“Not cities. Living ships.” There was a pause. “Unnatural things.”
I felt Zara’s hand slip into mine, her fingers lacing through my own in a gesture that was becoming familiar. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but she could sense my tension through the bond.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered.
“Nothing,” I lied, then reconsidered. Partners meant honesty, even when the truth was uncomfortable. “Some of Vikkat’s warriors don’t trust us. They think Destrans are corrupted, that we’ve lost our connection to the old ways.”
Her eyes widened. “You can hear them? They’re barely audible.”
“I caught enough of it.” I glanced at the warriors across from us, who were studiously avoiding eye contact. “Unfortunately.”
“How bad is it?”
“They’re questioning why Vikkat brought us. Why they should help us.” I squeezed her hand. “And they’re curious about how I have a mate from another species, and how I have a mate at all when my markings are so sparse.”
“Your markings aren’t sparse,” she said indignantly. “They’re perfect.”
Despite everything, I felt a smile tug at my lips. “I’m glad you think so.”
“How long until we reach the search area?” I asked Vikkat, partly to change the subject but also because I genuinely wanted to know.
“Twoticks. Maybe three. Depends on cave conditions and weather above.”
Two to threeticks. Roughly two and a half hours of travel through underground passages to reach an area where unfriendly aliens might be hiding. And that was assuming the caves were stable and the crawler didn’t break down. All while surrounded by warriors who saw me as a corrupted version of what they should have been.
I could sense Zara working to control some anxiety, possibly pushing down the memories of her grandparents trapped in their supposed safe room. Underground had not been safe for them, and I had no doubt that Zara was aware of the parallels here.
“Tell us more about the Kythrans,” I said to Vikkat, partly to gather intelligence but mostly to distract Zara—and myself—from the walls closing in around us. “You said you’ve hunted them. What do you know about their biology, their culture?”
Vikkat’s expression darkened, and he leaned back against the crawler’s hull. “Sky-stealers are smaller than D’tran. Similar size to the human, maybe. Skin changes colors like yours but only to camouflage when scared. Otherwise, they’re gray and soft-skinned.”
“Have you ever captured one?” Zara asked, her scientific curiosity temporarily breaking through her anxiety. “Studied their physiology?”
“No.” The word came out flat, final. “We have tried. Manytimes. But they are too fast, too clever. They know these caves better than we do. They blend in to walls and disappear like smoke.”
“When was the last time you encountered one?” I pressed.
Vikkat was quiet for a long moment, and something that might have been uncertainty crossed his weathered features. “Many, many seasons ago. When I was new leader. We tracked group of them to cave system in eastern ranges. There was fight. We lost three warriors. They lost at least two, maybe more. But we never found bodies. They take their dead with them.”
“And since then?” Zara leaned forward. “Nothing?”
“Nothing in recent cycles.” He shook his head slowly. “Some believe they are dead. That last fight killed final survivors, or that they died from sickness, from starvation in caves too deep for even them to survive.”
“But you don’t believe that,” I said, reading the stubborn set of his jaw.
“I believe nothing without proof, and there have been signs ofsomethingliving in these caves.” His eyes met mine, and I saw the weight of years of fruitless searching in their depths. “For generations, my people have hunted sky-stealers. Tried to make them fix what they broke. But maybe…” He trailed off, then seemed to change his mind about whatever he’d been about to say. “Maybe we find them. Or maybe those voices are true and we chase the dead.”
One of the warriors across from us spoke up, his voice carrying a clear challenge. “And if the star-cousins fail? If the alien female cannot fix what the sky-stealers broke?”
Vikkat’s response was swift and sharp. “Then we try another way. But we do not turn on those who came to help.”
“Help?” The warrior’s laugh was bitter. “They came because they crashed. They need us more than we need them.”
“Enough, Dorek.” Vikkat’s voice carried the weight of command. “I lead this expedition. You follow, or you return to the fortress.”
The warrior—Dorek—fell silent, but the hostility radiating from him was palpable. I could feel Zara stiffening beside me, picking up on the tension. Even with her lesser hearing, she could hear Dorek’s words.
The admission about the Kythrans hung in the air, heavy with implication. If the Kythrans were truly gone, if there was no one left with the genetic markers needed to access the weather control systems, then this entire expedition was pointless. And Zara’s ability to help them fix the planetary crisis became even more critical.
