With one last glance at Nia, Mace strode toward the door, intent on following the team to the brig.
A hand on his wrist stopped him. Nia stood there, eyes round. The heat of her fingers below his vambrace sent tingles flowing across his skin.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Don’t worry. He won’t be bothering you again.”
“No, no. That’s not good.”
Mace frowned. “You want him to bother you?”
“No, of course not.”
Mace shook his head. She made no sense. Maybe it was the effects of the head injury. When she removed her hand, he had the urge to return it to its place.
“Don’t hurt him. He’s been through a trauma,” she continued. “Some people don’t know how to deal with extreme situations.”
“The man assaulted you,” Mace ground between clenched teeth.
“I know, but he was injured too. Once he’s calmed, we can talk—”
“Once he’s—?” Mace needed to stop speaking, and shook his head. “He’ll get nowhere near you again. I’ll see to it.”
Without looking back, he strode through the door.
Chapter twelve
AssoonasMacestepped onto the lift, his vambrace beeped with a communique with Cache’s insignia, priority one from the command center.
His hand hovered over the controls. He wanted to ignore the summons, to follow through with his need to gain vengeance for Nia, when her words rattled in his mind.Some people don’t know how to deal with extreme situations.
She might as well have been talking about Mace, because he wasn’t dealing with her attack and injury well at all.
He tried not to notice how his hands shook when he touched the control for the command center. With a deep breath, he realized this was probably a good thing. Walking into an interrogation room enraged was a mistake.
By the time he strode through the command center’s security scanner, he’d regained control of himself. Mostly.
All the commanders and sub-commanders had already arrived ahead of him again. Foley’s eyes tracked him as he walked toward the group, his arms crossed. If the commander wanted to have a go at him, Mace was happy to oblige. It would relieve some of what boiled inside him. But when they locked eyes, Foley’s expression turned into a grin. Unsettled, Mace took his place beside Grey.
Cache clunked a gun onto the holotable. Everyone leaned in for a closer look.
Pushing his volatile emotions aside, and ignoring Foley’s disquieting stare, Mace focused on the weapon. He hadn’t seen anything quite like it. About the same length as a pulse cannon, it was made of black metal composite, sleek, the barrel about fifteen centimeters in diameter. A void occupied most of the shoulder rest, like it was incomplete.
Cache waited for the murmurs to settle around her. Meeting each of her commanders’ gazes, she narrowed her eyes at the weapon. “One of our scouting missions came across a rogue cruiser in Sector Four. They found this,” she said with a jerk of her chin, “on board.”
“It looks like it’s missing something, sir,” Mace commented, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Yes, it’s the charge and the payload,” Cache replied. A collective wince shuddered through the commanders, and she didn’t have to say her next words. “We’re talking bio-weapons here, people.”
“Proof?” Commander Sheefra asked.
If they had proof, they could pull out their existing treaty with the CORE and wave it their sanctimonious faces.
Cache shook her head. “Not in this catch. We have the hardware but none of the ammo.”
“How do we know it’s a bio-weapon then?” Grey asked.
“Commander Foley has been interrogating the occupant of the cruiser. We’ve received solid information from his efforts. The man was on his way to meet a contact.”
