Three #3
“I don’t think it’s dangerous.” She lifted a finger to one of its trailing tentacles and it wrapped around her finger with a toddler’s grip.
Renjik looked at it the same way he’d looked at the Scozid delegation.
“At least, not to me.”
“It could be sedating you.”
“If it is, I support its choices.” She looked down at the creature where it was wrapped around her neck. “Do you know what it is?”
Renjik grunted. “It wasn’t listed on the fauna list for this planet.”
“Hmm.” Willow tilted her head. “It needs a name.”
“It doesn’t.”
She scoffed in Renjik’s direction and ignored him.
“Armored land octopus, or even ‘?óó? bigaan tseebíí’—just octopus isn’t an easy nickname.
And you’re not a true octopus since you have way more than eight legs and crawl around in the dirt.
” One of its tentacles wrapped around her upheld finger. “Are you a lizard?”
The critter chittered.
Willow nodded with a chuckle. “Okay then, since you like to crawl on the ground, I’ll call you Na’ashq’ii.”
Renjik’s scowl deepened, but he turned back to the pod’s supply kit.
He’d left the one water pouch next to her.
He lined two more next to the busted craft.
To them he added a couple of nutrient bars, a heat sheet that doubled as a rudimentary shelter, a multi-tool that was too tiny to be of much use, a signal beacon, first-aid kit and finally a scanner that looked like it had been kicked during the crash.
Willow watched his cybernetic arm—and the rest of his muscles—as he worked.
She noted the pauses. The tiny recalibrations where he reminded himself how to work with a limb that wasn’t his own.
Pauses that wouldn’t be obvious to someone not paying close attention. Someone unused to looking for patterns.
She looked away before he caught her staring. She suspected he’d rather be shot several times than for someone to acknowledge his weakness.
“We need to move to higher ground.”
Willow looked above them, then at the valley below, and finally at her own legs. “I’d like to file an objection.”
“Noted.”
The one word was said with the same flat tone she was used to from him, but she noticed his lips twitch at the corners. She wondered what a full smile would look like and decided it would transform him from ‘mildly hot’ to ‘annoyingly scorching.’
Now she had to see it.
“That’s a terrible file system.”
“The beacon only sent a short pulse. I doubt exact location coordinates were included. We need elevation to be spotted.”
“And if Scozid survived the station?”
If he weren’t on her side, she’d be terrified of the look on his face.
“Then we deal with them.”
She closed her eyes. “Of course we do.”
The creature around her neck tightened one tentacle against her pulse. Not squeezing, feeling. Sensing. Willow opened her eyes. It wasn’t reacting to her pain anymore. It had noticed something.
She sat forward and immediately regretted it. The world tilted and her stomach took another rollercoaster ride. Renjik steadied her. She hadn’t seen him move.
“Slowly,” he reminded her.
“Scanner.” She pointed at the poor thing.
“You should rest.”
“I’d love a nap, but my new neck accessory has something to tell us.”
Renjik looked at the creature. “It’s not an accessory.”
Her hand flew to the base of her throat and she gasped. “How dare you, sir. This is the peak of fashion.”
The creature emitted a click followed by a warbling whistle that sounded like a cross between a cat’s purr and birdsong.
It extended one tentacle toward the scar gouged into the earth by the crashing pod.
Willow followed the gesture. It wasn’t pointing at the pod, but beyond it.
A scattered field of blackened fragments that had fallen from the destroyed station.
“Something over there.”
“Lots of things over there.”
She resisted an eye roll. “My incredibly fashion forward scarf is particularly interested in that one, in particular.”
Renjik’s expression told her all she needed to know about what he thought on accepting tactical guidance from her neckwear.
“Can you walk?”
She snorted. “Badly.”
“Then I’ll carry you.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You’re injured.”
“I have a migraine, my legs aren’t broken. Besides, you carried me through an exploding shuttle, and I have a strict one heroic carry per disaster limit.”
“That’s a ridiculous limit.”
“Most of mine are.”
He sighed and looked skyward, then offered her his hand.
She took it.
The contact zinged through her. Heat spread from his palm into hers, up her arm and into her cheeks. She wasn’t a blusher. She was blushing. The strange static she’d felt around him flared, like she stood too close to a thunderstorm and the lightning had opinions about her life choices.
She pulled herself to her feet and let go before she did something stupid like lean in and kiss him.
They moved toward the debris field, which was on the same elevation as their landing site. She wouldn’t have minded going down a bit, if it didn’t mean they’d have to climb back up.
Renjik led the way, kicking rocks and baseball-sized chunks of metal out of the way, pointing out other hazards in a low voice.
She didn’t mind walking behind. It gave her the perfect view of his broad back and shoulders.
She could see the plates shifting on his scapulas, the thin fabric of his shirt pulling taut over defined ridges.
Her observations were critical to her and absolutely not relevant to their survival.
Or maybe they were. Maybe cataloging the way his body moved kept her from having a total meltdown.
Her brain still stabbed at the base of her skull, but remained committed to noticing every detail.
The animal at her neck clicked twice and shook her out of a lovely daydream involving his back muscles shifting under her fingers.
A larger piece of a ship’s exterior jutted from the moss. “Renjik,” Willow whispered and slowed.
Scozid alloys had a particular look, and she recognized it even in this badly damaged piece. Almost impossibly smooth, with an iridescent sheen, it was unlike anything the alliance produced. She’d studied enough wreckage and images to recognize it immediately.
Even burned and blistered it reflected light.
“That’s Scozid.”
“Stay back.”
She had no intention of getting closer. The creature around her neck abruptly stiffened. “That isn’t part of the station.”
“No.”
Her living scarf pointed a tentacle at a crack in the metal. “Give me the scanner.”
“Willow.”
“If that thing is a weapon casing, we need to know before one of us licks it.”
He turned fully around to stare at her. “Why would we lick it?”
“I’m making a point.”
He handed her the scanner. She shook it, heard a few small pings as loose parts jumped about, and then pushed two buttons simultaneously. The display flickered and went dark. She pressed the two buttons again, and this time the screen stabilized.
In less than a second the biological alert lit up in pulsing yellow. She went still. The creature tightened its hold around her neck and cool pressure bloomed at both temples as if it could feel her fear.
Renjik stepped close and glanced at the screen. “What is it?”
“Organic residue.” She zoomed in on the molecular pattern. “Engineered, not natural.”
His teeth clicked together. “A biological weapon. Freha enhek.”
The words landed like a punch.
“I’d need a biochemist to analyze it to be sure. What’s creeping death?”
“What warriors are calling the contact-vector bioweapon the Scozid engineered.”
Willow stared at the fragment. “That’s a container. Or it was.” The peace talks had never been a negotiation. They weren’t even a simple trap. They were a distraction. Cover for something else. “They brought it to the station. Or they were moving it through the station.”
She looked up at the sky, streaks of light still burning through the atmosphere. The station had exploded. The shuttle had broken apart. Debris scattered through the planet’s atmosphere like seeds.
She was going to vomit again.
“If this survived reentry, so did other—potentially more intact—containers.” She pointed at the fragment in front of them. “Containers designed with fault lines. Designed to crack open on impact.”