Page 25 of Fated to the Hunter (Xarc’n Warriors #13)

“Krux!”

I slammed my palm against the navigational console again, harder this time, like sheer force might convince the damn thing to cooperate.

Nothing.

I’d managed to get the shuttle to turn on the external camera feeds, but that was all it would do.

I was surrounded by scourge. The flyers that had caused my crash stayed latched onto my shuttle, their clawed feet hanging on by any means possible.

There were scores of scuttlers surrounding my ship as well, swarming my position.

They covered my shuttle so thoroughly that they blocked the light of the sun.

The only good thing about that was that it didn’t give room for the flyers to use the spikes on their tails to crack my shuttle open piece by piece.

I had hoped that they would lose interest soon, but it had been at least ten or fifteen Earth minutes, and scourge were still arriving.

And the worst part was that I couldn’t even send out a report or call for help.

We were not on fire, and according to the display, my shuttle was not severely damaged.

Yet nothing worked. My shuttle was refusing to do anything.

“Come on,” I muttered, jaw clenched. “You’re not dead. You’re just being difficult.”

The interface blinked at me, and I jabbed at the touch screen again. It let me go to the communication screen, but not contact anyone. The shuttle was intact. Systems were online. But nothing.

I slumped back into the pilot’s chair, fists clenched so tight my knuckles turned white. I tried to take in calming breaths, but each inhalation was jagged and strained like trying to breathe inside a scourge nest.

I hated this. I hated being trapped, helpless, and grounded. I was built to move, to fight, to protect what was mine. Not to sit in a metal box while Kiera fought for her life.

“Kiera,” I whispered, like saying it too loud would send more scourge to her location.

Uncloaking and drawing the scourge attention was the only thing I could think of when I realized my shuttle wasn’t going to open that door again.

And then my shuttle had fought me, actually fought me, putting the cloak back on again.

I’d fought for control through the entire flight, short as it was, until the very end.

When I was covered in flyers, I knew I could keep the shuttle in the air no longer.

Had I given her enough time to get to safety? Was there even anywhere safe left for her to go?

What the fuck would I do if she was gone?

The thought clawed at my chest, sharp and merciless. I could feel it, the ache, the hollow growing. Like something vital had already been ripped from me and I was just too slow to notice.

I had to get out. Had to reach her.

But what if she was already… No. I wouldn’t let that thought finish.

The realization that my shuttle had not only locked Kiera out, but it was probably now actively preventing me from reaching her, was cold and icy. Kiera had tried to warn me too, and I’d already been planning to take it to a mothership. But it had been too late.

This wasn’t a malfunction. It had not been overridden by hostile humans. Or infected by the scourge. This was the shuttle itself.

Kiera could be dead. Why? Because my shuttle didn’t like her? My shuttle, an entity I’d known my entire life, one I’d thought was on my side, had tried to kill the one female I’d grown to care for. And now it was preventing us from speaking. Preventing me from rescuing her.

The sickening feeling of betrayal was visceral, like a hand inside my body, twisting my organs up until I couldn’t breathe. I stared at my shuttle’s navigational screen, the acidic burn of fury welling up from my stomach.

“You left her to die!” I roared. “You didn’t like her and left her to fucking die.”

What would my shuttle do? Deny it? Make excuses? Keep ignoring me?

“You are a hunter. The best in your contingent. You should be outside the Dead Zone, fighting the scourge. This mission is a waste of time.”

It did not deny leaving her on purpose.

“I’m not leaving without her.”

“That human is a liability.”

“That human is mine!” I bellowed, the truth sinking into my bones. My arms had not locked around her, claiming her as my mate, but I knew with certainty that they would once our mission was complete.

“She is dead.” A video appeared on the screen, and on it was Kiera being picked up in front of the mansion by a flyer, her legs kicking in the air. I closed it immediately.

I wasn’t sure what to believe. My shuttle had demonstrated it could defy my orders. Could it lie to me as well? Show me a manufactured video to control my actions?

I couldn’t let myself believe Kiera was gone. Not yet. I had to go back to the mansion. Had to look for her myself and see it with my own eyes. I wasn’t giving up. Not on her. Because if I didn’t look, if I didn’t try , I’d never forgive myself.

A sharp metallic clang shook the shuttle violently.

My eyes darted up at the ceiling to see that one section of it no longer displayed the outside world, the external sensors having been damaged by a flyer’s tail spike.

The flyers all flapped their wings, lifting off momentarily before settling again, rearranging themselves back on the shuttle.

Despair swirled darkly in my head. It yelled at me to do something, anything. Even charge outside into the swarm to fight them all. But I knew that was not possible. That would be suicide.

