Page 14

NATALIE

S itting at a table with a bounty of fresh fruit, vegetables, and numerous steaming dishes with Holly across from me was such a normal—human—activity. As long as I didn’t glance over at one of the guys prowling around the room, always on alert.

“In a matter of days, I’ve already learned more than all my years in college combined,” Holly chattered excitedly.

“I’m pretty sure I saw some wild criollo trees on the way into town.

From the color of the pods, I’m hoping they haven’t been contaminated by any of the more modern cacao varieties.

If so, they’re the closest thing to what the ancient Maya would have made chocolate from.

It’s the finest, rarest chocolate in the world. ”

“Holly’s specialty is ancient flora, especially how plants were incorporated into cultures and rituals,” I explained. “Lohr could get you an exact analysis if you’d like.”

Her eyes lit up even more. “Really? Yeah, that’d be great. I’d love to have a sample pod and maybe a cutting to take back home.” She grimaced, her shoulders falling. “Well. If we ever do get to go home.”

“If you want to go home?—”

“No,” she cut in quickly, meeting my gaze. “I’m a little homesick, that’s all. Even if I wasn’t learning so much about Guatemalan forests, I’d want to stay and learn more about the dyni.” She laughed, shaking her head ruefully. “I didn’t even know aliens were real.”

Kroktl huffed out an amused sigh as he squatted beside my chair. He pulled my plate closer to him—so he could more easily feed me. I opened my mouth to protest but he simply said, “You’re not eating quickly enough.”

“We’ve got a lot to talk about.” Though my stomach chose to growl so loudly that Holly smothered a giggle.

Rolling my eyes, I opened my mouth and took the offered bite of delicate white, flaky fish.

Expertly prepared and seasoned, as delicious as everything we’d eaten, as if ordered from a five-star restaurant.

Rizan ordered all our meals from a nearby town, but it hadn’t really connected in my head that we must be close to a well-populated area.

“You said you’d been into town? What’s it like? ”

“We’ve been going into Livingston almost every day,” Dr. Snyder said. “I pick up any available newspapers and go into some of the local bars and gathering places to listen for anything unusual. We were going to walk but Rizan managed to get us a rental car.”

:Which is absolutely bugged, along with his phone and laptop .: Standing near the sliding glass doors, Rizan ruffed up the feathers on his shoulders. :Nothing electronic will get past my monitoring, and I’m also recording exactly where he’s been and when.:

I flashed a smile at him. “No sightings that might be other squads?”

“Not yet.” He clicked his beak with disappointment. “I’m listening on all channels, and we’re plugged into the local population as well.”

Kroktl gave me another few bites while my mind hopped around like a game of hot potato. “Were you able to track the squad that attacked us at the cave?”

He rumbled, a low sound of displeasure. “No.”

In that single word, I felt all his frustration. His instincts warred between protecting me—and scouting out the area for himself. “You should go and see.”

He gave me another bite of roasted potatoes. “You can’t get rid of me that easily, baby.”

I started to roll my eyes again, but instead the rosemary and crispy skins on the potatoes made my eyes close in bliss. “I’m not trying to get rid of you and you know it.”

“I’m still scanning the surrounding area for both movement and ozone spikes,” Rizan said. “Other than local lifeforms, there’s no trace of another squad.”

“But they could have simply jumped to a new location, right?”

“Highly probable, in fact. They must have jumped off planet or out of range. Other than the brief spikes associated with abductions, I haven’t noted anything that might be squad activity.”

“Could they be masking their jumps like Axxol does?”

Speaking of the devil, Axxol strode into the room with a furious, hard stride as if I’d demanded his royal presence. “Doubtful.”

Cocking my head, I gave him a challenging look that made his eyes narrow into sapphire slits. “Why not? And don’t say it’s because you’re just that good.”

“I am that good.” He flashed his teeth in a glittering, wide smile. “There aren’t any other BGR+ pilots, which means none of them are as free-thinking as me. They do what they’re programmed to do and that’s it.”

“And HQ wouldn’t update their programming once they noted how you were cloaking yourself?”

His nose twitched as if he’d smelled something rotten—or highly intriguing. For a predator, probably both. “There’s no fucking way they know how I’m cloaking my jumps. I only thought of it because Rizan was using Earth interference to block the other squad’s comms.”

