Chapter 4
Nansar
I urged Starfield forward, the kuda's powerful muscles coiling and releasing beneath me as we devoured the rust-colored plains of Palaydium.
The beast had earned her name a thousand times over—fast as a shooting star, relentless as the void itself.
Wind screamed past my face, stinging my eyes, carrying with it the acrid bite of mineral-rich soil that seemed to seep into your very bones on this forsaken world.
I'd found Starfield weeks after my boots first hit this rock.
She'd been young then, barely past a foal, her leg twisted and caught in a snarl of thornbrush—the kind that grew like razor wire in the lowlands.
Her herd had left her behind. That's what kudas did when one of their own couldn't keep pace.
Out here, survival of the fittest wasn't philosophy. It was the only law that mattered.
I could have left her too. Should have, by any measure of common sense.
But something in the way she looked at me—not with the wild panic of prey, but with burning determination to survive—made me stop.
I spent the better part of an hour cutting away that cursed brush, moving slow and careful, talking low and steady while she trembled and snorted hot breath into the thin air.
When I finally freed her leg, she didn't bolt like I expected.
She just stood there, testing her weight on the injured limb, watching me with those intelligent dark eyes that seemed to see straight me.
I nursed her back to health after that. Fed her, tended her wounds, earned her trust one careful day at a time.
Training her to carry a rider came naturally—she was smart, adaptable, and once she decided I was hers, there was no breaking that bond.
No amount of credits could buy that kind of loyalty.
I glanced down at the tracker strapped to my forearm, watching the coordinates blink steadily like a mechanical heartbeat. The crash site wasn't far now. Minutes, maybe less at this pace.
My jaw tightened as my thoughts drifted to the Welati.
The natives were a problem I desperately hoped to avoid.
Bloodthirsty didn't begin to cover it. Vicious, brutal, merciless—the Welati had earned their reputation in blood, a hundred times over.
They killed everyone who crossed into their territory.
No exceptions. No negotiations. Didn't matter if you were armed to the teeth, unarmed and helpless, alone or traveling in numbers.
If the Welati found you on their lands, you were already dead.
Your bones would bleach white under Palaydium's relentless sun before anyone knew where to start looking.
And the crash site sat right on the edge of Welati territory.
I leaned lower over Starfield's neck, coaxing more speed from her, feeling the rhythm of her labored breathing beneath me.
The human female—whoever she was, whatever had brought her to this hell—didn't stand a chance if Persico's people reached her first. And if the Welati found her before either of us?
I forced that thought away before it could take root.
The wastes were giving way to the lowlands now—treacherous stretches of rust-colored rock and scrub brush sharp enough to draw blood.
Somewhere in the distance, a low rumble rolled across the barren landscape.
Engines. Three, maybe four hoverbikes, their mechanical growl carried on the thin air from the west.
Persico's men. Closer than I'd hoped. And gaining ground.
Palaydium had a way of reshaping you, whether you wanted it or not.
The atmosphere here was thinner than most worlds, stretching sound across impossible distances, making everything feel both closer and farther away at once.
Months of training under Ahrick had taught me to listen to this planet's whispers—the shift of wind through canyon walls, the tremor of approaching riders in the hardpacked earth.
Right now, every instinct I'd honed was screaming the same warning: time was running out.
I dug my heels into Starfield's flanks. She surged forward with the kind of explosive power that would've sent most riders tumbling into the dirt. The tracker on my forearm pulsed faster, its rhythm matching my own racing heartbeat as the distance closed.
At least I knew exactly where the pod had come down. That head start might be all that stood between the female and a shallow grave.
Assuming I wasn't already chasing a ghost.
The crash site materialized as I crested a jagged outcrop—a violent scar carved through the landscape, the escape pod crumpled at its terminus like something the planet had chewed up and spat out.
Thin wisps of smoke still curled from the wreckage, gray fingers reaching toward the pale sky before dissolving into nothing.
I brought Starfield to a halt and dropped from the saddle, my blade already half-drawn as I approached. The pod's hatch gaped open, twisted metal shrieking softly in the wind.
