Tundra 37 by Aubrie Dionne

Author:Aubrie Dionne
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: 2 Read Next SFR
ISBN: 9781937044497
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Published: 2012-02-06T05:00:00+00:00

Brent­wood stared at Luna, frus­tra­tion brim­ming up. The Leg­acys were known for hav­ing oth­ers do their dirty work, and he couldn’t have that hap­pen­ing on this mis­sion, even if her fam­ily was power­ful. “Hon­estly, you’re go­ing to make Ms. Reiner carry all those trays by her­self?”

Luna laughed, edging closer to him. “She needs some­thing to keep her busy. Be­sides, I don’t see you help­ing her.”

“That’s be­cause we have to talk.” He leaned so close her rosy per­fume tickled his nose. He knew their prox­im­ity would look sus­pi­cious, but he couldn’t have Gemme or Tech over­hear­ing, not if he wanted to fol­low the Seers’ or­ders. His voice fell to a whis­per. “You can’t men­tion the code word in front of the team. If they sus­pect us of with­hold­ing in­form­a­tion, it will only lead to trust is­sues among the other mem­bers of Al­pha Blue.”

The way Luna flaunted their secret mis­sion an­noyed him, and he had to put a stop to it be­fore her ac­tions sac­ri­ficed the main mis­sion and be­fore it drove Gemme away. He could feel her pulling back from him, and he sus­pec­ted Luna was the cause. “What do those samples have to do with the orb?”

Luna crossed her arms in a com­pla­cent stance, her painted eye­brow arched. “Everything.”

Brent­wood paused to hear more, but her lips re­mained sealed. She had him in­trigued, and she’d draw out the con­ver­sa­tion to last as long as it could.

He gave her an ad­mon­ish­ing look as if to say let’s not play games. “How so?”

“So far, with the ba­sic test­ing I can do out here, none of the spe­ci­mens have even re­motely the same com­pos­i­tion as the orb. In fact, noth­ing on this planet does.”

“Which means?”

“The orb is not from Tun­dra 37, nor is the beacon we’re sup­posed to loc­ate.”

“You’re say­ing that ali­ens, in­tel­li­gent life, put it here?”

She shrugged non­com­mit­tally. “Maybe.”

Un­ease traveled up Brent­wood’s back, tingling his neck. Al­pha Blue tres­passed in po­ten­tially dan­ger­ous ter­rit­ory. Who knew if these ali­ens wanted their device found? What if it was a weapon? What if they came back for it?

He stiffened as the pic­ture so­lid­i­fied in his mind. That’s why the Seers had to have the ar­ti­fact and that’s why they’d labeled their mis­sion top secret. They wanted in­form­a­tion on this spe­cies without wide­spread panic. The col­on­ists had enough to worry about be­sides po­ten­tially dan­ger­ous alien devices. What he couldn’t fathom was how they’d man­aged to get them­selves stran­ded on the very same planet that held a match­ing ar­ti­fact to the orb. Un­less these ali­ens dis­trib­uted them across the galaxy on every life-sus­tain­ing planet, the odds were steep.

Luna brought him out of his mus­ings by cling­ing to his arm. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” He looked back to check on Gemme just as she turned around, catch­ing him with Luna’s fin­gers wrapped around his bi­ceps. He pulled his arm away, cheeks burn­ing like a dwarf star. He felt like a com­plete ass and he hadn’t even done any­thing wrong. “I must at­tend to the oth­ers.”

The snow crunched un­der his boots, hard as the stare Gemme shot him when he reached the landrover.

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