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‘It’s the planet!’ Selene whispered.
Kainan whipped around to face her. ‘Did you say the planet? Selene, what-in-the-actual is going on? Because this storm is not natural at all. It’s not letting us through.’
Selene stared back at him wide-eyed. ‘I think I know what’s going on. I believe Dunia is resisting.’
‘Dafokk?’ Kainan ground out, his brow furrowed deeply.
‘The planet is semi-sentient,’ she told him. ‘It’s fighting us. It probably thinks we will harm it and the people of Dunia because our corvettes attacked the spaceport and the other locations. So it now thinks that we’re the enemy.’
Kainan’s eyes narrowed slightly at her words. Then he shook his head and whipped his chair back to the controls.
‘Mirage, pull back up to a safe altitude, out of reach of the tree line. Sable Team and all corvettes in space above the planet, please do the same. And stay safely above the storm in a holding pattern until Her Excellency and I sort this out.’
His hands flew over the controls before he whirled around sharply once more to face Selene.
‘You’re not fokkin’ around about this sentient business, are you?’ he demanded.
She shook her head wordlessly.
Kainan gave a mirthless laugh. ‘I’d vaguely heard about it, but I didn’t think it was this psychotic. I thought it was simply meditation pools and spiritual mumbo jumbo.’
Selene took a deep breath.Dunia, help me with this man,she thought.
‘Please don’t insult what you don’t understand. I’ll only let your ignorance slide because you’re under the pump, Kainan. ’
His nose flared, and he curled his lip, looking away. ‘Won’t happen again,’ he eventually groused.
All she could do was shake her head in disbelief.
His eyes sliced back to meet hers. ‘So what do we do to ensure we can land?’
She sighed, relieved that he’d calmed down somewhat. She paused, her head tipped back as she gave the matter some thought.
‘We don’t have all day, Selene,’ Kainan said wearily. ‘I’ve got an entire fleet in limbo circling the planet.’
‘I know!’ she said, snapping back at his impatience. ‘A moment, please. I need to think.’
He crossed his arms over his massive chest and glared at her.
She ignored him for a long moment.
At long last, she spoke, choosing her words carefully. ‘I think I can try to speak to the planet, to appeal to it. To convince it that we’re only trying to help. But to do that, I need to get down to the Enclave, to the grotto.’
‘Fokk me!’ Kainan cursed. ‘How do we even get you down there? Safely?’
‘I have no idea,’ she told him drily.
He glanced out of the windows, eyes fixed on the horizon where the storm still raged, lost in deep thought.
‘We need a small, manoeuvrable yet powerful form of insertion,’ he hypothesised out loud, speaking low and quietly, almost to himself. His wildfire eyes darted around the bridge and to the storage lockers below Mirage’s deck.
‘The meta suits,’ he concluded.
‘I was going to suggest the same,khosi,’ Mirage piped up.
‘Now you speak up!’ Kainan huffed, shaking his head, still frustrated and irritated. Selene sensed it was due to more than just the storm raging outside.
‘How about you find a way to hover above this crack-ass storm,’ he railed at the AI. ‘While Selene and I battle these massive storms and try to land with a powered shell casing to protect us from the madness outside?’
