Chapter 5: Raven's Landing
POV: Alec Morgan
The crash site smoldered in a clearing half a mile from camp, twisted metal and scorched earth marking where the drop pod had punched through the canopy like a meteor. I ran ahead of the others, my enhanced metabolism already processing the adrenaline surge as I crashed through underbrush toward the impact crater.
I knew who was in that pod. Knew she'd be hurt but alive, probably with a concussion and some bruised ribs but nothing life-threatening. Raven Reyes, genius mechanic and the last person on Earth I wanted asking questions about my technical knowledge.
The pod had split open on impact, its heat shield cracked like an eggshell. Smoke poured from the electronics, and I could smell burning plastic mixed with the ozone scent of fried circuits. Through the haze, I caught sight of movement inside—someone struggling with harness releases.
"Hello?" I called, scrambling down into the crater. "Anyone alive in there?"
"Depends on your definition of alive," came a female voice, rough with pain but definitely conscious. "Because I feel like I've been hit by a shuttlecraft."
I reached the pod's opening and saw her—dark hair plastered with sweat, brown eyes bright with intelligence and annoyance, blood trickling from a cut on her forehead. Even injured and disoriented, Raven Reyes radiated the kind of competent intensity that made people step back and let her work.
"So you're the girl who fell for Finn?" I heard myself saying, nerves making my mouth run ahead of my brain. "Because you literally just fell—"
Her fist caught me in the shoulder, weak from her injuries but carrying enough force to express exactly what she thought of my timing. "Finish that sentence and I'll use your intestines as radio wire," she growled.
"Right. Sorry. Bad timing. I panic-joke when people might be dead." I held up my hands in surrender, then moved to help her with the harness release. "Are you okay? Any broken bones? Internal bleeding? Head trauma beyond what I just caused with my terrible sense of humor?"
"I'll let you know after my brain stops rattling around in my skull," she said, but her expression softened slightly. "You always this charming during medical emergencies?"
"It's a gift." I got the harness undone and helped her climb out of the wreckage. "Can you walk? Because the others are coming and they're going to want to check you over thoroughly."
As if summoned by my words, voices echoed through the forest as Clarke, Finn, and the others tracked our location. Raven tested her weight on unsteady legs, wincing as she moved but staying upright through pure stubbornness.
"Who are you?" she asked, studying my face like she was cataloging details for later reference.
"Alec Morgan. And you're Raven Reyes, right? Finn's been talking about you." I gestured toward the approaching voices. "Might want to brace yourself. He's been... intense since we found out someone was coming down."
"Intense how?"
"Like a puppy who hasn't seen his owner in a week."
She snorted with amusement, then immediately grabbed her ribs. "Ow. Don't make me laugh, Farm Boy. Pretty sure I've got some bruising."
POV: Raven
The kid—Alec—had an interesting face. Handsome enough, but it was his eyes that caught her attention. They tracked over the pod's wreckage with the kind of systematic assessment that suggested technical understanding, even as his mouth spouted nervous jokes.
"Looks like the heat shield failed here," he said, pointing at the cracked ablative material. "Probably caused asymmetric heating during reentry. Lucky the retro-rockets fired at all with this kind of damage."
The observation was too specific, too technically accurate for someone who should have been seeing drop pod technology for the first time. Raven filed it away, adding it to the growing list of contradictions she was cataloging about her rescuer.
"How do you know about heat shields?" she asked.
"I don't, really," Alec said quickly. "Just guessing based on what I can see. Burnt stuff, cracked stuff, seems logical that heat was involved."
The deflection was smooth but unconvincing. His eyes had tracked the pod's systems like he understood them—power coupling failures, navigation array damage, life support malfunctions. Not the random observations of someone guessing, but the systematic assessment of someone who knew what to look for.
Either he was brilliant and hiding it, or he was dangerously lucky with his intuition. Both options intrigued her more than they probably should have.
"Raven!" Finn's voice cut through the forest as he crashed into the clearing, relief and joy written across his features. "Thank God you're okay."
She felt her chest tighten as he approached. Six months since he'd been arrested for going on an unauthorized spacewalk, six months of believing he was dead, and now here he was looking exactly like she remembered. Except for the way his eyes kept darting to check if she was watching him be heroic.
"Hey, Finn," she said, accepting his embrace while noting how Alec stepped tactfully backward to give them space. "Miss me?"
"Every day," Finn said, and she could tell he meant it. The problem was figuring out what else he meant, what else had happened in the months since she'd seen him.
Clarke appeared at the clearing's edge with medical supplies, taking charge of the situation with the quiet authority Raven was already learning to recognize. "Let me check you over," Clarke said. "Head injury?"
"Mild concussion, maybe," Raven admitted. "Some bruising. Nothing that won't heal."
