She knew better. Deep curiosity and the spirit of exploration were unbecoming of a woman of her station. A proper woman wouldneverrun off to investigate such strange happenings. A proper woman would go inside immediately.
So, naturally, she hiked up her skirts and set off for the forest.
Chapter 3
Ved
Ved was thrust violently into consciousness. It took a frustratingly long moment for him to fully regain himself. When he finally did, he was surrounded by blackness and controls flashing red with their silenced warnings. Listening intently, all he could hear was the groaning of his damaged ship and the buzzing of electricity.
But he was alive.
It seemed like an impossibility, but a quick inspection told him that, other than a mild concussion, some bruises, and a bone that had snapped in half in his foot, he was unharmed.
His bruvya, though. Ved gritted his teeth behind his mask at the very thought. He and Kravis had been comrades for over fifty cycles. A fight without him was a difficult thing to envision, yet he was almost certainly gone, gunned down by their assailants.
Kravis deserved a great death. Instead, he’d died at the hands of cowards.
“Welcome back,” Exxo said with an exuberance that didn’t fit the situation. His voice seemed too loud inside Ved’s helmet. “Hullintegrity is at sixty-three percent. Detection systems offline. Launch mechanism is—”
“We crashed,” Ved snapped. He didn’t need diagnostics to tell him that everything was offline, broken, or missing entirely. “How long was I out and where are we?”
“You lost full consciousness for nine minutes, seven seconds, and twenty-three milliseconds. Since impact, three minutes, two—”
Ved growled his impatience.
Exxo sounded haughty as he continued, “May I remind you, Qon, you would be nothing but splattered matter had I not utilized every tool I have to prevent it. As for our location, it cannot be determined. Navigational systems are down. I have also lost all signal with Cleave and can only access my locally stored database.”
Nevskol.Even with the ship’s condition, they should have remained connected to Cleave no matter the distance. Traveling through the instability of the tear must have disrupted Exxo’s systems. That meant they were in the dark. Cut off.
He rose from the pilot seat, and the world spun. His two hearts palpitated unevenly behind his ribs, only aiding in the dizziness. Snarling, he shook his head to clear it and pounded a fist against his chest.
He didn’t have time for such silly ailments.
Fighting against the sparking light in his vision, he swallowed down bitter bile and navigated the interior of his shadowdrifter on memory alone. By the time he reached the airlock, he could ignore most of his symptoms. Though his foot protested every time he stepped on it, it was a simple sensation to set aside. He’d experienced far worse in his lifetime. A Xaal, after all, was forged through pain.
In the several minutes it took him to manually override the sealed hatch, Exxo reported on the air quality. Its chemical composition was similar to that of Runus’s.
When the entry opened with a pop, Ved pushed out, dropping into a low crouch. He studied the world outside with a hunter’s eye. This planet’s sun was setting, leaving a mottled sky. It would be fully dark soon, and night generally meant prowling predators. Shifting his sight to thermals, he took in his surroundings. He’d landed on enough wild planets to expect beasts and beings alike that would see him as hostile. According to Exxo, the ship’s cloaking mechanism had malfunctioned after going through the tear. If this planet had inhabitants, they could easily have witnessed his doomed voyage. However, besides some small creatures, there seemed to be no threat nearby. Yet.
Trees surrounded his ship on all sides. On Runus, trees grew thick and wide, their limbs hungrily reaching toward the sky, their thirsty roots tunneling deep. Like all things on his planet, they were made to endure. But the ones here were tall, thin things, their trunks no wider than him. Naked branches dangled precariously from some, while others were fully covered in dark needles.
What captured his attention, though, was the ship that had crashed a short distance from his shadowdrifter. Whereas Exxo had mitigated the damage of their landing, the other ship wasn’t as lucky. Its bottom had collapsed inward, and its thrusters had burned so hot they were nothing but a mangled, molten mass.
The wing closest to Ved was crumpled, and beneath the scraps of metal, a Xaal in silver armor struggled to free themself.
Ved snapped his jaws as he rose to his full height, the thunk of his teeth full of promised violence.
He let the Xaal get out from under the debris. Let him stand. An internal scan displayed inside Ved’s helmet, revealing his target had four broken ribs on his left side and his twin hearts were beating in a rapid cadence. Ved stared at the enemy’s organs with a singular focus.
He stalkedforward.
His opponent noticed him then and moved so that his back was no longer to the sharp, jagged remains of his ship but to the trees. Ved allowed him the time it took to close the distance between them to decide what weapon he was using. Not that this clan had followed any code of conduct up to this point.
Regardless, Ved had no interest in abandoning his honor, nor did he need to do so to ensure victory.
The Xaal made no reach for a weapon. Fists it would be, then. He was either unarmed or incredibly stupid. Either way, he wouldn’t live long enough to regret it.
Two more strides forward and Ved was on him. His enemy had at least come to his senses enough to drop into a fighter’s stance, but Ved’s fist connected with his helmet immediately. The impact sent a satisfying thrum all the way up to his shoulder.
