Not yet.
The weight shifts again. More bodies. Closer. The scrape of something hard dragged over packed sand. A crate. A wheel. A carrier frame.
Then the vibrations change.
A brief stutter runs through the ground beneath me.
Contact.
Not guesswork. Not instinct alone.
A hand closing where it should not.
The directive fires clean and absolute.
Surrounded.
Touched.
Too close.
I move.
Sand explodes as I drive upward. Light slams into my eyes, heat into my lungs, and open air strikes after too long inside metal and darkness. The group around her fractures instantly.
Shock.
Bodies recoil. Voices cut off. One of the larger unknowns is closest, turned toward her, arm extended. I hit him first.
One strike. Center mass. Enough force to drive him sideways into the stacked supplies, clearing the path between her and the others.
I do not look at anything else.
I go straight to her.
She turns at the last second, eyes wide, the flat board in her hand half lifted as if she means to use it as a shield. Dark hair. Lighter skin. The same face from the images, but not the same. Real. Alive. Closer than breath.
Mine. Protect.
I catch her around the waist and pull her hard against me before the others can close the space. She inhales sharply, the sound cutting through everything.
Movement erupts around us.
The known ones react first. Fast. Efficient. One of them lunges in from the right. Another moves behind the others, trying to cut off an angle of escape. The smaller ones, similar to her, shout. The green ones recover and drive forward with blunt force and excessive momentum.
All wrong.
All closing in.
I turn, putting my body between her and the nearest threat. Someone reaches for her arm again. I snap that reaching limb aside before it can touch her, never loosening my hold.
No contact.
No obstruction.
Remove.
The sand collapses beneath the force of my breach. Good. The dune edge is unstable. The ground is ready to give. I use it.
