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“Just because I haven’t heard anything from the Resistance a hemisphere away doesn’t mean I won’t hear anything if they start making moves here,” Teav reminded them, lifting her chin. “We won’t be caught completely off guard.”
“No, we won’t.” Mal’ik stood, and the other three followed. “Patrick, double the scans for incoming ships. Teav, I want you to focus on the Resistance. I’m no longer worried about any other factions.”
“Are you sure?” Lar’a asked before they could disperse. “Our human consultant says there are plenty of Human factions that might have a vested interest in seeing the Turner family fail here.”
Teav nodded slowly. “I doubt any of them, criminal or otherwise, would act directly, but they might be happy to foot the Resistance’s bill. I’ll put one of my men on investigating finances.”
“Good.” Mal’ik looked around at them. “Anything else?”
“No, sir,” Teav said with a straight back.
Patrick and Lar’a both shook their heads.
Mal’ik nodded once. “Alright. Dismissed. The Turner ship is landing within the hour.”
Patrick fell into step beside Mal’ik as they walked to the landing bay. He seemed to have shaken off the stress of the meeting, and he gave Mal’ik a little smirk. “You ready for this?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You haven’t done close protection in a while.”
Mal’ik scowled. “It’s my specialty.”
“Was your specialty,” Patrick corrected. “You’ve been a captain for years now.”
“I still am. Your captain, in fact.” Mal’ik gave him a stern look from his superior height, but Patrick smirked again.
“And his nursemaid.”
It was considered an honor to have the best—often interpreted as the highest-ranking—security professional assigned to the most important guest. An honor for the guard or for the guest, Mal’ik couldn’t say, but it was only through promising to assign Mal’ik that the Klah’Eel had gotten Turner’s bodyguard to agree to leave the planet during the negotiations.
Patrick was still watching him, and Mal’ik almost rolled his eyes, as though they were still young men. “I’ll be fine.”
“I hear he’s a pain in the ass.”
Mal’ik snorted. “They always are.”
They arrived at the landing bay—the big, audacious one specifically for use by guests that the government wanted to impress—and took their place around the perimeter of the group that had gathered. The Klah’Eel government and business heads and their entourages had organized themselves by importance and power.
Mal’ik touched his earpiece. “Everyone in position?”
The squad leaders sounded off in the affirmative.
“Good,” he said. “Keep your eyes on the crowd, the entrances, and the perimeter.”
Soon, the flare of an incoming ship entering the atmosphere appeared in the sky, and then a sleek silver transport ship sped toward them. Mal’ik raised an eyebrow. The ship was quiet and fast and shone in the sun. The posturing had already started then.
But the ship—as nice as it was—was nothing compared to the human man that first appeared down the gangway.
Mal’ik’s first thought was that it was foolish and completely against protocol to allow an assignment first through a doorway. He should be flanked. A bodyguard in front and a bodyguard behind at least.
Mal’ik’s second thought was that he was breathtaking. His hair caught the sun like gold; the pure white of his clothing reflected the light blindingly. He held himself straight and tall and swept down the gangway as though alighting from a throne. Mal’ik swallowed against his suddenly too-tight collar.
And Mal’ik’s third thought was to realize that the first two were very connected. This man knew how to make an entrance, and he wasn’t going to let a silly thing like his own security and the duties of his bodyguards ruin that for him.
He was going to be a pain in the ass, but Mal’ik’s lips wanted to smile at the confident audacity of it.
“Have fun,” Patrick murmured next to him with a tilt to his eyebrows that indicated his mind had gone through at least some of the same thoughts.
