Daughter of Ellah

The Daughters of Ellah are the most prized women in the galaxy, known throughout for their connection to the Ellah --a genetic repository of knowledge shared between all worlds of the Vaelor.

Chapter 1

He braced. His muscles ached with every agonizing moment, gasping from relief from the strain, but he held fast. Relaxing his position would mean the beam would slowly shift then collapse under the weight of the rubble above them. As long as he could keep the brace in its current position, the space created by the mated pieces of rubble would remain and they both would live. Foley looked down at the woman beneath him. He wouldn't be able to tell very much about her save for the lights on her space suit. It was a space suit she was wearing, that much was obvious. She barely moved, but he could see her chest slowly rise and fall. He concentrated on listening to her steady breaths instead of thinking of his burden. This was an unforeseen circumstance that he could not have calculated in the split second before the cave in. In truth it was no short of a miracle that either of them were alive at all.
He could feel the relentless pressure of the weight above him. "An object in motion will stay in motion and an object at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an external force . Newton's First Law of Motion"  He thought to himself. There was a possibility that the mass had settled and that if he let go it would stay precariously balanced --but he dared not to risk it. He would brace as long as his body could hold out. He tried to speak, but when he opened his mouth --nothing came out. Talking was so hard for him. Renata had patiently spent years working with him on speaking the most basic phrases he needed to navigate the world around him. He could only muster enough control for a few sentences at a time, but only when he was very calm and focused.
She stirred. His attention turned towards her as he tried to make out what she was doing. He heard her murmur slightly, just ever so slightly. The light of her suit made it easy to work out her shape, but the  absolute darkness kept her face obscured by shadow. He trembled more and more with each passing moment, feeling the dull ache in his back and a sharp pain in his side as he tried to remain still. He could feel sweat pouring from his entire body and soaking his clothing from head to toe. The pain he felt was a serious injury, but he couldn't tell how serious. He now knew just how the titan Atlas must have felt bearing the weight of the entire world. Right now his entire world consisted of the tiny space around the two of them.
She stirred again. He had to wake her --he had to. He closed his eyes and tried to remember the exercises. He cleared away the weight on his shoulders, he cleared away the smoke and rubble in his mind's eye. He cleared away the smell of dust and ruin and --lilacs? Her smell... She smelled of lilacs. He shook his head again, trying to shake loose the distraction of her scent. Lilacs were his favorite flower. It was difficult, but he managed it. What seemed like ages in fact only took a few moments. He finally spoke.
"Wake up" He said. It wasn't enough. His voice was strained and shallow --barely above a mouse peep. She wouldn't hear --
Her eyes popped open as if his voice had been thunderous. She turned to him, her eyes turning luminescent in the darkness. She brought a hand to her lips as if she was discovering that she had them. Her face was a look of puzzlement, fear and wonder as she looked at him. S
"Ahema...."  She spoke. Even though there was urgency in her voice, it was pleasing and lyrical.
Foley had no idea what that meant. She continued to look at him, oblivious to everything else. He didn't know if she could understand him or not. He continued his measured breaths while he struggled to form more words.
"Heavy.... Got to brace... Can't hold this. Gggh... Gggh...."  He couldn't get more out. Everything --the weight, the cramped space... was too much. Foley could comprehend complex problems instantaneously. Mathematics. Physics. Spatial Dynamics. It didn't matter his grasp of things was nearly instantaneous. But the doctors told him that a side effect of the way his brain was configured made it difficult for him to use the center of the brain regarding speech without great difficulty. His ability to process many sensory inputs at one time made it difficult to concentrate on one thing at time. He had not actually spoken coherently until his 13th birthday. Since then his mother Renata had worked with him tirelessly to try to get him to be able to manage simple human speech. Just saying hello could be agonizing for him. After months of analysis doctors could not grasp what was happening to him. Renata figured it out with a tape recorder as she was trying to document his condition. He was speaking perfectly, but the words were coming out at a speed faster than human speech by a factor of about 16. Not very useful in his current situation.
"Brrrracccce... nnngh. Brace."
Before he had gotten the word out, she had gotten to her knees and was moving about the tiny encapsulated space. She'd found the remnants of a beam and strained with the weight to bring it upright. She strained again, but it was either too heavy or wedged in place. He looked up at the joining of the two wall sections they were under. Just beyond the joining point, there were parts of the interior bracing that here exposed. If he could lift the section a few centimeters, the opposing section would fall and catch on the jagged edges and be held in place by approaching pressures. He had to risk it.
He closed his eyes again. He needed her to move back to where he was and be still. She turned her head and looked at him, then inched back to a position kneeling just underneath him, her head just inches from his chest. She looked directly at him as if she had heard what he was thinking. He nodded at her, not really thinking that she knew what he was planning to do. She got to one knee beneath him and placed both of her hands on the wall behind him on either side of him. In doing so her face pressed into his chest a little bit, and he felt a momentary flush of embarrasment.But she knew he was going to push up and was prepared to help.
He didn't try to jerk. Jerking might dislodge both pieces and cause a final collapse. Instead he pushed up with increasing pressure, willing his muscles to all of their strength. Slowly, ever slow slowly he felt the section they were under move upwards millimeters at first. After what seemed like hours of agony, he felt that slight shift he was looking for. He looked up to see if the jagged edges had indeed caught in the fashion that he'd intended. They had. As he relaxed his grip and began do disengage himself from the wall. As he did so. He was claimed by the blackness.
"Ahema!" was the last thing he heard. 

