“Prime Nial knows. He’s the one who sent me here.” He looked up at me, and this time there was regret in his eyes. The I.C. had fucked up, royally, and he knew it.
“Tell me you’re lying. Why would he allow the I.C. to keep this from us?” Us, as in the commanders in the Coalition Fleet. The warriors responsible for protecting well over two hundred planets with billions of lives. Without consistent intel, we could do nothing to protect the people. This ship, this vessel that was barely holding together, was a perfect example of what could happen.
“He sent me here because they had intel that Varsten would be next. We hoped to lure the Hive into a trap.”
I lost my temper, and I never lost my temper. I was across the room, Ronan’s throat in my hand. When I lifted him, the chair tipped over and I turned, pushed his back to the nearest wall. I lifted him off his feet and squeezed.
“Commander Karter.” My second in command, Bard, placed his hand on my shoulder and pulled me back. Ronan was my oldest friend. We’d run the corridors of Battlegroup Karter when my grandfather had been in command of the ship. We’d sworn to be brothers, have each other’s backs. He had pledged to be my second if I ever took a mate.
Thank the gods that had never happened, and never would. Not now. I’d been tested for a bride years ago. No bride had ever appeared, and I was confident none ever would. I was a damaged man, mated to battle. Mated to war. I lived, ate, and breathed to save my people, not to sacrifice them to some unknown Hive weapon. And yet, here we were, death and the leftovers of evil strewn at our feet.
I loosened my hold but did not release Ronan from my grasp. “Tell me every detail, and I might not kill you.”
His face was a mottled purple and yet he smiled, but it held no humor. “Commander Varsten knew everything,” he said, his voice deep, raspy from my hold. “He knew the risks and that’s why he chose this ship as bait. That’s why he was flying. He made the call. They all did. They stayed and we sent as many as we could into hiding.”
Varsten knew his battleship was going to be attacked? I thought of the grizzled old Prillon commander. He’d raised two sons and a daughter, been mated for many years. He was stubborn as iron ore and impossible to break. If Ronan said he’d known, then he had. The risk would not have deterred him. And this information explained a few things. “Is that why most of his fleet is on the other side of this star system?”
Ronan nodded. “Varsten left the main battleship”—he waved his arm in the air to indicate this now-dead vessel—“to pilot an attack scout ship. He transported off all non-essential personnel after I arrived. All mates and children, civilians and medical staff. There was a skeleton crew on board these few forward ships. Maybe fifty warriors. Most of the ships were manned with pilots and weapons stations only. All volunteers. We told them everything, Kaed. We needed enough ships to bait the Hive into an attack.”
I looked at Bard, my head spinning. He shrugged, obviously thinking. “It would explain the low number of fatalities, and the reason the Hive left the dead.”
“The Hive were never here,” Ronan said again. “Their strike came from the other side of the star. We weren’t supposed to know what hit us.”
“But you do?” I asked, setting him slowly onto his feet but not removing my hand from his throat. I felt the pulsing of his blood through the artery under my palm, felt his life force. After all these years, he really was alive. “Please tell me all these warriors did not die in vain, that Commander Varsten did not die for nothing.”
“I don’t know what it is, this weapon the Hive is using. But Commander Varsten sent out an I.C. probe in advance of the attack. It should have recorded everything from a safe distance.”
“And where is this probe now?” I asked, my thoughts quickly spinning to the data that could be retrieved, data paid for with many lives lost.
He shrugged. “It’s sitting at assigned coordinates, but not broadcasting. We’ll need to send a stealth ship, small, fast, something the Hive won’t bother looking for, to retrieve the probe. If we activate its quantum comms remotely, the Hive will blow it to pieces before we can access the data.”
He was right. Whatever information was on the probe had to be retrieved at any cost, and yet very carefully. Commander Varsten had died for it. Nearly fifty brave warriors had been willing to sacrifice themselves to obtain the information. An entire battleship had been destroyed and was now just a floating wreck. Releasing him, I turned my back and put my helmet back on. “I fucking hate the I.C.”
“It’s war you hate, brother,” Ronan said. “Not me.”
His words held so much pain I could not ignore them. He was my brother in everything but blood. And he’d done his job. Just like I had to do mine. I looked at Bard, who lowered his weapon. “Get the rest of Varsten’s fleet on the move. Confirm they’re out of range of whatever this weapon is before we lose more people.”
Bard nodded. “What about you, Commander?”
I looked at Ronan. “We have a probe to hunt.”
Bard opened his mouth to protest, but I raised my hand to stall the argument I knew was coming. “Get back to the Karter. I need you there. We’re going to have incoming crew, ships and defenses to coordinate. I have a feeling we’re going to have to stretch our resources over both sectors. Prime Nial won’t want to abandon this sector. It’s too close to populated planets. We’ll have to hold it. And we need to report this to the rest of the fleet commanders.”
“No. Not until we know what we’re dealing with.” Ronan ignored three of my men who came into the room, probably ready for new orders to fulfill. They pointed their weapons at him, an unknown. Ronan ignored them all and came to me, standing toe-to-toe. “Give me twelve hours. I’ll have that probe and we’ll have some answers.”
I stared into the eyes of the man I’d loved like a brother, whose death I had mourned more than all but my own father’s. And I hated him for knowingly putting lives in danger, knowing an attack was imminent, and sacrificing those warriors anyway. Hated that he’d disappeared, died, and then returned. Hated him for knowing too many secrets. For saying whatever he had to convince Commander Varsten to fly straight into a Hive
trap.
Fuck.
“Get that probe. If all of these warriors died for nothing, Ronan, I’ll kill you myself.”
“If this was for nothing, we’re all dead anyway,” he countered, his voice grim.
The finality of his words sent ice-cold dread through my veins. I knew this man, knew how strong he’d always been. He was a brilliant battle strategist and as tough as they came. I’d never been afraid of dying, but he didn’t speak of death. He spoke of annihilation, and worse. Assimilation. Loss of self. Billions of lives on hundreds of worlds falling prey to the Hive menace we’d fought for centuries.
Until now, I’d never once feared we might not win this war. And fear was a sensation I did not want to feel again. “Get the fucking probe. Then we’ll talk.”