She gestured at the open ravine and the murky water below. “And that’s a pretty big ditch.”
Her palm remained a gentle heat on his cheek. Her other hand swept his hair out of his face. He didn’t want to move. He wanted to lay forever, inhaling her scent, feeling her touch on his face, listening to her tell stories about her childhood.
But there was no telling what this hellishly unstable planet would do next. They had to keep moving. He sat up slowly, regretting the loss of her touch as she pulled her hands away.
“Lyra,” he said gravely.
She looked up at him.
“You could have died.”
“No, didn’t you hear me? About the ditch? We were totally fine.”
It took him a second to realize her flippant attitude was a joke. She was acknowledging the danger through an absurd denial. The remnants of his anger dissipated. She was terrifyingly cool in the face of death. What he wouldn’t give to have a son by her.
What he wouldn’t give to have her. Just her.
He got to his feet and retrieved his arc rifle from the cave. He slung it over his shoulder. Lyra stood beside him. All around them, debris continued to rain down. Rocks and sticks and the corpses of forest creatures whistled through the air, landing with muffled thuds and thunks on the forest floor, clattering against the cliffs, splashing at the bottom of the ravine.
“The ship shouldn’t be too much farther,” he said. “Hopefully we can make it without any more—”
Lyra fell back a step, a sharp breath catching in her throat. Asier spun to face the direction of her horrified stare.
Spiders.
And not just one. But many. At least a dozen.
They were nearly as big as Lyra, with mottled gray-brown bodies bristling with coarse hairs, armored carapace covering their thorax.
They raced up from the depths of the ravine, covering ground quickly on their segmented legs. A multitude of clawed feet ticked against the rock, making a sound like the fall of heavy rain. The nearest one spit a jet of black fluid from a chattering, pincer-flanked maw. The rock sizzled and bubbled where the fluid landed. Not far from where Lyra and Asier stood.
Asier seized Lyra, threw her over his shoulder, and ran.
Lyra gripped the back of Asier’s jacket to keep her face from bashing into his back with every jarring stride. Unfortunately, it left her in the position of staring at the horde of hellishly large, acid-spitting spiders. Their round, black, unblinking multitude of eyes locked on Lyra with unthinking, predatory fascination.
Very fortunately, Asier was fast. The gap between them and the spiders widened as he raced over the ground. He ran up the ridge, bringing them to higher, dryer ground. An old conversation echoed in her mind: They will climb to hunt if they have to.
“Can you shoot?” Asier yelled over his shoulder.
“What?”
He nudged the stock of his arc rifle, calling her attention to where it hung on his other shoulder.
“Yes, but I’ve never shot one of those,” she shouted back.
“There’s a safety beside the trigger,” he called instructions between rough breaths. “It needs to prime for ten beats before you can take a shot, so each shot has to count—”
“How long is a beat?”
“As long as a heartbeat.”
Lyra had no idea what the average Scaeven heart rate might be. “That’s not helpful!”
“There’s an indicator on the barrel. It’ll light up when it’s fully primed.”
He was fast, but she could tell he was getting winded. He’d taken off like a bat out of hell, but was now dropping into a steadier pace. He was slowing almost imperceptibly.
The spiders were keeping pace.
Keeping hold of his jacket with one hand, she reached over and caught the rifle as he shrugged it off. She wrapped the sling around her arm so that she wouldn’t lose it if his thundering gait jounced it out of her grip.
She had to let go of his jacket to hold and fire the rifle. She flicked the safety off, flipped up the scope glass, and pressed her thumb down on the priming switch. She counted her own rapid heartbeats and got to twenty-five when the indicator lit up. She braced the stock against her shoulder, braced her elbows on Asier’s back, sighted down the scope, and set the crosshairs on the nearest spider.
Her body bobbed up and down with every one of Asier’s loping strides. She pressed the gunstock as tightly into her shoulder as possible, making it an extension of her body, forcing it to move with her. At the bottom of each bounce, the crosshairs centered on her target. She took a deep breath, waiting, waiting…
She squeezed the trigger.
