“Good,” I answer for him. “We’re still on the hunt for a comm unit, though. His was destroyed in the crash.”
“You should ask General Raknu!” Rose glances at Oljin for confirmation. He shrugs at her, looking dour. “He has our old one.”
“I remember!” I say, cringing. A few weeks after I arrived here, Elvis escaped his shell pendant while I was visiting with Rose. She about had a heart attack, imagining the bug crawling around her quarters, and we searched the place top to bottom. When I finally found him under a cushion, I grabbed her comm unit control off the wall and held it like a microphone.
“Elvis is alive,” I’d announced into it, giddy over finding him and laughing at my own joke. But before I could add anything else, Oljin ripped the control out of my hands and slammed his hand down on a button to cut off the transmission, eyes wide and panicked.
That’s when I learned that Oljin and Rose were supposed to have removed and turned in their ship’s comm unit along with everyone else’s, but they hadn’t. My little mistake got them in big trouble with General Raknu.
None of us were supposed to be on this planet, and any long-range transmissions that gave away the base would spark a new conflict with the Irrans. My accidental transmission could have gotten us killed.
Rose pats my hand. “Luckily, nothing came of it.”
“I know. I just feel stupid.”
“You’re not stupid, sweetheart. It’s what we call a mistake, and we all make ’em.”
“Itwasstupid. That transmission is part of how I found you,” Lyro says sourly. “You’re lucky it was me and not Zomah.”
“Lucky? No one is lucky to be mates with a son of Chanísh,” Oljin snaps. I blink at him, surprised by the venom in his tone. I didn’t realize there was any bad blood between them. Apparently, I’m wrong about a lot of things today.
Rose shares a concerned look with me as she refills her husband’s nomo, probably hoping it will help him calm down.
Lyro leans into me. “It’s true. I am the lucky one,” he says in a low voice that communicates an apology or as close as he’ll come to making one.
I’m not the only one who hears it. Rose beams at him. “Ollie’s tense because he’s forever paranoid that we’ll have to run for our lives again. Keeping our comm was our backup plan in case we needed to escape. But I think after fifty years or so, we can let down our guard.”
Oljin makes a noise in his throat that tells me he definitely disagrees, but says, “Doesn’t matter now. It’s gone.”
“Too bad. If you don’t need it, I could have used it to escape this dung heap,” Lyro says wryly.
“Go, then. You don’t need a comm unit to fly.”
Lyro barks a laugh. “Not to leave. But I do need it to land at a spaceport. I’d prefer to avoid Lena and I being shot down as enemy invaders.”
“Lena’s not going anywhere with you.” Oljin waves his hand as if to say his word is final. I can practically feel the temperature rising in the room as Lyro bristles at the dismissal. Under the table, I sneak my hand into his lap and loop my pinky finger through his. He has to be careful if he wants to stay in their good graces. If he blows up his relationship with his uncle, we might never get everything we need for his ship.
“They’re mates, Ollie.” Rose clucks her tongue. “Of course, they’ll go together. They’re young. They probably want to travel and see what’s out there. As much as I’d love it if you stayed,” she adds to me.
Oljin sets his nomo cup down with a thump that makes hot tea splash over his hand. He hisses, shaking away the drops. “I meant before the Hatching. You’ve worked too hard on this tojeopardize the Hatch. Can’t risk him running off with her and endangering all those lives.”
I squeeze Lyro’s finger, begging him not to say anything, but he drops my hand and rises.
“Endangering lives?” He laughs loudly, but there’s no humor in it. “How dare you speak of endangering lives when you caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Irrans? Whenyouare the reason the Frathiks have no planet?”
Oljin’s face hardens, and his entire body turns pitch black as he rises from his seat. The hairs on the back of my neck rise along with him.
“Maybe we should go?” I say, pushing back from the table. Rose nods swiftly, but the guys ignore both of us.
“Chanísh destroyed their home,nephew. How dare you assign his bad deeds to me?”
“You could have stayed to face him. Then no one would have died for his lies.”
“No one except mymate,” Oljin hisses, advancing on us. “Your father’s precious priests would have killed her.”
I tug Lyro’s elbow. “Come on. Let’s go.”
He wrenches his arm away from me to point at Rose. “You tradedonelife for all those others, andChaníshis the villain?”
