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“Hmm…” She draws out the sound, then glances around. “It’s a battery.”

Thivoll and Drasuk both hiss, then Thivoll groans.

“Yes, I see it now,” Thivoll grates out. “The leads are like a cryogenic chamber pumping nanites through a large body and then through a generator. How did you know, Kira?

She shrugs. “Seems obvious.”

Drasuk breaks in. “A large body wouldn’t be enough to be a power source. Whatever it was will be highly intelligent and I assume also very angry.”

“A trakeldon,” Kroaicho adds suddenly, skin lit up red.

“Really?” Thivoll asks, all trace of amusement gone. “How do you know?”

“I recognized the tracks,” zha replies.

“You got out of your hoarding cave long enough to learn some tracking, glow pop?” Kira teases.

“So far Kroaicho seems like a walking encyclopedia, Kira,” Ree breaks in. “He’s essentially a treasure trove inside that mind.”

“Zha, not he,” I interject.

“Sorry,” Ree says with a grimace. “Zha knows a lot and I respect that. It will prove very useful.”

I glance over to Kroaicho and notice that most of the red on zha’s skin has been replaced with thrumming orange. Zha’s eyes are big and zha is blinking slowly, like some realization is coming.

“Stories are important,” is all zha says in response.

“Not right now they aren’t. We should leave,” Drasuk says forcefully. “Regroup.”

“I agree,” Kira says, grin dropping. “But there’s what looks like a lab behind that fake cave wall you two meat heads should look at first.”

“Which two what?” Drasuk grumbles. “Speak plainly for once.”

“Oh, I only meant the wisest and strongest among us. Obviously you and Thivoll,” Kira drawls.

“Well, why did you not just say?” Drasuk replies, puffing up his spines and stalking out of the room as Kira turns and rolls her eyes at us.

I blink, suddenly feeling far more at ease in the group. Just like Kroaicho, Drasuk is even more socially oblivious than I am and everyone still somehow likes him. Even though he’s also a giant ass.

I mean, I mostly just struggle with facial expressions and it’s starting to feel like not that big of a deal now that there are so many different types of faces with a whole range of different meanings.

It feels… good and I give Kira a grin.

“Lead the way, small human,” Drasuk calls back imperiously.

Ree holds her arm out to Kira, mouthing something, raising her eyebrows and wiggling her head and even I can get that she’s making fun of Drasuk and I burst out laughing along with them. Thivoll is still chuffing as we move out of the room.

We make our way down a long hall, the dead bodies of aliens making me smile, then move into a smaller room. Thivoll rushes over to a storage shelf, big scaled hands grabbing at silver canisters, turning them like he’s reading something.

“Nanites. Translation and healing,” he says, voice betraying his excitement.

“Wouldn’t they be destroyed, though?” Kira asks.

“No, they just need a host body,” Drasuk replies.

“But you said to never disconnect from the black suit, Thivoll,” Ree adds.

“The suit is different,” Thivoll says. “Manticorids didn’t design it. It has to be calibrated and manually connected when it's attached to a spine. These will have base, inert coding that simply needs a living battery.”