She recognized the tread.Singer’s.A brand popular with miners and long-distance freight haulers.Most everyone on Titan wore them.Including her at one point.
“You should have seen it before,” Az said with an odd, wistful note as she knelt on one knee, touching the compacted dirt and charred debris that the ship’s backwash had made.
“It must have taken them years to create something of this magnitude,” Kira offered.
Az brushed the dirt off her fingers and rose.“Almost two decades.”
Kira turned with Az.“Find anything interesting during your search?”
“A few things.”
Kira waited, hoping this wasn’t one of those times when she had to drag out the information kicking and screaming.She was going to be really irritated if that was the case.
Bez slid down a mound of dirt, dislodging a small avalanche of loose soil and rock.He tossed something down beside her.
“What’s this?”Kira asked, examining what looked like a side panel of a ship.
“Confirmation that Caius was here.”
Bez reached down, flipping the metal over to show the etching on the other side.
“Is that Tuann?”
Kira was better at speaking Tuann than writing or reading it, but she did possess some familiarity.
“Alair.It’s part of an ancient Tuann dialect.It means brutal current,” Bez explained.
“It’s also the name of Caius’s personal ship,” Az added.
Crap.
“Caius never made it off the planet then,” Kira said.
Honestly, she never thought he had.The whole purpose of this mission was to trace his last steps and see exactly where he had gone missing.
It appeared they had their answer.
“Not on his own ship at least,” Az agreed.
Kira nodded.“We got what we came for.Let’s rendezvous with the rest of our people and head back to the world gate.”
“You can’t be serious.”Bez looked at Az for support.“We’re close.We can’t just leave.”
“We’re not leaving.We’re regrouping.”
Kira didn’t like being out of contact with the rest of their party.Anything could happen and they would never know.
The pirates operating out of Titan were notorious for being unpredictable and merciless.Kira didn’t want to lose someone just because Bez and his pod got careless.
“No.”
Kira looked at Bez.“Excuse me?”
She couldn’t have heard that right.It had been a long time since she’d been in a position of command so she was a little rusty, but insubordination was still a thing, right?
“No,” Bez bit out.“If you want to go back, go.We’re staying to continue the hunt.”
“I thought that was what you said,” Kira said with an easy smile that masked the anger beginning to bubble in her veins.“You must not understand the chain of command.It’s a difficult concept so I’ll break it down for you.Harlow placed me in charge of this mission.That makes it my call.”
