Page 11 of Shattered Silence

The thought of those honorless Imperial bastards laying their hands on one of the humans they’d sworn to protect…

It was maddening.

Lodan blinked. “Are you… with us, brother?”

Enki stared at him, irritated that the others always seemed to treat him with a shade of caution—with the exception of his offsider, Torin. Aside from General Tarak and the medics, none of them knew the exact details of his unique little problem, but being elite warriors, they were all highly observant in their own way.

They knew something was up with him, and this scrutiny… it got under his skin.

“Is there a problem?” He might be defective, but he could still hold his own, could still function.

“Your eyes, brother.”

“Ah.” Nobody had been able to explain why Enki’s eyes changed color sometimes, turning from their usual dark amber to an unnerving green, of all things. Zyara had run countless tests, scanning him from head to toe. She’d found nothing.

When he’d demanded answers from the Tharian, the cursed wraith had just laughed.

“Do you have a lock on her location?” he asked, changing the subject. “We need to move.” Time was running out. The longer they took to get to Layla, the more she would suffer.

As much as he hated to admit it, the Tharian was right about her. Despite her state of total helplessness, she clung so stubbornly to the promise of life.

The thought of Daegan’s medical unit laying their filthy hands on her made him a little angry, and that was good, because Enki thought he’d forgotten how to be angry.

“I’m on it.” Lodan’s expression turned distant as he took hold of the controls, his large hands appearing oddly graceful as they settled into the familiar grooves of the stealth cruiser’s manual navigator.

From what Enki had observed, flying a Kordolian ship required sharp reflexes and an iron will. The sylth was a responsive, organic thing, and the language of control was spoken through touch and movement. A sylth had to be coaxed and commanded, and a good pilot could push these machines far beyond their theoretical limits.

“Her signal’s still open. That’s good. I have the location trace, and we’re…”

Boom. There was a distant thud as Lodan pushed the Virdan X beyond hyperspeed, into the place where dimensions warped and strange things happened.

Then Lodan cursed viciously in some old tongue of the Lost Tribes, the words coming from some deep part of him that hadn’t been erased inside the Swallowing Pit, the dark facility where he and Enki and the rest of the First Division were slowly and excruciatingly transformed into something not-quite Kordolian.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just lost them. Cloaking must have kicked in again. That means they’re moving fast.”

“And the human?” To his surprise, Enki’s trickle of anger turned into something deeper and darker; a kind of desperation.

All this, over a human?

“Her signal’s gone too. Then—”

“They have her.”

The almost imperceptible sound of soft footsteps made Enki glance over his shoulder. Nythian appeared behind them, and Enki knew he’d allowed them to hear his approach on purpose.

It was a courtesy thing; a way of announcing oneself.

“Blink and you’ve missed it,” he growled. “If the signal’s disappeared, what are the chances of finding them again?” Dressed in full battle-armor and armed to the teeth, he looked ready for war even as he casually leaned against the wall, folding his arms.

“Like spotting a fucking szkazajik in an ice-storm.” Lodan closed his eyes, flying by feel rather than sight. “I can’t believe they just slipped out of view like that.”

Nythian hissed in frustration.

A terrible coldness spread through Enki as he remembered Layla’s soft, desperate plea.

I need your help.

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