Page 2 of Gravel and Grit

“Yeah, the stubborn bastard,” Roc snarled.

“So, you do not plan to move him before they discover him?” Zaek asked, raising the skin over his brow ridge in a wry expression he’d seen on television plays and decided he liked.

“I still have tofindhim. He’s gone so deep into theduramna, the stoning, that I can’t even sense him. All I know is he’s somewhere entombed at the foot of Chateau Frontenac.”

“Hmm. You may want to get started on that. The beacon has fallen from orbit and gone active,” Zaek announced nonchalantly, secretly pleased when Roc promptly choked on a gasp.

“Say again?” Roc coughed, taking a swig of beer to clear his throat.

“The rescue beacon just switched on. We are getting off this miserable fucking rock.”

“How? Where’d you hear that?”

“I have monitored the frequency since we got here,” he stated, his tone making it clear that that should’ve been obvious. “As we all ought to have been,” he added with a disapproving glance at the younger male.

“I just thought that shit was wishful thinking.” Roc’s sharp brow furrowed. “And I’ve never been to Duras. Why the fuck should I care?”

“So, you want to stay here, hiding from the Earthians for the rest of your long life?” Zaek asked disbelievingly. “Regardless of whether you were born here, you do not belong on this planet. You know that.”

“Yeah, ‘cause my sire’s first family is going to welcome a half-breed with open arms,” Roc responded sarcastically.

Grunting noncommittally, Zaek kicked Roc’s feet off the table and crossed in front of him to the couch, spreading his wings out to the side so as not to sit on them before dropping down.

His people were long past the racial intolerance humans still struggled with, so Roc being a hybrid was not an issue, but Zaek could not say with any certainty how a female would react when presented with the news that her long-lost mate was not onlynotdead but had found anotherHondassaand had a child with her. There was a chance she would not take it well and

would be displeased at having proof of her mate’s infidelity around her, living in her home.

Clearing his throat, he spoke without looking at one of the very few people he would call a friend, “You are welcome to join me on my land back on Duras.”

There was a short pause before Roc answered.

“Dude, that’s a nice offer, but I’ve got a pretty sweet thing going here,”

Roc paused and frowned. “But I know of someone who would go back. If I can wake his ass up.”

Zaek eyed the other male, genuinely not understanding why he would want to stay on Earth, but he wasn’t going to force him to see sense. Shaking his head, he asked, “Who?”

“Petronus, my sire, Rocket Scientist,” Roc answered sarcastically and shook his head. “You know, this just might be the news he needs to snap out of his funk.”

Zaek nodded in understanding, ignoring the impudent hybrid’s annoying habit of assigning him snarky nicknames.

Zaek couldn’t blame Petronus for retreating into theduramna. He couldn’t imagine leaving hisHondassaon Duras then getting stranded on an alien planet with no hope of rescue.

The exploratory mission they’d been sent on to find resources was supposed to be a short one. It would’ve been, if the war hadn’t taken a bad turn, but the Ektops had begun to invade Niruba—an uninhabited planet ripe with resources. The Khargals needed those resources, desperately. The lives of their people depended on them. So, their exploratory mission was extended. They searched farther, going beyond charted space to seek a new planet while the struggle continued back home.

They all thought they’d been blessed byLarwhen their sensors found exactly what they were looking for. Unfortunately, as they were passing one of the planets—what they now knew was uninspiredly named Earth—in the target’s system, they were hit by a massive, unpredicted solar flare. The electromagnetic pulse knocked their ship offline, propelling them into Earth’s atmosphere and sending them plummeting to the surface.

They’d lost many good Khargals that day.

Aside from causing the tragic deaths and destruction of their ship, the solar flare fried the rescue beacon before it could send a distress signal to Duras. It ejected into space seconds before the crash, but, with it trapped in

orbit, repairs were not possible. Not that they could have attempted repairs anyway. The tech on their ship sat out of reach at the bottom of the ocean, and primitive Earthians had no technology to speak of at the time.

Zaek had waited a millennium for it to fall out of orbit, and now, finally, after centuries of stubbornly clinging to hope, it had.

He didn’t know how the beacon had come online when he thought it must be inoperable and in need of extensive repairs, but, however it had happened, he was grateful. Now, he just had to find the damned thing and make sure it was sending the correct coordinates to Duras as well as sending out a ping to his brethren’s individual sigils—the multi-purpose medallion that was a communicator and transporter all in one.

Zaek found their sigils’ similarity to the Delta on the television play, Star Trek, endlessly amusing, if not also a little concerning. He often wondered if one of the sigils had fallen into human hands and was the inspiration behind that bit of fictional technology.

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