Page 158 of Claimed By the Condemned Alien

That answer stayed with Kesta. The empire did not need loyal agents. It needed frightened people willing to mistake a narrow door for rescue.

They departed before the second moon rose. Two scouts ranged ahead, checking for drones. Dreven kept Kesta in the center of the formation but did not touch her. His silence was more oppressive than an argument. Halfway across the flats, they found footprints. One set. Small. Human. The tracks veered away from the lander circle and disappeared into a field of fractured stone.

“A survivor,” Kesta said.

“Or bait,” Keth replied.

Kesta knelt. The prints were uneven. Right foot dragging. Blood marked one edge.

“Barely walking. Whoever made these was injured.”

Dreven studied the horizon. The ash storm building in the east would erase the trail within an hour.

“Ash Camp is twelve hours south,” Keth said. “We lack water for a divided search.”

“We cannot abandon her,” Kesta said.

“We do not know it is a woman.”

“The stride is human. The foot is small. Hallow Camp had two human prisoners listed in the trade census.”

Dreven looked at her. “How do you know?”

“I read the market records after you gave me access.”

His expression suggested he regretted at least one lesson in shared information. The storm front thickened. Kesta stepped into his path. “Twenty minutes may not reach her.”

“It may be all we can spend.”

“Spend?”

“Water. Light. Distance. Lives.”

The word struck because it was accurate. Keth unfolded the patrol map against a wall. The ash front would close the southern pass first. If they divided too late, neither group could reach shelter. Hallow Camp’s sealed cistern might protect one team, but the neural suppressant suggested the site itself was compromised. Kesta forced herself to look at the numbers rather than the blood on the fabric.

“How long until the crevice is buried?” she asked Jessa.

“Two hours in this wind. Less if the upper shelf breaks.”

“Can we mark it remotely?”

Tavi’s sister pulled a broken implant from her pouch. “I can reverse the pulse. Weak enough not to reach orbit. Strong enough for a local finder.” Dreven looked at the device. “You would activate imperial hardware.”

“For eleven seconds.”

“That is still a signal.”

Kesta said, “Then we decide whether the risk is worth preserving the location.” He hated the question because no command could make both outcomes clean. The patrol voted in the shadow of an approaching storm. Five for the signal. Three against. Dreven did not vote until the tie became his.

“Activate it,” he said.

Jessa placed the reversed implant beneath a stone cairn. Its pulse appeared on the scanner as a faint green point.

“If she survives the storm,” Kesta said, “we return.”

“When,” Dreven answered.

It was not reassurance. It was commitment stated in the only form he trusted. They carried that promise into the ash. Dreven ordered Jessa and one scout to follow the trail for twenty minutes, no farther. The rest formed a defensive circle. Kesta waited with every nerve stretched toward the broken rocks. Jessa returned alone. She carried a strip of fabric stained with blood and marked with faded imperial medical printing.