Raven Tide
16: Wormpeak Depot (Chyani)

🟨Content warning: There is a brief mention of self-harm is present in this chapter.

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“Message sent,” Raven Tide leaned back in the station’s comms chair.

I sighed a little but I was still insanely twitchy.

“I apprised them of our situation,” Raven Tide continued. “And let them know we wouldn’t be waiting around for backup. Told them we were prepping and commandeering a functional razkur jump ship and then heading straight for Sahai.”

I couldn’t sit and paced nonstop the entire time Raven Tide was transmitting the deep space encoded distress signal, and not solely because of soreness.

Wormpeak Depot was a ghost town. Everything creaked and echoed.

I didn’t like it.

“Then this nightmare will be over...” I mumbled to myself, knowing Raven Tide’s ears could hear my agitation.

“Sorta, kinda,” Raven Tide led the way through the building’s tall narrow corridors. “According to our scientists at the institute, there’s no compound in known existence that can stop a Graven but we can obscure large objects from detection and their means of travel that can be repelled and deflected. Special barriers were put in orbit to keep the Graven and their underlings from accessing Sahei, the same as all homeworlds in the Nexus. They can’t get in but even if they did, they’d find the welcoming extremely unpleasant. Speaking of which...”

Raven Tide waved to a hatchway opening up into a massive crystalline spacecraft hangar lined with a dozen gray and pink spaceships.

“We should take a beat and activate the automated Graven defense systems,” he pointed to a squat blue building just beyond the wide-open hangar door. “It’s going to take me a little bit to get one of these old clunkers warmed up and ready. What do you say, care to do the honors?”

“Me?” I blinked at him. “All by myself?”

“If you can navigate Venom Heart’s menus,” he chuckled. “Razkur tech should be a breeze. They’re nowhere near as cryptic as yautja.”

“Is it safe?”

“I scanned the facility thoroughly,” he smiled and waved for me to follow with his ears hinged back and curved low. “No life signs whatsoever and there’s a fully breathable atmosphere.”

“No evil space drones?” I hesitated but stepped forward.

“Nope,” he shook his head with his hands on his hips. “C’mon, I’ll walk ya.”

I eyed Gar’mol’s skull on the back of Raven Tide’s belt. I had mixed feelings about the memento but mostly the sight of it gave me comfort.

It was proof that not every aspect of the journey was out of our control. Plus, nothing shines a light on the importance of living like the shadow of imminent death looming overhead.

The white yautja escorted me through a muted network of serpentining hallways and into the inner sanctum of Wormpeak Depot’s Defensive Operations.

Razkurs certainly had a very distinctive approach to architecture. I touched the walls, they were squishy.

“It’s built this way to dampen sound,” Raven Tide glanced back at me. “Hard sharp walls are great for echolocation. Naturally, this place abates it.”

I nodded and made note of the intersections.

What was all of this like for Raven Tide?

He’d been oddly quiet since we landed. How much psychological damage had I inflicted on this hunky young fella?

He said yautja could live for centuries and potentially had millenniums ahead of him.

Would all of this be just another trivial pothole on the road ahead or a sinkhole that would haunt him forever?

We arrived in a spacious black room housing a large c-shaped table containing a myriad of virtual screens that sprang to life when we entered.

“Can I?”

Raven Tide dipped his head and opened his palm toward the gap in the table.

I stepped forward and waved in the air. Holographic controls appeared just under my fingertips.

“This is similar to my drawing station,” I perked up at him.

“The comm is open if you need any assistance,” Raven Tide tapped the base of his ear.

“You’re ok with leaving me alone?” I raised my eyebrow at him.

“You don’t need me to protect you,” Raven Tide stroked my arms, rolling the rounded side of his claws over my one with the bandaged back side. “My task is to get you to Sahei as soon as possible and that ain’t gonna happen until I charge up and cycle the ship’s power core. So let’s both get our butts in gear.”

Raven Tide clicked at me with a playful nip and smacked my rear.

“Ok, ok,” I rubbed my buttcheek and nudged him away. “Graven defensive weapons, coming right up.”

Once alone, I settled my breath and wiggled my fingers over the virtual keypad. The controls flickered and glitched not knowing where to expand under my stumped right hand.

My arm was nearly finished, all that remained were the fingers to fully take form.

