Page 20

It started with a whine—high-pitched, unnatural.

The shard pulsed beneath the containment mesh where I’d buried it deep in the sand, but it wasn’t deep enough.

I felt it through the soles of my boots.

Like the desert itself was snarling awake.

Jas was nearby, hunched over her datapad, trying to extract meaning from Legion archives I hadn’t exactly granted her clearance for.

Her hair was up in that chaotic knot she twisted it into when she was focused.

Sweat beaded at her brow from the midmorning heat.

She looked beautiful. She looked doomed.

Because the shard responded to her.

It had been dormant—dead tech, by all visible scans. But the second she’d stepped near it that first day, it had surged with color. Pale green—Swarm protocol. Now, it pulsed again. And this time, the desert answered.

We’d established a temporary camp in the dried riverbed, seeking shelter from the twin suns that had risen with brutal efficiency two hours prior.

The journey through the night had been long but uneventful after our initial escape from the awakening tech.

We’d made good time, putting seven miles between us and the primary activation site.

Distance that meant nothing if the Swarm’s network extended as far as Legion intelligence suggested.

I should have insisted we keep moving. But Jas had needed rest, and I’d needed to assess the shard I’d contained. My mistake. My arrogance. Thinking I could study the very thing hunting us without consequence.

“This is fascinating,” Jas murmured, oblivious to the danger literally glowing beneath us. “These archives suggest the Swarm wasn’t just a weapon. It was trying to communicate.”

I grunted, attention split between her words and the increasing frequency of the shard’s pulses. “Communication through assimilation isn’t dialogue,” I replied, moving closer to her while trying to appear casual. “The Legion classified it as a contagion for a reason.”

She looked up, those dark eyes sharp with the journalist’s hunger I’d come to admire and fear in equal measure. Our bond hummed between us, allowing me to feel her curiosity like a physical sensation—bright, insistent, compelling. It made protecting her both easier and infinitely more difficult.

“But look at this pattern recognition,” she insisted, tilting the screen toward me. “It’s not just targeting random genetic material. It’s looking for specific markers, specific traits.”

I leaned over her shoulder, inhaling her scent while scanning the data she’d managed to extract.

My hackles rose. She’d dug deeper than I’d realized, accessing restricted files that should have been encrypted beyond civilian reach.

The fact that she’d broken through spoke to both her resourcefulness and the degraded state of the outpost systems.

“How did you access this level?” I asked, my voice carefully neutral.

Her smile was quick and unrepentant. “Your access codes aren’t as secure as you think. You say them in your sleep.”

Under different circumstances, I might have been impressed. Amused, even. But the whine from the buried shard had risen in pitch, becoming more insistent. Through our bond, I could sense that Jas hadn’t noticed it yet—her hearing less acute than mine, her attention consumed by the data before her.

“We need to move,” I said, closing the datapad with firm gentleness. “Now.”

She frowned, sensing my unease through our connection. “What’s wrong?”

I didn’t answer immediately, scanning our surroundings with heightened senses.

The dried riverbed offered minimal cover—just enough to shield us from orbital scans but not from ground-based sensors.

The rocky outcroppings to either side provided better defensive positions, but would expose us to the worst of the midday heat.

“The shard is active,” I finally said, helping her gather our supplies. “And it’s transmitting.”

Her eyes widened slightly, fear spiking through our bond before she controlled it. “To what?”

The answer came before I could speak.

Sand exploded in a geyser ten meters away. I lunged for her, wrapping my body over hers just as a beam of raw light seared through the air where she’d been standing. My back took the brunt. Armor held. Barely.

“What the hell?” she screamed beneath me.

“Swarm drone,” I growled, lifting my head to assess. It hovered, gleaming and skeletal, with spindled limbs and a glowing red eye that tracked her like prey.

Target Acquired: Anomalous Entity – Terran DNA – Retrieval Priority.

The machine’s voice hissed in a corrupted version of Universal Standard.

“Oh no,” Jas whispered. “It thinks I’m a sample?”

“No,” I snapped, drawing my pulse blade. “It thinks you’re a threat.”

And it was right. She was a threat—to its programming, to its purpose, to everything it had been designed to contain and control.

Her very presence on this world represented an unknown variable the Swarm couldn’t categorize.

And what the Swarm couldn’t categorize, it sought to dismantle. Study. Consume.

