Fathom (Mermaids of Montana #3) - Elsa Jade Page 0,89
merged with the local population—until the Wavercrest syndrome symptoms emerged in some subset of the lineage—spoke well of their adaptability.
It also meant there was a survey runabout left in the hangar.
The vehicle had been intended for short-range trips, such as scouting likely landing spots for the exodus ship, so it was only a few times larger than the Earther vehicle that had carried him and Lana. There was enough room for a crew of four to stand and move around, plus enough storage for samples and rudimentary food and hygiene facilities. But it would be close quarters for the run to Tritona.
Assuming it launched at all.
Lana stared at it too. “Small,” she murmured. “This wouldn’t survive a crash.”
“You did,” he reminded her. “Twice. And you are small.” When she still didn’t move, he added, “And your zaps are gone, so you don’t have to fear anymore.”
At that, she jolted forward. “Right. No fear.”
Maybe he was getting better at feelings because he had the feeling she wasn’t telling him the truth.
But since moving forward was all he’d ever known, he followed her to the runabout.
The outdated ship didn’t respond to the first hail from his datpad, so he revised with an older signal. That too failed.
“Ridley only found the hidden passage because the ship identified her as a descendant. Your blood as Titanyri and mine as nul’ah-wys are too altered.” Frustration tightened her throat. Too come this far and be locked out was not an option. “What else do we have as a relic of that time that it would recognize?”
“A song.” Taking a step back, he licked his lips and began to hum.
“The spaceship won’t know Disney tunes,” she whispered.
He rolled his eyes toward her as he sang aloud the chorus from the song she’d played for him during their drive about a little mermaid. “Kiss the girl!”
She rolled her eyes back at him as the hatch parted. But as she passed by, her lips breezed over his. “Seems the words don’t matter as much as the feeling.”
Though the hangar smelled of damp stone after the centuries of the Atlantyri’s submersion, the runabout had been sealed tight. When the door opened, the only scent was a faint wisp of dust. They loaded in their supplies and settled in the cockpit.
The exodus ship had been a huge resource expenditure for Tritona, under the pressures of war and threatened with extinction. Although his training had never included much history, he could imagine that trying to purchase, stock, and crew the ship when the Cretarni had controlled access to land and sky must have been an undertaking equal to the war itself in demands for strategy and execution. And in return for success? Tritona had sent away the very souls they were fighting for.
In the midst of powering up the runabout, he turned to Lana. “You coming back is why we fought.” When she blinked at him, he amended, “Not you, exactly, but any of the Atlantyri’s descendants, anyone who chooses to join us in restoring our world. We were fighting for you, even if we didn’t know you then.”
She’d been running diagnostics as the ship’s systems came online—he hadn’t even asked, she’d just known to do it—but she paused to give him a fierce look. “We’ll get there in time. Nothing is going to stop us.”
He let himself float a moment in her focus and resolve. Even if she was wrong. “Whatever happens, I would fight again. For the others. For you.”
Her breath hitched, just a tiny sound but somehow amplified in the silence of the tiny, obsolete ship. “And I’ll be there alongside you, no matter what power I have. Or don’t.”
He averted his gaze while he adjusted the power feed, and the ship began to hum quietly around them. “I have something for you. Not so worthwhile as a grenade though.”
She smiled at him. “A rifle? I’m not sure I’d be any better with that than the pistol, but…”
He held out his fist, webbed fingers curled tight, and after a moment she opened her palm under his. He dropped the tiny shell that he’d shown her what seemed like millennia ago.
She gazed at the perfect little spiral. “This is what you had in your prison and with you all during the war.”
As soon as she said it, he realized it was a terrible gift. A twisted reminder of pain and sorrow and death. No wonder Evens had been reluctant to let him test for the Intergalactic Dating Agency. He reached