Page 54 of Synnr's Ride

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Maisum and Mardozwere in custody along with Andax Wooria, whose name Hanna only learned when she heard two other soldiers talking.

Kark got away.

She wished she was surprised, but she'd counted the bikes when she and Jori arrived behind the strike team. She'd seen four men arrive with Kark. Rexx and Jursor's bikes had already been there. She and Jori had stolen two. There should have been five bikes waiting in the lot.

There were four.

Kark had made it out, and at least one accomplice was missing.

It wasn't a total loss. Maisum had already begun talking before he was hauled off to a cell somewhere deep in a Synnr military facility. The weapons crates were still there, though a few blasters were missing.

The large crates they suspected were filled with people were gone.

Hanna walked through the facility, numbness encroaching on the edges, trying to take her over. Major Ozar had given her an encouraging look. She'd done the job. They'd prevented Morn Kark and his gang of Rebel Demons from using all these weapons to hurt more people.

The job was over.

She was free.

But a bunch of innocent people were still in danger. And Kark was out there somewhere.

She could dwell on that, or she could do her job. Unfortunately, Hanna was exceptional at multi-tasking. She helped a team of techs maneuver a set of crates onto the loading dock where a truck was waiting. All the while, her mind whirred.

Where had Kark gone?

"They'll find him." Hanna nearly jumped out of her skin at Lena's voice.

The human had a set of weapons lined up in neat rows in front of her, a clipboard in hand.

"I know that." Hanna hated the defensiveness she heard in her own voice. "Ozar has all the data we gave her, all of our reports. I'm sure there's already a team heading to the bar. Whatever hidey hole he's in, they'll dig him out."

"But it hurts to leave the job half-done, doesn't it?" Lena stopped counting and gave Hanna a sympathetic look. There was no loathing in her eyes, no secret hate for the reformed Apsyn spy. Maybe Lena didn't know.

Even better, maybe she didn't care.

"He's hurt innocent people. And those girls..."

"You don't know that those crates had girls or boys or anyone else in them," Lena reminded her.

Hanna couldn't accept that. "The crates were identical to the one I pulled Sarah out of. At least half a dozen of them. It's expensive to import people like that. You'd never bring just one."

"I do know that," Lena said. And Hanna remembered a story she'd heard, part of Luci's background, though Luci hadn't been the one to share it with her. Lena and Luci were part of a cluster of humans who'd been stolen away from Earth to be experimented on in Vanen.

Hanna knew about alien importation in theory. Lena had lived it.

"Have you heard anything about Zilly?" That was another thing Hanna was worried about. The girl was caught up in the middle of this and liable to get hurt.

"She's off the grid." Jori came up the row. "Solan was looking for you," he told Lena with a nod back towards where he came.

Lena took off and Hanna waited to see if Jori would say more. He didn't.

"Off the grid?" That wasn't good. If Kark had taken her somewhere, she might already be...

No use borrowing that worry.

"The bar's cleared out. No one at their residence. And neither Kark's nor Zilly's communicators are active. His bike's here, so we can't even try and track that." Jori studied the weapons Lena had laid out. "That's very... neat."

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