Chapter 1 #2
"What predators?" Peter asked from the back of the room.
"That's the question, isn't it?" Patel replied. "Something has to be feeding on these worms. Something big enough that the worms developed an acid defense. We haven't identified it yet."
"Athena saw something in the sky," Marina said. "Large, winged. We don't know what it was."
The room got quieter.
"So, we've got acid worms, unknown flying predators, no spare parts, and twin suns that'll cook us if we stay outside too long," Rowan summarized. "Any good news?"
"We're alive," Marina said. It was the same thing she'd said to Athena. It was still true. "And we have a full science team, a security detail, and a ship that still has power. We're not helpless. We just need to be smart."
She assigned tasks. Rowan and his engineers would assess salvageable materials from the ship and plan surface expeditions to search for compatible metals.
Patel would study the tube worms from a safe distance and build a biological profile of Ceylara's ecosystem.
Vasquez would set up a medical station and establish protocols for heat exposure and potential acid burns.
Athena would expand the security perimeter and set up motion sensors.
"One more thing," Marina added as they were filing out. "Nobody goes outside alone. Nobody goes further than the perimeter without my authorization. And nobody, nobody, touches the wildlife."
"What if the wildlife touches us?" Athena asked from the doorway.
"Then you improvise."
Her sister's grin was the last thing she saw before the door closed.
Marina sat in the empty briefing room and let herself have thirty seconds of terror.
Just thirty. Her hands shook. Her breath came fast and shallow.
The weight of what had happened; the crash, the alien planet, the forty-seven lives, pressed down on her chest with a force that had nothing to do with gravity.
Thirty seconds, then she put it away. Sealed it in the part of her mind that she didn't visit during work hours.
She'd unpack it later. Maybe. Or maybe she'd just keep packing more on top of it until the pile was so high she couldn't see the bottom anymore.
That strategy had worked for twenty-nine years. No reason to change it now.
She pulled up the long-range communications array. The signal was weak ; Ceylara's atmosphere was playing hell with the transmission frequencies. But it was there. Someone, somewhere, would hear them eventually. She just had to keep everyone alive until they did.
The twin suns were dropping toward the horizon. The shadows lengthening across the red landscape were the first gentle thing she'd seen on this planet. Even the light here was aggressive.
Marina Livingstone started composing a distress signal. She chose her words carefully. She always did.
She didn't get to finish it. Athena's voice crackled through the comms, sharp with an urgency that Marina recognized immediately. Her sister had exactly two tones: bored and terrified. This was the second one.
"Marina, you need to see this. Bring Peter. Bring guns."
Marina was out of her chair before the transmission ended. Peter fell into step beside her in the corridor, sidearm drawn, his ruined boot replaced with a spare. They reached the main airlock in under a minute.
Athena was standing just outside, about twenty yards from the hull. She wasn't looking at the ground. She was looking up.
Three shapes hung in the sky above them.
Large; larger than any bird Marina had ever seen, larger than the eagles she'd watched in nature documentaries as a kid.
They had wings, real wings, spanning what had to be ten or twelve feet each.
Their bodies were thick and muscular, covered in something that caught the twin suns' light and scattered it. They were covered in scales.
One of them was gold and black. One was gray with silver markings. One was a deep navy blue.
They weren't flying so much as hovering. Riding the thermals with a controlled precision that suggested intelligence. They were watching the ship. Watching the humans who had come out to stare at them.
"Please tell me those are just really big birds," Peter whispered.
"Those aren't birds," Athena replied. Her hand was on her weapon, but she hadn't drawn it. Marina noticed this. It was significant because Athena drew on everything. The fact that she wasn't drawing on these things meant she'd already calculated that a sidearm wouldn't make a difference.
"They've been circling for about five minutes," Athena continued, her voice low. "They dropped altitude when I came outside. I think they're curious."
"Or hungry," Peter suggested.
"Helpful, Peter. Really helpful."
Marina watched the creatures. Her scientist's brain was already cataloging: winged, scaled, large predator classification, apparent intelligence in flight patterns, possible pack behavior.
Her survival brain was screaming. The two brains had different opinions on what to do next.
The scientist wanted to stay and observe.
The survivor wanted to get inside the ship and seal the airlock.
The gold-and-black one descended. Not fast; slowly, deliberately, like it wanted them to see it coming.
It landed on a rocky outcropping about fifty yards from the ship with a grace that something that size shouldn't have possessed.
Up close, it was enormous. Its wings folded against its back, and its tail curled around the rock.
Its eyes ; bright blue, startlingly blue; fixed on Marina with an intensity that made her stomach drop.
Then it changed.
The scales rippled. The wings retracted.
The massive form contracted and reshaped itself, bones and muscle rearranging in a process that took about five seconds and that Marina's scientific training could not even begin to explain.
Where a creature the size of a small aircraft had been, there was now a man.
Tall, and muscular. With rose-gold scales running from his shoulders to his wrists and the most striking blue eyes she had ever seen.
He was beautiful. That was her first thought, and she hated herself for it immediately. Her second thought was more useful: he's intelligent, he's showing us he means no harm by making himself smaller, and he's waiting to see what we do.
Nobody moved. The alien man stood on the outcropping. The two remaining creatures hovered above. Peter's hand was shaking on his sidearm. Athena was perfectly still.
Marina made a decision. It was either the bravest or the stupidest thing she'd ever done. She stepped forward.
"My name is Marina Livingstone," she called out. "We didn't mean to land here. Our ship is damaged. We need help."
The man tilted his head. His blue eyes studied her. Then, in accented but perfectly understandable English, he replied.
"My name is Toren. And you are the most interesting thing that has ever crashed on this planet."
Behind her, Athena muttered, "Well, that's not terrifying at all."