Chapter 18 #2
The crawler limped into the station’s hangar with a final grinding protest. She powered down the engine—which promptly made several sounds no engine should ever make—and sat in the sudden silence, gathering herself.
“We have arrived?” His voice was stronger now, though still edged with exhaustion.
“We have arrived.” She turned to face him fully. “How are you feeling?”
“Better. Not well, but better.” He straightened in his seat, his wings rustling against the cramped confines. “This is the ranger station you mentioned?”
“Emergency supply depot, technically. But yes.” She bit her lip. “I need to contact them. The rangers. If GenCon is really committed to finding you…”
“You believe these rangers can help?”
“I believe they’re the only option we have.
” She ran a hand through her hair, dislodging chips of ice that had accumulated during their flight.
“GenCon has a lot of resources. Money. Influence. They can pressure Earth Government to look the other way, at least for a while. The rangers operate outside most of that. Their charter gives them autonomy.”
“And you trust them?”
The question hung in the air between them, and she considered it carefully. Trust was not something she gave easily—a lesson learned through hard experience. But R-339, the ranger assigned to her territory, had always been fair in their dealings, both professional and honorable.
“I trust that they hate GenCon even more than I do,” she finally said. “They tried to experiment on them when they first arrived on Mars. Then they tried to say they were unnecessary and that GenCon security could handle law enforcement instead.” She smiled thinly. “The rangers took it personally.”
“The enemy of my enemy.”
“Something like that.”
He was quiet for a moment. “I do not like asking others for help. Especially other males. It feels…”
“Like admitting weakness?”
“Yes.”
“I know the feeling.” She reached out, taking his hand in hers. His scales were warm against her skin, smooth and alien and somehow perfect. “But sometimes strength means knowing when you can’t do something alone. You taught me that.”
“I did?”
“From the moment you appeared in my life.” She squeezed his hand. “You accepted help from me.”
“That was different. You are my mate.”
“And now we’re both asking for help from someone else. It’s the same principle, just… scaled up.”
He made a sound that might have been a laugh. “Scaled up. Is that a joke about my appearance?”
“Oh God, no.” But she was grinning now. “I didn’t even notice. Though I’m absolutely using that from now on.”
The tension in the crawler’s cab eased slightly, and she climbed out with a smile on her face.
The station’s interior was exactly what she had expected—functional, impersonal, and absolutely freezing until she managed to activate the heating systems. Supplies were stacked in military-precise rows along the walls: emergency rations, medical equipment, fuel cells, survival gear.
Everything a stranded person might need to survive until rescue arrived.
The communication array was mounted on the far wall, its interface glowing with soft blue light.
“The message,” he said. “What will you tell him?”
She stared at the array, her stomach twisting with uncertainty. This was the point of no return. Once she contacted R-339 and admitted that she had something GenCon wanted badly enough to chase them through an avalanche there would be no going back.
“The truth,” she said finally. “Or as much of it as I can manage.”
“And if he decides to hand us over to GenCon?”
“Then we run again.” She turned to face him. “But I don’t think he will. R-339 follows his own code, and that code definitely doesn’t include helping corporations acquire ancient Martian lifeforms.”
His expression hardened. “Is that is what I am? An acquisition?”
“That’s what GenCon sees you as.” She stepped closer, reaching up to cup his face in her hands. “That’s not what you are to me.”
“What am I to you?”
The question deserved an honest answer.
“Everything,” she said simply. “You’re everything.”
His eyes—those impossibly blue eyes with their vertical pupils—softened. He bent to press a quick kiss to her lips, his mouth warm against hers. For a moment, they stood like that, connected and complete. Then she stepped back.
“Let me make the call. Stay out of view of the camera, just in case.”
He nodded and moved to the far side of the room, positioning himself where the communication array’s visual field couldn’t reach. His wings folded close against his back, and in the dim lighting, he almost managed to disappear into the shadows
She activated the array.
The connection took longer than she expected, although that wasn’t unusual for polar communications, where signal interference was a constant struggle. She used the time to compose herself, and arrange her features into something approaching calm.
The screen finally flickered and resolved into an image.
R-339’s face was exactly as she remembered it. The left side was completely human, but the right side was covered in silver skin, like some kind of mask. But both his eyes were grey and human. Almost.
“Ms. Kour. This is unexpected.”
“R-339.” She kept her voice level. “I need your help.”
A pause. In a human, it would have indicated surprise. In R-339, it was probably complex probability calculations. “You have never requested assistance before. In five years of operation within my territory.”
“Things change.”
“Indeed they do.” Those grey eyes studied her through the screen. “I received an alert from GenCon several hours ago. They claim to be conducting a geological survey in your territory. They also stated that you fled your claim and destroyed company property.”
“They’re lying.”
“I assumed as much. GenCon’s relationship with truth has always been… flexible.” R-339 tilted his head in a strangely human gesture. “But their interest in you is genuine. They’ve allocated significant resources to your retrieval. Far more than a simple geological survey would warrant.”
“I have something they want.”
“Evidently. Would you care to elaborate?”
She hesitated.
“Not over a channel that GenCon might be monitoring,” she said finally. “Can you come to the station? Alone?”
Another pause. “You’re asking me to trust you.”
“I’m asking you to give me the same consideration you’d give any citizen in your territory. The right to explain before being judged.”
R-339’s expression didn’t change, but something in his posture shifted. “The supply depot at coordinates 47-North?”
“Yes.”
“I can be there in eight hours. Alone, as you requested.” Those grey eyes seemed to bore through the screen. “But Ms. Kour, I should warn you—if this is a trap, or a waste of my time, there will be consequences.”
“It’s neither. You have my word.”
“Your word.” Again, that slight tilt of the head. “In my experience, human words are unreliable currency. But your actions over the past five years have been… consistent, so I will extend you the benefit of the doubt.”
The connection terminated.
She slumped against the communication console, suddenly aware of how tensely she’d been holding herself. Eight hours. They had eight hours to figure out how to explain the impossible.
“He agreed.” Adjar’s voice came from the shadows.
“He agreed to come. That’s not the same as agreeing to help.” She turned to find him watching her. “But it’s a start.”
“You handled that well. The conversation.”
“I handled it desperately. But thank you.”
He crossed the room in three strides, pulling her into his arms with an urgency that took her breath away. His wings curved around them both, creating a cocoon of warmth and darkness.
“Eight hours,” he murmured against her hair. “What should we do with eight hours?”
“Sleep, probably. Eat something. Check our supplies.”
“All practical suggestions.”
“I’m a practical person.”
His hands found her waist, pulling her closer. “You are also exhausted. And frightened. And trying very hard not to show either.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“To me, yes.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “Let me help. Let me give you something other than fear to feel.”
She should say no. They needed to conserve their energy for whatever came next. But his hands were warm through her thermal layers, and his body was solid against hers, and she was so tired of being strong.
“We should probably conserve our energy,” she heard herself say.
“Probably.”
“And we don’t know what condition this station’s supplies are in. The bunk might not even be—”
“Jaz.”
She stopped talking.
“I do not need a bunk,” he said, his voice low and certain. “I do not need comfort or convenience. I only need you. And I need to feel you alive and warm in my arms. I need to know that after everything we have survived, we are still here. Still together. Still us.”
The words broke something open inside her.