Bonus Scene - Sabre
The party wound down fairly quickly after the Colonel’s news, with everyone scattering to process the information in their own way. Kurt contemplated going back to his quarters but decided to work instead. He needed to start working out a training program for Nyx. Officially she was a civilian consultant, but there wasn’t much about the cyborg that was civilian anything.
He settled in at his work station on the Malora and started brainstorming on a pad of paper with an old-fashioned stylus. It was a habit he’d had since he was a kid. He’d been taught to read with wooden blocks his father had carved for him and learned to write on reams of homemade paper. It had been a simple, but boring life, and he’d signed on with the IAF two days, four hours and sixteen minutes after he’d reached the minimum age. It had taken him two days to reach a town big enough to even have a recruitment office, and he’d sat outside the door until they’d opened it the next morning.
He stopped writing and leaned back in the chair, suddenly amused. He’d thought he was signing on for a lifetime of travel, tech, and adventure, and here he was, fifteen years later, writing with a stylus and thinking back fondly to his days on the family farm. At least then, trouble was easy to identify. He could recognize every predatory species in the area on sight or even by their tracks. He’d known their habits and haunts, the prey they preferred, even the time of day they hunted.
Since joining Nova Force, he’d learn to hunt a different kind of predator. The sentient kind. They were trickier, crueler, and far more difficult to predict, but he’d gotten good at it. Until now. He tossed down his stylus and grunted in frustration. How the fraxx were they going to find the Grays if they’d figured out how to move their consciousness across from body to body? Not that they were sure that’s what was happening, but until an hour ago, he couldn’t have imagined it would even be possible. Illegal cloning, Sentient AI’s, and now this. The Gray Men were getting more dangerous - and more desperate.
They had inside help, too. Probably from more than one source. Eric’s discovery that someone was spying on the cyborgs at the Nova Club was disturbing enough, but it was also part of a larger pattern. The Grays were gathering intelligence on anyone they deemed a threat, and that was going to make them even harder to track down.
He picked up the stylus again. That was a problem for another day. Tonight, all he needed was to start making plans for bringing Nyx up to speed. She was a unique asset, and with the right training, she might make the difference in the coming fight against the Gray Men.
He’d filled most of a page of notes when he heard footsteps coming down the corridor. He checked the time – it was after ten, and there was only one other person who’d be working this late. “Fido, what the hell are you doing here? Don’t you have a wife to get home to, man?”
Dax appeared in the doorway a few seconds later. “Trin and I just finished cleaning up after the party. I had a feeling I’d find you here, though.” He paused. “Got a minute?”
“Come on in. If I had known you were going to clean up tonight, I’d have stayed to help out.”
“It didn’t take long. Dante took most of the food with him, and Nyx claimed whatever was left. Between the two of them, we might have to get a second food dispenser for the Malora.”
Kurt tapped the paper in front of him. “I was making notes on a training program for her. I should start another list with the changes we’re going to need to make to the ship now that we’ve got another couple on board. Reconfigure Erben’s quarters, add another food dispenser and maybe increase the amount of food we store on board.”
Dax took a seat across from him. “Been a lot of changes lately. Do you think the team’s handling it all well?”
He looked his commander and friend in the eye, reading the micro-expressions and the shadows in Dax’s eyes. “I think they’re handling it fine. I also think you didn’t come here to talk to me about team morale.”
Dax snorted in wry amusement. “How many times have I told you not to read me like that?”
“As many times as I’ve told you that it’s my job to know what you need and make it happen, and that means listening to what you say and what you haven’t said.” He reached into the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a flask and two metal cups. “And based on what you haven’t said out loud, I’m guessing we’re going to need a drink.”
“Smug is not a good look for you.” Dax tapped the cup closest to him. “But you’re right. Hit me.”
He poured them both two fingers of the fifteen-year-old Scotch and raised his glass. “What shall we drink to?”
“To our friends. The only ones we can fraxxing trust right now.”
They drank, and Kurt sat back, waiting for Dax to explain. Dax took another drink before he said a word, then sighed. “Sorry, I’m in a mood tonight. It was supposed to be a good night, but we don’t seem to get many of those these days.”
“We win some, we lose some. Nyx and Shadow are free. We lost Absalom, but we got plenty of intel to sift through. The way I see it, we still came out ahead.”
“This time, yes. But everything we know points to there being at least one leak in our ranks, maybe more.”
“I think it would be safe to assume the Grays have multiple sources, probably operating without any awareness of each other. Different levels of access, different sources of information, so it’s hard to pin down who is selling us out.”
Dax nodded. “I agree, and so does Bahl. She did some very quiet digging and narrowed down the field a little for us.”
“How narrow?”
Dax set down his comms on the desk and tapped in a command. A holographic display appeared in the air between them, filled with images of more than two dozen men and women. “This is everyone she could find who had access to the information about our mission to retrieve Nyx.”
Kurt took a drink as he looked at the faces and names, the smooth flavor of the Scotch suddenly turning bitter as he realized he knew many of them.
Dax reached into the display and selected one of the images, making it expand. “She’s at the top of the list. Remember her?”
Fraxx. It was Lieutenant Castille, the JAG officer who had sat in on Eric’s interrogation. “I remember. Sharp mind, cool under pressure.” Soft hands. Nice curves. And a smile he hadn’t been able to forget.
“She was transferred here shortly before we went on that mission.”
“She’s JAG, though. Why would someone from the Judge Advocate Corps have access to that information?”
“That’s a good question.” Dax flicked to another image. It was a request for files. A lot of files. She’d been granted access to reports covering everything Team Three had done in the last twelve months, including their most recent missions.
He leaned in as he skimmed the document. “What the hell? Who authorized this?”
“The same man who sent her to represent Erben. Colonel Scott Archer.”
Kurt rocked back in his chair. “Archer?”
Dax drained his glass before nodding. “Archer.”
“Well. Fraxx.” He emptied his glass, too, then poured them both another. He’d been planning on asking Castille out for a drink once things had settled down. Not much chance of that happening now. Not until he was sure she wasn’t working for the enemy, even though he didn’t see her as the type. She’d been direct and open the one time they’d met. If she was targeting the team, he should have picked up something from her. That was his damned job.