Page 28 of Sixth
“Lume,” Emmy whispered. “Stay.”
The tiny creature peered at the drone and made no sound at all. She lifted her star-silk tail, velvet fine, and stroked it once along the back of Emmy’s hand. Sparks lifted like pollen and didn’t fall. They hung in the air in a soft chain, each bead of light taking the next and delaying it, agentle, impossible hesitation.
The lattice wavered across the chain and lost a fraction of its straight line. The drone corrected. It drifted closer.
Apex didn’t look away from Emmy. He felt the drone in the same way he felt a weapon raised behind him, achange in pressure against the back of his neck. He shifted his stance a fraction to the right and set his body as a barrier.
“Do not move,” he murmured.
“I won’t.”
The drone dropped a filament, thin as a hair. It fell in a slow curve toward his wrist. He saw the glint just before it touched. He did not give it hisskin.
His left hand shot to the engine access where a sharp, straightened shard lay from the afternoon’s work. He took it and cut the filament clean above the band. The shard left his fingers without a sound and slid across the air like a second filament, bright for one instant when light touched its edge. It struck the slit beside the drone’s primaryeye.
The drone rocked. The lattice flared and dimmed.
“Partial damage to the sensor vane,”Core said.“Warning. The drone broadcast a short burst on impact. Recording.”
Apex did not answer. The clearing went too quiet. The planet’s music flattened andheld.
The trees at the edge of the light shaped a new dark. It gathered into height and length until the line of a spine resolved and a shoulder rolled. Aforelimb poured forward, triple jointed, claws like clear glass tasting the ground.
“Ec-ho Pred-tor,” Lume shivered the words through theair.
The Echo Predator stepped out and the world lost its color. Its hide bent radiance inward so the glow slid over it and vanished, alight-eating sheen that turned its body into moving absence. Thin fans along the skull opened and closed as it sampled heat. Each breath made a soft click inside the ribs, stone against stone. It flowed two more steps and tilted its head, listening to the drone’s charge the way a hunter listens to a heartbeat.
Emmy’s breath checked. He set his hand over her wrist and pressed once, steadying their count. Her yes came in the small shift of her chest. Lume’s body went very still. The sparks along her tail weregone.
The Predator angled its head and looked at the heat the drone gave off. Its mouth opened without sound. The drone lifted, lattice contracting to a tight square that tracked the line of the Predator’s skull as if the drone could weigh theodds.
“Do not break,” he said against Emmy’s hair. “Take the air slow.”
“Okay.”
The Predator lunged.
The drone shot upward and tried to cross the clearing in one breath. The red lattice snapped and re-knit as it moved. Aline of that net brushed across Emmy’s throat and left a fast chill. Apex’s palm found that skin at once. The Valenmark flaredunder both bands and pulled their pulse into one hard beat. The lattice lifted away and the chill went withit.
The Predator ripped empty air and landed in the light with a force that shook the roots. It turned with surprising grace and tracked the drone’s heat. The drone wheeled, sensor vane stuttering, then streaked over the trees. The Predator followed the trail like a storm.
Silence dropped again. Light drifted down in the Predator’s wake, thin as ash, soft as breath.
Emmy’s hand stayed on his chest. He didn’t move it. Lume’s tiny claws flexed once in Emmy’s hair and then relaxed.
“Transmission intercepted. Two relays answered the burst. Voss. Sovereign code present on the second. House of Sovereigns node nine.”
“Confirm,” he said.
“Confirmed.”
Emmy’s eyes lifted to his. She had color in her mouth again, but her pupils stayed dark and wide. “They know where we are.”
“They do not have a fix on position.” He wanted that to be true for more breaths than he could count.
“Correction,”Core said.“They do not have a fix yet. The drone captured a partial of the Valenmark harmonic. The burst carried it.”
The band heated against his wrist, not burning, not warning, but an answer. The planet’s music rose again into something like a slowbell.
