Page 52 of Taken to Heimo
“I just…” Her face turns pink and she bites her lower lip, drawing my attention to it. “I knew she couldn’t kill me, but I didn’t think she’d try anything like this. She must have been planning it for dozens of solars. And I walked right into her trap. But you found me. Somehow, you found me.”
She shakes her head and I’m embarrassed by the way she looks up at me, then. Like she’s in awe and I’m her hero. “How did you find me?”
“You have your human here to thank for that.” I point up and back towards the hole where I left her. From here, I can see that the other human female has entirely disregarded my order and is waving down at us urgently. “We need to go.”
I lean in and taste Svera’s mouth one more time before pulling back, gathering her shift and wrenching it down over her head. I scoop her off the table and set her down, but she runs away from me a few feet and crouches down.
“What are you doing?” I hiss as she stands back up and folds a green carpet under her arm.
“What? He said I could have it.”
I groan, “Unbelievable.”
I quickly rush back to her human compatriot and grab Svera — and her xoking carpet — and lift her over my head.
“Deena?” Svera rasps, shocked as I help her up into the hole, Deena pulling on her hands to assist. They exchange in Human while I leap up into the darkness next to them.
With her unbelievable command over this ship, the female called Deena seals the hole shut beneath us and we continue through the darkness, back to the escape pods.
After a while of not being able to understand them, I bark at Svera to translate or switch to Meero — a language we somehow all speak together, despite being Krisxox of Voraxia and two human females with limited access to technology and even less knowledge of the quadrants than I have.They persevere. They are resourceful. Clever. Brilliant, even.
And this entire time, I underestimated them.What have my sires ever done so clever as this?
“How do you know Meero?” Svera says, switching to the language in question.
But Deena just shakes her head. “Not important.” She keeps crawling and, abruptly, changes direction.
“How do you command the ship?” I hiss.
Deena hesitates long enough to turn back to face us. As my ridges shine bright, colors dance over the small silver bead in the center of her palm. She sticks it back in her ear and lifts her hair for me to look, but the bead is deep inside of her head and I can’t see it now.
“It’s a Niahhorru token. I stole one from Mathilda a while back. Much more advanced than the life drives Voraxians use, it locks in with other tokens and can act as a communicator. The ship is made out of the same material. It’s a giant token itself. So, I can communicate with it.”
Xok. “This device — is it worn by all Niahhorru?” If so, then we’d be easily detected.
She shakes her head. “Not all. Just a few. Rhork definitely wears one.”
Xok. “Has he detected us?”
“I don’t think so. I commanded the token to shield itself. I think I managed to scramble the communicator. We should be good.”
And then Svera asks a single question I hadn’t considered. “Have you…been able to communicate with Rhorkanterannu before this?”
Deena winces as if struck and doesn’t answer. She just keeps crawling and, after another two turns, finally says, “I didn’t…have anyone else to talk to. And I didn’t think…He forced you into shekurr down there, didn’t he? That’s why you were naked on the table.”
Svera nods and rage rips down my spine, showering the whole world in red from my ridges. “Ontte. He was trying to force my hand. What he really wants are the coordinates to an unguarded human satellite. Mathilda told him I had them.”
Deena’s face shutters and she closes her eyes for longer than a standard blink. I wonder what she’s thinking and why her expression looks so pained as she says, “So he could steal and do shekurr with a bunch of other humans.”
“Everyone knows this,” I hiss, “The male is ruthless in his attempt to rebuild the Niahhorru race. Now let’s keep going.”
Deena hiccups, covers her mouth with the back of her hand. Then the floor just beyond her peels open. “We’re here.”
I edge up next to her and scan the space for threats. Finding none, I glance at her and confess something I never thought I would to a human. “I owe you. Profoundly. You were brave to do this.”
And they’re dismissed just as quickly. “Whatever,” she mutters, face hardening. There is something going on here that I can’t interpret. Something to do with Rhorkanterannu and this female, but right now I don’t care to uncover it.
“We should split up,” she says.
