Hyperspeed Dreams by Anna Carven

Chapter Seventeen

Arkerion.The Sylth was like a broken comm-file, repeating that cursed name over and over.

Lodan would be overjoyed if he didn’t have to hear it ever again.

“You are confusing me with someone else,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “I am not this Arkerion na’Krahl.”

You are he. There is no mistaking your blood… your scent…

“Stop,” Lodan growled. His mental command thundered down the neural links. Stop.

The ship came to a complete stop.

Suddenly, they were surrounded by perfect silence.

“What do you want, Sylth?” he asked coldly. He became aware of Tarak’s voice in the background—The General was speaking over the comm, making rapid-fire enquiries to someone or other.

“What do you know about Arkerion na’Krahl?” Tarak asked the person on the other end. There was a pause. “Makes sense,” he said, after listening for a while.

Lodan would have given his left nut to know what the General had just learned.

There was a lot they didn’t know about the ancient technology that permeated their vast fleet of warships. The Empire had always suppressed it, but Lodan and his battle-brothers had been around long enough to know a little of the truth—that the tech was imperfect… and it wasn’t really theirs to begin with.

The machines that had powered the Kordolian Empire came from the Zor, the doomed race that had once enslaved the entire Kordolian species…

And passed on their curse.

I want you. Only you. You promised me, Master. That you would make me eternal. That you would never leave me…

Was it possible for a machine to have emotions?

This one seemed to be bound up in anger and sadness… caught in the recurring loop of some ancient nightmare.

A ghost.

What had triggered this madness all of a sudden?

A terrible emotion roiled in the pit of Lodan’s belly. She was too far gone. He’d underestimated the extent of it.

This ship was much bigger than all of them.

If he lost control… she could swallow them all alive.

Tarak was right.

The Sylth would have to be exterminated.

“I can’t give you what you want,” he whispered, his entire body tensing as he withstood her onslaught. He could feel her anger now; it was a dark, seething, all-consuming thing, and he feared that if he let go, it would destroy them all. “For the last fucking time, I am not this Arkerion na’k Krahl.”

Fight me if you have to.

Lodan stood with his fists clenched, his consciousness bleeding into the hyper-real world of the Sylth’s all-encompassing awareness. He felt her; this entity, this being, who had always responded perfectly to his every command.

Now she was rebelling against him as she tried to hold him hostage to a fate that didn’t belong to him.

Something had gone seriously wrong in her programming, and that flaw had come back to haunt them all, thousands of revolutions later.

I will kill her.

“No,” Lodan growled. “You will not.”

His mind raced. How did one stop a Sylth that had gone rogue? Where could he even strike her? The AI’s semi-sentient presence ran through every single Qualum-Callidum fiber in the entire ship, transmitted through neuron-like connections.

Suddenly, Lodan smelled bitter blood—his blood.

His claws were out. He’d clenched his fists so hard that his claws had dug into the tough skin of his palms, causing blood to trickle through his fingers; through the flight-control gloves.

Pressure grew inside his head, pounding at his temples, sending pain shooting through his horn-buds. He wanted to tear the infernal gloves and visor and the connection-nodes off his body, but if he did that, the ship would spin out of control.

For some infernal reason that nobody understood, he was the only one the Sylth wanted.

Nobody else provoked this reaction.

And she wasn’t interested in killing any of the other humans.

Her sights were set firmly on Tasha.

Why?Because she thinks Tasha and I are…

Well, it was partly true. The damn human was the only one who had ever made him feel so… lustful.

Lodan growled asthe pain in his temples grew a hundred times worse.

He needed to end this, now.

But how?

How did one kill a ghost?

Think.

How could he convince her that he was Lodan Vorkan, third son of Keverin, just another street brat from the Flatedge, born into squalor and raised under the endless shadow of the Empire?

Lodan thought his childhood memories had been completely wiped out under Exogenesis, the brutal experiment that had shaped him into a perfect killer, but unbeknownst to them all, Zharek had figured out how to download them.

And when Zharek had handed Lodan the tiny datacube that contained half his life, he’d accessed it straight away.

Several of his brothers had put the cursed things away, or ignored them completely.

Not Lodan.

He needed to know.

Wherehe’d come from.

Whathe truly was.

There was no shame in it, just a certain kind of emptiness; the realization that he could know, but not ever feel or remember that part of himself. He could only see it through the eyes of the creature he’d become; a hardened killer who couldn’t imagine bowing down to anyone, especially some crazed, jealous Sylth.

