Free Beyond the Rain by Jess Granger

there unprotected.”
    “Let’s go. I’ll get Lhiri. We’ll find her.”
     
     
    HOW DID THEY EVER SURVIVE THIS?
    Cyani dropped into the crushed cockpit and let her eyes adjust to the dimming light. Dried blood coated the walls, giving off the sickly sweet smell of death, while broken glass crackled beneath her sandals. Soren managed to free them both from their sideways harnesses and lift them out through the hole in the top of the wreckage.
    She could barely turn without cutting herself on jagged metal and glass. The acrid scent of the charred ship burned her eyes and lungs. She had to be careful and get out of there quickly. She found her eyepiece under the overturned pilot seat. Where were the drugs?
    Soren’s seat hung in midair, as the cockpit came to rest on its side. Everything had fallen toward the pilot seat. She used a thick shard of broken glass to sift through the rubble.
    Her heart leapt with hope as she uncovered the corner of the silver case that contained the drugs. She abandoned the shard and dug into the glass and debris, not caring about the scratches to her hands. Her flash of hope quickly faded to despair as she realized the body of the case had been crushed flat, pinned between two chunks of metal.
    The drugs were gone.
    There was only one way for Soren to survive. He had to find a mate. She had to get him home.
    Taking her eyepiece in her hand, she carefully pulled herself out of the cockpit. Her skirt caught on a bit of rnd. It was all that remained of her com. Hopefully it would be able to upload the codes into a beacon. It was too damaged to wear.
    A low howl haunted the open savannah as towering clouds rumbled in the distance. She scanned her surroundings from her perch on top of the cockpit. The last thing she needed was a hungry pack of wolves on her tail. She didn’t have her scout, and her ear set could only enhance her hearing. Without the eyepiece, she couldn’t see danger coming. She listened to the soft rushing of the grasses and the distant crackle of the burning fires. Hopefully the fires scared off most of the predators in the area.
    Cyani pulled out her flick knife. It was her only means of protection. It was the only protection she needed as long as nothing surprised her.
    She leapt down from the cockpit and hurried to the main body of the ship. The Garulen kept beacons on stingships. They used them to mark the locations of captured slaves for the transport ships. A beacon might have a strong enough signal to reach the Union base. If she could hack the signal with the com in her eyepiece, she could recode the message to a Union distress signal.
    She stopped and listened. The hull of the ship provided shade from the scorching savannah. The damaged craft would be inhabited; any shelter on the open savannah would soon be inhabited by something. She had to get in and out as fast and carefully as she could. Ducking into the wreckage, she held her breath as she looked up at the side of the ship that became the ceiling above her.
    “ Shakt ,” she whispered under her breath. She paused to listen once more then climbed the support struts of the wall. Once she reached the ceiling, she swung hand over hand, gripping old piping until she reached the panel she needed. Hanging by one arm, she tugged on a panel door with the other.
    It burst open. Using her well-trained reflexes, she snatched a beacon out of the air before it plummeted to the ground.
    The rest of the beacons clattered against the broken ship, the sound echoing in the empty black cavern.
    She winced in pain as the sound amplified in her ear. She swung her legs up and hooked her toes under a pair of support struts, then shimmied back to the wall and leapt to the ground.
    “Gotcha.” Cyani smiled, turning the beacon over in her hand. “And in a skirt, too.”
    She rushed outside and crouched in the shadow of the hull. Twin moons rose through the threatening clouds, lighting the savannah in a soft silvery light. Using her