SUMMER

This is all on me.

I’m trying not to panic at the thought, but it’s difficult. We have to rescue the others, and Warrek’s letting me lead the charge. I can’t fail. The thought’s utterly terrifying, and I hope his confidence in me isn’t misplaced. But as a sa-khui hunter, Warrek is out of his league when it comes to anything technological or relating to the ship. I’m the one that has to think outside the box. I just don’t want to fail.

Warrek and I waited all afternoon long for it to grow dark outside. We took stock of our supplies. I’m surprised at how well-stocked Warrek is for a day trip. I thought we’d be screwed, but it turns out he keeps a survival bag with him at all times. He’s got a spear and two knives, extra leathers and waterskins, fishing hooks and twine, a braided rope, and soapberries. Some of it isn’t all that useful, but I’m glad we have it, just in case.

I’m nervous all afternoon, stealing out of the entrance to the cave to watch the ship in the distance. Part of me is terrified it’s going to take off at any moment and Harlow, Farli and the others will be gone forever. But it doesn’t. It just sits there on the horizon like a malignant tumor on the smooth surface of the snow. So at least there’s that. It means that our plan for tonight can go ahead as we hoped.

Plan. Hah.

I have no plan, other than “somehow stall the ship.” I’ve been racking my brain all afternoon, thinking up all the ways we could possibly prevent the ship from taking off. Tying down one of the “feet”—the landing gear—doesn’t seem like it would work, since the ship can hover and land vertically with no need for a ramp-up. There aren’t tires, so my metaphor for “slashing them” remains just wishful thinking. I can’t see a tailpipe, so I don’t know if we can stuff it and cause the engine to stall. If we were at home, I’d unscrew the gas cap or put sugar in the tank or any number of things I’ve heard will stall a car. Or heck, just pop the hood and unhook the battery.

But this is a spaceship, built by people with technology leagues and leagues ahead of ours. There might be zero vulnerabilities to us, in which case, my grand plans will fail. God, I really hope we don’t fail.

Right now, we have a two-part plan.

Step one: stall the ship and prevent it from taking off.

Step two: flush out the slavers inside the ship and pick them off one by one. To do so, Warrek’s going to dig pit traps and cover them stealthily, and we’re going to take it from there.

I’m in charge of step one.

I have no idea what to do for step one. But I’m not going to let that stop me. We need a plan, and even a terrible one is still better than no plan.

As we head across the crunching snow into the night, though, I’m starting to get really, really nervous. What if we can’t figure out how to stop the ship from flying off? What if I let everyone down? And because I get nervous, I start to babble. “I feel like we should set expectations before we get to the bad guys. Because I know what I’m capable of, but I’m not sure if you’re aware of what I am and am not capable of, and I feel like if you think I’m capable of something and I’m not, then you’ll be disappointed in my lack of capability, and then you’ll feel like you’re doing this alone. Not that you’re doing it alone, of course. Or that I even want you to! I want to help as much as the next person. Oh man, I really wish there was a next person that could help.” I mentally cringe. “Not that you aren’t great, of course. I’m glad you’re here and I’m not alone, it’s just that—”

“I know,” Warrek says quietly, and puts a hand on my shoulder as we walk. “You worry. I do, too. We will do what we can.”

Not the most comforting of words, and yet it’s exactly what I needed to hear. I suck in a deep breath. “Right. We’ve got this.”

“You are clever, Suh-mer. You will know what to do.” He gives me an intense look of confidence that makes my skin prickle. No one has ever looked at me like that.

“Okay.”

“Just remember to be careful. We must not be seen.”

I won’t forget. The thought of being noticed by the slavers has me utterly terrified. I nod repeatedly, as if nodding more than once can somehow convince me, too.

And then we’ve crossed most of the valley and the ship looms a short distance away, so close that I can hear the gentle hum of the engines. Oh god, I’m so not ready. I swallow hard and look over at Warrek.

He pulls one of his bone knives from his belt and hands it to me. “I will begin digging the pit traps. Be careful.”

Right. He’s going to do the hard stuff and I’m going to scout things out. We can do this. I just need to stay cool and calm. “Okay.” When he turns away, I reach out and grab his hand. It’s startlingly warm, but not half as warm as the gaze he levels at me. “You—you won’t leave me behind, will you?”

“Never.”

Maybe he’s just being polite, but that one soft word makes me think of all kinds of wholly inappropriate things. I feel my cheeks heating, and I start to nod again like a dummy, then catch myself.

Time to get things rolling.

Warrek jabs the end of his spear into the snow, looking for a slushy spot, and then drops to his knees and begins to dig with both hands, scooping snow with an inhuman amount of speed. I watch his bare blue forearms flex in the moonlight, then shake myself. No time to gawk. There’s rescuing to be done. I clutch the knife close and head as silently as I can toward the big spaceship.