“But—”

“You don’t realize how rare all of this is,” Lohr broke in, though he kept his tone gentle, his voice’s low timbre soothing.

“Every move a squad makes is predetermined by their programming. Dynosauros has been operating for millennia. Our strategies have been honed and perfected across a million missions. Even more importantly, after each and every mission, we’re analyzed by the best minds and programs in the universe to make us even better. ”

“Right,” I nodded. “The very same programming that prompted using interference to mask your movements.”

“No, it’s not the same at all.” Rizan stepped closer, his feathers fluffed up around his shoulders and neck, brilliant and glittering like fine emeralds.

“The parameters changed when Axxol broke up the squad. We were forced to adapt in order to survive, which began to modify our programming. Then Kroktl called us to you, and everything changed, even the way we interface with each other. We’re irreparably changed forever.

We adapted in ways HQ could never predict. ”

“I was changing before I even came here,” Kroktl rumbled deep and low, making the water in my glass shimmer. “I didn’t know it then, baby, but I was changing for you.”

Aw. But I still couldn’t shake the nagging sense of dread. “HQ won’t sit around waiting for us to make a mistake. They’re doing something. We have to figure out what it is, and we can’t rely on the assumption that they haven’t figured out anything about how you’re changing.”

Axxol heaved out a vicious sigh. “Agreed. It makes sense to worry about the other squad since we didn’t eliminate them.”

“In all the missions you went on, nothing like this ever happened that we can use to guess their next move?”

“We were never used to hunt another dyni squad,” he replied. “Only known threats to the numerous interests of DSC.”

“More than just Myrm deposits, then?”

“Yeah,” Kroktl admitted. “Anything even slightly related to Myrm was terminated on sight, no need to wait for direct orders. But for the past twenty or thirty missions, we were used to eliminate other threats.”

My head cocked. “Like what?”

“Pockets of rebels attacking the syndicate’s more remote shipping lanes.”

“Our last forty-nine missions were to a region of the universe you might know as Hercules-Corona Borealis,” Lohr added.

“The network of galaxies has infinitely many hiding places for smugglers and raiders. They attack the primary shipping lane between Draco and Hercules and then jump through gamma-ray bursts in the area to disappear before the patrols can track them.”

Shaking my head slowly, I could only laugh. “More and more, this is sounding like an episode of Star Trek .”

And I’m woefully ill-prepared for such an episode.

RIZAN

Our mate’s concern tightened the interlaced network of the grid until the invisible lines shimmered with tense energy. All of us drew nearer the table where she sat, compelled to protect and assist in any way possible.

Luckily for me, I was uniquely qualified to help ease her fears by making Earthling inferences from their communications—which included seemingly useless episodes of a science-fiction media franchise.

“When shit hits the fan, Scottie can just beam us up.”

A smile cracked the tight lines of her face. “In other words, Axxol can jump us somewhere.” Though the smile slipped back into worried creases in her brow. “As long as he isn’t decommissioned by a trap again. That’s why they took him first, so they could pick the rest of you off one by one.”

“We can’t confirm the trap was designed solely for Axxol, or more generically, a pilot,” Lohr said. “Though your inference is valid.”

“This is going to sound dumb, but…” The other human female paused, waiting for Natalie to nod with encouragement.

“Don’t they have trackers on you to show your location at all times?

I mean, if I lose my purse, I’ve got a tag in it so I can always locate it on my phone.

It’s even sewn into the lining so it’s not immediately found and discarded if my purse is stolen.

They’re going to want their technology back, right? ”

This was also my area of expertise. “We do have tracking applications built into every aspect of our programming, but I disabled it almost immediately.”

“Every Sirian cell?” Natalie asked, staring off into space. Eyes soft and hazed, she seemed to be looking more internally than externally.

“Yes.”

“But isn’t that impossible?” The human male asked. “There must be billions of cells in our bodies, let alone yours.”

“The human body contains roughly thirty-seven trillion cells,” Snryx replied. “Dyni carry closer to sixty trillion, though only ten to twenty percent actually carry Sirian programming.”

“Which are billions of cells to manage,” Snyder said. “If even one of these alien super cells goes rogue, won’t your department be able to track you down?”

Lohr let out a deep huff of amusement mixed with irritation. “You clearly don’t understand basic biology.”