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“Vanilla?” Bar’in murmured to Fal’ran, too low for Tar to hear. At Fal’ran’s nod, Bar’in passed the tube to Sazahk. “Alright fine, the view sucks, but the equipment is better.”
“The equipment is adequate.” Sazahk lifted the strawberry tube to Tar’s nose. “Smell anything?”
Tar shook his head, but Sazahk didn’t look disappointed. He nodded and jotted something down on his tablet.
Fal’ran nudged Patrick with his elbow. “You gonna brief us?”
“Right.” Patrick remembered why he was here and sat on the stool next to Fal’ran. He opened his tablet without reacting to Fal’ran pressing their calves together. “One problem though.”
Dominic bristled when Patrick glanced at him. “I have the highest security clearance here.”
“And he’s helping Tar,” Bar’in crossed his arms and Patrick scowled.
“Helping Tar doesn’t give him security clearance.”
“No, but being a Turner does.” Dominic leaned closer to the camera. “How about I tell you everything you’re about to brief them on and then I tell you something you weren’t briefed on?”
Curiosity and propriety warred in Patrick before, as it usually did, propriety won out. “If I wasn’t briefed on it, I shouldn’t know it.”
“That’s bullshit.” Fal’ran whacked Patrick’s calf with the side of his boot. “We should take every advantage we can get.”
Patrick shot him a look with a scolding on his tongue, but it died at the confident challenge in Fal’ran’s eyes. The younger man wasn’t wrong, per se. And Patrick found it difficult to throw more obstacles in his team’s way when they faced so many already. And it was even more difficult to argue the benefit of obeying orders when the institution they obeyed wasn’t on their side.
“Fine.” Patrick set his tablet aside and motioned at Dominic. When Turner’s shoulders went back, his stomach soured at the familiar stance. “This had better not be as bad as the last thing you presented, though.”
Dominic’s posture slumped, and Patrick regretted it. Sure, the villain deserved it, but his crestfallen face still stung Patrick’s soft heart and he resolved not to poke at that bit of the past again. At least for the time being.
Sazahk’s sharp glare only made Patrick feel worse. The qesh waved at Dominic with deep brown swirling up his cheek. “Go on.”
“I’ll keep it short.” Dominic’s voice didn’t take on the same calculated tone Patrick remembered from his presentation on Klah, and Patrick softened his stance. “Yesterday, before the arrival of Base Ship Givast, the Insects were repelled from the biggest city in Western Qesha. There was some infrastructure damage and some casualties, but fewer than anticipated.”
Fal’ran and Tar glanced at Patrick, and Patrick nodded. So far, it was in line with what he’d been told.
“Last night, the Klah’Eel squad on call was scrambled to respond to another attack on the second biggest city.” Dominic split his screen in two. One half showed his face and the other half showed a map of the habitable region of Qesha’s single continent. “Again. Infrastructure damage. Casualties. Repelled. We do not know where they go when they leave. Once we lose visual contact, we have no way of finding them again.”
It unnerved Patrick that they could lose a hostile force in the space between planets and stations. He’d always taken for granted that space was as charted and knowable as any planet’s surface. In reality, that assumption rested on standardized technologies and shared knowledge bases, making the galaxy seem much more dangerous.
“That’s the long and short of it,” Patrick agreed when Dominic looked to him for confirmation. “With nowhere to mount an offense, the Klah’Eel is in a holding pattern. We’re arranging squads to be on call as the first line of defense for an attack wherever one may appear.”
Fal’ran straightened. “When is our squad up?”
Patrick gave the young man an apologetic look. “We’re not. Not yet, at least.”
“What?” Bar’in frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Our squad isn’t on the schedule,” Patrick clarified. Because they were grounded. Never to see the light of day, if Yal’rest got his way. “I’m working on it.”
Fal’ran balled his fists on his thighs and glared out at Qesha. “That’s bullshit.”
“There wouldn’t be anything for you to do, even if you were sent out.” Dominic closed his map, and his face grew to fill the screen. “As of right now, the only munitions we have that can pierce an Insect carapace are grade four missiles and those aren’t exactly precision instruments.”
“Is this where you tell us what I haven’t been briefed on?” Patrick hoped so. He remembered his bullets bouncing off the Insects’ armor plates. He’d allowed himself to believe that perhaps the bullets would have punched through if he’d been closer or if he’d used a different caliber, but he didn’t know.
“Yes.” Dominic glanced over his shoulder and leaned closer to the mic. “Some Insects secrete a liquid from their mandibles. It’s hell on equipment and—” Dominic swallowed. “—people, but it might be hell on Insects themselves, too, if applied correctly.”
Tar frowned deeply, but Fal’ran asked the question. “Applied correctly?”
Dominic nodded. “That’s what I’m working on.”
