Having made a Dalox-shaped hole, he waves me inside. It’s dark and damp. A light flickers on, dimly illuminating the dirty passage.
“What is this?” I query as he goes ahead of me.
“Exhaust,” he says over his shoulder. “It’s not far to the ship, my mate. Follow me.”
In no time at all, we reach another dead end. I put my hands over my ears, anticipating Dalox will use a similar method to last time. However, instead, he pulls out a small black square, places it on the wall, and a slit of light slowly glows into an oval, which swings open, letting in a wave of cool air with the scent of dust.
I hesitate.
If there’s dust, perhaps there is a pit. This can’t all be an elaborate ruse to put me back in the pit, can it?
“With me,” Dalox says, holding out his hand, the obsidian claws mere pins compared to the velociraptor style ones he used to rip at the metal of the wall. “My Gillian.”
For all I don’t want to trust anyone, for all I have told myself over and over I cannot trust Dalox, a creature who has the emotional sensitivity of a bull in a china shop and a similar physicality, Somehow, I do trust him. And I place my hand in his.
DALOX
The feel of her tiny hand in mine sends my rut soaring, the mating mix heating my veins, my desire to shift and stay shifted almost overwhelming.
Although it wouldn’t help our cause, and that’s the only thing holding me in my biped form, save for my tail, which always does its own thing.
Darax’s hangar opens out in front of us, and I check my comm for the correct flyer my quartermaster has identified.
With Gillian beside me, we quickly cross the space until we reach it. I send the relevant message to my warrior.
“What’s going on, Dalox?” Gillian asks.
“I’m waiting for the access code,” I respond as my comm chimes with the necessary information and the gangway unfolds in front of us.
We make our way inside, and with my mate in hand, we enter the bridge, which whirrs into life at my presence (and that of my code).
“One day, you’ll need to show me how to fly one of these things,” Gillian says as I help her into a seat before climbing into the pilot’s chair and firing up the engines.
“You do not have flyers on your planet?”
“We have planes, but they’re not really like flyers, except they fly, but they’re very complicated to learn to operate, and most humans don’t know how,” she says.
“You like to fly?”
“You know I do.” Her eyes flick to mine as the flyer lifts away from the pad and I turn it towards the exit.
I key my comm.
“I’m going to need an exit,” I growl. “Soon.”
Looking down, I see a number of Darax’s warriors entering the hangar and pointing up at the flyer.
“Dalox,” he growls over the flyer comm. “I know it’s you, you nevver. What are you doing with my flyer?”
Gillian stares at me. “I thought this was yours?”
“I do not have any flyers on Vorostor which can make the journey to the second continent and which are equipped to remove the mapping system from Deus’s ship.” I grin at her. “I’m borrowing this one from Darax.”
“It doesn’t sound like you’re borrowing it.” She raises her eyebrows.
I’m not sure, but I don’t think she is mad at me.
“I might not have asked his permission, but I do not need to,” I respond. “Darax won’t miss one flyer. He has plenty.” I point out the flyer window at the rest of Darax’s impressive hangar, filled with all the ships he has purchased or taken.
