“When I give the word, we run for that corridor,” I whisper against her ear, trying to ignore how her proximity makes my accent thicken until I sound like I’ve never heard Standard before. “Can you... are you able to... will you run with me?”
“Yes,” she breathes back, and her voice is steady despite the fear I can smell on her.
Saints and burning stars, she’s perfect.
A shadow falls across our hiding spot, and I realize Thek-Ka is moving closer, savoring the hunt. Among the Exoscarab, a kill is art as much as combat.
“Now,” I whisper, and we run.
Zola moves with a haste that makes my chest tight with something dangerously like pride, and I stay close enough to shield her while trying not to think about how gracefully she adapts to impossible circumstances.
We make it three containers before Thek-Ka’s next shot forces us to dive for cover behind an oxygen recycler.
“This isn’t working,” Zola pants, pressed against my side. “He’s herding us.”
“I know. I am... I am attempting to...” I struggle with the words, my careful Standard deteriorating under stress. “Trying to think of solutions that do not involve us dying horribly.”
“Think faster,” she suggests.
That’s when Jitters makes his contribution to our survival strategy.
The anxiety blob drops from his new hiding place in the ventilation system and goes very, very still. Then he begins to expand and change shape, taking on a coloration that looks disturbingly familiar.
“Oh, no,” I breathe, watching in horrified fascination as Jitters attempts to mimic Thek-Ka’s appearance. “Jitters, what are you doing? This is not... this is not a good plan.”
The result is recognizable as an Exoscarab, if you squint and ignore the fact that he’s purple, cat-sized, and trembling like he’s about to have a structural collapse.
But Jitters is committed to his terrible idea.
He bounces out from behind our cover, making sounds that might be intimidating battle cries if they didn’t sound like a deflating balloon having an existential crisis.
“Is that,” Thek-Ka calls out, voice carrying clearly across the platform, “your pet attempting to... impersonate me?”
“He is very protective,” I call back, because there’s no point denying it. “Also very bad at tactical planning.”
“How... touching. And completely ineffective.”
Jitters, apparently recognizing that intimidation isn’t working, changes tactics and attempts camouflage. Against the metal decking. He turns bright silver and freezes, still shaped like a tiny, terrified Exoscarab.
“Jitters,” I hiss. “Return here immediately. This is not helping.”
But Jitters begins creeping toward Thek-Ka’s position with the kind of obvious stealth that makes me want to cover my face with my hands.
“Is he always like this?” Zola whispers, and I can hear her trying not to laugh.
“Only when he attempts to help,” I whisper back. “Which is why I usually keep him hidden in ventilation systems where his anxiety cannot endanger everyone.”
Thek-Ka watches Jitters’s approach with what sounds like professional interest.
“Golden Viper,” he calls out. “Do you surrender on behalf of your... unusual... champion?”
The mockery in his voice makes my protective instincts flare, but before I can respond, another projectile punches through the recycler above our heads, and sparks rain down around us as the machinery shorts out.
I pull Zola closer instinctively, and the sensation of her body pressed against mine while electrical discharge crackles aroundus makes my already unstable biology stutter and misfire in ways that definitely aren’t appropriate for combat situations.
“Crash?” Her voice sounds breathless, and when I look down at her, her pupils are dilated. “Something’s... what’s happening to me?”
I can smell it on her—the shift in her biochemistry, the way her body is responding to the mate-recognition pheromones I’m producing in increasingly dangerous concentrations. She shouldn’t be affected this strongly. Humans aren’t supposed to be compatible with Velogian biology to this degree.
