AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What else were they doing?”
“Making weapons.”
“Well, sure, all the powerful corporations are making weapons.” Maxwell stood, gathered up Sebastian’s wrappers, and threw them in a waste basket in a corner. “That’s where the money is.”
“Not weapons like this.”
“What is this—”
“Doctor?” A hard rap on the door back to the auditorium interrupted him. “Doctor, do you have the torvar in there with you?”
Maxwell grimaced. “His name is—”
“Yeah, I’m here. What do you need?” Sebastian hopped off the table and then cracked his back, sore from lying on the hardwood for who knew how long. It was sweet that Maxwell tried to defend him, but also useless.
Two soldiers Sebastian had seen around but had never been introduced to came into the room.
The first glanced down at Tesh on the floor, went pale, and then looked back at Sebastian. “Hess says you need to meet him in the war room.”
“Now,” the other added and then nodded to Tesh’s body lying in an unceremonious heap on the floor with much less concern. “And we need to take that out.”
“Will you at least give it to his family?” Maxwell asked, decent as ever.
“He doesn’t have any family.” Sebastian shrugged a shoulder. “We checked back when he first became governor.”
A slight grimace came over Maxwell’s face as he no doubt considered exactly why Resistance leadership might have been checking for Tesh’s family, but it passed quickly, and he nodded.
Sebastian headed to the door the two soldiers had just come in from. “Thanks for the body, Maxwell.”
“Thank Hess,” Maxwell replied.
Sebastian just shook his head. “I will not.” Then he stopped with a flicker of irritation. “Where’s the war room?”
“Center of the building,” one of the soldiers told him. “Top floor. Big table in the center. Can’t miss it.”
“Thanks.”
The trek back through the recently taken capitol building was much more pleasant in a human body, not least because instead of suspicious glares, he got either completely ignored or a few friendly smiles from soldiers who recognized him. Well, still a few suspicious glares from soldiers who recognized him, knew him to be a torvar, and didn’t trust him because of it. But nothing new there.
It also simply felt much more natural for him to be in a human body. Sebastian had inhabited one for as long as he could remember. It wasn’t until he joined the Resistance that he’d first jumped into a klah’eel. He’d been in a qesh since then too. He didn’t like the overwhelming assault on his scent while he was in a klah’eel, and he hated needing to think about the color of his skin when he was in a qesh. No, human bodies were definitely the most comfortable.
The war room did prove impossible to miss. It was labeled as Conference Room 1, but Sebastian could see the familiar sight of Hess through the doorway. He was bent over a huge table, with his muscular arms braced against it, staring down at presumably his beloved map with a glare so hard it was like he thought the force of his will alone would win this war for them.
Hess was alone in the room, and Sebastian approached silently and leaned on the doorframe with his hip cocked out. He stared at the strong jaw, straight nose, and serious dark brows for a moment, admiring of and simultaneously frustrated by them. Then he rapped his knuckles hard on the doorframe and smirked when Hess started.
Hess scowled and straightened up. His eyes flickered down Sebastian’s new body, but Sebastian couldn’t read anything in them. “I hope you’re willing to risk that. You won’t have time to find a new one.”
The exhaustion Sebastian had kept tamped down ever since Captain Mal’ik had broken him out of Klah’Eel custody threatened to rear up at the implication that there would be no rest, but Sebastian kept it at bay. He waved a hand and came into the room. “Bodies are a dime a dozen during a war.”
“Dead bodies.”
“And traitors.” Sebastian shrugged. “Which are just dead bodies still walking around.” That’s what his current, pretty, long-limbed body had been: a Klah’Eel spy, until Sebastian had wriggled into him and solved that problem for them.
“That’s the spirit!” Joan came striding in with a handful of data tablets, and Captain Mal’ik and Oliver Turner trailed after her. Mal’ik looked as untouched and stoic as ever, Turner still bright-eyed with this exciting adventure, and Joan had bags under her eyes but the wild look she got when she had a bone in her mouth. “I’ve got a traitor for you.”
“No.” Hess’s dour voice took the skip out of Joan’s step. “He needs to go to the factory.”
“The what?” Sebastian frowned and leaned his hip against the heavy table, which did indeed have Hess’s map stretched out atop it.
