Page 13 of Enthraller
Ed’s lips pursed. “The SF has changed a lot since I was there two years ago for that to be true.” He stood, grabbing up her empty bottle along with his, and fetching them each another one. “The team I was in would have considered the weather a great training experience. We would never, and I can promise you this, never have left a fellow SF member in the hands of unfriendlies for six days because of a little rain and wind.”
“Maybe Lieutenant Trent wasn’t as courageous as your team leader.” Although Wren had been disappointed with the excuses the SF had given her when she’d walked in, having rescued herself through weather they had deemed too dangerous to go out in. Admittedly, the fact that she had received, as she’d told Ed, a boost, was the reason she’d made it, but she had been a lone person with no food, water or shelter. They had been a highly equipped team of professionals who’d trained for just such a scenario.
It had soured things for her. Made her distrust all of them, when she knew logically if she had been set up to be taken, there were surely only one or two people involved. That’s why she’d put in for a transfer and gone on extended leave.
“What happened with the wreck?” Ed asked.
Wren pursed her lips. Of everything, that made her the most angry. “I wanted to go back and have a look at it. It was impossible to say how long it’d been there, and while I think the nanos were left behind by our ancestors, I couldn’t be sure it was an ancestral ship or not without further study. I didn’t tell the SF commander that, but I did say we needed to check the wreck out.”
“What was the response?”
“That it was too dangerous and they’d go back later.” Wren gritted her teeth. “When I followed up after getting back home,I was told the wreck was probably an Aponian research runner that had gone down during a massive storm on Ytla twenty years ago. All those on board had managed to walk away from the accident, so there were no bodies to recover.”
“And that was a lie?” Ed asked.
“I checked. No research runner has ever been recorded as going down on Ytla.”
Ed set a bottle in front of her. “Someone’s manipulating that team, no question. I’ll get a message to Ethan Hyt, have him dig in to what went down on Ytla, who the players are.”
“Will he do it, given you hit him?” Wren asked.
“He’ll do it. He’s got the taste for this mystery now. He’ll want to know what’s going on more than he’ll want to stymie me. Because he knows there’s someone in his team who’s compromised, too.”
“The person who shot at us?” she asked.
Ed nodded. “Nothing else makes sense.”
She understood that impulse. It would be interesting to learn who on the Ytla team had sold her out. She knew some of them well, but didn’t have any suspects. “How will you get in touch with him?”
Ed looked over as the oven chirped to signal the food was done. “After dinner, I’ll go visit him at home.”
Wren stood, leaning over to grab the oven mitts. “I’d like to come with you.”
He said nothing, standing as she took the dinner out of the oven to get plates and cutlery for them both.
When they were seated, food dished up in front of them, he gave a nod. “It’ll help focus Hyt’s mind to see you in person. And you’ll be in less danger from him than I will.”
She felt guilty about that, because she suspected some of what had happened between Ed and the captain may be herfault. “Maybe I should approach him first,” she said. “Smooth the waters, if he’s still a bit angry at you.”
Ed’s lips quirked. “Sure,” he agreed easily. “You do have a knack.”
6
Ethan Hyt was home.
Ed watched the captain move across the window of his apartment a few times and then disappear, but the lights stayed on, and he guessed he’d sat down to eat or watch some comms.
“Does he have a family?” Wren asked, her gaze fixed on the windows above. “I wouldn’t want to scare his partner or his kids.”
“No. He’s single.” In fact, Ed had never even heard that Ethan Hyt had a romantic interest. “You ever meet him?”
She shook her head. “I was working out of the Nanganya office up until the Ytla incident. I asked to be transferred after that. I felt . . . uncomfortable in Nanganya after what happened. Distrustful. The transfer process is slow, though, and I couldn’t wait for it to go through. I took all my accumulated leave and came here, staying in a hotel. Then one day when I was walking down the lane, the nanos noticed the hidden property and once I entered it, they confirmed it hadn’t been occupied in over twenty years, so I moved in. I’ve gone back to Nanganya a few times to close up a case or give a report, but most of my work therehas been wound up. I was supposed to report to Captain Hyt tomorrow.”
“Wait a minute. The house was just sitting there?” Ed glanced at her, astonished. They were leaning against a tree, deep in the shadows of the park in front of Hyt’s apartment.
She shrugged. “I thought I was being followed and the nanos steered me in there to escape. Then we explored and the nanos could tell no one had been in the house for a long time. Something about the dust layers. Itispretty well hidden.”
So no one could trace her to the house. That was good, Ed thought. They were truly invisible there. “And the transport you’ve been using to move between Nanganya and Demeter?”