But wouldn’t sitting here waiting around for the end be worse?

Then, all of a sudden, all the flyers that were currently latched onto the shuttle moved.

They all turned their heads at the exact same moment, like they shared a single brain.

Despite a lifetime of fighting them, that same blood-chilling feeling hit me every time I saw them act like this.

The flyer closest to the front of my shuttle moved first, pushing off and flapping its wings.

Then the rest followed, their eyes never leaving the object zooming around above them.

The object swooped low for one moment before flying away, letting me see beyond a doubt that it was a human drone.

Kiera! It had to be her. She was alive.

The drone danced in the air, weaving in and out of the flyers, trying to catch all of their attention. I saw what she was trying to do; she was trying to get them to follow her and leave my shuttle alone.

I was certain that if I lifted off now, or tried to go toward Kiera again, my shuttle would lock up and perhaps even fly away, forcing me to leave Kiera behind. I’d come back for her, I always would, but how long could she survive on her own?

I couldn’t fight my shuttle, not the way I fought the scourge. For once in my life, I had to use my brain, not my muscles.

How could I get to Kiera and rescue her without my shuttle? The answer was awfully simple: without my shuttle.

I had to turn it off. But I highly doubted it would just let me do that. It could prevent the power down just by simply refusing to let me get to the selection screen.

Now that I knew it was lying to me, I wondered if it was a PIP model after all. All the PIP models had unique personalities. But one thing was common for all of them: they had all lied about their identities to avoid decommission.

The original Xarc’n military had canceled the PIP experiment because several of the shuttles had turned murderous.

I considered purposefully locking my female outside of the shuttle inside a Dead Zone, with flyers barreling down on us, an act of murder.

The fact that Kiera had survived was a miracle.

If my shuttle figured out that I was decommissioning it right now, it would try to stop me in any way possible, which meant I had to disconnect the power physically and do it fast. But first, I opened all the cabinets wide.

Then, starting with my devices, then moving to my weapons and armor, I pulled them all out onto the shuttle floor.

Once the power was disconnected, it would be difficult to pry the cabinet doors open.

I had all my devices and weapons out when the doors to my food stash slammed shut.

The shuttle must be getting suspicious.

I grabbed my toolkit. It only had the very basics, since Xarc’n warriors were supposed to send the shuttle back up to the motherships for most repair, but it was enough.

Switching out a new power source was something many of us had taught ourselves to do, not wanting to wait for an opening in the ever-busy mothership repair bay to get our shuttles running again.

But it was supposed to be done only when the power was already off to prevent injury to the warrior.

I’d been around humans long enough to know how to protect myself from electric shock.

First, I stripped the soft cushiony bits from the passenger seat to use as insulation between me and the shuttle floor.

Then I donned my thickest pair of gloves and the protective armor I usually wore only when entering nests for the final sweep.

The gloves would make delicate work nearly impossible, but I didn’t need to do delicate work right now.

I planned on severing that connection swiftly and permanently if need be.

The moment I shoved away the pilot’s seat and approached the panel underneath the navigational screen cover, my shadow spoke.

“What are you doing, hunter?”

It was now my turn to ignore it.

I started removing the first panel attachment. Then suddenly, the entire shuttle went dark, and the external feed turned off. It was pitch black. But I’d expected that and came prepared. I turned on my lantern and continued working, removing the second attachment. The panel opened.

There it was, the thick wire that connected the power source to the ship’s computer. I dug in the pouch of tools for the cutters.

Realizing what I planned to do, the shuttle suddenly moved, lifting off the ground in a jerky motion. I was thrown back and away, the tool I needed flying from my hands into the mess that was my shuttle’s floor.

“Krux!”

My lantern, the only light source, was being tossed back too. I scrambled to grab it with one hand, the other searching the floor for a weapon, any weapon. My hands landed on a small axe I rarely used.

The shuttle jerked again, trying to throw me against the wall.

When a knife came flying at me, I was infinitely glad that I was never lazy and sheathed all my weapons properly.

I took a beating, being knocked side-to-side and back and forth.

But I was a hunter, the Xarc’n military’s genetically engineered soldiers, and I was built to withstand more than this.

My horns protected me from the worst of the blows.

And my shuttle could not stop me from reaching the panels without also destroying itself.

In one fluid motion, I brought the glowing edge of the axe down, aiming it right at the connection to the power supply.

There was a sudden bright flash, and despite being insulated, I was thrown away by a sudden burst of energy.

The lantern made a popping sound, then burnt out.

No longer powered, the shuttle started to fall, and I braced for impact.