O'Rrin The Protector Read online

  “Okay,” I agreed, even though I didn’t really want to. Still, if I headed off now, Jackie would still be in my sight. Any further delay would probably lead to me getting completely lost. My trip took me past the wreckage, and I stopped. There was no way in hell we were flying anywhere in it, which surprised me. The spaceships were supposed to be made of this incredible alloy, something that could withstand tons of cubic feet of pressure. What had happened to make it crumple like that?

  A closer look revealed several dead bodies in the bridge, all of them bloodless deaths and all of them men. Mentally, I ticked through the crew roster that I had memorized before leaving. All of the men seemed accounted for in the bridge, which was strange in itself. Then, for the women, it was Jackie, Dana, Erica, and me, which meant we were missing Rachel. Had she not made it to her pod? Was she in the wreckage and we just hadn’t found her?

  “Sorry,” Jackie said, making me jump. I’d been so lost in my thoughts that not only had I not caught up with her, but she’d finished whatever she was doing before I’d gotten there. “I just needed some of the nutrition gels for Erica, since she’s unconscious.”

  “Will she be out for a while?” I was walking next to the taller Jackie now as we headed back towards Dana, glancing often at her.

  “Probably.” Jackie grimaced. She didn’t say anything else, and I didn’t pry. Instead my mind just reeled, trying to process what had happened. I wasn’t sure I could wrap my brain around it. Gone was the twelve-month trip to Hotar, all the science I could do, all by myself. Instead, I was stranded on a cold, sand-dirty planet.

  Inwardly, I sighed. Just my luck.

  “I’ve got a fire made,” Dana said as we approached, bending over a small pile of burning parts. “I stole some parts from the wreck and salvaged some stuff from the pod.” She didn’t look thrilled. “There wasn’t much.”

  “Shit,” Jackie said passionately, sounding like she’d just woken up from a twelve-hour bender to find herself surrounded by bottles of alcohol.

  “You can say that again,” Dana muttered.

  Jackie chuckled. I wrapped my arms around myself, not sure what to say or do. I’d grown up spoiled in luxury, whether I wanted it or not. I’d never had to care for myself in the wild, not outside of some simulation camps that my parents stopped bothering with when I turned ten years old. I was pretty much useless in this sort of situation. Talk about one of my worst fears. Already food and shelter were going to be limited, and I needed to figure out a way to carry my weight.

  “You’re our bio chick, right?” Dana asked.

  I blinked at her. “What?”

  “You’re the astrobiologist for the mission?” Dana clarified. She didn’t sound irritated that she had to repeat something, just patient.

  “Oh. Yeah.” I nodded, as if my words needed more confirmation than that. I groaned internally. Could I get more awkward?

  “Can you go search for water or some plants? I’m guessing you can identify them?” Dana looked at me deadly seriously, and I didn’t know what to say. There was no way in hell I wanted to wander away from what was becoming our little camp, but all I could think of was having to stay there and do nothing, because I didn’t know how to help. I wasn’t an expert, but plant physiology was universal, to an extent. If I could find water, I could find plant life, and vice versa, most likely.

  “We need anything edible,” Jackie said, a frown creasing her brow. “Maybe look for some roots?”

  I nodded, glancing around the mini camp. Dana was making a tent from one of the thermal blankets and some metal rods she’d apparently stolen from the ship. We didn’t have much, nor did we have anything to start a fire. There were no trees in view.

  Hopelessness threatened to overwhelm me, and I pulled my blanket closer around me. I would use that as a basket in the hope I actually found something. If I didn’t, it would keep my teeth from chattering.

  It wasn’t from cold this time, no. It was from stress.

  “Don’t stay away too long,” Dana warned. “If you can’t find anything, don’t get lost. Come back and we’ll figure it out.”

  “Okay.” I swallowed thickly. “I’ll be fine,” I added. I hoped if I said it enough, I would start to believe it.

  I had to.

