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“But they reopen the auction under another name and pretend to be something they’re not,” Cleo said. “We all know what they do. I’m not letting them take the animals to that shit hole. But... there’s a problem.”

“I don’t see a problem,” Striker said. “We’ve got something the Gente want, and we’re not giving it back. As Georgia said, they can go screw themselves.”

“If only it were that simple. High Command has gotten wind of what’s going on,” Cleo said. “They’ve also got knowledge that this second Gente ship has its own animal cargo on board.”

“The Gente have more stolen animals?” Wren lurched forward in her seat. “We have to get them.”

“That’s exactly what High Command told me,” Cleo said. “There could be up to fifty animals on the ship. They want us to retrieve them.”

“Then we go get them,” Rexx said.

“Just like that,” Georgia said.

“Why not? The Gente brag about being fighters, but they’re nothing special. Nothing I’d break a sweat over,” Rexx said.

“Why don’t you go in on your own then, super hunter?”

“Don’t think I wouldn’t,” Rexx grunted.

Cleo rapped her knuckles on the table. “High Command is insisting these animals are retrieved. There could be a fleur ibex on board. Extremely rare, less than a dozen in the wild, and worth a fortune.”

Wren turned to Striker. The concern in her eyes had his heart aching. “We will do this.”

He nodded, worry sliding into his gut and lodging there. The only time he’d seen Wren break the rules was when animals’ lives were at risk.

“I’d like your opinion, Wren,” Cleo said. “What’s the easiest and safest way to evacuate so many animals?”

Wren’s gaze went around the group. “We take the ship. Keep them where they are until we can safely move them without risk. They’ll be stressed. If they’re in a bad condition, like the animals we found on the other Gente ship, they’ll be weak and sick. We all know stress kills creatures. The quicker we get them out, the better. That means, we need that ship and minimal firepower used. We can’t afford to have them injured in a firefight.”

“That rules me out of this mission,” Rexx said.

“I thought you were more of a fists fan, anyway,” Sloane said. “Slam, bam, thank you ma’am.”

“Whatever it takes to get the job done,” he said.

“We can try a stealth attack,” Cleo said. “Use shields and blocking tech to move undetected. Attack at the last second. That way, there’s less chance of them firing back. We can overwhelm them before they know they’ve got company.”

“The Gente will see us coming,” Sloane said. “They’re sneaky. And they’ve been testing that shield warping tech. If we creep up on them and get spotted, they could disable our shields and blast us out of space.”

“All guns blazing,” Rexx said. “It’s the easy option.”

“And it’s the option that’ll give us the most casualties,” Wren said. “That’s not acceptable.”

“We can’t save everyone,” Rexx said.

“We can try,” Striker said. “Wren’s right. These animals will be in bad condition. We don’t want to make things any worse for them.”

“How about we wait until they dock somewhere?” Daisy said. “We take the ship and fly it away. Leave the Gente stranded and their cargo gone.”

“We’re tracking their course,” Cleo said. “But they have no flight plan logged, so we don’t know where their next stop will be.”

“We could use a smaller ship and sneak up on them,” Eden said. “Fly below the radar.”

“There are twenty Gente on that ship,” Cleo said. “And we’ve only been able to scan part of it. They’re using a blocking tech to make it hard to see what’s going on in there.”

“Which means, we could be facing double that number,” Striker said.

“You’re afraid the odds won’t be in your favor?” Rexx said.