Enthralled by Tiffany Roberts

Chapter 8

Time passedat a crawl after Ketahn left, and Ivy spent it in silence amongst the sleeping humans. It would’ve been easy to mistake this room for a morgue—it was so still, so silent, and the air was almost chillingly crisp after weeks in the hot, humid jungle. Even the living humans were unmoving.

And it didn’t help that there were twelve pods serving as caskets for people who were gone forever.

Ivy ran a hand through her hair, tugging it back from her face as she glanced around. Releasing a slow breath through her mouth, she returned to her bag, crouched down, and opened it. She removed the two waterskins and the various fruits and dried meats from inside. With nothing else to do, Ivy sat down with her back against the wall and waited.

The silence stretched, eerie and lonely, giving Ivy’s mind far too much time to wander, allowing her anxieties far too much space to multiply. Her last fulltime job had been as a cashier at a grocery store. She really wasn’t qualified to be tending to and briefing anyone in this situation. What if she said or did something wrong? What if she…what if she messed up, and somebody got hurt or died because of it?

Pressing her lips together, she struggled to hold back that fear, that worry. She was doing something. That made a difference, didn’t it?

And I have Ketahn.

He’d done so much for Ivy, even though he hadn’t known anything about her or her species. She’d watched him be devoured by helplessness and despair when she was sick, and she’d watched him push through it, doing everything and anything he could to help her. That was the example she had to follow.

If she didn’t know what to do, she had to do what felt right. And this felt right, despite all her misgivings.

Still, that didn’t stop Ivy from desperately hoping that one of these people had training that would help get them through this—and that they all recovered their wits soon.

A strangled gasp broke the silence, startling Ivy. Though Ahmya had been the first to be brought out of stasis, it hadn’t been her to make the sound. It had come from across the room. Shoving away from the wall, Ivy snatched up one of the waterskins and stood.

Ella Lewis was breathing heavily, her eyelids fluttering. Her fingers curled, digging her nails into the padding of the pod’s bed. “H-how long…does it take to…fall asleep?” she asked. Her voice was rough and weak, just like Ivy expected from someone who’d been unconscious for nearly seventeen decades.

Ivy hurried toward Ella and placed a hand upon her shoulder. “Shh. You actually just woke up. I need you to take some deep, steady breaths, okay? Try to relax.”

“Okay,” Ella said. She drew in a deep breath, and her brows creased as she released it shakily. Her skin was coated in a sheen of sweat despite the cool air. “I feel sick.”

Ivy brushed the woman’s brown hair from her pale face and tucked it behind her ear. “You…you might feel that way for a little while. It’s a side effect of being brought out of stasis, but you’ll be fine, okay? Just try to stay calm and keep breathing.”

Ella slitted her eyes open. It took a few moments for them to focus on Ivy, pupils dilating and contracting repeatedly. “Are we there? We’re on Xolea?”

A pang struck Ivy’s heart. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth as she felt the sting of tears in her eyes. What was she supposed to say?

No yet, Ivy. Wait until the others wake. Wait until they’ve shaken some of the effects of the stasis.

Lifting the waterskin, Ivy opened it and brought it to Ella’s mouth. “Here. Take a sip of water, Ella.”

The woman parted her lips and allowed Ivy to help her drink. Ivy didn’t let her have too much; just enough to soothe a parched mouth and throat before withdrawing the waterskin. Ella’s eyelids drifted shut.

“Just relax while we wait for the others to wake up, okay?” Ivy said.

“Okay,” Ella replied. Even that simple word came out unsteady and uncertain.

A low groan came from behind Ivy. She turned to see a man with shoulder length blonde hair raise a hand to his head and press his fingers to his temples and massage them. Cole Walker.

“Fuck.” Dropping his hand, Cole opened his eyes and grasped the side of his pod, pulling himself out. His bare foot came down with surprising steadiness on the floor. The foot that followed was not quite so stable.

Cole’s balance crumbled. He managed a single, staggering step, body reeling, before falling onto hands and knees. “Ah, shit.”

Ivy rushed to him, crouched, and took him by the arm as he struggled to get back up. “Here, I’ll help you sit. You need to take it slow.”

“I’m okay, just need a…” His words were slightly slurred, and whatever he’d meant to say never came out. Once he was sitting, he ran a hand over his face and let out a puff of air. “Didn’t think it’d be this bad. Worst hangover I ever had.”

Ivy smiled sympathetically. She knew exactly what he meant. “This is just the beginning. It can get worse.” She held the waterskin out to him. “Here, have a drink of water. I have some food too, but we’ll wait until your stomach can handle it.”