  2

  O’Rrin

  No one was happy to be going on a journey no one wished to undertake in the first place. We were two weeks from Kohta still, bringing our tithe, and none of us wanted to be there. Not even L’Anna, who had volunteered to be the tithe in the first place. She claimed she wanted to be there, but the dull gray tinge to her scales and ridged brow gave her away. No one wanted to live in service to the Caterri, but she was brave, sacrificing herself for the tribe.

  Bitterness surged through me, and not just my own. N’Ashtar, who was as close as my own kin, was walking by me. His anger was palpable, and he was venting, as he had been most of the trip.

  “There’ve been no births in five years,” N’Ashtar seethed. “And the Caterri request a breedable female? Again?”

  My tongue flickered out to taste the air. “You say that like it is new,” I pointed out. “They have been requiring tithing for years.”

  N’Ashtar grumbled. “It’s an insult, that’s what it is.”

  It was, I agreed. But it was also not something we could disobey and survive, not easily. The Caterri were small and skinny, but they were vicious and uncaring. Somehow, with their cold-metal weapons and their craftiness, they were able to keep control of the various N’Akron tribes spread out around Thoheria.

  “I volunteered,” L’Anna said calmly, although she looked anything but. Her faint brow ridges were getting deeper and duller. What would she look like by the time we finally arrived?

  Not that the Caterri cared, of course. All they cared about was if she could breed.

  “You shouldn’t feel guilty,” L’Anna added.

  Yrrix snorted from behind me. I shifted until he wasn’t behind me any longer, since I didn’t trust him. He was N’Ashtar’s blood brother, but he was resentful of N’Ashtar and what he did. As the younger brother, Yrrix had gotten passed over for a lot of things. That sort of thing could breed resentment. “Keeping the tribe safe is far more important than your ego, brother,” he said with a sneer.

  I sneered back, baring my fangs. “His worry is for the tribe. He is thinking like a king, not a weakling.” We had never gotten along, and I didn’t expect it to start now.

  Yrrix’s eyes flashed red, his anger clear, but a loud burst of sound sidetracked all of us, drawing our attention to the sky. A falling star flew across it, heading towards land. When it finally cratered, the ripples of the earth-shake made the ground shift underneath us.

  “What was that?” N’Ashtar asked, immediately looking in the correct direction.

  “I do not know.” I grimaced, my hand going to my bone-sword. “I do not like it.”

  “We should go investigate,” N’Ashtar said firmly. “What if something has happened?”

  “It’s a star,” Yrrix muttered. “Pointless.”

  “It could be metal,” N’Ashtar countered, used to the banter. There was still an undertone of irritation to it, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been. “We could steal some, keep it from the Caterri.”

  “They’d love that.” Yrrix shook his head, his arms crossing over his chest.

  “I feel we should see what landed,” R’Asha said, his voice steady. As our spiritual leader, he decided a lot of things by feelings and fate. I was not impressed.

  “See?” N’Ashtar looked pointedly at Yrrix, then at me. “It’s decided.”

  I sighed, but it was clear I wasn’t going to change his mind. At least I could be by his side and make sure he was safe.

  It wasn’t a long walk before we saw the crater housing the strange, twisted metal.

  “Don’t get close,” V’Annor said, his lone arm going out to stop me when I almost walked past. “There’s too much heat radiating off of it.”

  I nodded. “Thank you, brother.”

  He inclined his head, his arm going down. He shifted in place, clearly uncomfortable after losing his arm in a nasty raid a year ago.

  “There is lots of metal,” N’Ashtar said in wonder. “We could make many weapons, if the elders could teach us how.”

  “Or we could take it to the Caterri and be rewarded,” Yrrix said darkly. “Maybe they’d let us keep our female.”

  N’Ashtar and I exchanged looks. Yrrix was young, and for all he was crafty, the politics we were working towards were out of his clearance.

  “I doubt the Caterri will refuse their standard tithe if given something different,” N’Ashtar said sourly.

  “Then we give them both,” Yrrix said with a shrug. “That will curry us much favor. Maybe we will not have to tithe again for many years.”