His horn-buds began to throb like crazy.

The pain was a powerful lance through his skull.

Through the visor’s viewport, he saw Tasha standing in the middle of the examination room.

He saw the look of sheer determination on her face; the way she forced herself to remain in control.

At that moment, she turned and looked up, her violet-ringed eyes shimmering in the darkness. It was as if she knew he was watching her.

For a moment, he was distracted. The Sylth took advantage, burrowing into his consciousness, sending pain lancing through his skull; his horn-buds.

Lodan almost dropped to his knees.

But strong hands hooked under his arms and lifted him up. That kind of brute strength couldn’t come from anyone else but…

Tarak.

“Easy, brother,” The General whispered, leaning close, wrapping his arms around Lodan in an unbreakable grip. Lodan could almost feel the sheer force of Tarak’s will pouring into him. Suddenly, he felt like he could conquer the Universe. “You’ve got this. Listen to me. My source tells me that Arkerion na’k Krahl was the third emperor of Kythia. He was Zor. The technology in Silence has been replicated from his personal warship. Before his matedied, he had her consciousness stored and inserted into the ship’s operating system… and across the entire Zor fleet.” Tarak spoke with quiet, controlled urgency.

“She’s no mate,” Lodan growled. “A mate is an equal. This one calls Arkerion her Master.”

“Those were different times. The Zor ruled, and our kind were the subjugated ones. It was not uncommon for a Zor to take a Kordolian slave as a mate.” The General paused. He released Lodan, clapping a firm hand on his shoulder. “Her name was Sylthen. The technology on this ship… much of it was conceived by her. She was the architect; the originator.”

Understanding started to dawn. Ah. The Sylth. “She was a scientist… and yet a slave?”

“Again, not uncommon in those times. From what I am told, Sylthen wasbrilliant. The empire owes her a great debt.”

“Why me?” Lodan whispered, unease rippling through him. “How in the Nine Hells does she mistake me for some fucking long-dead Zor emperor?”

“Perhaps you share blood with Arkerion na’k Krahl,” Tarak said mildly. “It is plausible that any perceived threat to her bond would not be received well by Sylthen’s programmed consciousness.”

“Threat?” Lodan demanded, but deep down, he already knew.

Tasha.

If what Tarak was saying was true, then Tasha’s presence on this ship was the only thing that could have disrupted Sylthen’s programmed consciousness.

Right from the start, she’d known.

And it was probably made worse by the fact that he was going into fucking Mating Fever.

The throbbing of his horn-buds didn’t lie.

“So… how do I stop it?”

“You don’t,” Tarak said quietly as the ship lurched again. The General grabbed a stray tendril of Qualum-Callidum that was curling up Lodan’s left arm. A small knife appeared in his hand. He severed the connection and threw it to the floor. “If she is that far gone, then she is no longer of any use to us. Silence’s operating system has become corrupted. We will terminate.” His voice grew cold, as if he were discussing the annihilation of an advancing enemy force.

“But… Silence will be crippled.”

“Why would she be crippled? We are here. We have pilots. We have our eyes and our ears and our fucking brains. I will not tolerate any more disruption. There is a reason I do rely too much on artificial intelligence. There are always defects.” Tarak glared at his techs. “Prepare the kill-command. We are going to terminate.”

Terminate… Lodan had only ever seen it done once. The techs would give the ship’s AI a highly complicated Master Command—an execution order. It took one to create the input, one to verify, and one to give the final order.

Only the ship’s High Commander—in this case, Tarak—could issue that final order.

After that, everything would have to be done manually until a new AI could be installed.

Wait. Sylthen’s voice was a mournful plea. Arkerion…

Lodan went still. His viewport switched back to the medical bay, where Tasha was preparing to receive a dose of something from Zharek.

She didn’t protest, didn’t complain; didn’t so much as flinch.

Sweet little human.

For her sake, they should just kill the cursed Sylth right now.

Sylthenwas just a memory; an artificial consciousness.

She wasn’t real.

She was dead.

But…

Lodan didn’t like the idea of just terminating her.

It felt… incomplete.

Silence was the most dangerous ship in the entire military fleet. To be without an AI, even for a short period of time…

It was almost unthinkable.

Especiallyduring wartime.

And then there was the other problem…

Tarak was rarely ever wrong, but had he miscalculated on this one?

