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But the Qesh had infiltrated a few as they appeared throughout the sector and snuck in specialized agents. The agents hid in the ships and put themselves into a virtual coma, their only contact with the outside world through their neural links which fed their thoughts and vitals off to Qeshian Intelligence command.
Sazahk made a noise of half dismay and half fascination as he brought the data tablet even closer to his nose, twining tendrils of pink and light green winding up his cheeks.
Fal’ran and Bar’in both looked at him, and when he didn’t reply, glanced at each other with twin, frustrated expressions.
Patrick smiled to himself and reached down to pat Tar’s shoulder as he lay on the bench. “You want another plate?”
Tar nodded and Fal’ran huffed as he and Patrick grabbed yet another weight to add to the already bowing barbell. “Crazy bastard.”
Finally, Bar’in threw his rifle down into his lap. “Well, what’s the most—” he cut himself off and picked his gun up as fast as he’d thrown it down. “Never mind. I don’t care.”
Patrick finished adding the weight to the barbell and walked around it to stand at Tar’s head to help Fal’ran spot him before taking pity on them. “Within two minutes of the first sleeper agent being discovered, every other sleeper agent went dark.”
“They’re communicating.” Sazahk rejoined the conversation, flipping back and forth on Patrick’s data tablet even though Patrick was sure he’d pulled everything possible from the thin briefing. “They’re communicating very quickly, impossibly quickly. And we still don’t know how. But we finally know with absolute certainty—well, no, nothing is ever absolute, and we can never actually be certain—”
“Sazahk,” Fal’ran growled as he caught Tar’s absurdly heavy barbell when it drifted down instead of up.
“We finally have high-quality evidence that the uncatalogued species did communicate in this instance, and we have a time window—an impossibly small time window—during which we know, to use a loose definition of the word know, that the communication took place.” Sazahk tossed Patrick’s tablet away from him and reached for his own more powerful tablet. “And yet, we still see no evidence of any sort of communication waves or particles leaving or arriving at any of the ships.”
Fal’ran helped Tar rack the barbell after his last rep and stood up straight and rolled his neck. “Okay. So? They communicate and we don’t know how. How is that any different from what we knew this morning?”
Sazahk tapped his finger excitedly on the screen of his tablet. “Because now we know, for—”
“—for some loose definition of know,” Fal’ran waved Sazahk on.
“—that they do it and we know that they do it quickly.”
“And we know they’re not interested in negotiation.” Bar’in started reassembling his rifle. “They could have interrogated the sleeper agents, or used them as bargaining chips, or something. Instead, they killed them.”
“Do we know they killed them?” Fal’ran asked Sazahk.
Sazahk grimaced. “Their vitals flatlined before they went dark, so it’s a justifiable assumption.”
Patrick watched his team process this information for a moment. Sazahk obsessively swiped along his screens with plumes of green billowing across his nose. Bar’in grimly clicked the pieces of his favored weapon into place. Fal’ran stood still with his arms crossed and his feet planted but with his strong brow furrowed and a million thoughts a minute running behind his shrewd eyes. Tar sat still as a statue.
Maybe he shouldn’t have told them all this. They didn’t need the discouragement right now or the distraction. But it wasn’t in him to lie or hide information from his team. And besides, seeing them all discuss the threat that faced them instead of sniping at each other warmed his chest. It was a monumental step forward for the four of them.
Time for another one. Patrick clapped his hands together to snap them all out of their thoughts. “And that’s enough of that. We face the Trial before we fight the bugs, so let’s focus on what’s ahead of us.”
“Oh, I’ve been thinking about that!” Sazahk swept his long fingers over his tablet screen to swipe away what he’d been looking at and pull up a screen of tight text and diagrams. “I’ve been cataloging our team’s strengths and weaknesses and comparing them to the quantifiable stats as well some qualitative evaluations of the other teams we’re statistically most likely to face and then I looked at the flora and geology of the arena and—”
“Hold on a second there, Sazahk.” Patrick held his hand up with a laugh. “We all want to hear everything you have to say, but first I want the three of you—” he pointed at Tar, Fal’ran, and Bar’in, then down at the floor at his feet “—down on the ground with me. We’re doing partner stretching.”
“We’re doing what?” Fal’ran recoiled as though Patrick had taken a swipe at him.
“Partner stretching.” Patrick planted his hands on his hips and grinned at his team’s distrustful eyes blinking back at him. “Fal’ran, with all the lifting you’re doing, if you don’t stretch all those muscles, they’ll pull your chest in until you’re shuffling around with a hunchback.”
Patrick paused long enough to enjoy the horror in Fal’ran’s eyes before moving on.
“And Tar, can you even touch your toes?” Patrick raised an eyebrow. “Bar’in—”
“Lack of flexibility is not my issue.” Bar’in flicked a hand and pulled his booted feet up onto his bedspread so he could lean back against the headboard.
“Maybe not, but we both know you have other issues getting in your way.” Fal’ran slipped a hand under Bar’in’s boots as he passed and tossed Bar’in’s legs back over the side of the bed. “Come on.”
“You don’t know jack shit,” Bar’in groused as he planted his elbows across his knees, though he didn’t lie back down on his bed.
Patrick fought the smile on his lips as he watched them. Two weeks ago, this would have been a full-on brawl. Now, the sniping was practically friendly.
