Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The intruder’s approach vibrated through the ice long before any sound reached Adjar’s ears.
He was on his feet instantly, every muscle coiled for combat, his claws extending before conscious thought could intervene. The sensation was unmistakable—something heavy and mechanical was moving towards them at a rapid pace. Not a pursuit vehicle, the rhythm was wrong for that.
“Adjar?” Jaz’s voice was sleep-rough and alarmed. She pushed herself up from where she’d been curled against his side, her dark hair tumbling loose from its braid. “What is it?”
“Someone approaches.” He positioned himself between her and the station’s entrance, wings half-spread in a threat display. “A modified rider with a mechanical mount.”
“Modified?” She quickly pulled on her thermal. “What do you mean modified?”
“I can feel metal woven through the flesh.” He bared his teeth at the door. “The ranger.”
“Already? It hasn’t been—” She checked her wrist unit and swore softly. “Six hours. I slept for six hours?”
“You needed it.”
“You should have woken me earlier. We should have prepared—”
“You are prepared.” He didn’t turn to look at her because he couldn’t take his eyes off the approaching threat. “You contacted him. You set this in motion. The rest is simply… execution.”
The vibrations grew stronger and closer. His nostrils flared, catching the first hints of scent through the station’s filtration system—machine oil and metal and something organic.
Every instinct screamed at him to attack.
This was his territory now. His mate was here, vulnerable, still warm from their coupling. Another male was approaching—modified and dangerous. The dragon part of his mind, the ancient part that remembered when his kind ruled the skies of this dying world, demanded blood.
But the rest of him, the part that had learned to trust her judgment, held steady.
“Tell me what to do,” he said through gritted teeth.
Her hand settled on his arm, warm and grounding. “Let me talk to him first. Stay visible but not threatening. Can you do that?”
“I can try.”
“That’s all I ask.” She moved past him towards the door, and it took every scrap of his self-control not to pull her back. “R-339 is not entirely human anymore, but that doesn’t make him our enemy. Remember that.”
The station’s inner door cycled open with a hiss of equalizing pressure.
The ranger stood silhouetted against the pre-dawn light coming though the outer door, his grey eyes catching that light and reflecting it back like mirrors. Behind him, his mount shifted on mechanical legs. A robotic horse, sleek and powerful, but foreign enough to make his scales prickle.
“Ms. Kour,” R-339 said politely. “You look better rested than I expected, given the circumstances.”
“I had help.” She gestured towards the station’s interior. “Please, come in. It’s too cold to have this conversation outside.”
The ranger’s gaze shifted past her, finding him in the shadows, and his eyes widened slightly, the first human expression he had seen on that partially mechanical face.
“Ah,” R-339 said. “I see.”
He dismounted with a fluid grace that was too precise to be entirely organic. The robot horse remained where it was, but Adjar had the unnerving suspicion that it was studying all of them. R-339 walked past Jaz without hesitation, stopping just inside the station’s entrance to study him.
“You’re real,” the ranger said. “The readings weren’t corrupted after all.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He kept his wings partially spread, his claws extended, every line of his body communicating a warning. I am here. I am dangerous. Do not threaten what is mine.
“Adjar,” Jaz said, her voice carefully calm. “This is R-339. R-339, this is Adjar. He’s…”
“An impossibility.” R-339 circled slowly, studying Adjar from multiple angles. “Another one. And yet here you stand.” Those grey eyes met his. “Keeper of Memory. One of the last true children of Mars.”
Keeper of Memory. Fragments of recollection tore through his mind—vast chambers carved from living ice with walls covered in crystalline formations that held millennia of accumulated knowledge.
His purpose. His duty. The reason he had been chosen for preservation when so many others had been left to die.
“You know what I am,” he said, his voice rough with shock.
“I know what I have been told.” R-339 stopped his circling and positioned himself at a careful distance—close enough for conversation but far enough away to react if Adjar attacked.
“You’re taking this remarkably well,” Jaz said. She’d moved to stand beside him, not quite touching but close enough that he could feel her warmth. “I expected more questions. More skepticism.”
“Ms. Kour, I am a being who was once human, now merged with technology that my ancestors would have called magic. I patrol a frozen wasteland on a planet that humanity is trying to turn into a new Earth. Skepticism becomes difficult to maintain when one’s own existence defies easy categorization.
