“Where?” I asked.
She pointed toward a rocky outcropping perhaps a kilometer away. I wasn’t sure. Estimating the distance of things was not part of my skill set. “There,” she said. “A metallic gleam. Perhaps part of a ship. Or a probe.”
I looked again, harder this time. The sun was at the right angle now, and my gaze caught a flash of something bright. Metal, catching the light. “Yes. I see it.”
Then she turned to look at me, and the intensity in those dark eyes made my skin prickle with something that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. “Do you know what that is?”
The question caught me off guard. Not because I didn’t understand it, but because she was asking me. Asking for my knowledge, my insight. For one moment, those dark eyes weren’t closed off or guarded. They were curious.
I had no idea what that gleaming thing was. It could be wreckage from the ship itself, scattered farther than we’d realized. It could be something else entirely, something that had been buried until the storms tore through and exposed it.
“I don’t know,” I said, the words coming out before I could think about them. “We should search the area and find out.”
CHAPTER 2
IRIS
The question had been a formality, asked on the slim chance that one of the D’tran had mentioned the object to him during his time here. They hadn’t, obviously. And he couldn’t see what I could see.
My left eye, the one that wasn’t original equipment, adjusted its focus automatically. The cybernetic implant whirred so quietly that only I could hear it, zooming in on the distant gleam. What had been a bright flash of reflected light resolved into something more defined. Oblong. Smooth edges. A surface too clean, too uniformly shaped to be debris from the escape pod or random wreckage scattered by the storms.
This thing hadn’t been here long.
Storm-tossed debris would be pitted, scarred, partially buried in dirt and new growth. This object sat on top of the rocky outcropping like it had been placed there. Or landed there. Recently.
I didn’t like it.
“Tomorrow,” I said. “Are you available to take a look at it?”
Baleck’s eyebrows rose. Something shifted in his expression. Surprise, maybe. Or confusion about why I was asking him, specifically.
Because you’re the only one here worth taking, I thought. The diplomats would slow us down with their questions and observations and need for frequent rest breaks. Baleck had proven during the climb that he could handle rough terrain without complaint. And he knew this area better than anyone else in our small group.
“Yes,” he said after a moment.
“Good.”
I turned back toward the crash site, where Sophie was still examining the gouged earth and scattered stones. Sophie had pulled out a recording device and was dictating notes in a low voice. Vash stood with his arms crossed, his skin still that mottled brown-gray that would make him blend into the rocks if he wasn’t wearing a giant blue parka. I couldn’t imagine what there was left to discuss, but they looked like they might be there for another hour.
Wonderful.
There was nothing left to see here. The D’tran had been thorough in their salvage operation. A few twisted pieces of metal too small to be useful, some scorched earth, the scar of impact in the mountainside. That was it. We hadn’t needed to make this climb at all. The reports Sophie and Vash would write about this visit would be detailed and comprehensive and utterly pointless. Just like all the other reports they’d written since arriving. Just like the presentations they insisted on giving every evening, summarizing their findings to an audience of four people who had been present for everything they were summarizing.
I’d sat through three of those presentations so far. Each one had felt like a small death.
Diplomats. I understood their function in theory. Build relationships. Establish trust. Create frameworks for cooperation. In practice, it seemed to involve an enormousamount of talking and very little doing. They wrote reports about writing reports. They scheduled meetings to discuss the outcomes of previous meetings. They used phrases like “synergistic opportunities” and “mutual framework development” without any apparent irony.
I preferred action. Clear objectives. Defined outcomes. Get in, accomplish the mission, get out. None of this endless circling around topics that could be addressed in five minutes if everyone would just say what they meant.
Baleck was different. I’d noticed that during our climb.
He talked, certainly. More than I would have preferred. But there was a purpose to his words. He gathered information, tested reactions, built connections. It was calculated in a way I could respect, even if I didn’t share his skill for it. When he’d told me about wanting to witness the D’tran’s integration into the broader galaxy, there had been genuine interest in his voice. He wasn’t just making conversation. He actually cared about what happened here.
I studied him now as he moved back toward the diplomats, his shaggy dark blond hair catching the light. He was tall, even for a Destran, with broad shoulders and an easy, confident stride. Objectively, I could acknowledge that he was attractive. Strong jaw, expressive eyes that shifted between amber and gold depending on the light, features that managed to be both angular and somehow warm.
His skin was what fascinated me most. I’d read briefings on Destran physiology before the mission, but seeing it in person was different. The dramatic shifts in color and patterns that reflected emotion, environment, intention. Right now, he was a calm blue-gray that nearly matched the sky behind him, but I’d seen flickers of violet when the cold bit at him, hints of warmer tones when he smiled.
It was like watching someone’s internal state displayed on their skin. The opposite of everything I’d been trained to be.
