I face the males outright. “Do not bother making plans for the corpses of those you lost.” Both turn to me, their eyes widening in question. Their ragged expressions appear no better for this morning’s rest. Holding in a frustrated hiss, I realise it does not appeal to me that all the humans in my care are tired and hurt. Even if Julia is rested, I am not fully satisfied. “They will not be there for very long. The animals and insects of the forest will make a meal out of them. I left the door open, they are exposed.”
“My brother is one of those bodies,” Benjamin says, slowly standing and facing me head-on as an expression of apprehension plays across his features. “We have to return.”
“We can’t,” Julia cuts in before I can answer. “It’s too dangerous. He’s right.”
“What do you mean dangerous?” the male turns and asks her. “I’ve never known an animal to be dangerous. It’s my brother. We’re twins, do you know what that means? I should’ve never left him… I wasn’t thinking straight.”
Julia, still crouched beside Olivia, between Benjamin and the girl, glances over her shoulder at him. “Twins or not, you’ve never been around a wild animal. Here, there are bears, wolves, and pigs. And the pigs sometimes roam in packs of hundreds. All of them will eat you if given the chance.”
“I’m not afraid of animals,” he bites out harshly. “If you won’t come with me, I’ll go back myself. I can’t just leave him like that. I was in shock before. My head wasn’t clear but now I think it’s best we return and wait for rescue to come to us. Real rescue.”
I settle back against a nearby tree and cross my arms.
Julia shifts on her knees to face him. “Do the others agree with doing that? I know it’s hard to understand, being on a colony ship for so long, but you will die here if you’re not careful. There are no laws here, no authority, no walls, not while you’re in a forest, far from everyone, and everything else. The creatures here are not docile, and far from domestic. Krellix is right, it’s best to let him go. And maybe, when all of this is over, you can come back with the military and retrieve what is left. You can make a memorial.” She looks at Olivia and the other male briefly. “We all can.”
Benjamin frowns. “You’re just like the soldiers who tried to keep us on the Dreadnaut, trying to stop everyone from leaving, spewing lies to scare us and make us head back to our dark units,” he lashes out.
Sliding my tail between him and the females, my eyes narrow at his tone of voice.
“I’m not lying like they probably were,” Julia interjects with a loud sigh. “I’ve only told you about the animals, don’t get me started on the nagas.”
Benjamin looks at me before peering around at the dense forest on either side. “I don’t see any ferocious, vicious animals.” He points to me. “They also said your kind are monsters—yes, we’ve heard of the earth aliens, at least I have—and that it’s because of one of you that the ship went dark.”
Julia’s eyes catch mine as they widen with surprise. I lift from the tree and move toward the male, bearing my fangs. As I get close, he leans into a backward crawl before throwing out his palms to stop me. “Don’t hurt me! Stop!”
I pause before him, peering down at him sharply. He crooks his neck to meet my slitted gaze. “I have no interest in hurting you, human, but I will stop a fight?—”
Julia stands, walks over to us, and tightly clasps my forearm. “It’s okay. What do you mean the ship went dark because of one of them?” she asks Benjamin.
Zaku’s words about Syasku’s return come back to me.But Syasku’s supposedly here now, and not on the ship. Zaku would not lie.Did Syasku cause the human’s ship to go dark? Or have more nagas been captured?
“I’ll tell you only if we return for my brother’s body.”
Julia’s face scrunches with anger and before I can stop it, she pushes me aside and gets in front of Benjamin. She snatches the collar of his shirt and yanks it forward. “If it weren’t for Krellix and I, you could be dead right now. Either from smoke inhalation or from something else.” She pulls him forward until her face is directly before his. “I won’t stop you going back for your brother’s body,” she seethes, “but you will answer our questions first. You owe us that. Afterwards, I don’t care what you do but your complaining ends here.” She looks at the other male, the one who’s been mostly quiet. “One of you will tell us what happened onThe Dreadnaut.”
From soft to severe in a matter of seconds. I hold back from snatching her away from Benjamin, realizing I am enjoying her abrupt shift to being severe. It is a side of her I have not seen yet. I have seen her hard, I have seen her worried, and I have seen her soft… But bossy?
Benjamin’s eyes shift to me and I bear my fangs again in warning. He flinches and throws his hands up in defense. “I’ll tell you! Anything you want to know! Just don’t hurt me. Okay? Please! It’s my brother, you have to… to understand.”
Julia sits back and her voice softens. “I do but we need to make sure everyone here is all right first before we risk anyone’s life for a dead body.”
“You’ll tell us everything,” I growl. “We want to know everything.” Are the soldiers gone with the ship? Do we have to worry about them anymore?
Benjamin nods vigorously, his gaze moving between Julia and I. “Yes. Everything. I’ll tell you everything I know.”
Julia releases him and heads back to Olivia’s side.
Moving away from the rest of the group myself, I smile inwardly, impressed by Julia’s ferocity.That’s my female.
Maybe she does not need my protection after all.
Benjamin, with a brief glance at the other male, opens his mouth and begins to corroborate some of what I had learned from Zaku, starting with the knowledge of a naga aboard the human’s ship. The ship lost power around the same time that information began to spread and the humans were told to remain inside their respective units until ‘further notice.’
“My brother and I did as we were told at first,” he says.
During the days that followed, riots erupted at both ofThe Dreadnaut’sports, and many lost their lives. There were rumors that the naga had escaped—but had been recaptured during the chaos—but only after he brutally murdered an esteemed research scientist.
“Then we were told over the intercom that one of the ship’s core reactors had been irreparably damaged. Minton reassured us everything was okay but as the days went on and the power to the ship wasn’t coming back on?—”