From the gun, there was no reaction. She heard no percussion, felt no recoil, saw no discharge. But the spider she’d aimed for instantaneously burst into an explosion of black goo. A smoking carapace landed beside two still-twitching legs.
Lyra let out a whoop.
Asier didn’t turn back to see, but he responded with a breathless laugh and a tightening of his arms around her legs.
Lyra pressed her thumb to the primer, counted her heartbeats again. It lit up at twenty-two this time. She sighted down the scope for the next bastard, centered the crosshairs, waited for the bottom beat of Asier’s stride…
…and fired. Another explosion of black goo and smoking body parts.
The rest of the pack were undaunted. They skittered onward, chasing relentlessly over rock and loam, through scrub and bracken. Lyra primed the gun, sighted in a third target, and blasted the horrible thing to kingdom come.
Her stomach dipped as Asier suddenly dropped down a slope she wasn’t expecting. Her thumb slipped off the primer. She steadied herself, engaged the primer, and waited. As soon as it lit, she felt Asier’s body tense beneath her.
He hissed something in his language, something guttural and grim.
“What?” Lyra called.
“Do not to shift your weight. At all,” he commanded.
Lyra almost instinctively twisted to look at what was coming, but she caught herself, and remained a rigid statue on his shoulder.
She felt him jump, and then she gasped as the ground dropped away from beneath them. They teetered above a steep, dark ravine.
Asier balanced on a fallen tree, moving carefully, leaning to the opposite side to compensate for her weight. The thin trunk flexed and bobbed under their combined weight. If he slipped—or if the tree broke—it’d be a long drop to a wet landing. The water would break their fall just well enough that they might remain conscious while the spiders dissolved and consumed their flesh.
Lyra’s entire body was clenched, every muscle strained taut as piano wire.
When at last solid ground appeared beneath Asier’s feet, Lyra let out a shuddering sigh. Asier resumed his all-out sprint.
Lyra looked up, bracing herself to shoot again—and nearly dropped the gun in shock. Crossing the ravine had slowed them significantly. She’d been so focused on the drop that she’d forgotten about their speed. It had eaten up precious time, allowing the spiders to close in. They poured over the downed tree with ease, crossing the ravine in less than a second. Once on solid ground, the nearest one spit a jet of black acid. It fell just short of Asier’s heels.
Clenching her jaw, bracing her elbows, Lyra lifted the stock to her shoulder, took aim, and fired. The nearest spider exploded into goo. She smashed her thumb down on the primer again, waiting, waiting… come on you stupid fucking—
Ready. She lifted the gun, sighted in, and dissembled another spider into its component parts.
She missed her next shot. The nearest spider spit a jet of acid that spattered the back of Asier’s leg with little droplets that hissed and sizzled through his trousers.
Lyra swallowed the scream rising in her throat and sighted in her next shot. Spider parts shot through the air like disgusting confetti.
One by one, she picked them off until there was only one last monster scuttling jerkily after them. She pressed her thumb t
o the primer. The light came on faintly, then pulsed out. Lyra’s heart stuttered.
No.
She pressed her thumb to the primer again. The light winked weakly at her, then died. No, no, no!
“It won’t prime!” she yelled to Asier.
The spider spit again. Most of the jet fell short, but a few droplets of black fluid landed on Lyra’s unprotected hand. It burned like hellfire, immediately opening raw red wounds. She gasped at the pain.
“Asier! It’s close enough to hit me!”
He snarled something in his own language and spun around. Lyra’s stomach took a second to catch up with movement. Before she really knew what was happening, Asier had dumped her on the ground.
“What are you doing?” Lyra scrambled to her feet as he marched forward to intercept the fast-approaching spider. “Asier! Stop!”
