Page 7 of Gravel and Grit

comments that were almost always either sexual or derogatory in nature.

When they joined the queue of people filing into the conference room, Mira split left and took a seat at the massive, oval table, farthest from the front of the room where Dr. Flannagan, the head scientist at Area 51, and General Harrison waited.

Setting her papers on the table in front of her, she sat upright in her seat, trying to project confidence while fighting the urge to chew on her pen cap, a nervous habit she couldn’t seem to break. If she thought slouching in her seat and using her small stature to her advantage to go unnoticed would work, she’d have done it in a heartbeat, but General Harrison had the eyes of a hawk and a bad habit of calling out anyone who looked nervous or reluctant.

The last thing she wanted was to be put on the spot, not just because she didn’t have anywhere near the evidence she needed, but because she hadn’t sounded the alarm at the device’s unprompted beep.

The meeting started as it always did, with Dr. Flannagan giving his usual speech about the importance of their work, before he began calling out the names of the various team leaders, asking for updates.

Considering they weren’t supposed to share details of their individual projects with people outside of their team, she thought the fact that they had group meetings, with everyone that worked on this level present, was a little silly. Everything was spoken of in code words with sparse detail, but if you read between the lines, it wasn’t hard to figure out what everyone was working on, how much progress they’d made, and what they speculated their assignments were capable of. Mira listened avidly and was quite adept at reading between the lines. That was how she knew Team 1 was working on a mostly intact, though so far inoperable, ship that they suspected was capable of faster-than-light travel.

Mira had her sights set on joining Team 1.

Unlike her colleagues, whose interpersonal skills left something to be desired, and who weren’t terribly adept at reading social cues, Mira was quite perceptive of other people. It was a necessary skill she’d honed during her childhood. It was how she’d managed to survive relatively unscathed living in numerous foster and group homes until she’d finally been booted out of the system at eighteen. She may not have escaped completely unharmed, but neither had she suffered the abuse to which so many others had been subjected.

“How is progress coming on Project-XJ737? Mr. Stewart?”

The question sent a jolt through Mira, bringing her attention back to the meeting. That was the designation assigned to her device.

“Ah, that project is still being headed by Ms. Bennett. Mira? Any progress to speak of?” Calvin asked, leaning forward to look down the table at her past the people separating them.

Hearing the snide tone in his voice, that he made only the smallest of efforts to disguise, she darted a glance at him and caught the little smirk curling his thin lips.

Asshat. Still, should’ve seen that coming after the notebook to the faceincident.

Mira cleared her throat and looked at Dr. Flannagan, who was staring at her expectantly from the front of the conference room. For just a moment, before good sense kicked back in, she considered sharing her findings. No one knew more about that stubborn device than she did, regardless of the fact that Team 3 worked on it for six months before pawning it off on Team 7, who sent it to Team 12 where Calvin himself worked on it for a few months before giving it to her.

She had a complete map of the electrical diagram, knew every wire, tool mark, and connector. She’d made some progress in translating the strange, alien language the code was written in and had even discovered the possible purposes behind said code. She wanted to brag about her success, but now wasn’t the time. She had to wait. When she made conclusive determinations where everyone else had failed and proven herself invaluable,thenshe would present her findings.

“Not much progress to speak of. I’m recording all the data and going through it with a fine-toothed comb. I’ve got a few theories, however, and expect to have more to report at the next department meeting,” she announced, keeping her tone calm and professional, which purposefully emphasized Calvin’s rudeness, something she saw worked when Dr.

Flannagan flicked a disapproving glance at him.

Going back over it in her head, she thought she’d done well. She’d given him hope, but not too much, kept it vague so it didn’t sound like she hadn't accomplished anything, but nothing to reveal how much progress she’d really made.

Hm. Not too shabby at this subterfuge thing after all.

“Very good. Well, I believe we’ve covered everyone. You may return to your work, and I’ll expect to have everyone’s comprehensive reports on my

desk by this evening.”

Mira gathered her things and stood with everyone else, catching the speculative, narrow-eyed look Calvin sent her way as she turned to leave, and realized she may have given a little too much away.

5

ZAEK

It took Zaek three days of flying to reach the spot where the tracker was leading him. Only being able to fly at night, and having to find a suitably hidden spot in which to sleep and hole up during the day, meant it took longer than he’d anticipated, but he’d made it to the deserts of Nevada without any issues.

He’d brought enough food and water to last him twice that, which was a damn good thing considering where the tracker brought him. Zaek expected to find the beacon half buried in the sand somewhere, not in what was quite obviously an Earthian military base.

“This complicates things,” he mumbled, scanning what he could see of the low buildings spread out in front of him.

“Of course, it complicates things. Why point out the obvious?” he snipped back to himself, rolling his eyes as he adjusted his wings slightly.

He’d made it past the motion sensors, cameras, and little flying toys until he was about five hundred feet from the farthest outbuilding, then stoned his wings and spread them into a dome over his body so he’d look like a rock to any scans. He didn’t match the surrounding rocks perfectly, being that both his skin and his stone were dark grey in color, but there wasn’t much he could do about that.

His primary breed was warrior class and his secondary was science, so he didn’t have the camouflage capability unique to the spy class and the camo feature on his suit was long ago worn out from use. While on Duras, and even

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