Page 39 of Deserted

We’d established a temporary camp in the dried riverbed, seeking shelter from the twin suns that had risen with brutal efficiency two hours prior. The journey through the night had been long but uneventful after our initial escape from the awakening tech. We’d made good time, putting seven miles between us and the primary activation site. Distance that meantnothing if the Swarm’s network extended as far as Legion intelligence suggested.

I should have insisted we keep moving. But Jas had needed rest, and I’d needed to assess the shard I’d contained. My mistake. My arrogance. Thinking I could study the very thing hunting us without consequence.

“This is fascinating,” Jas murmured, oblivious to the danger literally glowing beneath us. “These archives suggest the Swarm wasn’t just a weapon. It was trying to communicate.”

I grunted, attention split between her words and the increasing frequency of the shard’s pulses. “Communication through assimilation isn’t dialogue,” I replied, moving closer to her while trying to appear casual. “The Legion classified it as a contagion for a reason.”

She looked up, those dark eyes sharp with the journalist’s hunger I’d come to admire and fear in equal measure. Our bond hummed between us, allowing me to feel her curiosity like a physical sensation—bright, insistent, compelling. It made protecting her both easier and infinitely more difficult.

“But look at this pattern recognition,” she insisted, tilting the screen toward me. “It’s not just targeting random genetic material. It’s looking for specific markers, specific traits.”

I leaned over her shoulder, inhaling her scent while scanning the data she’d managed to extract. My hackles rose. She’d dug deeper than I’d realized, accessing restricted files that should have been encrypted beyond civilian reach. The fact that she’d broken through spoke to both her resourcefulness and the degraded state of the outpost systems.

“How did you access this level?” I asked, my voice carefully neutral.

Her smile was quick and unrepentant. “Your access codes aren’t as secure as you think. You say them in your sleep.”

Under different circumstances, I might have been impressed. Amused, even. But the whine from the buried shard had risen in pitch, becoming more insistent. Through our bond, I could sense that Jas hadn’t noticed it yet—her hearing less acute than mine, her attention consumed by the data before her.

“We need to move,” I said, closing the datapad with firm gentleness. “Now.”

She frowned, sensing my unease through our connection. “What’s wrong?”

I didn’t answer immediately, scanning our surroundings with heightened senses. The dried riverbed offered minimal cover—just enough to shield us from orbital scans but not from ground-based sensors. The rocky outcroppings to either side provided better defensive positions, but would expose us to the worst of the midday heat.

“The shard is active,” I finally said, helping her gather our supplies. “And it’s transmitting.”

Her eyes widened slightly, fear spiking through our bond before she controlled it. “To what?”

The answer came before I could speak.

Sand exploded in a geyser ten meters away. I lunged for her, wrapping my body over hers just as a beam of raw light seared through the air where she’d been standing. My back took the brunt. Armor held. Barely.

“What the hell?” she screamed beneath me.

“Swarm drone,” I growled, lifting my head to assess. It hovered, gleaming and skeletal, with spindled limbs and a glowing red eye that tracked her like prey.

Target Acquired: Anomalous Entity – Terran DNA – Retrieval Priority.

The machine’s voice hissed in a corrupted version of Universal Standard.

“Oh no,” Jas whispered. “It thinks I’m a sample?”

“No,” I snapped, drawing my pulse blade. “It thinks you’re a threat.”

And it was right. She was a threat—to its programming, to its purpose, to everything it had been designed to contain and control. Her very presence on this world represented an unknown variable the Swarm couldn’t categorize. And what the Swarm couldn’t categorize, it sought to dismantle. Study. Consume.

I activated my beacon with one hand, sending a tight-band signal across every channel I could still access. “Code Black. D-7 site compromised. Requesting immediate extraction. Active Swarm relic. Civilian under threat. Repeat, civilian under threat.”

No response.

I didn’t wait. I charged.

The drone shrieked and fired again. I zigzagged through the dunes, drawing its fire, trying to lure it away. But it kept glancing back at Jas. It wanted her.

She was its directive now.

The pulse blade hummed in my grip, its molecular edge designed to sever even the densest alloys. Legion tech at its finest, meant specifically for encounters like this. Yet the Swarm drone moved with unnatural speed, its articulated limbs bending at impossible angles as it evaded my first strike.

---