"Hello?" The word felt hollow even as it left my lips.
Nothing. No one.
I circled the wreckage, cataloging details.
The emergency supplies compartment had been forced open—not elegantly, but effectively.
A piece of debris still jutted from the seam where someone had used it as a makeshift lever.
The medi-kit was missing. So was what looked like a portable light, several ration packs, and the survival blanket—only its torn wrapper remained, caught on a shard of hull and fluttering like a surrender flag.
She'd been conscious. Thinking. Planning her next move.
That was promising.
I crouched beside the hatch, studying the ground.
Palaydium's soil was unforgiving, baked hard by the relentless sun, but not so hard it couldn't hold a story.
Boot prints—small, unmistakably human—led away from the wreckage.
I traced their path with my eyes, reading the tale written in disturbed pebbles and crushed scrub.
One set of tracks. No drag marks. No erratic stumbling or signs of injury—the stride was even, deliberate, the gait of someone moving with purpose rather than panic.
She'd walked away under her own power. Not dragged off by scavengers. Not fleeing in blind terror.
I rose to my feet, my gaze tracking the trail as it stretched northwest past the mesas toward the tree line where scrubland surrendered to one of Palaydium's precious forested areas nestled at the mountain foothills.
Behind me, the growl of engines swelled—Persico's men closing in like carrion birds.
An hour till they reached the pod, maybe less.
I whistled sharp and low. Starfield answered instantly, and I vaulted into the saddle. The female had a head start, but she was earthbound in hostile territory she couldn't possibly know.
I could catch her.
I would catch her.
Because the alternative—someone else finding her first—wasn't an option I'd entertain.
The trail wound through scrubland that grew denser with each stride, vegetation thickening as the terrain climbed toward the foothills in gradual waves.
Starfield's hooves whispered against the ground, her training keeping her movements ghost-quiet despite our speed.
The boot prints continued their steady march forward—purposeful, directed.
She wasn't just fleeing. She had a destination in mind.
Clever female.
The tree line rose before us like an ancient wall, dark and imposing.
As we drew near, a new sound threaded through the wind.
Water. One of the seasonal streams that carved arteries through these hills during the wet months, their banks lush with edible moss and gnarled roots.
She'd been hunting for water—yet another mark of a survivor's instinct.
Then I caught it. Voices, cutting through the natural symphony.
I reined Starfield to an abrupt halt and dropped from the saddle, my palm finding the familiar spot on her neck—the signal to hold position.
Her ears swiveled forward, alert but disciplined.
I advanced toward the trees on foot, keeping my profile low, boots seeking out the silent spaces between dried leaves and twigs.
The voices sharpened. One rumbled deep and coarse. The other rang higher, defiant.
Female.
Found her.
But I wasn't the only one.
I ghosted closer, using the massive trunks of old-growth trees as shields. The stream's babble grew louder, water dancing over worn stones. Through the lattice of shadows and dappled light, I spotted them in a small clearing carved out beside the water's edge.
The female stood with her back to the stream, spine straight as a blade despite the odds stacked against her.
Small—all human females were—but she wore her defiance like armor.
Her dark red hair had been pulled back in a practical knot, revealing features that were all sharp angles and stubborn determination.
Dirt streaked one high cheekbone, and her Alliance-issued jumpsuit bore the ripped testimony of the crash and her trek through the scrubland. But her eyes...
Ancestors preserve me, her eyes.
Gray as gathering storm clouds, they blazed with a fire that punched straight through my chest and wrapped around something intrinsic I didn't know I possessed.
And facing her, blocking out the light like a mountain of malice, was Bronto.
One of Persico's favorite enforcers—a hulking Kaelaks with a well-earned reputation for cruelty and the honor of a carrion feeder.
His massive frame dominated the clearing, but through the gaps I could see her, see the way she refused to cower.
He advanced with the slow confidence of a predator who'd already tasted victory, savoring her fear.
Except she wasn't giving him any.