He reached into his coat and pulled out the small electron shooter. He blasted the spider with it. The creature gave only the faintest indication of having felt anything—a momentary stutter in its staccato gait, before it lunged forward.
He blasted it again with the electron shooter. Then again. And again. Each subsequent pulse seemed to have less effect on the creature, until nothing at all happened when Asier pulled the trigger.
The spider was upon him.
Asier leapt to the side, barely avoiding a jet of the corrosive black fluid. He threw the electron shooter to the ground and pulled his knife out.
Lyra clapped her hands over her mouth, holding in a scream. She didn’t want to distract him in any way. But horror clenched her body like a vice, and a faint, rasping keen escaped around the edges of her hands.
Asier lunged forward, just to the side of the spider. The creature turned on a dime, spitting again. Asier twisted away from the stream, but some of it spattered his jacket. Sizzling holes appeared in the material.
Lyra cast around, looking for something—anything—to help. The arc rifle lay on the ground beside her, but it would take time to prime it again—and most likely to accomplish nothing. She couldn’t waste even one second.
In front of her, Asier dodged another spray of acid.
Panicking, Lyra picked up a baseball-sized rock, and hurled it at the spider as hard as she could. It missed the mark by a meter, landing with a dull thud.
But the spider rounded on it as if it were fresh prey—and that was all the opening Asier needed. He brought his knife down—plunging it through the carapace with brutal crack, and burying it to the hilt in the top of the spider’s head segment. Asier released the knife immediately, leaping back.
The spider did not die quickly. It thrashed around in circles, legs crossing drunkenly. Black fluid leaked from the knife wound, and dripped from its maw. A high-pitched chittering sound emanated from the gaping mouth, while its pincers worked in convulsive twitches. Eight shining black eyes pulsed with waves of technicolor iridescence.
Lyra’s stomach churned as she watched it slowly wind down into an oozing, spasmodic death. At long last, it collapsed and went still. Both she and Asier stood frozen, watching the spider, waiting for it to surge suddenly upright.
After several minutes, when it seemed likely to stay dead, Asier circled around it, coming back towards Lyra.
She looked up at him, prepared to exchange weak smiles and shaky, relieved laughter. Instead, he bent down, gathered her into his arms, and held her against his body. After a stunned second, she relaxed against him, reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck. He pressed his face to the top of her head, and simply held her.
Lyra felt something, deep in her chest. It was like a door opening. A light turning on. She pressed her face against Asier’s throat and closed her eyes.
Too soon, he set her back on her feet. “We have to keep going,” he said gruffly.
He snatched up the arc rifle, and slung it back over his shoulder. Lyra fell into step beside him.
As they journeyed onward, Lyra felt a new kind of tension burgeoning between them. She wanted to touch him, but gently, sweetly. She wanted to make sure he was safe, unharmed, but she also wanted to strip him down and feel that big, hard body against hers. And after they’d given each other all the pleasure they could bear, she wanted to lay in his arms and listen to his heartbeat.
She didn’t know what to do with that feeling. So she didn’t speak. And neither did he.
As the sun sank beneath the horizon, the trees thinned and finally gave way to the grassy plain.
They stopped at the edge.
“Where’s the ship?” Lyra asked, squinting in the gloom. It was the first either of them had spoken in some time. She all but whispered the words.
Asier pointed. “Straight out. It’s cloaked.”
Lyra had never encountered cloaking technology that could hide a ship from human vision entirely. She squinted again, trying to resolve the darkness into some kind of form—but still saw nothing.
Asier waded into the grass, and Lyra followed the path he broke. The dry, yellow grass rustled and shushed as it swayed in the mild wind. It tickled against Lyra’s bare leg.
“Do we have to worry about spiders?” she asked, hurrying to stay close at his back.
“Always,” Asier answered. “But I haven’t yet seen them in the grass.”
A few nerve-wracking meters into the field, beneath the draping cover of several tall, yellow-leafed trees, Asier stopped. The air rippled in front of him. Lyra blinked, not certain if she’d really seen it. But then it rippled again.
