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Tar crossed his enormous arms. “Does he know that?” His baleful eyes glimmered with the same distrust they’d had in them when Patrick had first taken over the squad. Patrick couldn’t pinpoint when it had left, but he recognized it now.
“I—” Patrick licked his lips. “I thought he did, but—”
“But how would you know since you haven’t talked to him since you fucked him the night after it happened,” Bar’in spat, entirely too loudly.
Patrick grabbed Bar’in’s arm and pulled him away from the open doorway. “What happened that night is none of your business.” That memory was too precious and too raw to handle Bar’in stabbing at it.
“Yes, it is.” Bar’in ripped his arm away. “You made sure of it, remember? Or was all your blathering about the importance of teams just bullshit to get us through the Trial so we could stop embarrassing you?”
“Bar’in, stop.” Patrick grabbed Bar’in’s shoulders. “None of it was bullshit, and none of you embarrass me. I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel that way, but what is going on?”
Bar’in heaved a breath and settled under Patrick’s hands, but Tar spoke.
“You need to come with us.”
Patrick opened his mouth to argue, looking back at the room he was supposed to be in. Then shut it. Fuck it. Being in that room was humiliating, and they weren’t telling him anything new, anyway.
The Insects were untraceable. They came and went out of nowhere. Klah’Eel, Human, and Qeshian bullets didn’t pierce their carapaces. They communicated instantaneously. They’d struck a major city on Qesha fast and hard and disappeared before Base Ship Givast arrived in the system. Blah, blah, blah. It wouldn’t help his reputation to skip a meeting and it wasn’t like him at all but fuck it. A lot of good a reputation for being a stickler had done him so far.
Patrick released Bar’in and jerked his head at Tar. “Lead the way.”
“He apologized to us all, you know.” Bar’in overtook Tar and wound through halls as deftly as if he’d grown up in them.
“Fal’ran?” Patrick raised his eyebrows. That didn’t sound like him.
“Yeah.” Bar’in sounded as surprised as Patrick. “For messing it all up at the end. I mean, I told him not to fuck it up, and he fucked it up, so he owed us an apology, but still…” Bar’in shook his head.
“Dammit.” Patrick rubbed his forehead. He should have seen this coming. He would have seen this coming if he hadn’t been so caught up in his own selfish doubt and insecurity.
“He’s beating himself up about it.” Tar’s eyes had lost the glimmer of distrust, and that at least gave Patrick some relief.
“I’m sure he is.” Patrick hoped he wasn’t completely self-sabotaging. “What is he doing? Where are we going? Fuck, is he fighting again?”
If he was fighting again, Patrick would beat his ass himself. After everything they’d done and how hard they’d worked, if he found out Fal’ran was throwing it all away because Patrick had been an idiot, he would tear them both apart.
“He’s not fighting.” Bar’in waved an impatient hand at him. “Not anyone else, at least.”
They left the administrative wing and boarded a station transport. Bar’in hit the button for the atrium balcony and Patrick understood. He sighed, but his anxiety unwound. They stood in silence as the transport zipped them across and up to the top of the Base Ship. Tar didn’t move, but Bar’in bounced his middle finger against the side of his leg.
When the door slid open, they all inhaled. Patrick had seen the sight a thousand times, but it took his breath away every time. The immense glass dome of Base Ship Givast arched overhead and beyond it stretched the vast expanse of the galaxy. Stars glittered as far as the eye could see, and directly in front of them floated Qesha. Shining chrome and green city covered half the planet. Yellow-orange barren wasteland stretched across the other.
“About time. I thought he might drop dead before you got here.” Sazahk stood at the railing and pursed his lips at them. Patrick joined Sazahk on the balcony and looked down on the running track circling around below them. “He’s still going though.”
During training sessions or long weeks of low action, the rubber track below them flowed with soldiers. But now, only one figure banked along the turn at the far edge along the nose of the ship. And Patrick would recognize that form and that stride anywhere.
“How long?” Patrick watched Fal’ran turn the corner and speed into the straightaway across the atrium.
“About two hours now.” Sazahk looked at his data tablet as though reporting on an experiment, but his tone was strained and pink curled around his collarbones. “And that’s not including the battalion-wide physical training from this morning.”
“Two hours on his own, he’s been out here.” Bar’in braced his elbows on the railing and glowered down at the track. “He’s going to run himself into the ground. You have to do something.”
“I know what I have to do.” Patrick tapped his hand a few times on the metal, then went for the flight of stairs. The other members of his team followed, hot on his heels. “How did the battalion training go today?”
“Terribly.” Bar’in’s boots hit each step hard.
“Marginally worse in terms of treatment than previous battalion-wide trainings, from what I understand.” Sazahk followed with a much lighter tread. “Our squad’s standing wasn’t improved by our Trial performance.”
“And no one let us forget it,” Bar’in muttered as he stopped a step behind Patrick.
