Prologue

Jacob Hardin was not cut out to be a leader.

“[Oh, ‘I’m better as a deputy, not a sheriff,’ fuckin asshole…]” he quoted under his breath. It was hard to be too mad though. He knew how Dustin felt.

He felt the same way.

Jacob had been more than content to march to the beat of Nora’s drum. She was one of the oldest abductees, definitely the most patient out of all of them, and she had a knack for deciphering Vorak pantomime.

Now that she was missing, Jacob had to step up.

In hindsight, it should have been more predictable that they would be moved again.

In the, give or take, four months they’d been in Vorak custody, they’d been moved twice. It was a tense, laborious process that involved all the abductees being separated into large transport crates—effectively storage containers—and being ferried somewhere new.

All while being told nothing. The first two times at least.

This time, the now lone translator, Shakri, had seen fit to tell them why they were being moved.

Danger.

Jacob fended off a hundred questions, all while having a thousand of his own. But the Vorak hadn’t said anything more than that. Before? He would have thought they were being stingy. But now there was an undeniable possibility: they might not know either .

Unlike the first two times, this third move had at least been relatively painless.

Dustin’s stupid psuedo-suicide stunt had sobered both sides. The Vorak had taken steps to keep Jacob from being surprised. Shakri had worked overtime to communicate just how long the trip would be and how it needed to be organized. That extra clarity went a long way helping Jacob keep all of the kids civil while they piled into what amounted to storage containers.

Fourteen hours later they’d unloaded into another sealed hangar-like space. It was more or less identical to the first one they’d been in with two major exceptions.

The first was that there was no pod-housing in the middle this time. Previously, there had been preexisting accommodations. Aluminum alien cabins plopped in the middle of a room large enough to construct aircraft in. But this time the Vorak were still in the middle of setting them up when they arrived.

If giving the move’s schedule in advance had eased tensions, taking feedback on the living arrangements had downright shattered them.

Shakri lost her voice trying to translate. Every ten seconds someone would voice a preference about the bunk layouts, where sinks and piping were going, or where to leave the crates of personal effects. The Vorak worked quickly too. In two hours, they built six completely functional modular cabins.

The second notable difference between this location and the last was windows.

On the hangar wall closest to their cabins there was a row of long pill-shaped windows. Dustin took the lead on that front, quickly distracting at least half the abductees and bringing them over to look out the windows at the stars.

That alone had kept forty of them enraptured for hours.

Cabins had come together, and crates of belongings had been unpacked in the different bunk rooms. The Vorak presence in the hangar waned as they withdrew behind the sealed hangar exits.

Eventually the youngest abductees were put to bed, the middling ones settled in for the night keeping an eye on them, and the oldest ones gathered under those same windows a few dozen feet away from the cabins.

Jacob had to lead a meeting of nine proverbial camp counselors, each one responsible for roughly eight of their younger peers.

For the boys, it was him, Eli, and Nick sitting for Dustin. The girls had Michelle, Roxanne, Lacey, Georgia, Sam, and finally Caroline to replace Nora.

All the looks around him were skittish despite how smoothly the move had gone. They were still in the dark, and Nora’s continuing absence was like a wound amongst them.

“[So,]” Jacob began quietly, “[I think we need to invite Shakri to these little talks—]”

“[What? Hell no,]” Sammantha started.

“[Let me finish,]” Jacob breathed wearily. Honestly, he didn’t totally believe in the idea himself, but it had enough merits to bring up. Plus, he didn’t want to put forth nothing. The group needed a leader, and if he just sat by passively he wouldn’t be one.

“[Not with any…’voting privileges’,]” he explained. “[She probably wouldn’t even come to all our little meetings. But we had some good interactions today, and I want to keep up the momentum.]”

“[She needs to start teaching more of them English,]” Nick complained. Jacob almost cut him off, but it was only Nick’s second meeting, and he didn’t want to shut him down just because he was new. “[Since Halax went and kidnapped Nora, she’s the only one who can understand anything we say.]”

“[It’s the other way around,]” Caroline piped up. Both of the substitutes were feeling okay speaking up. That was good right? “[The Vorak need to be teaching us their language. Otherwise we’re going to always depend on them for communication.]”

