Page 5 of Jessica's Protector

Cinq

At first, I thought the authorities were here for me. That someone had traced my infrequent yet encrypted queries to the datalinks. Looking out over the land and watching my people zip above a Kostan cargo ship instead of gunning for me, I relax.

“My turn.”

I step back and let Nilt take the viewer. The half Gharian, half reptilian Khscc is looking around, swiveling the viewer like I was after the first sonic boom. We’d rigged this device back when S’Tou landed. Nilt, Quin and I needed a way to see above the forest, even though the trees are shorter than those on any of our worlds. A few pipes, a couple of mirrors, and a way to look outside without being seen was born. Very non-technical but also not emitting sounds from a power source. The quieter we are electronically, the better.

“What do you see?” Quin, the other mixed race person among us asks Nilt.

“A bunch of ships fighting over a crash site is all.” Nilt turns to me. “Cinq, what about the people you saw running away? You said you saw Gharians?”” he asks, pressing his face against the tube. “Were any of them Kostan?”

I shrug “Not that I could tell. They were headed for the mountains before the Gharians arrived and looked like Earthers, I think. The wreck is too far away for me to be sure.”

“Bik,” Nilt curses. “I really liked this place. Are you sure we’ll have to leave?”

Can’t say I blame him. A large accident won’t keep us as hidden as we’d all hoped and we’ll have to relocate. Part of me wants to go see what I can salvage once my people have rescued survivors and recovered the dead. The intelligent rest of me knows we should pack up and move out in the morning. “I’m not sure of anything at this point.”

“How soon can we go through what’s left?” S’Tou asks.

“I’m not sure,” I say. “We need to wait a few days at least. Going today or tomorrow is far too risky.”

Quin groans, the feathers on the back of his neck raised and showing his Quzi heritage despite his gray Vahdmoshi skin. “Come on, Cinq. Everything is too risky to you. Once they’re gone and taken everything that means something to them, we can have what’s left. You know we’ll need better shelter from the storms. Plus, our equipment could use new components. Their leftovers will help.

He makes an excellent argument. All of us miss our food replicator. “All right,” I concede. “You and Nilt can go after the containment crew leaves.”

Nilt’s reptilian scales shimmer in our habitat’s artificial light as he steps back to give Quin a chance to see. He comes over to S’Tou and me. “Did you notice the person approaching us?”

I search my memory and shake my head. “No. Just the main group headed away. Why? Did you see something?”

“I can’t be sure. My eyesight isn’t as good as everyone else’s since the accident,” Nilt says.

Quin hollers to us, “I see them. There’s one person running toward us. Small, no wings.”

I go over to look again as Quin relinquishes the scope. Sure enough, there’s a humanoid running full speed to our stunted forest’s hideout. Shadows and vegetation hide the person’s face this late in the day but can’t disguise the long coppery hair. “Interesting.” I turn the view over to S’Tou. “What do you think?”

“Short. Very short. Probably an Earther, but I don’t know why he’d be on his way here instead of running with his people.”

“Let me see,” Nilt says and S’Tou lets him look. “I don’t see him. Oh, wait. No, just a shrub.”

Quin moves Nilt away with a steady push. “Come on. None of you have the eyesight I do. Let me describe him.” We probably should have let him be the first at the viewer anyway. None of us have the visual capabilities he does, not even S’Tou and me with our embedded tech.

He’s quiet for a while and I verbally prod him with, “Well? Don’t keep it a secret.”

“Just when I took over, he disappeared into the forest. Looking at the footprints, though, I’d say he was a youngling. Too immature to push out on his own.”

I shake my head because that’s all we need. An immature Earther hanging around us. I don’t even know how to speak Earther and never pulled the language from the datalinks. With all the Gharian ships in our solar system, it’ll be a long time before I can send an encrypted packet to my home world for any information, never mind an obscure Lesser world language. “All right. We’ll go out in the morning to find him.”

“I don’t know,” S’Tou begins. “Probably cold enough tonight to freeze an Earther solid before dawn.”

“Then that’s a problem solved,” I reply. Yes, I’m a heartless fleegan, but then, I’ve had to be. Shrugging off the guilt, I ask Quin, “See anything else of interest?”

“Just a lot of Gharians surrounding the crashed Kostans.” He holds out a hand. “Wait. Your people are sending a ship to where most of the Earthers ran to.”

S’Tou sends over our internal communication system, or innercoms, How long do you think it’ll be before they order another rescue ship here? Takes a while for footprints to fade, you know.

“Pless,” I curse under my breath because S’Tou is right. The fugitive has led the empire right to my doorstep, putting all of us in danger. “All right. We have a runaway Earther to retrieve and his tracks to erase,” I continue aloud to keep the communications channels quiet.

The air instantly changes, crackling with excitement. S’Tou was our last new person. If there’s anyone else on this planet, we don’t know about them. The place is barely habitable with some vegetation and a little too much ozone in the atmosphere. Not enough to kill us because our internal nanotechnology keeps our systems clean of toxins.

---