Page 58 of Legend

My heart tripped in my chest. “And? Did he say anything that might hurt the program?”

“No. From what I could tell, he wasn’t giving a report on the academy at all.”

“But he was talking to someone on Earth?” Then something occurred to me. Maybe the captain had a girlfriend back home. Maybe I’d been worried about all the wrong things with him. Maybe his call had been personal, which was why Ariana was beating around the bush so much. “You don’t have to worry about telling me if he has a girlfriend back home. I was being honest when I said that I wasn’t interested in Devon and it had been a one-night thing.”

“That’s not it. He wasn’t talking to a woman. If that was it, I would be relieved. At least then, you wouldn’t have to worry about him making the moves on you.”

My heart sank a bit. It would have been so much easier if he was romantically involved with someone on Earth.

“Whomever he was talking to sounded like he was a superior officer. He was pretty stern and did not seem happy with your friend.”

“Why not?” Devon had always gotten along well with the higher-ups. He was great at kissing just the right amount of ass.

“From what I heard, he was not supposed to come here. He was not the envoy that Earth Planetary Defenses intended to send.”

“Then how—?”

“The guy he was talking to pulled some strings to get the mission, and he wanted to make sure Devon knew that he owed him for it.”

I groaned and slumped back in the chair. Devon had maneuvered his way to Drex, and I had a sinking feeling it wasn’t because of the scenery or a love of long-range space travel.

Chapter

Forty-Five

Vyk

Istood over my desk as I scoured the surface with my gaze. Nothing looked out of place, but the captain could have replaced everything to appear just as it had been when he’d snuck into my office the night before.

I had no proof that he had been inside my office. There was no sign that the door lock had been tampered with, there were no indications of forced entry, and there was no sign that anything had been taken. Even so, something told me that the human envoy had not been outside my office door by coincidence.

“But what did he want?” I rapped my fingers on the wooden surface that I kept neat and orderly. There was little that could be taken or moved, which made it easier to reassure myself that all my documents and reports were in order. But because Ikept my desk so free from clutter, it would also be simple to restack everything into sharply aligned piles.

I picked up the latest security reports and flipped through them. There was little contained in even the most classified reports that was not also shared with our allies on Earth. Since we now worked in tandem with the humans, we briefed them on all potential threats. Captain Gorman could read any of these security briefings back on Earth, especially if he was ranked high enough to be sent to assess the exchange program.

Sinking into my chair, I tapped my device. There was little good to be gained by worrying over information that was not even secret from our allies. As much as I disliked and distrusted the man, I did not believe he was working for the enemy. No human would be so foolish as to align themselves with the Kronock when the creatures were determined to destroy Earth. No one on Earth even knew how to communicate with the aliens.

No, I did not believe that Gorman was that treacherous. If I was being honest, almost all my suspicion came from his connection with Fiona. It was not true suspicion as much as jealousy. I hated the idea of him with her. The thought of his hands on her, his lips on hers, his body on hers made revulsion pulse through me hot and fierce.

“Grekkinghuman,” I growled as I swept my fingers across the surface of my device to review the latest reports of long-range activity.

Drexian ships throughout the galaxy compiled data on the Kronock—where their ships were sighted, if their fleet was moving, how close their ships were to our territory—and relayed it to High Command, who then disseminated it to allthe stations and to us. I might have been able to improve our planet’s long-range sensors, but we still depended on the information gathered by our fleet—and mainly our far-flung Inferno Force ships—to keep us informed of any potential threats.

Now that the Kronock had shown us that they possessed jump technology, it was more crucial than ever to know how close they were, and if they were amassing ships. We could not afford to be surprised again, although the last attack had only happened because the enemy had traitors on the inside. They did not have that advantage anymore.

I scanned the reports, my trained eye noting that Inferno Force was tracking Kronock ships deep in their space, but that there were no unusual movements. Then my gaze snagged on a short postscript at the end of one report.

“An Inferno Force transmissions specialist detected chatter between two Kronock ships,” I read aloud, even though I was alone. “Chatter about one of their outposts being devoured.”

I reread that word. “Devoured?”

My Kronock was rusty, but that seemed like an odd choice of phrasing. Then again, maybe the phrasing was that of the Drexian who had interpreted the message. Kronock was a complex language that was not easy to translate, especially not when native speakers were talking rapidly, which I was sure the Kronock had been when discussing the destruction of an outpost.

Still, it made me uneasy. If there was a plague sweeping through enemy territory, I did not want it to come anywhere near us.

My door beeped, snatching my attention from the report. I glanced up, wondering who was coming to my office so early, especially since the academy was so deserted. “Come.”

The door glided open, and Admiral Zoran swept in. He might not wear the flowing robes his predecessor had, but he still carried an air of authority and command that had me jerking to my feet. I thumped a hand across my chest in salute.

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