“No.” Although those Balcoans thought they had.
It made sense only if they were being fed information by either the Tecran or Garmman who’d originally been involved in building the Class 5s. Because the five thinking systems they had found to go along with the blueprints to build the battleships had been housed in crystals.
Not crystals like her trophy, though. Slim crystals the width and length of her little finger.
She hadn’t seen Eazi’s original crystal housing since she’d gone down to Balco’s desert with Hal a year ago. He had hidden himself and she had never asked him about it again.
She’d also never discussed it with anyone. Not even Hal.
Which meant those Balcoans could only know to look for a crystal of some kind if they had insider knowledge.
The irony of her holding the trophy replica just as the Balcoans came in, and their automatic assumption that she had Eazi in her hand, was not lost on her.
“Where is Jaden Tris?” she asked. Because while Eazi didn’t like her administrative assistant very much, he would be perfectly capable of getting Jaden to help him, even if Jaden didn’t understand exactly what he was doing.
“I don’t know.” Tean Lee’s eyes widened, as if he was only just remembering Jaden Tris existed, and should have been in touch when the comms went down.
“How did the comms go down?” Hal leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “Battle Center is waiting to hear from you. You couldn’t send someone over to talk about it with them?”
“We don’t know anything yet.” Tean Lee focused on him. “Eazi hid the comms hardware months ago for security reasons. I don’t know where it is.”
He looked over at Fiona.
“I don’t, either.” Actually, she did. But she wasn’t going to admit to it here. “Eazi took care of the technical side of things.”
Tean Lee watched her for a beat, then nodded, because Eazihadtaken care of the technical elements of running the way station. She had been the soft face of the takeover. The handshaker and diplomat.
“All this can be dealt with later.” Hal pushed off the wall. “There are three Balcoans in Eazi’s warehouse, and we need to have them identified. It’s likely they’re involved in the comms issue.”
Tean Lee pushed back from his chair and stood. He looked relieved and eager to do something that involved action and maybe a little bit of violence. “Let’s go.”
He strode out of his office, calling out names, and when they reached the ground floor of the security building, there were nine fully kitted-out officers behind them.
No one needed directions to Eazi’s warehouse, and they got there in five minutes.
All three Balcoans were still there. The two who were alive were slowly coming out of their paralysis, and Tean Lee motioned a few to watch them while the rest of his team searched the warehouse.
“Look for lenses,” Hal called. “Something alerted them to our being here.”
“They were more likely watching the entrance,” Tean Lee said, but he waved a confirmation of the order, and they began looking.
They may have been watching the doors, Fiona thought, but as she and Hal had come up from under the station, they could only have been alerted by lens feed hidden inside the workshop itself. Not that she was going to share that with Tean.
The security chief was standing over the bodies and Hal crouched down next to him and pulled the hoods fully off the Balcoans faces.
“They had to have come in before the comms went down.” Tean narrowed his eyes. “I can’t check their faces against the database, though. Nothing’s working.”
Fiona suddenly remembered a way they could check the identities. She just hadn’t thought about it until now.
She took the slim comms unit she carried with her out of her jacket pocket and took still images of all three men. “For later,” she said when Tean glanced over at her. “When the comms are back up.”
He grunted. “We’ll take them to head office and see what we can get out of them.”
“I need to go get a change of clothes from my apartment.” Fiona took a step back.
“I need to check in with my crew,” Hal said. He turned to Tean Lee. “How about we meet you again in two hours?”
Tean Lee nodded in agreement, and he organized his team to carry their attackers out of the warehouse.
