Page 32 of Treasured By the Hunter

“Low. There is a high chance one of the flyers will abscond with the target object during the fight.”

Krux. I hadn’t thought of that.

“Shuttle, can you come up with several options with a higher success rate?”

I frowned. Zoey was asking my shuttle to come up with ideas. I’d never done that before.

“I’m not sure—”

“You can cover the target object with the container and deal with the scourge first. You can scoop up the target object with the container. You can let the scourge fight over it and call for backup. You can…”

“That’s it! We can scoop it up with the container! The flying will need to be precise. Those cables might break if the container gets stuck. Thank you, Shuttle.”

“I can calculate the best flight path,” my shuttle offered. “But I will require manual guidance.”

This I could do. “I will pilot.”

“Oh shit! They’re here.”

My shuttle walls were displaying the external feed, and sure enough, the centicreep was almost here. And behind it were three flyers.

I strapped into my seat, then pulled Zoey on top of me. She stifled a shriek as I fastened the harness over the both of us.

“The ride will get bumpy. You’ll need to control the weapons while I follow my shuttle’s calculated path.”

“Can we do that? We can’t both use the controller.”

“The controller and the navigation screen can be used separately.”

“Oh. No wonder the controller was behind the screen.” She grabbed the controller.

Her first shot removed a good portion of the centicreep. But as always, the creature kept coming with whatever section was still attached to the head. But then, the flight path appeared on my screen, a dotted red line that had to be followed as closely as possible, and that stole all my attention.

It was tricky. Flying too high would mean the dead flyer and the object wouldn’t get scooped up. Flying too low, I risked the edge of the container getting caught on the ground and the cables breaking. They were tied on with knots rather than properly secured, and we only had one chance.

I tried to ignore Zoey on my lap, but it was difficult. First, I had to reach around her to the navigational screen, and second, she tended to lean her body from side to side toward her target. My body was on hyper-alert.

Behind us, the container hit something. Krux! Had I flown too low? Or was my shuttle’s calculation wrong? I resisted the urge to course-correct and continued along the path, flying parallel to the ground before slowly angling upward.

In my lap, Zoey leaned to look behind us. “It’s in! We did it!”

I reported our success and promptly received a call from Sam.

She raised her brows at our seating arrangement but didn’t comment. “Good job in literally scooping up our Object of Doom.”

Great, now Sam was using that name too. That meant it was going to stick.

“But we have a quick change in plans. They are sending a few hunters your way to help escort you directly to the island they’re setting up for research. And Zoey, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the researcher requires that we keep both of you for at least five days for observation in case there are any immediate negative effects from being so close to the object.”

“But we stayed the recommended distance from it.” Zoey stiffened on my lap.

“I know. It’s precautionary. We have access to medical devices that Sanctuary doesn’t.”

“I can’t stay. I have to meet my friend. I promised.”

“It gets worse. A hunter from the Rockies group found the nest the mutated scourge came from. It’s close to Sanctuary.”

“Riley!”

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