“My crew? You’ve talked to them.”
Dr. Cohen nodded. “Yes, they’re here. I’ve asked them to assemble in the conference room, well, I call it a ‘conference room’. I haven’t quite figured out Zantharian protocol completely yet.”
Dr. Cohen’s words filled Brook with joy. Her crew was alive! And safe!
In a daze, Brook followed behind the human female as she led her into an adjoining room. At least part of her crew stood assembled there.
Dr. Tan and Amanda Chao were talking quietly to each other. Their faces lit up with twin smiles when they caught sight of her.
“Captain!” Chao said. “You’re alive!”
Brook gave them a wave. “Glad I can say the same about you.”
Lieutenant Brunt, a.k.a. Lieutenant Cheerful, looked to be anything but happy at the moment. He was talking to a Zantharian female, his hands gesturing wildly, his face frustrated. “You aren’t listening to me!”
Brook moved beside him and coughed politely, but that didn’t seem to capture their attention. So, using her Captain’s voice to its fullest, she said, “Lieutenant, report!”
He trailed off mid-word, noticing her, and immediately grabbed her and pulled her into a tight hug. “Captain! I didn’t think we’d ever see you again.”
There was a growl from behind her. “Get your hands off my mate or lose them.”
Brook moved away from her second-in-command and looked back over her shoulder to see Ontarii, having gone full yellow.
“It’s okay,” she said, wondering what she’d gotten herself into. They’d have to have a talk about overprotectiveness soon.
Turning back, she spared a glance at the lieutenant’s companion. The Zantharian female was tall, her body lithe and muscular. Her dark eyes were boring into Brook’s, looking confrontational. Her skin seemed a shade lighter than before.
Hmm… What’s going on here?
“Fill me in on what’s happening,” she told her crew.
“After you’d left with this one,” Cheerful said, gesturing at Ontarii, “we waited. After a few moments, you both came back. He told his crew to remain on the ship with you, Talia, and the others, while the rest of us were taken to the flagship. We thought it was you, so we followed orders, even though I didn’t want to leave you alone.”
Brook nodded. “It’s understandable.”
He continued. “On the flagship, we met this one, Kat’Chinna, Ontarii’s second. Long story short, we figured out that the Ontarii we’d brought back wasn’t the real one.”
He frowned suddenly. “Where’s Mike? And Diego? And Talia?”
Brook shook her head sadly. “Mike and Diego didn’t make it. Talia was the Hareema plant. Although there had to be more.”
“Oh, there were more, at least two others.”
“How do you know this?”
Cheerful gave her a smile. “Because I caught one, and it talked.”
Kat’Chinna frowned at her companion. Apparently his enthusiasm didn’t sit well with her.
Ontarii sounded amazed. “You have a Hareema prisoner? We haven’t managed to catch one in centuries. How did you do it?”
“It’s all in the wrists,” the lieutenant joked.
This made the Zantharian female’s expression darken even further.
The Supreme Regent stepped forward and silence reigned. “We will discuss all of this further shortly. We have briefings scheduled all day. For now, I’d like to discuss assignments.”
Brook felt overwhelmed suddenly. She’d just broken out of prison, escaped death at the hands of the Hareema, and landed on an alien world. What she really wanted was a hot meal and an even hotter shower.
