Alien Primal's Mate

Chapter 1

Rosalie

Another morning in the desert. 

It's cold and clear. The sun comes up bright over the horizon. I can fsee it rising through the tears in the fabric of my tent. Thankfully, the tears are sporadic enough that the chilly night air doesn’t seep in too much. 

I yawn and burrow down further into my nest of threadbare blankets, the only warmth there is during the dark nights. It’s too risky to chance a fire in a tent so I go to bed every night under layers of cloth, cocooned like the caterpillars that once existed on Earth. 

“Rosalie, do you have any food?” I hear from outside my tent. I smile. Right on time. 

I scrounge through my pack and hand my rations for the day over to little Timone. 

“Here you go, babe,” I say softly to him. “Make sure to make it last and share with your sisters.”

“Thanks, Rosalie,” he says, smiling as he takes the morsel and bounds off. Timone and his sisters lost their mother and father when our colony ship, The Precursor, crashed into this world. 

Wherever this world is. 

One minute we were heading to the Outer Rim on a corporate colonization mission out of the Interstellar Human Confederation. The next minute, we’re in the middle of a raging space battle between the Alliance and the Coalition. 

After that, we crashed. And landed on this hell. 

“Water,” I hear someone croak in the distance. I can’t make out the voice but I hear someone else taking care of him. 

Once the sun is fully up the desert climate will change dramatically. The days here are as hot as the nights are freezing and people often wake with minor forms of frostbite on their fingers and toes. It’s nothing a little warmth won’t fix, either by heating them over a fire or waiting until the sun makes its appearance, but it is an inconvenience. I need my hands in working order, so I never go to sleep without wearing a thick pair of gloves I scavenged from the crash site. 

“They’re passing out rations for the day,” I hear Kaye tell me as she passes my tent. “Don’t want to miss yours.”

Kaye used to be a xenobiologist with the Mars Academy of Sciences. She was going out to the Outer Rim to make her mark on the scientific community. 

Now, she’ll probably end up dying on this rock if we don’t get rescued. 

Soon enough, I’ll start my daily ritual of visiting every surviving member of the wreck of the Precursor, the colony ship I was travelling on before it crashed on a foreign planet about a month ago. I’m the only person left alive who has any real sort of medical training, so I’ve taken it upon myself to serve as the de facto doctor for the people who remain. I was only a medic, working in the infirmary as a physician’s assistant at the time of the incident, but it’s given me more experience than anyone else in the camp and I don’t mind the work. 

At least I didn’t, before the crash. It's a different story now, when nearly every day brings about another serious injury or illness. I feel like I'm starting to hit my limit of despair. The crash alone wiped out three-quarters of the ship’s population, cutting our numbers from one thousand to four hundred and fifty. Further illnesses, a steady stream of death, and malnutrition have taken out more, but we’re still a camp of about four hundred strong. 

Four hundred survivors out of a thousand. 

I use that word lightly, as the Precursor survivors are anything but. Camp morale is at an all-time low. 

Just a week ago our leader, Captain Kincaid, was imprisoned by the Drokan, the alien race who inhabit this planet. 

Captain Kincaid’s mistrust began when two of our female shipmates, Cress and Merrit, began relationships with two of the Drokan males, Kor and Aelixx. The Drokan call it a mating bond. Their term for it is something called jalshagar. Basically, it’s an undeniable, irrevocable need to be with one another, but I don’t know if I buy it. 

I spent a lot of time with Captain Kincaid while Cress and Merrit were off one various missions with their mates. I understand how the others started thinking he was becoming a little unhinged, but I think he had reason to be, and we're all a little messed up these days. I'm not yet convinced that he was wrong in worrying about the aliens' intentions but I'll smile and make nice with them until proven otherwise. 

I walk out of my tent, and begin my rounds. 

“Hello, Rosalie,” a young mother, Katrina, greets me as I get to her tent. “Jimmy is inside.”

I walk inside, and see a sickly young boy lying on a cot. 

Children. 

I don’t talk about it much, but my only real dream is finding someone to settle down with and raise a family of my own. 

It shouldn’t really be a surprise since I've been alone most of my life. My parents died on Armstrong when I was five years old and afterwards I was bounced around between a few group homes, but I'd never had a real family again. I can’t help but hope that someday, somehow, I won’t feel so lonely anymore. 

