Page 5 of Gravel and Grit

“Well, if you would stop cutting the damn wires, it might!”

The urgency and anticipation rushing through him made his fingers clumsy. He nicked more wires with his claws than he could count, meaning he had to splice another onto each one, which made the process take even longer and increased his urgency.

If we were not forced to work with such low tech this would not take sofucking long.

Finally, after almost a week, Zaek thought he had something that would work. The end result was hideous, with wires poking out everywhere and the casing hastily cobbled together, but that didn’t matter so long as it served its purpose.

Now, to test the ugly thing out.

As soon as he emerged from his basement, Zaek’s stomach cramped, letting its dissatisfaction at being empty for so long be known.

Grumbling under his breath about inconvenient bodily needs, he made a detour to his kitchen and filled a bag with an assortment of bite-sized candies and rocks to snack on, then tucked it into the waistband of his boxer briefs—the only human clothing he found comfortable enough to wear, aside from loose sweatpants—then padded barefoot outside into the cool, early autumn night. He still had the form-fitting suit he’d been wearing during the crash, but despite being made to last, it was beginning to look a little worse for the wear, so he kept it securely stored away, waiting for the time when rescue was at hand and he could don it again.

Arching his back forward, Zaek felt the slit under his shoulder blades open and his wings emerge from within, then sighed with relief as they stretched and unfurled. While he was not at all a fan of retracting his wings, it was necessary while in his work space. The damn things were too big and

ended up knocking things off his shelves.

With a hard flap, Zaek took to the air. He rose above the treeline, then hovered there, wanting as little interference for the signal as possible, in case the beacon was far away. He twisted the remaining two unattached wires together to close the circuit, then waited expectantly, staring at the palm-sized device with bated breath.

He waited. And waited. Five minutes became ten, and still nothing happened.

Growling obscenities, he dropped, landing on his roof with a thud. He’d done something wrong, crossed the wrong wires or perhaps the battery he’d stolen didn’t have enough juice to power it.

Kneeling, he set the tracker down in front of him then pulled his bag of snacks out from where it had slipped past the waistband of his boxers and settled next to his cock. He pried off the tracker's casing with one hand and inspected the inner workings with narrowed, critical eyes, while he blindly fisted a handful of candy and rocks and brought it to his mouth, taking out his frustration by chewing more aggressively than required. Even the mix of sweetness and mineral earthiness that usually never failed to put him in a better mood didn’t help, though the rush of sugar hitting his system made him feel slightly more alert.

Between the full moon and his excellent night vision, it didn’t take Zaek more than a minute to spot the problem. He had, indeed, crossed the wrong wires together. He could well imagine his dam, from whose science-class lineage his secondary blood came from, giving him a look of dry censure at such a silly mistake.

Feeling his horns burn with irritated embarrassment, he fixed the wires.

After a second, a soft beep sounded from the tracker, surprising Zaek so badly he almost choked on the handful of candy he’d just put in his mouth.

Thankfully, his heart leapt into his throat to keep the damned, addictive sweets from cutting off his airway. Coughing up the murderous confections, he spat them over the edge of his roof. He stared after them mournfully for a second, regretting the loss, before another beep from the tracker redirected his attention to the mission at hand.

Anticipation flooded him, sending a shiver down his tail, and a grin wide enough to bare all his teeth and terrify small children stretched his mouth.

After reattaching the outer casing, Zaek scooped up the tracker and his now almost-empty bag of snacks, then dropped to the ground and reentered his

cabin.

“Step one, complete. Now, we have to get ready,” he announced, pretending he was just voicing his thoughts instead of talking to himself.

He would have to address the habit he’d acquired of both asking and answering his own questions aloud before he boarded the rescue ship, not to mention his occasional propensity to outright argue with himself, but there was time for that. He could at least keep it to a whisper until he reacclimated to being around other beings more than once every few decades.

Khargals may not be quite as social as Earthians, but they weren’t made to be alone for centuries, either, not without consequences anyway. Of course, Zaek thought he’d done better than most. He hadn’t given up hope of salvation, even if his conviction had become somewhat… obsessive and fanatical in nature. He hadn’t taken his stone form and sunk into hibernation like Roc’s sire. He hadn’t broken the Prime Directive like he knew some had in order to assuage their loneliness and mate with a human. All the female Khargals on the ship had died, so there was no hope of finding companionship without breaking the directive, but he thought they would have stood a better chance at resisting those urges if they’d listened to him and stayed at least somewhat close together.

He understood Sten, the communication officer’s point when he suggested all those years ago that they spread out. Being spotted every once in a while was inevitable, and having that happen repeatedly in one area brought unwanted attention to their presence, which was how they’d sparked the legend ofgargoyles.

“Ridiculous word. Does not sound anything like Khargals,” he muttered as he dressed in his form-fitting, armored suit and worked to pack what he wasn’t willing to leave behind, including an assortment of weaponry, so he’d be prepared for whatever he found when he reached the beacon.

Still, if they’d stuck together, they wouldn’t be so scattered and unprepared for rescue. He’d just have to hope that everyone’s mental link to their sigils was still active and that, when the rescue beacon pinged them, they’d receive the message, find said sigils, and get to the pick-up location in time. If the rescue ship set a course straight to Earth, he thought it should take them roughly two months to arrive within teleportation distance. He’d wasted nearly a week of that making the tracker.

After freeing the now-healed bird he’d been nursing back to health, boarding the windows, shutting off the water and electricity, and gathering

supplies to take with him, Zaek stopped in the foyer and scanned what he could see of his cabin.

He’d built the place himself and made it both his home and his base of operations for the last century. He was more than happy to be leaving Earth, but there was a part of him, however small, that knew he would miss it, if only because of the familiarity.

“And the candy.”

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