The StarMaster’s Son: (Formerly The Master War)

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The StarMaster’s Son: (Formerly The Master War) Page 20

by Gibson Morales


  The man struggled to get out of the chair even though nothing was physically keeping him there. "I'm calling my adjudicator. You can't do this to me."

  "Is this legal?" Felik breathed. Steeger didn't bother answering. And based on the construct details, the captive couldn't perceive Felik or Minerva.

  The man swallowed several times, blinking quickly. "You're abducting me."

  Felik's eyes dimmed as he thought back to his own abduction.

  Steeger backhanded him. "If it makes you feel any better, you won't even remember this. Now let's cut to the chase. Where did the Wraiths go? You were in charge of monitoring their planet, but you didn't update the Imperial Infantry."

  "I don't know. I do take sleep cycles, and I haven't updated myself with the feeds yet."

  "Except that you weren't in sleep mode when they left. I'll make this simple. You parsed those recent leaks about Oberon?"

  "Yeah."

  "Who do you think helps carry out the core extractions?"

  "Don't do it!" Felik shouted.

 

  He realized she was right.

  The captive cracked. "Okay. A Saganerio network starkeeper asked me to keep quiet about it. He told me to look the other way."

  "Well, now I'm telling you to give me the information."

  "Can't you guys get it from the starkeepers?"

  "This way's faster."

  A minute more and Steeger shared a data node with Felik. "You had no right to do that," he said, still in the interrogation room.

  "Don't like it? Downgrade my karma." Not that it would've mattered much to her.

  Felik glared at her before she kicked him out of the construct.

  "I just received an update that we now know how the Wraiths left. Steeger's work?" Juliard asked. Felik hesitated to ask how she guessed that.

  "She lives up to both of her nicknames," Felik said. The Green Devil, plus the less honorary one.

  "I take it this is your first real combat experience?"

  "I've run sims before," Felik said. Including one for this operation.

  "They don't do the best job of emphasizing the fallout. No one ever thinks about what happens when an energy beam misses its target. How gravity manipulators can cause a nearby sun's plasma and hydrogen to mix. Or whatever happens to the MIA soldiers."

  The command sphere's grass seemed to darken at her words. Grimacing, he doubted he could resolve whatever strife she was drawing upon. At least it shed a little light on her past.

  "Looks like you're getting that experience now." For the space of a breath, there was a hint of empathy in her sullen expression. He took that as a good sign.

  His optimism diminished when the holodisplay filled their chamber with a fleet of bogeys. There were too many to take in at a glance.

 

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