The goal is to get them out of the ship, I remind myself. While the enemy’s inside the ship, they have defense systems I can’t even imagine. Right now, they have control of the board. I need to get them into my territory and then slowly retake the spaces that they’ve claimed as theirs. It’s doable in chess, with some smart maneuvering. It’s going to have to be doable here, too.

I move closer to the ship and then hunker down in the snow near a boulder when I get closer, wondering if something is going to trigger a proximity alarm of some kind. I’m trying to think of every possible scenario, but when nothing happens, I have to keep getting closer. I wish I’d listened to Mardok when he’d told us about the ship, but I have to admit, I was more interested in watching the dreamy looks that Farli was giving her mate than what he was actually saying. He said something about it being a shipping cruiser. I remember that much. Okay, so if it’s not a war vessel, it would stand to reason that it wouldn’t make me explode into dust if I touched it, right?

Here’s hoping.

I creep forward, then place one of my mittens on the hull. Nothing happens. I can feel the ship humming with energy, and the low sonic drone is much louder here. I look up, to the undersides of the wings, but everything is out of reach of someone my height. Right now I’m looking for a tailpipe of some kind. If I find one of those, I’m pretty confident I can find a way to jam it, and that always causes problems with a vehicle, I think.

I glance up at the wings again. I sure hope a tailpipe of some kind isn’t under there. If it is, that’s not going to happen unless I pull Warrek away. I glance back at him, but I can’t see him in the dark. I picture him digging frantically because he’s got at least two traps to create. I can’t let him down.

I circle toward what looks like the back of the ship, and then I feel like smacking myself in the head. Near the end of the ship, tucked behind the wings and along the back of the body, there are a few pipes letting out a constant stream of exhaust. It’s clear that they’re hot, because they’ve melted all the snow in a wide circle on this side of the ship. “Summer, you doofus,” I whisper to myself. “Look for the obvious clues first.”

I approach, and as I do, I’m hit by a blast of hot air. I immediately take a few cautious steps backward and hunch low, trying to figure this out. Okay, I can’t even get close to the tailpipes without turning into a charcoal briquette. I’ll roast alive if I even try. I didn’t consider that. I guess it’s a lot easier on Earth to put a potato in someone’s tailpipe when the car’s not on. This car’s on and it’s not turning off.

Well, shit.

I slowly circle the ship again, giving it a wide berth so as not to set off any sensor alarms, and don’t come up with any other ideas. Crap. If we’re going to save the others, it’s going to have to be with the tailpipe, unless I want to somehow go into the ship Rambo-style, armed with nothing but my knife, and try to do a takedown.

So…yeah. Tailpipe it is.

I circle around again to the back of the ship, noticing that I must have spent more time than I realized studying things. Warrek’s smoothing out the small mountain of snow he’s dug up from the one pit, trying to make it seem like a natural part of the environment. I know the plan is to grab a few rocks and weights to hold one of the furs entirely over the pit and cover it with a fine layer of snow so it looks completely disguised when you walk up to it. He says he’s done it plenty of times before, so I’m going to assume he’s got it covered. He sure doesn’t look worried.

Me, I’m starting to worry I won’t be able to handle my end of things. I return to the tailpipe and get as close as I can to the blasting heat, thinking. I’m about six feet away from the platter-sized hole that the exhaust is pouring out of. I need something sturdy to plug it. Of course, once I plug it, I need to make sure that whatever I shove in there won’t immediately catch on fire, won’t shoot right back out, and won’t melt.

“Oh sure, Summer, no problem there,” I tell myself sarcastically. “Maybe you can stuff it with the unicorn that’s about to trot up, or ask a leprechaun to shove his pot of gold there. Both seem about as likely as you finding a solution.”

But talking aloud helps me think, and I start stripping off the many layers of leathers I’ve got over my clothing. Each layer itself is too light to be useful, but maybe if I stick something heavy in the center—say, a rock—and then wrap it in heavier, wet leathers, the weight from those might stop it from shooting right back out. If I can make the ball of leather big enough that it’ll expand when it dries…well, I actually have no idea if leather expands when it dries. But my hair fluffs when it dries, and my outer leathers are covered in a layer of furs, so it stands to reason that it’ll do a little bit of puffing up, at least.

Then, maybe I can use Warrek’s spear to jam the damn thing in long enough to cause it to backfire. If this is anything like my hairdryer at home—and gosh, it sure feels like it—blocking the exhaust will either cause things to shut off or something to catch on fire.

Either should bring someone out.

I have to be sure that our pit traps are ready at that point, though. It’ll do us no good if we try to pull someone out and we don’t have any place to trap them.

I get to work making my leather ball o’ doom.