Think.

Wasn’t there some way to convince the AI that he wasn’t Arkerion?

Think… quickly…

There had to be a solution. Tarak might be the High Commander of this ship, but Lodan knew her best. He’d spent more time in the command chair than any of them.

As Lodan searched his mind for a solution, he stared at Tasha through his visor.

A growl rose in his throat as Zharek took her arm into his slender hands and quickly injected her with something.

How dare he touch her?

Lodan’s claws flicked out again. His breathing became shallow and rapid. He felt like killing someone. Zharek was just fortunate he wasn’t in the same room as Lodan right now.

Lodan took a deep breath and suppressed his killing urge.

Since when have you been unable to control yourself like this?

The ship tipped to one side, pitching the floor at a steep angle.

He saw Tasha slide and stumble and quickly recover her footing; graceful in spite of her deteriorating condition.

Lodan hoped that whatever Zharek had given her, it would bring her some respite.

When he was finished here, he was going to find the ones that had done this to her.

They would taste his anger.

“Relax,” Tarak whispered in his ear, putting a powerful arm around Lodan’s tense shoulders. “Control her.”

Lodan imposed his will on the ship; part physical—through the hand-controls, part neural—through the link in his visor, and part something else—that other thing he didn’t quite understand.

She pulled.

He pushed.

She raged.

He refused to be drawn in.

Think.

In the midst of chaos, he sought icy control.

But that was impossible, because he was fighting a ghost. Pain pounded through his skull; through his temples. He watched as Tasha brushed off Nythian’s offer of assistance; as she moved to one side of the room, away from the two Kordolian males.

She withdrew into herself.

She was glacially beautiful.

Still.

No longer trembling; no longer frantic.

Calm.

Whatever Zharek had given her, it had worked… for now.

I should be there, beside her.

Return to me, Sylthen raged.

No.

Stop.

His hands flexed and twitched as he wrestled with the controls, but the harder he fought, the more she resisted.

“Lodan. Give us just a siv of stillness, so we can execute her,” Tarak demanded.

No.

That wasn’t the right solution. It didn’t fit. It wasn’t precise.

It would cause problems…

For his future mate.

For once, he was certain that Tarak was wrong.

The pressure in his temples became unbearable. The weight of Sylthen’s anger pressed against him from all sides, crushing his thoughts, blurring his vision, making the visor’s datafeed go blurry… until it blinked out, depriving him of the glorious sight of his human.

The one he intended to claim.

He might have a trace of ancient Zor blood running through his veins, but he was a full-blooded Kordolian male, and he wanted this human.

She’s mine.

He would destroy her enemies.

He would know her, down to the very last minuscule detail.

How could you…

For the first time, he felt the Sylth’s pain.

And Lodan couldn’t help it; he wanted to erase it, because even a ghost shouldn’t have to experience eternal torment.

Not when her only crime was to exist.

Not you. You belong to another. If only I could show you, Sylthen…

That’s when it hit him like an exploding star.

The solution.

It was simple. Elegant. Orderly. Just the way he liked things to be.

His entire body tensed as he held the ship in position. Her anger rippled through the neural connections of his visor and the nodes attached to his fingers. Thousands of revolutions worth of stored memories threatened to flood his brain.

She was on the brink. He sensed it. He didn’t know what would happen if he let go now.

“Boss, hold on,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “Before we kill her, let me try one last fix.”

Tarak’s disapproval radiated through the room; a dark, oppressive force. An ordinary soldier would have cowered in fear, but Lodan was used to his boss’s moods.

“Very well,” The General said at last. “You have exactly one siv. But one more slip-up, and I will execute without warning.” Lodan knew that all it took was one word from Tarak’s lips, and the Sylth on this ship would be dead. Of course, the AI could be rebuilt, but that would take time. The ship was exceedingly complicated.

“Understood.” Lodan opened his comm, his voice taut with strain. “Zharek.”

“What do you need, Lodan?” The medic was all business; there was no trace of the absentmindedness he was sometimes prone to—which Lodan suspected was all an act, anyway.

“The memory datacube you assigned to me—you have a copy of it somewhere?”

“I store all my data meticulously.” Zharek sounded slightly indignant.

“It’s in your labs?”

“Of course.”

“Then feed it to her, now.”

“What?”

“Feed my memories into the Sylth. All of them.”

