Page 55 of Silver Slayer

My breath caught.

The city of Huren sat to the east like something out of a fantasy. The dome rose from the jungle floor, massive and translucent, the architecture inside visible through it as though someone had captured an entire civilization under glass.

The jungle pressed in from every side, a sea of silver-blue canopy that stretched as far as I could see in every direction except east, where the land dropped away entirely into a sheer cliff face below which a vast body of water spread itself out to the horizon.

“Due north of the dome,” Tyrk said from the console. “Landing in thirty seconds.”

The ship settled onto solid ground. The engines cycled down in a long, descending hum that moved through the deck plating and into the soles of my boots and then went quiet.

Outside the viewport, two blue suns hung low in the afternoon sky.

“Welcome to your new home.” Tyrk’s voice cut through the stillness of the command deck.

The women were already unbuckling. Brooke and Lila clustered near Vala at the hatch, their hands restless at their sides, shifting weight from foot to foot. Erin helped Kira to her feet, the younger woman’s dark eyes wide with wonder. I hung back with Vennox as they gathered loosely around Vala with held breath and restless hands, as anxious to be off the ship as they were about what waited beyond.

Elizabeth stood near the rear bulkhead, her hands clasped in front of her, waiting. Ruze and Mehr emerged from the doorway and flanked her in silence.

Vala cycled the hatch open with a hiss, and warm air washed through the opening.

Vennox stayed beside me, his hand still wrapped around mine. I wasn’t ready to let go. His grip was an anchor I hadn’t asked for and wouldn’t have admitted to needing, but somewhere between the anomaly world and here, I had stopped pretending I wanted to do everything alone.

Apprehension sharpened in my chest, the natural strangeness of a world I hadn’t chosen pressing against the weight of steppinginto something beautiful, even as my body was still wired for threat. But the feeling carried an echo I wasn’t sure was entirely mine.

Vala led the way down the ramp, and the women followed: Brooke first, then Lila, then Erin with Kira close at her shoulder, each of them pausing at the bottom before taking their first step on Valosian soil.

Then Mara appeared in the doorway, her eyes finding Vennox before they found me.

“Brunnex is giving Truxxet the business,” she said. “Says he can walk.”

“Stubborn Jurigon pride,” he muttered, already striding toward her. He glanced back at me, and I swear I felt a twinge of relief. “Go ahead with Mara.”

Elizabeth descended between her mates, Ruze and Mehr, moving in perfect sync on either side, their massive bodies angled toward hers with the attentiveness of males who had found what they were searching for and would not be separated from her again.

I stepped out last behind Mara, and the ground beneath my boots was solid in a way the anomaly world’s shifting terrain had never been, filling my lungs with Valosian air and holding it, letting the unfamiliar freshness settle into the deepest parts of my chest.

Clean and warm and nothing like the metallic tang of recycled ship oxygen or the wet, fungal rot of the anomaly world. The dome before us held the light of the twin suns and splintered it into pale blue threads that crawled across its surface like slow lightning.

Between us and the dome stood six Valosian males arranged in a loose crescent, dressed in the varied styles of the three clans Vennox told me about. Kilts or kiltus, as he called them, for Clan Huren; fur trousers and boots for Clan Jurigon; a single male in the traditional breech cloth of Clan Trisess. All of them armed and watchful. All except one.

The male who stepped forward from the crescent stood apart from the warriors flanking him. He had leaner muscle than the others, his silver hair loose around his shoulders. Where the others carried blades and spears, he wore a dark blue bag across his chest and carried a small rectangular device that hummed faintly.

"I am Nullar." His voice was calm and unhurried, pitched to carry without startling. "I am one of the medics of Clan Huren. Before anyone passes through the dome, I need to run a brief scan on each of you." He held up the device so we could see it."This is a biocontaminant scanner. It checks your basic vitals: heartbeat, body temperature, and rate of respiration. It also screens for any microorganisms that should not be making the trip inside the dome.”

His silver eyes moved across the group with the patience of someone who had done this many times and understood that nervous people needed a moment to catch up. "The scan won't hurt you."

Nullar moved toward me first, the device whirring in a slow, methodical pass from shoulder to hip, his eyes tracking the readings with focused calm.

Then Lila leaned toward Brooke, her voice barely above a whisper.

“He's one of the doctors?" she breathed. "I’m suddenly very interested in scheduling my next gyno appointment."

The words landed in the small silence between the scanner's passes and I felt heat flood my face before I'd even fully processed what she'd said.

Nullar's pointed ears swiveled and cupped forward with the involuntary precision of someone who had just heard exactly what he was not meant to hear. He continued the scan without breaking stride, but the color that swept up his neck and across his cheekbones was a deep, vivid blue.

"Sorry," I said immediately. "We spent weeks on a planet actively trying to kill us, and apparently some of us left our manners back on Earth."

His gaze flicked briefly to Lila with a sparkle of interest, then back to his scanner. "No apology necessary," he murmured, already moving to Mara, his cheeks still a telling shade of blue.