to do is dig in.
One rock at a time.
Then another.
And another.
Using the heaviest sheet of permasteel I could lift as a lever, I shoved rocks off, rolling them down the pile to scatter on the desert floor.
But no matter how many I moved, the newly formed mountain of rocks didn’t seem to go down any further.
Then I heard him.
“Little to the left, Yas.”
“Seriously? You’re bitching about my technique?”
Apparently having a cliff dropped on him hadn’t really softened him up in the slightest.
After a grueling ten minutes, I was finally down far enough to see his shoulder, the bare skin almost raw from the sharp stones.
I flung down my tool, touched him as gently as I could, just to be sure he was real, not a delusion caused by frantic wishing and oxygen deprivation.
“Sorry I’m not more help,” he said. “I’m a little pinned right now.”
“I’ve got it,” I answered, brushing away an annoying wetness from my face. “It may take me a bit, but now that I know where you are, I can do this.”
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”
“You impossible man,” I said, but I didn’t really care how impossible he was.
He was fine.
And this time I believed him.
Agonizing minutes later, I’d cleared enough space for him to be able to move, just a bit.
“I got it from here, Yas.” A grunt, followed by the clattering of stones. “You may want to back up a bit, actually.”
Hastily, I hurried away. I’d already caught more than a few bruises from the rocks continuing to shift and slide in the pile.
“I’m safe!” I called back to him.
“You better be,” he answered, then in a small explosion of rubble, he reared up, bursting free.
And finally, I saw what the problem had been, why he’d had such difficulty getting loose.
Rather than just saving himself, he’d hunched over the last of our supplies, protecting them with his own back.
Rations, our scant, muddy water, the last salvageable electronics from my ship, all lay scattered at his feet.
I flung myself at him, scrambling over the rocks. “I’m going to kill you myself if you ever do anything like that again.”
His mouth fell upon mine as if he were desperate for more than oxygen, and I pressed into his chest, anger, relief, and fear all tangled together.
Finally, I stepped back, cupping his face in my hands.
“Don’t you dare tell me this is lack of oxygen,” I insisted.
He pulled me back into his arms, stroking my hair while I luxuriated in the feeling that he was here. Safe. With me.
“Not going to, babe. Not right now.”
After a moment, something over his shoulder caught my eye and I pulled back again. “What’s that?”
A deep growl rumbled through his chest. “If it’s whatever the hell made those tracks, it can come back later. I’m not in the mood for being interrupted.”
“No,” I said, leaning to the side so I could get a better look. “I don’t think so. But you better look.”
With a deep breath, he turned and for once, I saw his jaw drop.
“What the hell is that?” he barked.
The quake had opened a thin crack in the rock, revealing a narrow, twisted passageway heading deep into the cliff.
And it was glowing.
“Only one way to find out,” I said, reluctantly sliding out of his arms. But this was far too interesting to ignore.
“It’s glowing. The rock is glowing. That’s never a good sign,” he argued.
“How do we know until we go look,” I asked. “Besides, what other choice do we have? We can head out into the desert, but we don’t know how long that extends, and we have no idea how much water we’ll be able to find.” I pointed up. “Climbing the cliff isn’t an option anymore. Don’t even try it. You know it’s not safe now, if it ever was.”
Hakon scowled, but didn’t say anything.
“Let’s at least take a look, see what’s there,” I pressed on. “Right now, we can’t afford to ignore any opportunities. And for all we know, right on the other side of that passage is something we need.”
In the end I won, but Hakon vetoed my plan of wiggling in first for a fast reconnoiter.
“Not a chance. If we’re going, we’re both going.”
I sighed. “How do you think you’re even going to fit?”
There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, but his shoulders were easily three times the width of the opening.
“We’ll make do with what we have, same as usual,” was his stoic response.
He gathered all of our surviving salvaged