The blade pricked like a bee sting. I didn’t dare swallow.
“She’s disrespectful.” Mwende didn’t lower her weapon, which directly defied my uncle’s order.
“Have I given her any reason to respect me?” he asked.
The question caught me off guard. Frowning, I eased back for some breathing room between my neck and Sanaa and her knife skills. I’d loved my mother unconditionally, but Uncle Nate had been the person I’d respected most in the whole galaxy—until he’d bought into the Overseer’s crap and dumped Mom and me.
Mwende finally stepped back, sheathing her blade in one smooth motion. “People cannot know what you do not tell them.”
Well, don’t be cryptic or anything.I scowled. The lieutenant’s chin lifted, her assessing once-over carrying a hint of challenge. If she thought I was going to ask, she was mistaken. Whatever explanations Bridgebane had for his behavior toward me or anyone else in the galaxy were going to have to die with these two, because I didn’t give two fucks.
Maybe one fuck, but not two.
My lips tightening, I touched my neck and glanced at my fingers. No blood. Mwende hadn’t even broken the skin, despite the quick jab toward my jugular. “Now that we’re done waving knives around, can we please get back to Shiori? A code? A guard shift schedule? Anything? I know you don’t want me to die—thanks, by the way”—my uncle’s eyes narrowed at my tone—“so a hint would be really helpful.”
He glanced at his lieutenant, as if she had a say in his decisions. She gave him aWhat the hell are you waiting forkind of look, as though she couldn’t fathom why he was still just standing there like an idiot.
Apparently, shedidhave a say. Interesting. I’d never imagined him having a…partner? For some reason, the idea made me like them both just a little bit better. Nothing about the way they interacted led me to believe they were lovers, but there was definitely something between them. Trust. Maybe friendship.
Bridgebane hovered in what looked like a state of indecision, shocking me. I couldn’t claim to know my uncle well anymore, but I’d never seen him hesitate. Mwende took the next step for him, shocking me even further. She produced the small tablet again, shoved it into his chest, and let go. Bridgebane grabbed it before it fell. He glowered at her.
“There is a secure location where she could pick up information.” Mwende clearly hinted at something they both knew about. “Just print out a key card. Give her the address. Unlock the door, General.”
I wanted to scream, “What door?” but didn’t. It took considerable effort to stay quiet and let them work out whatever this was between them.
My uncle clenched his free hand into a fist against his thigh and started tapping it. He looked at the sky. He looked down. He looked at the tablet. His mouth puckered, flattened. His feet shifted.What the hell is wrong with him?
“Fine.” The word shot from him like a bullet. He glared at Mwende. “But this is on you if it backfires.”
She nodded, accepting the consequences. Were they talking about something other than just the colossal danger of us trying to get in and out of Starbase 12 undetected? It felt like more than that, but I couldn’t figure out the second layer of their conversation.
Bridgebane’s hand flew over the screen, which he hid from me. His tapping was hard and precise, almost aggressive. He jabbed his finger down a final time and then waited. A moment later, a key card began slowly emerging from the side slot, the internal printer almost silent. He caught it when the tablet spit it out and rubbed his thumb over the raised dots of the encoded data. I reached for it, but he lifted it away from me, his grip so hard his fingers whitened.
“If I come up with something to help you recover Shiori Takashi, I’ll leave it here in five days. Will that be sufficient?”
Sufficient?To be honest, I was flabbergasted. Who was this man? He knew Shiori’s name, where she was, and what condition she was in? He must have found out forme, for our meeting today. How had Bridgebane gone from telling me he would kill me if he ever saw me again to helping me? How could the same person threaten Mareeka and Surral, take my blood for the Overseer, and still do something decent?
Confusion tied me up in knots as I held out my hand for the key card again. “Where’s ‘here’?” I asked, because there was no way in hell I was asking any of the other questions I wanted to blurt out.
“Sanaa knows the address.” He handed the key card to his lieutenant.
What?“What?” I said aloud this time. My eyes widening, my head swiveled first to her and then back to my uncle. I stared at him blankly. “She’s not coming with us.”
“No way,” Shade said, shaking his head along with me.
Sanaa Mwende barked out a laugh that could have cut diamonds. She looked at the key card in her hand and then at Bridgebane. Two seconds later, she went off on him in a language I didn’t recognize, treating him to a one-sided tirade he didn’t appear to understand, either, but listened to with stony patience, not interrupting.
My ears automatically perked to the unfamiliar sounds pouring from her mouth on livid syllables. With her high, proud forehead, starless-night eyes, unmistakable fierceness, and clear devotion to my uncle, this woman got more interesting by the second. Only a generously calculated one percent of the galaxy’s population still spoke something other than the universal language, imposed on all at the start of the exodus for sheer convenience in a time of danger. And Mwende wasn’t using only a word or two, passed down like keepsakes. This was a whole outburst, only none of us could understand it.
She finally switched back to the universal tongue, seamlessly continuing her rant with words we could comprehend again. “You worry about her—day in and day out. For two weeks now, ever since you found her. ‘Oh, the girl. We must protect her.’ You send me with her? Then who protectsyounow?”
Bridgebane scowled. “I don’t need protection.”
Mwende snorted as if that were the stupidest thing she’d ever heard. “This?” She pointed the key card at herself. “Is not what I was suggesting.”
“Yes, I understood that, Sanaa. Thank you for your input.” Bridgebane pocketed the tablet instead of giving it back to her. He took the cooler with the blood bags also.
Mwende shoved the key card into the bag she still carried, muttering again in her own language.
