Page 77 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

“Break the receiver before it sends proof.”

Rhazek’s voice is rough. “It may already be transmitting partials.”

“Then we make sure the last thing it sends is nonsense.” It needs my next route. I smile without warmth. “Let’s give it one I would never take.”

18

Rhazek

The receiver waits beyond the canyon road, half-buried beneath white salt crust and red stone. Someone placed it carefully where the ridge shadow would hide it. It has our field pattern. It has my blood relay’s response. It has Kessa’s voice, though not cleanly. It has enough scraps to build an argument for Tajss being alive.

It does not have enough to make invasion simple, yet.

Kessa studies the path from behind a leaning stone, one hand hovering over her slate without touching it. Sweat darkens her hair at the temples. Dust clings to the curve of her jaw. Her mouth is a hard, furious line.

She is not afraid of dying. I do not think it is because she is fearless. Dying is simply too small a problem for her attention right now. The warmth at my throat pulses and I look away.

Syin stands to her left, blade ready. Renn keeps the far side. Orek guards the rear with Lio and Maro tucked behind a red shelf, their dust packets ready. The two runners are exhausted, but they will obey anyway. Kessa chose well.

She signs. False path first. I immediately hate her plan.

The false path runs straight toward the receiver through glare and open salt, exactly the kind of obvious heroic stupidity she would mock until her last breath. That is why it works. It looks desperate without carrying any of her judgment.

Lio and Maro throw dust. Renn drags a cloak through loose salt. Orek tosses a bloodless scrap of torn pack cloth across the open flat. The receiver pings. The false path lights.

Kessa signs the real path.

Narrow shade. Stone teeth. Crawl space. Three pauses where no sane enemy would expect a leader to stop because the stops protect weak crust under the surface, not visible cover.

She moves first. Syin hates that. I hate it more. Neither of us stops her.

The blood relay under my ribs burns cold as the receiver pings.

I step where Kessa did not. Keeping half a pace distance, enough to pull the relay’s answer off her line. Pain climbs under my plates, rib to throat.

Good. Let it climb me instead of her.

Kessa reaches the first stone tooth and looks back. She looks back once, and I know she understands. Then she keeps moving.

Choice.

The receiver catches that too. The relay tries to turn it into signal. I drive my claws into my own palms until blood wells dark. The hook surges toward it.

Kessa snaps a sign so sharp even Syin obeys before thinking.

Ash.

Maro throws the packet. Lio throws salt. Renn’s wing sweeps both into a pale cloud between me and the receiver. The pulse stutters. The real path holds. For six breaths, I believe we have done it. Then the receiver opens.

A black plate lifts from the salt crust, no larger than a shield, folded in layers like insect wings made of glass. Green light runs along its edges, not bright, not dramatic. Efficient.

The dead drop does not roar. It counts. Coordinates. Biological response. Zmaj heat signatures. Human heat signatures. Unknown winged non-Zmaj responder. Epis likelihood. Bond-response probability.

Kessa sees the light touch my throat, then snap toward her. She stops moving. Every part of me wants to move. To command her to run back.

Claim.

Mine.