Stupid.
Stupid thoughts. She had to get them out of her head.
Focus on something.
Anything.
The jungle. The dirt. The environment. Trees. Leaves. Branches. The life that bounced high in the trees. Noise. An ambiance that was relaxing, well, it would be, if she weren’t trying to complete her task.
Wrathin remained in front, and moved overgrowth as needed, holding open spaces for her, and returning the branches and shrubs back to their original position. Glancing back the way they came, there was hardly any evidence they had been there at all.
She raised her eyebrow. “You’re careful about the plant life,” she said after he’d opened the fourth place for her to step through.
“If they do not see the broken plants, they will not know where we are.”
“Ahh,” Veta said. In an urban setting, she knew how to hide herself, it was natural. Here in a jungle setting, it seemed she had a lot to learn.
She just had to get to someplace to communicate—to find out if the princesses, and the rest of the party, for that matter, were alive. Were they being hunted by the Terrans as well? Or was this a vendetta against her, specifically?
Either was possible.
She reported to the emperor.
Hence the reason she was here.
To report back to the emperor about the negotiations.
Though she hadn’t expected to be fighting Terrans on Rhimodian soil. After the initial attack in space, she’d thought it was just the retaliation from the Terran ship. A logical response to the ambassador’s ship blowing up.
Then they showed up here, looking for her. With a kill order.
Not good.
How had they been able to track her? This team had new players, and they spoke like they worked directly for the emperor. She made a point of knowing all the players.
Evidently, she’d missed some.
What had she missed?
“How did you know they were coming?” Wrathin asked her, his first words to her in a while.
“One of their communicators,” she said. It had crackled, a sound that she knew all too well, and knew someone was transmitting information. Woke her out of a rather comfortable nap with Wrathin, to be exact.
She’d leaped off the cave floor and ran through to pick up the device, just in time to hear the chatter. Or enough of the chatter, anyway, to know that someone was coming.
“Communications are problematic here. Especially during an eclipse.”
“These are more for on-site communications. Short-range,” she said. “It didn’t pick up much, just that they were closing in on some caves.”
He nodded. “I would be interested in that tech after.”
She raised her eyebrow. His words gave her pause. Was that what his people wanted? Tech? Didn’t they have enough of that already? “I’m not authorized to give you my tech.” She gritted her teeth. “You have plenty of tech. Leave us something.”
He didn't say anything, just kept walking.
Of course, neither did she.
This was stupid.
