Page 12 of Monstrous Baby
“Standard operating procedures when a squad deploys.” Axxol stepped closer to the map and pointed out the two red dots closer together. “We landed here. Immediately, Red went on the hunt, scouting the terrain in measured arcs ahead of us until he found our target. Then the rest of us jumped to that location.”
“The crash was reported as a dark blob in the sky, right? Did people see the blue ozone from the jumps?”
“There were several sightings of blue flashes,” Rizan replied. “Our initial jump, the short jump to the crash site, and then Axxol’s jump when he left the squad.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, shaking my head. “I’m not following why these other sightings couldn’t be squads.”
“Our jumps were all grouped together.” Axxol circled the blue jump spots with his finger. “We get close, deploy quickly, and exit. These other supposed sightings are scattered too far apart to be a search and destroy mission. Trust me, if HQ knew where we were, they wouldn’t give us even five kilometers’ warning, let alone ten or more.”
“Could each of these be independent squads on the ground instead of jumping around?”
“In my opinion, not likely,” Rizan said. “There aren’t any reports of creature sightings, which if that many squads were actually on the ground moving in, someone would’veseen something somewhere. You can’t keep that many squads hidden.”
I stared at the map, sure we were missing something. Something obvious.
“They could be hoaxes,” Dr. Snyder said. “People talk. Rumors spread. A few legit sightings are mixed in with the rubble.”
“If the details varied, I might agree,” Rizan replied. “But the reports are consistently about blue flashes, lasting only for a few seconds. Sometimes blue lightning was reported even when there wasn’t any thunderstorm activity. That sounds like a jump to me.”
“Don’t even get me started on all the supposed alien abductions,” Snyder said with a laugh.
The pit of my stomach dropped with a sickening realization. Kroktl tensed beside me, immediately pulling me into his lap, his arms closing around me. “What?”
“Abductions,” I whispered. “Rizan, how many of the blue sightings also have a missing person reported on the same day?”
Rizan stared blankly for a few minutes while he ran the reports. Then he clacked his beak sharply. “Eighty-seven percent of the sighting locations also have a missing person reported within twelve hours.” He blinked, his eyes flashing as his head snapped in my direction. “All of the abductees were female between the ages of twenty and thirty.”
A low growl vibrated from Kroktl’s chest, rumbling through me. “Motherfucker.”
7
NATALIE
Bile bubbled up in my stomach. No one in the room had to ask why human women were being abducted.
First, I felt like a selfish asshole. My worry had been myself and my baby girl. Meanwhile, dozens of women were being kidnapped. Experimented on. Or raped by a squad of terrifying dinosaur super soldiers. And when that failed…
Kroktl made the soothing low rumble deep in his chest, but this time, it didn’t reassure me.
Because I knew the truth.
I turned in his arms, meeting his gaze solemnly. “One in a billion billions, remember?”
Lohr’s estimation of how likely it was for Kroktl to find me, a compatible mate, let alone give me Akylla.
Muscles tightened over Kroktl’s jaws, his cheek flexing. His eyes flashed with red symbols and circles, only this time I knew exactly what it meant. He was trying to find words to soothe me, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie.
“What does that mean?” Holly asked.
I let out a long, shaky breath, tears pooling in my eyes. “Earth isn’t a compatible planet for dyni to find mates. The onlyreason it worked for us is the fragmented Myrm cells I carried without even knowing. The odds of Kroktl finding me here at the right time for us to not only meet, mate, and breed, were astronomically impossible.”
“So what are they…” Holly’s words fell off into silence.
I wanted to be sure everyone in the room heard and understood the callousness and cruelty we were dealing with. “Humans are prey for dyni. I asked the squad not to eat other humans.”
Tears streamed down Holly’s pale cheeks. For the first time since she’d joined us, she looked scared rather than wanting a squad of her own.
Good. Because I couldn’t sense any Myrm cells in her. If she ran into a squad out in the jungle…
