Page 26 of Fated to the Hunter (Xarc’n Warriors #13)

When the chaos finally settled, I found myself sprawled across my shuttle floor, surrounded by my possessions and in total darkness. There was no sound. No hum of the engine. No buzz of the lights.

“Shuttle?” My inquiry echoed in the stillness.

No response.

The constant companion that I’d had since the day I was created was gone. I’d never truly thought of my shuttle as its own entity until now, and now it was gone.

And even if I did reconnect its power source, I could no longer trust it. I was truly alone.

I searched around for the lantern and clicked it back on. It was still working. Our equipment and devices were built to be extra rugged because hunters were known to bash things on boulders and drop them down cliffs, sometimes both in succession.

My communicator started buzzing from my belt. I had almost a dozen missed communications, not only from Kiera, but from Sam and Lenny, and from the leader of the hunters who worked here.

My shuttle had been blocking all the incoming signals. Did they think I was dead for not replying? I called Kiera first, and the sound of her voice when she picked up was the most wonderful thing I’d ever heard.

“Bael’k! You’re alive!”

“I am. My shuttle was blocking the signals to my communicator. I could not control it, so I severed my shuttle’s power source.”

“Oh shit. I’m sorry. I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that.”

“I am not. The moment it left you, it had become the enemy. It tried to prevent me from decommissioning it. It did not succeed.” I picked up my favorite set of twin blades from the mess and strapped them onto my back. “Now I will break down the door to come get you.”

“No, don’t do that! You’re still injured.”

I was. “It is only skin and muscle. I have been injured worse.”

“Don’t you dare break down that door!” she said sternly, the fire in her voice returning.

“There are still too many scourge around your shuttle. I only managed to lure away some of them. I kinda crashed the drone north of you, close to the highway we were on the other day. The buzzer kept going for a while, keeping their attention, but it’s damaged now. ”

“You did good.” I meant to say so much more, that I was proud of her, and that I wished I could’ve seen her in action.

“Thanks. I still have one drone left, and I got both Eye-Spies on flyers,” she said excitedly. “I’ll share the feed with your phone. Anyway, we need your shuttle intact to get out of here. We can’t make it by foot.”

“But my shuttle—”

“Lenny and Pip are writing a quick program to replace your faulty AI. Here, let me three-way them and they can explain the plan to you.”

I sat down at the edge of my sleeping nook.

My little Keeper of Knowledge had been busy.

In the short time I managed to deal with my misbehaving shuttle, she’d already figured out a solution to our problem.

And not just that either. She’d lured the scourge away from my shuttle and gotten aerial surveillance set up.

How had she gotten the eyeball things onto the flyers without getting attacked?

“Bael’k? You there?”

I recognized Lenny’s voice.

“I am.”

“Greetings, hunter!” Pip chirped, sounding way too happy considering my current situation.

“Greetings, Pip.”

“Okay, here’s the lowdown on the situation,” Lenny started.

“Physically, your shuttle itself is fine. Actually, wait, scratch that. I’m just looking at the final report sent out before you disconnected the power.

And I’m seeing some damage. It’s still in good enough condition to get you out of there.

But like I was saying, it’s the computer in your shuttle that’s problematic. ”

“Remember that time I lost my body?” Pip asked. “And they had to carry me around in a box and find me a new one?”

“Yes,” I said, amused. It was impossible to forget since it happened during the first-ever successful scourge attack on a mothership.

“Well, we’re going to do the opposite. We’re going to give your shuttle a new brain!”

“It better not be you,” I said.

“Don’t be silly! I’m way too big to be transferred one byte at a time. It’ll take forever. “

Kiera, who was still listening but clearly distracted with something else, probably her Eye-Spies, chuckled softly. “Yes, Pip. You’re massive.”

Lenny cleared his throat like he was hiding a laugh.

“Pip is right. Sending him over like this will take forever. And we don’t have forever.

What we do have is a bare-bones version of a shuttle computer.

And by bare bones I mean it. You’ll have to do all the navigation and piloting, and you’ll lose all AI features. But your shuttle will be operational.”

I balked. I relied on my shuttle often, and my piloting skills were dusty and out of practice. I kept it to myself, though, not wanting to show my weakness.

“I had to forcefully detach the power source,” I admitted.

“Do you have your toolkit?”

I glanced around the mess of my shuttle. Technically, all the tools were there. “I do. In a way.”

“In a way?” Lenny sounded amused.

“The tools are all over my shuttle floor, along with all my devices and weapons.” I shared the video feed of my shuttle floor with them.

“Wow. Okay, this complicates things.”

Pip just made an exaggerated gasp of disgust.

“We can work with this,” Lenny said. “Show me the damage to the power connection and we’ll walk you through how to fix it.”

“I’ll figure out your best path over to me. So far, it’s looking like flying might be your best option. We might need another distraction from the hunters at the fence.”

“Already ahead of you,” Lenny said. “Sam’s working with them now. We got you in there as a team, and we’re going to get you out. Both of you.”

I hoped they couldn’t see my lack of confidence.

I’d always been the fighter. Prizing myself in one thing and one thing only.

I had never been a particularly good pilot.

And I wasn’t particularly good at shuttle maintenance either.

But if Kiera got the eyeballs onto the flyers, then the least I could do was to give it my best try.

“Um, guys, I think you'd better hurry.” Kiera sounded nervous.

“What is wrong?” I hated not being there to protect her.

“There’s a giant-ass group of scourge assembling outside the nest. At least two centicreeps and a whole pack of flyers. Tons of scuttlers. A practical swarm. Aww, no,” she groaned. “I think they’re heading this way!”