Read Vertigo: Aurora Rising Book Two for Free Online

holding her steady in his grasp. “Alex, you’re panicking. You need to calm down.”
    Blood drummed in her ears; adrenaline coursed through her veins, driving her to move. To act . Her hands trembled against his chest. Time vanished out from beneath her feet, one accelerating second at a time.
    But because she trusted him, she worked to concentrate her focus on him and him alone.
    His expression and his touch calmed her in their reassurance, though he was unable to entirely mask his own troubled thoughts weighing down the set of his mouth. “If we want to help everyone, we…we can’t obsess over what may be happening on the other side of the portal right now. A couple of extra days will be worth it if they mean we find answers. But rushing means we’ll make a mistake, and making a mistake in this peculiar, alien place will get us killed. So focus on solving the mystery.”
     

     
    It came as something of a surprise when it began to get dark, everywhere and all at once.
    The insectile ships, or ‘squid’ as Alex had taken to calling them, never showed up. Why they had not done so was a question he suspected might have kept him awake tonight for longer than he preferred—and her even longer—if not for the question of the rapid flow of time demanding precedence.
    They flew for hours, by any measure of time. They saw mountains and oceans and rivers and deserts and learned enough to arrive at one inescapable conclusion: geographically speaking, this planet was Earth in miniature.
    The atmosphere contained oxygen, nitrogen and other gases in the exact proportions Earth exhibited prior to nearly a thousand years ago when the subtle changes brought about by industrialization began to manifest. Gravity was identical to a hundredth of a percent. Alex believed she had identified the coastline of the North American Gulf in the east and Baja in the west, as well as the Arabian Peninsula on the other side of the world. They nearly lapped the planet, enough to determine the circumference measured roughly a third that of Earth.
    It wasn’t a copy of Earth though. Aside from the reduced size, there were the luminescent oceans to consider. Yet more disconcerting was the fact the planet didn’t rotate. While they knew it wasn’t orbiting any visible object, rotation was such a fundamental characteristic of planetary objects that it seemed impossible it didn’t. It also raised the question (the latest on a lengthy and growing list) of how the gravity matched Earth’s without centrifugal force.
    The planet appeared devoid of any sign of technology as far as they were able to see, or any civilization or intelligent life at all. They didn’t even pick up readings which might indicate wildlife. Admittedly, they still had a lot of land to cover.
    And now it was getting dark. Which was…interesting, seeing as there existed no sun to set.
    “Where is the light being generated from? Earth does not have its own invisible self-generating light source. There is technology here, somewhere.”
    “Which we’re unlikely to be able to find in the dark.” He swung her chair around and leaned in, bracing himself on the armrests.
    She had done an exceptional job of compartmentalizing, of pushing aside the panic and the fervent, burning need to run—run fast enough to outpace the too-fast ticking of time. He understood this because it clawed at him no less than it did her. But the hours had taken their toll.
    “We should land for the night. We still don’t really know anything about this planet. It’s dangerous to fly in the dark, and you’re exhausted.”
    “But we’re losing time and—”
    “Alex, land . We passed a small sheltered valley a few minutes ago. Go back and set down there. I’m going to throw together a little dinner, and then we are going to get some sleep.”
    She stared at him, fatigue weighing on her features as she worked to formulate a protest…then at last gave a weary smile with a more weary laugh. “Can we