“[I agree. We depend on them for food, water, and everything else already,]” Lacey said. “[If they’re serious about equalizing some of the power, being able to understand what they say seems a lot more important.]”

Jacob snapped his fingers to keep the conversation from accelerating any further.

“[All of this is exactly why I think it’s worth letting Shakri sit in on some of our meetings,]” Jacob said. “[Whatever else happens, right now Lacey is right: we depend on the Vorak for everything. The first way to change any of it, is to keep communicating with them.]”

“[Who put you in—]” Georgia started, only to cut herself off and plant her face in her hands. “[Forget I said that. You didn’t hear anything.]”

Small chuckles went around, but they were uncomfortable.

“[…Dammit Dustin,]” Jacob muttered. “[…Georgia actually brings up an important point.]”

“[No I didn’t, shut up,]” Georgia huffed.

“[Since Nora is…gone for now, we need to commit one way or the other. Am… I in charge?]” Jacob looked at each person gathered under the windows.

Nobody looked at anyone else. When Nora had led similar meetings, she’d warned them all not to shape their opinions based on what they thought the others were feeling. They only had each other, and if someone went unheard because they didn’t want to speak out…

Well, they only had each other, so they needed to be there for one another.

Some closed their eyes, exploring their feelings and reactions. Others focused intently on the floor for a few seconds. Only a few didn’t need to think about it.

When they were done, eight different voices said “Yes,”; “Yeah, you’re in charge,”; or something to similar effect.

Jacob bit off his own remark. He’d wanted to try to make a case for Michelle, but she would never let him get away with it.

“[…We should ask Dustin, or is he still in the dog house?]” Georgia said.

“[He’s on board,]” Jacob grumbled. “[It was his idea in the first place.]”

Jacob did not mention just what else had been Dustin’s idea.

He wasn’t sure when he should tell the others about Dustin’s manipulation of the incident. Things had been told in confidence, but Dustin wasn’t exactly engendering a lot of trust either.

Trust and manipulation were touchy topics for Dustin, Jacob knew. The two of them had first meaningfully bonded over crummy family situations back home.

He wasn’t going to keep secrets, but telling everyone the details could wait a day while they settled into the new place.

Everyone accepted Jacob vouching for Dustin’s approval. He wasn’t exactly subtle about not wanting to be in charge, so there weren’t really any merits in doubting him.

Their discussion moved through the familiar topics. Jacob blatantly copied the format Nora had settled into.

“[Anyone have any beef that needs raising? Or are we all getting along?]” he asked.

Sam’s group had the beginnings of a feud. Nothing that some distance wouldn’t solve. Most of the other conflicts were casual enough to let rest. That was another of Nora’s strengths. She’d been excellent at telling what small problem could be left to resolve itself, leaving her to focus on the critical.

Each of them watched over a group of seven other abductees. It had been more or less inevitable that some form of group system would emerge, but Nora’s stroke of genius had been to continually shuffle the rosters.

Every two weeks, half of each group randomly shuffled with the others. Nora’s greatest fear had been for entrenched divisions to form amongst them. Constantly rotating the rosters made that less likely, but it still let kids who’d made friends stay at least somewhat in contact.

In theory.

It was up to them, the nine people overseeing each group to plan out the group’s activities. Running around, playing games, reading what limited books they had, it was a daily battle, but they were all improving at it.

The one upside of Nora’s disappearance was that even the younger abductees were getting a clue of how tentative the situation truly was. Between her disappearance and Dustin threatening to shoot himself, everyone had a firm reminder just how far from home they were.

Of course that could easily blow up in their faces, but Jacob was intent to keep things cool.

The meeting didn’t need to be too long, but there was one key thing Jacob was going to insist on before they broke for the night.

“[Last thing,]” he said, “[I want you all to look at your groups and start thinking of how to organize for language lessons. I don’t care what we have to do with Shakri, we need to get more proactive about communication.]”

Nods all around.

That was good.

As the meeting broke apart, each of them broke off to go sleep in their respective cabins. All except for Jacob. He’d told his gang that he’d be later.

Dustin waited for the meeting to adjourn before trudging over to the hangar windows, still wearing the pillory around his wrists and neck.

He put his back to the wall and slid to a seat.