Zharek laughed. “How perfectly obvious. And how considerate of you. I can’t believe Akkadian is indulging you in this, but I’ll play. Can’t bring yourself to kill her just yet, can you? You’re supposed to be ruthless, Lodan Vorkan.”

“Don’t mistake logic for indecision,” Lodan snapped. “I have my reasons. And if your dithering causes a problem for me right now, I will personally cut off your horns and stuff them so far down your throat you will never sit on your arse again.”

There was a pause.

An exasperated sigh.

Then a muttering of curses that was too soft and quick and jumbled for even Lodan’s sensitive ears to decipher.

“It’s done,” Zharek said.

Already?Clearly, threats were still the most effective form of persuasion.

“You didn’t give me time to warn you about the blowback,” Zharek said, and Lodan thought he detected a trace of smugness in the nobleborn bastard’s voice. “Well, it might be good for you.”

Blowback?

Good for me?

Before Lodan had a chance to ask Zharek what in the Nine Hells he meant by that, he was hit by a torrent of memories.

Oldmemories… that should have been lost to him forever.

Zharek, you bastard…

Suddenly, he was on Kythia again… back in the Flatedge hovel where he’d been raised.

The floor was little more than swept earth, littered with bones from the tiny six-legged brown-furred kettiken they caught and ate to survive. Lodan sat in the center, playing with a small blunt practice-dagger, pulling it in and out of its worn sheath. The Imperial Guard had been in Flatedge a half-cycle ago, searching for someone or other as they did from time to time. Terrified and fascinated, Lodan had watched the big, obsidian-armored warriors as they passed, peering out from his hiding spot amongst a pile of discarded impure-metal ship-parts.

To his horror, one of the soldiers had noticed him, but instead of decapitating him, the warrior had taken pity on him. He’d lobbed the sheathed dagger through a gap in the jagged metal. It had landed on the icy ground right in front of Lodan’s bare feet.

He’d stared at it in disbelief, not daring to touch it.

The warrior walked up to the scrap heap and peered through the gap. Lodan saw a pair of hard crimson eyes set in a weathered face. “Take it, boy. It’s better than nothing. If I were you, I’d learn how to use it. A scrawny brat like you might even have a chance of surviving this shithole.” The soldier chuckled. “Never know, you might even end up in the Imperial Military…”

Now Lodan was home, in the small lean-to shanty house where he and his two older brothers were crammed in with his tariss-addicted father, Keverin.

Even at eleven revolutions of age, Lodan knew better than to call that man his father. He was just Keverin, a man who had fathered three sons to three different mothers.

Their mothers were gone, taken by the Empire and forced to become breeders for the Noble Houses.

Keverin was left with his three sons and no idea what to do for them, forced to take them in by Imperial Decree.

As he’d told them so many times: he’d never wanted them.

A pungent cloud of tariss smoke wafted over Lodan, making him lightheaded. He stared at his battered little dagger, hardly believing it was his. It was the only real possession he’d ever had.

Lodan’s eyes began to sting. The smoke burned his throat. He broke into an uncontrollable coughing fit.

“Get outside if yer gonna make noise, brat.” Keverin lay in a tattered makeshift sleeping pod in the corner. His long hair was tangled and matted, strands of black threaded through the white. He stank of filth and stale tariss smoke. “Ya should be out looking for kettiken with ya brothers. Lazy little shit.”

And what are you doing, you useless bastard? Lodan thought as he glared at Keverin resentfully. He didn’t dare talk back, because Keverin was bigger and stronger than him.

His older brothers, Mikak and Ruka, were out scavenging and hunting.

At their insistence, Lodan had stayed behind.

He was too weak right now.

He hadn’t eaten a thing for five rotations.

A faint rustle made him look up. Keverin took a long drag from his tariss pipe before setting it down and picking up a small pouch. He fished out a piece of dried meat.

The smell exploded in the air, cutting through the pungent tariss, making Lodan’s mouth water like crazy.

His stomach growled.

Unable to help himself, he whimpered.

Pain roiled around in his gut.

Keverin popped the tantalizing morsel in his mouth. His golden eyes—the same shade as Lodan’s—flicked toward him, narrowing as they landed upon Lodan’s prize.

"What you got there, boy?” Suddenly, he was on his feet, making a straight line for Lodan.

Lodan cursed under his breath. He should have kept the damn thing hidden, but he thought Keverin would be too out of it to notice.

“It’s mine,” he snapped, baring his fangs.

