Gravel and Grit

by Stacy Jones

  “Fuck,” Zaek growled, his expression twisting in irritation at the news.

  “Believe it or not, I’ve been looking, but shit’s not that easy.” Roc stood and began pacing the living room. “My sire’s friend was rather… prolific. Do you know how many descendants one human can have? And who’s to say they even kept the sigil in the family?” Roc shook his head and growled. “I should’ve come back home sooner. If I had known… ”

  “I have been working on a tracker to trace the origin of the beacon’s operating frequency. That is why I was out when you… arrived. I needed parts. It may take me a few days to finish, but I am close.”

  “I don’t have a few days, do I? They could find Petronus before then,” Roc argued, waving a hand at the television, though it was no longer playing the news.

  “Then you need to go. Find your sire, and that sigil,” Zaek commanded.

  “And save the world.” Roc grinned.

  “You are an idiot,” he muttered, rolling his eyes, but he couldn’t stop a quiet chuckle.

  Zaek walked Roc to the door, nodded once in farewell, then slapped the younger male on the back.

  “Be safe. And do not fail.”

  2

  Mira

  Mira stared in shock at the computer screen, before looking back at the device on the lab workbench next to her, where it was hooked up to about twenty different electrodes and sensors.

  Unless she was hallucinating—something she couldn't immediately dismiss, considering the wholly unacceptable amount of sleep she’d been getting lately—the damn thing had just woken up. It had been about as active as a rock not five minutes ago, resisting every effort she’d made over the last two years to learn more about it, not to mention the efforts of both Team 3 and Team 7 before her.

  Turning back to her computer, Mira tapped furiously on her keyboard, retracing the steps she’d taken, trying to figure out exactly what she’d done that finally brought the device to life. She’d taken the thing apart countless times, replaced what she could of the burnt-out connections with human tech and had been methodically sending small pulses of power through each replaced part, hoping something would work.

  She felt a flutter of excitement in her stomach, reigniting the sense of wonder she’d all but lost after working day in and day out for two damn years with no progress.

  When she’d been approached to come work at Area 51 right out of college, she was over the moon. Mira had been obsessed with all things alien for as long as she could remember, and she’d worked hard to obtain the necessary doctorates, specifically so she had the skills and knowledge needed to land a job like this. Of course, back then she had dreams of working on big, life-changing projects. The reality was quite a bit different.

  After passing extensive background checks, being subjected to an appallingly invasive series of medical examinations, and signing too many documents to count that basically said she’d be disappeared if she ever said anything about what she saw down here, she was put to work.

  Mira was so nervous that first day she almost got sick during the terrifyingly long elevator ride down to the lab. Visions of spaceships, laser guns, and teleportation devices danced through her mind, making her giddy with excitement.

  When she was introduced to Calvin, leader of Team 12, to which she’d been assigned, she’d expected the derision in his eyes but didn’t let that dim her anticipation. Mira was used to being underestimated. She knew she was considered cute, with blue eyes, pale skin, and long, curly hair just this side of black. It didn’t help that she was short, at five foot two. But, worst of all, she was female. Never mind that she had a near-genius IQ and was coming up on her thirty-third birthday, she looked young and dainty and, therefore, had to be unqualified to work with the big boys. Calvin immediately put her to work on what they’d informally dubbed P.U.S.S—Pretty Useless Space Shit.

  Despite the name and the unsurprising immaturity of the men that worked there, she was ecstatic to get started. The fact that two other teams worked on it before her, and Calvin blatantly telling her it was a dead-end project that would never go anywhere, she set to work with relish. Mira was determined to succeed where everyone else failed.

  That excitement lasted for about six months, but eventually, the unsubtle jeers and snickers started to get to her.

  They weren’t supposed to share project details with members of other teams, but the men down there gossiped more than high school girls. She knew what everyone else was working on, partially because they talked about their groundbreaking projects a little louder when she was around. Bill, the puffed-up jackass from Team 3, and his constant gloating about the spaceship his team was assigned to, was the worst. She knew they did it to rub it in that she’d been assigned to the project none of them were able to crack. Part of it was them being assholes, but she knew the other part was worry that she’d yield results where they couldn’t.

  It was that insight that drove her to work harder, to use their thinly-veiled mocking to fuel her determination, even after her excitement diminished.

  Now, all her hard work had paid off. It was finally active.

  Mira’s first instinct was to run to her boss and tell him of her breakthrough, but good sense quickly followed on the heels of that urge, keeping her seated. If she took this to Calvin, he’d more than likely take her off the project and claim the breakthrough for himself.

  She wasn’t naive enough to think he’d give her credit. If she were a better person she wouldn’t care, she’d just be happy about the success, but she wasn’t. She wanted the acknowledgement. Not because she craved the praise and attention, but because there was a good chance it would get her higher clearance and possibly even transferred to a team that worked on the high profile assignments. A team not headed by Calvin, the misogynist with wandering eyes.

  She hated the underhanded way things worked, and it had taken a while to really accept the fact that everyone was out for themselves, but she’d learned to be a realist. She knew exactly what would happen if she told anyone.

