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“Your friends lied to you. Us human women are much too smart for that to work.”
“We’ll see. That was just my first attempt.”
“And you are welcome to keep trying. In fact, I encourage it.” She tipped her head toward the boundary. “But for now, I have to go. I’ll be back after lunch. If I’m not back at the usual time, you have my permission to storm into camp and find me.”
The look he gave her was commanding, confident, and undeniably sexy. “If you aren’t back on time, I won’t need your permission, sunshine. I’ll come for you no matter where you are.”
“I’m good with that.” She waved and set off toward her waiting escort.
Despite her act, Rin expected trouble when she arrived. Douglas was always unhappy about something. Today’s list would just be longer.
Lunch turned out to be sandwiches with a double helping of ego on the side. She ate her meal in silence as Douglas seethed and raged about the lost drones. The surprising thing was, he blamed Axe.
“That fraxxing cyborg is going to answer for this. The land may belong to him—though so far I can’t get anyone on the council to confirm that’s the case—but even if he owns the land, he doesn’t own the sky.”
Rin ate in silence, waiting for Douglas to finish. She still wasn’t sure why he thought Axe was responsible. Had none of the hawks appeared in the footage? She hardly dared to hope that was the case.
Douglas slapped the table near her plate. “Dr. Rey, I want an explanation!”
The transition from rant to inquiry was so sudden it took her a few seconds to form a good response. She’d only get one shot at setting this up.
“I’d like an explanation too, Lieutenant. Are you telling me that you ordered those drones to spy on me? First I discover you’re tracking me and now this?”
Douglas’s expression turned into a confused combination of surprise, outrage, and what she thought might be guilt.
Gotcha, asshole.
“It was a security precaution. You’re taking too many risks with the subjects and your own safety.”
“I would never endanger the subjects. That would be unprofessional and unforgiveable.” Like using military hardware to spy on people without their permission, she thought.
“That is not your decision to make. It’s mine.”
“Yet you never mentioned this to me. Nor did you tell me I’d be under surveillance. When the subjects noticed the drones, they let us know about them. Axe and I assumed the drones belonged to an unknown third party and removed them. I intended to report them to you once I returned to camp. Now you’re telling me they were IAF property, but how was I supposed to know that? I did what I thought was necessary to protect the subjects and the project.”
The best part about that statement was that most of it was more or less true.
“You thought…” Douglas trailed off, his face reddening.
Rin went back to eating. “When I see Axe this afternoon, I’ll let him know who the drones belonged to.”
“Send him a message instead.”
She swallowed the last bite of her meal before asking. “Why? I’m going back out this afternoon. The other pair of subjects need their exercise.”
“You and the subjects are confined to camp for the rest of the day. A dangerous storm is coming this way. High winds, thunder, lightning, hail, and heavy rainfall. It’s not safe.”
She’d seen the reports already and knew the storm wasn’t due to arrive until tonight. This was pure pettiness on Douglas’s part. “The storm is still hours away.”
“The weather on this planet can be unpredictable. You are to stay in camp, Dr. Rey. That is my final decision.”
She got to her feet. “I think you’re forgetting something. This project is on a tight schedule. I have procedures that must be done this afternoon with the second pair of subjects. Because you insisted that one pair stay in camp at all times, I’ve been unable to observe all the subjects at once.”
“You’re telling me that you can’t miss a single day? Nonsense.”
“No. I’m telling you that partial data isn’t enough when working with only a few subjects, and we’re running out of time.”
Douglas flicked his hand in a dismissive gesture. “If you leave against my advice, you’ll be on your own. I won’t order my men to take unnecessary risks.”
