Jennifer Wells - Beyond the Stars - At Galaxy's Edge

Hyleesh’s father was a rapist and killer. And now a mass murderer.

When Hyleesh learned the truth, the propulsion bombs were already on their way to Yulia. By the time he made it to Yulia, his ship’s instruments didn’t detect a single heartbeat on the entire planet. Not a soul had survived the massive extermination.

And now he was going to die of thirst on a brittle dry planet.

He kicked the sink, cursed, and slammed the pipe against the wall. It dented the cement then bounced off the floor with a clang.

The clang echoed.

Hyleesh sighed and dropped his head to his wide palms.

His ship was his only hope. He had to conserve enough energy to get back to his ship.

The clang echoed again. And again.

Hyleesh held his breath.

Echoes don’t last that long.

He stormed out of the bathroom and scanned the area with his flashlight. It wasn’t an echo. It was a squeak, recurrent, from somewhere down a dark hallway studded with broken beams and fallen furniture.

His lips were parched, his throat so dry it hurt. The last effort in the bathroom had left him drained of energy and dizzy.

Yet the squeak kept calling. There was no air moving, no draft. Hyleesh held the flashlight like a poised rifle and started down the hallway. All doors had shattered, all rooms looked the same‌—‌collapsed ceiling, smashed furniture, wreckage everywhere.

The squeak got louder. Whinier, in a way. More demanding.

You’re imagining things. They’re all dead. Nobody survived.

He got to the last doorway, the last hole in the wall. He flattened against the wall, an old instinct from his military training, then pointed his flashlight. In the unyielding darkness, two red dots bounced off the light. And they blinked.

Sacred Kraal.

Hyleesh clipped the flashlight back to his jacket and entered the room. It had been a moan, not a squeak. A dog, of all living things, trapped under a slab of concrete that had pinned the poor animal’s hind legs. Despite all odds he’d survived. His eyes were crusted with pus, his nose split in the middle and caked with blood. And yet there was still life in him. Hyleesh crouched by his side and the dog barked and licked his hands, his tongue rough and as dry as Hyleesh’s own lips.

“I’m not sure what I’m saving you from, buddy,” Hyleesh mumbled, clearing the debris accumulated around the animal. “I think right now the chances are slim for both of us.”

He lifted one of the beams that had dropped from the ceiling and used it to lever the slab of concrete. As soon as it yielded a few inches from the ground, he kicked a metal shelf underneath to keep it off the dog’s legs.

The dog didn’t move.

“Come on buddy, you can do this.”

Hyleesh pulled gently on his forepaws, dragging him out of the trap, and then assessed the damage. The dog’s hind legs were gone, clamped under the weight of the concrete. Ironically, it had also prevented the limbs from bleeding, saving his life. How he’d survived the massive radiation and explosion, though, was a complete mystery.

The dog licked Hyleesh’s hand and moaned. Something clinked from his collar‌—‌a small, round medal with a plastic keycard attached to it. The medal said”Argos” followed by a call number.

“Argos,” Hyleesh said. He patted him behind the ears. “What a trooper.”

He removed the keycard from the dog’s collar and examined it. It had a magnetic strip and a barcode printed on the back. He stood up and swept his flashlight around. No standing doors left. Whatever the keycard had given access to, it was useless now.

Argos scraped the ground with his front paws and licked the tip of Hyleesh’s boot.

Hyleesh stooped down again. “What does this‌—‌”

And then he saw it, right as he leaned forward and the beam from his clipped flashlight fell on it‌—‌a trapdoor. The concrete slab had fallen on it (and on Argos), hiding it. Hyleesh moved the dog and shone his light on it. The keycard lock had been smashed and the door had caved in.

Hyleesh tried to swallow but his mouth was too dry.

He could still make it to his ship. How far into the city had he come with the mosquito? Maybe in half a day he’d get back to the shore. Maybe he still had it in him, enough energy to make it. But he had to leave now.

Argos let out a soft cry.

Hyleesh nodded. “You have friends down there, don’t you?”

His ship’s instruments hadn’t detected any survivors. But then again, they hadn’t detected Argos’s heartbeat either.

Hyleesh set the flashlight on the ground, beam pointed underneath the slab of concrete, and removed his jacket. He retrieved the beam, stuck it under the concrete, and then heaved and pushed until the slab inched backward. Satisfied that there was enough room for him to access the trapdoor, he crawled under the slab.

Crushed by the heavy weight, the cardkey pad was jammed. Luckily, the locking mechanism had failed and it took Hyleesh only a little pushing and prodding for the door to yield.

As soon as he pulled it open, the odor wafting out of the door killed his last hope of finding anyone alive. It was so strong it brought tears to his eyes. He took a deep breath, and leaning through the hole, shone the flashlight down below. It was a five-by-five bunker, no more than six feet deep. A coffin. The light swept through a rack of shelves brimming with canned food and water bottles that had been miraculously undamaged. He was about to relate the good news to Argos when the light caught something that made him freeze.

A hand.

Hyleesh stuck the butt of the flashlight in his mouth and lowered himself inside the hole. Underneath blue covers, he found a mother and child huddled together against the wall. Their faces were bloated, their skin green and purulent. And yet that gesture‌—‌the child embraced by her mother’s arms‌—‌frozen in the moment of death, carried such tenderness, such humanity, it made Hyleesh rewind back to his own childhood back on Aplaya, back when the world was a big playground and his dad the hero of his dreams. Back when he still believed in his people, his origins, himself. Back before one woman opened his eyes and made his world crumble.

He spotted the air vent above mother and child. He waved a hand in front of it but no air was circulating. They had been spared death by the bombs only to die asphyxiated in the very place that had saved their lives.

He sighed and dropped the blue cover back over the bodies.

Argos yelped. A slight tremor made the bunker walls vibrate. The cans on the metal rack rattled.

Fuck. The place is going to collapse soon.

Nothing he could do about the mother and child, but Argos, back on ground level, was still alive. And so am I , he thought, grabbing as many water bottles as he could hold. He crawled back out of the hole, uncapped the first bottle and poured it in Argos’ mouth. The second one he gulped down in huge mouthfuls, splashing the last of it on his dust-caked face. He put the rest of the bottles on his jacket, knotted the sleeves together, and swung it over his shoulder.

He then inhaled, gazed back at Argos, and bobbed his head. “This is going to hurt, buddy,” he said, leaning over to pick up the dog. “But believe me, you don’t want to be left here either.”

Argos yelped as Hyleesh snuggled him against his chest, careful to tuck the stumps of his injured legs underneath. He moaned, then leaned his face against Hyleesh’s chest and closed his eyes. For the rest of the hike back out of the building, the dog didn’t make another sound.

“Your job is done, buddy,” Hyleesh said, patting him. “You didn’t save their lives but you saved mine. Your job is done.”