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Chapter 8

“It’ll be okay,” Huntersaid as he walked beside Cleo the next morning. Her anxiety pinged off him as they strode along the corridor of the Apocalypse. Her breathing was too fast and her shoulders were tight.

“I hope they understand,” she said. “I didn’t miss a thing from the report I sent them last night. That should make them see that we acted in the best interests of the animals and the mission.”

“They’ll see what we did made sense. We had to get the gabblefoot away from the Siblet.”

Cleo let out a soft sigh. “I always follow High Command’s orders. They’ll think I don’t know how to do my job when I’m in the field. They’ll have doubts about me.”

“Cleo, you’ve been in charge of the Apocalypse for over a year. The work you’ve achieved is miraculous. They know that. They won’t want to change anything in case it screws with the ship’s success. You’re a huge part of that success.”

“Don’t be so sure about that,” she muttered. “Come on, we’ve got another torturous hour before we face High Command. Let’s go see how the gabblefoot are doing.”

They headed into the lab and over to the quarantine area where they’d brought the animals last night when they’d returned.

Dallin was in the room with Sloane, who lounged against a table, an expression of mild boredom on her pretty face.

Sloane gave them a big smile when they drew near. “Here are our returning heroes. How are the ribs?” she asked Cleo.

“All better thanks to the energy transfer,” Cleo said. “How’s the new intake?”

Dallin glanced up from his inspection of a slide. “They should all survive. I’ve been observing them overnight.”

“He’s refused to take a single break,” Sloane said. “And I’ve tried all kinds of feminine blackmail to get him to bend to my will. He’s ignored every one. I even thrust my boobs in his face and said he could cop a feel if he took time off. You know what he did?”

Hunter chuckled. “Not a clue.”

“Dallin turned his back on me. What am I, The Invisible Woman?”

“You are when there’s work to focus on,” Dallin muttered. “Besides, I couldn’t leave the animals because they needed looking after, and their condition was poor when they arrived. Gabblefoot prefer a constant temperature of sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. Too hot and they suffer. Too cold and they hibernate and starve. And these creatures are too small to go into a long-term slumber.”

“Thanks for watching over them,” Cleo said. “I knew you’d take care of them.”

“It’s all part of the service. And I got back their blood work. They’re not carrying any infectious diseases, but I’ll keep them in quarantine just in case anything unexpected shows.”

Cleo knelt beside the cages and watched the gabblefoot for a moment.

Hunter stood with Dallin, his attention on Cleo. Although he hadn’t said anything, he was worried for her. High Command were sticklers for the rules, and Cleo had gone against a direct order. There’d be payback for that. But there was no point making her worry even more than she already was.

Apexians demanded loyalty as well, although they were more flexible when it came to getting results. If you broke a rule, you had to prove it was for the greater good of the overall mission, not some dick move to prove you were a big guy. But Jagger would see the sense in Cleo’s actions. He’d be on her side. Hunter was sure of it.

“Have you seen them camouflage yet?” Cleo said, still crouched by the cages.

Dallin nodded. “It’s incredible. They blank out. Not even a shimmer.”

“And you really think the Siblet plan to manipulate their ability?” Sloane said. “How would that even work?”

“It probably wouldn’t,” Dallin said. “But I imagine it won’t stop them trying to replicate such an ability. It would give them a huge advantage. If their poison fails, they have invisible nightmares to set loose on unsuspecting aliens.”

Sloane stared at the animals. “They don’t look so remarkable. How does their camouflage work?”

“They have microscopic physical structures all over their bodies. They act like prisms,” Dallin said. “They reflect and scatter light to produce a color different from their skin. Think of the Earth polar bear. Their skin is black, but their fur is translucent and reflects the sunlight and snow, making the bear appear white.”

Sloane sighed and fluttered her long, dark lashes. “I love it when you talk science.”

Dallin muttered something under his breath and shot her a dark look. “Some animals camouflage to match their environment or avoid a threat. And you have chameleons on your planet that change color to communicate.”

“We had to take the gabblefoot,” Hunter said. “The Siblet would have probably killed them during the experiments. And if they hadn’t...”