Cole accepted the waterskin and took a long, deep drink, tipping his head back and nearly teetering backward in the process. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and drew in a shuddering breath, only then glancing at the waterskin itself. His brow furrowed. “Guess they really pinched pennies with some of this equipment, huh?”

“It’s…a long story. I know you’re confused, but I’ll explain once everyone wakes up.”

“Confused?” Cole blinked a few times. “Why would I be—” He looked up at Ivy then, and his mouth hung open for a moment. “You’re way hotter than the tech that put me under.”

Ivy chuckled, and a hint of warmth flooded her cheeks. “Sit tight, okay? Everyone else should be waking up soon, and I’ll need to help them. Do you want to take another drink?”

Keeping his blue eyes on her, he brought the waterskin to his mouth and took a longer swig than the first before handing it back to her. “Thanks.”

Slowly, the others awoke, each in their own unique states of disorientation and weakness. No one was quite as bad off as Ella, who remained lying on the bed of her pod, her skin glistening with sweat. Still, the worst Ivy had to deal with was Diego Rodriguez’s awakening—after she helped him down from the cryochamber, he managed a couple steps, leaning on her heavily, before doubling over and vomiting on the floor.

The air filtration system was working well enough to cut down the scent within a few seconds, but that little whiff was all it took to make Ivy’s stomach churn. She led him away from the mess, keeping her lips pressed together and telling her stomach, Not now, dang it!

She gave everyone water, nearly emptying two of the waterskins she and Ketahn had brought along in the process, helped some of them move into more comfortable positions, cleaned the mess on the floor, and waited. The information she had to share with them was right there, gathered in a dense, weighty lump of dread in her chest, but she dared not say anything yet. Not until they could understand.

And when will that be? Even after all this time, it’s still hard for me to wrap my head around it.

“Did they skip my shift?” William Reed asked. “I was supposed to… I swapped with Johnson. Was supposed to cover for him.”

He was sitting at the base of his cryochamber with his elbows on his knees and his hands on his temples, raking his fingers absently through his close-cropped black hair. His dark skin was beaded with sweat, but he seemed far more alert than Ella. Though he wore the same white undershirt and underpants as everyone else, his shirt had a blue Homeworld Initiative logo on it over his heart.

He was part of the crew.

“And shouldn’t we be undergoing medical exams right now?” Diego asked. “It doesn’t seem right that we’re just sitting here like this.”

“My head feels like it’s going to split in two,” Lacey Anderson said. She was sitting against the wall, head bowed and clutched between her hands, her long red hair spilling down in front of her.

“I think mine already did,” Callie Wright replied from where she lay on the floor next to her pod, her mass of long black curls spread out around her head. “If you find any bits of gray matter scattered on the floor, that’s mine.”

Ahmya chuckled softly but it quickly turned to a groan. She was sitting in her cryochamber with her arms around her legs and her head resting on her knees. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”

“Is th-this normal?” Ella asked. Her clothing was damp with sweat, and she was shivering.

Ivy pulled one of the blankets out of her pack and unfolded it as she approached Ella. “It’s normal. I went through the same thing.”

“Kinda expected more to be going on when we woke up,” Cole said. He alone of the freshly awakened survivors had dared to get to his feet again, though he hadn’t strayed more than a couple steps from his pod. “Don’t we have shit to do?”

He waved a hand toward the neighboring cryochamber, which was still closed. “And why aren’t these lazy assholes up yet?”

That lump in Ivy’s chest twisted and expanded. She draped the blanket over Ella, who clasped it close to her body.

“Really, man?” asked Diego. “We’ve all been asleep sixty years. They’re not any lazier than you.”

William narrowed his eyes as he swept them over Ivy. “Were you transferred from a different stasis room? I thought Alicia Hilstad was our assigned med tech.”

“She’s not a med tech,” Callie said. “She’s one of us. Non-crew, I mean. I remember her from training. Ivy, right?”

A few of the others turned their attention toward her.

“Yeah, my name is Ivy. Ivy Foster. And I’m…I’m not a crew member.”

Lacey tilted her head and squinted her green eyes. “Are we supposed to have like, visual hallucinations? Why does it look like she’s wearing a spider web?”

Cole’s eyebrows fell low. “If you’re not part of the crew, why the hell are you waking us up?”

Ivy self-consciously ran her palms down the sides of her silk dress. “I have something really important to explain to you all, but I need you to stay calm, okay?”

“Oh, God,” Ella groaned.

“That can’t be good,” said Diego, running his hands over his short black hair.