  If she could keep the device’s sudden activity to herself, just until the department meeting next week, she could present her findings directly to General Harrison and prevent any chance of being edged out.

  That meant she’d have to hide her excitement and act as if nothing had changed. While she wasn’t overly confident in her subterfuge skills, she thought she could manage it for a week or so.

  She’d need to work late to compile as much data as possible before the meeting, but it wasn’t like she had any reason to hurry home in the evenings. Not when home was a sparse room in the residential area of the underground base when she was on duty, or a mostly empty apartment in Las Vegas when she was off duty on the weekends. She didn’t have a husband or boyfriend, no children or pets. Hell, there wasn’t so much as a plant that needed to be watered in either location.

  Confident in her plan, Mira got to work, staying subdued during the day while everyone was there, then working late into the night, gleaning as much information as possible as to the purpose of the device.

  3

  Zaek

  Zaek worked tirelessly for days on end after Roc left, locked in his workroom in the basement of his secluded mountain cabin. He felt alive for the first time in centuries.

  He’d been on this planet for nearly one thousand Earth years and thought he’d become somewhat accustomed to the slow progression of time, but now that rescue was imminent, he realized how close he’d been to losing hope.

  Excitement was like fire in his veins. He would finally see the beautiful, pale purple skies of home. He would soar in the neverending winds above the mountainous desert, without needing to hide himself for fear of being spotted by some stray Earthian or setting off a radar sensor. He could return to his duties as a general in the military instead of languishing in the maddening inactivity imposed upon him on this damned planet.

  His parents passed away years before he’d left on the mission, and he didn’t
have any kher—blood siblings—or family waiting for him back home, but that didn’t diminish his longing to return. Despite worries about his unsuitability and private concerns that his mating gland was defective, Zaek still hoped he might finally find his Hondassa, the one he was meant for and who was meant for him, so he could start a family and no longer face the centuries alone.

  As he worked, he planned, shaking his tail and timing his thoughts to the beat of the music coming from the headphones covering his pointed ears.

  Finish the tracker, find the beacon, input the proper code to discover the retrieval time and location. Make sure it sends out a ping to the sigils of my remaining brethren, so they know where to go. Ensure it has adequate power in case the sigils do not so the short range teleportation function works, then get myself and the beacon there.

  “Easy enough, if this Macero-cursed tracker would just fucking work,” he finished out loud when the song ended.

  “Well, if you would stop cutting the damn wires, it might!”

  The urgency and anticipation rushing through him made his fingers clumsy. He nicked more wires with his claws than he could count, meaning he had to splice another onto each one, which made the process take even longer and increased his urgency.

  If we were not forced to work with such low tech this would not take so fucking long.

  Finally, after almost a week, Zaek thought he had something that would work. The end result was hideous, with wires poking out everywhere and the casing hastily cobbled together, but that didn’t matter so long as it served its purpose.

  Now, to test the ugly thing out.

  As soon as he emerged from his basement, Zaek’s stomach cramped, letting its dissatisfaction at being empty for so long be known. Grumbling under his breath about inconvenient bodily needs, he made a detour to his kitchen and filled a bag with an assortment of bite-sized candies and rocks to snack on, then tucked it into the waistband of his boxer briefs—the only human clothing he found comfortable enough to wear, aside from loose sweatpants—then padded barefoot outside into the cool, early autumn night. He still had the form-fitting suit he’d been wearing during the crash, but despite being made to last, it was beginning to look a little worse for the wear, so he kept it securely stored away, waiting for the time when rescue was at hand and he could don it again.

  Arching his back forward, Zaek felt the slit under his shoulder blades open and his wings emerge from within, then sighed with relief as they stretched and unfurled. While he was not at all a fan of retracting his wings, it was necessary while in his work space. The damn things were too big and ended up knocking things off his shelves.

  With a hard flap, Zaek took to the air. He rose above the treeline, then hovered there, wanting as little interference for the signal as possible, in case the beacon was far away. He twisted the remaining two unattached wires together to close the circuit, then waited expectantly, staring at the palm-sized device with bated breath.

  He waited. And waited. Five minutes became ten, and still nothing happened.

  Growling obscenities, he dropped, landing on his roof with a thud. He’d done something wrong, crossed the wrong wires or perhaps the battery he’d stolen didn’t have enough juice to power it.

  Kneeling, he set the tracker down in front of him then pulled his bag of snacks out from where it had slipped past the waistband of his boxers and settled next to his cock. He pried off the tracker's casing with one hand and inspected the inner workings with narrowed, critical eyes, while he blindly fisted a handful of candy and rocks and brought it to his mouth, taking out his frustration by chewing more aggressively than required. Even the mix of sweetness and mineral earthiness that usually never failed to put him in a better mood didn’t help, though the rush of sugar hitting his system made him feel slightly more alert.

  Between the full moon and his excellent night vision, it didn’t take Zaek more than a minute to spot the problem. He had, indeed, crossed the wrong wires together. He could well imagine his dam, from whose science-class lineage his secondary blood came from, giving him a look of dry censure at such a silly mistake.

