O’Neill shrugged, then followed it with a jaw cracking yawn. “From what I have seen, Wolf’sjavaaneeclings to his closed mind.”
Unable to stand still while her daughter’s future hung in uncertainty, Muriel circled the room. “If he refuses to pass on our questions, how will we find out what the elder gods expect from Gracie?”
“Wolf will not let him ignore these questions,” O’Neill murmured, his face softening as he watched her pace. “He has a stake in the situation as well.”
That stopped her feet. “You’re right. He needs to know what theTabenethahas planned for Jillian and herheschrmalspirit.”
O’Neill’s eyes widened. “You know of that? Wolf means to keep her claiming quiet.”
Had Rachel known that? “Hisanistaafilled me in.” Of course… “That was after I told her about Gracie’sHo'ceeclaiming.” She hesitated before adding. “She thinks something is going on in theTabenetha.”
O’Neill scoffed. “She is not wrong.”
Muriel nodded and finally asked, “Are you going to talk to Aiden too?”
O’Neill shook his head. “He and I are not...close. He listens to Wolf though. Wolf will handle hisjavaanee.”
When O’Neill yawned again, she eyed him with concern. He looked tired. Maybe the coffeewasfor him. He certainly looked like he needed it. “You look exhausted. You should get some sleep.”
He shook his head. “I’ve got people to call, and no,” he said as her mouth opened. “It can’t wait.”
The more she studied his face, the more certain she became that it wasn’t just exhaustion lining his face and darkening hiseyes. A heavy weight hung from him. It furrowed his forehead and dragged down his shoulders. It was the same burden the rest of the warriors on base carried.
Something had happened on their last mission. Something terrible. Something that still weighed on everyone.
“Something went wrong on your last mission, didn’t it?” she asked quietly. “The entire base feels …heavy.”
His face tightened. Muriel didn’t think he was going to answer.
“The mission went ass-up before we were halfway to our mark,” he suddenly said, before falling silent to stare at the wall across the room. A muscle twitched above his jaw.”
“How so?”
“We’d been looking for the location of the bot bomb Kuznetsov sold. We finally locked down the location. It was on a ship—the Harbinger—anchored in San Franciso Bay. So off we go to collect it. Halfway there, drone images of the Harbinger’s crew indicated the bots had already gotten loose and infected everyone on board.”
Muriel shuddered. “They killed each other?”
“No.” Another twitch to his jaw. “That’s the hell of it. They weren’t violent...not like the incidents before. These people were just...standing there...all of them...in this huddle, staring at the ocean. No moving. No talking. No expressions. Just standing and staring, for hours.” He grimaced, his jaw clenched. “They looked like mannequins.”
“But that’s not the same pattern, is it? Wolf said the people in Karaveht and hisjavaanee’sSEAL team went crazy and killed everyone within reach. Even their mates. Even their children.”
That had horrified her most of all when Wolf detailed the danger of this new weapon. The weapon that had inadvertently caused Daniel’s death. Her son had gone to Russia to prevent the nanobots from spreading. To stop this terrible technology that caused husbands to kill their mates and mothers to kill theiranvaat. Daniel died to prevent such horrific attacks. “Are you certain the bots had seized the ship’s crew? Could something else have caused their strange behavior?”
He shot her one quick look before returning his stare to the wall. “They were infected. They had to be. A different type of infection, but still an infection, one that passed through physical contact. We knew the bot bomb was onboard the Harbinger...we knew there was the possibility the bots could get loose. Taking that into account, the crew’s abnormal behavior was suspect. They were infected. They had to be, nothing else made sense.”
Muriel digested that. Her stomach knotted. This retelling did not have a happy conclusion. She could sense it.
“What did you do?” she whispered.
“What we had to. We couldn’t chance the Harbinger’s crew swimming to shore. Nor could we allow the ship to be boarded. Even without their previous violence, the bots would destroy humanity, turningHokalitainto a stage for a new species of living mannequins. So we hacked into the ship’s navigation system, guided it out to sea, and hit it with our payload of ballistic missiles. The Harbinger went down within minutes, with the full crew on board.” The eyes he turned on her were dark with sorrow and shame. “We drowned every one of those poor bastards.”
Chapter thirty
Day 33
Shadow Mountain Base, Alaska
O’Neill braced himself. Would she be horrified that they’d scuttled the ship and taken dozens of innocent lives? Warriors, indeed anyone in military roles, were required to take a ruthless, pragmatic approach to life and death. Decisions, by necessity, favored the greater good.
