Chapter 17
TORVEN
The scanner in Zara’s hands had been humming steadily for the past twenty minutes, doing its thing without melting down or short-circuiting.
I watched her face in the red light, saw the way her eyes tracked across the display.
She was ultra-focused on the work to distract herself from the weight of stone above us, from the hostile glances of the D’tran warriors, from the fact that we all could have been killed in that explosion.
Part of me had wanted all of us to return to the fortress.
To regroup and get more guards, weapons, something.
Anything to make this safer for my mate.
But more guards could mean more hostility toward us.
Returning could also give the Kythrans time to reset traps and rig more explosives.
That could produce more injuries and, possibly, some deaths.
I wasn’t sure Zara could handle being underground with corpses.
Her nerves were already stretched tight as a wire.
Then something changed.
“Wait,” she said, stopping so abruptly that my chest bumped into her shoulder. “I’m getting something. A strong reading.”
Vikkat was at her side immediately, his weathered face intent. “Explain.”
“Heat signatures. Multiple sources, concentrated in one location.” Her fingers flew across the display, adjusting parameters and zooming in on a section of the three-dimensional map.
“They’re about fifty meters ahead and thirty meters down.
There’s a chamber there—a large one, definitely artificial construction.
And the heat signatures are consistent with living beings. ”
“How many?” I asked, already knowing the answer wouldn’t be good. Nothing about this expedition had been good so far.
“Six. Maybe seven. It’s hard to get an exact count through this much rock.” She looked up at Vikkat, and I could see the conflict in her expression. Hope warring with dread. “They’re there. The Kythrans are actually there.”
The effect on the D’tran was immediate and electric.
Warriors who’d been tense and suspicious suddenly shifted to predatory alertness.
Weapons were checked, positions were adjusted, and I could see the hunger in their expressions.
This was what they’d been hunting for generations.
This was their chance to finally make someone pay for what had been done to their world.
“We move quickly,” Vikkat said, his voice carrying the weight of command. “Follow scanner readings. Be ready for traps.”
We proceeded through the passages with renewed urgency, Zara calling out directions as her scanner tracked the heat signatures. The caves here showed even more signs of deliberate construction—smooth walls, regular angles, supports. Someone had lived here for a very long time.
The passage ahead was blocked by what looked like a recent rockfall, but as we got closer, I could see that it wasn’t natural. The stones had been deliberately piled, hastily assembled into a makeshift barrier. Someone had tried to seal off this section of the cave system.
“There,” Zara said, pointing at the barrier. “The heat signatures are directly behind that rock pile.”
Dorek didn’t wait for orders. He raised his energy weapon and fired, the blast shattering the top layer of stones and sending debris flying.
Other D’tran warriors joined in, their combined firepower making short work of the barrier.
Within minutes, they’d blasted through, revealing a dark opening beyond.
“Aggressive entry,” Vikkat commanded. “Secure the space.”
The D’tran burst through the opening with weapons raised and violence in their movements. I grabbed Zara’s arm and pulled her close, keeping myself between her and whatever was about to happen. My other hand closed around the rock I’d been carrying, the weight of it familiar and reassuring.
The chamber beyond was larger than I’d expected, carved from the stone with the same precision we’d seen throughout the cave system. But what stopped me cold wasn’t the architecture.
It was the beings cowering in the red light of the D’tran’s portable lamps.
Kythrans. Had to be. They matched Vikkat’s description—smaller than D’tran, similar in size to humans, with skin that was trying desperately to shift through camouflage patterns but kept flickering back to a pale gray.
But these weren’t the dangerous sky-stealers the D’tran had been hunting.
These were old. Ancient, even. Their skin hung loose on thin frames, their movements were slow and trembling, and their eyes—large and dark in the red light—were filled with undisguised terror.
There were six of them. Six fragile, elderly beings who looked like they could barely stand, let alone pose a threat to anyone.
They held up their hands in a gesture that transcended species—universal sign language for please don’t hurt us.
The chamber itself told a story of long survival in impossible conditions.
