Page 84 of Guardian's Soul

"Yap. They did."

"So you're going with us?" Zaarek wanted to know.

"Sorry, I hate to miss all the fun, but I have a mission of my own. If you guys could just drop me off on Astrionis, I'd appreciate it."

"Astrionis is too far. We can't afford to waste so much time," Vraax objected.

She stared at him. "You need to get two or three more Ohrurs, right?"

Vraax nodded.

"So you'll have to detour anyway," Sloane stated.

"How do you know where the Ohrurs are and Astrionis?" I asked suspiciously.

Sloan smiled humorlessly at me. "That's for me to know and for you not to."

"Talk it over. I'll be in my quarters." Sloane waved over her shoulder, and I barely managed to suppress laughter when I saw Vraax staring after her with a mix of admiration and desire.

"Well?" Noodar asked.

"We still have a lot to find out." Raasla sighed heavily. "But she's right. We need to get back to Ohrur."

"I'll go. I'll take her and drop her off on Astrionis once I have the Ohrurs," Vraax offered.

"They'll be on high alert now." I shook my head. "I had a hard time getting Possedion and only managed because I had Hannah to back me up. You don't know if Sloane will help."

"Oh, she'll help," Vraax boasted. "Trust me. Besides, I'm not going after a minder. Any Ohrur should do, right? We still have Possedion."

"So we'll wait for you at Darlam?" I proposed.

"Just don't start the party without me." Vraax grinned.

"Impossible without the Ohrurs," Nock added uselessly.

"I don't think those two have figured out the distance problem yet." Zaarek smirked.

I shook my head. "I don't think they have."

"Don't be too cocky. Luph and I never had that problem," Noodar interjected.

"Yeah, but Luph isn't human. I think, for some reason, that has a lot to do with it." Raasla rubbed his chin, deep in thought.

HANNAH

That evening,Vraax and Sloane took off on his ship. We said our goodbyes, and I was sad to see Sloane go. Even though I had only known her for a little while, she felt like a sister to me, just like Zoe, Nova, and Luph. It was a weird sensation, deeply unsettling, just like so many other secrets we had yet to figure out about the Darlams and Ohrurs.

Afterward, we sat in the break room, going over the names of the Space Guardians we now had, thanks to Possedion decrypting them. It was too bad Sloane hadn't been able to ask him about the headaches, too, but we still had a long journey ahead of us and time to interrogate the Ohrur further.

"That is more than a thousand Space Guardians." I looked through the rows and rows of names, ages, how long they had been doing duty, their mission, and an entire list of credits they had made for the Ohrurs. "This is all very confusing. Some of their ages are listed at twenty-eight years old, but their time of duty says in training, whereas there are others who are twenty and have been on duty for two years." I looked questioningly at Thrax. "Is this one of those weird time things?"

He shook his head and pulled the cube with the information I was referring to over to him. While he scrutinized it, his forehead creased. "I don't think so. It is baffling, though."

"What is?" Nock interjected as he entered the room, chewing on a handful of Oreos.

He sat down, pulled the cube over, and studied it just like Thrax had done. "Hmm, interesting."

"What do you think?" I asked.

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