“[Let’s get one thing straight,]” Jacob said, “[I am pissed at you.]”

“[Yeah, I think everyone got the message when you slugged me,]” Dustin replied unconcerned. He didn’t sound like someone talking about getting punched. He wasn’t even slightly upset.

“[Shut up,]” Jacob hissed. “[I’m not just talking about your little suicide threat; I mean the fact that you went into that intentionally trying to get exactly this result. You planned this shit!]”

“[I…had to,]” Dustin frowned. “[You saw how tense things were getting. Someone was going to do something drastic. If it was me, then we could keep things from—]”

“[Shut up!]” Jacob hissed, struggling to keep his anger from raising his voice.

Dustin’s frown deepened. Jacob could see the gears turning in his friend’s brain, analyzing, reanalyzing what he’d said trying to find what he missed.

Even now, Dustin’s head and wrists were stuck in the pillory they were using as punishment. Hunched over, Dustin wasn’t distracted in the slightest as he tried to figure out why Jacob was so upset.

Dustin had even been the one to create the pillory with Enumius powers. He was enduring his punishment entirely voluntarily, he—

Oh.

“[I’m pissed because you don’t really think you’re being punished,]” Jacob said.

That did nothing to help Dustin’s confusion.

“[Look at yourself right now, it’s late, we’ve turned out all the lights. You could absolutely cheat and unravel that thing. No one would ever know.]”

“[It wouldn’t be much of a punishment if I cut corners,]” Dustin said. “[Isn’t the whole point of this to make an example, to help keep things orderly?]”

“[No!]” Jacob said. “[The point is to punish you!]”

That was the problem. Dustin had ultimately intended this outcome. It wasn’t truly a punishment.

“[I appreciate that you had good intentions, and even a good plan on how to do it, but fact is you said, to my face, that I needed to be the person in charge. Not even an hour later, you had a gun to your head trying to threaten your own life for information.]”

“[…I should have told you,]” Dustin admitted, or maybe realized. It was hard to tell.

“[You should have asked, and planned, and ultimately decided against it with me! You’re not stupid, Dustin, but I don’t think you thought about how manipulative it would be to pull this shit. Rules and punishments aren’t supposed to be transactions. You don’t get to buy a violation just for being willing to pay the fine.]”

“[…You’re right. The point of punishments is to prevent the rules from being broken in the first place…]” Dustin mumbled.

“[Yes. Your idea was…well, I’m not going to call it a good one, but I can see how you thought it might prevent division. It at least had the immediately desired effect, but I think you’ve badly misjudged the bigger ramifications.]”

“[With the Vorak?]”

“[No—well, actually yes—but also with me.]”

For the first time, Dustin seemed to recognize just how much Jacob was having to fight to keep his temper.

“[You’re pissed.]”

“[I did lead with that,]” Jacob said.

“[…I know I’m supposed to be sorry,]” Dustin said, “[but looking back I’m not sure going to you would have actually helped. Something was going to happen that day. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do except get in front of the problem.]”

“[I already told you, you’re missing the long-term fallout. It’s not your job to solve problems on your own. Solving things solo just makes the rest of us feel like we can’t trust you. And it makes it seem like you don’t trust us to solve things either. Whatever shit might have hit the fan? We could have dealt with it.”

“[I…shit.]”

The expression on Dustin’s face finally broke into true contrition. He dissolved the pillory and leaned back against the hangar wall.

“[I screwed up,]” Dustin said. “[I-I’m trying to fight the urge to self-deprecate about this even more. I didn’t realize this…I didn’t think it all the way through.]”

“[I sure bet you felt like you thought it through,]” Jacob retorted. He didn’t want to kick Dustin while he was down, but he had to be as clear as possible. This was not okay.

“[Yeah. I…in the moment I was thinking that it was probably better to ask forgiveness than permission,]” Dustin said.

“[I won’t pretend that cases like that don’t exist,]” Jacob said, “[but you’re too high up our food chain for that. If something happens to me, you’re on the shortlist to replace me.]”

“[…Probably not after this,]” Dustin said.

“[You really, really shouldn’t be,]” Jacob agreed. “[But we’re not in that comfortable a position are we?]”

“[Lives are on the line, and viable applicants are in short supply,]” Dustin quoted.

