“That’s true,” I said, mostly for the benefit of the humans. Because it was true. Rinakin believed in debate, in discussion, in continuing to advocate and work with Unity. He believed in persuading people to see reason, but he always stayed true to his principles. There was no way he’d flipped sides in a matter of hours. And even if he had, he would never have called me out like that.
He sent me away. He told me to get help. He wouldn’t do that and then announce to the entire planet that I was a fugitive.
“That was his voice though,” I said. “They might have told him they’d captured his family, threatened to torture them.”
Gilaf squirmed, and I saw several of the other Independence pilots looking at me in alarm. The idea that Unity might torture someone seemed too violent, too aggressive, even for them.
But given that Quilan had just tried to kill me, I wasn’t feeling so charitable.
“It’s possible,” Inin said. “In that case, we need to rescue him.” She looked at Jorgen. “You saved us. Are you willing to help us with this as well?”
“Rinakin sent me to the humans to begin with,” I told Inin. “This alliance was his idea.” This last operation hadn’t gone as well as we would have liked, but we had more fighters now and there was still hope.
“We did come to help,” Jorgen said, and I could practically hear him sorting through his orders, trying to figure out what he was authorized to do. “It’s obviously terrible that your leader is being used against your movement.”
“But,” Arturo said, “we don’t know that he’s being threatened, do we? How do we know that he hasn’t changed his mind?”
Inin’s eyes narrowed, but I spoke before she could. “He hasn’t. He wouldn’t.”
Arturo and Jorgen exchanged a glance.
These humans didn’t know Rinakin at all. They didn’t know me well enough to trust my judgment on this, and they knew the rest of my people even less. In their position, I’d doubt me too.
“We need to think this through before we do anything,” Arturo continued.
“Yeah,” Nedder said, “wouldn’t want to defect on bad information or anything.”
“We didn’t defect,” Jorgen said. “We were ordered to go.”
“We were specifically not ordered to go,” FM said. “Remember?”
“Cobb phrased it that way because he had to,” Jorgen said. “They were still orders, even if they were…not-orders. That means it wasn’t defection. Right?” He looked around at the others for confirmation, and they all stared at him.
“Bless your stars,” Kimmalyn said.
Jorgen swore.
The girl with the blue hair—Sentry, I’d guessed based on the process of elimination—stepped up to me. “We haven’t met,” she said. “I’m Sadie. And that’s Nedd.”
Nedd. At least that would be easy to remember.
Sadie indicated the two men leaning against one of the ships. “And that’s T-Stall and Catnip. Their real names are Trey and Corbin, but no one calls them that. They just go by their callsigns.”
I had no idea which one was T-Stall and which one was Catnip, but I didn’t ask.
“This is my brother, Gilaf,” I said. “And Rinakin’s daughter, Inin.” I didn’t know the names of everyone else, and no one seemed to feel that this was the time to require the humans to remember them all.
I turned to Gilaf. I needed to convince the humans to mount an offensive against Unity from here, and that would be easier to do without the rest of my people standing here listening. “We’re going to need to map the facilities here,” I said. “Figure out what we’re working with. Can you take the pilots and try to find somewhere safe for Rinakin’s family and the others to rest?”
Gilaf glanced at Inin’s pregnant belly, and Inin glared at him. She plainly disliked being treated like a baby simply because she was carrying one.
“I’m fine,” Inin said. “But it does seem wise to make sure we’re safe here. Your captain is injured, and will need someplace to rest.”
That was right. I stepped up to the exposed interior of the Superiority ship. Several civilians sat inside, along with the Independence captain, who lay on the floor with a medic attending to a wound in his leg.
“Does he need further aid?” I asked. I could hyperjump him to a hospital if it came to that, but if it wasn’t necessary I didn’t want to risk it.