Chapter 5
RYCHNE
Heat drips through my shirt like low-humidity fire.
I’m crouched in the patch of scrub grass behind my stashed barn, placing thermal markers—tiny disks with sensors—every five meters like I’m mapping some unknown terrain.
Hands, even the human ones, still tremble slightly when I hold tools above open soil.
Pain pulses along my ribs, and sweat beads at the base of my neck, but I have to finish. Function is everything now.
Pitter-patter.
Footsteps small and confident, approaching. I don’t turn. On Vakut, I would have been alerted by changes in pheromones, the subtlest shift in pheromonal scent. Here? It’s just… human child. No guard instincts, no calibration for this kind of intruder.
A voice, “What are you doing?”
I freeze. Tools still in hand. My heart hammers—human hearts are less forgiving under stress. And I don’t have time to explain alien survival plans to a ten-year-old human.
I turn slowly.
She’s standing there—Sammy Malone. Small for her age, but fierce. Freckles all over like little battle scars. Dark hair in pigtails. A uniform of pink shirt, denim shorts, and sneakers spattered with grass stains. She watches me from beneath curious eyes—expectation and wariness mixed in.
I swallow—an alien trying to birdwatch; human muscles stiffen during digestion. “I am mapping microclimate zones. For… weather forecasts.”
She steps closer, head cocked. “With bombs?”
Her eyes flick to the markers. Apparently, children here know exactly what a thermal marker looks like. Or maybe she just thinks everything is a bomb.
I hesitate.
“Perhaps.” I wait, letting that hang. Her face freezes—skeptical, amused. Not quite angry. Not running away.
Then she crosses her arms. “Explain.”
I adjust my voice, lower it. “They detect temperature. So I can anticipate heat zones and cold spots around your... property.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Sounds like when my mom tells me she’s 'checking my bedtime adherence,' but really she’s just keeping an eye on me.”
Heh. Observing small humans can be more… transparent than observing warriors. “Your mother speaks diplomatically.”
She snorts. “I speak honestly.”
I look at my hands. “I apologize. I thought hidden instruments would be undisturbed.”
“Well,” she says, tilting her head, “secret stuff doesn’t mean bomb stuff. Unless you’re planting bombs.”
I hold her gaze—a test of resolve. “I am.”
Her face goes blank one instant, then blooms into delight. She jumps forward, examining the disks. “Cool! So you are planting…colder bombs?” She touches a marker and flinches at its cool metal surface. “Like the fridge you’ve stolen?”
I press thumb to marker. “Thermal marker—cold to sense heat, yes.” Then I stiffen. “Not weapons.”
She stares. “So... no exploding?”
“No explosions.” My voice is heavier than I intend. I don’t want her to recoil, but this human concept of bombs is less scary, more curious.
She stands back, thinking. I can almost hear the gears turning behind her eyebrows. Then she levels a serious look at me. “You’re weird. Like weird-weird.”
I swallow. “Alien-weird?”
She smirks. “Duh.”
A long moment passes. We regard each other, warrior code versus curious child.
And in that pause, my chest tightens. On Vakut, kids never got close enough to ask questions—least not this close.
Weapons, drills, discipline. Detached protocols.
But this girl isn’t an orphaned recruit. She’s just… human. Unfiltered.
“What are you…?” she says, stepping closer again. She crouches, pokes a marker. “What do they look like from underneath?”
The soil shifts beneath her touch. Brown like burned coffee grounds. She smears dirt on her fingertips, sniffs it. “Earth smells like hollow chocolate and old trees.”
I nod. Closing my eyes, I inhale deep—the scent of sun-baked clay, crushed leaves, diesel from the road over the hill. “Yes.”
She smiles at me. I realize halfway that she’s writing notes in the little notebook clutched to her chest. Bullet points: Thermal markers do not explode.
Possibly weather sensors. Aliens use lower voice tone.
Her lips are pursed just-so as she concentrates.
It’s unsettling in a way that makes me think.
“Do you want…” I pause. “Do you want to help?”
Her head snaps up. Eyes bright. “Really?”
“Really. Until I finish mapping.” My back aches. My arm aches. Everything aches—but this? This... collaboration feels like a barometer of fate.
Her grin is so sudden and contagious I think I might have learned how to smile again. “Yes.”
