They really had no idea what to expect. Their long-distance scans detected no ships, space stations, or satellites orbiting the planet. But that didn’t mean it lacked settlements or civilizations. Nor did it mean any beings living on the planet lacked the ability to navigate in space. They could have sent a ship to investigate the pod and taken Ava back to their planet.
“Even if the Purveli had disabled all our thrusters,” he mused, “we would retain weapons capability and still have the fighters, so there would be a battle.”
It didn’t make sense. The Gathendiens were thieves. They didn’t destroy the things they wished to take. They didn’t bomb planets and decimate the infrastructure of the civilizations inhabiting them to make way for themselves. They instead found ways to eliminate the inhabitants without battles and simply waited until all the sentient inhabitants were dead before moving in and taking possession of the prize.
Barus shook his head. “Why would they even engage us? We’re a Segonian battleship in good standing with the Aldebarian Alliance.”
Dagon swore. “They know Eliana’s on board.”
Barus shot him a look. “What?”
“They must know Eliana’s on board. Or at least they suspect she’s on board. There’s no other explanation.” The Gathendiens wouldn’t risk conflict with a Segonian battleship—a conflict that would cost them lives and fighter craft despite the Ranasura’s presumably damaged maneuvering capabilities—if they weren’t certain it held a prize they dearly wished to claim.
“Commander Dagon.”
He looked up as Adaos’s voice carried through the speaker. “Yes?”
“The Purveli is conscious.”
Spinning on his heel, Dagon strode from the bridge.
Eliana studied the Purveli with fascination. Of all the aliens she had encountered since leaving Earth, he was the most… well… alien in appearance.
His features resembled those of a human. Or a Lasaran, a Segonian, or a Yona. If their planets shared similar atmospheres, she supposed it shouldn’t surprise her that the sentient humanoid life forms upon them were similar, too.
Despite the dark circles beneath his eyes and his gaunt cheeks, the Purveli was handsome. His silver hair darkened to black as it dried. His brows and the stubble on his sunken cheeks did as well. Though his torso bore gills, there wasn’t anything fishlike about his face. He didn’t have big bulging eyes or a huge gaping mouth. Nor did she see any fins on the rest of his body.
His arms and legs bore a similar musculature to humans, but he was built almost like a marathon runner—so thin she could see the ribs beneath his gills. His fingernails and toenails were trimmed short. A few looked as though they had been cut too short, leaving raw pink patches. The brief glimpse she had gotten of his groin area before Adaos covered him with a sheet had yielded no surprises beyond hair similar to that on his head that started out a silvery color and had begun to darken to black. Like humans, he had one penis and two testicles, so his people must procreate the same ways humans did. No egg laying or whatever.
She had to give Adaos credit for possessing an abundance of patience. She peppered him with questions the entire time he and his assistants operated on the alien. Once the Purveli was in stable condition, the other medics retreated to check on the patients in the back rooms while Adaos studied globs of the blue goo and tiny flesh samples he had taken from the intruder. He now muttered to himself as he peered at a screen that depicted what she guessed was an illuminated and greatly magnified view of cells like one might see through a microscope.
She returned her attention to the Purveli’s face. According to Adaos, the very normal-looking nose and mouth the alien bore could easily switch from taking in air and guiding it to his lungs to taking in water and sending it through his gills.
So cool. What would it be like to be able to stay underwater indefinitely without an oxygen tank? Eliana loved to swim. So did Ava. It was something the two had bonded over while they’d gotten to know each other on the Kandovar. Ava had envied Eliana’s ability to hold her breath for extraordinary lengths of time and had loved hearing her accounts of puzzling playful dolphins and seals by remaining underwater far longer than the creatures were accustomed to seeing humans last.
From a distance, the Purveli’s flesh looked very similar to hers, though it bore a silvery tone and a subtle sheen like the kind oil left on water that formed rainbow streaks in certain lighting. Upon closer inspection, she could see a faint pattern that indicated he was instead covered in something similar to scales.
Scales that were marred by multiple scars.
Eliana moved nearer, curiosity luring her like a magnet. “Can I touch him?” she asked softly.
Adaos frowned without looking away from whatever he was studying several feet away. “Why would you want to?”
“To see what his scales feel like.”
Sighing, he glanced over, confirmed the restraints they had placed around the Purveli’s wrists and ankles remained secure, then nodded. “Go ahead.”
She glanced at Maarev, Liden, and Efren.
Maarev arched a brow.
The other two grinned, amused by her fascination.
Eliana touched a finger to the Purveli’s arm near the bend of his elbow. He might have scales like a fish, but he wasn’t slimy at all. And the scales were soft like skin.
She drew her finger up his biceps toward his shoulder, going against the grain, so to speak, to see if it would feel different.
Nope. Still soft.
She traced a path back down his arm, skipping the leatherlike restraint to touch his hand. It was much larger than hers, almost as big as Dagon’s. She nudged it to the side a bit so she could study his palm.
Paler than the back, it was gouged in several places and crisscrossed by scars.
“Defensive wounds,” she murmured. Keeping her touch light, she gently parted two of his fingers and found a flexible webbing between them that stretched almost to the first knuckle.
“Careful,” Maarev warned softly.
Eliana nodded but remained unconcerned. If the Purveli awoke and tried to grab her, she could easily escape his hold.
Releasing his fingers, she leaned down and tried to peek beneath the restraint at his wrist. There wasn’t much give to it, but she managed to part the leatherlike cuff from his skin enough to spy a few marks on his flesh, some old, some new. Marks that had not been caused by the restraints that now bound him since he had not yet struggled against them.
A sick feeling settled in her stomach.
She straightened. Her gaze strayed to the Purveli’s exposed chest. After remedying as much of the damage to the intruder’s lung as he could, Adaos had coated the closed incision with a clear gel that solidified into a rubbery substance and adhered to the patient’s skin without aid. Eliana compared the look of the puncture wound her blade had left behind to the scars that decorated other areas of the Purveli’s flesh.
Though the other scars were longer than the one she’d left with her dagger, they were thin enough to have been neatly carved by a laser scalpel.
Something brushed her fingers.
Jumping, she looked down.
Webbed digits stretched toward hers. The wrist she had just studied pulled against the restraint, the muscles in the forearm above it flexing.
When her gaze followed a path up those straining muscles to the Purveli’s face, she gasped.