  Feeling his horns burn with irritated embarrassment, he fixed the wires. After a second, a soft beep sounded from the tracker, surprising Zaek so badly he almost choked on the handful of candy he’d just put in his mouth. Thankfully, his heart leapt into his throat to keep the damned, addictive sweets from cutting off his airway. Coughing up the murderous confections, he spat them over the edge of his roof. He stared after them mournfully for a second, regretting the loss, before another beep from the tracker redirected his attention to the mission at hand.

  Anticipation flooded him, sending a shiver down his tail, and a grin wide enough to bare all his teeth and terrify small children stretched his mouth. After reattaching the outer casing, Zaek scooped up the tracker and his now almost-empty bag of snacks, then dropped to the ground and reentered his cabin.

  “Step one, complete. Now, we have to get ready,” he announced, pretending he was just voicing his thoughts instead of talking to himself.

  He would have to address the habit he’d acquired of both asking and answering his own questions aloud before he boarded the rescue ship, not to mention his occasional propensity to outright argue with himself, but there was time for that. He could at least keep it to a whisper until he reacclimated to being around other beings more than once every few decades.

  Khargals may not be quite as social as Earthians, but they weren’t made to be alone for centuries, either, not without consequences anyway. Of course, Zaek thought he’d done better than most. He hadn’t given up hope of salvation, even if his conviction had become somewhat… obsessive and fanatical in nature. He hadn’t taken his stone form and sunk into hibernation like Roc’s sire. He hadn’t broken the Prime Directive like he knew some had in order to assuage their loneliness and mate with a human. All the female Khargals on the ship had died, so there was no hope of finding companionship without breaking the directive, but he thought they would have stood a better chance at resisting those urges if they’d listened to him and stayed at least somewhat close together.

  He understood Sten, the communication officer’s point when he suggested all those years ago that they spread out. Being spotted every once in a while was inevitable, and having that happen repeatedly in one area brought unwanted attention to their presence, which was how they’d sparked the legend of gargoyles.

  “Ridiculous word. Does not sound anything like Khargals,” he muttered as he dressed in his form-fitting, armored suit and worked to pack what he wasn’t willing to leave behind, including an assortment of weaponry, so he’d be prepared for whatever he found when he reached the beacon.

  Still, if they’d stuck together, they wouldn’t be so scattered and unprepared for rescue. He’d just have to hope that everyone’s mental link to their sigils was still active and that, when the rescue beacon pinged them, they’d receive the message, find said sigils, and get to the pick-up location in time. If the rescue ship set a course straight to Earth, he thought it should take them roughly two months to arrive within teleportation distance. He’d wasted nearly a week of that making the tracker.

  After freeing the now-healed bird he’d been nursing back to health, boarding the windows, shutting off the water and electricity, and gathering supplies to take with him, Zaek stopped in the foyer and scanned what he could see of his cabin.

  He’d built the place himself and made it both his home and his base of operations for the last century. He was more than happy to be leaving Earth, but there was a part of him, however small, that knew he would miss it, if only because of the familiarity.

  “And the candy.”

  Just as he was about to walk out the door, he paused with his clawed hand on the knob, then abruptly spun on his heel. Going back to the kitchen, he raided his cabinets, gathering every piece of candy he could find.

  “Not leaving my damn snacks behind to be stolen by that thieving raccoon. Not today, you sly,
pilfering, sneaky little… ” he grumbled under his breath, coming up with every insulting name he could think of, remembering the time George, the infernal raccoon that had been creeping around his place for the last three months, had bitten the shit out of his tail when he’d tried to pet it a few weeks ago.

  “And to think I even tried to share my food with that ungrateful, rude… fluffy, adorable… ” he trailed off.

  Halting in his search for sweets, Zaek glanced up and stared accusingly at the wall, as if it were at fault for the image that had just popped into his mind of George starving and alone, outside in the cold with no snacks.

  “That was damned underhanded, you traitor,” he growled.

  Letting out a huff of resignation, he grabbed another bag, transferred two handfuls of treats into it, then snatched up a blanket off the back of his couch, as he stomped back to the foyer and left, locking up behind him.

  Making a quick stop at the start of the treeline beside his house, he laid out the blanket, arranging it into a cozy little nest, then emptied the second bag of candy in the middle. Zaek straightened and glanced into the forest, immediately spotting the masked face of his feral foe peeking out from behind a trunk.

  Biting back the sad smile that tried to curl his lips against his will, he turned and took to the air, leaving behind his house, his belongings, and his nip-happy friend.

  “Damned wind making my eyes water… ”

  4

  Mira

  The voice that sounded over the intercom in the lab, telling everyone to gather in conference room three, was exactly what Mira had been dreading for the last week. It was time for the department meeting, and she wasn’t ready.

  Despite the device’s sudden activity, and all the extra hours she’d put in trying to uncover its secrets, she still didn’t know the purpose of the stupid, obstinate thing. Just when she thought she had an idea, she discovered some new code pointing her in a different direction.