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Sazahk sealed his lips closed as his understanding of the past painfully refactored.
He believed his brother.
For all his resentment and fury and betrayal, he’d never considered his brother a liar. Which meant his brother hadn’t known. He hadn’t known what was happening while Sazahk lay helpless under that knife. His brother hadn’t known, hadn’t sent him there, hadn’t been responsible.
Hadn’t had the power.
Sazahk searched his brother’s face, his scrunched brow, his dark eyes shaped just like Sazahk’s, his colors a cacophonous riot across his skin. He hurt. Sazahk had hurt him with his resentment and his distance.
His brother had never set the record straight, because Sazahk had never given him the opportunity. Sazahk had never even directly confronted his brother about the betrayal that he felt so deeply.
Serihk spoke first, softening his grip on Sazahk’s shoulders, then dropping it, his hands hanging by his side. “And I want to help you now, but I can’t.”
But Sazahk didn’t have any other options. Garin didn’t have any other options. He shook his head, backing away, then turned to pace the room. “No, you have to. There must be courses of action available to us, other people who have, or could be persuaded to have, a vested interest in the survival of Dominic Turner. And if Dominic Turner can be recovered alive, there’s no reason his bodyguard can’t be either.”
Serihk sighed in the indulgent way he did when they were children and joined him in front of the main screen. It lit up with a series of holographic displays of various people Sazahk didn’t recognize. “Your obvious ally is Alistair Turner.”
“Which one is that?” Sazahk searched the faces for someone with Dom’s piercing blue eyes.
“This man.” Serihk waved forward a photograph of a man that looked far more like Oliver than Dom, besides the cut of his jaw. “Except he’s not your ally, because he’s no one’s ally. You wouldn’t be able to arrange a meeting with him and even if you did, I’m not entirely sure he’s interested in seeing his son come home alive.”
Something of a plan formed in Sazahk’s mind. He reached through Tazal Station’s vast communication and security systems, searching for his team. “Unless he’s a clinical psychopath, he must feel concern for his own progeny.”
Serihk raised an eyebrow. “I think there’s a very good chance he is a clinical psychopath.”
“Then I can appeal to his rationality,” Sazahk replied, but something else tugged at him. Something like the drive that had made him seek out Serihk, knowing that he was a powerful man, someone who could help Sazahk if anyone could. “I know what I need you to do for me.”
A frisson of energy went through Serihk’s frame and he straightened, turning to face Sazahk. “I will do anything in my power for you.”
“I need you to get me an audience with Prince Hyg.”
Sazahk picked at the loose thread on the left sleeve of his robe as he stood alone in the small, windowless room. It felt like a lifetime since he’d last worn a robe when, in reality, it had been less than four months. He’d stopped when he’d joined Squad M, switching the robes out for hardier clothes that stood up to more involved work.
He rolled the thread between his thumb and forefinger as he tracked Patrick’s tablet through the warrens of the Human diplomatic chambers, linking his implant to it as naturally as breathing. Serihk hadn’t taken Sazahk’s access to Tazal Station’s security apparatus, though Sazahk had seen the thought cross his mind when Sazahk summoned Squad M through channels he shouldn’t be in. But due to the nature of Squad M’s current mission, Tazal Station’s security couldn’t track them, anyway. If it did, the mission would fail.
The mission they were performing for him. It was difficult to believe the group of Klah’Eel had been in his life for such a short amount of time. He hated to imagine it without them anymore.
The door on the right of Sazahk’s room slid open and pulled Sazahk from his obsession over Patrick’s signal creeping along a far hall.
“This one? I remember this one.” A huge, familiar Insect Soldier entered first, his deep, rumbling clicks translating into Universal in Sazahk’s ear where he’d tucked a translator.
A female Drone Sazahk also recognized followed him. “Then you remember he’s hardly dangerous. Do you feel better now?”
“No,” the Soldier replied with a hiss, flanking the door and crossing his arms.
Finally, the Insect Sazahk had been expecting glided through the entryway, his wings rustling as the tips dragged along the floor.
Prince Hyg looked every bit as breathtaking as Sazahk remembered him, and he brought into the room with him the same aura of surety he’d had as he’d walked across the hangar to meet Squad M when they’d boarded his ship months ago. Sazahk’s chest loosened enough for him to breathe.
“I remember you as well,” Prince Hyg said in Universal, inclining his head to Sazahk with the trace of a smile on his lips. “The scientist. I’m afraid this is still not a good time for you to question me on my physiology.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” Sazahk said, but despite his words, his eyes lingered across Prince Hyg’s broad shoulders and the translucent wings peeking out from behind his narrow hips. “Though I’d love to know if your wings are fully functional or merely for courting purposes or perhaps to establish your place in the colony hierarchy.”
Prince Hyg ruffled the fascinating appendages. “Or all of the above. But Emissary Serihk would not send me to an unmarked room in Tazal Station’s political district to indulge your anatomical curiosity.”
“No, he wouldn’t, and he did not.” Sazahk checked on Patrick’s process. He was moving away from the Human diplomatic chambers, faster than he’d gone in, and hopefully with the other half of Sazahk’s plan in tow. “I want to discuss Dominic Turner.”
The Soldier didn’t react; he couldn’t understand them if Sazahk recalled correctly. But Nam Drone scoffed and clicked her mandibles, and even Prince Hyg’s lips twitched downwards.
