Page 24 of Treasured By the Hunter

Okay, so I wouldn’t admit it, but I was trying to find an excuse to spend more time together. I was disappointed I couldn’t accept his offer to go to the market together. It sounded fun.

“Destination plotted,” his shuttle said before Harb’k could even agree. “Prepare for liftoff.”

Chapter 11: Harb’k

We realized our mistake as we approached the manmade reservoir. It was swarming with scourge.

“I can go without water for a little while longer,” I decided out loud, both for my shuttle’s sake and for Zoey. Even with my ship's ability to clean the water, I had no interest in bringing any of it on board. Not when the water from the mountain springs was so much cleaner.

“Well, if you need to look for strange scourge, this is the place to be. Looks like we found their watering hole. Ugh! They’re so nasty.”

The worst part was that unlike in other parts of the continent where I could park my shuttle and watch the scourge from safety, I had to hover over the masses here, hoping that the flyers didn’t detect my presence. I was about to fly off when Zoey stopped me.

“Wait. Look over there.”

I looked to where she pointed to see a group of scourge fighting over something. At first, I thought it was food because that was the only thing individuals fought over, but something about the way they were behaving was different. For one thing, the scourge were from different nests. This wasn’t too strange onits own, but many had sustained visible injuries and several were dead, and that was peculiar.

Squabbles over food usually weren’t fatal until the planet, or the nests themselves, were running out of resources. That wasn’t the case here.

“I think we found your anomalies,’” Zoey said. “Didn’t you say a piece of some shuttle fell to Earth? Maybe it’s that hunk of junk they’re fighting over.”

The singed and crumpled chunk could be anything. If it had been a piece of the shuttle, it no longer looked it. To my eyes, it was no more than a piece of useless scrap.

“Shuttle, send the recording to our Tech Wizards. And make sure to get a detailed shot of the article.”

“Look over there.” Zoey indicated another group off to the side. “That one looks striped, and the one behind it has a bright red spot on its butt. And are those wings? On a scuttler?”

From afar, the group had blended together, looking rather normal, but I saw the mutations now.

“Incoming communications from Tech Wizard Sam.”

“Accept communications.”

Sam appeared on the screen with Lenny behind her.

Technically, Sam was only one half of our Tech Wizard duo, with Lenny being the other. The two weren’t a couple, though. Sam, a female despite her male name, was mated to Kan’n, the very hunter who’d been imprisoned inside Sanctuary.

A Tech Wizard was an official Xarc’n military role that had been unfilled until we came to Earth, where we found humans who understood our technology and how to adapt it for our ever-evolving fight against the scourge.

“Harb’k, are you still at the location?” Then Sam did a double take as she looked beyond me at Zoey. “There is a woman in your shuttle.”

“I did not kidnap her, I swear,” I immediately replied.

Zoey frowned at my reply.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Sam said. “You’re not Nov’k.”

“This is Zoey. Zoey, this is Sam and Lenny.” I gestured to the male behind Sam.

After a quick introduction, we focused our attention back on the scourge and their strange prize just as a flyer swooped down and caught the lump of twisted whatever in its claws before climbing back into the air.

Zoey’s eyes met mine, and she said the words before I could. “It’s taking it back to the nest.”

“Shit!” Lenny swore.

“You have to stop it,” Sam said. “You can’t let it take it back to its nest.”

“I think maybe it’s already been in a nest before,” Zoey said.

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