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We turn in tandem, and immediately start running again. I try to pretend this is just a jog, that all I’m doing is circling back toward Jaya. But the unidentified object keeps getting closer, and now I think I can hear it more clearly. A low hum sounds behind us, like a thousand wings fluttering all at once.
Yikes. I fucking hate bugs.
“It’s gaining on us,” Malix says, picking up the pace. His breath is shallow, gasping, his words harsh.
“We might have to fight it,” I say. “I’m down if you are.”
“What does that mean?” he asks.
Even with the translators, figures of speech don’t quite translate. “I go right, you go left?” I say.
He swallows hard. “Alright.”
We branch off abruptly, just as the humming noise cuts through the grass behind us. I fling myself into the field and feel a slice of air in my ponytail, knowing that whatever it is, it’s flying so fast that it would have decapitated me if I hadn’t gotten out of the way. I find Malix across the grass from me, and his eyes are wide with concern.
“It’s going toward the ship,” he calls out to me.
“Hasta la verda!” I curse. I raise my wrist to my mouth and contact Jaya’s cortex, getting Ravik on the line.
“Agent Morales,” he says, his voice dark and sour.
“Send out a group with guns!” I say. “There’s something headed toward Jaya, and it’ll be there any second!”
I get to my feet and meet Malix in the middle, staring after the thing. It doesn’t seem interested in us at all; it’s hellbent on finding thezephtangrazing in the field beyond. I can’t quite make it out, but it appears to be nothing more than a flying orb of dark, warped metal, moving quick as a whip.
This is all wrong.
This planet is supposed to be safe.
We both start running, faster than we did before. Malix keeps matching me, never missing a step, and I have to pump my legs faster and faster to keep up with him. We don’t catch the creature, or robot, or whatever it is, though I keep it in my line of sight. Jaya appears just beyond it, her fin waving in the blue sky as we race closer.
There are startled voices up ahead. I can make out a small group of our friends at Jaya’s hatch, scrambling to line up a shot with the tiny orb zooming toward them. I see Mai raise her rifle, rest it on her shoulder, knowing her focus is perfect—
She fires.
A boom rings out across the field.
The shot makes contact with the orb.
And it fucking explodes.
Before I even realize what’s happening, Malix is leaping in front of me, tackling me to the ground as we curl into a ball to keep ourselves safe. For a second, reality seems to bend and warp, the gravity of the planet goingweird. I think I’m lifted off the ground for the briefest moment—then my ears ring as everything goes back to normal.
I’m cursing in English and Spanish, my lips moving and my throat working without even realizing it. I sit up and my head swims, then Malix’s hand is on my shoulder.
“Frankie,” his voice comes, quiet and unsteady. “What happened?”
Someone is cutting through the grass toward us—someone from the crew, thank God, and not some kind of strange, buzzing orb. I look around at the grass, finding that it looks just as it did before.
“I don’t know,” I say. “But I do know that it isn’t safe here anymore.”
CHAPTER NINE
??
TARAVEN
We have to keep moving…because apparently nowhere is safe now that we’re at war with the Second House.
