Starsnatcher - Trapped In An Alien World [COMPLETE]

Chapter 5.9

Slowly, I began to sort out what had just happened.

This alien zombie had me and Crick at its mercy. Then, Kira saved us. Now, I was sitting next to her and Crick on the forest floor.

From what I remember, the Starsnatcher injured me to the point of busting bones. Did Kira heal me with her stone's nanotech or did she alter my nerve receptors so that I felt no pain?

My eyelids felt like made of lead. Why even open them when I couldn't see? Most people in modern-day society have no idea how dark the night can be. We're used to having streetlights or flashlights by our side at all times.

The canopy blocked the moonlight overhead. Had Kira not held my wrist, I might have forgotten about her being even here.

Aliens crept through the surrounding understory.

With my flashlight, I shone over the bushes about to be trampled. Half a dozen aliens emerged, each taller and broader than a wrestling champion. Two of them carried spears. Why did I worry about that? Their sheer strength made spears redundant.

"It's too many," I said.

Kira sighed. "No shit, Sherlock."

Now that my flashlight was on, I realized she had taken on her helmet again. She lifted me by the wrist while her other hand held the unconscious Crick by their tentacles.

"You want to carry us both?" I asked. "I know, you're strong and all, but this seems unsafe."

"So what? I'll fix your bones if they break."

Kira sank to her knees and jumped into the air.

Now that I wasn't in a trance, the jumps felt far less graceful than before. The bottom canopy stopped our jumps like a ceiling. Each time we broke through it, its branches caught us and threatened to tear apart my suit.

Landing proved even worse. Jumping with Kira meant falling from a height of twelve feet or more. Even with a dampening spacesuit, these were the types of heights that sprained ankles without careful landings. Especially in Eden's gravity. And trust me, we didn't land carefully. Only Kira did.

Worse, each time she took off, my body had to endure the same force as during landing, only in the opposite direction. I wondered if my hand and arm remained connected at that point.

She slowed down when we reached the boulder.

Explosive shockwaves had carved a face into the rock that stared solemnly into the moonlight. The upper portion lost more parts than the lower, meaning Kira could climb it like a stairway. With less time pressure, she jumped carefully, making sure each jump was just high enough to reach the next step. This time, I and Crick weren't damaged upon landing.

We reached the boulder's top. For all their invincibility, zombie Starsnatchers demonstrated no climbing skills.

Once Kira let go of my hand, I realized just how much it hurt. No tendons remained intact in my wrist. Broken ribs punctured my ribcage like steak knives. I lay supine on the boulder's roof, gasping for air like a dying fish.

Kira took off my spacesuit gloves. Like my collar, my sleeves glued to my arms to protect my breathing mix from atmospheric diffusion.

With one hand, she took my left hand and put it over my right one to touch both at once. She did the same with Crick's six tentacles.

The more skin she touched the more nanobots came in. An army of trillions of invisible machines, none larger than a ribosome, swam into my body. Their tiny gears and arms stitched together torn muscle tissue and squished out pain by blocking neurotransmitters. Rebuilding me molecule to molecule took them an hour or more.