Page 61 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

The kedi mewls from the rock above us.

I look up.

It sits with my route token pinned under one paw, tail curled around itself, blue eyes wide and shining. It has the nerve to purr.

“I think it chose you,” Maro says, touching the fresh scratches across his scalp.

“Do not say that.”

“It has your token.”

“I am aware.”

The kedi licks one paw, entirely untroubled by the fact that it nearly helped announce us to the galaxy. Syin crouches beside the broken tracker, expression grim.

“This was not a carrier by design.”

“No,” I say. “It was bait, dropped loose and small enough for the desert to move it for them. They did not need to know what would pick it up. They only needed it carried long enough to test what answered.”

Rhazek’s hand curls once at his side. I notice because I’m watching for it. His throat plates are dark again, but the darkness feels like a closed hand around a coal.

“The tracker is broken,” Renn says.

I should feel relief. Instead, under the dark plates of his throat, a faint pulse flickers.

Once.

A pause.

Again.

12

Rhazek

The tracking device is broken, but my body does not believe in silence.

The final pulse did not leave through the sky. It did not need to. A crude tracker sends position. A better one sends position and waits. A cruel one sends position and tests whatever answers nearby.

This one tested me.

The burn flats spread around us in hard red stone and white light. The cracked tracker lies under Kessa’s cloth, broken into ugly black pieces no larger than teeth. Above us, the kedi sits on a ridge with Kessa’s route token trapped under one paw, purring at the disaster it helped create. Kessa stands beside the broken device with her knife low, her expression too sharp to be called calm.

She has already understood half of it and I hate it. Not because she is wrong. Because understanding any of it makes her harder to protect from the other half.

Syin studies me with his weapon still in hand. Renn keeps one eye on the kedi and one on my throat. Orek stands with the grim patience of a male who would rather face a real predator than negotiate with a striped thief. The two runners hold exactly where Kessa’s hand signal put them. Lio watches the broken tracker. Maro watches the horizon and tries not to touch the claw marks in his hair.

At least someone is watching the horizon.

“What did it do to you?” Kessa asks.

The question is too precise for a lie.

“It pinged something inside me.”

“Not the beacon.”

“No.”