Allure of Oartheca: Book One of the Oarthecan Star Saga by James Siewert

Allure of Oartheca: Book One of the Oarthecan Star Saga by James Siewert

Author:James Siewert [Siewert, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: J. Siewert
Published: 2021-05-29T22:00:00+00:00


I wake up, groggy, confused, and increasingly furious with every moment that passes.

My head is pounding and there’s a weakness throughout my entire body; it’s fading but it takes me a moment or two to realize that I’m lying on my back. It’s initially dark, but there’s a light coming from somewhere, yet my eyes are taking their time to adjust. The air is damp, hot, and unpleasantly unfamiliar; I still can’t smell anything but I have the feeling that if I could, this air would stink.

I’ve got a blanket on me though–one of the scratchy ones from the shuttle–and my head’s resting on something soft. As my eyes adjust, I find myself looking at the craggy surface of a rock ceiling, and the source of the faint light is somewhere to my left–as I turn my head, I can see that I’m indeed just slightly inside of a cave, a few metres from a rough open wound that forms its entrance. I can see a dull red sky, cloudless but oppressive and heavy.

I pull my blanket off and sit up, slowly–realising that I’m desperately thirsty in addition to being discombobulated. As I do so, I find that I’m lying on our shuttle’s gurney, collapsed so it’s resting near to the ground, and my head had been resting on another blanket folded over to form a pillow. I’ve obviously been placed here with a degree of care–and as I look around the small rocky foyer where I was laid down, I can see that I’ve been left with most of the supply crates we had on board as well. Our comms beacon is resting on top of one, and on one side, propped in front of it, is my personal touchpad. On the other side is a sachet of purified water from our emergency supplies. This little shrine’s been set up directly in my line of sight out of the cave, so I wouldn’t miss it.

Despite his obvious care to make me comfortable, it’s hard for me not to be enraged at Rowland for what he’s done to me, wherever the Eternal-damned place he’s left me is. I should have known not to trust him–he’s proven time and time again that dealing with me honestly is just not a possibility–this is his third betrayal of my trust in as many chances I’ve given him to earn it: he stole my ship, he lied about giving it back, and now he’s drugged me, when my back was turned, no less. True colours, indeed. Crafty, deceitful liar. The little thief, as much as I didn’t want him to be.

I grab the water and puncture the top of it with my claw-tip, guzzling its contents down in a few mouthfuls, trying both to wash the stale taste from my mouth and parch my thirst. I grab the touchpad, momentarily tempted to thwart whatever plan Rowland has for me by launching it out of the cave with all the force I can put behind



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.