A water condenser sat in one corner, smaller and more primitive than the one Zara and I had found in the weather tower, but functional.
A nutrient processor hummed quietly near what looked like sleeping areas—simple mats arranged in a rough circle.
A tunnel at the back of the chamber led somewhere I didn’t want to investigate, based on the smell coming from that direction.
But what dominated the space was technology.
Everywhere I looked, there were devices in various states of dismantlement.
Data cubes were stacked in piles, some cracked and damaged, others still pristine.
Tech parts littered every surface—circuit boards, power cells, interface modules, things I couldn’t even identify.
It looked like someone had been tirelessly trying to build something, or repair something, or understand something.
The D’tran warriors surrounded the Kythrans instantly, weapons raised, voices raised even higher. The words they shouted weren’t in the simplified D’tran that Zara and I could understand—these were curses and accusations in the old warrior’s tongue, raw and vicious.
I could see it happening. All the frustration, all the anger, all the generations of suffering that the D’tran had endured were about to be taken out on these six defenseless, frail beings who could barely stand.
Dorek moved first, swinging the butt of his blaster at the nearest Kythran with brutal force. The impact caught the old being across the face, splitting skin and sending them sprawling. Blood—surprisingly red blood—spattered across the stone floor.
The other Kythrans cried out, a thin, reedy sound that made my chest ache.
I didn’t think. I moved.
Three strides put me between the D’tran and their prey, my arms spread wide in a gesture that mirrored the Kythrans’ plea for mercy. “Stop!”
“Move aside, star-cousin,” Dorek snarled, his weapon still raised. “This is not your concern.”
“It is my concern when you’re about to beat to death the only beings who might be able to help us.” I kept my voice level, though every instinct I had was screaming at me that I’d just put myself between predators and prey. “They can’t help us if they’re dead.”
“Help?” Another warrior spat the word. “These are sky-stealers. They destroyed our world. They deserve nothing but death.”
“They’re old, but not that old,” I said flatly. “Look at them. None of these beings were alive when the weather systems were built. They’re survivors, just like you.”
“Torven’s right,” Zara said, and I felt her move up beside me. “We need them alive if we’re going to learn anything about the weather control systems.”
Vikkat stepped forward, his massive frame imposing even in the confined space. “Lower weapons. We came for answers, not revenge.”
“Answers?” Dorek’s laugh was bitter. “We came to make them fix what they broke. To force them to undo what they did to our world.”
“And we can’t do that if your rage is louder than your common sense,” I pointed out. “Lower your weapons. Now.”
For a long moment, I thought Dorek was going to challenge Vikkat’s authority outright. His eyes were wild, his mouth a cold sneer, but finally, slowly, he lowered his blaster.
The other warriors followed suit, though their antipathy remained palpable.
Behind me, I could hear the Kythrans breathing in quick, shallow gasps. The one Dorek had struck was making a soft keening sound that suggested significant pain.
“Zara,” I said quietly. “Can you communicate with them?”
She was already pressing the skin behind her right ear, which had to be the way she interfaced with her implanted translator.
“Hold on. The translator has linguistic databases for thousands of species. If I can find a dialect close enough to Kythran…” Her fingers fiddled in her scalp.
“There. I’ve got something that might work.
It’s an ancient trade language that shares roots with several species in this sector. ”
She stepped forward carefully, her movements slow and nonthreatening. The Kythrans tracked her approach with those large, dark eyes, and I saw one of them—the oldest-looking one—straighten slightly.
Zara spoke, and the words that came out weren’t any language I recognized. The sounds were softer than D’tran, with more complex tonal variations.
The old Kythran responded, their voice thin and wavering but apparently understandable through Zara’s translator, as she nodded and replied, then turned to us.
“This one asked how I can speak the old tongue, and I said it was through new technology,” Zara said.
“I told them that we mean them no harm and apologized for the behavior of the D’tran.
” She sent a hard look to Dorek. “I’m going to tell them that we’re looking for answers about the weather control systems.”