Taking in a deep breath, Ivy clasped her hands in front of her and looked down at the floor. “We’re not on Xolea. We…didn’t make it.”

Though everyone seemed to gasp, whisper, or mutter something in response, their replies were all similar in tone—at once disbelieving and despairing.

“That…that can’t be right!” Lacey said.

Ivy turned her face toward the closed cryochamber beside her. “The others aren’t awake because…we’re all that’s left.”

Cole scowled, stepped closer to the neighboring pod, and peered down. His eyes flared and he stumbled back, bumping into his open cryochamber. “Oh, fuck!”

“What?” Callie dragged herself up to her feet to look inside one of the sealed pods. She slapped a hand over her mouth, stifling a small cry, as her dark eyes rounded. “Oh, God. Is that a fucking corpse?”

“I was the only one who could wake you all up,” Ivy continued, forcing the words out, “and I had to. The Somnium is losing power. If I’d left you in your cryochambers, you all would’ve been dead in two years.”

“That’s just…it’s not possible,” Cole said, giving himself a visible shake before facing Ivy. “Five thousand people, right? How could we be all that’s left of five thousand people? This is…this is some kind of drill or something, right? A test? The Initiative just wants to see how we perform under pressure?”

Ivy shook her head. “I don’t know how it happened, but the ship crashed. What you see in here”—she waved toward the closed door—“it’s different out there. It’s worse.”

“How did you wake up?” Diego asked.

Ivy rubbed a palm over her arm. “Someone…else woke me. A native to this world.”

“S-So we’re not alone?” Ahmya asked, her eyes shiny with tears.

“Where are they?” Callie asked.

“I’ll introduce you to him soon,” Ivy said. “I just thought it was best to…wait.”

“Did you guys not fucking hear what she said?” Cole demanded, striding forward purposefully. It didn’t take long for that stride to falter, and he only barely caught himself on his cryochamber, sweeping his hair back from his face to reveal cheeks reddened with exertion. “A native. To this world. A fucking alien.”

His words hung heavy in the air, and Ivy was suddenly aware of Ketahn’s presence on the other side of that door—and again, she doubted whether this was the right thing to do. Ketahn had shown her nothing but kindness and patience since she’d awoken. She’d done her best to give him the same.

But not everyone was so open-minded. She certainly hadn’t been, not at first. And she didn’t know these people, didn’t know what they were like, couldn’t guess how they’d react to him.

That weighty silence was broken by William, who, with a soft grunt, pulled himself onto his feet. He didn’t look at the cryochambers he used to support himself as he walked to the control console at the end of the room; he just kept his feet moving in a slow, pained, but determined rhythm.

“Are we really on an alien planet?” Ella asked Ivy, her voice whisper soft.

Ivy looked down at the woman. There were dark circles under Ella’s eyes.

Ivy nodded and placed a comforting hand on the woman’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not good news, but we’re alive, right? That’s something.”

“Fuck,” Cole growled, dropping down to sit at the foot of his cryochamber.

When William reached the console, he touched the controls, and a holo screen appeared before him, filled with its errors and alerts. He muttered a curse, braced one hand atop the control panel, and used the other to press the status report icon on the display.

“All systems—” the computer began; William silenced it with the touch of another icon as information streamed across the screen.

“What, are we not allowed to hear it, too?” asked Cole.

“If he’s the only one who knows what he’s doing, just shut up and let him do it,” said Lacey, who once again bowed her head and obscured her face with her hair. “You do know what you’re doing, right?”

William didn’t answer. Though his back was turned to everyone, Ivy recognized something in his posture, a certain stiffness—shock. Horror. The slow absorption of crushing information. At one point he was prompted to enter a code, which he did as though in a daze, and more text appeared on the display.

The room was silent again but for the breathing of the eight survivors. Ivy dropped her gaze to the floor. Her feet were wrapped in strips of silk that was dingy and stained now, and soon enough would be too tattered and worn to be of much use for anything. Socks and shoes were already little more than a distant memory. Were she to stop and consider it, she would’ve been amazed at how quickly she’d adapted to life on this planet.

But how would the others do? Would they find lives here that they thought were worth living? Would they accept this situation, adapt to it, and find some way to thrive?

Or would they lose their wills to live at all?

Will they hate me for waking them?

A sound roused her from her thoughts, and she glanced up to see William shuffling back to the group, wearing an unsettlingly blank expression.

“So?” Cole said. “What the fuck is going on, man?”

“It’s, uh…” William let out a long breath. “It’s just like she said. The system is on the verge of failure, but most of the info is still there. This stasis room is the only one still operational on this part of the ship.”