Raven Tide was right, the menu layout was much easier to navigate than Venom Heart’s.

My fingertips fluttered across the blue glowing buttons and I enjoyed how the razkur symbols utilized an intuitive repetitive format.

“There are the primary control switches,” I smirked and tapped to enter. “Let’s see what we’re working with.”

I unintentionally caught my reflection staring back at me from the surface of the black glass table.

Who was that woman? She didn’t even have my eyes.

What did I look like to Raven Tide?

I’d been hit on by many muscular go-getter human men before, but Raven Tide was entirely different. And not because he was a literal alien.

Seeing him in action, the way he killed, and rallied against his adversaries. It wasn’t bravado. He was powerful, sincere, and passionate.

And the way his iridescent scales glistened when his muscles flexed after a battle...

A warm twinge squiggled deep inside.

Focus Chyani!

You’d think you had enough...

I continued exploring the submenus.

Enough...?

I was the sole survivor of Phirsa 3 and staring down the barrel of a lifetime of being hunted by monsters.

How could I ever resign myself to just enough?

I wanted Raven Tide and he wanted me.

That was enough.

He knew the danger and still, he stood beside me, sacrificed for me, bled for me, and did it all without entitlement or expectations.

When I was stranded with the bodies of my parents my priorities centered on the short term. Shelter, food, warmth, and weapons to fend off the wildlife.

Now, once again, I was marooned on an abandoned moon but I wasn’t hold-up terrified in a cave clutching a sharpened spear.

I was determined to live.

However, I couldn’t shake the feeling of a tsunami rising in the distance. There was no outrunning the consequences. My only option was to hold on to Raven Tide before I was completely obliterated.

Something rumbled to life outside the building, “There we go.”

The little switchboard turned green as I ran out of systems to activate.

“All set,” I spoke to Raven Tide over the comlink.

“Great,” he responded. “Need me to get you?”

“No, I think I remember the path out.”

“Ok,” Raven Tide acknowledged. “I’m in the first ship on the left when you enter the hangar.”

I got a little mixed on the fifth junction but managed to right my course without calling for help.

“How’s it going?” I peeked into the pink and gray ship with an open hatch door.

Raven Tide poked his head out of the cockpit. His ears were low and back and he was out of breath.

“Chuggin’ right along,” he came out to me wearing an oversized grin and talking unusually fast. “Engines are nearly prepped. Had to lug a few fuel lines across the hangar but should be ready to depart within the hour. See you got those giant cannons operational. Nice work.”

“Do we need to gather any supplies?” I glanced around the stark moderately-sized transport ship. The center lane was empty and girdled by two long cushioned benches running the length of the walls.

“Nah,” Raven Tide strolled through the open center corridor with his long white ears flowing low behind him. “This ship comes fully stocked with emergency rations and first aid supplies.”

“Smell nicer too,” I chuckled.

“Only the finest for Chyani,” Raven Tide leaned in and nuzzled my nose.

Suddenly, all-consuming sirens went off from all corners of the compound, and emergency red lights began flashing on the hangar ceiling.

“What’s happening?!” I knew exactly what was happening but I didn’t want to accept it.

Raven Tide shoved me down onto one of the benches and secured me with a harness. Then he ran to the cockpit, typed into the control panel, exited the room, and sealed the door by melting the handle with a tiny torch.

“What are you doing?!!” I scowled in panic.

I tried to get up but the harness wouldn’t budge. There were little nicks on the metal clamp.

Raven Tide had tampered with it!

“I’m sorry, but I have to,” Raven Tide typed into his gauntlet as he walked away toward the open hatch door. “I spotted an incoming astrological anomaly on the long-range sensors just before we landed. I’ll launch you the second I’m sure that thing is focused on me. Don’t worry, the cloak is working. I’ve already pre-programmed the flight path.”

“Raven Tide!” I jerked against my restraints. “This is suicide!”

“Yeah,” he let out a wistful sigh. “But if I do it right, it’ll only be temporary.”

“What?!!” I shouted and tried to bite the straps. “Don’t do this!”

Orange light filtered down from the sky and flooded in through the crystal walls of the hangar and into the ship’s windows.

“Everything's going to be ok,” Raven Tide smiled. Then he shut the hatch and locked me inside.

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