They move closer, closing the circle around us with the precision of trained soldiers. A breathing perimeter. One steps forward in a long stride. The others shift as he moves. He’s the one in charge.
I look at his feet. Enormous.
He lifts his hand, palm out. It’s the largest hand I’ve ever seen. It’s got five fingers, though.
He waits. The pause stretches until I have no choice but to drag my eyes up to his face.
A scar traces along one side of his jaw, pulling my attention to skin the color of burnished copper, matte where the light should catch it. It's nothing like any human's I've ever seen. But his mouth, the hollows beneath his cheekbones, the brutal symmetry of him, are all unnervingly, overwhelmingly male-beautiful. The kind of face used in military propaganda. Heat rises under my skin, quick and unwelcome. On New Terra, admitting any attraction to an alien was unthinkable. I hope none of the other women have seen me staring.
The other aliens hold formation, silent and steady. It’s eerie. Their motionless bodies feel alive in the stillness, like statues waiting for permission to move and kill everything. No one breaks formation. All of them are tall enough to tuck me under an arm with no more strain than lifting a pack.
And they share an engineered sameness. There are slight variations in the darkness of their hair, in the copper heat oftheir skin—but they have the same lethal silhouette. They look designed for this jungle.
Piper whispers, “Why do they all look like they bench press starships?”
Dana doesn’t look at her. “Quiet.”
I love Piper’s spirit, but it’s not the time for jokes.
“I am Rythar, Warlord of the Green Reach,” the leader says. He speaks our language. His accented voice carries through the clearing, deep and rich.
A small orb detaches from his armor and floats forward, blue against the green. It hums, and my ears pop.
We all edge back.
The one on the leader's right speaks, and I realize he's using a translator device. The leader wasn't. “I am Executive Officer Drenz. Remain calm. You are being processed.”
Piper murmurs, “Processed? Not ominous at all.”
Dana elbows her and gestures to the humming orb. “They’re scraping our identity chips.”
Ex O Drenz holds a datapad at an angle where I can read it. My number. My name. Homeworld. All of it lifted straight from the chip under my skin and fed into the Xytheos system. On New Terra, they told us the chips were for our protection. Watching him scroll through my data feels like being catalogued instead.
The alien warriors draw the circle tighter, as though obeying silent orders. Some carry wands threaded with light. One sweeps his over Quinn's arm. The beam glows through her skin, tracing bone and bruising.
“Vitals: acceptable. Hydration: substandard. Contusions: healing.”
He nods once, then moves on without shifting his focus.
They work their way down the line, logging each of us. When the wand passes Tessa’s ribs, it flashes. The medic touches a control on his wrist. A pale strip detaches from a device, and heshapes the membrane with sure hands. He presses it to her side, forming it into place without brushing her.
Tessa gasps, then releases a long breath as the pain slips from her face.
“Treatment complete. Rest.”
Dr. Patel narrows her eyes. “That’s not like any medicine I’ve seen. What is that?”
“Bioactive membrane,” the leader’s right-hand warrior says through his translator. “It will adapt to your tissue.”
Then it’s my turn.
The wand drifts over my skin, cool and strangely intimate for a medical scan. The Warlord’s attention stays fixed on me. With the visor covering his eyes, I can’t see exactly what he’s looking at, but I feel his focus as clearly as the wand’s pass. The wand flashes.
“Minor fracture, left humerus. Laceration, four centimeters.”
I hadn’t even felt it. With all the adrenaline, with everything to worry about, I forgot Dr. Patel's admonition—if I'm not whole and able, I can't help anyone else.
The medic steps closer and pulls out a larger patch. I jerk my arm away on instinct, every warning I’ve ever learned about aliens rushing up at once.
