Page 2 of Invasive Species (Outcasts of Oloria #2)

Gara’s head jerks up, and he looks surprised to see me in his arms. Immediately he dumps me and jumps up like I’m a toxic substance he has to stay far away from.

I get to my feet and wring my hands, useless, searching for what to tell him. There's nothing to say, and I squirm under the intensity of the alien’s gimlet gaze.

“What happened?” Ilia bellows from the house, and Gara suddenly bolts for the downed aliens.

As fucked as it sounds, I'd forgotten they were there, ADHD being what it is.

Oh, shit, are they all dead? Arik, Dom, Nevare, Arture, they all lie where they fell, utterly still.

Wait. I thought only Dom and Arture got hit?

Ilia strides up, Ellen behind him with her mouth in an ‘O’. So, her usual face when she sees what trouble I've gotten myself in.

Gara races from one to the other, getting to his knees and turning them over, going bright green as he triages their injuries. “Scout robot, it came out of the shell, shot Arture and Dom," he reports to Ilia. How can he be so damned calm?

I slap my hands to my face. “I was only looking, I didn't push anything, I swear! Are they okay?"

Gara doesn’t answer, but the look he shoots me over his shoulder is pure hatred, a heated glare like a plutonium rod about to meltdown all the shit.

Ellen looks from me to one of the purple aliens and chooses to help him. Yes, right, he needs help more than me. I take a step toward them but halt. Which one to help first? Which ones actually got hit? I can't decide, and my brain isn't helping my decision freeze.

“I can’t find any wounds,” Ellen tells Gara.

"That's because Dom took the blast," Gara mutters, pressing on Arture's chest. There’s a big bloody gash in it, a smell like burnt Twiglets in the air, but the edges sort of trickle together as they mend. "Ilia, how is Arik?"

"Same as Nevare, downed because Dom is. Thank the All-Mother, they'll be fine." Ilia sits back on his heels, his scales flickering bright silver. Glancing at Ellen, he explains, “Dom can tank a hit, and Arture can heal faster than any of us.”

Right, because that made sense, but I can’t ask any intrusive ADHD questions right now.

“Cool,” Ellen replies. How the fuck is she this calm too? And then she looks up at me. “We still have a robot on the loose, right?”

Here it comes. Arabella, you were somewhere you weren’t supposed to be and did something, didn’t you? I was guilty of the first—ish—but not the second.

My brain jumps ahead, and I point at Gara. “He’s hiding something!”

"I told you not to go in there," Gara snaps.

Great, someone to vent my anger with! But before I can retort, Ilia slaps him across the head. "Don’t speak like that to them."

Gara cradles his skull. Shit, that must have hurt. I go to his side as Ellen reams Ilia out for smacking him. She fumes, “We don’t hit each other. Where you come from, violence might be second nature, but not here, and certainly not on my land!”

The big scary leader touches Gara’s shoulder. “My deepest apologies, Gara.” Ilia faces Ellen directly, shoulders squared as if bracing for the firing squad. “I reacted to correct behavior which would lead to Gara’s punishment if he’d spoken like that on Oloria.”

Ellen seems taken aback, and so am I. We’ve seen hints over the last few weeks and I’m dying to know—what kind of world have they come from? I study Gara’s face, but the green alien avoids my gaze, jaw set like concrete, refusing to acknowledge I’m there.

With an exasperated huff, Ellen tugs my sleeve, bringing my attention swinging to her. "What do you mean, he's hiding something?"

I lick my dry lips. "He's shifty, going in there all the time," I explain. Flimsy reasoning indeed, but it's the excuse I was going to use if I got caught. Which I was.

"This is our ship, it has the technology I need on it." Gara’s scales glow a sickly dark green. “The plascrete manufacturer, charging for the diagnostic tools, and all my medical supplies. Unless I’m going to do something primitive, like set a broken bone by hand.”

Gara meets my eyes at last, his gaze saying everything he can’t, not with Ilia around. Hatred blazes out of him; if looks could kill, I’d be paste on the side of the spaceship.

“We need to get that robot before it hurts someone," Ellen says.

“I will hunt it down," Ilia snarls, red racing up his chest and back.

"It's on my land, you'll need a guide.” Ellen gives me a quick hug that’s more like a touch of her arms against my back. "Don't do anything, okay? Call Laura and Nicole."

I rub my face. It's wet, probably a combo of rain and tears. "Why, because I can't do shit on my own?"

Ellen’s lips thin. "I mean someone else to bounce ideas off before you act."

"Oh, Ms Responsible. I'm not the one charging after a fucking robot with an alien."

"You didn't tell me you had suspicions about one of them," she hisses.

"I…wanted more evidence." Even I know that’s a shit excuse.

Then I see it. The disappointment in Ellen’s face echoes all the other times I’ve dropped a ball, or literally dropped something, or otherwise fucked something up. I usually make it right again, but shot aliens is a bit of a big mistake to make.

I bite my tongue. I deserve to get chewed out. As it turns out, Gara’s right, it was dangerous, and I really shouldn’t have gone in there.

Ilia and Ellen argue as they head off up the track to the fields after the robot. I’d offer to go with them, but I’m pissed at myself. The usual excuses of ‘I couldn’t help myself’ pale against the bodies of the guys lying on the ground.

Wringing my hands, I ask Gara, “How can I help? ”

He doesn’t even look my way, busy bandaging the pilot’s chest next to his limp mechanical arm. “They’ll recover in a quarter of a cycle. Sixteen Earth hours.”

“Okay. Can I do anything for them?”

His silence says it all. I can’t help him with anything.

But I can’t let that stop me or get me down. I can get the aliens out of the rain at least. They’re so big I don’t think Gara and I can move any of them, even working together. Not that it seems possible he’d ever work with me.

So, if they won’t come to the mountain, perhaps I’ll bring the mountain to them. I snap my fingers, making rain fly. I can find where Ellen put her big white farm show tents.

By the time I’ve dug one out of the machine shed and dragged it to the back garden, two of the triplets are awake. “Hey, you’re okay. I’m so glad.”

They immediately duck their heads to press them on the soggy ground. “We’re sorry we were taken by surprise,” they say in complete unison. “It won’t happen again.”

“It’s okay, it’s fine,” I try to reassure them as they heave the third brother to dangle limp between them.

Gara lifts the pilot into his arms and strides off, gaze fixed ahead as he leads them to the lean to where Ellen usually parks her dad’s Land Rover, and where they've been sleeping for the past few weeks.

I kind of hover after them, like a lost balloon.

A soggy, distractible balloon. It’s not much of a shelter at all inside, certainly not for February, the chill wind whistling through the metal joints and corrugated roof.

A pile of cardboard and wooden recycling forms one wall, and there are these kinds of bays where they’ve been bedding down.

They haven’t complained and they warm their bodies by themselves, like boilers, but my lips still twist seeing where they’re trying to shelter.

Gara sets Arture down on the concrete floor, cushioning his head, and then runs his hands up and down his scales, eyes half closing like he’s meditating.

“I’m going to go inside—” I begin, but the green alien jumps, as if he forgot I was near. “I, uh, I need to put the hot water on for Ellen, she’ll want a shower when she gets back.”

Gara turns those accusing eyes to me, but I can’t face him anymore. I scuttle into the house and wait up for her.

She’ll be back any minute now. Watching the aliens settle to sleep outside, I pace in the bedroom she lets me have when I stay.

Any minute now.