Vakar fell silent, warring scents rolling off him in a cloud. Licorice under it all, which she appreciated; she knew he loved her, and hopefully he knew she felt the same way, but sometimes love meant you had to make hard choices and be prepared for the consequences.
Sometimes standing by each other meant one of you had to walk away.
Pink spoke up, then, shifting her rifle to her other shoulder. “Vakar, you’re technically freelance so we can’t tell you what-all you should do. But as co-captain, I’d like to request that you escort our pilot back to the ship and keep her safe there while we finish this job.”
Min perked up at hearing she was being sent back, then deflated with a guilty expression. “I could stay, too,” she said stubbornly, inching closer to Sue.
“Min, it’s okay,” Eva said. “Worst case, you come pull us out of whatever fire someone lights under our asses.” It was a white lie, and Eva felt uncomfortable telling it, because she had no intention whatsoever of making Min violate dozens of airspace laws to extract them. Better to have Vakar get her off-planet and back to something like safety.
Then again, they were already violating dozens of laws in helping the resistance, so what was a few more?
Vakar continued to smell like a perfume store on fire, but finally he shrugged in the quennian equivalent of a nod. “I will see that Min returns safely to La Sirena Negra,” he said. “We will wait for you to finish your business here, and then we will all depart.”
Eva smiled at him. His optimism was more stubborn than anything, but it was one of the many things she loved about him. She knew a little about stubbornness, after all.
“I’m going with you,” Sue said, shouldering her pack of disassembled Pod Pal components.
“The hell you are,” Pink replied.
“It’s not safe!” Min exclaimed. Eva wrinkled her nose in confusion at that one.
“He’s my brother,” Sue said.
Eva sighed. “And we’ll have a better chance of finding him and getting him out if we’re not busy worrying about you.”
Sue shook her head, an uncharacteristic scowl warping her features. “I know you think he’s doing bad stuff on purpose, but I don’t believe it. I need to talk to him.” Her frown deepened. “And if he is . . . if he knows what he’s doing, maybe I can convince him to stop. You’ll just kidnap him, and then he might not want to help later.”
“You can always convince him later,” Pink said.
“Maybe,” Sue replied, doubt tingeing her voice. “But what if you can’t kidnap him? What if he fights back and you’re dealing with a bunch of bad guys? I could help. Besides, I’m the one who knows how these things work.” She gestured at the bag she carried. “And I’ve got my bots to help us, too.”
Eva pursed her lips as she thought. Sue wasn’t wrong. It might be useful to have someone who dealt in the tech they’d be facing. She might even be able to come up with some useful countermeasures before they infiltrated the lab.
“Fine,” Eva said, with a glance at Pink for approval. “But you follow orders and stay out of the line of fire, got it?”
Sue grinned, then frowned at Min, who stood there hugging herself. “I’ll be okay,” Sue said.
“Yeah,” Min replied faintly.
Eva hugged Vakar as tightly as she could manage, and he returned the gesture. If things went wrong, if the lab infiltration was a bust, if she got arrested . . . There were a hundred ways they could be separated from each other indefinitely, but that was true most of the time.
Maybe that was why it had gotten harder and harder to let him go. Probability was a hell of a downer. But right now, she could hold him, and there was no sense ruining the moment.
“Be careful,” Vakar said quietly, smelling so strongly of licorice she could taste it.
“Careful is my middle name,” Eva replied.
“I thought it was Caridad?”
She raised an eyebrow at him and he tickled her face with his palps. He was teasing her. “Real funny. Get out of here before the cops decide we’re suspicious enough to hassle.”
Pink and Sue climbed into the transport with Jei, and Eva followed them, leaving Min and Vakar standing near the entrance to the house. As they flew off, the light in Regina’s bedroom flickered out, the colored walls darkening with uncomfortable finality.
Chapter 20
History Repeating
Nara brought them to a different rebel hideout from the last one, at the base of one of Rilia’s home-trees in a structure made from colored bark that had been curved so that its overlapping pieces formed a dome. Instead of a door it had an energy curtain that not only kept out the mist forming in the damp darkness but also worked in tandem with the visual and audio fakery to hide the people inside. Eva, Pink, and Sue stepped out of the transport, shoes squelching in loamy mud that smelled of rain, and Eva tried very hard not to think about how Vakar and Min were faring without her.
The same cell of rebels that had met them before was present now, with a few additions. Dr. Lucien was once again tinkering with the robot dog while Felsira reclined in a hammock, and Sapri quietly discussed something with a pinkish-furred xana whose Attuned clung to his back like a round, fuzzy monkey. The creature glared at Eva when she entered, its pig-snout of a nose turning up as if she smelled offensive. The xana glanced sideways at her, broadcasting confusion and dismay, which caused Sapri to stop midsentence and favor Eva with his own sour psychic emanation.
“Why have you brought her here?” Sapri asked.
“The mission was compromised,” Nara replied. “We escaped and were not followed.”
Sapri’s hostility increased. “How was it compromised?” He was speaking to Nara, but looking straight at Eva.
“Put some water in your wine,” Dr. Lucien said, his tone gently chiding.
Eva sighed. She wasn’t even going to bother answering. The fight with her mother had sapped her of any desire to engage with hostility that was, given its source, entirely warranted. Mala clambered down from her shoulders and leaped to the floor, exploring the room with her tail primly straight.
Jei answered, removing his helmet as he spoke. “Everything was proceeding as planned until it was time to locate the third target. Then Nara was alerted to the approach of several Watcher squads from multiple vectors. Dr. Jones disabled two of their vehicles with her own special ammunition, while Nara destroyed another. Our transport was undamaged, but we were forced to engage in aggressive maneuvers that caused injuries to all of us, which Dr. Jones treated.”
Pink snorted. “And what did I tell you to do when we got here?”
Jei ran his hand through his short black hair, which must have been sweaty because it spiked up in random directions. He stepped over to Dr. Lucien and held up his arm with the cannon. “Could you please examine my prosthetic interface?” he asked, his voice surprisingly meek.
“But of course,” Dr. Lucien replied warmly, his dark hands gently removing the weapon to expose the socket connecting it to Jei’s residual limb. Eva looked away from the examination, which seemed to warrant some privacy, and was surprised to find the xana also turned their attention to Nara and Pink.
The Attuned, meanwhile, had climbed down and was trailing after Mala, making a low keening noise. Mala ignored it, her tail shaking like a rattlesnake’s.