“He helped me,” I retorted, stubborn. I wasn’t going to let N’Ashtar kill him just because of some silly feud, no matter how justified it was. The Caterri were horrible, I’d seen that firsthand. But Squire wasn’t anything like them.
“But…” N’Ashtar stared at me, his forked tongue flicking out as if he couldn’t figure out what else to say. Maybe he was speechless, something which would do him well.
“He comes with us,” I said firmly. “We’re taking him wherever we go.”
“Back to N’Akkar?” O’Rrin looked alarmed. “No.”
“Yes.” I narrowed my eyes at him.
O’Rrin clearly looked torn between telling N’Ashtar to get control of me, laughing at me, or just giving in. Too bad for him, I hadn’t even gotten stubborn yet. This was nice Dana, not diplomat Dana.
“We will store him in a different cave,” N’Ashtar muttered, clearly giving in. “We can blindfold him for the travel.”
I scowled, disliking it, but I had a feeling that was all the concessions I would be getting for the moment. Turning to Squire, I reached out a hand to help him up. “You okay with that?”
Squire blinked those black eyes at me, a faint smile curving his too-thin lips. “I am still alive,” he said softly. “That is more than enough.”
My scowl deepened, because really, that wasn’t nearly enough. He wasn’t N’Akron, no, but—
I cut myself off before I launched into another mental rant about how our race or the color of our skin didn’t define us. Just because he was Caterri didn’t mean he was evil. We all had our soapboxes, and that was one of mine.
“Let’s raid the camp,” I decided, clapping my hands together. “Squire, do you have any supplies left?” I paused, guilt flashing through me. “What’s your real name?” I probably should have asked a long time ago.
Squire shook his head. “Call me Squire.” His thin lips curved up at the side. “I am leaving my true name behind.”
I nodded, liking what that symbolized. N’Ashtar and O’Rrin were back to giving me looks like I was crazier than a fruitcake-serving grandma during the holidays, but whatever. They could deal. “We’re definitely taking these.” I patted the gun I was holding and looked around for the others.
“I do not wish to mess with…that.” N’Ashtar stared at the gun in my hand like it was a bomb about to explode.
“Change isn’t bad,” I tried. I could only imagine what was going through his mind. I couldn’t even imagine what it was like to be a more primitive culture exposed to this sort of technology for the first time. Even the translators had caused them worry. Then I gestured for them to follow me, heading for the hovercraft. “We should take this, too.”
“The controls are near the front,” Squire said. He stepped onto the small cart-craft with me and we dug through the boxes while the two N’Akron stood, looking like a pair of worrying, intimidating scaled statues. It would’ve been cute if I wasn’t so concerned about what to do with them. Would they really hold to their word and not harm Squire behind my back, not destroy all the technology we were trying to salvage?
Brightening up, I dug through the chaos at the front, now grateful I was really the only one who had ridden inside it. That told me there was a way to control it from a distance, and from a quick look at what had to be the main panel, I figured that was the only way to make it work. That meant there was probably a remote or a controller of some sort around, and it was probably on one of the dead dudes.
Hopping off the cart, I trotted over to the nearest dead Caterri, looking for A. As the leader, he probably had it.
“What are you looking for?” N’Ashtar sounded puzzled and I screamed and jumped when I realized he was right behind me.
When I spun to look at him, his eyes were slits of alarm, and he’d gone pale under his dusky scales. “Is something wrong?” he asked quickly. “Are you injured?”
“You scared me.” I put a hand to my chest, focusing on my breathing for a long moment. “Maybe be less sneaky when you sneak up on me.”
“I did not sneak.” N’Ashtar looked a mix of amused and baffled. “I was following you.”
“I’m looking for A,” I said, determining he wasn’t among the pair of corpses I was standing next to and heading for another pair.
“A what?” N’Ashtar asked, quickly by my side.
“It’s not his real name, but it’s what I called him.” I put a hand on my hip, doing another scan of the plains before I caught sight of A’s corpse farther off to the edge. “He was their leader.”
N’Ashtar nodded like he understood, even when he still looked puzzled, but he followed me anyway.
“If any of them will have the remote, it’s him,” I explained. “If he doesn’t, I’ll check the others.”
A quick rifle through A’s body found the remote in the strange pocket he had on his pants. I took a note of that, although I wasn’t brave enough to take the pants off his body. If we were stuck on this planet for good, we’d be wearing a lot of leather, and if it took the rest of my life, I’d make sure we got pockets. They had denied us on Earth, but they wouldn’t deny us on Thoheria.
“Got it.” I showed it to N’Ashtar, who took a step back from it like it was going to bite him. Guilt flashed through me, because I wasn’t sure what to say to him. I knew everything we were doing was dismantling his experiences bit by bit. The fact a Caterri had been nice, the fact that technology like this even existed. But if we wanted to take down the Caterri that were oppressing them, we needed all the tools we could get.
When he didn’t say anything, I led the way back to the hovercraft. Squire hopped down, shrugging
