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Khoth’s eyes slid over to the security forces in the room. They were pretending not to listen. But he thought he caught some smiles. Typhon needed to instill more discipline in the ranks, Khoth thought sniffily. Then he heard Jace give out a little laugh.

“That’s our Thammah,” Jace said.

“I’ll be in touch as soon as I have something to report,” Thammah said. “Oh, and could you let the flight command know that they shouldn’t shoot me down?”

“It’s already done,” Typhon said.

“Then I’m going to fly!” Thammah said and signed off.

“Ground forces are being dispatched to the location of the Khul landing as well,” one of the security personnel reported to Typhon.

Typhon nodded. “That is good--”

“They won’t arrive in time. We have to cut them down far before that or they'll start infecting the populace, potentially causing an unbreakable chain of infection,” Jace said as his eyes opened.

Jace’s eyes were that pure, neon blue where Khoth could literally see within them the workings of the systems that Jace had tapped into. Those eyes focused on him even as Khoth took in what he had said and felt himself go numb. He was not alone in his shock.

Typhon jerked slightly at Jace’s words. Haseon could fall. The Thaf’ell homeworld could be lost. One seed ship was enough. One Khul was enough. They all knew this. Other worlds had been abandoned and cleansed for less. But Haseon? Their Haseon? Seat of the Alliance Council? Would they have to cleanse it?

No, never!

Khoth wanted to reach for his rahir and draagves, but he had neither of them with him. He needed to get his hands on some weapons. They would not be as good as the ones on the Osiris--and he would never again leave without them--but they would be something. Yet when he did get them, he would not be going after the Khul. He would not be defending the Thaf’ell or the Alliance. He would be staying here and protecting Jace.

Typhon was immediately ordering one of his security personnel, “Bring my personal weapons.” Seeing Khoth’s meaningful look he added, “Bring weapons for everyone.”

The security officer practically flew from the room, already barking orders into his comm for the things they would need.

“Since I fixed the shields on the Moturin Compound this is the one place the Khul can’t get into,” Jace told them, which caused some shoulders to relax. “But it's the one place they want to enter. But since that’s out, they’ll do whatever they have to in order to lure us out to them.”

“What do you mean? Why would they wish to get in here specifically?” Amana asked, but then she answered her own question, “They’re coming for you, Pilot. You said that before, but it’s really true. They know you’re here.”

Jace indicated that he wanted to get down. Khoth reluctantly placed Jace on his feet. Jace didn’t wobble again like he had in the elevator when he’d tried to walk, but he did hold onto Khoth’s hands tight to help keep upright. A new sheen of sweat coated Jace’s face just from this effort.

“They are. That’s the only reason they revealed they could get past your defenses so easily and reach Haseon,” Jace said.

“How much damage to the other systems did they cause before they got here though?” she asked. “There’s still no word from anyone. I can’t believe it.”

She’d asked that before and Khoth felt a wash of anger at his mother. She must have truly weakened the systems if the Khul could bring 11 Hives to Haseon without alerting anyone. The Khul would have had to have destroyed their forces before they could send out a single alarm. Was that truly possible? It staggered him just to consider it.

“I wonder if they had to cause any harm at all,” Jace said as he indicated he wished to sit down.

Khoth helped Jace sit in a vacant chair. The Pilot let out a relieved sigh as soon as he was down again. Khoth kept a hand on Jace’s shoulder. Perhaps it was just a fancy of his, but it felt as if he was giving Jace some sustaining energy just by touching him.

“What do you mean?” Khoth’s father asked. “There are only limited ways to get to the Haseon gate. All of them lead through heavily guarded systems.”

“That’s what I thought, too, but some of the AI systems on your planet are telling me differently,” Jace said. “There are Master Gates. They’re rare. They’re far away. But they can literally open any gate they want.”

Silence fell at that. The Alliance’s whole strategy was to guard as many points of entry into the Haseon system as possible, but that was a vain and foolish plan if what Jace was saying was true. A Master Gate? A gate that could lead anywhere? But Khoth knew if Jace was saying it, it was true.

“AIs? We don’t have anything like that on Haseon,” Amana said, but faintly as if she too was beginning to understand that Jace spoke only the truth. No matter how impossible it seemed.

Jace smiled almost affectionately as if he was seeing those AIs before him and they were doing something funny. “You do. They’re everywhere. Not as fancy or sophisticated as Gehenna or the Osiris, but they’re here. They’re… talking a lot.” Jace shook his head. “They have a lot to tell us.”

“If the Khul have access to a Master Gate then they can continue to flood our system with Hives. Even your Osiris cannot defeat them forever,” Typhon said, anxiety crawling across his face for a moment.

Khoth wondered what the state of the war up above was. Jace had saved Staed’s ship where most of his former crewmates were. He had tried not to think of them. He was no longer their Commander. And to die protecting Haseon from the Khul was the most honorable of deaths. But that they could succeed and live was beyond what he could have hoped for. Jace had made that happen by accessing tech inside Haseon itself that had been hidden from them for millennia. It was inconceivable, yet Jace had done it.

“The Master Gates are separated from other gates by huge distances and nothing--and I mean nothing--lives around them,” Jace said. “I’m betting the Khul sent all their resources that were near it through, but I doubt that they had many more Hives in that area because--”