Damn, Jacob missed Nora right now. They all did.

“[You remember what Michelle said after that?]”

“[‘Let’s not kid ourselves,’]” Jacob quoted back, “[‘every one of us is an unviable candidate. So who’s the least unviable?’]”

“[...Nora would have been so much harsher on me,]” Dustin said.

“[You think? Next time you have an idea like that, try to remember that your parents taught you some really shitty habits.]”

“[I’m sorry. I should have talked with you first about the problem. Next time something comes up, I’m going to you first… boss.]”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“[Ugh,]” Jacob groaned. “[Please don’t. I can barely keep it together as it is. I don’t need the reminder.]”

“[Shit,]” Dustin swore, “[I feel even stupider now. I’ve been almost the exact same situation with my sister one time.]”

“[…I feel like you would have mentioned if you’d threatened to commit suicide before,]” Jacob said.

“[No, not that, I mean I threw a tantrum one time because my parents threatened to ground my younger siblings if I failed a term project.]”

“[Did it work?]”

“[No, but I sure thought it would. It even seemed to at first. I thought I was calling their bluff, that they wouldn’t punish them for my shit. Took me years to find out about it, but my sister was pissed about that.]”

“[Duh,]” Jacob said. “[Puts the pressure on her next. You just told your folks they can leverage you with them.]”

“[Sure, I get that now,]” Dustin said. “[But back then, I thought if they thought I didn’t care about what my younger siblings got punished with, then mom wouldn’t try.]”

“[Damn, every time I hear about your family, I feel better about my family’s crap with my aunt,]” Jacob confessed.

“[Is it bad that part of me doesn’t miss the mess?]” Dustin asked.

“[Nah, I get it. Family’s got upsides and down. You miss the up, but not the down.]”

“[…Yeah. Exactly.]” Dustin said.

“[I miss Nora,]” Jacob said, not for the first time that day.

“[I too miss Nora,]” Dustin agreed.

“[Hopefully Halax isn’t dropping the ball,]” Jacob said.

“[You trust him?]”

“[I don’t know. But…Nora did, and I think that’s going to have to be good enough for now.]”

·····

Vorak military protocol got messy very easily.

It was the nature of any enterprise that grew large enough to affect whole planets. The relationship between the void fleets and the Interstellar Assembly that commissioned them was drenched in politics and posturing.

Until recently, Halax had liked to think that…messiness wouldn’t bleed into the inner workings of the fleet itself. But his recent experiences showed otherwise.

He had not personally heard Marshal Tispas countermand his own Adjutant. He’d been on the colony’s exterior. There were spots where the pressure membranes stretched past the structural paneling, but most of the colony was still airtight anyway: no sound from the announcement had reached him.

The news had been impossible to avoid, however.

Halax found himself supremely disappointed at his lack of surprise. He’d always respected Marshal Tispas, but he had just enough of a cynical streak to know it had always been possible. But, it still stung to learn that such a hero committed so much to such a mistake.

His disappointment ran deeper than his role model's shortcomings. It wasn’t that strange for the leaders of great lumbering fleets to be stubborn. And if it was just the leaders, Halax would have made his peace with it. But, disturbingly, he was finding similarly inflated egos in his fellow middle officers. Or at least one of them.

Halax had met Sten Ramor before.

In basic training, he had been one of the junior training officers overseeing Halax’s class.

They had not been friends then.

Ramor had found Halax to be ‘quietly insubordinate’. The slightest things set Ramor off. Shifting your feet and posture meant inattention, being caught blinking was often taken as an insult, Halax had even been cited once for cleaning something too well—mocking, Ramor had called it.

Halax had hoped the past might stay there.

But the battles across Cirinsko had settled within hours, and he had quickly found himself before Ramor who promptly jailed him.

That had been ten days ago.

He was jailed properly too. Adept confinement measures, round the clock guards, even keeping him in the dark, literally.

It seemed safe to assume they were still not friends.

Halax Ba wasn’t part of any team mobilized to fight in Cirinsko. His presence on the battlefield, even amongst his own fellow fleet soldiers, was technically unauthorized and completely unwarranted.

Detaining an unattached combatant, even from the same fleet wasn’t that unheard of. In the aftermath of battles, commanders, soldiers, and civilians were all high strung. Locking people up and asking questions later usually kept more people from getting shot.

