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After a lifetime in Tava fighting Klah’Eel through the grit and the dirt and the rusted machinery that Garrett had to polish every day to keep in fighting form, staring at the Qeshian recon team felt like looking into the future and realizing he was a caveman.
“Leon Hess?” The qesh in the front—dressed no differently but with an unmistakable air of authority—stepped forward and extended his hand to Leon.
“That’s right.” Leon took the qesh’s hand and looked him in the eye without a trace of the insecurity Garrett was feeling. “What’s this about?”
“My name is Hzir.” The qesh extended his arm out, inside up, and a small hologram of a ship appeared over the screens on his forearm. Garrett didn’t have a good view, but the ship didn’t look like anything he’d ever seen before—black and windowless, with octagonal compartments seemingly fused on at random. “My team and I have been tracking a small group of Insects through the system.”
Insects? Garrett glanced at Sebastian, who stared intently at the small spinning hologram without a trace of flippancy.
Leon didn’t look at all confused as he stared down at the strange ship, but Garrett could feel the dread coming off him. “How have you been tracking them? I thought their ships didn’t transmit anything.”
“They don’t.” Hzir didn’t move, but the hologram shifted so that the ship nudged to the side, and a readout of vitals scrolled across the air to its right. “We have a sleeper agent stowed on board.”
Sebastian raised his eyebrows. “Poor bastard.”
Hzir glanced at him with barely a starburst of green over his left cheekbone. “It’s his job.”
Leon pointed his chin at the image of the ship, which, as it turned, Garrett could see at least still had something that looked like engines on one side. “If you’re tracking the bugs, why are you here?”
Hzir’s hologram zoomed out to show the dotted line of a ship path extending from the ship. As they watched, the little ship sailed along the path and down to a planet that Garrett recognized instantly. “Because the bugs are about to land on Southern Tava.”
Tension rippled through the Resistance side of the room. Joan pushed up from the wall, Sebastian and Garrett both took involuntary steps forward, and Leon’s spine pulled up straight.
Hzir swept his dark eyes over them all. “So you understand the urgency of the situation.”
“What do they want?” Sebastian asked.
“If we knew that, the Senate would not be so worried about them.” Hzir raised an eyebrow. “They’re an unknown quantity. That’s what makes them dangerous.”
“That and the fate of every other planet they’ve ever landed on,” Leon muttered.
Garrett looked at him in alarm. “What happened to the other planets?”
But Hzir was shaking his head. “This ship is hardly an invasion force, and they still think we don’t know where they are.”
“And where are they exactly?” Leon asked. “On the planet. Do you know?”
“Here.” Hzir’s hologram zoomed in on Tava and panned it over to show them a particular flat expanse, with particular foothills, that Garrett would know anywhere.
“Thule,” he said flatly. “Their landing in Thule.”
Hzir looked at him with shrewd eyes. “You know it.”
Garrett nodded. “Very well.”
“And you know what they might want?” Hzir tilted his head.
As Garrett’s mind flew a mile a minute, he realized he knew exactly what they wanted and exactly how they planned to get it.
Sebastian replied before he did, putting his hands on his hips and clenching his jaw. “The uranium.”
“They’re the pirates’ buyer.” Garrett grabbed Sebastian’s forearm, and Sebastian startled and looked at him. “The pirates said they had a buyer scarier than the Cartel.”
The blood drained from Sebastian’s face. “And as far as they know, there’s only one person who can open that door.”
The qesh with the port in the back of his skull.
Maxwell.
