“You’re ruining my breakfast,” Kira informed Raider, unhappy to have lost the chance to taste the new dish.
Raider didn’t seem concerned as he tilted his head at Finn. “Do you think he really can’t hear us or is he just pretending?”
The oshota had taken a seat on Kira’s settee and was now staring at them from the other side of the window as he slowly ate his food.
“It’s hard keeping secrets from an oshota,” Kira said.
One side of Raider’s mouth lifted. “Are you telling me there are still things Finn doesn’t know about you?”
Kira gave him a thin smile. “I said hard; not impossible.”
Raider smirked as a husky chuckle rumbled from his chest. “Something tells me you always have a few tricks up your sleeve. Secrets you’re not willing to part with.”
Kira didn’t laugh with him, regarding Raider with a steady gaze.
Somehow, she didn’t think he’d come all this way to ask her what secrets she’d shared with Finn.
Raider turned serious, the look in his eyes deepening as he pinned Kira with an intense gaze. “I’m giving you one last chance, Phoenix.”
Kira reached for the tea next to her and lifted the cup to her lips. She took her time taking a sip as she waited.
“I didn’t say anything earlier because we were on a Tuann ship, and I know how paranoid you are. Since I share in your paranoia, I decided to be patient.” Raider leaned forward, a slight threat in his expression. “But now we’re no longer on that ship. It’s time to come clean and tell me what you know about Elise.”
“I’m surprised you waited this long.”
Raider arched an eyebrow. “You’re not going to deny it?”
“There’s no point, is there?”
Kira could see from his expression that she was right. Raider wasn’t going to let this drop.
In all truthfulness, he, more than anyone, had the right to know everything Kira did.
“Just answer me one thing—is Elise on this planet?”
Kira’s gaze shifted as Jin joined them, his engines almost silent as he lifted over the balcony.
“If I say yes, what will you do?”
Some of the fight went out of Raider, a mask dropping down as his gaze turned distant. “You encountered Elise on Alamluc.”
Raider’s certainty left Kira with no room for denial. Not that she’d planned to anyway.
“That’s how you knew the other one was a fake,” he said to himself as if Kira had only confirmed something he’d long suspected. His gaze locked on hers. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“She’s working with the generals.”
Kira caught the faint tightening around his eyes that whispered of his instinctive denial. The same one she’d felt when she saw Elise at a general’s side.
“Could she have been brainwashed?” he asked after a long moment spent conquering his emotions.
Kira shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
Elise had seemed too like herself with no signs she was acting under duress. Many of the things she’d said were the types of things the Elise Kira knew would have said.
Raider stood in an explosive movement, crossing to the balcony to stare at the ocean beyond.
“I’m trying to decide if I’m angrier about the thought that she might be a traitor or the fact that this is the second time we’ve been on the same planet, and she has made no attempt to contact me.” Raider’s fists clenched on the balcony, giving away the amount of anger he was pretending didn’t exist.