Keeping someone detained this long, however, was decidedly not normal.

In the brief, loud, and angry meeting they’d had, Ramor had leveled charges of treason against Halax.

The charges were…probably not going to stick.

Ramor was being a bit hasty. Halax had committed dereliction of duty when he smuggled Nora away, but to actually convict him of treason would require a hearing and evidence to be presented.

Evidence Halax knew firsthand didn’t exist.

That hadn’t stopped him. Ramor was not treating Halax like a peer, but much more like an enemy combatant. Except Halax was confident that captured Coalition forces were at least given running water.

The box Ramor’s men had put him in was completely sealed. No windows, no pipes. It was barely even ventilated. Twice a day a bedpan came through the wall.

More interesting was the fact that he couldn’t extend his cascade beyond its walls. It was like the metal box was floating, in contact with nothing. Halax tried pushing his cascade through the air on the other side of the walls, but it was no use. He was precise, even very precise. But it took another level of skill beyond his to cascade fluids with any coherency. Only a select few Adepts were capable of it.

In addition to denying him as much information as possible, he was denied basic amenities too.

He hadn’t even been given the opportunity to bathe properly. He would have liked to try to improvise a bath with his Adeptry, but he’d been given very explicit orders not to materialize anything.

If that hadn’t been enough, they were lacing the rations they fed him too.

Keeping Adepts confined was a headache, but foodborne vectors were one of the more reliable, if considered cruel, options. Drugging food was a good way to ensure the Adept stayed mentally off balance. Additionally, certain compounds, when ingested, could interfere with autonomous Adept processes like the ones that governed meta-microbe immune responses and augmentation upkeep.

None of it was enough to keep Halax from materializing something, but with the chemical agents tinging his mind, electrolyte imbalances adding to his fatigue, and a pure lack of calories, it wasn’t safe for him to materialize anything that might help him.

He was as likely to conjure a spike through his own hand as he was to get a knife to cut his way out.

So, because he wasn’t desperate enough to risk that yet, he was stuck for now.

It left him plenty of time to reflect on his and Nora’s journey.

Halax had undertaken the risks with a keen idea of how things might go wrong. He’d taken painstaking efforts to ensure Nora knew what she was getting into too. Anything less would have been even more irresponsible.

And yet, of all the unlikely outcomes Halax had tried to daunt Nora with, ‘run into another human’ had not come up.

Caleb Hane.

He’d called himself that to Nora, and Halax heard through her voidsuit’s radio.

Fighting him had been…disturbing.

The Human Adept had seemingly dropped from the moon’s sky and tried to kill them.

From the first second, Halax had known something was off, some small detail had told Halax’s eyes that something was wrong. It hadn’t been until he heard Caleb Hane speak a snippet of English that the Vorak realized their attacker was human.

Now, looking back, Halax knew his odd feeling was from the number of fingers. Humans had five on each hand, unlike Farnata. It was a giveaway, if only he could have dialed in on the detail sooner.

But Halax was probably the most experienced alien alive when it came to Human Adeptry, and Caleb Hane had not seemed like a Human Adept.

Of the seventy abductees still alive, a little more than a dozen of them had activated as Adepts, and Nora was the most accomplished of them. It was one of the things Halax had first connected with her over. She was both the most eager and the most cautious about the powers.

Halax hadn’t known at first, but it had become clear over time that most of them saw Adeptry as a means to defy their captors. Keeping things civil in the first weeks had been harsh. To both sides.

But Nora had been ahead of the curve.

She’d known from the first minute that power like that could be dangerous.

Halax still remembered the moment she’d sought him out. He’d nearly shot her for approaching as she did.

But they had not spoken the same language, so he’d paused. She hadn’t understood his warnings to stay back, so she hadn’t. Halax had come within moments of murder. But she had simply stood right in front of him, vulnerable.

He would never forget it. He couldn’t. It clung to him.

Looking back now, part of him wanted to be proud that he had avoided making such a mistake. Against orders, he’d put down his weapon and sat down across from the Human.

No one else, Vorak or Human, had been willing to risk that kind of trust.

