Fire on the Beach

A little Flash Fiction for Scoot... and an introduction to Dreena!

Dreena had piloted her powerful Antarean fighter through a dozen warzones without so much as scorching the paint. Today the same fighter repaid her loyalty by exploding in a blaze of Promethean fire and yeeting her into a planetary ocean.

Earth. Tiny backwater planet with very few resources. Probably the last place anyone would look for her.

She crawled onto the sand on hands and knees, dripping, bedraggled, and radiating the energy of a disgruntled drowned feline.

A pair of pale Earthling legs appeared beside her.

Dreena glanced up. The human was wearing nothing but shorts, sea-salt hair, and the relaxed smile of someone who had never in his life been shot at by Eridani fighters or caught in atmospheric reentry with half a stabilizer. seeming not at all concerned that a blue alien had just crawled out of the ocean. He said something cheerful, which her malfunctioning translator rendered as static.

She groaned. Of course her translator would die now.

He offered her a tiny towel.

Of course he did.

She wrapped it around her shoulders anyway. Pride made terrible insulation.

The man pointed up the beach at a small ring of stones glowing with an honest-to-goodness campfire. Compared to the trail of flaming debris her fighter had blasted across the sky, the little fire looked almost friendly. Cozy, even. The sort of flame you roasted snacks over while pretending not to notice alien crash survivors washing ashore.

He gestured again, very excited. Dreena sighed. “Fine. I’ll take any warmth I can get.”

She followed him to the fire, which crackled politely instead of roaring like the doomed, traitorous engines of her ship. He produced a long stick with a chunk of sizzling meat and held it out like an offering to a sea-drenched goddess.

She took it. Sniffed. Bit in.

Salty. Strange. Possibly yesterday’s catch. But edible.

He beamed as if he had just saved her life. Come to think of it, he sort of had.

She tried to thank him. The translator fizzled like wet wiring before emitting a sound that resembled a hiccup. The human blinked. She blinked back. He shrugged, handed her another piece of meat, and sat down by the fire as if sharing dinner with space debris was normal.

Dreena lowered herself onto the sand. Her hair squelched. Something small and possibly alive crawled out of it.

She flicked it into the fire. “You will never speak of this,” she informed the human. The translator attempted to render it, coughed, and produced a sound that made no sense. She turned it off and slipped it into the survival pack that was somehow miraculously still attached to her waist.

He nodded enthusiastically.

Dreena stared at him. He stared back, cheerful and utterly unfazed.

Of all the planets she could have crash-landed on, of all the hostile terrain she had crawled through, this ridiculous beach with its tiny fire and its baffling, half-dressed native was shaping up to be the safest, warmest place she had found in months.

She nudged her stick of meat toward him. A peace offering. Or solidarity. Or shared confusion.

He grinned and clinked his stick against hers like a toast.

Maybe language wasn’t required after all.