Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Four, Part Two

 Notes: Gosh, this is depressing. Is it time for something fun to break up the angst yet? I think we need to break up the angst. I'm on it!

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Four, Part Two

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Chapter Four, Part Two

 

Apparently leaving Hadrian’s Colony was easier said than done.

“What do you mean, you won’t make it?” Kieron asked with all the calm he could muster.

“I cannn’t take off right now,” Catie said, her voice edged with apprehension. Kieron hated that, he knew he was the cause of it, but he had to make sure he understood her right. “Because there’sss too much interferrrence in the atmosphere because of the storm. I can’t trrrack the ice, and if we got hit—”

Kaboom. “I get it.”

“What about flying someplace that’s out from under the storm?” Elanus asked. His voice was tight with pain despite the shot of Regen Kieron had given him. Setting a man’s severely broken leg would do that. Catie’s medbot installation had helped him make sure the break was set correctly, but it had taken a few tries and by the end of it Elanus had collapsed against the tiny medical bed, panting harshly, his face unnaturally pale. He was a picture of misery up there on a space that was too small for his lanky body, broken from a stupid accident, overrun with adrenaline from almost being eaten by a reptilian.

Pain wasn’t a good look. It wasn’t anything Kieron ever wanted to see on his lover’s face again, but he knew better than to make promises. Elanus was fragile; these sorts of things could happen.

Because of you. You caused this.

“The storm encompasses mossst of this half of the hemmmisphere, Daddeee,” Catie replied apologetically. “We’ve landed during a verrry inconvenient season.”

“I don’t remember this season,” Kieron said, not so much in defense of himself as an attempt to explain. “I would never have brought us here right now if I’d known there would be storms like this.”

“It is possible you never did experrrience this season,” Catie said in a placating voice. Kieron recognized that she was trying to calm him down and hated himself for it. “I’ve analyzzzed all of the data I could find on weatherrr patterns here, and it seems like Hadrian’s Colllony is subject to the relatively rapid encrrroachment of a Milankovitch Cycle, specifically with variations in orbital eeeccentricity, which has changed over a percent in the span of a single decade. It’s—”

“Wait, stop.” Kieron held up a hand. “Wait. We’re having a…what, a mega weather pattern?”

“Ummm…something like that.”

All of a sudden, Elanus began to laugh. He lay back on the slender medbed and pressed a hand to his face and laughed so hard Kieron was worried he would fall off.

“This isn’t funny,” Kieron informed him.

“It really kind of is,” Elanus gasped out.

“It’s not. We don’t have enough Regen on board to heal you all the way, and it’s going to take over a week to synthesize more. We can’t get off planet safely right now, not unless we fly—in a storm—until we’re out of said storm, which might not go away for weeks, or longer. And lo and behold, the first time we travel more than a foot from Catie I freak out, you fall in a hole, and we run into a reptilian big enough to make a meal out of us. All in under an hour. Under. One. Hour.”

“Kierrron,” Catie began tentatively, and Kieron wasn’t having it.

“And none of it’s your fault!” he told her emphatically. “Baby, you’re a genius, but you can’t predict the future. You were operating off incomplete data and had no way to know that any of this would happen, so I don’t want to hear you get down on yourself or blame yourself or any other nonsense, okay? This is not on you, it’s on me.”

Elanus sighed, his laughter finally petering out. “You’re not omniscient either,” he said. “You didn’t know any of this was going to happen.”

“I should have known better than to think anything good could come out of visiting this hellhole,” Kieron replied bitterly, leaning back against Catie’s bulkhead. He was pouting, and he knew it, but it was better than giving in to the darker feelings inside of him. The ones that insisted the only way to make up for his foolishness was to do something drastic.

Elanus was quiet for a moment before he said, “Catie, can you get in touch with Lizzie?”

“I can try,” she said. “It’s harrrd through the interference of the storrrm, but if I reroute some of my power to the networrrk and narrow the scope of our communications to binarrry, perhapsss.”

“Please do that, then. If you reach her, let her know what’s going on and ask if she can devote some of her processing power to getting a handle on the weather issue.”

“Okay, Daddeee.” The light in the cabin dimmed as Catie focused in on herself, but Kieron could still see Elanus clearly. Every tired, pained line on his face seemed to be in stark relief against his pale skin, and his beautiful beard hadn’t been trimmed in days. His leg, in its pressure bandage, was bulky and unnatural compared to the rest of him. Kieron looked at him and wanted to cry.

“Sweetheart.” Elanus held out his near arm. “Help me down from here.”

Kieron grimaced, but got up and went over to him. Clever little shit—if he’d just asked for Kieron’s company, he might have refused. But asking for help? There was no way Kieron could say no. “Arm around my shoulder,” he said as he knelt down next to the narrow bed. “Any pain in your hip?”

“Some.” Elanus shut his eyes for a moment. “The landing was hard on every part that hit the ground, not just my leg.”

Kieron gently helped him down onto their shared mattress, so much longer and more comfortable. He moved to get up again, but Elanus held onto his hand. “I shouldn’t have just walked in like that,” he said regretfully. “Without even bothering to test the ground. That was stupid, I’ve been in compromised buildings before. I know how to be safe. I just wasn’t.”

“That’s not your fault,” Kieron said immediately. “No one could have predicted the damn floor would be hollow underneath.”

Elanus looked at him with warmth in his eyes. “Then it’s not your fault either, Kieron.”

He couldn’t bear to look into those eyes any longer. “It’s all my fault,” he whispered. “I brought us here. We’ve barely been here for a few hours and look at what’s gone wrong.”

“It’s bad luck, babe. That’s all.”

“No.” He shook his head. “This place is cursed. There’s nothing good here.”

“You’re here, so there is.”

“Elanus—”

His fiancé placed a finger over his lips. “I don’t want to hear it. There’s no sense in slinging blame around anyway. We’re here. We’re going to be here for a while, it looks like. We might as well stick to the original plan. Look around, check for records…see if anything brings up memories for you.”

“You won’t be able to go out with me now,” Kieron pointed out.

“We’ll see about that.”

“See about tha—your leg is broken. You can’t hobble around on an alien landscape with huge carnivores waiting to snatch you up with a broken leg and expect to come out of it okay.”

“I’m not going to let you explore on your own, either,” he snapped. “There’s got to be another way.”

Kieron threw up his hands. “Yeah? Tell me, then. What’s your solution to this insolvable problem?”

Elanus, to his surprise, grinned. “I thought I might have some down time while we were out here,” he said. “I brought a project along in Catie’s hold that could be just the thing. Get it out for me, and I’ll—”

Kieron stopped him. “Not now. You’re exhausted. You need to rest.”

“I can go a little longer,” Elanus said, looking at him closely.

“You don’t need to.” Kieron dredged up a smile. “I’m exhausted too. I’d like to sleep, I think.” With you.

Elanus didn’t speak—he didn’t need to. He just opened his arms, and Kieron snuggled in close. With the lights dim and Elanus beside him, it almost didn’t seem like he’d trapped them in a nightmare.

Almost.