1
Special Forces commander,Ethan Hyt, knew his arrival in the city of Nanganya had landed like a large rock in a still pool.
He felt the ripples and splashes in the looks of interest and curiosity on the one end, and outright dislike and fear on the other.
It was the dislike and fear that he was having to deal with now. Sensing the mood in the interrogation room, he was sure now that every accusation he’d come to Nanganya to investigate was probably true.
The two heads of department he’d called in looked as shifty as only the truly guilty could look.
And furious that someone from the planet’s capital was here to ask them uncomfortable questions.
“I don’t know why I’m here.” Demilla Garret, the Head of Support Services for Nanganya Special Forces, sounded mulish.
Her mouth had been in a sulky pout since Ethan had called her in for questioning, and he forced his irritation at her down.
“You don’t?” he asked, lifting his eyebrows. “I thought I made it very clear.”
She shot a quick, nervous, sidelong glance at Ferris Harden, Nanganya’s Special Forces commander and her boss, and Ethan leaned back against the desk he had been standing in front of with a sense of satisfaction.
Now they were getting somewhere.
He let the silence stretch out, and Ferris Harden’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “How would you feel if I came waltzing into Demeter and started hauling you and your people into an interrogation room, Ethan?”
Ethan gave a slow nod. “I’d be pissed,” he agreed. “But I would also be curious. And you haven’t asked a single question since I ‘hauled’ you in, as you put it. Which tells me you know exactly why you’re here.”
Ferris Harden leaned back in his chair. He glanced over at the fourth person in the room, Pamela Ingot, the Head of the Protection Units in Nanganya. She was the only person present who was legally able to mete out any consequences for whatever she and Ethan discovered from this interrogation, and it was her who’d been sending him the interested and curious looks.
It relaxed him a little, because of everyone, she seemed genuinely unsure why he was here and puzzled by his actions.
Which made him think she was innocent.
Which was good, because Ethan had no rights to arrest anyone in Nanganya.
He’d been appointed special envoy by the Head of Defense for the whole planet of Aponi, Velda Shanïha, and she’d given him permission to question anyone he deemed interesting, but she’d also sent Pamela Ingot along with him, to help with his investigation.
Pamela, for her part, had her game face on, which Ethan appreciated. He knew she was friendly with Ferris Harden, and it was usually a good thing for the Special Forces and Protection Unit commanders of a city to be on speaking terms.
“Looking for some help from an ally?” he asked.
Both Pamela Ingot and Harden turned their gazes on him.
He quirked his lips. “I know you’ve previously had a cordial relationship, but I’ve told Commander Ingot what the stakes are here, and what we know so far.”
“And would you care to tell me?” Ferris Harden asked.
“Sure.” Ethan finally sat down on the edge of the desk. “You are either being paid or blackmailed to keep the discovery of an ancestral shipwreck on Ytla from the Aponian government. You set Wren Thorakis up on Ytla four months ago to be kidnapped by the people searching for parts of the ship, in order to send them the supplies they desperately needed under the guise of ransom for her release, and when she stumbled across a part of the ship when she escaped, you tried to keep her quiet, and when that didn’t work, tried to have her killed.”
“Wren Thorakis was kidnapped by the Har Met Vent,” Demilla Grant objected. “Not . . . whoever it was you just said.”
Ethan waited a beat for Harden to add anything, and when he didn’t, he gripped the edge of the desk and leaned forward. “The Har Met Vent is a front, a group of mercenaries pretending to be a religious cult in order to find and steal the technology from the ancestral wreck they’ve already found part of on Ytla. It broke up into pieces on crash landing, but the presence of a university research group that has recently been conducting unrelated studies on Ytla made it difficult for the Har Met Vent to move around, and to get the supplies they needed without some questions being raised by Aponi Defense. The two of you came up with a kidnap plot where you could provide the Har Met Vent with the supplies they desperately needed under the guise of a ransom payment.”
“I didn’t come up with anything.” Demilla Garret fairly vibrated with outrage.
“You didn’t say anything when Ferris here lied to Wren’s face and told her the wreck she’d found was a research vessel that had gone down years before.” Ethan tilted his head.
Demilla shot Harden another sidelong look. “You said you were humoring her.”
Harden didn’t even look over at her. “If this information is coming from Wren Thorakis, you have to understand she’s traumatized. She was held prisoner by the cult, and then spent three days after her escape making her way back to our camp. She’s . . . delicate.”
