Page 50 of Vindicated

That detail settled cold in my gut. A single course correction might be coincidence, might be the enemy's own guesswork or a stroke of ill fortune. Three was not coincidence. It was confirmation that someone aboard my warbird was feeding our position to the enemy.

I turned, already forming the order I meant to give my battle chief, the raider whose sharp, unconventional strategy had saved us from disaster time and time again. The words died in my throat before I uttered them. I had no battle chief. I had stripped Zarn of that title myself, in a fit of rage, in front of half this very command deck.

I ground my teeth, frustration boiling hot and immediate beneath my ribs. This was precisely the moment I needed Zarn's reckless brilliance, and I had removed him from his post.

"Tvek," I muttered under my breath, and turned to Dawz. "Send for my brother. Order him to the command deck."

Dawz did not argue, though I caught the faint arch of his brow before he moved to relay the order, and I did not have the patience to explain myself further.

I turned instead to the communications officer stationed nearest the viewscreen. "Tell me precisely when transmissions left this ship."

The raider straightened, pulling up a readout with efficient taps on the smooth, black screen. "Twice during fifth watch, Raas. Both bursts were too brief to trace their point of origin with certainty."

"But they originated within the ship?"

"Yes, Raas. Of that much we are certain."

I turned to Dawz. "How many places on this warbird could manage such a transmission?"

"Multiple communications hubs are scattered throughout the ship, Raas, for redundancy in case of damage during battle, as you well know.” His jaw tightened. "We have checked each of them. No one was found near any station during either burst, and none show any record of an outgoing transmission in their logs."

I paced a tight circle before the viewscreen, my mind turning over the problem from every angle and finding no answers. There had to be an explanation and one that did not implicate my war bride.

The doors behind me slid open, and I turned to spy Zarn standing in the threshold, a fresh bruise darkening along his jaw and a wariness in his stance that was entirely unfamiliar.

"I have not forgiven you," I said, before he could speak.

His eyes flashed, some of the old fire returning. "And I have not forgiven you for choosing a female over your own blood." But the anger drained from his voice as quickly as it had risen, and he squared his shoulders instead. "But I care more for this horde and for the Vandar empire than I care for continuing to fight with my brother while a Zagrath ship bears down on us."

I grunted, the closest thing to gratitude I could offer him in that moment and began to brief him on what little we knew.

"Dawz already told me," he said, cutting me off before I'd finished the first sentence, his tone still clipped.

“Did he tell you that every transmission station has been checked? The outgoing transmissions did not originate from any of them.”

He frowned and rocked back on his heels, arms crossing over his bare chest, his gaze narrowing on the viewscreen as his mind turned the problem over the way it always had as he searched for his innovative and often reckless solutions.

Then his eyes snapped back to me, and a hard grin spread slowly across his face, sharp enough to cut. "There is still somewhere we did not check."

Chapter 42

Athena

"That's all I know, I swear."

Hal sat perched on the edge of his narrow bunk, his knees drawn up nearly to his chest, his usually spiky orange hair flattened on one side. The room around him contained two sets of bunks bolted to the wall, a low shelf where someone had stacked a handful of dirty plates, and little else. The spartan decor made the room feel drab and cold, and Hal’s usual dramatic flair seemed to be just as muted. Or maybe it was the stress of being on an alien warbird that had dimmed his exuberance.

"I believe you," I told him, and I meant it.

Whatever else Hal was—and he could be prone to dramatics and hysteria—he did not have it in him to plot against anyone, let alone the Vandar.

The door chimed before he could respond, and he let out a heavy sigh. "It's busier in here than a shipyard." He stood and pressed his palm to the panel, and the door slid open.

Lettie flounced through first, her blue hair somehow surviving the low doorframe by mere inches, her curves wrapped in the same frilly dress she'd been wearing since Kashara, which now looked distinctly worse for wear. Vallia followed closebehind her, her lavender hair swishing loose around delicate shoulders and her enormous eyes darting around the room before landing on me.

Lettie's face broke into a delighted grin, and she looked me up and down with an expression that made heat rise instantly to my cheeks. "Well, well. Look who it is. You look like you had a much better night than the rest of us, hon."

I tried not to blush but failed spectacularly.