Pirate's Gold - S.J. Sanders Page 0,63

wouldn’t support her weight. The sound of tearing was incredibly loud to her as the roots ripped away from the wall. Terri instinctively stretched out a hand, her fingernails brushing flat rock. Her breath burst from her in a strangled shout. She had felt fear before, since arriving on the planet, but this consumed her. Everything slowed around her as she fell away from the wall. Veral’s bellow of fear even sounded far away.

Azan’s words to her so many days ago came back to her, repeating through her mind as she fell. She was too fragile, too vulnerable to survive. Even with the skills she had accumulated, they mocked her as she fell. They weren’t enough, and she had been too cocky, so certain of her ability that she hadn’t been cautious enough.

Azan was right. Veral, with all his skills and natural ability, had kept her alive ever since he took her away from Earth, and even more recently in the forest. This time, however, Veral was too far away to save her. No one could.

The only one who could save her was herself. Even that would take a miracle. Regardless, she wasn’t ready to die, yet.

Tears streaming from her eyes, Terri stretched out her hand, her fingertips too far away to even skim the surface as she dropped back. Growling in frustration, she twisted in the air, and stretched out her hands, willing herself to grab onto something—anything.

She felt it, then.

Something connected as she felt a rush of power through her. The bio-tech burned as hot metal corded over her arm and down her hand, ending in massive metal claws that extended beyond her fingertips. The sound of metal hitting rock squealed in her ears, and she reflexively anchored her fingers, curling her new claws into the stone.

Her plummet stopped so suddenly she felt as if her stomach hit her throat, but it was overpowered by a rush of relief. She hung there for a moment, allowing endorphins to flood through her. I’m alive!

Terri lifted her head and stared at her hand. The bio-tech had formed an armored glove clear up to her elbow, the green center of the symbiont pulsing with energy. She had activated it. Twice now, she had managed to activate it when overcome by a powerful desire. There was a key somewhere in that. A way to connect to the bio-tech and utilize it.

“Anastha… Terri!” Veral shouted up, relief unmistakable in his voice, as was the bite of anger.

“Yeah, I’m coming down!” she shouted back.

Intently ignoring the sound of Azan’s breathless laughter, Terri lightly swung herself until her other hand curled around another cluster of vines. That particular cluster had some terrible smelling plant twined within it, but she wasn’t in any position to complain. Instead, she tried to view it as a sort of penance as she made her way down until she reached a point where she could transfer to another vine.

Twice more, she repeated the process until she dropped down beside Azan, the black metal beneath her feet surprisingly silent with the exception of a light, muffled thump. The female wrapped an arm around her and squeezed briefly in a tight hug before letting her loose.

“You may be a little, soft thing, but you are certainly crazy,” the Blaithari female chortled. “It scared a half-dozen revolutions off my life. I cannot believe you made it,” she pronounced with a grin, her eyes gleaming as they settled on the clawed glove.

Terri flexed her hand self-consciously as she grinned back at Azan. The smile, however, turned sheepish as she met Veral’s regard. Immediately, her skin cooled as the bio-tech disengaged and uncoiled from her arm, leaving her bare and exposed beneath her mate’s glower.

“I know what you’re going to say,” she said quickly.

A heavy brow lifted speculatively. “I was not aware that telepathy was part of human physiology. But perhaps you are speaking of the numerous times I have instructed you during training to take the predictable and logical route. To not overextend for no other reason than that you can.”

“You are angry, aren’t you?”

“Furious,” he growled. “We will address this matter with considerably more training… repeatedly, once we are finished here. The simulation on scaling down foreign walls and vertical surfaces until I am satisfied will suffice.”

Terri frowned at the thought of hours and hours scaling the cliffs of Abzorra Thranal, Veral’s favorite training programing. One he had drilled her in for weeks until he felt satisfied, despite his displeasure with her antics.