Finding a rock the size of a basketball isn’t too hard. Finding one I can lift quickly means I have to size down to about a cantaloupe, though. I tear one of my layers of leathers into strips and begin tying the other layers over them. “Think of it like a big rubber-band ball,” I tell myself. “With fur. And leather. And you’re going to somehow get this magically wet.”

I shiver at the thought of that, because it’s bitterly cold out here. Without my insulating layers of furs, my teeth are starting to chatter and my skin is pricking at the chill in the night air. If this is anything like the Antarctic, it’s probably a jillion degrees below zero at the moment. I don’t know how much my cootie can handle, and my fingers are going numb, but I can’t dwell on that now. What’s a little frostbite compared to slavery?

I run out of leather and do a quick eye-balling of things. Nope, I need more. I find Warrek—who’s digging a new pit in the distance—and am a little fascinated to see that he’s stripped down to nothing but a loincloth to work. His skin is all shiny with sweat, and his long, silky hair is sticking to his back. Oh wow. That’s…I give my head a little shake. “No distractions, Summer.”

“Eh?” Warrek pauses, straightening and glancing over at me.

“Nothing! I just need your leathers. And your spear. But you’re not using them, I see. Are you almost done? Because I don’t know how long this will stay blocked, so we’ll need to assume we have to hustle once I finish putting my pipe bomb together. Okay, it’s not really a pipe bomb. It’s a big wad of leather that’s gonna go in a pipe, but hopefully it works like a bomb. Or really, I’d settle for it working like a plug. That would be fine with me—”

“Take my leathers,” he says. “Give me…” He tilts his head and glances up at the sky, pointing. “Until the small moon crosses in front of the big moon. Then I will be done covering this pit. The other is already covered. Walk along the cliff,” he says, pointing in the distance. “Do not come back this way or you risk falling in yourself.”

I want to tell him that there’s no chance of that, but…I am a klutz. There’s every chance of that. I gather up his furs, snatch his waterskin and spear, and trot back to my workstation.

A short time later, my ball is done. Wetting it down turned out to be the easiest part, actually. All I had to do was load up the waterskin with snow, hold it close to the exhaust, and then pour the melted snow on top of the leathers. It’s now damp—and rapidly freezing over—and heavy. I glance up at the moons—the little one’s in front of the big one, and just about to exit.

Time to get this show on the road.

“Don’t be nervous,” I whisper to myself. “You’re going to save everyone and be a big damn hero. That’ll take care of any nervousness. You can throw up later. Right now, a big pool of vomit just means something else to slip in.” I heft my heavy, slick weight into my arms. Holding it is a bit like torture because it’s cold, wet, and getting my clothing damp, which means they’re also immediately icing up in the chill. I glance around for Warrek, but I don’t see him. Gotta do this myself.

I hold the ball out and try edging forward, but my hands start to burn. I pause to re-wet the ball, put my mittens on, and decide that the best tactic is to just rush forward and do things as fast as possible. The slower I go, the longer that super-heated air blasts on my skin.

“Count of three,” I tell myself. “One. Two… Three.” I rush forward, imagining myself making a basket in a basketball game. Be strong. Be fast. Be assertive. I ignore the blast of hot air and aim for the pipe. My plug goes in—and then doesn’t go in very far. The air is powerfully strong and pushing against it hard. I jam at it with my fists, but the ball’s getting too hot to touch. Fuck.

“The spear,” I yelp to myself, and then wince when my voice seems far too loud without the roar of the exhaust. I don’t have much time. I practically tackle the thing and then rush back, using the butt of the spear to shove the plug in farther with a few more jabs.

“Suh-mer?”

“Help me jam this in there,” I pant at him. “Are you ready to go?”

“More than ready. We should leave the area.” He moves to my side. “Now we go and wait—”

“First give this one good shove for me, okay?” I jam the spear butt against the rock-leather-ball thing again.

He gives it a few jabs, grunting, and then takes my hand. “We cannot stay.”

“Right. Going.”

To my surprise, he doesn’t let go of my hand as we race away. We head a short distance away from the ship and huddle behind a pile of big rocks. I’m surprised we aren’t heading back to the fruit cave, but I guess we want to wait and see if our traps spring any immediate results. Makes sense. I shiver, wrapping my arms around myself. Jesus, it’s cold.

“Wait here,” he murmurs, and gets up from our hiding spot.

I want to protest, until I see what he’s doing. He grabs a fallen branch from a short distance away and uses it to sweep away our tracks in the snow, leaving only the ones that lead to the pit trap. Smart. He finishes and slowly continues to cover his trail, moving backward, his tail flicking back and forth high in the air as he walks his way back to me. Once he’s behind the rocks again, he settles in next to me and then frowns.

“What?”

Warrek leans in and touches my face.

I jerk back, surprised. His fingers feel warm—and they also hurt. “Wh-what are you doing?”

“Your face is bright red,” he murmurs. “And your eyebrows are gone.”

