Page 1 of Star Defenders (My Alien Mates 2)

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"The IF has concluded—"J'avet's eyes scanned the room. His gaze settled on me and the sides of his mouth drew back. He looked away before I could flick him the finger.

He continued as though he hadn't paused. "The attack on theInfinityintended to slow the ship. The explosives were intended to incite panic, not destruction."

"It would have been good to know that before we evacuated," I muttered.

Beside me, Slek murmured his agreement and his hand tightened in mine. As a ship's engineer, he hadn't been called upon to assess the damage before we piled into pods and fled. His admittedly large ego survived that slightly, but the encounter with the Iri and their nanobot symbionts who had tried to inhabit him and Danec, could have ended badly for us all, especially them.

"However," J'avet continued, "the perpetrator, or perpetrators, remain unknown and at large. We suspect they were a member of a group of rogue Freytaurians, but that's all we know. Consider everyone onInfinityat that time to be a suspect."

I expected him to look at me and the Freytaurians who sat to either side of me, but he didn't.

Evidently, Danec expected the same, because he exhaled loudly out his nose when J'avet turned away.

"Commander." Slek stuck his arm up in the air like a schoolboy. "I assume I'm exempt from suspicion, because I was, you know, pushed."

J'avet turned around slowly. "That was only speculation, Engineer. We have proof of nothing."

Slek lowered his hand, and his expression went with it.

I patted his knee. "We know you did nothing wrong," I said loud enough for J'avet to hear.

Typically, the Parvoran ignored me. That was probably just as well. I was done listening to him and I might be tempted to tell him that. While technically he wasn't in charge of me, he could make my life difficult if he wanted to.

"Those of you still going to Agus, theHalcyonleaves Dendra Station in two days’ time, at fifteen hundred hours precisely." J'avet's eyes swept over the room and settled on me again.

"I'll be on time," I said sweetly.

Before I even finished my sentence, his gaze moved to Danec, and then to someone behind us.

Asshole.

"Dismissed," J'avet said finally. He strode out of the room, full of his own importance, leaving the rest of us to file out of the debriefing in small, quiet groups.

"Someone went to a lot of trouble to keepInfinityfrom protecting the Iri," Brinley said. My friend, and the best pilot in the galaxy—okay, I'm biased, but she is amazing at her job—frowned. Not even a scowl could mar her pretty features. She flicked her hair over her shoulder. "AndArtemis."

Of the two, we fared better. TheArtemiswas completely destroyed.

"What if it wasn't the rogues which attackedInfinity?" Danec asked softly.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I-I don't know. Maybe someone wanted us to go to Calig." Colour crept up his already blue face.

"Like an Iri spy, sent to force us to go there to become nanobot hosts?" Slek asked.

"S-something like that," Danec stammered slightly, as he did when nervous or anxious.

"That would mean there's someone ready to throw every Freytaurian to the nanobots." I shivered. "Who would do that?"

"I don't know," Danec said. "Someone who doesn't like Freytaurians?"

"How could anyone not like us?" Slek asked. As a Freytaurian himself, his skin tended toward purple, rather than blue, and he was more street smart than Danec, but they both shared the same vulnerability to the nanobots.

"I can't think of a single reason," I said lightly. "But this would cast suspicion on everyone on board theInfinity." I hated to agree with J'avet, but he was right about that.

I stopped beside a window which looked out over Dendra Station.Infinityfloated beside a dock she shared with a dozen other ships of various sizes. From this angle, she looked whole, undamaged. I knew she was crawling with engineers who worked quickly to fix the IF vessel and press her back into service. I also knew Slek itched to be one of them. He requested to help, but that was denied. It seemed the IF wasn't allowing any passengers from her last voyage to board for any reason. I took that to mean they still searched for tampering or explosives. They wouldn't want us to remove evidence which might implicate us.

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