Keverin laughed. “Nothing in this house is yers, boy. Ya should be grateful I even let ya stay under my roof. Give it here.”

Normally, Lodan would have cowered and allowed Keverin to have his way. The old man would beat him to a pulp otherwise.

But this time, something inside him snapped.

“It’s mine,” he hissed, curling his bony fingers around the knife’s hilt.

“Don’t be stupid.” Keverin kicked Lodan in his side, his clawed foot digging into his ribs.

Lodan doubled over, clutching the side of his chest. Pain blossomed through his body. He rolled into a ball, keeping the knife close to his body as Keverin kicked him again and again.

He closed his eyes.

He gave up… again…almost.

If I were you, I’d learn how to use it. A scrawny brat like you might even have a chance of surviving this shithole.The soldier’s faintly mocking words rang in his mind.

Strength flowed through his body, fueled by so many revolutions of pain and pent-up anger.

Still clutching the dagger, Lodan rolled away from Keverin’s wild kicks and scrambled to his feet.

“Fucking brat,” the old man hissed. “You think you can fight me? I’ll beat you to a pu—”

Black blood gushed from Keverin’s mouth. Lodan twisted the knife in his gut, baring his fangs as a feeling of deep satisfaction coursed through him.

“Y-you…” Keverin’s eyes went wide with disbelief. “My own s-son…”

“I’m not your son,” Lodan said quietly. Warm blood gushed over his fingers. He pulled the dagger out in a single swift motion. “I’m Iskara’s son.”

He still remembered his mother, even though she’d been taken from him when he was just three revolutions of age.

He remembered her scent—sweet, warm, comforting—unlike anything else he’d ever known. He knew he would never experience it again, so he held onto that memory with all his might, drawing on it to give him strength when there was nothing else left in his world.

It was sacred.

It was one of the few good things he’d ever had.

Clutching his gut, Keverin dropped to his knees, his mouth going wide in a silent scream. “Wh-what…”

A look of horrified understanding danced through his golden eyes, before they glazed over.

He was dead. He already knew it.

His eyes rolled back into his head.

He slumped to the floor…

Leaving Lodan standing in the center of the room, his hand slick and coated in black, the blade of the blunt impure-metal dagger soaked in his father’s blood and guts.

“S-sorry.” Keverin’s voice was a cracked whisper as he writhed slowly on the dirt floor, blood pooling around him. “L-lodan, I’m…”

But whatever the old man was trying to say, it was already lost.

Sorry?

It was too late for that now…

Lodan gasped. The powerful torrent of memories left him reeling, even as the ship righted itself and went quiet again, tapping into his desperate need for calm.

Now he understood why he craved control.

He knew exactly where he’d come from.

Whohe was.

The Empire had taken that from him.

They’d stolen the memory of his mother.

And all this time, he’d been caught up in the illusion of perfect control, when really, there was no such thing.

He remembered the words of his first flight instructor, Odukur. The poor bastard was dead now, killed on a flight-mission to the Avein stronghold of Ezogor.

“You can’t hide in your cursed ships forever, Szark. No matter how good you are, there’s gonna come a time when you find that you’re struggling to sit her right in the pocket… when the ships don’t want to play your game anymore. When that time comes, you’ll have to swallow that cursed ego of yours, son.”

At the time, Lodan had just laughed. He’d been young and cocky and full of Imperial fucking arrogance.

Nowhe understood… a little.

You are not Arkerion,the Sylth murmured in his head, perfectly serene once again—exactly how she’d been before Tasha came into his Universe. But you have his blood in your veins. You have myblood in your veins. Child of my descendants. I will not disturb you, nor will I disturb your mate. Go and claim her, Lodan Vorkan. I will not see my line die out while I am still in existence.

Sylthen released him. The control nodes fell away from his hands. The visor disintegrated before his very eyes, taking with it his view of Tasha and the med-bay.

Silencewas on autopilot again, flying in perfect synchronicity.

They were still within striking distance of Earth.

As Lodan’s eyes adjusted to the sight of his surroundings—to the glowing holo-monitors and floating navigation maps of the bridge—he became acutely aware of several sets of narrowed, highly scrutinizing eyes upon him.

There were the techs and the navigators…

And then there was Tarak.

Who hadn’t even sought to intervene in Lodan’s madness just now—even though he’d ordered the Sylth’s execution only a few sivs earlier.