“What?” I touch my face in horror. Sure enough, there’s nothing but smooth skin where my eyebrows used to be. My eyelashes are gone, too. I can smell the singed hair now, and it hurts to touch my face. I pull my mittens off and my hands are bright red and tender, even through the leather. Oh god. “I…I was so focused on trying to push it in…I knew it was hot, but I didn’t think…”

“You did what you felt you must,” Warrek says softly. “It was very brave.”

“I probably look awful,” I whisper, grabbing a handful of snow and holding it to my cheeks.

“You look very brave.”

I snort. “That’s polite-speak for awful. You can tell me the truth, Warrek. Now’s not the time to sugar-coat anything. Though I guess here it’d be snow-coat, since there’s no sugar. Or if there is, you guys have been holding out on us. Not that I think you would, of course, but if it were me, and a bunch of strangers started to live in my city, I’d probably hide my valuables, too—”

“Your face is very appealing,” he says in that low, calm voice. “Eyebrows do not change that. They only tell me that you are brave to risk yourself.”

I feel that heat creeping through my body all over again at his words. Is he flattering me or just being nice? I study him, tongue-tied for a change, as he pulls his bag out and digs around in it. He pulls out a small little horn with a bit of leather tied on one end, and pulls off the leather. I realize it’s a cap and there’s a paste of some kind inside. “This will help your burns,” he murmurs, taking my hand in his and beginning to rub the stinky lotion on the back. “Whatever this does not help, the khui will do the rest. You will be as lovely as ever in a few days, Suh-mer.”

That definitely sounds like flattery to me. I practically squirm with pleasure at his words. It’s totally inappropriate to be crushing on someone right now when others are in mortal danger. But as his fingers smooth the lotion over my hands, I start getting all jittery and flustered, and it feels like he’s practically caressing some parts of my body that are a lot less safe than hands.

Or maybe that’s just my hyperactive imagination.

I’m a little sad when he finishes covering my hands in the thin layer of goop. I want him to keep touching me. Of course, then he makes my heart flutter by digging a bit more of the lotion out of the horn container and gesturing at me. “Lean in.”

Oh. Oh. He’s going to touch my face. I don’t know if my horny, inappropriate loins are going to be able to stand that. I should tell him no.

Instead, I practically shove my face forward so he can touch it.

Then I remember he’s smearing some healing gunk on it and it’s probably not a sexy look. This is not how dudes flirt to get women, Summer, I remind myself. Plus, you have zero eyebrows. Zero. I sigh at the thought.

“Hurts?” he asks in a low voice that makes my belly tingle.

“Just thinking,” I whisper, all breathless.

His warm chuckle surprises me. “When are you not?” he asks.

I bite my lip as his fingers move over my forehead, smoothing the cool lotion on them. I’m still shivering with cold, but I can ignore that for now, considering that he’s touching me—and he’s sitting in a loincloth himself. It’s not like we’ve got extra furs at the moment. They’re all stuffed into the tailpipe, hopefully causing chaos. “I…I’m sorry if I tend to think out loud. I appreciate you being nice to me about it. I know it can be exhausting for people. It just helps me process to hear things aloud instead of in my head. Plus, I get nervous and start rattling off. I don’t like long, quiet pauses. Um, like right now. I’m yapping because I don’t like silence. Sorry. I’ll shut up now.”

But all he does is chuckle again and then begins to trace his fingers over my aching, too-warm cheeks. “Why be quiet?”

“Um, to give you a chance to speak? You’re not exactly Mister Chattypants. And then because you’re not talking, I feel the need to talk even more to try and find a subject to make you talk to me.”

“Ah.” He dabs at the lotion pot again and then smooths more on my other cheek. “I do not interrupt because I enjoy your conversation.”

I’m shocked to hear this. “You do?”

He nods.

“You don’t find it irritating?”

He shakes his head. “I am too quiet, I know. It has long been a habit of mine. But if it bothers you, I shall speak more.”

“It’s not that it bothers me, it’s that I worry you don’t like me.”

Warrek pauses, wipes his hand on a small piece of leather, and then studies my face, head slightly tilted. He reaches for me again, and I close my eyes, obediently waiting for more lotion.

I’m surprised when his fingertips lightly brush over my lips, tickling me. “I like you,” he says in a low, husky voice.

Oh mercy. Did I think my body was reacting before? I feel like everything inside of me just gave one giant, needy shiver.

Or maybe that’s the frostbite.

I open my eyes and gaze up at him. He’s not leaning too close to me, but his eyes are soft, his attention focused on me. His fingertips trace the curve of my mouth, and then he lightly continues along my jaw, tracing my skin as if learning me. It’s the most erotic thing that’s ever happened to me in my (admittedly sheltered) twenty-two years.

“Halloooo,” a voice calls in the distance.

I gasp, my eyes going wide at the same time that Warrek stiffens.