Page 61 of Tracked and Taken

“I am going to leave before I say something else I am not authorized to say. Take care of your mate.”

Mate.

Not Tael’s word this time. Thane’s. A third party has, overnight, filed a word Tael spent days working up to.

Tael’s head comes up a half-inch. Thane does not look back. He inclines his head at me, Korrhai formal, small, precise.

“Officer.”

“Thane.”

The cycle engages. He goes.

We launch within the hour. The cache falls away into the rust haze, and Thane’s ship is a bright point in the upper quadrant, angling toward a sector I do not ask about, and then it is in jump, and we are alone.

Thane read it overnight, I think. Another Draelith would read it in less time. And a beat behind: Kesh, at V-6, standing in that doorway looking at Tael. He would have read it off Tael’s body. He did not need my face. Kesh already knew what I was before I did.

I file the thought. I will pick it up when my nervous system is not occupied by a hand at my hipbone and a voice saying Are you trying to look at my abs?

JINX, on the shared speaker: “Pre-flight nominal. Port thrusters at ninety-four and holding.”

SENTRY, clipped: “JINX. I am requesting a handshake for full nav parity on this vessel. Officer Torres is off-station.”

JINX: “Negative. Helia’s Reach runs a closed nav architecture.”

SENTRY: “Your navigation partition has four known vulnerabilities and at least two unlogged pheromone-detection subroutines. Closed is a generous word.”

JINX: “…Supervisory handshake. Not parity.”

SENTRY: “Accepted.”

Tael, at the yoke, quiet: “You two need to work it out.”

I snort before I could stop myself. He clocks it without turning his head. The half-grin moves once at the corner of his mouth, and he does not comment.

We comm Flossie two hours out.

She takes it in her office; I hear the SNAG soundscape behind her, Xor’s low rumble in the next room, the kasa kettle, a small click I file as the bear being moved on Petra’s desk by a Flossie fidgeting with her hands.

“Loveys. What do you have.”

Tael briefs. The chamber at V-6. The Severin-stamped anchor. Torek’s signature. The Draelith in the concourse, Kesh Vorrin, terminated SRS Tier 2, off-book. The kill team. The charge on the thruster. Thane’s parallel case. Rethlor. Parr’s Anchor. He does not include the corridor by the berths, or the bunk, or the hand I put on the small of his back.

Flossie makes one sound when he says Kesh’s name. “I don’t know him. I’ll check. And you, Torres. Are you well.”

“I am well, Flossie.”

A pause. Then, in a different register: “Two things. Tael sent me Thane’s headlines before dawn; I have been on it since. One. When Maren came to me, I reached out to SRS for a joint recovery. Standard procedure. They declined. No reason given. SRS doesn’t decline paying cases, loveys. Hold that. If you meet an SRS agent on this run, he is one they sent without telling us.”

“Copy.”

“Two. Thane’s Korrhai family against Torek. Different species, same profile. Clean vanishing, wiped node, no ransom, no body. I am opening a separate case file. I don’t know what I’m opening. I am writing it all down. Petra’s still in the Cygran belt on the Vendrish runaway and I don’t want to pull her. Xor is here. SPROUT is here. Maurice is holding down office morale. Go find your Xarthian.”

“How’s Maren.”

A pause. “She’s holding. Soon, lovey. Sooner than next week. I don’t have the math beyond that.” Another pause. “Take care of each other.”

She catches on each. I hear her decide to keep it in.