Alex wished she could shrivel up and fade from the realm.
Jim spoke again. “Whatever we are doing is our business, though, Jollies. Maybe you should ask Alex when the entire Nest doesn’t have the ability to hear you.”
Alex could imagine Jollies pouting. If there was one thing the pixie hated, it was having her fun taken away from her. She would probably be upset about this for the next couple of days. Even if Alex told her roommate what happened in explicit detail, it wouldn’t be enough. She wouldn’t be satisfied.
“Fine,” Jollies finally said. “I’ll talk to you in private about it when you get back, Alex. But I’m going to want all the details. Even things you don’t want to admit to yourself.”
“Sheesh, Jollies, you make it sound horrifying.”
Alex could practically see Jollies turning a different color as she spoke, jumping from red to black and maybe deep purple. “All the details,” the pixie growled. Then her voice returned to its chipper tones. “So, what was it you wanted to talk to us about?”
Alex had almost forgotten the reason she had called the night watch. “There’s a weird light in the sky near Jim and me,” she explained. “I didn’t think anything of it at first, but I don’t know, it doesn’t look right. It reminds me of the meteor we just recently fought.”
Jollies was all business now. Alex wondered how long the pixie had been helping with the night watch. “Oh, then that would be something to pay attention to,” Jollies said as professionally as she could be. “It’s a good thing you two were out that way. Nothing is showing up on our screens.”
“Yeah, I thought it was really weird-looking. So, what now? Will you guys stay up all night watching it?”
“You know, that’s exactly what we’re going to end up doing. Night watch is so boring. Even if there isn’t anything important about the light, there’s nothing else to do. Brath is refusing to talk to me. Jim gave him some sort of human video game, and he hasn’t put it down, even though he’s supposed to be helping me with my dragon anatomy quiz.”
There was some scuffling over the comm, and Brath yelped in either fear or irritation. “Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing with that?” the gnome shouted. “I swear, if anything happens to it, Jim is going to kill me. And I’ll help you with your damn quiz. We’re going to be here all night. Don’t see what the huge rush is.”
Finally, the commotion settled down. Alex had enjoyed the brief chat, but she was much more interested in hanging out with Jim than listening to Jollies and Brath argue. Before Alex could disconnect, she heard Brath asking her to hold on. “Looks like we got a problem,” Brath said. “That’s not a meteor. That’s a ship, and it’s still coming down.”
Alex sighed, remembering the meteor she’d come across. It had been a living ship that had warped reality around itself. If this was anything like that, it was going to take the whole Nest to deal with it. The last one had almost killed most of Boundless and had resulted in Alex losing her arm. This was the least ideal way a date could have ended up.
Jim was already on his feet, climbing into his mech. Guess that was the end of the date.
Alex had hoped Jim would be happy leaving this for someone else to take care of, but she and Jim were the closest. It made sense for them to check it out. Still, Alex had been hoping to at least get kissed before risking her life again.
Chapter Five
Alex and Jim thanked the pixies, bade them goodbye, and made their way toward where they expected the ship to come down. It was difficult to tell the trajectory from where they were. Alex wondered if the ship had the same kind of reality-warping abilities as the meteor they’d come across before since both shared the same green streak.
From where Alex was, she figured it could take up to two hours to get to the meteor if it was descending. She logged this information back to the Nest, hoping someone would know what to do with the intel. Being out all night on a mission was the last thing the rider wanted.
Usually, Alex would have jumped at the chance to investigate something like this. She’d always been about the mission, regardless of what it was. Something had been different recently, though, if only just the last few days. Getting up and going to class was a drag. Even running through combat scenarios had been more lackluster than usual.
The only thing she’d been looking forward to in a while was having some alone time with Jim. Now it looked like that time would be spoiled.
“Chine, what do you make of that thing up ahead?” Alex asked aloud.
Chine snorted loudly as he turned his head to look at the streak of green light. Here I was thinking you had forgotten about me, the dragon said, chuckling. I didn’t realize humans were so one-track-minded when they fell in love.”
Alex switched over to her purely mental channel with him and snapped, Don’t tell me you’re jumping on board with the immaturity. I would have thought this was above your dragon stateliness.
There’s nothing in my code of honor or action that dictates that I can’t have fun or make jokes. Not that you have to worry about it happening often. I like a little teasing, Dustling. As for the streak, I am uncertain. From here, I cannot tell what it is, but it does not fill me with the dread I felt from the rock that we saw before. Whatever this is, I assume it is more benign.
Alex liked the sound of that. It would be nice for something enjoyable to fall from the sky for once. But it wasn’t in