“This part? So does that mean there could be survivors in the other sections?” asked Callie.

William began to shake his head, but stopped the gesture to shrug instead. “I don’t know. The uh, the ship broke apart. The computer lost contact with the other sections when that happened, and it doesn’t have records on them.”

He staggered back to his cryochamber and eased himself onto the floor with his back against it.

“Is help coming?” Ahmya asked.

Tipping his head back against the metal pod, William pressed his lips together and closed his eyes.

“No,” Ivy gently answered. “The emergency signal is inoperative, and the navigation system has no idea where we are.”

Ahmya’s bottom lip trembled, and she lowered her face to her knees. Her body shook with her quiet sobs.

“So…what happened? Why the did the ship break apart?” Diego asked, his voice weary and laced with fear.

“I don’t know,” William replied. “Some kind of collision. Meteor or something? I don’t have access to all the information. But the Somnium was designed with these big compartments, it’s supposed to be a safety feature or something. They all have their own power and life support systems in the event of an emergency, so damaged portions of the ship can be sealed off. That’s the only reason we’re still here, I guess. The integrity of this section was just enough to get us through the crash.”

“What the fuck was the crew doing during all that?” Cole asked.

“Everything they could,” William said.

“Bullshit! We’re fucking crashed on an alien planet, man, so don’t give me that. What the fuck were you doing asleep? Shouldn’t you have been helping?”

William squeezed his eyes tighter shut and muttered a response.

“Can’t fucking hear you,” Cole growled, grabbing his pod as though to lurch to his feet again. “Wanna speak up?”

“He said he was in stasis,” Lacey snapped. “Didn’t you pay attention to the seminars? The crew were working in shifts along the way.”

“How does it do us any fucking good if they were in stasis when shit hit the fan?”

William’s features grew taut. His lips trembled, his nostrils flared, and his jaw muscles ticked.

“Stop it!” Ivy stepped forward, glaring at Cole. “For all we know, the crew was dead before we even crashed. And if they weren’t, I’m sure they did everything they possibly could to protect us. It’s not William’s fault, and trying to put the blame on him isn’t going to change what happened.”

Cole stared at her, but after a moment he sank back onto the floor.

Uncomfortable quiet settled over the group again, broken only when Callie asked, “How long have we been here?”

Ivy sighed and turned her palms up in front of her. “I don’t know how long it’s been since we crashed here, but it’s been one hundred and sixty-eight years since we left Earth.”

“The collision was one hundred and twenty-two years ago,” William said. “Not sure about the crash, but I don’t think it was long after that.”

Over a hundred years crashed on this planet. That was plenty of time for Ketahn’s ancestors to have turned the crash into a thing of myth.

“Jesus,” Callie breathed, letting her head fall back against the wall and closing her eyes.

Ivy caught her lower lip between her teeth. As much as she wanted to let everyone come to terms with this in their own time, as much as she wanted to allow them to ask all the questions they must have had—and she still had so many, herself—she couldn’t forget Ketahn’s urgency. They were operating on borrowed time.

“Your name is William, right?” she asked.

William opened his eyes and glanced at her. “Yeah. Usually just Will, though. And you’re…Ivy.”

She smiled at him. “I am. Do you know if there are any supplies we can access? Food, tools, clothing, medicine, anything.”

He nodded and gestured toward the control console. “Every stasis room has a small cache of emergency supplies.”

She looked in the direction he’d indicated. Surely enough, there was a sealed wall compartment beside the console with a blue cross painted on its door. She hadn’t noticed it the last time she was here, not that she could blame herself—there’d been quite a bit on her mind, to say the least.

“It’ll last longer with only”—he sucked in a sharp breath, ran his tongue over his lips, and exhaled—“with only eight of us, but it’s still not much.”

Ivy nodded. If those compartments were in every stasis room, that meant there were potentially more supplies elsewhere, but she didn’t want to think about entering those silent, tomblike chambers right now.

“How long have you been awake, Ivy?” Lacey asked. “You look…healthy.”

Ivy turned toward Lacey to find the woman studying her with her dark brows furrowed. “I’ve been awake for almost two months. At least, I think so. The days feel a bit longer here than they are on Earth.”

“Why didn’t you wake us sooner?” Diego asked.

“I didn’t know about you. The, uh, native who found this place took me from here. When I regained consciousness, I was already outside. He only just brought me back here. Ever since I woke, I thought I was the only human left.”

“So where is he now? This native?” Callie asked. Her skin had taken on a grayish pallor.

Ivy glanced at the door. “He’s waiting for me. I thought it’d be better to give you time to, well, wake up. He’s…different.”

