Page 9 of Argurma Warrior (The Argurma Chronicles #1)
T he female was crazy. That was all that there was to it. There was no other way to process the behavior of a female throwing her intimate clothing at him while shrieking like a bloodthirsty sand spirit. Kaylar just did not know what it relayed about him that he had kept them. They were in his quarters, where they still carried faint traces of her scent, tucked among his things. He tried to tell himself that it was just until he could return them to her but he was not some weak male who indulged in self-deception. They tantalized him, sending confusing signals to his processors that he did not understand but that fired strong reactions in him that made him strangely covet the human female without reason. His reaction was to such a degree that just knowing that they were there within his private quarters tormented him with thoughts of her even now.
His mandibles clicked in a rare show of distraction. It had been well over a day. He should have achieved some peace by now from his mind wandering back to the human. He could not seem to stop it though his mandibles gnashed, and his vibrissae threatened to flare and snap with his foul mood. He hated to admit it, but the human confused him as much as his reaction to her.
Perhaps that was a source of his fascination.
The more he thought on it, the more he was forced to acknowledge that he did not know how to process her behavior. She was a lot more combative than he had expected and he grudgingly admired it. Had his cousin’s human mate been similar? He could not recall. Most of his impressions of the female had been a drenched, shivering little thing that his cousin hovered protectively over. He had assumed that Veral had been required to care for the numerous needs that would have come from a highly fragile mate, and yet this human had surprised him.
That was not the source of his irritation, however. Outside the ship skimmed over the ocean and that was part of the reason for his poor mood. Sometime during the rest cycle, the ship had veered sharply off course from the coastline he had been scouting. All of Kaylar’s efforts to correct it were met with gibberish warnings from a suddenly malfunctioning AI unit. Now there Kaylar did not get even that much response from Degarath since the AI had inexplicably fallen silent several minutes ago.
It was concerning and, as such, highly disruptive to his systems as they flooded his body with chemical stimulus as if preparing for battle. His mouth thinned as he attempted to recalibrate his systems and lock down the chemical release response. He refused to let it get the upper hand. He was more than his malfunction. He would not be ruled by it. A low, clicking growl escaped him as his vibrissae twitched aggressively as his frustration spiked too quickly for him to throttle his reaction back under control.
This was why he worked hard to ensure that missions went relatively smoothly. Any hiccup in his schedule, plans, or anything anticipated, triggered his malfunction, causing unnecessary and unproductive increase in aggression. It was fine if he was being thrown out onto a battlefield but a liability when locked onboard a ship with no safe release for such proclivity. Kaylar sighed and roughly scrubbed a hand down his face. At least there was no one there to witness his shameful descent into fruitless anger as concern continued to plague his processors, making his vibrissae flatten and rise with small hisses of the rattling clusters that tipped them.
Pushing some of the hanging wires and tubes that he had not gotten around to repairing as of yet out of his way, he climbed through the access shaft, the glow from his bionic left eye illuminating the tight tunnel around him. Kaylar hissed. He really should not have put off repairing the access hub for so long, but then he rarely was required to access this port. Certainly not since he installed the last upgrades, which had caused most of the mess he was now wading through. The AI drive was just ahead. He could come up with no scenarios in which something might have become loosened, but with the all the small wildlife around where he had landed, it was possible that something slipped on board without him knowing.
If he found the culprit, whatever it was, it would be terminated. In the meantime, he would just reattach the connection and get his AI back online so that they could leave the planet’s atmosphere.
He frowned at a thick cluster of broken wires that suddenly blocked the tunnel, his vibrissae puffing out around him in alarm. That was not his mess. Sparks shot from the wires and the panels they were attached to, the tiny blue flames scattering as they burst over the metal surface of the tunnel. Kaylar leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as he peered at one wire. It did not look like all those cables and wires that were loose and hanging due to his hasty updates.
They looked broken… chewed?
His vibrissae puffed out around his head in full halo, stiff with tension, as his eyes scanned the access tunnel, a low, clicking growl rumbling in his throat. He angled his head to the left as he slowly stepped around the sparking wires, the ends of his vibrissae stirring to sample the trace chemicals in the air. His muscles tightened as he slowly froze. He did not move except for his eyes which slowly scanned his surroundings.
The biotech creature. It had been there. He recognized its putrid scent after so many cycles of feeding it. A heaviness settled into his gut. Although the likelihood of the experiment getting out of its enclosure had seemed a very small probability within his calculations, this was not entirely unexpected. Not with the way it had looked at him and examined its surrounding containment unit. Since its feeding the day before, the biotech monstrosity had broken free and was now loose within the ship.
He could not determine whether E302 was still in the tunnels or not. It could be anywhere, but wherever it was he was certain that it was hunting him. Kaylar’s vibrissae puffed and rattled in response to the challenge and threat offered. At least the human was safely locked within her quarters. Her room would keep her safe enough, for now, until he could deal with it. The council would not be pleased but transport of the biotech experiment was now untenable. He had no choice but to terminate and face whatever punishment the council prepared for his failure to return with the subject.
Kaylar’s eyes turned, scanning the space before him as he slowly stepped back, his instincts slipping into the hunt. He had no sooner settled his weight on his rear foot than a red light flared to life and flashed suddenly overhead. It preceded the alarm by seconds, its wail piercing the small confines of the access tunnel. His eyes widened as his arms shot out from his side to brace himself on the tunnel walls just in time to catch himself as the ship pitched and violently rocked. His weight slid heavily to one side the tunnel as the Degarath’s right side dropped.
They were going down!
Digging his claws into metal that screeched terribly from being pierced, he heaved himself forward along the tunnel, one hand extending after the other in a rapid climb as he forced his way back up through the tunnel as fast as possible.
Without Degarath’s AI online, he was forced to patch himself directly into the systems, taking hold of the ship’s rapid descent in an attempt to stabilize it enough to land as he barked orders over the comm.
“Secure yourself, female. This will be rough. Preparing to land in five.”
Hooking his consciousness into the ship’s systems, data ran through his processors, alerting him to the shout of dismay and the rapid clamor of the female as she hurried to the emergency seat that unfolded in her room to belt herself in as well as the rapid plummet of air pressure as the ship dropped like a stone from the skies. Sliding out of the tunnel, he swung around the corner at a full run, heading directly for the flight control. Water rushed up toward them in the viewing screen as he entered, and he dropped fully into the systems, reinforcing and rerouting power to the failing engines on the right side. The ship wobbled but rather than crash into the sea, it straightened just enough that it sped forward at a rapid decline toward a blur on the horizon.
Closer and closer it got until it was a looming sprawl of green stretching out before him. His large body dropped into his pilot’s chair, his breath panting from him as his vibrissae coiled and whipped around him as he struggled to keep the ship going.
Just a little further. A little more.
Trees towered over miles of beach, and then branches and thick trunks were breaking along the sides of the ship with sickening cracks, but it was the impact of hitting the ground that threw Kaylar violently against his restraints as sand kicked up around them in a dense explosion of sound that blasted through the ship.
Sparks randomly snapped from a crumpled systems station, but all was otherwise quiet as the ship’s systems failed and powered off, leaving the entire interior in darkness amid a squeal of metal and a monstrous shriek just before Kaylar slid into unconsciousness.