tunnels, I felt like I should feel lighter. That amazing dream with my mom, feeling her hug again … that had been incredible.
And Raxthezana. God, what a male. He was everything to me, and I couldn’t wait to share all of myself with him.
The hunters walked with a bit of a swagger and joked with one another, having completed a quest that few of their kind could boast. We couldn’t even tell that their packs were heavier than when we entered the undermountain passageways.
We reached the havabuthe without incident.
And yet, with all of the good news, I still felt off.
Standing with the humans while the hunters relieved themselves of their heavy packs, I stretched my back and arms and kept my bad mojo to myself.
“What do any of you know about the woaiquovelt?” Pattee asked.
“The Queen values it above ikthekal lives,” I said.
“Their sun blades are made with it,” Esra added.
“It’s involved in their ship engines for interplanetary flight along with gravity,” Joan said.
“What?” A couple of us asked at once.
“I don’t know any more than that,” she said, holding her hands up. “Something that Raxkarax said.”
Amity chuckled low and long.
“What’s so funny?” Pattee asked.
“IGMC would have sold its firstborn to get their hot little hands on woaiquovelt,” she said. “Thank God they don’t know about Ikthe.”
Gentle trembling stirred beneath our boots, and we froze, waiting for VELMA’s warnings, but none came. It stopped.
“Hey, how long has the geomagnetic excursion been going on, do you think?” I asked.
“The hunters were saying it coincided with my arrival,” Esra said. “As if landing a tiny little escape pod could cause an excursion event.”
I chuckled, and she winked at me.
“I mean, if you had programmed the P-MIV to activate the third phase, I could see it,” she said. “Thank goodness you didn’t. We’d have been sunk for sure.”
“Literally,” Pattee agreed, her tone sober.
“Like I was saying,” Amity joined in. “Thank God IGMC doesn’t know about Predator Planet. They would have activated the P-MIV without a second thought to get their mitts on the Queen’s precious metal.”
“Geomagnetic excursions do have a way of bringing some of those more valuable metals closer to the surface,” Esra was saying.
“Like the Galvanite,” Pattee said, but I’d stopped listening.
Points in their conversation started lighting up spots in my brain, and I was seeing connections I hadn’t noticed before.
Geomagnetic excursion.
Galvanite.
Activated P-MIV.
Tiny escape pod.
Pods. Tiny escape pods.
Amity’s crashed vehicle.
“When did everyone land?” I interrupted.
“Within weeks of each other,” Pattee said. “Months ago.”
“I didn’t take a pod,” I said.
“We know,” Pattee said. “You must have taken an orbiter.”
“I had hoped to land on the same planet as Joan,” I said and shot her a look. She smiled, but my tension escalated. “I needed the maneuverability of the orbiter because I’d planned on monitoring everyone’s pods and landing as close as possible to Joan. But when I woke out of cryo-sleep, both the P-MIV and the SOO hit a debris field.”
“Oh shit,” Joan said.
“Yeah. If I wanted any hope of reuniting, I had to override VELMA. That’s how I ended up in a lake on Ikshe,” I said.
“A debris field?” Amity asked.
“Yes,” I said, staring directly at her.
“My pod crashed,” she whispered.
“The debris field,” Pattee said with a nod. “The P-MIV’s point of entry was skewed and one of the fins had sheared off, as well.”
“Did anyone happen to check the blast nodules?” I asked.
“Not specifically, but we were there, and the ground was semi-stable. And PHRED didn’t show that the third phase had activated,” Pattee said. “So, the FQB nodules should still be intact.”
“What does FQB stand for?” Esra asked.
“Fractionated Quark Bomb,” Pattee said. “Like the pods.”
“Ladies,” I said, drawing their attention. “Why did the EEPs need fractionated quark bombs?”
“I always said it was overkill,” Esra piped up.
“I had no choice,” Pattee grumbled. “IGMC mandated their inclusion. It was a beast, trying to fit everything in there, too.”
Emotional pain overlaid the chronic tingling pain that often kissed my skin in waves. Taking off my helmet, I sought huge breaths as I felt a new panic take hold of my heart. I knew now. I knew why the EEPs were outfitted with the FQBs, but I couldn’t make my mouth work. Everything I’d done; everything I’d hoped to circumvent—was ruined.