I follow them up the ramp and into a vibrant ship with white walls, radiant bar lighting, and gold trim. Every time I have entered the swooping curves of an Isonian ship, I have been in awe of their engineering.
Our ships have sharp angles, dark metal, and loud engines.
They get Tessi hooked up to machines in a med bay that’s higher tech than our Mindoran high commanders’ best quarters.
“How doyouknow her?” I ask Viriden.
“Her mother was on a joint task force with Isonians back when I was still just what Earthlings callgrunts. A few of us spent many months together. And we’ll just say that I had to send a lot of souls back to the cosmos after a battle with the Nebs.
“I made her mother a promise that if anything should happen to her daughter, that I would answer her call. So many years had passed that I had become distracted by the thousands of other lives I am responsible for now. I must make up for my broken promise. Tessi has suffered longer than I realized.”
“Sir, I can’t get the barb out.” The nurse, in tan scrubs runs the scanner over Tessi’s neck again. “Tracker’s out. Not the barb. Not without hurting her.”
“I can do it.” I step forward. “But you probably won’t like my method.”
“With what? Your teeth?” The nurse gapes at me.
“There are more nerve endings in a tongue than in a finger. And I’ve chewed out plenty of thorns, spines, and taser probes, more than you have.”
A soldier shimmers into reality beside me. Onidus, someone I served with on a past mission, peers out from behind his gold armored mask. The V shaped scar over his right eye, his iris no longer gold but white, is unmistakable. “I trust him.”
“You’re an Aural Bender now?” I ask.
He grins. It shows in the way his face creases near his eyes.
“Among other things. But so are you, I hear.”
“Including a reclusive pain in the ass that won’t call his M-pack when he needs them.”
I turn to find familiar Mindoran faces filling the doorway. Behind me, the nurse and Viriden discuss the pros and cons of letting me help.
Esrynne, our only female Slayer, casually leans a shoulder against the wall. Her sharp, dark blue eyes expose her concern. The tattoos on her arms shine with flecks of fresh welding slag scars. She’s been working on her hoverbike again. “Do you disagree?”
Guilt makes me run a hand over my face to hide from the notion that I am not enough to keep Tessi safe on my own. “No. I just didn’t want to bother you.”
Marne has brought his crew, including sniper Esrynne, Ignus, our quiet tech expert, and medic Rorsar. Davarok and Kren from my team file in behind them.
The only one who is missing is Azrim.
“Respectfully sir, that’s bullshit. You always help us outside of work,” Kren interjects, rubbing the drool mark off his shoulder with an annoyed glance at Davarok. He’s a far better pilot than I am and taught me most of what I know about engines while I helped him with his. The pulsing blue tracework in his temples tells me he finally got the implants he always wanted, the ones that let him pull up starship systems and overlay them with his vision.
I sigh. “I’m your team leader. Of course, I help you. I need my team in top shape.”
Davarok’s hair is askew in tufts while he tears off a piece of jerky from his stick with his metal canine replacements, then motions toward me, swinging the length of meat wildly in the air. “Exactly. And we need a leader who can focus, which means we help you keepyourshit together.”
Esrynne rolls her eyes. “Would you put that away, D?”
“I didn’t get to eat or sleep before the ride here,” Davarok defends, smoothing the brindle hair atop his head, a rare trait we share.
“None of us did.” Rorsar leaves the group and lowers his voice as he comes closer until I can see the ghost lines of his old pack mark, the one he had lasered off of his neck. “You haven’t been in top shape since Jezza died. Why didn’t you call? I could’ve tended to your wounds. Instead you let them scardeeply.”
I study the insistence in his pale gray gaze and the knit to his brow. “Yes.”
Rorsar glances at Viriden as he speaks with me. “You wanted that?”
“I wasdealing. I didn’t want to drag you down with us. I couldn’t be what you needed…or what my brother and my nephew needed. Not my best moments.”
Rorsar studies my fresh bandages. “And here we are again.”
