Page 31

Zandrel

As if on cue, storm clouds roll over the beach just as Roslyn and I are about to make our daring escape.

A large contingency of the cast and crew left for their off-site filming location an hour ago, and the weather moving in has the rest of us drifting off to our accommodations. The afternoon has all the indicators of being slow, unremarkable, and almost too good to believe as Roslyn and I ease ourselves up and out of the bedroom window.

From there, our good luck continues.

With the sensors disarmed, there’s no record in production’s systems of us leaving, and with the lack of activity on the beach, most of the cameras are currently offline. I only have to intercept and redirect a handful that get close to the route we’ve mapped from the bungalow to the fence to the yard where they keep the hovers. It all goes exactly according to plan, and in a few short minutes, we’re letting ourselves out through a hidden gate in the perimeter fence.

Darting quickly through the underbrush, I do one last security scan as we reach the craftyard. The closest guard is over two hundred meters away and walking in the other direction, the closest camera back inside the fence.

“Clear,” I murmur to Roslyn, and she leads the way to the hover we’ve picked out.

Just big enough for the both of us, it’s a sleek, compact ride with a charge range that should get us easily to the village and back.

I keep watch while she goes to work on the control panel, fingers quickly crossing wires to fire it up. I’ve already taken the opportunity to hack into its tracking module in the Mate Match systems and create a false record of it being here and accounted for.

If anyone comes to verify that fact for themselves, we might be in trouble, but with most of the crew already gone and the rest unlikely to be doing a lot of travel around the beach today with the approaching storms, I tuck the concern away.

“It’s ready,” Ros murmurs as the hover hums to life and we both climb on.

I give my cuff one last check, and the nearest guard is even further away now, still walking in the opposite direction. Even so, we both duck low on the craft, keeping behind the front dash as Roslyn expertly steers it out of the yard and toward the jungle.

We plan to follow a wide, winding river that cuts through that jungle all the way to the village. It’s the best route, giving us plenty of room to navigate above the water, even if it leaves us more exposed than if we were to travel through the cover of the trees. But with the size of the craft and the lack of any established routes through the thick underbrush, the river route will have to do.

It only takes a few minutes to navigate from the craftyard to the riverbank, and as soon as we’ve cleared sight of the yard, we both rise from our crouches. Roslyn gives the craft a little more speed, and we’re off.

Neither of us has much to say as we travel deeper into the Eritin wilderness, beyond brief confirmations of the route and estimated time of arrival.

Roslyn stays steady at the steering column while I keep my eyes trained on the surrounding jungle. I’m armed only with one paltry weapon—a blaster that can stun, but won’t provide much more offensive capability if we run into trouble.

We’re not going to run into trouble.

I keep reminding myself of that, silently repeating it like a mantra as the hover glides swiftly over the river’s curves. Eritin is not home to any large predators that would pose a threat, and by all indications, the village we’re headed to is peaceful as well.

It was originally founded as a scientific colony, its inhabitants sent to study the planet.

Eritin itself is owned by a confederation of large, multi-galactic corporations, and might have gone the route of complete colonization if the interests which run Mate Match and dozens of other vidcomm shows hadn’t been so invested in keeping it a private, pristine location for filming.

By agreement with the original scientific colony, they were allowed to stay even when the show’s production kicked off in earnest. Their existence here is still loosely governed by the corporate overlords who own the planet, but as far as I can tell, they’re allowed to live mostly in peace.

There’s not much more available on the universal comms networks about the current inhabitants, which isn’t a complete surprise. It’s a small colony, hardly noteworthy.

On any other day, it would hardly be a blip on my radar.

No threats here I couldn’t handle, a mission I could run in my sleep.

But with Roslyn beside me, the calculus has changed.

Because even though I know she’s more than capable of being on this mission with me, and even though the possibility of danger is negligible, it’s not zero. And that tiny sliver of possibility that something might go wrong means I can’t relax, not for a second.

It’s as much of a surprise as anything else, this fierce protection I feel. This deep responsibility to make sure Roslyn gets where she’s going and back unscathed. I feel it to my marrow, the importance of what we’re doing today and what my true mission here is.

Give Roslyn whatever she needs.

Whatever backup, whatever protection, anything I can do to make sure all her planning and all her bravery, everything she’s done and sacrificed to be here, isn’t for naught.

The journey to the village takes just under an hour. In that time, we pass through more of this planet’s stunning wilderness as the river meanders through sections of thick jungle interspersed with coastal plains—vast stretches of marshy wilderness where brackish water and tidal cycles create a biome filled with life. Birds circle above and small creatures occasionally dart in and out of the reeds along the river bank.

Overhead, the sky remains heavy and gray, but the promised storm refuses to break.

Rain would be better, and certainly, there’s nothing we can do or could have planned for where the weather is concerned. But the oppressive weight of the clouds above, of the threatening rain and distant rumbles of thunder, doesn’t sit well with me. It’s the waiting, the whisper of something yet to come. Some eventuality we haven’t planned for, some threat waiting to jump out and catch us off-guard, that has my muscles tense with anticipation, mind racing.

Foolish, all of this worry, but I can’t shake it. I’ve got the feeling I won’t be able to relax fully until we’re back on the Mate Match beach, safely tucked into the bungalow, the day’s events behind us.

A few more minutes pass, and just as I check the map one last time, the village comes into view around a bend in the river.

