Page 23 of Alien’s Retrieved Mate

KEL

She was going to get us killed with her fascination with dead civilizations, and I was going to let her, because I could not stop watching her face when she discovered something.

We passed three more Kethari sites over the next day. Small ones — a fragment of wall here, a carved stone marker there. Each time, the bond delivered its pressure directly into my chest — bright and golden and focused. Her face translated it: curiosity, a mind encountering something it was built to love. Each time, I stopped walking. Let her look. Timed it. Moved on.

I was losing discipline. Measurably, quantifiably losing discipline. My training dictated that we maintain pace, minimize deviation, reach the outpost within the supply window. Every stop for her academic enthusiasm cost time we didn't have.

I stopped anyway. Every time.

On the sixth morning, I found a ridge with enough elevation and clear sightline to attempt a comms signal. For three nights after Taylor slept, I had rebuilt the unit around my cracked helmet's surviving power cell and bypassed the damaged amplifier. The repair was crude enough to fail an Academy inspection, but from open high ground it might push one narrow-band burst to the nearest relay buoy.

Taylor was thirty paces below the ridge, doing something with leaves. I had stopped trying to understand everything she did with vegetation. She had an entire relationship with plant life that defied tactical analysis.

The signal connected. Static. Fragment. Then Renn's voice, cutting through the interference like a blade.

"—vran, about time. Your status report is six days overdue. The Authority is not pleased."

"Comms damage. Intermittent signal. Current status: on foot, Zha'kari, northern continent, en route to Vel'kari Station. Estimated arrival twelve days."

"Twelve days. You were supposed to extract the Andari girl and be back in four."

"The mission was compromised. The Korvathi attack⁠—"

"The Andari girl was recovered. Second team intercepted the Saurok evacuation convoy and pulled her out two days ago. She's safe. Injured in the collapse, but alive. The medical team has her at the main station and expects a full recovery. The diplomat is grateful, the Authority is satisfied, and you are officially off that assignment." A pause. "So why are you still on Zha'kari?"

I did not answer immediately. The truth was too large for a field communication channel, the kind of truth my people reserved language for only at births, deaths, and the discovery of resonance. Not something to deploy casually while static chewed at the signal.

"Kel'vran."

"There is a complication."

"What kind of complication?"

Below the ridge, Taylor caught her boot on a buttress root, swore at it by name, and kept walking without breaking stride. My markings flared. I pressed my arm against my side, a reflex I had developed — hiding the glow against my body, as if that made it less real.

"I have a civilian. Recovered from the Saurok vessel. Species origin: uncontacted world."

Silence from Renn. A long silence.

"You have a what?"

"A human. Female. From a planet designated UC-7742 in the outer spiral. She was taken by the Saurok and held in the general population cells. I extracted her during the Korvathi engagement."

"An uncontacted species individual. On a Saurok slave ship."

"Correct."

"And you have her. Right now. On Zha'kari."

"Correct."

Another silence. Then Renn's voice, lower: "Kel. Please tell me this is just a recovery operation."

I said nothing.

"Kel'vran Sorath. Your markings."

"I am aware."