Rylando raised his talent to connect with his animal team. Hatya made the atmosphere entry as smooth as she could, but the oft-rebuilt, much-customized shuttle shook like a woolly hound after a bath.
Fortunately, his team had been through similar rides many times and considered them just part of their job. They’d been shaped by experience and his mental influence, but they were all unabashedly emotional creatures. Part of his job was to lead with calm.
Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have brought the whole team without knowing more about the ground conditions. But he refused to leave his animals with clueless military staffers who couldn’t tell a weasel from a wyvern. And the thought of Bhayrip finding them unguarded froze the air in his chest.
He’d webbed himself to the airsled’s front jump-seat and secured the animal crates in the back. All the crates made the airsled as cramped as a walk-in closet, but it left more room for Taz’s GSAR mech suit and everything else they could fit into the shuttle. With only two human rescuers, they’d need extra tech to make up for their lack of staff. Too bad they’d been no room for their skimmer. Gold Team would probably “borrow it,” now that Taz and Hatya got it running right, and Silver Team would never get it back.
“Ready for a sitrep, sir?” He didn’t need the preceding identifying tone to recognize Taz’s distinctive voice through the earwire. Even when she subvocalized, the low, sultry quality came through.
Though he and Taz held the same rank, he had seniority, making him Silver Team’s nominal field commander. All that meant was his name went on reports. Taz didn’t need orders from him to do her job. And not even Bhayrip was boneheaded enough to give orders to an active, cybernetic Jumper who could throw him out the nearest airlock without bothering to open it.
He touched his earwire. “Green go.”
“Salamaray—accent on the third syllable, by the way—is at the edge of a big mountain range. Southern hemisphere, early summer. The town has maybe twenty-five thousand population, tops, but it’s the hub for the whole region of micro industries and original family compounds. The earthquake was a Geo-K 19. A strike-slip fault ripped the town in half around dawn, local time.”
Hatya spoke up. “Wait till you see the nav-sat images. The fault line tracks across twelve-hundred kilometers.” Geology was one of her hobbies.
“We’ll be the first outsiders on scene,” continued Taz. “The planetary government’s only emergency-response office is twenty-thousand kilometers away, and they already used up their annual budget.”
“Funny, that,” Hatya replied acerbically. “Governments never want to spend funds on disaster prep, even though it costs ’em ten times as much when disasters actually happen.”
“All too true,” said Taz. “But to be fair, Perlarossa was a named planet in the High Court judgment against RSI. Now that they’re suddenly debt-free, the government has to reconstruct all the records just to know what they have. RSI sure as hell isn’t going to tell them.”
Hatya growled. “All settlement companies are lying, cheating manogi leaga. RSI was just greedy enough to get caught.” Her tone made it clear that whatever she’d called them in her native language wasn’t flattering.
“Back to Salamaray,” interjected Taz quickly, probably to avoid Hatya’s favorite rabbit hole. “Near as I can tell, we’re being deployed because it’s the hometown of High Council Leader Tsoh Yazhi Shua.”
“Hah! Betcha it’s a twist,” Hatya muttered darkly.
Realization dawned on Rylando. “Hatya’s right. It is a twist. Bhayrip’s been lying to GSAR about the unit’s staffing so they don’t cut his allocation. GSAR thinks Silver Team has a full staff of nine because he counts my animals. High Command probably ordered the deployment to impress Leader Tsoh. Bhayrip had to comply or he’d get caught.”
“So that’s why his orders kept harping on our advisory mission.”
Taz sat up front with Hatya, so he couldn’t see Taz’s expressive face, but he could imagine her disgusted look.
“And why he neglected to mention anything about the rescue activities.” He snorted. “Couldn’t very well officially tell us to just look like we’re helping.”
Taz made a rudely wet noise.
“You two can’t say it, but I can,” said Hatya. “My rock garden is smarter than your captain.”
Rylando laughed. “Thank you.”
Hatya continued. “Yanoshi, the ERC, gave us coordinates. You pet your sweet doggos while we ask the ERC where they want us to deploy. We’re fifteen minutes from the landing zone.”
Hatya’s bluff good nature always made him smile. “Acknowledged and confirmed.”
With luck, the Emergency Response Commander had some background in actual emergencies. Not all did, especially in small towns.
Fortunately for Silver Team, Taz had a way with words that redirected grandstanding politicians and guided flailing leaders who were in over their heads. Diplomacy wasn’t his ace.
The more he got to know Taz, the more he wondered whose tender tail she’d stepped on to land in their sorry unit. Silver Team’s previous staff had been no loss when they’d moved on. Especially the violent asshole who’d hurt Moyo. Rylando had been doubly careful when Taz first arrived, afraid she’d turn out to be worse.
Instead, she was everything he could hope for in a teammate. She did little things for him and the animals all the time without needing to be asked or expecting praise for it. Hatya liked her. Most importantly, his team liked her.
Rylando used to think animals were all he’d ever need. He wasn’t a top-level talent, but he could connect with just about any land animal in existence, though he preferred mammals and birds. In the last few years, however, he’d found himself longing for human companionship, too. Not just joyhouse visits for physical relief, but people he could talk to and laugh with. People he cared about and who cared about him.
Hatya’s ready friendship had already broadened his horizons. Taz’s engaging personality and easy acceptance of his animals—not to mention her sexy everything—had him dreaming of more.
But even if he miraculously dreamed up the right words to tell her, he would never speak them. A relationship would ruin both their careers. Taz took her military oath more seriously than he ever had. Besides, he had no idea if she returned his interest. Probably not, since she was a professional, unlike the rest of Unit 1051.
He selfishly wanted her to stay, but her minder talent and skills were valuable enough that whatever her previous sins, GSAR would soon forgive her. Which was why he hadn’t told her that Shen had an implanted controller that—if he reactivated it—Taz could connect to using her own. He’d disabled Shen’s to prevent her from being ordered around by the other team members, who tended to treat their dogs like fur-covered automatons. He’d come to realize Taz wouldn’t do that, but Shen would be sad when Taz left for a better post.
“Hang on,” said Hatya. “Landing zone looks like a stacker fell off the building and dumped flitters everywhere. We’ll have to improvise.”
The slim white woman in a dusty russet tunic and bright yellow boots finished entering data on her tablet. “Eli! GSAR 1051 is here!” Her piercing voice made Moyo, who stood next to Rylando on the sodden grass, duck her head and rub her ear with her paw. He wished he could get away with doing the same.