Page 3 of Invasive Species (Outcasts of Oloria #2)
TWO
GARA
I’m only half asleep when someone shakes me awake. As soon as their hand touches my shoulder, I know it’s one of the Parthiastocks from the hard grip. His temperature’s within normal range, breathing rate acceptable if a little accelerated.
“Who’s in trouble?” I demand, sitting upright.
I’d let myself rest at the foot of the bay where I’d put Dom and Arture side by side, and their chests rise and fall evenly, so they aren't the emergency.
Taking a deep breath with my mouth partly open, I taste the air with my tongue: a copper-iron tang of dried blood and the rich sulfur of their nanites as they work overtime to heal the superficial blast from the war bot. They're fine.
I swing round to face my crewmate. Judging from the yellow tint to their eyes, it’s Arik.
I ask him, “Is it Nevare?” I lift my head to search for the powerful psychic, the Apex of their trio. The gray-eyed Parthiastock stands outside our shelter in the rain, face lifted to the darkness.
I jump to my feet. “Is he coping with Dom’s injury? Are you able to control him? ”
“Of course. He’s fine,” Arik says, voice as firm as Dom’s.
Usually Arik’s the more light-hearted of the trio, but with Dom knocked out, he’s stepped up as primary Base.
As the Apex Parthiastock, Nevare reads brainwaves directly, but Dom and Arik keep him grounded.
Without them, he’d be dangerous—so dangerous he’d have to be euthanized.
“Then what is it?” Arik wouldn’t wake me like that unless faced with a crisis. I spin to face the house. “Is it the females?”
“It’s Ilia, Gara. He’s gone.”
“Wh…what?”
“He was retrieved. Taken away.” Nevare speaks slowly, like wading through clouds.
Rain patters around us, enclosing us in our shelter.
“Away?” I croak, tendrils of cold sliding down my scales. “Surely not.”
“Back to Oloria,” Arik confirms grimly. “He sent Nevare a message, I helped direct him to intercept it but couldn’t respond myself. He… he lied to the retrieval Gerverstocks and said we all perished in the crash.”
My head swims but my thoughts quickly sharpen as adrenaline spikes, focusing my reactions as if I’m facing a medical emergency.
But this isn’t an emergency I can deal with if he’s already gone. “Why has Oloria taken him? What do they want with him?”
Arik shakes his head. “All Nevare could see was they had orders from a female.”
The tightness in my jaw increases to unbearable. “The Prif. She wanted Ilia—all of us—killed.” As soon as she had him back, Ilia would be disposed of like any other inconvenient clone.
His last action, lying to the retrieval team, was to save us all.
My breath turns shallow, too fast, like I’m choking on nothing.
A tremor shudders through my fingers, and I clench them into fists, but it doesn’t stop the shudders spreading up my arms, squeezing my ribs.
Arik winces, the mild psychic no doubt feeling my emotions.
The air around me feels too thick, pressing in, pressing down, but I breathe deeply. I have to shove my feelings aside and focus on what I can do to help. Triage the situation. “Did he leave any orders?”
“He says El-len is in a Lam-Ing Shed, at the pinnacle of her land, and will need retrieval.”
That we can do. I nod.
Then Arik’s gaze turns pitying. “His last order is that you’re in charge, Gara.”
The thunder of my own heartbeats overtakes the hammering of the rain, closing in around me. This is wrong, all wrong. I was made to heal, not to command. My instincts prioritize survival in a crisis, but only when it comes to life and death, to wounds and injuries. Not this.
“I’m no Gerverstock—” I protest, but stop myself.
Ilia chose me. I can’t let him down. Realistically, I am the only choice. Dom and Arik need to be free to support Nevare, and Arture’s struggling enough, let alone under the additional burden of navigating a complex new social relationship with the lifeforms here.
I glance toward the homestead. A very complicated relationship indeed.
The human females are so small, so fragile—no scales, no defenses—and so far they’ve only ordered us to replace the barn we destroyed.
But no female would give up the power they have over males; they haven’t shown it yet, but their authoritative side is bound to come out.
And without Ilia to negotiate with them, I’m going to have to shield my crewmates from the worst of it.
Nevare touches my arm to bring my attention back to him. “Dom will struggle with this change. With… you being not so physically imposing. ”
That might insult anyone else, but I know my own limitations. Dom needs a strong hand to keep him in check; Parthiastocks crave structure, toppling weak leaders to maintain stability. It’s never been an issue with Ilia, who sparred with him to keep his instincts in check, but I’m no fighter.