” R-339’s expression didn’t change, but something in his voice softened slightly.
“Besides, you are not the only one to have encountered… anomalies recently.”
His wings snapped fully open before he could stop them.
“Explain,” he demanded.
Jaz’s hand found his arm again, squeezing gently, and he forced himself to fold his wings back, to contain the surge of predatory alertness that the ranger’s words had triggered.
“Perhaps we should sit,” R-339 suggested. “This conversation may take some time.”
They arranged themselves around the station’s small table—the two of them on one side, R-339 on the other.
The ranger moved with the careful deliberation of someone who understood that every gesture was being evaluated for threat potential.
He appreciated the awareness, even as part of him resented the other male’s presence in his space.
Not my space, he reminded himself. A neutral location. Neutral ground.
It didn’t help much.
“About six months ago,” R-339 began, “we started receiving reports of unusual seismic activity. One of our rangers had an… encounter with a lifeform that could not possibly exist, one that seemed determined to attack them. It was defeated but destroyed itself in the process, leaving no trace behind.”
His wings flared again as his claws sprang free.
“You destroyed one of us?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous.
“Of course not,” R-339 said calmly. “This was a predator with six legs and heavy claws.”
A varex. Another memory resurfaced, and he nodded, grudgingly respectful. “If it is the creature I believe it to be, your ranger is to be congratulated. They are vicious predators. But how could it have survived?”
“That is what we would like to know as well. Some people suspect that the planet is awakening.”
“The Awakening Protocols.”
R-339’s gaze sharpened. “You are aware of these?”
He gave a frustrated sigh. “I am aware that they exist. I am not aware of their contents. My memories have not yet returned.”
“I see. Then I suppose we will remain in the dark about what to expect.” R-339 hesitated. “But that is not the end of the story. A researcher at one of the northern labs detected a biochemical reading beneath the earth and discovered another of your kind.”
His ears started to ring, and Jaz slipped her hand into his.
“My kind? You mean I am not the last?”
“Apparently not, although the other male is not like you. He is smaller and his scales are golden.”
A smaller male with golden scales. The description echoed through his fragmented memories, triggering a recognition that he couldn’t quite grasp. A different bloodline. A different purpose. Not a Keeper, but something else…
“The Var’thaal,” he whispered. “Warriors designed for direct combat rather than preservation.”
“Designed?” Jaz gave him a shocked look. “Your people designed themselves?”
“Not in the way you mean. But we were… shaped over countless generations by our location and our purpose.” He shook his head, frustrated by the gaps in his understanding. “The details are unclear. My memories of that time are incomplete.”
“The male I encountered was equally confused about his origins,” R-339 said. “But he was not alone. And he was extremely protective of the female who discovered him.”
Something in the ranger’s tone made his eyes narrow. “You threatened her?”
“I evaluated the situation. He responded as I imagine you would respond if I made a threatening gesture towards Ms. Kour right now.” A ghost of what might have been amusement crossed R-339’s face.
“I chose not to pursue that line of inquiry. And indeed, his mate is equally formidable in her own way.”
Jaz shifted beside him, her shoulder pressing against his arm. “This other male—does he have a name? Where is he now?”
“His name is Rhyx, and the woman is Dr. Alina Faulkner—”
“Dr. Faulkner?” Jaz interrupted.
‘Yes. Do you know her?”
“I’ve never met her but her work is brilliant. I’ve been following her for years.”
“Then that my make this easier.” R-339 reached into a compartment on his vest and produced a small data chip. “They’re currently at a settlement called Dustfall, approximately eight hundred kilometers southeast of here. I’ve been in communication with them since our initial encounter.”
“Why?” he demanded. “What is your interest in our kind?”
“Several reasons.” The ranger set the data chip on the table between them. “First, because GenCon has been hunting this Rhyx with the same intensity they’re now hunting you, although to be completely honest, I’m not sure if they truly understand what they are hunting.”
“GenCon has been searching for ancient Martian DNA for years,” Jaz said quietly. “It’s one of their most secret research programs. I only know about it because I intercepted some encrypted communications years ago, when I was still working for them.”
He gave her a shocked stare. “You worked for GenCon?”
“When I first arrived on Mars. Before I understood what they really were.” Her jaw tightened. “I told you what happened to my friend.”