Page 42 of Deserted

Understanding dawned on her face. “The Swarm... it knew I was coming?”

“Not you specifically,” I clarified. “But something like you. Something it was programmed to recognize and respond to.”

The implications hung between us, unspoken but clear. Whatever had created the portal that brought Jas to this world, whatever had drawn her across galaxies to my side, it wasn’t coincidence. It was something older, something planned.

Something the Swarm had been designed to prevent.

“We have six hours to reach the extraction point,” I said, gently redirecting her focus to our immediate survival. “We needto stay ahead of that expansion. Move fast, stay quiet, leave no trail.”

She squared her shoulders, the brave facade barely hiding the tremor of fear I could feel through our bond. “And when we reach the extraction point? What then?”

I met her eyes, allowing her to see the fierce determination in mine. “Then we fight for us. Together.”

Her smile was small but genuine, strengthened by the resolve flowing between us. “Together,” she echoed.

As we turned to begin our journey toward Delta-Nine-Seven, I cast one last glance at the spreading network of Swarm tech behind us. It moved with purpose, with hunger, with ancient programming that saw Jas as something to be contained, studied, eliminated.

It would have to kill me first.

15 /JAS

The first shotfrom the drone sizzled past my ear like a cosmic mosquito with anger management issues, close enough that I felt the heat ripple through my hair. I dropped to my knees behind the half-buried Legion turret, swearing in every language I knew—which, admittedly, was just English plus the three Rodinian curse words Rhaekar had taught me. Sand cascaded into my boots as I frantically pried open the control panel. The wiring inside looked like a technological spaghetti nightmare, all corroded connections and fried circuits that had been baking in alien desert heat for who knows how long.

I was not trained for this.

I mean, sure, I could dig into ancient internet forums about skinwalkers and rogue AI sightings in the Nevada desert like nobody’s business. But rigging up a half-dead Legion defense turret in the middle of a sandstorm while an alien death Roomba chased us? Yeah. That was new.

“Okay, old turret,” I whispered, crouched behind the partially buried control panel with wires like angry noodles and more sand in my bra than should be legally allowed, “it’s just you, me, and whatever leftover tech magic the galaxy forgot to unplug.”

Somewhere behind me, a plasma blast scorched the sand. The thing—the ancient alien drone that had apparently decided I was today’s main character—hovered closer. Its skeletal frame gleamed under the twin suns, sensor array glowing that sickly green that screamed “I’m going to dissect you for science and not in the fun way.”

We’d spotted the half-buried Legion outpost just twenty minutes after leaving our previous position. Rhaekar had recognized it immediately—an emergency bunker from the original Swarm containment campaign, mostly buried by decades of shifting sands. He’d decided it might offer temporary shelter and potentially useful equipment for our journey to the extraction point.

What we hadn’t counted on was being followed so quickly.

The drone had appeared just as we’d cleared enough sand to access the bunker’s entrance. Bigger than the one we’d destroyed earlier, this unit moved with more purpose, its targeting systems locking onto me with deadly precision the moment it crested the dune.

Rhaekar had shoved me toward the half-exposed defense turret with a growled instruction to “make it work” while he drew the drone’s fire. Which, in Rhaekar-speak, meant “I’m going to play tag with a murder machine while you figure out billion-year-old technology, no pressure.”

And Rhaekar? Of course he was busy playing meat shield.

He leapt over a dune like some post-apocalyptic gladiator, deflecting a shot with the shield rigged to his arm and snarling something probably heroic in his deep gravel-voice. Sexy as hell. Infuriating.

“Stop trying to die in slow motion!” I shouted, fingers untangling what I hoped was the turret’s main power coupling.

“I am distracting it!” he barked back, rolling behind a rock formation as another blast superheated the air where he’d been standing.

“By bleeding on everything?!”

And he was bleeding—a thin trail of darkish blood streaking down his arm where a previous shot had grazed him. Not enough to slow him down, but enough to make my heart clench with protective fury. Through our bond, I could feel his determination, his focus, and beneath it all, a steady current of fear—not for himself, but for me.

Another spark jumped from the wiring I was finessing like a very hot, very annoyed MacGyver. My fingers were shaking. The heatwave had turned the control panel into a toaster oven. My thighs were on fire. My temper? Already fried.

I connected what looked like a power conduit to the main relay, mentally thanking whatever cosmic entity was responsible for making alien tech work on roughly the same principles as Earth electronics. Red to red, blue to blue, don’t touch the glowy bit that’s probably radioactive. Simple.

“Come on, you beautiful piece of junk,” I muttered, forcing my trembling hands to steady. “Wake up and show me what you’re made of.”

The drone fired again, this time hitting close enough to shower me with sand. I yelped, ducking lower behind the turret’s base. Through the bond, I felt Rhaekar’s spike of panic, followed by the cold fury that meant he was about to do something stupidly heroic.

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