Chapter 11 Holly
I woke to the soft, rhythmic tapping of claws. Burr’k was already up, sitting at the pilot’s chair, focused on whatever was on the screen. The glow from the console lit his face, casting sharp shadows across his jaw.
I blinked a few times, trying to shake off the sleep, and sat up slowly. The screen was filled with glyphs. The jagged symbols looked more like claw marks to me than a written language, and I couldn’t read any of it.
He turned slightly when he noticed me, just enough to acknowledge I was awake. No, Good morning, how did you sleep? No, Ready to finish our mission? Grumpy was back.
His mood had soured yesterday when I offered him some hand cream, and it hadn’t improved since. Hand cream! How would I know that would set him off?
After the amazing sex we’d had earlier yesterday, I’d thought maybe we’d spend the night curled up together, all cuddling and cute, and I could melt the grump a little more. But instead we’d ended up sleeping back-to-back, the tiny gap between us feeling wider than a mile.
I didn’t understand what had triggered the shift. One minute, I was beginning to think I’d finally cracked his hard shell and gotten to the ooey-gooey center, and the next, he was cold again. Maybe it was just him. Or maybe he was disappointed in me.
Was he hoping for something like a mate bond after our moment of connection? That hadn’t happened. I knew that for sure.
Burr’k’s arms had let go of me easily, and that was all the confirmation I needed.
If the bond had formed, he wouldn’t have been able to release me at all.
That was how it worked. When it was real, Xarc’n warriors latched on and couldn’t let go, even if they wanted to.
The moment sometimes lasted for mere hours, while for other couples it lasted days.
But not triggering a mate bond was a good thing, especially since I wasn’t even sure if Burr’k liked me. There was a huge difference between scratching mutual itches and being together forever.
Still, I couldn’t deny the sex part had been exceptional. We had physical chemistry, if nothing else.
I quickly did my morning business, then pulled on my jacket and boots. I wasn’t even hungry. The food bars we’d had last night that I’d had to cut into tiny pieces to actually eat still kept me full. That stuff was dense. It was just as filling as it was flavorless.
Was that what Burr’k ate on a regular basis? No wonder he was grumpy all the time. I’d be grouchy too if all I had to look forward to after a day of killing space bugs was the equivalent of cardboard-flavored rubber.
We had a job to finish. That mattered more than whatever weird mood he was in.
“Let’s go find the rest of the presents,” I said.
“Many of the kids asked for books, notebooks, and cute stationery. We should find everything in the bookstore. And then we’ve got one more stop to pick up lights for the tree decorating party, and I’ll be out of your hair. ”
He frowned, picking up a strand of his hair that had fallen out of the low ponytail he wore tied with a leather thong. “You are not in my hair.”
“It means you’ll be rid of me and I won’t bother you anymore.”
Somehow, that had his mood dropping even lower. Great.
He tucked a blaster into his belt, and we headed out.
I gasped at the sight that greeted me. The world was coated in ice.
The storm from last night had frozen everything solid, and now the sun was out, making the landscape shiny and sparkly.
Ice clung to branches, rooftops, and even the shuttle, turning the post-apocalyptic landscape around us into art.
I paused, taking it in. Sunlight bounced off every surface, glittering like crystals. Everything looked different under the ice. It was all so achingly beautiful, but almost in a tragic way, like life itself had paused for this moment.
He kept walking, not saying anything, and I followed.
But I still realized just how slippery this ice was.
Burr’k had no problem, of course. The sharp claws on his feet, which weren’t retractable, unlike the ones on his hands, gave him purchase on the slippery surface.
I, on the other hand, struggled to stay upright.
“You are slow, female.”
Great. I was back to being “female.” “My name's Holly. Use it,” I said as I waddled a few more feet toward the store entrance.
Burr’k huffed before taking a few large steps back toward me. He swooped me into his arms and started toward the bookstore. I considered kicking up a fuss and telling him I could do it myself, but I had to admit that this was much faster and more effective.
Besides, it seemed that the very act of picking me up had calmed him, because he no longer looked like he was sucking on a lemon.
Huh. Interesting. And hadn’t his mood lightened during our big toy haul yesterday?
It was almost like being useful made him feel better.
And when I’d offered him hand cream yesterday, he’d looked at his hand for a long moment before his mood had dropped into the abyss.
Was he remembering all the work he used to do and all the ways he was useful on the mothership?
Maybe this wasn’t just grumpiness after all, but irritability from depression. Now that I understood.
When he let me inside the bookstore past the broken glass of the front windows, I reached up to plant a kiss on his cheek. “These boots are clearly not as good as your claws are for the ice. Thank you.”
He grunted but seemed to stand a little taller.
I went down the list, picking up all the books first since they were harder to find.
Once in the notebook and stationery area, I kind of went hog wild, shoving everything I could—notebooks, journals, colored pencils, pens, everything—into the big, cotton canvas shopping bag I’d brought along.
These items made great stocking stuffers, and even after the holiday season, they’d come in handy.