I activated my beacon with one hand, sending a tight-band signal across every channel I could still access. “Code Black. D-7 site compromised. Requesting immediate extraction. Active Swarm relic. Civilian under threat. Repeat, civilian under threat.”

No response.

I didn’t wait. I charged.

The drone shrieked and fired again. I zigzagged through the dunes, drawing its fire, trying to lure it away. But it kept glancing back at Jas. It wanted her.

She was its directive now.

The pulse blade hummed in my grip, its molecular edge designed to sever even the densest alloys. Legion tech at its finest, meant specifically for encounters like this. Yet the Swarm drone moved with unnatural speed, its articulated limbs bending at impossible angles as it evaded my first strike.

Its core glowed sickly green—the same color as the buried shard. Not coincidence. They were communicating, coordinating. And where there was one drone, others would follow.

“Run for the rocks!” I shouted to Jas, who had taken cover behind a jutting piece of ancient riverbed debris. “I’ll draw it off!”

Through our bond, I felt her resistance. Her refusal to leave me. Stubborn, brave, foolish woman. My mate. Mine to protect.

“Like hell I will!” she called back, already scrambling for the Legion-issue sidearm I’d given her earlier. Not powerful enough to damage the drone, but enough to distract it, perhaps.

The drone twisted mid-air, sensors focusing on her movement. I used its momentary distraction to close the distance, blade arcing toward one of its spindly limbs.

The blade connected with its joint—once, twice. Sparks flew. It screeched like metal in pain and spun mid-air, slicing at me with one elongated claw. Blood spilled from my arm. I ignored it.

Pain was irrelevant. The mission—protecting Jas—was all that mattered.

I pressed the attack, forcing the drone to engage with me rather than pursue my mate. Its movements were becoming more erratic, less predictable. Adapting. Learning. This wasn’t a simple sentinel unit like those we’d encountered before. This was something older, more sophisticated. A hunter.

It slashed again, faster than I anticipated. The claw caught my shoulder, tearing through the reinforced fabric of my combat suit. Pain flared, hot and immediate, but the wound wasn’t deep. My augmented healing would seal it within minutes.

“Rhaekar!” Jas shouted. “Duck!”

I dropped instantly, training and trust overriding any hesitation. She hurled a chunk of scorched equipment at the drone. It hit. Not hard, but enough to knock it off its axis. I lunged, blade buried in its core.

It screamed once—and exploded.

Sand and smoke.

I stumbled back, panting. My comm crackled to life.

“Legion Command to D-7. Receiving partial signal. Confirm civilian safety.”

I grabbed the comm. “Jas is alive. Situation hostile. Request evac window now.”

As I turned, she was already at my side, eyes wide, hand shaking as she reached for mine.

“I’m fine,” she said breathlessly. “But that thing… it wanted to take me.”

I pulled her into my arms, my voice rough and sharp. “Over my dead body.”

And judging by the way the sand still trembled… that wasn’t out of the question yet.

The drone’s remains smoldered in the sand, circuits and alien metallurgy still twitching with residual energy.

Not completely dead. Nothing of the Swarm ever truly died—it just reconfigured, adapted, evolved.

Given enough time, these fragments would reconstitute, combine with other tech, create something new.

We couldn’t give it that time.

“We need to destroy it completely,” I said, reluctantly releasing Jas. “And we need to move. That explosion will draw attention.”

She nodded, understanding immediately. Through our bond, I felt her fear, yes, but also her determination. Her resolve. The strength that had called to me from the first moment I’d scented her in the desert.

“Your arm,” she said, reaching for the tear in my combat suit where blood darkened the fabric.

“It’s nothing.” I glanced at the wound, already clotting. “Rodinian physiology. Accelerated healing.”

“Still.” Her fingers probed the edges of the cut with gentle insistence. “At least let me clean it before it seals with sand inside.”

I allowed her this small comfort, this moment of caretaking, while I surveyed our surroundings. The riverbed no longer felt secure. The drone had found us too easily, too quickly. And my buried shard...

The containment mesh had ruptured during the fight. The shard was gone.

“Jas,” I said, keeping my voice steady despite the cold dread seeping through me. “Did you see where the shard went?”

She looked up from tending my arm, brow furrowed. “No. Why?”

I gestured toward the empty depression in the sand. “It’s missing.”

Understanding dawned on her face. “You think the drone took it?”