  N’Ashtar rubbed his brow ridges. “That’s not how it works.”

  I tuned them out, since it wouldn’t do any good to participate. Yrrix was stubborn, and since he felt I had usurped his spot in the royal family, he especially didn’t listen to me. Instead, I glanced around, surprised to see some churned dirt off to the side. It looked like someone had picked up a handful and then dropped it, for whatever reason. There was more disturbed ground that broke off to two trails.

  Crouching down next to the footsteps, I tried to read them. They clearly weren’t N’Akron, and weren’t Caterri or Setti, either. Were they a new species we hadn’t seen before? If so, where had they been hiding?

  I flicked out my tongue, a tantalizing scent tugging at the edge of my senses. I didn’t know what it was, but I wanted to find it. It was an unusual smell, something I hadn’t encountered before, and I needed to know what it was. Maybe it was a creature we had not yet seen. Maybe it was something else. I wouldn’t know until I found it. I glanced back at the others, not surprised to see N’Ashtar and Yrrix still arguing, then decided to follow one. That low to the ground, I could tell the scent I wanted to know more about was clearly from the tracks heading towards the east, so I went that way.

  My mind flicked over the various options as I walked. I didn’t think it was food. It smelled like… like a female, but not any I had ever met. Maybe it was a wild rykon or a dohli? The steps didn’t match, but maybe they were lame. I could hunt.

  I hadn’t walked very far when I saw a small bundle of something black, which was clearly out of place. The texture looked off, too, but a quick flick of my tongue told me whatever I was looking for was in that bundle.

  The closer I got, the more I realized there seemed to be a creature of some type in the bundle, and their fur covering was draped over their shoulders. They had pale, skinny limbs on the ground and were tugging at a bhulin root. I wasn’t entirely sure why, since the bhulin root was only good for a paste to feed to the little ones if they were rejecting milk. It wasn’t something my tribe had needed for a long time.

  “What are you doing?” I finally asked.

  In return, the bundle screamed and fell over, quickly turning and scrambling back, tripping over the weird cape-thing multiple times.

  I stared at it, my tongue flickering out to confirm what my eyes told me. It was a female, but not a N’Akron female. Her hair was yellow and curly, cascading down her shoulders, and her wide eyes were the color of dirt and newly emerged grass with strange, round pupils. She also had enlarged mammary glands, her teats heavy like they were engorged with milk, but there was no sign of an infant. Maybe she had left it safely wherever she had come from?

  “Did you fall from the heavens?” I asked with a gesture to the sky, since she didn’t seem interested in answering my questions.

  Her eyes widened, her pale cheeks turning pink. Yet her eyes stayed their color, the whiteness not changing. Strange.

  I pointed to the sky, then in the direction of the large metal wreck we had left behind. “Did you come from the lump of metal?”

  She still stared at me, then said something in a rush, a babble of language that wasn’t anywhere close to what I spoke. Not that I was paying as much attention to her words as I should have been. Instead, most of my attention was still on her body. She was so tiny, at least two hands’ width smaller than I was.

  “I do not understand you.” I didn’t like it, but even when I strained, I couldn’t make out a word.

  She said something back, a frown crossing her plump, expressive lips. Whatever I had said didn’t please her. Or maybe she didn’t understand? I wasn’t sure. If I didn’t understand her, there was a good chance she didn’t understand me. She started talking again, so I held a hand up to stop her. The stopping was gradual, her firing what sounded like questions in my direction, complete with narrowed eyes and skeptical looks. She was very untrusting, whatever she was.

  I reached out a hand as an offering, wanting to help her up. It wouldn’t put us on much of an equal level, but it was still better than her all the way on the ground. She looked at my hand skeptically, then at me, but I tried to look neutral. There was a part of me that was almost vibrating with need. This was a female. A female. They were so rare among my people, yet here one was, out in the wild as if there were no dangers.

