Defying Mars (The Saving Mars Series) - By Cidney Swanson Page 0,86
Jessamyn heard the low thrumming of a craft outside, some instinctual desire to survive kicked in, sending her grief scurrying for cover. She looked out the porthole and saw the craft hovering beside her. She had no idea if she was looking at friend or foe.
“Weapons,” she muttered aloud, adding to the list of things escape pods Really Ought to Have Inside.
She heard something upon the roof. Someone was definitely removing the outer hatch. Awash in adrenaline, Jess looked about the craft for anything she might use to defend herself. She had a suit and a helmet. And a seat harness. She kicked at the suit, toppling herself in the process. She landed hard on the canister that had provided oxygen to her suit. It was made of metal, which she supposed might be used as a sort of weapon.
“The most pathetic weapon in the entire history of combat,” she muttered, digging frantically to remove the metal cylinder from the suit.
Gazing fiercely at the hatch, she gripped the canister and assumed a loose, ready stance.
The outer hatch seal was definitely open now. Was it friend or foe? Jessamyn felt her heart skipping beats, careening wildly to a rhythm born of fear and hope that collided like smashed atoms. She watched as the inner hull-seal shifted off center and rose. A man she’d never seen before gazed inside, his eyes locking upon hers.
“Jessamyn,” he said.
Nothing more.
Just, “Jessamyn.”
And she knew. Even before he reached a hand down to take hers. Even before she saw the stumps where his body had once had legs. She knew it was Ethan.
“Eth—” Her voice betrayed her, catching on his name. And she just smiled, shaking her head in joy and disbelief. When at last she could speak again, she said simply, “You found me.”
41
PROMISE
The citizens of Yucca held another bonfire to welcome Jessamyn Jaarda, rogue pilot and deserter of Mars Colonial. The cellist declined to bring his instrument out from its climate-controlled case, but the fiddler played merrily and Pavel got his wish to dance with the young men and women of Yucca, and most especially, with Jessamyn. In twos and threes, the people of the small enclave bid their newest guest welcome and then goodnight until only a handful swayed by the embers of the fire to fiddle melodies that grew sadder and sadder as the stars wheeled across the night sky.
Ethan and Kazuko had said their goodnights early, with Brian and Harpreet not far behind. But Pavel remained with Jessamyn, never too far away. He was a favorite with several of the village’s children, Jess noted. At last, even the fiddler packed up his instrument and the remaining dancers shifted off in pairs under the watchful moon.
Jessamyn settled by the flames, thinking sometimes of the Rations Storage fire, other times only of the beauty of the glowing embers. And then Pavel came to sit beside her and she told him of her days upon Mars and her sixty-four and one-half days upon the Galleon.
She didn’t tell him what she’d written to him or how often she’d thought of him, how often she’d dwelt on her half-memories of the very real boy beside her. They were gathered here before her now, all the things she recalled about the Terran boy: Pavel’s long fingers, one just touching hers; his eyes so dark and solemn; his lips.
His lips.
Something inside her sighed. She felt her skin warming in spite of the near-dawn chill. It started at her heart and crept slowly up her chest, past her neck, along her jaw and up to her cheeks until she was a thing of flame and desire.
“Where will you live?” Pavel asked.
She pulled her gaze from the lips that had spoken those words. What had he asked? Where she planned to live?
“Um,” she said, trying to find her way back to her rational self.
“Because Yucca’s amazing,” he said. “Your brother’s happier here than I’ve ever seen him.”
Jess smiled. “He is.” And then, more quietly, she asked, “Where are you going next?”
“Me?” Pavel’s mouth curved to half a smile and he grabbed a stone from the sand, turning it over and over with his beautiful hands. “Aw, Jess … I don’t know. I don’t have a home anymore.”
“Me neither,” she said, placing one of her hands upon his.
Their fingers interlaced as naturally as helmet and suit, and latched just as securely.
Jessamyn leaned back upon the desert floor and Pavel followed, sighing.