It was impossible to argue with his results though. Nora had taught him English, and he’d taught her Adept safety which she’d passed on to her peers. It was a good memory. It brought some solace. Because now it was his turn to be caged.

Still, the other parts of him were still ashamed he’d come so close to pulling the trigger.

His work with Nora felt…lesser somehow after meeting Caleb Hane.

The Human had completely outstripped Nora’s progress, in Adeptry and even communication. He spoke Starspeak! It was not an easy tongue to learn, no matter how much Casti linguists insisted otherwise. Yet the Human had spoken it seamlessly, with only the slightest Casti affectation.

Halax replayed every word the Human had said for the thousandth time. He didn’t trust his recollection to be exact. And he knew it might need to be. It would have been nice to examine every detail of what was said.

Small details could have cosmic consequences.

Even Sten Ramor wouldn’t keep him in this box forever. Sooner or later, someone was going to talk to him.

The only question was if Halax would have anything to say.

That turned out to be sooner.

Halax became aware of a humming noise only once it stopped. The metal cell he was in clanged loudly as it dropped a few centimeters. A quick blast from his cascade confirmed that the cell had been magnetically levitated.

“Open it,” a voice ordered outside.

Halax’s ears perked up. That wasn’t Sten Ramor’s voice. What was this?

Still plunged in darkness, Halax relied on his cascade to see what was going on.

A seam appeared in the cell’s wall and a section of the cylinder’s wall was carved away. Light poured in and Halax’s cascade found an unexpected number of feet on the ground.

Four armed Vorak awaited him outside the cell, and none of their weapons were trained on him.

Halax’s training itched in the back of his mind. He wouldn’t be able to fight all of Sten Ramor’s garrison, but he also didn’t want to miss a chance to fight back.

Halax blinked his eyes, adjusting to the light slowly. He was not skilled enough to fight without his sight.

Except the Vorak receiving him did have their weapons drawn. Two were pointed at the room’s exit, one was standing near the new cell door, and the fourth had their weapon trained on the cell block operator, sitting at their console.

Ah. This was a rescue.

These were not Sten Ramor’s rak.

“Halax Ba,” the closest one stated. Not a question. They impatiently took an earpiece and pressed it into Halax’s hand. He frowned. His eyes were slow to adjust: he hadn’t seen the rak’s outstretched hand.

Halax put the radio to his ear.

“Hello?”

“These rak are going to remove you from Sten Ramor’s custody. Behave. They’re authorized to bring you back by force.”

The group immediately started marching Halax out of the cell block. He didn’t resist, but he did focus on the radio.

“And just who are they bringing me back to?”

“Tox Frebi,” the Marshal’s Adjutant replied, “and we’re going to talk about—”

·····

“—Caleb Hane,” Adjutant Tox said two days later. He sat across from Halax in an interrogation room on the other side of Archo.

An IV was run into Halax’s arm, helping him shake off the effects of the laced food. Tox had been a much better host than Sten Ramor, but Halax’s trust wasn’t earned with just a meal and medical care.

“You know him,” Halax stated vaguely. It would be easier to probe for what the Adjutant knew rather than what he wanted.

“Somewhat,” Tox said. “I… made an enemy out of him.”

Halax frowned. He’d expected the Adjutant to be more guarded. Plus, his tone didn’t match his claim. “You didn’t mean to,” Halax guessed.

“How much do you know about this First Contact?” Tox said. “You might as well tell me. I can always hand you back to one of Tispas’s rak.”

“Aren’t you his adjutant?” Halax asked. “Or are you really trying to steal leadership of the fleet from him?”

Tox did not blink. He’d asked a question, leveled a threat, and was unfazed when Halax implied he was a traitor.

Then again, Halax had reacted the same way when Sten Ramor had leveled the same accusation.

It could be that Halax’s guess was off the mark, or… “You’re in the same boat,” Halax realized, “you have betrayed Tispas.”

“…The Marshal and I are having some rather intense differences of opinion,” Tox admitted. “He might have shut me out of most of the Sails’ networks, but I still have enough clout to dig up an alert notice for dereliction by one Tashi, Halax Ba.”

That genuinely surprised Halax. He had not expected Sten Sendin to broadcast his departure.