  She let out a sigh and took my hand, letting me lift her to her feet. Except she was much lighter than I expected and I pulled too hard, leading her to stumble forward and smack into my chest. She yelped and backed up, so I let go of her, even though I didn’t want to. My hand still tingled with her touch, my body with the desire to reach out and put more of my scales against her soft skin. Even among the Setti, there was more protection. The creature’s porcelain skin was delicate and made her extremely vulnerable. How would she survive? Whatever she was, she ignited my protective instincts, even though I could not understand her.

  She said something in that strange language of hers, looking at me with both expectation and apprehension.

  “I do not know what you are saying,” I admitted. I looked her over, debating for a brief moment what to do. My instincts urged me to take her back to my clansmen, to the wreck of metal, since I was fairly certain that was where she came from. Either that, or she was some strange toy of the Caterri.

  The thought sent a strange rush of rage through me, so I did my best to ignore it. Instead, I focused on the other priorities. “Do you have food? Water?”

  When she stared blankly at me, I mimed drinking something, eating something, then looked at her. Her eyes just got bigger.

  “Ogod,” she breathed in her language. “Ryugoneatme?”

  “Ryugon ate-may,” I attempted, hoping she was asking about food. From the panic that flashed across her face, I was probably off base. Deciding communication could wait, I pulled out a waterskin and offered it to her.

  “Yugonposonme?” the female asked skeptically, although there was a hunger in her eyes.

  “Water,” I said slowly, in case that helped her understanding. I took a sip of it and then offered it to her again, hoping that it would help her feel more comfortable.

  She stared at it for another second but did finally take it from me and drink some. Then her face lit up, and she looked at me. “Swatr!”

  I nodded, even though I had no idea what she said. “Swahtter,” I agreed.

  She gave me another quizzical look but seemed to be distracted as she drained most of my waterskin in one go. I frowned, although it wasn’t at her. Did they not have rations? Had they arrived ill prepared? Where had they come from?

  “Food.” I pulled out one of the pouches of dried, smoked meat that I always carried with me as part of my hunting gear. In the cold plains, snowstorms could appear out of nowhere, and it was always better to be prepared.

  Her brows pulled into a frown as she looked at the leather.

  “Food.” I took a strip out, mimed eating it before actually eating it. Understanding dawned on her face, and so did relief on mine. I had a feeling the walk back to camp would take longer, given how short her legs were, but we could at least get started. “Let’s walk.”

  3

  Hetta

  So much for universal translators. Although I’d studied a lot of the languages across the stars, this apparently wasn’t one of them, nor was it programmed in my mind chip. Instead, I’d need one of the communicators that were aboard the ship. Maybe Dana or Jackie had salvaged some. They were like the translators but different, in that they could also pick up new languages and translate once they had enough input.

  As we walked, I studied the tall man who took one stride to every three of mine. I’d mentally dubbed him Snake-Man, what with the scales and the brow ridges and the forked tongue and everything. There were bonus intimidating points with the sword-like thing he carried and the knives at his belt, but he hadn’t been aggressive to me. If anything, he’d gone out of his way to offer me food and water. He also looked human, sort of, tall and muscular and wearing leather pants.

  If all leather pants looked as good on humanity as they did on him, they had definitely gone out of style too quickly.

  He studied me back, long, intense looks that made me feel weird inside. If I had been analyzing someone else’s behavior, I would have said his eyes were full of interest, but given the circumstances, there was no way it could be the case. I was no one. Even if he did want to learn more about me, he couldn’t, because we were only stranded here until we figured out how to get off the planet.

  It was probably a cultural thing, I decided. As an ambassador’s daughter, I’d seen a lot of those.

  Feeling the tension in my chest ease, I continued alongside him until I saw the hot steam of the wreck of the ship in the background. Standing next to it, apparently entirely unbothered by the heat or the cold, were at least three more snake-men like the one next to me. All had huge muscles, were dressed in fur loincloths—and not much else—and carried weapons. Oh, God. I’d made a huge mistake, hadn’t I? He’d seemed so nice, offering me food and water and genuinely trying to understand. But no, he’d just led me back to the rest of his tribe. Who knew what in the hell they were going to do with me?