I didn’t even need to ask for help on the way back, because Burr’k was sweeping me into his arms, the big bag of goodies hugged to my chest.
Despite how smooth things went, we must’ve spent more time than we thought in the store. It had been quite early when we stepped inside, but the sun was already high in the sky now, and the flying scorpion scourge were already circling overhead.
The shuttle was still in stealth mode but was no longer hidden. The ice had formed a crystalline dome around it like a giant alien spaceship ice sculpture. It looked super cool, like something out of a sci-fi movie.
“Wait!” I said, grabbing my phone from my jacket pocket.
As I tried to get the best angle for a picture that showcased the shuttle the best, Burr’k loaded up our bookstore goodies into the shuttle.
It was so pretty, sparkling in the morning sunlight.
Despite living with the hunters for years, we didn’t get to actually see the shuttles often because they were constantly cloaked.
This offered a completely different view of one.
Burr’k stood by the door, arms crossed over his chest, scowling like he couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. I backed up a little and took a final picture, this one with him in it, looking like the surly hunter he was.
The photo was… chef’s kiss. Super theatrical. I grinned, planning to print it out at the library as a memento of our trip.
The shrill cry of a flyer overhead dampened my mood. Oops. For a second there, I almost forgot how dangerous it was to be out here if it wasn’t for my hunter companion and his shuttle.
“We should go,” Burr’k said, arms still crossed.
It was for the best, though I took the opportunity to take one more photo, this one a selfie with Burr’k and the ice shuttle behind me. I was just getting to the shuttle door when another shrill cry, this one sounding much closer, had my blood suddenly running cold.
I knew what the cry meant. The flyer had spotted us, and it was calling other scourge to the area. We had to go. Now.
I ducked into the shuttle just as it swooped. The door slammed shut behind me with Burr’k still outside, and I realized he planned on fighting it.
“Shuttle,” I said, hoping the craft would be helpful. Xarc’n shuttles all had alien AI onboard. Some were just rudimentary artificial intelligence, enough to run the shuttles, but others were complex and truly sentient and served as companions for the hunters.
After a long moment without a response, I tried again. “Shuttle?”
“What do you want, human?” the shuttle demanded.
I was taken aback at how annoyed the shuttle sounded. Grumpy hunter, grumpy shuttle, who knew.
“Can you please make the walls transparent so I can see what’s going on outside?”
“No.”
Oh well, it was worth a try. With nothing left to do, I settled on the sleeping nook, boots still on and feet dangling off the edge. I went through my recently taken photos in a bid to stop worrying about what was happening outside.
As I did, it felt as if someone was looking over my shoulder. I turned around, but of course, all I saw was the inside of the sleeping nook. Strange.
“I will show the external feed if you transfer this still recording to me,” the shuttle suddenly said.
Oh! The shuttle was looking at images of itself.
“Okay. How do I do that?”
“Give me your contact, and I will walk you through.”
I did, but before the shuttle could walk me through, a loud thud rocked the shuttle.
What the hell?
Then there was another one, this one coming from the other side and making the whole shuttle move.
The shuttle door slid open, and Burr’k dove inside. The door tried to slide shut behind him, but was caught as a flyer tried to rush inside. It was too big to fit in the door, of course, but its mandible chittered at me.
I screamed and scrambled back as far as I could. My breath caught in my throat as panic surged through me. Heart pounding, I searched for a weapon but found none.
But Burr’k was already there. Instead of using his sword, he’d opened one of the shuttle panels to expose a closet full of weapons and armor. He picked up something that looked like a shield, then used it to beat the beast back.
The shuttle door slid closed behind it.
“Shuttle,” Burr’k demanded. “Project external feed.”
The shuttle walls disappeared, replaced by a projection of the world outside. A shrill scream left my mouth before I could slap my hand over it. There wasn’t one flyer beyond the glassy ice shell of the shuttle, but three. And all three of them were on the shuttle!
The ice, while beautiful, was making the shuttle visible.
There was a quick movement, and I ducked instinctively as the flyer whipped its tail over its head and slammed the spike down. The whole craft reverberated, and the ice around the shuttle cracked, shattering into a thousand pieces. Large sheets of ice slid and flaked off the side.
The vibrations barely settled when it happened again.
Burr’k’s face darkened. “I will need to knock them off.”
I had no idea what that meant, but I was suddenly pulled to my feet. “What are…” My words trailed off as he sat in the pilot’s seat, then held me on top of him.
“I will need to fly aggressively. This is the only harness,” he explained as he adjusted the harness and snapped it into place over both our bodies.
“But you can’t fly with me on your lap! I’ll be in your way.”
“We have no choice. Spitters are arriving.”
I looked and saw that he was right. Spitters used volleys of stomach acid to digest their prey on the spot. We had no options to fight them in our current predicament. And it was only a matter of time before the acid destroyed the hull.
We were like chestnuts in their shells, and it wouldn’t be long before they cracked us open.
Then, as if to punctuate my thoughts, another spiked tail slammed down onto the shuttle.