I stand slowly, dusting off my hands. She watches, serious now, until I lean down and retrieve the final marker. I hand it to her.
“Try it.”
Her fingers curl around it like she’s holding a tiny baton. She smiles again—more natural. I can’t quite decipher the shade of pride in her face, but it’s there.
Not normal. Not predictable.
But… trustable enough.
She appears again before dusk, a blur of sneakers and sass darting between my yard and hers like a reconnaissance drone that’s lost respect for airspace sovereignty.
I’m trying to re-calibrate one of the sensor beacons—the ones she now calls “non-lethal neighborhood mood detectors”—but my hands are shaking, and her presence doesn’t help.
“Hey!” Sammy’s voice slices through the quiet like a laser pulse. “Do you glow in the dark?”
I blink. “What?”
“It’s a valid question,” she says, beaming. She’s holding a flashlight in one hand and a peanut butter sandwich in the other. “Power’s out. Figured I’d do a scientific check.”
I grit my teeth. “I do not glow.”
“Hmm. Not even a little? Not like, alien bioluminescence or secret emergency glowy patches?”
“No.”
She lifts the flashlight, shines it directly into my face.
“Stop that.”
“I had to confirm.”
She doesn’t leave. Instead, she hops onto the overturned bucket I use as a workbench and swings her legs, crumbs falling into the grass. The flashlight’s beam dances erratically now, catching on the edges of tools, loose metal shavings, and the rusted hulk of the mower I’d dragged out earlier.
“You’re not an accountant,” she says with the solemn authority of a seasoned interrogator.
My spine stiffens. “I am.”
“Nope.”
“Yes.”
“Then where’s your laptop?”
I look down at the capacitor I’ve been wiring into the mower’s ignition array and back at her. “It broke.”
She narrows her eyes. “You didn’t even blink.”
“Humans don’t always blink.”
“Yes, we do.”
I sigh.
She leans forward, elbows on knees. “You didn’t know what barbecue sauce was.”
“I thought it was engine lubricant.”
“You poured it into a car.”
“It smelled like combustion fluid!”
“You’re not from here.”
I don’t respond.
She takes that as victory. “It’s okay, you know. I won’t tell anyone. I mean, I’ve already got a notebook and everything. Might as well go full secret agent.”
I finally meet her gaze. “You’re ten. You shouldn’t be doing espionage.”
“You’re a space accountant with no laptop. I think we’re both breaking rules.”
I turn my attention back to the mower. It’s old—probably older than I am, in Earth years—but with the right calibration, I can integrate a spare hover-relay capacitor into the ignition housing.
It takes precision. Focus. Not exactly easy when there’s a child orbiting me like a particularly nosy moon.
“Do you miss your planet?” she asks suddenly.
I pause.
The relay sparks against the housing. I flinch—not from pain, but from memory. The red deserts of Vakut. The harsh metallic scent of the twin suns baking iron-rich sand. The roar of warships cutting the sky. The silence of fallen comrades. Home was never kind. But it was mine.
“Yes,” I say finally. “I miss the sky.”
She grows quiet. The air between us stretches.
Then she says, softly, “I miss my dad sometimes.”
I don’t know how to respond to that.
Instead, I finish the repair. The capacitor locks in with a soft click, the circuits hum. I stand, wipe grease on my jeans, and reach for the mower’s handle.
“Ready?” I ask.
She scrambles down, wide-eyed.
I brace my foot against the frame and pull the starter cord.
It growls to life.
But not like before. It hovers—just an inch above the ground—the blades spinning, the chassis purring with a quiet hum. No smoke. No sputter. Just quiet propulsion.
Sammy gasps. “Alien MacGyver!”
I blink. “What?”
“That’s your new name,” she declares. “You fix Earth junk with space parts. Alien MacGyver.”
I frown, unsure if that’s an insult or a promotion.
She circles the mower, inspecting it like a seasoned general might a tank.
“This is incredible,” she says, reverent. “If you added lasers, you could probably mow and fight at the same time.”
“I prefer my combat platforms less...floral.”
She laughs so hard she snorts. “You’re weird. But cool. Weird-cool.”
I should find this irritating. Should shut it down, push her away. But something about her—her raw, unfiltered honesty, her refusal to be intimidated—gets under my skin in a way that doesn’t itch. It... fits. Like a strange little key turning in a lock I didn’t know was rusted shut.
