Jarek raised his good hand in a gesture of peace. “Easy, Goldilocks. No one’s about to—”
“It’s Michael,” she said. “If he heard…”
Understanding sparked in Jarek’s eyes.
“I need to check on him,” she said.
“Go,” Drogan said.
She held Jarek’s conflicted gaze until he gave a small nod.
“We’ll talk later,” she said, backing toward the doorway.
Then she turned and hurried out of medical before he could say anything more.
Well, there was one bullet dodged. For the moment, at least. The next one, though…
Haldin was just about to turn the corner at the end of the hallway as Rachel stepped out of medical. He paused when he caught sight of her. She was about to send her worries about Michael his way, but he stiffened, apparently coming to some similar conclusion, and darted off toward the commons.
That didn’t exactly soothe the unease in her gut as she turned the other way and hurried through the bland hallways for Michael’s quarters.
By the time she reached her destination, she’d broken into a run.
She rushed through the open doorway—which in itself didn’t seem like a great sign—and was met with wide-eyed stares from Michael and Lea.
“Rache,” Michael said. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
He didn’t look too bad—no worse than usual for these days, at least.
Had he even felt the messengers?
Lea had risen to her feet, like she was expecting a horde of maddened berserkers to pour in on Rachel’s tail.
“It’s, uh…” Rachel looked between the two of them, taking in their expressions more carefully before focusing on Michael. “Did you happen to, uh—”
“I felt it.” He frowned. “Heard it. Whatever. I was just telling Lea. I take it you heard him too?”
Rachel eyed the open doorway uneasily and pushed the door closed before saying anything.
“Yeah. And I might have thought to close the door before telling anyone about it. If anyone heard you…”
Rachel’s comm buzzed against her wrist before she decided just how to finish the thought.
“No one heard,” Lea said, though the look on her face didn’t convey nearly as much confidence.
Rachel glanced down at her comm. The message was from Haldin, and it consisted of one word.
Trouble.
“You’re sure about that?” Rachel asked, raising her comm for them to see.
Michael and Lea exchanged a horrified look, both of them lost for words.
“Just sit tight,” Rachel said, turning for the door. “I’ll make sure no one starts killing each other out there.”
They watched her like scolded children as she pulled the door closed behind her and set off down the hallway again, this time starting at a full run.
After a minute of dodging and weaving past indignant Resistance soldiers, she turned into one of the hallways that led to the commons and spotted Alton, Johnny, Elise, and Haldin ahead, surrounded by at least a couple dozen Resistance soldiers who looked less than pleased.
It wasn’t hard to guess why.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Johnny was saying as Rachel padded quietly toward the spectacle. “Easy, lady. I don’t know where you’re getting your infor—”
“I heard Carver say it down the hall not five minutes ago,” a stout woman with short, dark hair said. “That harvester thing is throwing arms wide open for any vamp willing to fall in line and hand us over. We already know we can’t trust the bastards.”
“Ah,” Johnny held up a finger. “See, that sounds like an unsubstantiated claim to me. I don’t know how you guys do things here, but—”
“You’re goddamn right you don’t know, you alien freak,” cried a kid that couldn’t have been older than seventeen or eighteen.
Johnny pointed toward the voice, still holding the black-haired woman’s gaze. “That’s hurtful. Look, I get that you don’t trust the scary bloodsucking monsters. It’s a wise move. Good on you.”
“Who the hell do you think you—” someone started, but they fell silent at a sudden flicker of fire in Johnny’s expression.
“The fact here is that we are up against some serious shit, people,” Johnny said. “We don’t have the luxury of turning our backs on allies for anything less than irrefutably damning evidence. And, you know what? If you’re not okay with that, let me ask you this: which one of you is going to wrestle down Alton here and throw him in chains?” He glanced at Alton, then back at the crowd. “Have any of you ever tangled with a raknoth? I’m guessing not, since you’re all still standing here.”
