Ushara scowled at his words. “Alone?”
He nodded. “I don’t have anyone else I trust, really. Don’t want a stranger at my back. Not about to drag Julie or Fain into this. So if I fall, it’s only on my ass. And there’s no one to really grieve over it.”
Ushara wrinkled her nose. “Why don’t you hit the showers before you leave?”
“What?” Bastien asked in an offended tone. “You saying I stink?”
Trajen snorted. “Well, you did just spend two hours beating the utter hell out of my field admiral. You both smell like something rotted and dead. How Ushara can stand being this close to either of you while pregnant, I have no idea.”
Bastien laughed. “Fine. I can take a hint.” He headed for the locker room.
As soon as he was gone, Ushara dug out her link.
Jullien scowled at her. “What are you doing?”
“Hailing someone. Obviously.”
Jullien met Trajen’s gaze. A cold feeling went through his gut at her unexpected vague answer. He was usually the evasive ass, not her. “Who?”
She ignored his question. “Hey, this is Admiral Samari. I know you requested reassignment yesterday and that we were meeting about it tomorrow. Believe it or not, something interesting came up tonight. It’s an outside mission. For Kirovar, but it’s something I think you might be interested in.” She paused to listen. “Yeah. You want to meet us in the North Bay in a few minutes?” A smile curved her lips. “Great. I’ll see you then.”
Trajen growled low in his throat. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Yes.”
Completely confounded as his powers failed him, Jullien turned toward Trajen. “Could someone cluemein?”
Ushara tucked her link away. “Jay has grounded herself for a few months. She wants to spend more time with her kids, and let her husband do the runs. So some of her crew has requested temporary reassignments.”
“Okay…”
“I’m thinking one of them would make a perfect point for Bastien.”
While Jullien appreciated the thought, he knew that wouldn’t play well with his cousin. Bas was even more paranoid than he was. And with good reason. Once you’d been through the kind of betrayal they’d suffered, it tended to stay with you.
“Shara… Bas isn’t going to put someone at his back he doesn’t know.”
“Yeah, but she has Gyron Force training. He has to respect that.”
It wouldn’t matter. In fact, that could be worse. If they knew each other, it could even anger Bas.
Jullien pulled his shirt on and groaned out loud. “Trajen, tell her what a bad idea this is. For all we know, they could be enemies.”
“I don’t think so,” Ushara insisted. “She left Kirovar and joined The Tavali because of the overthrow.”
“What was her rank?”
“Major.”
Trajen crossed his arms over his chest. “Let them meet. See if they get along.”
He made it sound easy, but Jullien knew better. He also knew better than to argue with the two of them. They invariably won. Trajen because he wouldn’t give in. Ushara because she fought dirty.
Jullien tossed the towel in a bin. “Fine. I don’t want him to do this alone anyway.”
Bastien came out of the shower with a weird feeling in his gut. Something wasn’t right. He didn’t know what, but something in the air had changed.
By the time they were in the North Bay, his skin was crawling as if it were alive.
