She waved away the offer. “I think I can write a script to translate the coordinates into map locations.” Her eyes lit up. “Maybe I can plot it in VR with street-level imagery.”
“Time, Kee. Start with the basics—where it went and for how long. You can play with virtual reality once Cien is safe.”
Kee wrinkled her nose at me and heaved out a dramatic sigh. “No one appreciates my art.” When I just stared at her, she cracked and smiled. “Fine, fine. The basics first.”
I suppressed my own grin, but it was difficult when she was so jubilant. “Thank you.”
She sank down at the workstation beside me, humming under her breath. Her hands flew across her slate as she lost herself in the world of numbers and code. In her element, Kee was irresistible, and all of the Valoffs watched her with a kind of awed fascination.
Nearly everyone carried scars from the war, but Kee’s were deeper than most. By the time she’d landed in my squad, she’d been so close to breaking that I’d stayed up nights watching her. But Kee was nothing if not resilient, and she’d refused to give up.
I would do anything to keep her and the rest of my team safe.
And, right now, that thing was finding a scared child who didn’t deserve to be treated like a pawn. The new brief didn’t shed much light on the kidnapping. If this really was everything that the Valoffs knew—and that was questionable—then we were all working with the same data now. Commodore Morten meant to use Cien as a lever, and the empress meant to use me. One wrong move and we’d face a return to war.
No pressure.
A shadow fell across my screen. “Have you eaten?” Torran asked quietly.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that he held the tray that had spent the morning outside my door. “I ate a meal bar,” I said without looking up. “You may dispose of that.”
“Tavi, please—”
I sucked in a sharp breath. He’d so rarely called me by my first name and now it cut like a knife.
“I am sorry,” he murmured. He left with a whisper of sound.
Kee slanted a glance at me, proving that she wasn’t as oblivious as she seemed. “You okay?”
I shook my head slowly. “No, but I will be.”
I spent three hours trying to trace Commodore Morten’s movements on the surveillance videos before giving up. The transport that he’d entered had made more than a dozen stops, half of them inside buildings with large amounts of traffic and no significant importance. Morten might be an asshole, but he knew how to run an operation. He had likely switched vehicles multiple times.
With no other leads, I watched the video of the kidnappers’ transport again. It stopped at Torran’s gate for pickup, then continued on to the edge of the forest, where it disappeared. I checked that final camera’s video, watching two days flash past at high speed, but nothing else appeared.
Still, something about the dingy little monitoring station in the middle of the forest wouldn’t leave me alone. I tried researching it, but the public data on it was surprisingly scarce. Torran wasn’t kidding about the landowners’ desire to keep people away. Trespassing in that part of the forest carried a hefty fine due to its proximity to the Imperial Palace, and the surrounding owners were all too happy to turn people in.
“Lexi,” I asked over the comm, “did you look into the monitoring station?”
“Yes, but I didn’t find much. It was built during the war as part of the global network of stations scanning for ships approaching from the wormhole closest to the human sectors. Several of the other stations have fallen into disrepair, but this one was deemed strategically important, so they’ve kept it running.”
Her information matched mine. When I didn’t respond, she asked, “Do you want me to look again?”
“If you have time, but your current project is higher priority.” She, Eli, and Anja were quietly looking for signs the FHP had operatives on-planet. If we could find them, then they would likely lead us to Cien. And at this point, we needed to follow every possible lead.
My stomach rumbled and a glance outside confirmed it was fully dark. Midday had arrived, if it could be called that. I stood and stretched. My arms were already tightening up. “Has anyone seen Luna?”
My team shook their heads. It wasn’t too odd for her to disappear, but it was strange that she hadn’t let me know about her lack of lunch. That probably meant that she’d conned one of the Valoffs into feeding her, so I started my search in the kitchen.
I heard Luna before I saw her. When I rounded the final corner, I found her sitting on Torran’s shoulder, watching him cook. She turned and chirped at me in greeting, then sent me a wave of affection that nearly buckled my knees. At least one of the monsters in the room was happy to see me.
The bubbling pot on the stove smelled delicious and my stomach rumbled louder. Torran glanced at me without ever meeting my eyes. “This is ready if you are hungry.”
Pettiness warred with hunger.
When Torran didn’t say anything else and didn’t press, hunger won. “I could eat,” I said stiffly. “Thank you.”
Rather than lessening the tension in Torran’s spine, my words seemed to make it worse. He pulled two bowls from the cabinet and filled each with rice and what looked suspiciously like my favorite tomato and chickpea curry.
Someone on my team had sold me out.
Rather than handing me one of the bowls, he carried them both to the table. He murmured something to Luna, and she jumped down and returned to her food bowl, which was filled with the same meat and veggie mixture that had been on the tray for her yesterday.
“Captain Zarola, please join me.”
I narrowed my eyes and remained where I was. “Who told you about the curry?”
One corner of Torran’s mouth tipped up. “Your recovery specialist might’ve mentioned something about it after Eli attempted to break my face this morning.”
Lexi was giving Torran a chance to explain himself, and a reason for me to stay long enough to listen to it. I wondered if he knew that she’d provided him with an opening, and if he’d use it or throw it away.
Eli, on the other hand, had just wanted to smash in Torran’s face, and right now, I was firmly on Team Eli. I stopped avoiding Torran’s gaze and traced my eyes over his features. Sure enough, a bruise had started to darken his jaw. “You let him hit you.”
“‘Let’ is a stretch. I agreed not to use my ability and Eli was highly motivated. The hit was fair.” Torran gestured at the food on the table. “We should eat before it gets cold.”
I stared at the table as if it were a dangerous animal and didn’t move.
“I will eat elsewhere if you prefer,” Torran said, his voice quiet.
I reminded myself that I was an adult, and Lexi wouldn’t have given him my favorite recipe if she didn’t think he deserved a chance to be heard. And like it or not, I had to work with him for the next nine days, and likely longer, since I doubted the empress was just going to let us go even if we found her nephew. Why would she voluntarily lose a valuable bargaining chip?