Page 105 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

A shallow cut opens on the far side of the ridge where sand has slid away from buried metal revealing a transport rig that was buried. It has a black frame half hidden by sand and the heat shimmer. Green light crawls through narrow seams along its sides.

Two figures move around it in pale masks and layered armor that doesn’t belong to this world. One carries a rod pulsing with the rhythm of the call. The other works at the transport frame, locking sections into place.

Then I see Rhazek.

He’s inside a cage fixed to the rig. His wings are tight behind him and his arms are bound high. Blood darkens one side of his face. His head is lifted.

He’s alive.

My heart thunders loud in my ears and every part of me wants to charge. Run at the two aliens holding him captive and stab them with my knife. To set him free. Instead I grip the stone until the urge becomes something I can control.

He shifts, turning his face toward the ridge. There is no way he can see me. Still, he turns directly toward where I am hiding. He blinks, grunts in pain, then drops his head.

The green seams of the cage brighten.

Once.

Pause.

Again.

Then my rhythm answers beneath it.

Renn sucks in a breath with a sharp hiss. Syin doesn’t move, but I know exactly how much violence he is holding back. Below us, one of the masked figures pauses and turns toward the ridge.

The transport cage brightens and begins to seal around Rhazek.

26

Rhazek

The cage seals around me.

The first hook drives through the old scar under my throat before it finishes. It is not a blade, more a narrow crescent of green-black metal warmed by an engine that is Krixian cruelty dressed in newer plating and better lies. It slides beneath the edge of my throat armor and kisses the buried anchor Krix left in me years ago.

The old training answers before I choose to.

Pain flashes white behind my eyes. The old command line wakes like a burned wire dragged from ash. Once. Pause. Again. The rhythm crawls down my spine, tests my knees, tastes the muscles in my arms, and searches for the place obedience used to live, but it finds only scars.

It does not find the expected surrender.

They found me too soon. I meant to pull them past the dead cistern and into the signal shadow where old metal would eat whatever they tried to send. Instead the ridge opened beneath my feet and pale masks came out of the sand.

I could have made them kill me. That would have left Kessa with my corpse, an unknown machine, and no answer to what is hunting the City. So I chose the worse option and let them take me alive.

Just before the seal closes, warmth strikes through the pull between us, sharp and furious.

Kessa.

I snap my eyes open and look. I sense her direction and look towards the ridge. I do not see her, but I know it is her. Fear mixes with anger. I do not want her here. That is not part of my plan.

I keep my breathing slow while the cage closes and tilts. Through the narrow view slit, the low ridge fills the world. A black seam splits wider along its base. Sand pours from a hidden lip as the transport tips onto a rail buried beneath the slope. Red daylight narrows to a blade, then vanishes behind stone and metal.

They do not take me off the planet; they bring me down.

A second hook catches the fresh burn on my forearm. I lock my jaw before sound can escape.

A small male in gray flex-armor watches from the other side of the cage. He is not Krixian. Too narrow through the cheekbones, too pale, no ceremonial braid markers at the temple, but he wears Krixian salvage rings in one ear and has the dead-eyed patience of someone who has learned from them. His gaze does not hold anger. Anger wastes heat. His interest is cleaner and worse.