Page 7 of Taming Chaos

As for Torin, he was still waiting to be struck by the thunderbolt, and until it happened, he was consumed by the need to search.

For who or what exactly, he wasn’t so sure. His mind was constantly hungry. He was the restless one, the curious one, the one who went astray yet always managed to complete his mission.

Lately, that empty feeling had been getting worse. For a long time now, Torin had suspected he was slowly going mad, but that was to be expected. He was First Division. It came with the territory.

“I’ve found what we were looking for.” Enki chose that exact moment to reach Torin through the comm-link. Full of dark intensity, his soft voice cut through the noise like a sharp blade. “A middleman on the trading floor has Callidum.”

Sometimes, the most dangerous things in the Universe were the quietest. Torin was glad he was Enki’s battle-equal, because otherwise, he would be very wary of the bastard.

“What’s your status?” Whispering back, Torin kept one ear on the situation unfolding before him, and one ear on his conversation with Enki.

“Observing.”

“You need backup?”

“No.”

“Soon?”

“I will inform you if and when. I am waiting for the buyer to appear.”

“You’re such an easy man to work with, Enki.” Torin’s voice was laced with gentle irony. “That’s convenient for me, because I’m tied up with something right now. Holler if you need me, and remember, you don’t always have to kill everyone in sight. Try not to cause too much collateral damage, my brother.”

“Hm.” The comm went silent. Torin thought about going to see what Enki was up to, but decided against it. If Enki said he didn’t need backup, then he didn’t need backup.

That suited Torin just fine.

He took a deep breath as he moved into position behind a large freighter crate. The bulky thing blocked most of his view, but he didn’t really need to see everything when he could hear perfectly well.

A low hum reached his ears. It was the familiar sound of a ship’s boarding ramp, slowly extending until it hit the floor with a soft tap.

Footsteps. Ephrenian. The rhythm gave them away. Slender and long-limbed, the mysterious ones walked with a unique cadence that had stuck in Torin’s mind ever since he first caught a glimpse of the beings on the ocean planet of Nuar-Katha.

If they were typical Ephrenians, their features would be hidden beneath shimmering helmets which also provided breathing support. That was because Ephrenians didn’t breathe the same atmospheric air as everyone else in the Nine Galaxies. Apparently, the air on their home planet of Yaragon was life-sustaining to the Ephrenians, but toxic to everyone else.

Taptaptap.

Torin caught six different sets of footsteps. Six Ephrenians walking out to meet twenty-seven humans. The Ephrenians clearly weren’t intimidated by the humans, and why would they be? Their ship was probably emitting an energy-dampening field. Human bolt-weapons would be useless here. Even Torin’s plasma guns would be a little less powerful inside a dampening field.

The footsteps stopped. The two parties had assembled.

“We’ve come to make the exchange.” A human spoke first. The low voice that rang out him reminded him so strongly of Earth. Rich. Warm. Colorful. Just like the sun-drenched planet. It almost made him miss the cursed place.

Instinctively, he knew it was her, the observant one. Surprise, surprise. She spoke passable Ephrenian.

Humans never failed to astonish him.

And what was this about an exchange? What in Kaiin’s Hells were these humans up to?

“The terms have changed.” The Ephrenian spoke in sterile, accentless Universal, not acknowledging the human’s attempt to speak their language. “There is another bidder.”

“Supply was guaranteed,” another human—a stocky male—snapped, his voice crackling with impatience. “You can’t change the terms now. The weapons are ours.”

“On Zarhab Groht, nothing is guaranteed until credits are exchanged. You were given an opportunity to make an offer, and your initial bid was acceptable, but now another party has offered more.”

“This is a breach of our—”

“Sa anku vakosh.” We did not come here to play games. The female cut the angry man in two with her deliciously calm voice. “How can we get what we want?”

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