So Andi simply stood there, gritting her teeth so hard she feared they might shatter, and listened to General Cortas speak.
“You may be familiar with my head Spectre,” he said, flipping absentmindedly through a screen on his large desk. He lifted a pale hand, and an egg-shaped servant droid, blue to match the Arcardian flags, wheeled over from the shadows to hand him a pair of ancient eyeglasses on a golden tray. A fashion statement, no doubt, as vision correction tech had been developed thousands of years ago.
The general looked up at Andi as he placed the glasses on. “He took up the position shortly after your trial, Androma.”
Beside her Dex cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably, his eyes looking at the bookshelves that lined the dark paneled walls instead of at the people around him, as General Cortas continued to speak.
“He has been my most loyal aide since you left. These past four years, difficult as they have been, with the loss of my daughter and then my son...” He sighed and leaned back a bit into his plush chair. “Well, thanks to Commander Racella, they have been a little easier on me.”
Commander Racella.
Andi glared at the general.
He smiled, clearly amused.
She didn’t want to believe her father would work for a man like General Cortas after all that had happened, or that the general would want to work with the man who had fathered his daughter’s killer. Maybe, as a way of punishing her family, the general had forced her father to work here, day in and day out. Maybe her father hated the general as much as she did.
But he wouldn’t look at her, no matter how much she willed him to.
I’m your daughter, she wanted to scream. I am your own flesh and blood. Look at me.
She opened her mouth to speak, but mercifully, Dex interceded before she could say anything she might regret.
“The attack on Adhira, sir,” he said, his smooth voice drawing the general’s attention. “Is there an update? When we left, Queen Alara was missing and...thousands of innocents were...”
General Cortas lifted a hand to silence him. “It’s been taken care of.”
Dex looked like he might collapse from relief.
The feeling swam through Andi, as well, as she remembered the horrors they’d seen.
“The Xen Pterran attack on Adhira was completely unexpected,” the general said. “An absolute tragedy, of that I have no doubt. I’m grateful you managed to get my son out alive—though, in all honesty, landing on a planet with little to no military presence was not a choice I would have had you make.” He glanced at Andi when he said this, as if she had caused her own ship to malfunction.
The general continued. “A small Soleran fleet has already conquered the rogue Xen Pterran forces, recovering complete control of the situation.”
“Did they come because of Valen?” Andi asked. “Because of...” She cast a sideways glance at Dex. “Because of us?”
“That information is classified,” General Cortas said.
“The hell it is!” Dex growled. “We were there on the ground, risking our asses so we could get your son out alive!”
“Careful, bounty hunter,” the general warned. “A Guardian should know his place.”
Dex did a very un-Dex-like thing and stepped down from the fight she knew he wished to continue. Andi knew he wouldn’t risk forfeiting the status that had once been so precious to him, just like she wouldn’t risk her crew.
General Cortas didn’t just have her in his pocket—he’d placed Dex in there, too.
The general sighed and motioned to Andi’s father. He leaned in close, and the general whispered something into his ear. Her father nodded, then rushed past Andi and Dex toward the office doors.
Andi caught a whiff of his scent as he passed. Honey drops and Arcardian coffee beans. It made her throat ache with wanting, with desperation to be a child again, curled up in his protective arms.
He didn’t even glance her way as he walked out.
Her emotions changed like the wind as the need to hurt him and the desperation to be comforted by him warred within her. “You are aware of the weakened state of Xen Ptera, yes?” the general asked as another Spectre entered the office, assuming her father’s post. General Cortas had always had a team of them to guard his back at all times. “It is quite likely they sent every able soldier they have left to Adhira for the attack. The Soleran fleet has wiped them off the map, and all the efforts the Olen System has made to sway the galaxy in the direction of fear have already been crushed. I’m sure it took years to scrounge up their weapons, years more to find a single citizen willing to fight after such a devastating loss in The Cataclysm.”
“But why now?” Andi asked. “And why Adhira? What about the peace treaty?”
General Cortas raised a brow. “War never really ends, Androma. The desire for revenge is often too strong to forget.”
“And the queen?” Andi asked, desperate for an answer for Lira—and Lon, should he recover.
“Safe,” the general said. “She intends to be here for the Summit, as is required of each leader of the Unified Systems.”
“Cancel the Summit,” Andi said suddenly.
The words slipped from her tongue without a thought, too quickly for her to pull them back in.
The general laughed as if she’d just told him she was going to be his successor. “Why would I do such a thing?”
She was going to dive across his desk and drive her fist into his sagging face.
“Because if there was ever a perfect opportunity for Olen to attack, it would be on this planet, at the Summit. Adhira’s Revalia Festival was just a small taste of what’s to come this week, and with every single leader across Mirabel in attendance...it would be the perfect time to start another war.”
General Cortas drummed his fingertips across his desk, as if trying to keep himself entertained while she spoke. “You were a child when The Cataclysm ended, Androma. You lived here, on my planet, surrounded by bright lights and glittering smiles and enough soldiers to make you feel protected at all times. Never, in all of your years growing up here would you have been afraid. Am I correct in saying that?”
Andi’s face heated. She didn’t answer, so the general went on.
“Arcardius is an iron cage. There is no person, no army in all of Mirabel that can enter it without a key.” He leaned forward, hands splayed on his desk. “I hold that key. I say who enters and who leaves, and the day the Olen System successfully mounts an attack on this planet, the stars will fall from the sky. The Intergalactic Summit is a way of preserving the peace and unity between the Unified Systems, Androma. We’re showing Olen that we will not bend and we will not break. Queen Alara will back me in this.”
He flicked an imaginary bit of fuzz from his shimmering coat and smiled to himself, as if he’d proven his point.