*****************************

"Oh No!" Ithica thought to herself as she opened her eyes.
She could feel the changes inside her even now. She wouldn't have thought it possible if it weren't happening to her.
Preemption.
She gasped. It hadn't happened in a thousand years, but she could feel it happening to her now. Daughters of  Ellah were prepared from their birth to be keepers of ancient knowledge. Paired with rulers from friendly star systems as living treaties between worlds of the Vaelor, the daughters of Ellah have maintained the piece for nearly eight thousand years. Member worlds have access to the knowledge and wisdom of all other sentient worlds of the Vaelor, including the knowledge of the Ancients --servants of the Ellah.
Daughters of Ellah are protected beyond all other things in the galaxy. Member worlds will sacrifice entire systems to protect any Daughter of Ellah. Should one be harmed, all other worlds of the Vaelor would obliterate the system responsible for allowing a Daughter of Ellah to come harm.  But the Ancients were wise and built many failsafes into the Daughters of  Ellah. Until the time she is mated, Daughters of Ellah are sequestered on the homeworld of Vaelor --its location kept secret among all other worlds of the Vaelor. But in the event some external threat ever threatened her safety, translation could be preempted, allowing her to mate with any suitable life form and access the knowledge within her, to protect the integrity of Ellah,
She was bonding with him! Even now, she could feel her body changing --her DNA code being re-written to suit her "Ahema." To her mate, she would assume a complimentary state of existence. Her entire being would be made pleasing to him in a process called translation. This man before her was now Ahema to her, and she belonged to him.
"Wake up!" She could hear his thought in her head and she was shaken from her stupor. Even though his voice was barely a whisper, she could hear it from a thousand miles away as if it were as clear as day.
When her eyes opened, she could see him. It was dark and there was danger all around her. His thoughts were disjointed and difficult to manage but she could tell they were still in very grave danger. She kept her gaze on him, sensing that he needed her. The rubble above them both threatened to crush them both, and yet he held it in place --but just barely.  Foley. His name was Foley. He strained silently to hold things in place, and she sensed that verbal communication was difficult for him. He wanted something, but his thoughts were unlike anything she had ever experienced before. His mind moved fast. Very Fast. Because he was in need, she was able to access the Ellah, the knowledge inside her. He was in need of a brace --something tall and sturdy to hold the burden. He was tiring and wanted desperately to save them both. No. That wasn't right. He wanted desperately to save her. Even through the haze of his pain and effort, she could tell that the Ellah had chosen well.  He was selfless, strong. The rarest of hearts. She ached for him.
She crawled in the darkness and found what might have helped, but she could not dislodge it. She was about to turn to tell him, but in her mind she'd already seen that he was aware of this new revelation and had formulated a new plan. He was going to need her to remain still and close to him. The greatest danger was that shifting the weight would cause other sections of the wall to collapse and the only place that would offer any hope of safety for either of them would be directly beneath him. She returned to her position and knelt quietly. She could feel even now that his physical body was failing. He was injured and all that held him standing was his will. So strong. She mouthed a quiet prayer of thanks to Ellah. He would need her help and so she moved her hands to either side of him against the wall section and pushed when he pushed. She was physically hardy as she needed to be, but in comparison, not very strong. She gave her strength with his as he pushed the mass upwards. For her too, it seemed like moments were like hours but he moved it to a safe position where the jagged edges of the wall pressed against the opposing wall and locked in place --held by opposing pressure.
He looked down at her an smiled. Even as he began to slip down into unconsciousness. His body had slackened and he fell forward into her arms.
"Ahema!"

Author's Note

This is a first draft. Very Rough. I'm aware it contains grammatical and spelling errors. I'm working on that later but I just have to get the story out of my mind onto the page.