It materializes from the dense jungle like it’s a thing of nature itself. All its structures are built in perfect harmony with the surrounding environment—rising organically from the riverbank, or wrapped seamlessly around the trunks of towering trees—it takes my eyes a few moments to fully comprehend what I’m looking at.

A marvel of technology and craftsmanship, it’s clear that whoever built it had an eye for symbiosis with the Eritin environment.

It doesn’t take long for our craft to draw notice. On the riverbank, a villager darts away from the water and between two of the structures built into the hill, obviously off to raise some kind of alarm. The hairs on the back of my neck rise.

“Down,” I say to Roslyn. “They may not take kindly to outsiders.”

We both duck low behind the hover’s dash, and Roslyn eases back on the throttle as we come in for our final approach.

It’s quiet, too quiet, like the village is as wary of us as we are of it. I half-rise from my crouch, eyes darting from structure to structure searching for any threat, hand resting on the useless stun blaster at my waist. I won’t pull it if I don’t need to—entering a situation with a weapon drawn causes more harm than good when the aim is amicable diplomacy—but my fingers twitch, nonetheless.

That twitch nearly becomes a fast draw as a male figure steps forward, out of the structure on the bank that seems to serve as a docking area for rivercrafts.

He’s tall, broad, with sharp features and deep green skin accented with scales. He has a tail, too, and golden eyes narrowed in suspicion as he steps forward, walking slowly down the planks of the long dock that juts out from the structure and into the river.

When we’re within hearing range, he calls out to us.

“State your purpose here.”

I rise to a full standing position, but rest a hand on Roslyn’s shoulder in a silent command to stay where she is. It’s a command she ignores, much to my consternation, as she stands, too, and pulls back on the throttle to bring the hover to a stop over the river a few meters away from the dock.

“We’re here looking for someone,” she answers the male. “A human. Savannah.”

“And who’s doing the looking?” the male shoots back, eyes narrowing even further.

“Her sister.”

The males studies us for a few seconds more, seeming to weigh his decision carefully before he gestures us forward.

“You may dock.”

Roslyn maneuvers us forward, easing the hover to the end of the dock so we can disembark. Behind the male, a crowd has gathered. The assembled villagers appear to be just as diverse as the Mate Match cast, an amalgamation of different species, ages, genders. A vibrant and apparently thriving community here in the Eritin wilderness that even includes a handful of children peering out from behind their parents’ legs to see what’s going on.

As soon as our feet touch the wooden planks, the male takes another step forward, gesturing to me.

“I’ll take that blaster,” he says. “And any other weapons you might have.”

“This is our only weapon,” I say, just as curt and formal as him, as I take a step closer, lay it on the dock, then step back to stand next to Roslyn.

“We’ll have to verify that.” He looks back over his shoulder. “Thanna, search them.”

A growl rises in the back of my throat, but Ros lays a steady hand on my forearm. “Let them.”

She’s right, I know she’s right, but I still bristle as a female who looks like she may be of a species related to the Aventris steps forward. Two large, feathered wings rise gracefully from her back, and ostentatious plumage runs from the crest of her beaked face up and over the back of her head, feathers in a hundred different shades of purple and blue.

She makes quick work of the search, patting us both down and confirming we’re not lying about being unarmed.

“I’ll need to check your hover, as well,” she warns, and I give her a brief nod of confirmation before she completes that task, too.

Satisfied that we’re not about to launch some sort of attack on her home, Thanna retreats.

The green-scaled male, who’s been watching the entire time with his keen golden eyes, turns his attention to Roslyn.

“What do you want with Savannah?”

I want to snap a warning for the tone he takes with her, but I hold my tongue and wait for Roslyn to speak. I’m here for her, and however she wants to play this, we’ll play this.

“So she’s here, then?” Ros says, and though she’s doing an admirable job of keeping her voice just as brusque and business-like as the male, I don’t miss the quaver in it, the edge of desperate hope.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” the male says flatly, and this time I can’t squash the rumbled warning in my chest.

It’s a warning that catches the male’s attention, has his gaze snapping back to me, but he doesn’t get the chance to speak.

A sudden movement from the gathering crowd puts me immediately on the defensive. I step in front of Roslyn, keenly aware of the disadvantage we’re at being unarmed and outnumbered.

“Ros? Is that you?”

The voice sounds so similar to Roslyn’s that I stiffen in surprise. It’s a surprise that only doubles when the person it belongs to steps out from the crowd, walking forward to stand at the male’s side.

Human.

The similarities between this woman and Roslyn go well beyond the voice. Their height and build are similar, and though this woman’s face is slightly longer and narrower, her rich brown hair and bright green eyes are almost an exact match to Roslyn’s.

“Savvie?”

Roslyn pushes past me, and I don’t have time to regain control of the situation, to pull her back and assess before she steps closer to the male and Savannah and the rest of the villagers.

“Ros,” I mutter, but she’s beyond hearing me, and I hardly blame her.

She takes a step toward her sister, then another, until the male steps out in front of Savannah and pushes her behind him with a growl rising in his throat.

I open my mouth to growl right back, but don’t get the chance.

“Arrik,” Savannah murmurs. “It’s alright. She’s my sister.”

She lays a hand on his forearm, squeezing gently before brushing past her to approach Ros.

A long-awaited reunion, and one I assumed would be met with joy.

Only… Savannah is not smiling.

Her brow is furrowed, and there’s a frown on her lips. Every inch of her radiates the same kind of anxious, wary tension Ros always used to have around me.

My gut tightens with the first faint stirrings of dread.

What exactly did Roslyn and I just walk into?