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4
"You should beon Agus by now," J'avet said between spoonfuls of soup. Doctor Barek wouldn't let him eat anything more substantial.
"He hasn't consumed a proper meal in too long. His stomach will reject it," Barek said firmly.
The IV would fill him up as well, so I didn't argue. To my surprise, neither did J'avet. Maybe because it was the doctor's orders and not mine.
"Aren't you lucky I'm not?" I retorted. "You'd have some other nurse bossing you around."
"And you'd be safely away from here," he said evenly.
"You're worried about my safety?" I asked. I fixed him with a level glance. If he had something to say, now was his chance.
He shovelled another couple of spoonfuls into his mouth and shrugged. "I'm concerned for the safety of everyone in the IF," he said finally.
"Right," I said. He was frustrating, but that was nothing new.
"For what it's worth," he added, "I was worried about you. You're good at getting into trouble."
"It's a skill," I said dryly. "I have a few of them."
"I'm sure you do." He actually smiled, albeit faintly.
"How does your head feel?" I asked.
"It doesn't hurt, currently." He looked as though he wanted to ask something, but stopped as another nurse walked past.
When she was gone, I said, "Brinley and I watched the video."
I licked my lips. Here came the bit I didn't want to ask, but I had to. I'd held it back for long enough.
"Are the others… Are they alive?"
J'avet exhaled. "I don't know. After Slek made that recording, he hid the chip under the navigation console. The Iri attacked and Chimera was boarded. We fought back, but there were too many of them. I was knocked out. When I came to the ship, it was empty."
He closed his eyes and looked pained. "Chimera was being towed toward Tarathu. I managed to break the ship free and evade them. I knew I needed to get that chip back to the IF."
My heart ached for what they all went through, and for the expression of despair on J'avet's face.
"I'm sure you would have preferred to stay and blow up every Iri in the area," I said. "But a one guy rescue mission wouldn't have turned out very well."
"No." He averted his face. "Neither will a full on attack by the IF."
I frowned, trying to figure out what he meant. After a moment, it clicked in my brain.
"You think they let you escape, hoping you'd get to IF space and rouse an army?" The Iri did have a way of letting people live, if it served their own purpose.
"All those Freytauri would turn into hosts. All the metal on the ships. They'd be unstoppable."
His words made my blood run cold.
"That's why we can't go back with an armada," J'avet said. "We need stealth."
I blinked. "You just said we."
"Did I?" he asked, as if he didn't realise. "You understand the situation. You're human. Brinley too. That makes you immune to nanobots. Nothing we saw suggests they've solved that puzzle yet. Slek managed to access their database for a short time. So far, they can only turn Freytauri into hosts. They…" He hesitated. "They're focusing on turning Agusians. Slek thought they were close."
"Shit," I muttered. If they'd made Slek, Danec and Zarex into mindless hosts, then what would I do?
