“How are we right back where we started?” Deke snarled. His face on the vid wavered, but his expression of frustration was clear anyway.
I knew how he felt. Other than the fact I wasn’t in pain, or trapped in a tiny cell, and I had a bond with Captain and the crew that we both trusted at our back to help me… I was sort of right where I’d been when they first found me. My life was being directed by forces outside of my control. Someone, or someones, was arrayed against me.
And it wasn’t just me I worried about. I worried about Captain. The crew. Chomper. He’d startled many of our friends who came as soon as Captain called, but he was too damn cute not to pull them in. Even Priella forgot to be nervous around Captain and got down on the floor to play with Chomper. He’d loved her hair, pulling it out of the plait she wore it in.
My hair was still short, barely long enough to flop over my ears. Then again, watching her untangle his tiny claws, yet again, maybe that was a good thing.
“We can’t think about it that way,” someone said. I glanced up, but I’d missed who spoke.
“I agree.” Captain stood. “We have knowledge, skills, and they can’t surprise us.”
“But who are they?” I asked.
“That might be something Danie can help with,” Freska answered. She shoved Deke aside in the vid. “Move, you take up too much room.” Centered, she smiled. “Hi, guys. So Danie revealed another trick they encoded in his body. He’s able to pick up certain… signals. With that, we’ve been tracking where the ship went.”
“How can you know it’s the right ship?” I asked.
“These wavelengths are leftover from the ship’s energy waves as it destroyed the planet. Trust me, there’s not two ships just passing through that have the ability to do that.” Danie piped up in the background, but we couldn’t see him.
“Right.” I nodded, taking a breath. “So, you think you will be able to find where the ship went?”
“And the ship itself. If we can get close enough for me to link…” Freska paused significantly. Not everyone knew of her specific abilities, and it was a closely-held secret of her people exactly how they did what they did.
“The ship will sing its every secret.” Captain smirked. “Remind me to give you a raise.”
“You don’t pay us anymore, Captain.”
“Well then it won’t be much of a raise.” He grimaced. “Thank you guys. Stay in touch. And, Deke, try to stay calm even if you don’t get to go on board and kill anything.”
“We will.” She cut the transmission before whatever comment Deke started to snarl could be heard.
“He needs a sedative,” Aparoe said calmly. “Added to his food. Continually.”
“No drugging the crew,” Captain insisted.
“Fine. But we’d all have less of a headache.” Aparoe stood. “You’ve all had the chance to meet Chomper, hear what Kohen and Captain Querry have to say, and we’ve been updated by the crew who are following up on where this all started. Anyone have biological questions for me that don’t invade privacy?” They eyed the room’s inhabitants who didn’t say anything.
“Good. I’ll be retiring to my quarters. I want to look at the data from last night’s tests.” Aparoe quickly left the room.
Chomper was still larger-sized, coming up to my mid-thighs now. If he reared up on his back legs he was up to my rib cage. And his sounds had morphed into chatter.
Mental chatter. He kept up a running commentary of one and two word sentences, mostly demands or exclamations. Between the discussion, Captain’s feelings, my own conflicted emotions, and dealing with him, I was exhausted. I leaned into the warmth of Captain’s body next to mine and started to drift, letting the words wash over me.
Plans. Secondary plans. Contingency plans based on the secondary plans going wrong. Defensive plans. Offensive plans. They were really good at this. I wasn’t. My job was to do what kept me safe. Me and Chomper.
Later, we had another rare moment of peace. A few of the guards Deke had trained were patrolling outside—warned about our underground threats in case the pack came back—and Aparoe had chosen to eat in their room.
“Who do you think it is?” I asked. The thought had been looming on my mind whenever Chomper wasn’t keeping me busy.
“One of my enemies? Any number of opportunistic companies, governments, or forces who think you would be valuable who’d managed to covertly flip one of the Brox workers who knew of you?”
“What about Sloak’s suggestion of it all being a coincidence? Life does find a way, after all.”
“To destroy a whole planet?” Captain raised his eyebrows. “That’s the thing. Someone, on a ship, destroyed the planet where we used to restock our ship’s supplies. That’s a coincidence, maybe, but I doubt it.”
“What if….” I paused, looking down at my plate. I swallowed hard, the bite like a rock in my throat. “What if I never stop putting the crew in danger?”
“They had the choice to go anywhere else, Kohen. They stayed with us because they’re our family. You’d try to protect them too, if the situation was reversed.” Captain reached out a hand. “Whoever this is doesn’t know where we are. That’s to our advantage too. This time, we have the upper hand.”
“Right.” I would find my conviction. “Freska, Danie, and Deke will find out who they are, and then we’ll pick our plan and strike. They’ll never see it coming.” I’d kill anyone who was after those I considered mine. Slowly and painfully.
Then if anyone else had plans to hunt us…. Yeah, there it was. So not going to happen.
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