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“And I see you managed to dodge any of the fighting at all,” Sebastian replied lightly. “As usual.”
Mal’ik had stopped his fidgeting. “We’re glad to see you survived,” he said in his rumbling voice, with an oddly kind tone.
“Oh.” Sebastian blinked. “Thank you.”
“Not all of us,” Garrett muttered.
Joan spoke louder as she stepped forward. “But most of us.” She waited until Martha had conceded her spot to Hess, then approached the table. “We need to get started. Every second counts.”
“I agree.” Hess nodded.
Something in his eyes and tone put Sebastian’s back up, but Joan didn’t seem to notice it.
She turned her tablet toward Hess. “I’ve spoken to Captain Mal’ik, and given his experience and our admittedly limited intel, we believe our people are probably being held somewhere in this region.”
“That area is littered with mines.” Garrett looked over Joan’s shoulder to see her screen. “That could work for us or against us.”
Joan nodded. “If we put together a team of people familiar—”
“No.” Hess didn’t even bother to glance at the tablet, and Sebastian’s stomach sank as he watched the confusion register on both Joan’s and Garrett’s faces.
“On the ground is better,” Joan frowned. “We can’t get any ships in close—”
“No ships either,” Hess spoke calmly, almost flatly.
Joan’s frown deepened, and Garrett looked pitifully confused, but they were the only ones. Martha, Mal’ik, and Turner looked on stoically. They knew what was coming, and so did Sebastian, but he damn well wasn’t going to sit by and let it happen.
“Hess, you can’t be serious.” Sebastian strode up to the table with a growl, ignoring the way Garrett flinched when he got close.
Hess met his gaze evenly. “No rescue operation.”
Sebastian couldn’t believe he’d thought those stony eyes soft just moments ago. But he had thought they were soft because they had been. He planted his hands on the table and leaned in. “Hess, they’re our people. They were ready to die for the Resistance.”
Hess didn’t miss a beat. “Then they still are.”
“The Klah’Eel won’t kill them,” Mal’ik said calmly, but his tone seemed to incense Garrett.
“Why the fuck would we trust you?”
Turner let out a condescending bark of laughter as he turned away from the window to face them all. “Do you ever get tired of having the same thoughts over and over again?”
Sebastian snorted. “He doesn’t, actually.”
“Fuck you.” Garrett shoved him hard enough that Sebastian stumbled, and Hess’s hand snapped out to grab Garrett’s wrist. Finally, a fire kindled in Hess’s eyes, and he curled his lip and opened his mouth, but Joan didn’t let him get in a word.
“Hess, look, we have at least two dozen men there.” Joan pushed her tablet under Hess’s nose as though whatever she had there would somehow convince a man who had already made up his mind. That fire that had lit when Garrett put his hand on Sebastian doused immediately, and Hess dropped Garrett’s arm.
“I know how many men we have there, Joan.” Hess firmly but gently pushed Joan out of his space. “I know where they are, I know how they’re being treated, and I know how to get them back. And we’re not going to.”
Joan clenched her teeth. “But why?”
Garrett’s kicked-puppy face hardened as understanding finally dawned on his pitifully dim brain. “Because we can’t split our forces.”
Sebastian scowled. “Oh, now you’re a tactical expert?”
“He’s right.” Mal’ik stepped forward and joined them at the edge of the table. “More than likely, they’re still there because the Klah’Eel want to bait you out.”
“They’re counting on us to be undisciplined,” Hess said to Garrett. Then he turned to Sebastian, and though his eyes were cold and hard, Sebastian saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “Emotional.”