Understatement of the millennium there, Ivy.

“I don’t think any amount of time is going to prepare us to meet a fucking alien,” said Cole.

“It’ll just give our imaginations time to run wild,” Callie said.

Running her gaze over the survivors, Ivy drew in a steadying breath. She could never silence all her doubts and misgivings, but she wouldn’t let them hinder her purpose here, and she wouldn’t let much more time be wasted.

These people were just like she had been—confused, directionless, and running low on hope. In their perspectives, they’d lain down yesterday expecting to wake up on a beautiful new world to begin brand new lives. And she’d just told them that a hundred and sixty-eight years had passed and everything they’d dreamed about had been taken away in what seemed like a blink of their eyes.

Her attention lingered on poor Ella. No one looked like they felt very good, but she looked like she was suffering from a terrible case of the flu. Considering the injections they’d all received before boarding the ship, that was unlikely.

“Do any of you have medical training?” Ivy asked.

“We got a crew member here,” said Cole, turning his still angry gaze toward Will.

“I’m a computer tech,” Will said. “I got nothing beyond the same first aid training all of you received.”

“What the fuck use are—”

“I’m a nurse,” Diego said, raising his voice to cut off Cole. “My head is still fuzzy, you know? But I think enough of it is second nature that I can get by for now.”

Ivy offered him a smile. “All right. Diego, could you take a look at Ella? See if there’s anything you can do for her?”

Diego flattened a hand on the floor and pushed himself up onto his feet, shaking his head as though clearing it.

As Diego made his way to Ella’s pod, Ivy stepped over to Will. “Could you get the emergency supply compartment opened?”

Will blinked a few times, looked up at Ivy, and then turned his attention toward the marked compartment. “Yeah. Yeah, I can.”

“Thank you. We can figure out what we have to work with.” Ivy offered Will a hand and helped him up. “Can someone help him take stock?”

“I’ll do it,” said Lacey, bracing an arm on the pod beside her to stand up. She strode over to join Will at the compartment, her steps noticeably steadier than what some of the others had displayed so far.

“Thank you, Lacey.” Ivy moved back to Ella. “You’re going to be okay. I felt pretty crappy for a while when I woke up, too, but it’ll pass.”

Ella opened her eyes and looked up at Ivy. Shivering, she smiled wanly as Diego checked her pulse at her wrist. “I’ve had worse. Nothing can keep this farmgirl down.”

Ivy returned the smile, nodded at Diego, and returned to her and Ketahn’s packs, from which she removed a large, rolled up leaf. Flattening the leaf on the floor, she spread the fruits, nuts, dried meats, roots, and mushrooms upon it.

“I didn’t have a scanner on hand, but through a little trial and error and with a lot of help, I know this is all safe to eat,” Ivy said. “Your stomachs might need some time to wake up, but if you start feeling hungry, take whatever you like.”

Callie rose and carefully walked closer. Once she was next to Ivy, she lowered herself onto the floor with a soft grunt. Just that little bit of physical activity had winded her. “Help from the natives?”

“Just one.”

“Are there others?”

Ivy kept her voice low. “There are, but I haven’t met them yet. We’re…being cautious.”

Callie’s eyes rounded, but she nodded. “Not exactly comforting, but I understand.”

“Are they…bad?” Ahmya asked, easing down from her pod to join them.

“They’re people, like us. They just look different,” Ivy said. “And well…we’re the aliens to them. Ketahn, the one I’ve been with, is kind and patient. He’s kept me safe, and he’s taught me how to survive. He’s willing to do the same with all of you as we try to find our place on this planet. So please, when you see him, keep that in mind.”

Callie nodded again, flicking her gaze over Ivy. “Well, from the looks of you, I’d say things are working out. You look like you’re glowing.”

Ivy fought the blush threatening to stain her cheeks and lowered her eyes. All she could do was think back to this morning—waking up with Ketahn’s long purple tongue between her thighs. She didn’t think mentioning that would go over well with these people, especially once they saw him.

“Believe it or not, I’ve been happy here. My life on Earth was pretty shitty, but despite everything that’s happened, I’m genuinely happy.”

“That gives me hope,” Ahmya said softly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I mean, I…I feel a little numb right now. Shock, I think? But if you can find happiness here, I’m sure we can too. We left Earth to start over on a new world…isn’t this kind of the same thing?”

Callie snorted, but there was a good-natured smile on her lips. “Yeah, but we were supposed to have electricity and prefab housing. I think we’re going to be short a few luxuries here.”

“I have to admit, I do miss toilets,” Ivy said with a grin.

Callie and Ahmya groaned.