd encountered, this console still had power – its display glowing with faint blue light.
I approached cautiously, wiping dust from the screen. A map flickered to life, showing a schematic of this section of the ruins. Most of it appeared corrupted, but I could make out my approximate location and what looked like a central chamber about half a kilometer ahead.
"Now we're talking," I murmured, studying the possible routes.
The most direct path was blocked by a warning symbol. Some kind of security system still active? The alternative route would take twice as long, looping around through what appeared to be storage areas.
I didn't have time for detours. The direct path it was.
The corridor narrowed as I continued, the ceiling dropping lower. The emergency lights grew more sporadic, leaving stretches of complete darkness between pools of red illumination. My markings provided enough light to navigate by, their silver glow reflecting off the damp walls.
I rounded a corner and froze. Ahead, a laser grid crisscrossed the corridor, red beams cutting through the darkness at unpredictable intervals. As I watched, the pattern shifted, beams deactivating in one spot only to reappear in another.