While Clarke worked, Raven found herself watching Alec as he examined the pod's debris field. His movements were careful, purposeful, like he was looking for something specific. When he thought no one was watching, his expression grew focused in a way that contradicted his scattered farm-boy persona.
"What's your story, Alec?" she asked, interrupting Clarke's examination.
"Story?"
"Skills, background, what makes you useful around here. Because everyone's useful somehow, or they don't last long."
He grinned, and the expression transformed his face from intense to boyishly charming. "Sharp sticks. Very sharp. I'm revolutionizing the field of pointy object enhancement."
Despite her pain and confusion, Raven laughed. "Are you serious?"
"Dead serious about the sticks." He pulled a spear from his pack and demonstrated his sharpening technique—quick, efficient movements that spoke of practice and precision. "See? Revolutionary pointiness achieved through applied friction and geometric optimization."
The technical terminology slipped out so naturally he didn't seem to notice, but Raven caught it. Geometric optimization wasn't farm-boy vocabulary, any more than his earlier observations about heat shields and retro-rockets.
"You're full of surprises, aren't you?" she said.
"I try to keep things interesting." His smile was self-deprecating, inviting her to laugh with him rather than at him. "Someone has to provide comic relief around here."
"Is that what you call it?" She studied his face, noting the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, the competent way his hands worked the spear point. "What else can you do?"
"Make terrible jokes at inappropriate times. Trip over my own feet during combat. Accidentally find edible plants." He shrugged. "I'm basically a walking disaster who occasionally gets lucky."
The list was delivered with humor, but Raven heard the deflection underneath. Every capability minimized, every success attributed to luck rather than skill. It was the behavior of someone who didn't want to stand out, which raised the question of why.
From nearby, Finn watched their interaction with an expression she recognized—jealousy mixed with uncertainty. The way he was looking between them suggested he was already calculating competition where none existed.
Yet.
"How's the radio equipment?" Clarke asked, kneeling beside the pod's communication array.
"Probably fried," Raven said, then caught Alec's slight head shake. "Why? You think otherwise, Farm Boy?"
"The main transmitter housing looks intact," he said carefully. "Might be worth checking the internal components before writing it off completely. Sometimes things look worse than they are."
Again, the technical assessment delivered as casual observation. Raven made a mental note to test his knowledge later when she had proper privacy to ask pointed questions.
POV: Alec Morgan
The walk back to camp felt like navigating a minefield. Every word I spoke was catalogued by three different people for three different reasons. Finn watched for signs I was moving in on his girl. Clarke noted contradictions between my supposed background and actual knowledge. And Raven—Raven studied me like a puzzle she intended to solve.
I'd managed to deflect most of her technical questions, but barely. The woman was too smart, too observant, too trained in exactly the kind of engineering knowledge I kept accidentally displaying. Worse, she seemed genuinely intrigued by the contradictions rather than dismissive of them.
"This is going to be a problem," I thought as we approached the dropship. "She's going to keep pushing until she figures out what I am."
But watching her banter with Finn, seeing the way she examined everything around her with hungry curiosity, I realized something that complicated my carefully laid plans.
I was attracted to her. Not just intellectually, not just because she was beautiful, but because of the fierce intelligence that made her dangerous to my secrets. The very thing that threatened my cover was also exactly what drew me to her.
Which meant I was going to have to choose between keeping my distance to protect myself, or getting closer and risking everything I'd worked to hide.
As we reached camp and Raven got her first good look at our ramshackle collection of shelters and improvised technology, her eyes lit up with the kind of excitement that meant trouble.
"This place has potential," she said, already calculating improvements. "Give me a few days and I can have communications running, maybe even contact with the Ark."
"Really?" Monty appeared like he'd been summoned, engineering enthusiasm overriding social awkwardness. "What would you need?"
Raven surveyed the camp with professional assessment, and I could practically see the blueprints forming in her head. Communications array. Power distribution. Water filtration. In a week, she'd transform our survival camp into something approaching civilization.
Which meant a week of her noticing every time I "accidentally" knew something I shouldn't. A week of increasingly pointed questions as she tested the boundaries of my supposed ignorance.
I watched her examine Monty's still with the kind of focus that missed nothing, already identifying improvements and inefficiencies. This was my future—constant vigilance, constant deflection, constant fear that one careless word would expose me as something other than human.
But as she turned to smile at something Monty said, her face bright with excitement about the technical challenges ahead, I knew I was in trouble.
Because despite the danger, despite the complications, despite every rational reason to keep my distance, I wanted to be part of that excitement. Wanted to work beside her, to see what we could build together, to find out what happened when unstoppable curiosity met immovable secrecy.
Even if it meant risking everything.