“Where am I?” he tried in the universal tongue.
Shaking her head, her lips pressed into a tight line, she brandished her remaining shoe.
“Don’t,” he growled.
“Can you stop snarling at her?”Exxo reprimanded.“I need her to speak, but you are frightening her.”
“It’s not like I can help that,” Ved snapped. And that was the exact moment she tried to throw the shoe at him.
This time, he was expecting it and snatched it out of the air before tossing it away. She was inventive with her weaponry, he’d give her that.
He stepped closer to her, holding out his hands to soothe her. That had the opposite effect, however.
She stepped forward to kick him in the shin with her uninjured foot. Pain crossed over her features, but even then, she went for an unarmored part of his midriff and punched him. He grabbed herwrists with a disapproving click of his tongue. It was like when the unmasked youth wanted to spar with the older Xaal, except she was far less dangerous than even a youngling.
He was impressed with her earnestness, though, even if her hits hurthermore than they could ever hurt him. She had spirit, just no training or muscle to back it up.
“I will not harm you,” he said in the universal tongue.
She replied with unintelligible chatter, a desperation forming in the way her gaze searched his. The words of this language were somehow choppy and smooth at the same time. He didn’t like the sound of it.
Moreover, he didn’t like the fact that she didn’t recognize the universal language. How far had the vector tear taken him?
“Keep her talking,” Exxo said.
Letting go of her wrists, Ved quickly loosened one of the smaller plasma dirks that sat along his ribs and handed it to her hilt first.
She looked from it to him. Her voice was soft as she reached for the blade hesitantly; he assumed she asked a question.
The plasma dirk looked absurd in her small hands. Her grip couldn’t fit around the thick hilt, and the blade was longer than her forearm. Even if she were a fighter, the balance of it would be completely off.
Regardless, she held it up with shaky hands. It was obvious that she wouldn’t be able to successfully wield it against him, but Ved grunted at her and let his arms hang loose at his side. It was as unintimidating as he could get.
“Who are you? How did you get here from”—she gestured to the sky, not taking her eyes off him—“I don’t understand.”
Exxo made a familiar sound of satisfaction before back-translating her words to Ved. Interesting. In that moment, she wasn’t begging orbargaining for her life—she only seemed concerned with the fact she may never understand what she’d experienced.
“I’ve never seen anyone like you or”—she swallowed hard—“the others. I should have gone home, but I didn’t expect there to bepeople. How is that even possible?”
All she had were questions he couldn’t answer.
Once Exxo translated her chatter, his tone changed.“My analysis tells me we have crashed in sector 011 territory. This is planet 3r7h—approximately 5.3 starcycles from Runus. According to Authority regulation, as a native who has witnessed interstellar activity, she must be terminated,” he reported.
Nevskol the Authority. If they had it their way, species like the Xaal would be wiped out completely. Ved rarely concerned himself with galactic law, either.
But the Authority was strict about 011 planets—those that had no knowledge or no means of space travel. They were off limits in every way. And if one were to find themselves on such a planet, like Ved did now, they needed to be discreet or take all measures to ensure the native population remained unaware of their existence. Even if that meant killing those who found out about them in cold blood. The Authority would say it was for conservation and non-interference in the natural advancements of a civilization. But it was really because they didn’t want yet another self-ruling planet to make trouble for them, or for anyone else to take advantage of its resources before they could.
If she told anyone else about his presence, he was going to have bigger concerns than getting his ship repaired. The Authority could come for not only him but his clan. They were probably sending their drones to this bloodforsaken planet already due to the gaping vector tear.
Leaving her alive wasn’t smart.
Physically, she was less of a threat than a Xaal youth, yet she could doom his entire clan.
Ved bit off a curse and took another step toward her, the tiny trees’ fallen branches popping beneath his boot. The female before him took in a barely audible, shuddering breath. She was scared of him. Rightfully so. And all he was doing was delaying the inevitable. Over the course of his life, he’d had to decide the fates of many. But none of those decisions had ever been dictated by the Authority. He despised it.
“Just don’t let Clara or Henry find me, please,” she whispered. Her eyes were wide, pupils dilated, as if she was trying to take in everything about him before her death.
“Clara and Henry have no direct translation I can discern. They are presumably names,” Exxo said.
