Page 25 of Silver Slayer

"You look refreshed," Brooke observed with a wink. "Better than some of us, anyway."

My face heated. I'd slept an entire night tucked against Vennox's chest while he'd kept watch. I looked back at him, genuinely concerned about how he would manage outside on such a dangerous planet after spending the night protecting me. But he showed no sign of weakness. No tightness around his eyes, no slowness to his movements. If anything, he seemed more alert than he had the day before, his silver gaze tracking every movement in the room with predator focus.

"Everyone, finish packing your essentials," Vala called out, straightening from where he'd been checking the makeshift stretcher they'd assembled for Brunnex. "We need to be ready to move in five minutes."

The ship immediately filled with purposeful activity. The last of the supplies was gathered, and wounds were examined. I fell into the familiar rhythm of preparation, checking my gear. Bio-analyzer secured at my hip. Comm device snug around my wrist. Everything where it needed to be.

Except for the strange tug toward Vennox that I couldn't quite banish, a lingering awareness of his presence even when I deliberately looked away. My body kept track of him, noting each shift of his weight, each subtle change in his breathing. It was infuriating and, if I was being honest with myself, a little terrifying how quickly I’d grown infatuated with him.

This planet was dangerous enough without adding complications. I needed to focus on survival, not on the way asingle glance from him sent heat curling through my belly in a slow burn. He'd offered protection. I'd accepted it. That was all it needed to be.

"Before we move out," Vala said, his luminous gaze sweeping the group, "our new companions need a briefing." He looked at me. "Quin."

"Stay off the crystalline formations," I said. "Don't touch them, don't brush against them. The void weaver nest near the ridge is still active, and the ground around the crash site isn't stable. If the analyzer spikes, we stop. No exceptions."

Vala nodded once. "Everybody got it?”

A round of nods answered him. Truxxet grunted under his breath, sounding like agreement. Tyrk muttered, "Wouldn't be the first time I've had to dodge something with too many legs," while Ruze just shifted his pack higher on his shoulder and said nothing, his expression saying he'd survived worse with less warning.

Vennox said nothing at all. He simply looked at me and nodded once, like a vow.

We left the Moktian craft, stepping into that narrow window of relative safety when the planet's predators had retired to their dens and the carnivorous flora hadn't yet unfurled to full hunger. The air hung heavy with morning dew, catching the strange light of the twin suns in droplets that scattered colors across the ground this world wore like armor.

I kept the bio-analyzer gripped in one hand as I fell into position behind Vala, its familiar weight anchoring me to reality after the disorienting intimacy of waking in Vennox's arms.

The others followed in tight formation, taking cues from Vala's lead. Tyrk and Truxxet carried Brunnex on the makeshift stretcher between them, moving with careful coordination despite their burden, Tyrk's pack riding against his broad back with each step. Ruze took the rear, his nutrone blaster raised, eyes constantly sweeping the tree line. Vennox remained at my side, never more than a step away. His proximity unsettled me in ways that had nothing to do with how deadly he'd shown himself to be as a warrior.

We climbed to the top of the ridge, going back the way we'd come. We crested the top, and the dense forest closed in around us. I kept the analyzer sweeping in slow arcs, watching the readout for anything that didn't belong. It stayed clean. The ground was firm beneath my boots. The air hit the way it always did on this world, sweet and metallic, and my skin drew tight against my bones.

Something felt off.

I couldn't put my finger on it at first. We moved with the same caution we always did, the analyzer steady in my grip, showing no unusual readings. Yet my skin prickled with warning, every instinct screaming that danger lurked just beyond my awareness.

Then it hit me.Silence.

This world was never quiet. Even at dawn, when predators retreated and flora paused in its hunt, the air vibrated with life. Now, nothing.

The forest stood eerily still, not even a breeze disturbing the unnatural quiet. The ground beneath our boots felt too solid, as though the very planet held its breath. My mouth went dry asI recognized the pattern. This wasn't the natural lull between predators' shifts. This was the calculated stillness of ambush.

"Something's wrong," I whispered, barely loud enough for Vala to hear as he paused ahead of me. "The forest is too quiet."

Beside me, Vennox had already gone still. His pointed ears swiveled and cupped forward, reaching out into the silence with that super-sensitive hearing that made everything I could detect seem laughably limited. His jaw tightened.

"I hear it," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "Underground. Something moving beneath the surface. At depth. Heading this direction."

A heartbeat later, the bio-analyzer confirmed it. The screen spiked with a reading I'd never seen before. Not the surface disturbance of a predator moving through vegetation, but deeper, a burrowing signature pushing up through the soil with slow, deliberate momentum.

"Vala." I kept my voice flat and low. "Something's coming up from underneath us."

He nodded once, sharp and decisive. "We change course." His voice carried no further than necessary. "We cut through the spire field instead of skirting it. The rock bed will make it more difficult for a burrower to break through. No matter what you do, do not touch the crystalline formations. It would mean instant death.”

The mention of the spire field sent a chill down my spine. Three days ago, we'd watched a scavenger bird drop from the sky after brushing one of those formations. Its flesh had dissolved on contact, leaving nothing but bones and a smudgeof phosphorescent slime. But our options were limited, and Vala knew it.

We shifted direction, angling toward the glittering field of crystalline formations that stretched between us and Vala's ship to the east. It stretched before us like something out of a fever dream. Towering spirals jutted from the ground, some no taller than my knee, others rising well above my head, their surfaces translucent and sharp-edged, catching the twin suns and shattering the light into fractured color across a rocky and pale ground, almost barren compared to the dense living carpet of the forest.

The air here was cooler, drier, stripped of the jungle's sweet-metallic assault and humming instead with its own quiet menace. Nothing grew or lived here. And yet every instinct I had said something was watching.

The bio-analyzer gave a sharp, staccato vibration. I glanced down, frowning at the inconsistent readings scrolling across its screen. Not the steady pulse of a known predator, but something erratic, almost confused, as if multiple life forms occupied the same space or the same being existed in multiple places at once.