So when Zont Lanov requested I join his backup team as he hunted for Amelia Rivers, I couldn’t pass up the chance to go to Earth, the planet that birthed the brides all Khanavai warriors longed for.
None of us were expecting the Alveron Horde to follow us there. It had been years since anyone had even caught sight of a Hordeship in Khanavai-controlled space. But when Amelia Rivers ran, the Horde showed up, sending scout drones and Hordeships to try to catch her before the Khanavai did.
Heading to Earth in a borrowed shuttle, those of us on Zont’s team all started in Las Vegas, the last Earth city where Amelia had been seen.
When her trail seemed to lead in several directions, we split up to track down her possible routes from Las Vegas. I tracked down a lead for him. Then, as the primary coms tech, I stayed with the ship in the city with all the shiny lights, while Zont took off to follow a human land-transport—a bus, they called it—to the city of Chicago. I tried not to resent the fact that Zont sent most of his other team members to follow up on additional leads, even though I was certain of the intel I’d gotten from a human ticket agent.
When Zont commed to let us know he had run down his quarry and would be taking her into custody in the Chicago bus station, the two of us remaining on the ship cheered—it was always a joyful moment when a warrior found his bride.
Even if his bride ran from him initially.
“Let’s get ready to head out,” said Yelt, our pilot—and in Zont’s absence, the next in command.
“On coms now,” I said, prepping the signal to the other two team members to return to the shuttle so we could take off.
Before I could tap in the send code, though, something scraped across our outer hull. With a frown, I pulled up the outer viewscreens. “Oh, vulk me,” I muttered.
Yelt froze, his yellow-gold eyes widening as he took in the image projected onto the bridge. “What in the tri-galaxy system is the Horde doing on Earth?”
“No vulking clue,” I muttered. “But that beam just took out our secondary coms array. We need to fight back before they destroy the shuttle completely.”
Yelt was already sliding into the pilot’s chair, moving our small ship into evasive maneuvers.
Just then, a message came through from Zont, set to broadcast across our entire in-ship network. It sounded like we had missed his first message. “I repeat, I have located Amelia Rivers,” his voice boomed out. “Please join me in Chicago. Alveron Horde scout drones have pinpointed our location, and we are having trouble escaping them. Immediate assistance required.”
Dammit. Of course, he needed us now. That explained why the Hordeship had suddenly attacked our much smaller shuttle. They wanted to keep us from catching up with the leader of our little expedition.
“Respond,” Yelt ordered me. “I’ve got weapons control.”
I keyed on the com and tapped in Zont’s code. “We would love to come help you, sir,” I began, setting the com to send the message immediately, “but we are under attack in Las Vegas right now. I repeat, under attack—”
A blast shook the side of the shuttle and the coms fizzled out.
“Clavernat carkles!” I cursed. We did not have time for this.
The miniature spaceship shuddered again, and I braced myself against the communications panel.
“I need you on rear weapons.” Yelt spoke tersely, pushing his shoulder-length hair back from his orange face—always brightly colored, but now growing dark as he focused on the task before him.
“Got it.” This shuttle wasn’t made for fighting—to do that, we’d need a bigger crew than just the two of us. But Khanavai were the best-trained warriors in the known galaxy.
We can do this.
“Fire when ready,” Yelt ordered.
We spent the next Earther hour first destroying the Hordeship hovering over Las Vegas, and then tracking down all the drones in the city and destroying them, too.
When our scans showed the last drone exploding under our fire, I finally drew what felt like the first full breath in ages. “Okay. Let’s go get Zont and his bride.”
“Agreed.” Yelt tapped in Zont’s tracker code and frowned.
“What is it?”
“Zont. He’s not showing up anywhere on Earth.”
“Try Chicago.”
“I did that first. We’re not reading him there, or anywhere else.”
I moved to the coms panel. “Let me try. It’s my job, anyway.”
But no matter how much I looked, how often I scanned the planet for them, Amelia and Zont had simply…disappeared.
Together.
“How much longer?” Yelt grumbled.
“The Horde took out our primary and secondary com arrays,” I told him, my voice echoing from under the panel where I was tugging out wires and stripping them down to splice them together. “I’m trying to patch communications through navigation. And if you think that sounds easy, you’re wrong—it’s not. Give me a moment and let me see what I can do.”
Yelt sighed, but he quit grumbling. I heard him thump down into one of the seats on the bridge.
A few micro-moments later, I wrapped some insulating tape around the wires to hold them together. “That should do it, if I am remembering my com engineering classes well enough.”
By the time I slid out from under the control board and closed the access panel, Yelt was already at the com control, keying in the code to ping Central Command. “This is Station 21 Shuttle Three calling Central Command. We have lost Agent Lanov’s tracking signal. Can you confirm?”
Static crackled through the speakers.
“Repeat, we have lost Agent Lanov’s tracking signal. Can you confirm?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think this shuttle can boost the signal enough. We need to relay it through Station 21.”
“How do we do that?” Yelt frowned.
“We’ll have to bounce the signal off Earther communication equipment.” I leaned over and tapped in the information. “Like this.” Our computer spun up and sent out our signal to various communication towers across
