“You do not think Jace will withhold these things from the Alliance?” he asked softly.
She squinted at him as if she weren’t sure what she was seeing. “Jace wants to get rid of the Khul because that’s best for everyone. I’m sure he’ll ask for a security force for Earth and humanity as a member of the Alliance but that’s completely standard and your mother shouldn’t have a problem with it.”
She should not. Yet she has the power to give them what they want, he realized. She has no bargaining power at all.
“Humans are not useless in a fight, you know? Or maybe you don’t fully yet understand them,” she said. “It’s not just Jace–though obviously he’s super charged–but Jack and the other pilots are pretty damned great.”
“Humans do not have the reflexes necessary to–”
“They might not be as good as us in that area, but they have instincts,” she said with a nod as if agreeing with herself. “I let Jack, ah, fly a few times.”
“That is against regulations!”
“Uhm, well, yeah, but who was going to know? I was the only Alliance person there until you showed up,” she said a little sheepishly. “And he loved it. So it was worth it. Besides, I can report to you that humanity can fly. We’re constantly looking for pilots for the outer rim worlds. They’ll love to go instead of twisting other Alliance members' arms to do so.”
If only the other members would allow humanity in! The more Khoth thought of this, the worse it became. It would be so simple to let humanity join, have them earn their place, and change the other members’ opinions of them! But no, that won’t even be considered!
He suddenly saw one of those moving colored lines that had directed them to the Armory appear on the floor of the hanger bay. He knew that it would lead him to Jace. He started walking along it at a fast clip. Thammah quickly raced after him.
“Ah, some advice, Commander,” she said as she pumped her slightly shorter legs to keep up with him.
“Advice on what?” Khoth asked.
“If you’re going to speak to Jace, I would recommend you get your Xi and Xa in order first,” she said. “The kid has had enough ups and downs for one day. He needs a break. So, oh, emotional one, let’s talk it out.”
He stopped walking. She staggered a few steps ahead of him and wobbled around to face him. Anger raced through him. It was not directed truly at her. He knew this intellectually. It was with his mother. It was with the Alliance. It was likely mostly with himself. And yet, he found himself getting angry at her flippancy and the ease with which she claimed to know his emotional state.
It is most irritating because she is right!
But perhaps he should use this. Use it to end their budding friendship. His life with the Alliance was over, but hers didn’t have to be, he reminded himself. Yet even if she had no role in his determination to tell Jace the truth about his mother’s plans or did nothing to help them in it, she would still be blamed if she was close to him in any way. He needed to sever their relationship.
“My Xi and Xa are perfectly in balance, Flight Commander Pyrrhus,” his tone was clipped and cold, impersonal once more. A Commander’s voice. “I suggest that you go back to the Kryptoria II and review the flight manual--”
“Khoth,” she interrupted him almost sweetly, but there was a steely glint in her eyes. “You have no poker face so stop with the nonsense that you’re fine. You are so not fine.”
“Is poker not a game? I do not see how it relates to my face,” he said firmly.
“Poker is a card game where the way you win, beyond luck as to how the cards are dealt, is to bluff people. Make them think you have a great hand or a horrible hand, anything but the hand you have,” she explained. “And you cannot bluff me now. I know you don’t have a good hand. What is wrong? What happened on the Ashaton?”
He thought he was hiding his concerns. He was bathed in an icy coldness. He was perfectly composed. And yet, Thammah knew that something was very wrong. This was disturbing. It meant that he was misreading himself or his impact on others at that moment. He had to push her back on her heels. He had to distract her Xi so that he could protect her from what was to come.
“Why are you here?” Khoth asked in his haughtiest tone.
“Here? In front of you?” She blinked. “I’m trying to help you, or at least, stop you from messing up your relationship with Jace because of something your mother said.”
The closeness of her words to the situation was astonishing. She knew him so well already. He would lose much when he lost her. But he pushed on, “No, I meant on Earth.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Why does that even matter–”
“Because I want to understand the quality of the person I am taking advice from,” he said stiffly.
“Quality?” She stepped back. Her expression went blank.
He felt a stab of pain. He wanted to stop this. But it was for the best.
So he pushed on and said, “I know the mistakes I made that got me here, but you? I know nothing about it other than you cannot follow orders.”
“Orders? Yeah, like rules? Like the big rule you broke? You and I are the same,” she said.
