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“CASEY! THEY’VE RECOVERED the ship.”
I turned away from the computer screen, which I’d been staring at hopelessly for the past couple of hours, sick to my soul, to find Mike standing in the doorway, his blue eyes wide. He hadn’t shaved for the past few days, and the dark shadow across his jaw was getting to be more scruff than stubble. I figured none of us were going to care much about our appearances now. It had been hard enough during this whole ‘end of the world’ bullshit, but now that Camille was gone, everything felt utterly pointless.
I sighed and shook my head. “So what? We knew it went down.”
“The fire-resistant shell of the ship meant it didn’t burn up when it came back through the atmosphere, leaving it reasonably intact.”
Excitement rose the tone of Mike’s voice, but I didn’t understand the reason behind it. What was the point in getting excited about anything anymore? “It doesn’t matter. No one could have survived that impact.”
His tone dropped down a notch, and he raked his hand through his messy dark hair. “No, you’re right, they didn’t. The captain and crew all perished.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “We knew that already. Get to the point, Mike.” I couldn’t help the low growl in my voice. I just wanted to be left alone, to wallow in my misery and contemplate a world that not only no longer had Camille in it, but that had also made us the Trads’ little bitches. There was no way we could defeat them—they’d proven that to us, which I guessed was their point all along. Now we just had to bend over and take it.
“My point is,” Mike continued, that hint of excitement in his voice again, “that Camille’s body wasn’t on board.”
That got my attention.
“What?” I straightened in my seat, shoulders down, suddenly alert. “But we know she was on board. We heard her voice over the communications system.”
“Yes, all the records are showing she was on board, too. Poor Irus is beside himself, since he was the one who gave her the green light to board. I wanted to punch the guy in the face for allowing it, but I don’t think I could hurt him any more than he’s punishing himself.”
I shook my head. “It wasn’t Irus’s fault. It was ours. We should have realized we had no right trying to control what Camille did. She should have been with us this whole time, right by our sides. We were the ones who pushed her away, not Irus. This is all down to us.”
Mike pressed his lips together and glanced down. “Yeah, you’re right. I fucking hate myself for it. If I hadn’t opened my big mouth, she’d have been with us and never would have gone down in that other ship surrounded by strangers.”
“What happened to her body? Did it get thrown free of the wreckage when it crashed?”
“Not that the inspectors can find. And all the doors were sealed when it hit.”
I frowned, confusion—together with a different spark of something else...hope—lighting inside me. “She couldn’t have been on board, then?”
“But she was! I heard her voice myself.”
I took off my glasses and threw them onto my desk, then covered my face with both my hands and groaned. “This doesn’t make any fucking sense. She can’t have been on the ship, and then not be on the ship.”
“Unless the Trads had a way to pick her off before the ship went down. It’s not as though they don’t have a history of abducting women.”
“You think that’s possible?”
“I have no idea. I don’t know enough about Trad technology. But physically, she was far closer to the Trad ship than she would have been on Earth, so who the hell knows.”
I sucked in a breath. “She might still be alive then?”
He nodded, his gaze fixed on my face. “Yeah, I think it might be a possibility.”
“Holy shit. But how the hell do we get her back?”
Mike rubbed his hand over his mouth. “That’s the number one question.”
“Have you told Aleandro and Irus yet?”
“No, not yet. Aleandro’s made himself scarce, and I wanted each of us to know before I told Irus.”
That was fair enough. Irus clearly cared about Camille, perhaps even as much as we all cared about her, but he wasn’t fully a part of our group. I’d gotten the impression that Camille would have liked him to be, but Mike worried about how that would affect things between us all. In truth, Mike was jealous of Irus. He was frightened Irus would take Camille away to Athion, and we’d lose her. He didn’t see me and Aleandro as the same threat, knowing we were all in this together, but Irus was different.
“Irus might be able to help. The Athions have different ideas. They have different technology.”
Mike snorted. “Yeah, that hasn’t worked out too well for us so far.”
“Maybe not, but we can’t just give up. And you know how Irus feels about Camille. He’ll move planets to reach her.”
“That’s what I’m worried about.”
“Don’t act like a jerk about this,” I warned him. “Getting Camille back is more important than your possessiveness.”
He sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. I’d rather Irus got Camille all to himself, and she was safe, than thinking she might have been taken by the Trads and we’d never see her again.”
I risked a smile. Mike could act like a jealous dick at times, but he loved Camille, and that he’d rather she was with Irus and safe, than not with any of us at all, showed that he was more good than bad.
Rising from my seat, I picked my glasses up and slid them back on my face. “Let’s go and find Aleandro, and then we’ll go and speak to Irus. I have no idea what the Athions might be able to do. Especially after the total fail of the last mission, but it’s definitely worth trying something.”
We’d been forced to retreat after the Trads had pulled that trick with the magnetic field. No one was able to get close enough to return fire and damage any more of their ship without risking going down as well. Even the Custos had been forced to withdraw. We’d done some damage to the Trad ship before that had happened, but it hadn’t been enough.
We found Aleandro standing on the platform looking out over the launch pad. The transporter ship was in exactly the same place as it had always been, ready to take the first consignment of women to Athion, but now two of the four smaller fighter rocket ships were missing. A second ship had been taken down by the Trads as well.
Would the transporter ship ever get off the ground now? Could we risk trying to move women to Athion? Or would the Trads just take down the ships, and maybe snatch the women as well, in the same way they’d somehow taken Camille from her position on board?
“Aleandro?” I spoke his name, and his shoulders stiffened. “We have news. You’re gonna want to hear it.”
He lifted his hand to swipe at his face before he turned toward us. He’d never have admitted it, but I could tell from the dampness on his cheeks and the bloodshot threads running through the whites of his brown eyes, that he’d been crying. I didn’t blame him. I’d shed a tear of my own upon hearing about Camille.
“What’s going on?” he asked, his voice gruff.
Mike stepped forward and explained exactly what he’d said to me. Unlike me, Aleandro listened without interrupting. Lines formed between his eyebrows as Mike told him about Camille’s body not being present on board the ship.
“How is that even possible?” Aleandro said eventually.
“There’s the chance the Trads somehow beamed her out of there.”
“What the hell are we going to do?” Aleandro said, his face darkening with anger. “If any of those Trad fuckers lay a finger on Camille, I’m going to kill every last fucking one of them.”
Mike’s jaw clenched. “I agree. I want to rip them limb from limb.
I put out my hand. “We need to calm the fuck down. I know this is beyond a shitty situation, but we need to be rational and use our heads. I think we need to talk to Irus and see if he’s got any suggestions.”
Mike turned to me. “Is there any point? After all, the aliens didn’t exactly help this time around. We’ve ended up in an even worse situation than we were before they arrived.”
I bit my lower lip, considering his words. “I’m not sure, but we have to try something, and the Custos are our biggest advantage. At least they understand Trad technology better than we do and have technology of their own we could use.”
Aleandro growled, “Their technology didn’t do us any good during the battle.”
“Maybe not, but it’s still better than doing this on our own,” I said, “and we have to tell the Athions what we think might have happened to Camille. We don’t have any choice. People have a right to know what the Trads are capable of.”
“Okay,” Mike said, nodding. “Let’s go and find the Athions.”