Alton and Haldin both looked like they wanted to add more, or maybe even rein Johnny in, but Haldin continued to stand quietly at his friend’s side, and Alton, probably wisely, hung in the back, looking as harmless as he could manage.
Rachel hovered at the back of the growing, buzzing crowd, unsure how to proceed.
Johnny raised a valid point about Alton, but he couldn’t have picked a worse audience. The soldiers who deemed themselves Earth’s premier guardians against the “vamps” were the last people who’d want to hear that these “alien freaks” thought their bark was lacking its bite.
Regardless, she wasn’t sure anything she could say would carry much weight with this crowd.
“We’ve had enough of this bullshit, space-boy,” rumbled a tree of a man pushing his way through the crowd. He made it to the front row and jabbed a finger down at Haldin’s face. “I don’t trust a single goddamn one of you. You could all be vamps in disguise, for all we know.”
This point raised a hearty chorus of agreement and further accusations.
Haldin calmly looked over through the noise and caught Rachel’s eye.
“A little help?” came his voice in her head.
She took half a step forward and opened her mouth, searching for the words.
What could she possibly say?
Heads were starting to swivel her way now, curious as to what Haldin was staring at while that hulking mass of man loomed so threateningly over him.
She had to say something.
“There’s only one raknoth in this room right now,” she finally called. “And I’d probably be dead right now if it weren’t for him and these three.”
“Yeah?” the human tree called right back, only looking away from Haldin for a moment. “And we’re just supposed to take your word on that? The word of a telepath who comes and goes as she damn well pleases? You’re an outsider, lady. If you’re not with us, you can fuck off, for all I care.”
Another round of agreement rippled through the crowd, though it might’ve been slightly milder than the last one. Either way, it emboldened the big guy to get even more up in Haldin’s face.
Haldin’s calm composure was starting to show cracks now. “She is—We’re all…”
He closed his eyes, his face tight, and Rachel half-expected the human tree to take sudden telekinetic flight.
“Fine,” Haldin growled instead, eyes snapping open. “Fine. You call us raknoth?”
Rachel felt the thermal energy drain from the air around Haldin.
Then the air between him and the human tree flared to life with a brilliant wall of fire.
Cries and shouts exploded through the crowd, those closest scrambling backward.
The big guy who’d been in Haldin’s face fell over in his haste to back up, tiny wisps of smoke curling up from his singed beard and eyebrows.
“What the fuck?!” he thundered as he hit the floor and pulled himself back another few feet.
The wall of flames died out almost as quickly as Haldin had conjured it. The Enochian stood calmly watching the human tree now, a small fireball still hovering over his raised palm.
Tense silence filled the room, everyone waiting to see what the mad arcanist would do next.
Finally, Haldin allowed his handful of flames to die out. “Raknoth can’t do that, last I checked.”
He pointed at the kid who’d called Johnny an alien freak, and half the crowd flinched.
“You. You’re right. We’re not from here. We left our planet—our perfectly good, safe home—because we thought your world might be in trouble. And it is.”
More people were packing into the common room now, drawn by the commotion. The crowd watched silently, waiting.
“Here’s the truth,” Haldin continued. “Johnny’s right too. Alton could tear you all to pieces right now if he wanted to. So could I. That’s not a comfortable thought to live with, I get it. But here’s the more important truth.” He waved a hand from himself to Alton, Johnny, and Elise. “We’re gonna keep putting our lives on the line to protect the innocent people on this planet. I don’t really give a damn who likes who. We’re gonna fight the rakul because it’s the right thing to do. If anyone wants to stop us from doing that, well… I have to wonder what it is we’re even fighting for if that’s how little you care for your own world.”
Johnny clapped him on the back, and Elise stepped confidently to his side, her expression daring anyone to argue.
“And what if your precious raknoth sell us down the creek to these masters of theirs?” someone called.
