Zero Aculin's Arc

Chapter 2 of 8

Zero rode from the crash site at dawn, the cracked core lashed across his saddle. His mount was a saurian beast, horse-tall, with an armored snout and a broad back built for burdens. It carried him into the lands his tribe had never crossed. But every stride jolted the core, and each jolt widened the crack. Blue fluid ran down the beast's flank and dripped into the mud. Zero pressed his palm over the fracture. The leak did not stop. He had maybe an hour of fluid left, and then nothing to repair. He halted the beast in a stand of tall reeds. He needed a seal, and he needed it now. His claws were too clumsy. His skins were too loose. He unslung his blaster and studied the fluid soaking his hand. It was thick and cooling fast. Cold sealed it. Heat kept it running. Zero understood the pattern at once. He turned the blaster in his grip. He did not fire it. Instead he thumbed the vent panel open and let the barrel's heat bleed out into the cold morning air. The metal cooled. He pressed the cool barrel flat against the crack. The fluid there thickened and slowed. It worked, but only while the metal stayed cold, and the barrel warmed against the core in moments. He needed something colder that would stay cold. Zero looked to the reeds and the black water pooled around their roots. He dug his claws into the mud beneath the surface. Cold clay came up in fistfuls, gray and dense. He packed it over the fracture, thick as his hand, and molded it tight around the housing. The clay chilled the crack and held the shape. The dripping slowed to a bead. Then it stopped. Zero waited, counting his breaths. The clay dried gray and hard. No new fluid ran. He tapped the shell with one claw. It held. He had bought the core its life. The fluid that remained sat trapped inside, enough to run the drive if he ever found a way to mend the crack for good. But the clay seal was not a repair. It was a bandage over a wound. It would crack again under heat or a hard fall, and the fluid would drain in minutes. Zero could not carry the core home like this and hope. He needed real tools, real knowledge, and neither waited in his settlement. He climbed back onto the beast and looked ahead. Beyond the reeds, a ridge rose against the sky. On its far slope stood towers of pale crystal, tall and sharp, catching the low sun. People lived there. People who built with more than salvaged bone. Zero turned his mount toward the crystal city. Someone in those towers knew how to mend a starship's heart, and the clay would not hold long enough for a second chance.