my angel (flung out of outer space)

The aurora sargassum of this planet tastes like lube.

Aeri can’t tell how long her ship has submerged partially underwater before an unknown power tugs it up and away from the awaiting seabed. Her ripped hull, courtesy of the Borg patrol’s sneak attack, empties out waters and the remains of cracked metal. She’s lightheaded and nauseous, a sign of shock she’s well familiar with. I’m in shock, she tells herself. Must lie down. Must not move my head. Loud clanking of metal meeting metal hurts her ears. The harsh exposure to the planet’s twin suns burn. My crew. Must check my crew.

She’s laid on a sandy surface (Beach? Where—), and two hands grab her by the shoulders to turn her onto her stomach. She throws up polluted water, sargasso bits, and whatever her stomach stills hold from her last dinner. More people are laid nearby, some retching and some out of pain; she assumes and hopes it’s her crew and they’re as okay as possible. Must run a toxicology test. Is my comm toast? Do I still have engineers? Who’s just helped us? Whoever is helping them has her gratitude forever.

Heaving, she turns to lie on her side once she’s done. Her stomach feel like someone just forcefully take all her organs out and rearrange them back in. The inside of her left elbow singes. Whether it’s an injury from the attack or from the stunt she pulled in the last attempt to blast the ship toward any shore, she can’t tell. Everything appears blurry and too bright at the same time. Filths, she remembers her dad called all the non-Terran planets. Degenerates. No thanks to this supposedly low-risk surveillance mission to an unnamed planet in the Coma Berenices outpost, for the first time in her life Aeri shares the littlest bit of that sentiment with him.

“I swear you’ve never been this dumb before!”

Who—

“What were you thinking! Not only you chose to go down the hull—that’s just been torpedoed, if I may add—but also you didn’t seem to have a plan to evacuate on time! How are you this suicidal!”

Slowly, she opens one eye, wincing when she can refocus and find a figure right in front of her, right between the twin suns.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been looking for you!”

The figure harrumphs and flops down to sit next to Aeri.

You don’t know me, she wants to say, partially annoyed by the figure—(unclassified alien, sentient extraterrestrial, super-powered creature, Space junkie?)—that’s just saved her ship and her crew from sinking to their death, but part of her feels the opposite. “Do I know you?”

“‘Do I know you?’ the woman repeats her question with a shriek, borderline hysterical. “I know you Terrans can be unbelievably slow, but this is too much, Aeri.”

A hand takes a hold of her arm, small fingers cupping her elbow, a thumb the inside of it, and Aeri’s first reaction is to swing a hand toward the woman’s