“Then I’ll be standing on your side of the crowd when we find them,” Haldin said. “But there are none of those raknoth here.”
The crowd weighed his words in a sea of murmurs and whispers. A lot of them even looked half-convinced—or slightly uncertain, at least.
“Let’s break this up, people,” called a strong voice. Rachel craned her neck to see Commander Daniels pushing into the hallway that led to the council chambers. “The small council is meeting now to get to the bottom of this. Mr. Raish, Mr. Parker, we’d like a word. Immediately.”
Haldin nodded, his Zen mask firmly back in place. “Of course, Commander Daniels.”
The crowd parted to let them pass, some of them—particularly the human tree—clearly hesitant to do so.
“Excuse me,” Johnny said as he shimmied through the crowd after Haldin, Alton, and Elise. “Pardon me. Just trying to save the world. Pardon the inconvenience.”
As unproductive as poking an already edgy hive was, Rachel couldn’t find it in herself to blame Johnny too much.
She wasn’t about to fall to the ground licking the Enochians’ boots or anything—and they weren’t expecting it, either—but they had literally flown halfway across the galaxy to risk their necks for these people. Raknoth sidekick or not, the least these soldiers could do was back off and leave the Enochians alone while they continued to bleed for the Resistance and the people of Earth.
Of course, if she felt so strongly, she certainly could have said so when it had mattered.
The look Haldin shot her from across the room suggested he was having similar thoughts.
“Coming?” he sent.
She swallowed, gave him a nod, and started winding her own way through the slowly dispersing crowd, wondering whose side she was even on anymore and, more importantly, just how much shit the Enochians would be willing to take before they decided to say screw it and just fly home.
One way or another, she had a bad feeling they’d be getting the final answers to those questions sooner than any of them wanted.
17
After the confrontation in the common room, Rachel wasn’t overly surprised when Haldin bristled at Commander Daniels asking Johnny and Elise to wait outside the council chamber.
“With everything going on right now,” Daniels said quietly to their small huddle, “it seems wise to do our best to discourage the idea that we’re favoring the Enochians over our own people.”
Sensible enough, even if it still was kind of a slap to the pants for Johnny and Elise. But the two didn’t argue—just opted to go visit Jarek instead.
Rachel took one last survey of the wary looks still tracking them from the commons then followed Haldin, Alton, and Daniels into the council chamber.
When the doors were closed, and the sounds of the base beyond had fallen to a low din, Daniels looked at Haldin with more warmth than she’d shown outside. “Not half bad out there, Mr. Raish. Your conclusion could have used some work, maybe, but I think one or two of them may have even heard you out there.”
Alton looked utterly unimpressed by her words.
Haldin just looked angry. “The people I love could die tomorrow fighting for those ungrateful bastards,” he said, his voice a quiet snarl that made Rachel want to take a step back. “I wonder every day if I’m a terrible person for having brought them here.”
What little amusement had crept into Daniels’ expression bled out immediately, but it wasn’t replaced by anger as Rachel expected. Instead, she only looked tired, sad, and not a little bit sympathetic.
“I’m sorry, Haldin. I hadn’t thought—”
“Forget it,” Haldin said. “Let’s just talk about the message and get ready for this conference.”
Daniels nodded, slipping her Resistance commander expression back on.
Alaric and Nelken were waiting for them at the front of the room, Nelken leaning heavily against the head table to rest his braced leg, both looking marginally curious about the heated words but neither seeing fit to ask. A few of the council regulars were seated in the front as well, but other than that, the room was empty.
Daniels joined the other commanders at the head table. “So,” she said, looking at Rachel and the other telepaths as if they were particularly complicated pieces of foreign technology, “you were all able to hear the, um, broadcast yourselves?”
Rachel nodded, as did Haldin, but it was Alton who the three commanders were most closely watching.
So apparently they had some idea what Gada had offered the raknoth.
“And what do you think, Mr. Parker?” Nelken asked.
