Forged (Star Breed #10) - Elin Wyn Page 0,35

of static, a garbled noise.

“Was that someone talking?” I whirled to ask Hakon. “Did you hear it?”

He shook his head, jaw tight. “I couldn’t tell, keep the channel open.”

“Emergency assistance requested,” I repeated, fighting to keep my voice level. Professional. Cool. Not desperate. “Please respond, we didn’t catch what you said.”

It was a voice; I was certain of it. But too mangled and garbled to hear what it said, let alone try to identify who had answered.

Uncle Ran?

Alcyon or Serrup?

That seemed unlikely, but we had no idea what had been happening back on Station 112.

“Dammit,” I dropped my head into my hands.

All the way up the stupid mountain, I’d been so sure that my comm system would work.

Be strong enough.

Save us.

Hakon’s large hands landed on my shoulders, gently rubbing. “Maybe we just need to go a little higher,” he said softly, as the words and the caresses worked through my tight muscles, coaxing me to lean back against him.

I took a deep breath, rubbing my eyes. “We can take a look at the parts we’ve got left, see if we can do something to boost the range, up the signal.”

“Last I checked, we were both pretty good at this.” He gave my shoulders one last squeeze and stepped away. “The air up here is probably even thinner, though. Let’s get back to the valley, look for places to set up camp and work on it down there.”

My hands paused before I packed away the communicator. “Maybe, if we just wait a little more?”

“Sure thing,” Hakon said, settling back down with his back against a rock. “We can wait as long as you want to, if you think it’s going to make a difference.”

The taste of acid boiled through me and spilled out. “Dammit, don’t patronize me!” I said sharply, then bit my lip. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.” Heat rushed to my face and my eyes burned, tears of frustration threatening to finally spill over. “I know as well as you do that if we can’t get a clear signal, there’s either a problem with the location or the device. Waiting isn’t going to fix either of those things.” I swallowed hard, then started taking apart the unit. “I’m just worried.”

Hakon waited until I’d finished packing the device, then took the bag from me and wrapped his fingers around mine.

“I am, too,” he admitted, and we started down the mountain.

Hakon

As we picked our way down the mountainside, my thoughts circled around one point.

I was failing her.

Those slim shoulders were carrying too much weight, too much worry.

Somehow, I needed to make that comm unit work and get us off this moon.

I had to make her know she was safe, protected, no matter what.

Suddenly Yasmin stopped, pointing across the valley. “What’s that?” she said, a bit breathlessly. “It’s gone now… wait, it’s back!”

I couldn’t tell if she was running low on oxygen again or not, but there was no mistaking the excitement in her voice.

Snapping out of my mental spiral, I looked where she pointed and caught it. The setting sun had caught something on the far mountainside, something that blinked and glittered in the light.

“That’s gotta be some kind of metal or plexi,” she said. “In everything we’ve seen here, have you seen anything that looked like that?” Yasmin’s face was transformed, all of her disappointment swept away with this new spark of hope. “We’ve got to go see what it is!”

She hurried down the hill and I lengthened my stride to catch up with her.

“We aren’t going to make it before nightfall,” I said reluctantly, hating to do anything to dim that light in her eyes. I studied the surrounding peaks, making sure I would be able to orient myself in the morning. “Let’s spend what light we have left making a secure camp, and we’ll head out to find it first thing in the morning.”

“Secure camp. We can do that,” she answered.

Once we surveyed the possibilities, however, another difficulty arose.

“I can dig another burrow, but there’s no handy wreckage to pull over us,” I offered. “And the trees here are too shrubby to climb.”

“Maybe we should retreat to the cave for the night?” Yasmin said. “The cavern on this side of the gap didn’t have any of those vines that I noticed, but we could probably rig something up.”

I considered it. “I could probably pull down enough rocks to block the entrance from inside.”

“We do have another option,” Yasmin said. “We press on. How long do you think