“I don’t know. How do I find out?”
“On the left forearm of your suit, there is a flap you can pull back. Can you open it?”
Though the rest of the suit was baggy, the gloves that covered her hands were made of a stretchy material that reminded her of spandex and weren’t too huge on her. She found a little tab on her left sleeve and pulled. It drew back as though stuck with Velcro, revealing an electronic screen about the size of a cell phone, bracketed by multicolored buttons. “Okay. Now what?”
“Press the blue button.”
As soon as she did, a female voice spoke in Lasaran.
More muted conversation erupted.
“What did she say?” Eliana asked.
Conversation ceased.
“Hello?”
“You have the equivalent of twenty-six Earth hours of oxygen left.”
That didn’t sound so bad. She had worried she only had minutes left. “How far away are you?”
“We have not yet determined that,” he said. “We are still tracing the signal.”
“Oh. Okay.” She had a sinking feeling that it wouldn’t take this long for them to trace the signal if she were only a day away from them.
Crap.
The men returned to their soft conversation. She was glad the commander left the line of communication open. She was trying very hard not to freak out, and hearing their calm voices helped.
She tried once more to remember the events that had landed her out here in the middle of nowhere. “We were attacked,” she murmured.
“What?” the commander asked.
“We were attacked, like you said. I was with Ganix. I was trying to get him to help me talk one of the Yona soldiers into sparring with me.”
“Sparring with you?” he asked, his voice hesitant, as though he wasn’t sure he understood the word.
“Yes. Sparring means… fighting or engaging in battle.”
“This Yona offended you?”
She laughed, then grunted when pain shot through her chest. “No. I meant fight with me as if we were training, not as if we were enemies. I had never met a Yona soldier until I boarded the Kandovar, and they really intrigue me. They’re always so stoic, you know? I mean, they never exhibit any emotion. I’d never met anyone like that before and was curious to see if that changed when they fought. Do they get angry? Do they get frustrated? Do they get excited, thrilled by the rush of battle? I was trying to get Ganix to help me talk one into sparring with me so I could find out when alarms started blaring. A voice came over the speaker, saying we were under attack. The ship began to take fire, and the situation degenerated quickly. Ganix told me I should get my people into escape pods in case the worst should happen. Apparently fighting while racing through a qhov’rum isn’t easy. So I hauled ass to get my charges into escape pods—”
“Hauled ass?”
“Moved quickly.”
“What are charges?”
“There were other women from Earth on the ship. I was one of their guards, tasked with keeping them safe. So once Ganix told me to get them to the escape pods, I hauled ass to get all my charges into the pods.”
“Were you able to do so?”
“Yes. Then I helped the Lasarans.”
“You did not enter a pod with your friends?”
“No. I guess I should have. They were my top priority. But the ship’s shields began to fail, and Lasarans were being injured. So I helped as many as I could reach the pods—”
“Even though the Lasarans were not your people?”
She blinked. “Of course. It doesn’t matter that they weren’t my people. They were kind to me. And my friends. So I helped as many as I could.” She frowned at the memory. “I would’ve helped more, but Ganix caught up with me and kept ordering me to get to a pod myself. Then there was an explosion, and… some guy talking gibberish in my ear woke me up.” She glanced down. “I wasn’t wearing this suit when the attack happened. Ganix must have stuffed me into it while I was unconscious.” He had probably tried like hell to get her to an escape pod too. “I hope he’s all right.”
A moment of silence followed.
“I hope they all are, Eliana.”
She liked the way he said her name.
“You’re very brave.”
A wry smile twisted her lips as she stared through the helmet’s visor. “I don’t feel very brave at the moment.” She was actually scared shitless.
One of the other men spoke softly.
Though she couldn’t understand what Dagon bit out next, the way he delivered it sounded suspiciously like a curse word.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He cleared his throat. “We are having difficulty calculating how far away you are.”
He sounded grim as hell. And she was going to go out on a limb and guess he didn’t lie very often, because she had no difficulty determining he was doing so now.
“Bullshit. You’ve already calculated it. I can hear it in your voice. How long will it take you to reach me?”
“We will reach you as quickly as we can.”
“What’s your name again?” she asked.
“Commander Dagon.”
“How long will it take you to reach me, Dagon?” Her heart pounded with dread as she awaited his response.
“You are farther away than we anticipated.”
Don’t panic, damn it. “How much farther? I can stretch the oxygen and make it last.”
“No, you can’t,” he replied, his voice soft with sorrow.
“I can,” she insisted. “I can slow my heart rate, slow my metabolism, and slow my breathing so I consume less oxygen. I can do it.” Ordinary humans could not. But Immortal Guardians could, thanks to the symbiotic virus that infected them. She could actually slow her breathing and heart rate to such an extent that doctors would declare her dead.
“Lasarans sent us detailed information on Earthling anatomy so we would be able to render medical aid to any we found,” he countered. “That information did not indicate that Earthlings are capable of such.”
She swore silently. “I know. But not all Earthlings are alike. I’m different. I’m stronger. And I need you to trust me on this, okay? How long does the oxygen have to last for you to make it here?” She could do this. She would do this.
A sigh carried across the line. “It will take us one of your Earth months to reach you.”
All breath left her lungs.
“A month?” she repeated, head spinning with sudden dizziness.
His voice was full of regret when he answered. “Yes.”
Tears burned the backs of her eyes, but she stubbornly blinked them back. “Well… damn. That’s a long time.” Too long. Even she couldn’t make twenty-six hours of oxygen last thirty days.
Could she?
“We are contacting other members of the Alliance to see if any of their ships are closer to you.”
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Thank you. I appreciate that.” Her mind worked furiously. “In the meantime, would you maybe head my way and see if any of my friends or the Lasarans are somewhere between us? If I survived the attack in a suit, then some of those escape pods had to have made it, too, and they might be closer to you.”