Asier reached out, placing his hand flat against something Lyra couldn’t see. The sound of flesh hitting metal sounded with a dull thunk. She might not see the ship—but she could hear it.
A second later, a doorway opened in the empty air.
Lyra gasped.
Through the opening, she saw the innards of a ship. Dark corridors glowed faintly from in-floor track lighting. The bulkheads and deck were made of the same marled black as the ship that had transported her to this planet. A thread of unease ran down her spine.
And then Asier turned back, holding out his hand. She let go of the fear. This wasn’t a trick. He wouldn’t do that to her.
Lyra reached out, and took his hand. Asier handed her up into the ship, and then followed after her. The door shut behind him with a hydraulic hiss.
And then there was quiet.
They had made it to safety. They were alive and whole. And the tension was still there—thick as honey. The narrow passageway crowded them close. In the low light, in the quiet, Lyra was acutely aware of Asier’s big body, of the rise and fall of his broad chest as he breathed, of the warmth of him.
They looked at each other. Asier’s eyes were dilated wide—big black pupils surrounded by a thin gold ring. Lyra’s hands shook. She swallowed convulsively.
Asier turned away first. “The control cabin is this way,” he said gruffly.
Lyra drew in a shaky breath, and followed him. Their footsteps thudded dully over the ship’s impact-absorbent decking. Strips of recessed lighting glowed to life as they approached, illuminating their way.
The control cabin was a small space with two pilot’s chairs in front of a single, long, smooth, black instrumentation panel below a long window that looked out over the nose of the ship.
Asier stepped inside and waited for Lyra to follow. The space was just big enough for the two of them. She could almost feel his body heat, radiating out, begging her to lean into his warmth.
Asier moved abruptly away from her. He sat in the port-side chair.
“Come sit,” he rumbled. “You should know how to pilot the ship.”
She hadn’t expected this. To give her the ability to take control of his ship… it stunned her. It took her a second to lurch into motion. She dropped clumsily into the other chair. It was meant for a body much bigger than hers. She felt like a child in it. She slid forward, perching on the edge of the seat. Her toes just touched the deck.
Asier woke up the instrumentation panel with a tap. “Lay you
r hand here—” he gestured to an illuminated square in front of Lyra.
She obeyed, pressing her palm to the panel. “Why?”
“If something happens and you need to pilot manually, the ship needs to recognize your bio-imprint.”
The illuminated square flashed bright, and then faded to darkness, matching the rest of the panel. An AI voice filled the cabin, growling in Scaeven.
Asier tapped at the panel. The AI made a brief declaration.
“You’re an authorized pilot now.” Asier began the process of getting into flight, explaining every step to Lyra.
She followed along easily. The ship was very much like the Ravanoth vessels she’d been aboard—except even more advanced. Lyra realized suddenly that the Ravanoth weren’t the engineering geniuses they’d pretended to humanity. They were the beneficiaries of their dealings with Scaevens. Their tech was only a weak copy of Scaeven developments.
The displays were all in Crurian numerals, so they were readable. But the language of the panel was completely foreign to her. Scaeven was a runic writing system, matching what she’d seen when she’d looked through Asier’s scope. Lyra examined them, trying to identify patterns. Was it read up and down? Left to right? Or some other method that would never occur to a human mind?
When he’d entered the last command, the ship lifted off. Through the bow window, Lyra watched the ground recede. The ship moved silently, smooth as butter. She felt only the faintest suggestion of lift, a little tug in her stomach, when they crossed the threshold between atmosphere and open space.
They’d done it. She’d escaped her abductors. She was going home.
Chapter Eight
Undeclared Space
Enforcement Vessel Ashritha
IG Standard Calendar 236.44.20
When they broke orbit, Asier leaned over and touched an indicator at the top of the panel. The controls rearranged into a new formation.
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