Page 85 of The Commander

“Don’t fall asleep, Kitten. Do I need to change the air temperature? Is this setting making you sleepy?”

“I’m listening; no, don’t change it. I’m kinda cold—how can you be sure?” Kitten’s head tipped to the side; her eyes popped open, glassy.

She was upset. About the priestess? The grunts attacking her? Was her arm hurting? There were many possibilities. Humans did not always have clear emotions. Her heart rate had not normalized, but as they had talked, it had improved. All her physical signs pointed to improvement, but something was off somewhere. What was he missing?

He wanted to put the truck in autopilot so that he could check her better but couldn’t remove his hands from the steering wheel until the diagnostic check was complete.

“Kitten. Are there other injuries to you than your arm? Were your internal organs damaged? Something is wrong.”

“Yes.” The word escaped her long, drawn-out huff of air. “Something is wrong. Your people can vaporize anything from an ant to entire cities. They will find us. But before that, they are going to kill a bunch of innocent people because we ran away and left them to it. Those muzzle heads were eating them! My best friend is dead.” Her voice shook.

“She is.”

Cheeks coloring, her chin crumpled, and her frown deepened.

“You don’t care at all, do you? The people, the muzzle heads? Your people? You don’t care that what we did killed them?”

“No. Why should I care? It was a battle of sorts, yes? A skirmish. Death happens. It did not happen to us.”

“She was my best friend,” she repeated.

“You keep saying that as if it matters.”

“It matters if you are not dead inside.” Her quiet words came out hollow and raspy.

Her words were intended to be a barb, but they didn’t sink past the first layer of his skin. She was overwrought. From his study of this planet and all the copious amounts of media filling his brain, he understood that his responses had great potential to increase her heart rate and heighten her emotional responses. Right now, he wanted her calm. They could play later. “I am not dead inside, but I do not share your sensitivities.”

“If I hadn’t taken you there with me,” she started to say.

“No.” Bastian stopped her.

Her lips compressed into a line.

“What is this need you have to take the blame for everything, to carry the weight of other people’s choices? Why do you do this?”

“What do you mean?” Her eyebrows drew down as if he spoke in Sarrian to her.

“You were finding food for a woman who had all the ability to get food for herself. Then, that person changed her location, returning to the males who wanted to fuck you in exchange for benefits that were never theirs to offer in the first place. She made choices. She earned consequences. The town also earned the consequences. What the mayor was doing to them was not in my laws. They could have, should have, come to me.”

“Oh god, those muzzle heads will eat everyone,” she moaned unhappily—missing his point—as if she had just realized the overall danger.

“No, they won’t. The blood frenzy will end as it started if the other prime battler I saw hasn’t killed them already. That much human blood acts like a drug overdose. Since he didn’t try to help Eld or the others, I assume he is working on his own. Perhaps with the younger sister.”

Stationed on the base for some time, Bastian couldn’t be certain what happened on board, but the sister had shown promise in unexpected ways when he’d been there.

“There was someone like you? I saw those skinny-stick bluey guys, but they didn’t look like you. Did they fight?”

“They did not. They weren’t Eld’s actual protection.”

“I didn’t see one like you, a Prime Commander.”

“Not a Commander. Prime battler—my race, not my rank. One would have been enough if he intended to fight. I could have cleaned up, but only to protect you. I will not help a hyped-up flat-nosed silk-ear fake daughter of the goddess.”

“Do you think the rest of Dalewood is okay?”

Bastian didn’t know. Didn’t care. Kitten’s head turned toward him, eyes shimmering and adorably hopeful. She was such a sensitive thing.

He checked the diagnostic panel again. Still running. That was a little alarming. He’d added the map into the vehicle, saved it, and set it up so that he wouldn’t need to access any core records from other sources. He didn’t have a map to get to old Kentucky.

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