A ship rumbles by overhead, one I recognize. Holo is on patrol.
Holo>>Thruster: Is the human secure?
Thruster>>Holo: A-firm. Damaged but operational. I’m going to get her underground before I continue.
He clicks back twice to confirm that he got my message.
Kelta leans between the trees, sees her ship on fire, and chokes up. "I worked so hard on VAL." She rasps and sways. Her face screws up, and a tear streaks her cheek. "I lost my last gift from my older brother. I'm separated from what's left of myfamily. I don't know if they're alive. I’m not familiar with this place…” She rubs a hand over her mouth, her eyes reddening. “I’m not sure what to think or do right now.”
I take a knee before her so we're eye-level. "I may not have human emotion, but I think I know this feeling you have. I have lost Brothers, been separated, taken from my mothership, jailed, and then crashed here. I don't know if this will work for you, but it is programmed into us to think about what we need now, then gather our skills and use them to find our way to what we need. So tell me, Kelta. What do you need?"
“To get back to my family, make sure they’re safe.” Her eyebrows pinch together as she studies the desert laden with smoking ships. “Destroy the enemy. Take back my home.”
Then her gaze falls on me, but she is quiet. I’m not sure what’s going through her mind, but it stirs something deep in my core that makes me want to take her away from here, give her the things she needs, and kill every Solcrue that approaches, just to have her look at me like this forever. Like I am hope.
“But here I have nothing.” Kelta wipes a smudge of dirt and blood from her forehead, looks at it, and chokes up.
“You saved me back there.” I hook a thumb over my shoulder to where she shot the CSP soldier.
“Instinct.”
I nod. “That’s a very big something. And you have us now. Every Titan will do everything possible to keep you safe.”
She gives me a dark look. “I don’t want to be safe.”
I get to my feet, a little startled by her change in emotion. “What do you want?”
“To fight, to kill these bastards for making this shit our life!” Kelta angrily circles a finger toward the destruction, then skyward.
The thunder of an approaching Skysprinter cuts through my thoughts. I instinctively put myself between Kelta and thesound, scanning the blue air for the Skysprinter. “Good. Because to survive this planet, you’re going to need that kind of anger.”
