I thought about how to answer that. The truth was complicated. “He was cautious. His advisors were suspicious. We were strangers who fell from the sky and we happened to line up with an ominous prophecy. His people had every reason to be afraid of us.” I shrugged. “But he was also curious. And ultimately, fair. He could have treated us as threats or prisoners. Instead, he treated us as guests. Watched guests, but guests.”
“And Dr. Vasquez’s relationship with him?” Sophie asked carefully. “How did that develop?”
“You’d have to ask Cleo about that.” I smiled slightly. “Though I suspect you already have.”
Sophie’s lips twitched. “I have, but I would be interested to hear your account.”
I smiled and murmured something noncommittal, knowing I’d have to carefully consider what I shared about my colleague, whom I now considered a friend. Cleo didn’t do anything halfway, including explaining herself. I’d heard her give one of Rezor’s engineers a thirty-minute lecture on power cell conduits once, and the poor female hadn’t even asked a question. She’d just mentioned that one of the connections appeared corroded.
Movement caught my eye, and I turned to see Iris walking the perimeter of the crash site. She wasn’t examining the ground or searching for debris. She appeared to be establishing sight lines. Checking angles. Mapping the terrain in a quiet, methodical way.
I made my way toward her, leaving Sophie and Vash to their murmuring. The wind was stronger here, catching at my hair and making the cold bite deeper. I pulled my coat tighter and wondered if she was cold in that bodysuit. Her face gave nothing away.
“See anything interesting?” I asked.
She didn’t startle at my approach. She’d probably heard me coming from twenty paces away. “The terrain offers gooddefensive positions.” Her voice was lower than I’d expected, with a slight rasp to it. “Limited approach vectors. Natural choke points.”
“We’re not expecting an attack.”
“No one ever is.”
I couldn’t argue with that. “Have you done much work on planetary surfaces? During introductions, it sounded as if most of your background was ship-based operations.”
“Correct.”
One word. No elaboration. And she didn’t even answer my question. I was beginning to suspect she did this on purpose.
“What made you decide to stay with the diplomatic group?” I tried. “Your mission was to extract us if necessary. Thankfully, it wasn’t necessary.”
“I was invited.”
“And?”
“I accepted.”
I let out a breath that was almost a laugh. Talking to her was like trying to get information from a sealed container. Push too hard and you’d damage the contents. Don’t push at all and you’d never know what was inside.
“I’m staying because I want to see what happens next,” I said, deciding to offer something since she wasn’t going to. “The D’tran have been isolated for so long. They don’t know anything about the Destran expansion, the Solas, any of it. And now they’re going to have to figure out where they fit in a galaxy that moved on without them.” I gestured at the storm-scarred ridges which were already turning green. The storms had ravaged this terrain, but life was returning. Plants I couldn’t name were sending up shoots wherever they could find purchase. “This planet is going to change. The people are going to change. I want to be here for it.”
She looked at me then. Really looked, with those eyes that were such a dark brown they were nearly black. For a moment, I thought I saw something flicker there. Interest, maybe. Or assessment.
“You like change,” she said. Not a question.
“I like watching how people adapt to it. How they communicate through it. How they find common ground when everything familiar is shifting under their feet.” I smiled. “It’s what I do.”
“Communications specialist.”
“Among other things.” I let the silence stretch for a moment, watching her profile against the bright sky. The shiny tissue on her cheek caught the light differently than the rest of her skin, and I found myself wondering about the story behind it. “What about you? What made you accept the invitation?”
“The mission parameters changed.” She returned her gaze to the landscape. “I adapted.”
It was technically an answer, and it was more than she’d given me so far. I decided to count it as progress.
Sophie called out something about the weather turning, and Vash was already making his way back toward the path we’d taken up. The clouds were thickening on the horizon, and I knew from my weeks here that weather on this planet could shift quickly. We’d need to head back soon.
I was about to suggest we rejoin the others when I noticed Iris had gone still. Not her usual composed stillness, but something sharper. Focused.
Her gaze was fixed on a point in the distance, somewhere outside the valley. On the other side of it, where the landscape was still scarred from the storms. Exposed rock mixed with the stubborn green of new growth. I followed her line of sight but couldn’t see what had caught her attention.