Sweat creeps over my scales. If I slip up, if I fail them, Dom won’t have a choice. He’ll challenge me. And I would let him—except he’d be a terrible leader, and he also knows it. But instincts don’t care. We were programmed this way, then abandoned to figure it out.
I haul myself to my feet and into the clattering rain. This world spins fast, shortening our rest cycles, but sleep won’t come now. My mind races through everything Ilia would have done. At least that’s something I can do, organize and prioritize actions, and make difficult decisions.
And first and most importantly, I need to tell the females of the change in command.
The wet gravel crunches beneath my feet as I approach the farmhouse.
If El-len still needs rescue, then only Arra-bellah is inside.
The tiniest yet most inquisitive human, who accused me of sneaking around inside the ship which brought us here.
It’s only a matter of time until she condemns me for some crime.
My steps slow as I approach the door. Do they have a camera system? Some kind of alarm? Should I knock? Call out? How does Ilia do this?
“Arra-bellah,” I call, not too loudly in case she’s sleeping. I don’t want to add disrupting her rest to my list of potential crimes.
Nothing. The house remains silent and shut to me.
I turn to leave when a window above flings open. My vision sharpens with a rush as one of the females who holds our lives in her hands leans out, her long red hair unraveling in the night wind, making her look like a wild maven from Olorian legend.
“Gara,” Arra-bellah hisses toward the lean-to.
“Here,” I reply, smacking my fist to my chest in a salute.
She startles, elbows slipping off the lintel. I lunge forward, ready to catch her, but she rights herself.
“Holy heck—why are you right underneath the frigging window?” Before I can answer, she says, “Never mind. Ellen left with some aliens.” She waves her small lit device, probably how El-len contacted her.
“El-len… left too?” What does it mean?
“‘Too’? Who else went joy riding?”
I bow my head. “Ilia was retrieved by Olorians.”
“Ooh, yes, she said she followed Ilia into a spaceship.”
My hearts beat steadier—if El-len is with Ilia, what does that mean for him?
Our Gerverstock desires a mate, a female of his own, for some unfathomable reason.
Perhaps he thinks being shackled to one female is better than being beholden to any and all of them.
It’s no secret he wanted El-len to choose him, despite them not having Mating Games for him to prove himself to her.
“They left together, then.” Arra-bellah spins the device in her hands, studying me like I’m something new.
Which, I suppose, I am to her. An unknown species.
But even though she’s human, I know all about the capricious and ruthless nature of females toward clones.
Any female could dispose of us as they please.
And I hate it. I shove down the bile creeping up my throat, trying to keep my face clear of my emotions, even though my scales will betray me. El-len probably left her in charge; now she holds our lives in her hands, her true nature will emerge.
She says, “I’m coming down. Let’s talk,” and disappears before I can confirm.
I clench my fists, then force my fingers to relax. If Arra-bellah senses my hatred, or if any of the Parthiastocks overhear my traitorous thoughts, they’ll euthanize me and I’ll fail Ilia.
When Arra-bellah opens the door, I slip inside, waiting a few seconds for the rain to slide down my scales and puddle on the floor of this small airlock-like atrium before I enter the house itself.
The kitchen is the only area of the house we’ve been invited into.
Here, El-len prepared a protein-laden morning meal for us all.
The pans hang neatly on the beams overhead, kitchenware gleaming, a marked difference from when we first landed and were dragged in here.
It feels more organized now, even though I itch to sort and store the wood-based substrate papers covering the table in piles.
My sensitive olfactory nerves catalogue the woody scent of the beams across the ceiling, the gritty dust of the stones enclosing us, and the ghosts of the egg breakfasts El-len served us.
Arra-bellah stands to one side, bundled up in a warm fur-like fabric belted at the waist. Her scent is complex: as well as salt, there’s a blanket of something warm and spicy in it, like the cinnamon she sprinkles over her morning porridge.
Despite being wrapped, she rubs her arms, teeth chattering.
Humans are unable to change their body temperature much; they aren't robust at all.
She catches me staring at her, but instead of being offended, she explains, “I have no idea where the heating is in Ellen’s house.”
"I will find it." I pull out my diagnostic tool, looking for movement in pipes within the walls. "Small electrical signals lead… here." I point to a small analogue display near the kitchen sink.
"Brilliant." Arra-bellah swoops in, pushing all the buttons on the tiny console.