“What was the problem?” Tarak asked calmly; quietly. He stood with his arms hanging by his sides, his stance deceptively relaxed. His expression was perfectly inscrutable.

Lodan shrugged. “Case of mistaken identity. Sylth’s stable now. She won’t give us trouble again.”

“Hm,” was all Tarak said, as usual.

“And you wanted to kill her,” Lodan muttered.

“I will not take unnecessary risks with Silence or its passengers. You are just fortunate that my family aren’t onboard right now. If my mate and child had been here…”

“You wouldn’t have let me do a single thing.” Lodan looked Tarak up and down, searching for any trace of emotion.

There was none.

Tarak would destroy planets in order to protect his family.

“You know me well,” The General shrugged. “Tell me something, Lodan. Although it is more efficient, it is unnecessary to have the Sylth operating Silence. Why did you insist on saving her?”

Lodan inclined his head. The answer was obvious, although it surprised even him. “Sylthen is replicated in some form or other in the operating AI of every ship under our control. If I did not figure out the solution, Natasha Sedova would not have been able to set foot on any other ship in the fleet unless we destroyed its Sylth beforehand. That would have been inconvenient, especially with what is coming... and unacceptable. I will not allow some cursed AI to dictate which ships she can or can’t set foot on. They are mine.”

She is mine.He could no longer deny the incessant throbbing of his horn-buds; the excruciating need that pulsed through him.

It had crept up on him quickly; insidiously, like an ice-crack in the Vaal, moving so fast he could no longer contain it.

The General gave Lodan a strange look. “I have been making enquiries. Your Tasha is not an ordinary human, but you already know that. Do you not find it highly coincidental that she comes to us at a time when our enemies are just starting to make themselves known?”

“I doubt she would be involved with any of that.” Lodan had seen Tasha’s desperation; her fear. She wasn’t capable of that kind of duplicity.

“We shall see. A situation is unfolding on Earth as we speak. Ikriss is preparing to storm one of the Syndicate’s strongholds, and I am certain that provocation will not go unnoticed by our enemies. They will reveal themselves soon, and if I get even the slightest indication that Tasha is deceiving us, she will have to answer for it.”

“Understood,” Lodan growled. “We’ve never had a situation where one of our mates is an enemy, and it’s not going to happen now.” If there was even a drop of treachery in Tasha’s heart, he would make sure it was obliterated.

He would break her.

But… no. He wouldn’t need to worry about that, because he was already certain.

He’d seen the pain in her.

She was already broken.

Suddenly, Lodan remembered the way Tasha had fallen to her knees in her quarters… the excruciating pain she’d experienced.

Her panic.

Her immediate, guileless admission.

There’s a device in my body that allows Praetorian to track my location.

“Shit,” he hissed.

And there was Tarak, still staring at him, one eyebrow raised ever so slightly in the form of a question. The General didn’t always need to open his mouth to make himself understood.

Lodan sighed. “Promise you won’t tear strips off my hide for not informing you of this earlier.”

“It depends,” Tarak said mildly. “We are due another sparring session. I would tear strips off your hide anyway.”

“You can try,” Lodan said darkly. “After what I’m about to tell you, you’ll probably want to.”

“There was the small matter of an uncontrollable ship for you to deal with. Now you can spit it out, soldier.”

Did a shadow of a smile flicker across the boss’s face just now? Since when had Tarak ever smiled so easily.

It was the human influence, that’s what it was.

It was turning them all a little mad.

“There is human technology implanted inside Tasha’s body. Someone may be using it to try and track her movements.”

“May? They will. Undoubtedly.” Tarak said, still with that cryptic little almost-smile hovering on his lips.

“I don’t understand.” Lodan became irritated. The boss should be furious.

But then again, it was always difficult to predict how Tarak al Akkadian would react.

“If someone is looking for her, then let them find us.”Now the General’s expression turned hard and cold, leaving Lodan with no doubt that nothing about his boss had really changed—he was still the same ruthless tactician.

What are you planning, you crafty bastard?

“Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious, Lodan? We are on Silence. Let them find us. They can’t outrun us. They can’t overpower us. In a firefight, is there any safer place to be than here, with you at the controls? If she is already being tracked, then better for us. We won’t even have to lay the trap.”

As always, Tarak was right.

Now all Lodan had to do was fix the tangled, frantic, delirium-inducing mess that Tasha was in.

And if he had to kill a few of these Praetorian bastards for her along the way, then so be it.