Toppinir agreed to the request, and Roy shrugged it off as something he didn’t care about. Alex headed back over the hill to Team Boundless.
The squad had finished their maintenance and was huddled around a small fire. The dragons had circled their riders. The fire was a good idea. Despite it being late afternoon, the air in the valley was cold. No doubt, it was caused by the meteor.
No one had mentioned it, but Alex felt as if the meteor was distorting the world around her. The air felt different in her lungs. The valley was far too quiet, as if it were devoid of life. It was too bright for there to be so many black clouds in the sky.
Alex sat down next to Jim, who was pulling up grass and blowing it off his palm. “Nice of you to join us,” Jim chided.
Gill watched Alex and Jim from behind the flames of the team’s fire. Alex could feel his eyes on her, and when she looked up, Gill didn’t bother looking away. Discerning what was behind his eyes was difficult. They did not look angry or hurt, merely watchful. After a bit, Gill turned and began speaking with Jollies.
Jim picked up on the silence and cleared his throat. “Just a joke,” he said. “I didn’t really think you were abandoning us or anything.”
Alex was brought back from her thoughts. “Huh,” she murmured. “Oh, yeah, I didn’t think you guys thought that or anything. Figured you were happy you weren’t the ones being chewed out.”
From over the fire came Brath’s laugh. “Yeah, I’m not going to lie, I’m glad I missed that one. Assume you’re going to be the one to lecture me, am I right?”
Alex shook her head as she leaned back against Chine’s arm. “Nope. Not my place. We’re a team, and we’re supposed to work together. We make mistakes, and we learn together. I’ll leave it at that, all right?”
“Sounds good to me.”
Jollies flitted over the fire and took a seat on Alex’s shoulder. “So, what’s happening next?” she asked. “That meteor is still in the sky. That’s why we’re here, right?”
Alex glanced at the meteor before returning her gaze to the fire. She was just as likely to find answers in the dancing flames as the green aura above. “We came here to help Roy and Toppinir,” she finally assented. “If their mission is the rock, then our mission is the rock.”
“What are they planning on doing?”
“Reinforcements are coming, Manny along with them. I’m guessing they have orders from higher up he’s delivering. I’m going to be meeting with them too. Until then, I guess we just sit tight.”
Gill stood and walked over to Alex, taking a seat in front of her and Jim. Alex wished the drow wouldn’t always be so direct. It was disconcerting. And confusing. Brath had said Gill liked her, but Gill didn’t show his affection in any way she expected him to.
The coolness Alex had felt from Gill had worn off, replaced by something much more confusing. Gill’s calm demeanor made him seem like an adult, so the occasional sparks of childishness were all the more apparent.
Gill was wearing his HUD visor, and he flipped it down when he knelt. “I’ve been tracking the trajectory of the meteor. A little while ago, I hacked into the Nest’s server to look for their records on the meteor’s path.”
This was more than enough to get Alex’s attention. “What did you find out?”
“The meteor was traveling faster than anything ever documented in the nine realms. When it entered our atmosphere, it came to a dead stop, and it hasn’t moved since. This implies your hypothesis might be correct.”
“I didn’t know I had a hypothesis.”
“There is more to the meteor than meets the eye. I hesitate to even call it a meteor. If it were a naturally occurring object, it would have smashed into the ground hours ago. Yet here it is, not moving at all.”
Roy’s voice crackled over Alex’s comm. “Hey, kid, the floating eyeball is here. Head over.”
Alex stood and brushed the dirt off her butt. “All right, that’s my wakeup call,” she said jokingly. “I’ll see you guys in a bit. Hopefully, I’ll know what’s going on. Later.”
Alex walked to where Roy had said the ship was going to be. She crested the hill, going in the opposite direction of the meteor. There she saw the ship. It was an elongated silver thing, looking almost like a cigar. Two huge thrusters were located on each side, and it carried numerous turrets. Glad to see they came prepared for a fight, Alex thought.
Roy, Toppinir, and a handful of soldiers were waiting at the ship’s entrance for Alex. They nodded to acknowledge her and headed onto the ship. Alex followed, jogging to keep up with them so she wasn’t walking behind anyone.
The ship looked as high tech as anything Alex had seen in the Nest. It appeared to be made of the same living crystal as the Nest as well. Soldiers and ensigns crowded it, giving the ship the feeling of a beehive.
The two veterans went straight to the holomap in the middle of the bridge. Manny was floating there, waiting for them. He smiled when he saw Alex. “Looks like you are incapable of following anything like an order or suggestion,” he said and laughed.
Alex was glad the Beholder wasn’t pissed at her. It seemed as if everyone in the room now took her much more seriously than they had a few hours ago. “Myrddin told me he recruited me to fight. I want to make sure I don’t disappoint.”
“You’ve scared the living hell out of all of us, but you haven’t disappointed yet.”
Roy looked like he didn’t have time for pleasantries, his face grim and set. “All right, what do you have