“The interesting part to me is that the alert still ranked you as Tashi ,” Tox said. “Special temporary ranks for special temporary assignments. According to regs, dereliction instantly disqualifies you of that rank and authority—I would know, I wrote those regs.”

The Adjutant continued.

“See, I don’t even have the name of the officer that issued the alert. But I can take a guess at what you were doing. They left you with the special rank so that whoever’s custody you did wind up in couldn’t order you to talk about your assignment. And there’s only one thing I don’t already know about that our Marshal would want to keep quiet. And that’s Caleb Hane.”

“…I’d heard rumors about your rift with the Marshal,” Halax said. “But I didn’t think things were this bad.”

“The fleet’s split in two,” Tox said, “and things are going to get worse. The only reason this drama is staying internal for now is because the Marshal knows how the Deep Coils are going to react if any of this spills out of our pool.”

“The Coils’ command doesn’t already know?” Halax asked.

“He knows some pieces of it,” Tox said, “but he’s not going to change fleet war footing without something tangible.”

“Tangible like Caleb Hane,” Halax said.

Tox nodded. “Or the one you were with.”

Halax couldn’t disguise his surprise at that.

“Oh yes,” Tox grinned. “You thought I didn’t know about that?”

“…How did you learn about her?” Halax asked, fighting to master his expression.

“The Organic Authority, technically,” Tox said. “But they were just passing on the message from the Coalition. For the most part, they’re not willing to tell me how high the tide is, but they did at least confirm two ‘Terrans’ made it to Paris alive.”

Nora had survived! Relief flooded him, but he still couldn’t show it yet.

Still, his reaction was too much for Tox to miss.

“You’re still not talking, why?”

“I do not yet trust your motives,” Halax said, not quite trusting the adjutant. His plan had always involved getting Nora in front of Tox…but he’d thought the circumstances would be different.

“I’m not interested in helping you if this First Contact is your way to leverage your way into a Marshal’s pin.”

“You don’t need to trust my motives,” Tox said coldly. “Because it’s more than enough to distrust Tispas’s. He essentially wants me to do exactly what you’re afraid of. Nine days after Korbanok, he gave me new orders and responsibilities. Shuffled every assignment I had. It wasn’t anything official, but he tried to make me Marshal in everything but name while he was busy putting together something even I wasn’t allowed to see.”

Nine days after Korbanok. Halax connected the events.

“I was issued my Tashi rank the same day,” Halax said. “Put on special assignment with rak I’d never even heard of before. Caleb Hane was on Korbanok.”

“The station was under my command when we picked up the ship he was on,” Tox explained. “He broke out. I was in charge of retrieving him too.”

“No communication,” Halax grasped. “He thinks you tried to kill him. Or worse.”

“We did try,” Tox agreed. “The first few days, all signs pointed to him being a Coalition agent. Took me weeks just to realize the Ase in Sassik province might not be trying to snow me.”

“Then the Coalition did not attack Korbanok expecting to find him there,” Halax surmised.

“I don’t think so,” Tox agreed, “…but what makes you so sure?”

“Because for the last four months I’ve been on a First Contact assignment reporting to Sendin Trakin. Details on the front end were thin,” Halax said, “but a few days after Korbanok, someone found three ships full of Humans floating in quiet space. I was one of the rak assigned to babysit them.”

Tox swore under his breath.

“I asked her, point blank, if she knew something,” Tox hissed.

“Opsec,” Halax replied simply. “I was involved, reporting directly to her, and I still had to piece it together myself.”

Tox shook his head. “The only reason Trakin wouldn’t share is if the Marshal himself ordered her not to.”

Halax did not miss that the Adjutant did not use the officer’s surname.

“Tispas has always been paranoid, but until now that’s been a point in his favor. This mess has gone too far though,” Tox said bitterly. “But you know where Tispas hid the other Humans, right?”

“That’s a more complicated question than you realize...” Halax said. “The facility I smuggled Nora–the human I was with–out of wasn’t the first one we were stationed at. We were using modular kits. We built it specifically to contain the Humans we found. We had to move them twice, and after what I did, protocol would be to move them again.”

Tox swore again.

“Of course it would be,” he complained. “Start talking then. Because Trakin has a head start measured in days, and I don’t care what she has to say about it, I’m getting those Humans out of Tispas’s reach.”