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Kal chuckled, the sound warm. “We’re not offended.” He shifted, angling his body toward her. “We’re both Izaean—Lathar with the Blood Rage genetic mutation. But Tor’s mutation is further along than mine.”

She looked between them, noting the differences. Where Kal looked almost human except for his size—way bigger than any human guy she’d seen but nowhere near the size of Sy, who kept hovering around her mom—Tor looked different. “What do you mean, further along?”

“He was nearly killed in a battle not long ago,” Kal explained. “Sometimes that can trigger the changes faster.”

Her gaze snapped back to Tor. He couldn’t be much older than her, but he’d already been in battles.

She looked back at Kal. “Were you in the same battle?”

He nodded. Shit. They’d both been in battles. Like the adults. What the hell were they doing talking to her?

She cleared her throat and clicked the tablet off.

“This must seem really dumb to you then. Like kid’s stuff.”

She moved to slide the tablet into her bag. Her fingers fumbled with the zipper, heat crawling up her neck. She felt stupid, showing them basic history lessons when they’d already seen real combat.

Kal’s hand covered hers, stopping her movements. His palm dwarfed her entire hand, rough with calluses but gentle. Her gaze lifted to his face, and her breath caught.

“Please, we’d like to learn more,” he said, his voice rough. Something in his expression made her heart skip. “We don’t… the only thing we really learn is how to fight. We don’t get lessons like this. It’s interesting. Please?”

The last word came out almost shy, and that, more than anything, made her pause. She glanced at Tor, who had drifted closer, his red eyes fixed on her and the tablet with curiosity. The black coating on his skin rippled as he shifted his weight, but his expression was open and interested.

She offered a small smile, carefully pulling the tablet back onto her knees. “Okay. But you have to tell me if it gets boring.”

“We will. But it’s not.”

Kal settled back beside her, close enough that his arm pressed warmly against hers. Tor lowered himself to sit cross-legged on her other side, moving with that fluid grace that made her jumpy.

She started the holo-vid again, the narrator’s voice filling the comfortable silence that settled between them. The display showed the massive arc ships in greater detail—their construction, the complex life support systems, the sleeping chambers where thousands of people had dreamed away the centuries.

As interested as she was in the lessons—she wanted to be a starship designer one day—she focused on their reactions instead. The way Kal leaned forward when something caught his interest and how Tor’s head would tilt slightly at new information.

Maybe they were real soldiers, warriors who’d seen real battle. But right now, they were just teens like her, eager tolearn about something new. She smiled and relaxed as the vid continued.

It was nice to have friends here, even if they were aliens.

7

“Watch your step here.” Ashley steadied Lila as they navigated around a particularly deep tire rut on their way across the work site the next morning. Her daughter barely seemed to notice, her attention focused elsewhere as her head swiveled back and forth, scanning faces in the growing crowd of morning workers.

She’d picked at her dinner last night, disappointment on her face when neither Kal nor Tor had shown up at the mess hall, and Ashley knew she’d tossed and turned all night. Great, a grumpy Lila was never fun to deal with.

A Hell-V rumbled past, kicking up dust that caught the morning light. She pulled out her tablet, pretending to review the day’s schedule while watching Lila from under her lashes. The readouts showed concerning spikes in the resonance patterns from the deep core samples. She’d need to deal with that soon.

“Mom?” Lila’s voice lifted with sudden energy. “Can I go say hi to Kal and Tor? They’re over by the K-wave sensor grid.”

Ashley looked up. The two Izaean teens stood over the other side of the site, Kal already raising a hand in greeting. Torremained slightly behind his friend, his usual reserved stance in place, though his attention was fixed on Lila. The change in her daughter was immediate, her entire demeanor shifting from forced casualness to barely contained excitement.

“Stay where I can see you,” she said, watching as Kal moved toward them with fluid grace. Unlike many of the Izaean, he seemed completely at ease interacting with humans, his body language open and friendly.

“Good morning, Ms. Jackson,” Kal said, his voice seeming too deep for a sixteen-year-old. “Lila, we were hoping you’d be here early.”

“Early bird catches the worm,” she said with a smile, watching the two boys shift from foot to foot. She knew that body language. They wanted something. “Can we help you boys?” she asked with a smile.

“If it’s okay with you, Ms. Jackson, we’d like to show Lila more about our lives,” Kal said, his dark eyes earnest. “Since she shared her lessons with us yesterday.”

Ashley studied his open expression and then glanced at Tor behind him. Her fingers tightened on her tablet as the resonance warning flashed again. She’d deal with that shortly. “Where exactly? Is it within the safety cordon?”

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