“I’m glad you like it,” Gus murmured into her own mug.
Bolstered by how not terrible the chai was, Anandra tried the food in front of him.His first small bite was followed by a second, much larger one.
Soon, he was shoveling the food down his gullet as fast as it would go.
Gus was a little afraid he might choke if he didn’t slow down.
“Tell me about those men,” Gus said when Anandra had worked through the majority of his plate.
Anandra paused in the act of chewing.“You didn’t want to know earlier.What’s changed?”
“Everything.”
For starters, someone was using her organization in ways that it was never meant to be used.
Gus couldn’t tell him that, however.Not without losing the small amount of trust she’d built through food and a beverage meant to remind him of better times.
Anandra played with the handle of his mug as he stared at Gus.“You’re Tuann.Are you a wanderer like me?”
Gus started to answer then paused, considering.The definition of a wanderer was someone who existed without the protection of a House.In that sense, Gus fit.She and the rest of the forty-three walked this universe alone.Only their skills to protect them.
“You could say that,” Gus allowed.
Anandra seemed to find her answer reassuring, his expression relaxing.“Where’s your enclave?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Me neither,” Anandra admitted glumly.“Not anymore.”
To a person who’d been trained not to miss people when they were gone, his grief felt unfamiliar.Gus didn’t know what it was to mourn.She’d never had ties deep enough to miss someone nor did she have the luxury.
Now, seeing how broken Anandra was, she thought that might be a good thing.
“They came in droves,” Anandra whispered, a distant look in his eyes that said he was no longer entirely present.He was back there.Witnessing the attack that upended his life and thrust him into a nightmare.“They used strange weapons and knew things about our defenses that they never should have known.”
Gus hummed into her beverage.“Probably the work of a plant.”
It could explain how they breached the defenses of a wanderer’s enclave.No easy feat given how paranoid that group tended to be.
Seeing Anandra’s look of confusion, Gus lowered the mug and expanded.“It’s a favorite tactic of the pirate clans infesting this sector.They send in someone who looks harmless.Someone you’d never suspect as a threat.That person then gathers intel on the target, getting the lay of the land before passing that information back to the assault team waiting in the wings.”
She was surprised a wanderer enclave fell for it though.
There had to be deeper things at play.Maybe the weapons Anandra mentioned.She also couldn’t discount the possibility of internal betrayal either.
The Tuann did love their grudges.
“There was a child,” Anandra reminisced.
“Human?”
Anandra shook his head.“Tuann.”
Gus’s hand clenched around the handle of her mug.The only sign of her distress.“You’re sure?”
Anandra didn’t seem to notice Gus’s tone as he nodded.“Very sure.My—mom—did the medical checkup.”
Gus noticed the way he stumbled over the word mom.Along with how quickly he recovered afterward.