“How are you feeling today, Jimmy?” I ask. 

“It...hurts...breath,” he says slowly. 

I do what I can to make him comfortable. There’s no medicine or treatment I know of that can help plasma burns to the lung. The kind of burns that occur when your ship crash lands and the primary coolant relays blow up in your face.

The people expect me now. I’ve memorized the entire layout of the camp and always start with the sickest. I won’t be surprised to discover if anyone’s succumbed overnight - at least twice a week we lose someone to illness or starvation. I won’t be surprised, but I’ll never get used to it. 

“Just keep him comfortable, and there’s a fifty-fifty chance that the body can heal itself through rest,” I say to Katrina. What I don’t tell her is that that level of odds is only usually reserved with massive pulmonary nanite therapy - something we don’t have here. But there’s still hope that Jimmy’s body can recover on its own, and as long as there is hope I plan to keep going. 

Except this morning it’s worse than ever. Three more people have died, an elderly female, thankfully of what appears to have been natural causes; a man who had what I thought was the flu, but without working tech to run tests I couldn’t be sure; and another little boy who’d seemed completely fine yesterday. I shudder to think that he might have frozen to death overnight. 

We can’t go on much longer like this.

Just yesterday we’d held a vote on who should be our new leader and Merrit had won in a landslide victory. It makes sense - she’s an engineer and she already has the ear of the Drokan Chief, due to being Aelixx’s mate and having figured out how to apply their energy crystals to our technology. She’s already brokered a deal with Chief Tahakan to share resources, but now I need her to convince them to let us truly settle this land. If they don't, we won’t survive another six months. She left last night for a meeting with the Chief at the Center, so now I need to wait for her return. 

“Precursors, help us,” I say a silent prayer as I stand out, facing the horizon. I’ve never been a religious person, but of course I’ve read through the holonet of the various sapient races who believed that there existed an originating species that came through the galaxy and gave birth to the various races that we know of today. “If you’re out there, please help us.”

Its an odd prayer, but I’m at the end of my rope. I head to the mountains. I’m pissed off and sad and frustrated and I just want to go home, but I’m not even sure where that is. I’ve never felt like I’ve belonged anywhere, but the mountains call to me, like a siren song I couldn't deny if I wanted to.

I need to speak with Merrit, but she’s at the Center with Aelixx. Without a glider, it would take me days to traverse the mountains, if I even survived the journey. Merrit was attacked and kidnapped by some hideous creatures that live in deep caves beneath them, only escaping because Aelixx was driven by the pull of their mating bond to rescue her, and I don’t want to suffer the same fate.

After all, I don’t have a mate to come find me. If I were to be taken, I’d die down there like Sirenna did and it would probably be days before anyone even noticed. 

But the mountains are so beautiful, glittering blindingly in the morning light. My mood is so low I feel like I’m drowning. Without another thought, I step onto the snow-packed path before me, convincing myself that a walk in the crisp mountain air will help clear my thoughts. 

I try so hard to break out of my funk as I walk, feasting my eyes on the towering evergreens and pristine snow, but I can’t get the sight of all the suffering out of my head.

I know at least a dozen people wouldn’t have died if the Precursor’s state-of-the-art infirmary was still operational, or if I didn’t have to ration the medicine that survived the crash. Unfortunately, if I treat everyone the moment they come down with a sniffle we’d run out of supplies in no time. 

But despite everything, despite the anger and despair I feel simmering inside of me, the crisp air does its job. In no time, I feel a little lighter in my soul, a little more invigorated, almost renewed. 

I look at my watch. I’ve been gone nearly two hours so I decide to head back to the camp before anyone else needs me and while my spirits are still on the rise. 

I take one final look at the rising peaks before me, close my eyes, and take a deep breath. I pull the cool air into my lungs and hold it there, truly thankful to still be alive. Things are difficult now but I'll soldier on, just as I've always done. 

Suddenly, an ear-splitting screech shakes the mountains, followed by a hollering war cry I feel in my bones only seconds later. Shaking, I turn to see a hideous creature skulking out of the trees behind me.

It’s been tracking me. 

That’s all I needed. 

“Fuck,” I whisper to myself. “This is it.”

The creature lunges for me. And I do the only thing I can at that point. 

I scream.