The walk toward the detached tail unit was tense, the black volcanic sand crunching under their feet like broken glass.
Ren watched Cilian's back, noticing how the Alpha's muscles were coiled tight beneath the thin fabric of the village robe. The playful, predatory fox from the morning had been replaced by something far more clinical, though that unsettling smirk never quite left his lips.
Captain Harris led them toward a mangled heap of white and navy-blue metal half-buried in the dunes.
The smell of scorched wiring and hydraulic fluid still clung to the wreckage, a sharp contrast to the sweet jasmine scent still faintly lingering in Ren's hair.
"Here, sir," Harris said, kneeling by a cracked maintenance panel.
A small green light flickered weakly on a console, proof that the auxiliary power was still holding. He handed a headset to Cilian.
