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“Oh, yes! And Flight-Commander Thammah, of course. And before the two of you, there were two other Thaf’ell that I watched very carefully.” Dr. Hayter continued to beam even as Khoth’s eyebrows rose.

He knew instinctively that the other Thaf’ell and likely Thammah too had not looked at Dr. Hayter with anything of real interest. Thammah likely had indulged him in learning some dialects of Thaf’ell, but he was certain that she hadn’t thought Dr. Hayter was studying her as much as the language. But he had been. And he wondered how many of the humans were more than what they appeared.

“But you’re been watching the Commander the most, I take it?” Jace asked, seemingly completely unsurprised by this.

Dr. Hayter bobbed his head so fast and furiously Khoth wondered if it might snap off.

“Goodness, absolutely!” Dr. Hayter turned his round, bespectacled face towards Khoth and said, “Though you are quite different than your mother in your Xa both of you share a rich, inner life that propels you to make the unusual decisions you do for a Thaf’ell!”

Khoth frowned more deeply. “Doctor, I am afraid that you are mistaken about my mother… and myself as well. But it is an understandable mistake due to our current circumstances.”

“Oh!” Dr. Hayter’s eyes widened behind his glasses as he rocked back and forth. “So you both don’t have a highly transgressive inner nature?”

This struck Khoth as so wrong that he opened his mouth and little came out at first. He glanced at Jace, but the young man did not meet his gaze. Did Jace agree with Dr. Hayter?

The dropship lifted off at that moment, giving him a chance to collect himself.

“We’re on our way, gentlemen. I have to admit I didn’t think I’d be back on Haseon again anytime soon,” Thammah’s voice came over their comms.

Though Khoth would have preferred everyone to be wearing hard suits, they were dressed in their formal uniforms without any weapons. But truly what would keep them safe were neither the suits nor the weapons nor even Gehenna. Jace’s control of the Altaeth tech was what would do it. And Khoth still believed that his people would act honorably in greeting them. But he couldn’t help but think about Davies’ Tenth Man. He found himself putting an asterix against any belief he had to remind himself that he really didn’t know what the Alliance was capable of in the state it was in now.

“You don’t sound all that happy about it, Flight-Commander Thammah,” Jace said.

“Oh, Haseon is beautiful, but just wait until you meet its people. You’ll be eager to be back on the Osiris post haste,” Thammah chuckled dryly.

“Well, you are staying on the dropship, keeping her warmed up and ready to go,” Jace remarked just as dryly.

“You have a reason to believe we’ll need to leave in a hurry, Pilot? Other than the obvious that is?” Thammah’s voice lifted even as she kept it calm.

All of them had been staring out the windows as the dropship was making its way out of the hangar bay and into space, but they all looked immediately at Jace.

Jace lifted a hand to ease their fears. “No, I think we’re going to be fine. Well, as fine as we can be with the Alliance on edge, but you know, fine.”

Everyone nodded as if that made a lot of sense to all of them except for Khoth.

“Can you quantify the percentage chance that things will not be… fine?” Khoth asked.

Jace gave him a smile. “If I said 50-50 would that give you comfort or would that make you more uneasy?”

“I would not have an emotional reaction to it,” Khoth stated. “It would be another fact I would use to prepare myself.”

Jace nodded. “I don’t know the percentage chance, Commander Khoth. Things are very fluid right now. As many facts as I have, what I need to know will be how people react to me, to us, to the ideas.”

Jace’s left hand was right near his and Khoth felt Jace’s desire to touch him almost like a physical thing. But Jace’s hand didn’t move.

“The situation is fluid. We should be prepared for anything,” Khoth said.

Jace nodded. “Yeah, but have hope.”

“That is--”

“Illogical? Yeah, I know.”

“No, it is… I hope that the Thaf’ell--the Alliance--lives up to that,” Khoth said.

“It will.” Jace smiled again. He gestured towards the windows. “Haseon is beautiful.”

They all looked out at Haseon. The planet completely dominated the view. His homeworld glowed in the darkness like a jewel. Khoth’s heart twisted in his chest seeing it. Jace had offered to let him stay behind on the Osiris and not face his homeworld and his former people. The young man feared that this wound was too fresh. Would always be too fresh.