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“I don’t know what the elite guard is, but nothing seemed hungrier than that giant freaking worm. Talk about terrifying.” Ginger shuddered, her hands rolling down the front of her tight dress. As if she’d known my location all along and was speaking to me directly, her hazel eyes locked on mine. “But a certain somebody did a helluva job rescuing us.”
Sully stiffened and lowered his head in embarrassment. The few Rock Dwellers inhabiting Tern were the only ones who knew of my banishment. “Blant, JayJay. I didn’t mean to bring up the elite guard.”
In the beginning I’d missed my team more than I’d thought possible, but the ache had dimmed with time. What I couldn’t wrap my head around was how the same hellsna that terrorized Yagras had evolved on Tern.
“You owe us five credits for swearing, fata,” Sully’s younglings hollered from the open doors to the solarium.
Sully rubbed his head. “I know it was hard for you to leave that part of your life behind.” He squinted at me through the leaves, giving away my position behind the too-small plant.
A scar on my head throbbed, and my stomach roiled. I had no soldiers to command here, and rescuing Ginger after she’d been trapped in a cave had me yearning for my old uniform and bloodroot darts. “It’s all in the past.” My voice rumbled as I tipped my chin at Sully.
But the fact Ginger thought I might have the answers…that she sought me out for reassurance… It filled the hole in my self-worth just enough that I craved more. It also stirred the same part of me that wanted to test whether her hair felt as silky as it looked.
I plopped down on the stool beside Ginger. “You’re planning a trip to the rocky outcrop?”
Startled, Ginger jerked the plate TeyTey had just passed her, and it dropped from her hands, shattering on the polished floor. Blant, I’d forgotten how loud she found me.
“Shit.” She crouched to pick up the large shards. “Well, hello to you too, JayJay. Interesting plant?”
Blant this female and my lack of tact. I had gone full-on hunter, studying his prey.
Moments later, I’d found the pan and broom and nudged her out of danger. “Who’s accompanying you to the rocky outcrop?” I quickly filled the pan with the broken pieces and dumped them in the container.
“Oh, my day was great. Thanks for asking.” She pursed her lips as she grabbed the broom from my hands and completed another pass over the floor. She smelled like the rich vegetation of Yagras. “Let me see. I worked on the designs for some mantu coats I’m sewing, fed the chickens at the greendwelling and transplanted some of the veggies I brought from Earth. They’re growing fabulously, by the way.” Ginger’s smile was intact but held about as much enthusiasm as one of Mayor Yurst’s stale bulletins.
Instead of the embarrassment I should’ve felt at her scolding, my stance grew wider and my vision tunneled, as though Ginger were the target at the end of my sighting scope. “The rocky outcrop is dangerous. It’s cold, and there’s snow on the ground. Who will accompany you?”
TeyTey and Sully stood side by side in the kitchen, Sully sneaking mantu from the platter on the counter and openly eavesdropping. TeyTey’s forehead ridge wrinkled. The younglings’ splashing in the pool carried through the open folded door.
Ginger’s eyes narrowed as she looked up. “Not that it’s any of your business, but TeyTey’s giving me hoverbike lessons. Then I’ll be going by my little lonesome. Me, myself, and I.” Her enticing chest shoved out when she planted her hands on her hips. “Problem?”
I patted my hip, seeking comfort, only to find it empty. My old blaster was nowhere to be found, and I swore at how she mentally disarmed me. Blant, this female is unsettling. “I’ll accompany you.”
Her hair swung around her like the frilled neck of a Yagras jungle cat. “Jeez, do you have to talk so loud?! I can handle the cold, JayJay. We have snow on Earth, ya know. I don’t need anyone to accompany me.”
Though I spoke at a regular volume, I lowered my voice. “I promised Geo I would protect you, and I’m a male who keeps his word.”
YimYim ran into the kitchen, trailing water behind him. “Mata, I’m starved.”
“All right, have it your way, King Kong,” Ginger huffed while she passed the broom and the emptied dustpan to YimYim. Her face softened as she saw the youngling’s smiling one, even though he made a bigger mess with the water pooling around his feet.
Yim Yim’s voice echoed from inside a cupboard “Ginger, what’s a King Kong?”
Although YimYim had asked the question, her laser focus pinned me. “King Kong’s a giant make-believe gorilla that tries to protect women, I mean females, from things they can handle just fine on their own.”
TeyTey snorted and nudged me with her elbow as she placed a dish of sizzling mantu on the table. “Sounds like every Rock Dweller male I’ve ever met.”
Sully protested in the background while YimYim squinted, likely processing the image the translator sent to his brain.
Ginger’s chair scraped across the floor, and she tucked it under the table, as far away from me as possible. She showed all the signs of a ruffled fledgling after its mata had nosed it from the nest—elbows locked, arms crossed over her chest and spine rigid.
I would protect her whether she liked it or not. The hellsna on Tern didn’t behave the same way they did on Yagras, and who knew where they would surface next?
Ginger planted her balled hands in her lap. Her black bangs shot toward the ceiling as she blew out a breath, and silver-white strands jerked over her narrow shoulders as if affronted. Then, more composed, she faced me. “Fine. I don’t want you to get in trouble with Geo.” Her face lit up with a grin. “But I’ll do the flying, and that’s not negotiable.”
2
Barely awake, I bracedmyself and pressed the blurredregisterbutton on my wristport. My family doctor had ‘highly recommended’ using this tracking app a month ago when he’d first diagnosed me on Earth, but I’d put it off, feeling more alive than ever since arriving on Tern. “Idiopathic blood degeneration” flashed on the screen. My tongue suctioned to the roof of my mouth as I swiped away a stray tear. The news still hit like a sucker punch, as shitty today as when I’d first heard it.