Alton showed them a disconcerting grin. “Does it matter? Are you simply going to trust me when I say that the Kul is lying?”
Alaric tilted his head in concession.
“We see your point,” Daniels said, rubbing at her temples. “This is a tough one, even internally. Working with Krogoth’s forces, on the other hand…”
“Your people are just going to have to find the trust to work with theirs,” Haldin said. “We can screen each of our raknoth allies and determine their allegiance beyond the shadow of a doubt. Drogan promised to do as much, and I don’t think Krogoth will oppose the idea. But that’ll take time, and who knows when Gada will strike again, or when his brethren will arrive. Plus, that option still leaves you guys having to take our word for it. There’s no winning here without a little faith.”
Alaric chuffed, plopped into his chair, and rooted around in his pocket. “So, business as usual, then?” He withdrew a small container, stuffed a pinch of green leaves in his mouth, and started chewing.
Nelken frowned at him but said nothing as the double doors opened and a few more council members began trickling in and finding seats.
Alaric glanced at his comm. “Well, it’s time.”
Rachel traded a glance with Haldin, and they went to find seats, Alton following along behind them.
Nelken switched on the projector on the head table and stared expectantly at Alaric, who placed the call and patched it over to the projector. A flat holo sprang into existence over the table, complete with the rotating icon of a pending connection.
The commanders went to take seats in the front line of chairs as the call tone sounded over and over. Uncomfortable silence filled the room as they waited for over a full minute, the call tone chiming all the while.
Finally, though, the call was accepted on the other end and, after the couple seconds it took to connect, the holo resolved into an image of Zar’Krogoth sitting placidly behind a rich wooden desk in full raknoth form. His rust-red hide, as it always did, gave Rachel the impression that he’d just finished rolling around in the blood of his enemies.
Disturbing as Krogoth’s appearance was, it was no more so than the sight
of the man standing at obedient, somber attention at his left shoulder.
Seth Mosen.
What the hell was he doing there? Last she knew, Mosen had been locked up in the HQ brig.
“Zar’Krogoth,” Nelken said. “Al’Brandt. Good afternoon.”
It was only when Nelken said Brandt’s name that Rachel processed the second raknoth at Krogoth’s flank opposite Mosen. After their mountain temple had come under attack, Brandt hadn’t argued about taking his clan to New York to join Camp Krogoth.
In reply to Nelken’s greeting, Krogoth only worked at the air with slitted nostrils and looked bored for a long stretch.
“The others will be here soon,” he finally said, managing to imbue each individual word with distaste.
An awkward minute of silence stretched. Another pair of council members slid into the chamber and promptly found seats. Krogoth picked at his fangs.
Finally, there was a light buzz on Krogoth’s end. He reached for something on his desk, and the wide holo broke itself into two and then three discrete windows.
The first newcomer, Rachel took to be Al’Koshna based on the tropical background in the raknoth’s holo. The second, Rachel couldn’t mistake. Nan’Ashida, commander of a sizable human army and little shit extraordinaire.
Two more splits, and they were joined by another pair of raknoth Rachel recognized not at all by sight and only vaguely by name—Al’Tor and Al’Grog.
Alton had once told her that his people were not well-suited for what humans thought of as friendship. Watching the clan leaders working their way through uncomfortable greetings as they trickled in, Rachel saw what he meant. She’d picked up on as much in what interactions she’d had throughout their recruitment tour, but it really seemed like none of the raknoth were particularly fond of one another.
Maybe that was just what happened after a few thousand years of roaming the galaxy together.
Among the few clan speakers Rachel recognized as absent, Zar’Taga was the most worrisome. He commanded the largest raknoth clan after Krogoth’s, and while Rachel had thought their expedition to visit him in Ireland a week earlier had gone well enough—minus the skepticism that the rakul were even coming—his absence now suggested otherwise.
The Complete Harvesters Series Page 71