I watch her run off, still babbling about hoverblades and anti-dandelion mines.
I turn back to the yard, muttering to myself.
“She’s going to be trouble.”
But even as I say it, I’m already bracing for her next visit.
I find her in my yard again. This time she’s sitting cross-legged on my porch step, notebook open on her lap, chewing on the end of a pen like a tactician considering the next offensive maneuver.
She doesn’t even flinch when I step out of the house.
“You’ve returned,” I say.
She nods. “Had to. New intel. The ice cream truck came by and I heard someone call it a ‘dairy-based social engineering scheme.’ Seemed relevant.”
I blink at her.
“You made that up,” I say.
“Maybe,” she says, mouth twitching. “Maybe not.”
I sit on the top step, careful with my still-healing side. The burn scars tug beneath the illusion, itching faintly where new skin is forming. I rest my elbows on my knees and glance sidelong at her.
“Why do you keep coming back here?”
She shrugs. “You’re interesting. You’re not like the other grownups.”
“That’s because I’m not one,” I mutter before I catch myself.
She glances up, sharp-eyed. “You said that out loud.”
I try to recover. “I meant... I am not like other grownups... because I am conducting reconnaissance.”
She perks up, excited. “On what?”
I hesitate. The truth would not be understood. A lie would insult her intelligence. So I settle somewhere in between. “Midwestern Earth culture.”
She blinks, then scribbles something fast in her notebook.
“Got it. Spy.”
“I’m not—” I exhale sharply. “I’m not a spy.”
She holds up a hand, like she’s mediating a council meeting. “Look, it’s okay. I read a lot. Spies never admit they’re spies. It’s, like, Rule One.”
“You shouldn’t read so much,” I say.
She tilts her head. “Why not?”
“Because you ask too many questions.”
She grins. “That’s Rule Two.”
A silence stretches between us again. The wind stirs through the hedges, rustling leaves. Somewhere, a dog barks half-heartedly and someone starts up a lawn mower that sputters like an aging war engine.
She turns to look at me, suddenly solemn. “Why are you alone?”
The question punches me. Unexpected. Deep.
I look away. My hands tighten. I hear the screams of a ship dying in space, feel the emptiness of the cockpit as jump-drive fire burned white and swallowed everything I knew. My fingers itch for a control stick that doesn’t exist anymore.
“I survived,” I say at last. It’s all I can say.
She doesn’t look away.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No,” I admit. “It’s not.”
Why did I survive? Why me? I wasn’t the smartest, or fastest, or most worthy.
I was just there. Wrong place, wrong time.
Or maybe... right time. Right place. Because now I’m here.
And I’ve seen her mother’s eyes. Felt the pulse of the Jalshagar stir and flare with ancient fire I thought extinguished forever.
I clench my jaw.
“I’m here because... fate is very inconvenient.”
Sammy lets that one sit. Then: “You’re not good at explaining stuff, you know that?”
I huff. “I was trained to command fleets, not small humans.”
She smirks. “We’re harder than fleets.”
“I believe you.”
She closes her notebook slowly, the snap of its elastic band loud in the air between us. Then she does something I don’t expect—she leans against my arm. Gently. Just a bit of weight. A tiny gesture.
“I think you’re okay,” she says. “Even if you’re a terrible accountant.”
Something catches in my chest. Not pain. Not the dull warning of an internal rupture or compromised organ.
Something... else.
I look down at her, this tiny, brazen creature with her ridiculous pen and alien suspicions and crayon-blue stained fingertips.
She reminds me of the youngest cadets at the training base on Telnis—a whole generation of wide-eyed warriors-in-waiting. But those cadets never asked questions. They obeyed. Respected. Feared. She does none of those.
She likes me.
I can’t decide if that’s more terrifying than an ambush.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says, hopping up. “Got a science test. But after that, I’m free. We can talk more about Earth spy culture and your weird accent.”
“My accent is fine.”
“No, it’s weird.”
She jogs away before I can respond, calling over her shoulder, “BYE, ALIEN MACGYVER!”
I watch her disappear behind the fence. And for the first time in what feels like lifetimes, I don’t feel the weight of exile pressing quite so hard on my back.
She’s ten. She thinks I’m suspicious.
But somehow, she makes this strange little world feel just a little more like a home.