“How far?”
He calculated, translating the vibrations into distance based on his instinctive understanding of how sound traveled through Martian rock.
“Close. Perhaps an hour, perhaps less. They’re moving quickly.”
“That’s not possible.” She was already on her feet, moving towards her pack with jerky, panicked motions. “I was careful.I made sure no one followed me. I took a different route every time?—”
“They didn’t follow you.” Rhyx rose smoothly, his body settling into a readiness that felt as natural as breathing. “They’re searching. Systematic. Grid patterns, probably, based on the radar images you told me about.”
“The ground-penetrating scans.” Alina’s hands shook as she began throwing sample containers into her pack. “Martin said GenCon was bringing in more equipment. They must have narrowed down the search area.”
“It doesn’t matter how they found it. What matters is what we do now.”
“You have to hide.” She turned to him, her eyes wild with fear—but not fear for herself, he realized. Fear for him. “Rhyx, you can’t be seen. If they find you?—”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Rhyx—”
“No.” The word came out hard, absolute, with an edge of command that surprised them both. “I am a warrior, Alina. In the before-times, my kind protected what was precious to us with our lives. That instinct lives in me still—in my blood, in my bones, in every fiber of my being. I will not hide like prey while you face danger alone.”
“This isn’t about hiding. It’s about survival.” She grabbed his arm, her grip surprisingly strong. “If GenCon captures you, they won’t just study you—they’ll take you apart. Literally. They’ll dissect you, analyze you, try to replicate whatever made you.You’ll become a weapon or a lab specimen or both, and there won’t be anything I can do to stop them.”
“Then I will not allow myself to be captured.”
“You don’t understand what you’re dealing with. Their technology?—”
“Their technology.” Rhyx allowed a small, cold smile to cross his face. “I have watched your people, Alina. I have listened to Jeb’s stories about the wars he fought, the enemies he faced. Your humans and their machines are impressive, I will grant you that. But advanced technology is not enough to hide weakness.”
She stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that they rely on their devices, their scanners, their weapons. They trust their machines to do the work of their senses, the work of their minds. But machines can be fooled. Machines have blind spots. And the people who depend on them have forgotten how to truly see.”
Rhyx moved past her, approaching the cavern wall where the rockfall had partially blocked the passage she’d used to enter. He pressed his palm against the stone, feeling the texture, the temperature, the subtle vibrations that told him secrets the humans’ radar could never detect.
“There are other tunnels,” he said. “Deeper passages, older ones, that connect to systems far beneath the surface. The radar sees shapes, but it doesn’t understand them. It shows voids but not pathways. If we go down instead of up, we become invisible.”
“You want to go deeper underground? Away from any possible escape route?”
“I want to go somewhere they cannot follow.” He turned back to her, extending his hand. “Trust me, Alina. I know these tunnels. Not from memory—from something older, something instinctive. The same way I knew how to speak your language before I truly learned it, the same way I knew you were my mate the moment I touched your hand. This planet is waking, and some part of me is waking with it.”
She hesitated, her scientific mind clearly warring with the desperate reality of their situation.
“If we get trapped down there…”
“Then we find another way out. Mars is riddled with tunnel systems—you told me that yourself. Lava tubes, collapsed chambers, underground rivers that dried up millions of years ago. They’re all connected, if you know how to look.”
The vibration was growing stronger now. Closer. He could differentiate individual vehicles—at least five, maybe more—and the heavier thrum of some kind of mobile equipment. A command vehicle, perhaps, or a scanner array.
They were running out of time.
“Alina.” He kept his hand extended, kept his voice steady despite the urgency pounding through his veins. “I will protect you. Whatever comes, whatever we face in the darkness below, I will not let any harm touch you. This I swear on the memory of my people and the blood that flows through both our veins.”
Something shifted in her expression. The fear was still there, but beneath it he could see something else emerging—the same fierce determination he’d witnessed when she stood up to Martin, when she’d decided to defy GenCon, when she’d chosen to protect him even at the cost of everything she’d built.
She reached out and took his hand.
“All right. Show me.”
