There was a crack. Aeron slumped to the floor unconscious as Raider stared in confusion.
"Thank you," Graydon told Finn.
The oshota gave him a firm nod. "He talked too much."
"He's wrong though, right?" Raider pressed. "Elena and Jin aren't dead. There's no reason for Kira to fade or whatever."
The silence that answered filled Raider's face with desperation.
"They're all fine, right?" he asked again, emotion thickening his voice.
Wren moved to comfort Raider. "I'm sure they are."
"Then why?" Raider asked, his gaze following Graydon as he stalked to the door.
His coli needed rest in a place where she could heal. Not to stand around while her secrets were spilled without her consent.
"Her body is acting like they are," Wren said as Graydon stepped into the corridor.
Raider glared at the seon'yer he shared with Kira. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"That if we don't find Elena and Jin before too long, they won't be the only ones we lose."
Six
Elena - Tsavitee Planet
Elena slunk along the edges of the cavernous room that had been her home for the last week, careful to avoid the pockets of Tsavitee clustered in the middle of the room. Meal times were always a feeding frenzy around here. The most dangerous part of the day as the horde competed for their share.
To survive, Elena had been forced to scurry around like a mouse.
Not that there was anything wrong with scurrying. She was a champion scurrier. Just ask Tommy, her nemesis, occasional friend, and fellow ward of Aunt Selene.
It was just that she was tired, cold, and hungry.
The last week had been a lesson in exhaustion. Her belly had almost forgotten what it was like to feel full. She'd barely gotten more than a few minutes of sleep at a time for fear of what would happen if a Tsavitee happened on her in a moment of inattention.
She'd already killed five of them since arriving. A skyling, two cannon fodder, a class one drudge and a class two war drone.
After that last one, the rest of the horde had left her mostly alone.
A stalemate that Elena suspected wouldn't last much longer given the arrival of a new group that her fellow pit dwellers all seemed to fear. She just needed to look at the way the rest gave the group and their leader a wide berth to know how dangerous the situation was.
The person at the front of the group had to be their leader. Taller than the rest and willowy—a word Elena had a certain fondness for due to the images it conjured up—the stranger oddly reminded her of Aunt Kira's friend Odin.
It wasn't in their looks since Odin and this person couldn't be more different. For one, the stranger wasn't wearing an eye patch and didn't have green eyes. They had black eyes that matched the hair of their angled, chin length bob.
The similarity lay more in the androgyny of their features. Their gender ambiguous and impossible to guess, making Elena wonder if that was a trait all of their species held.
The Sye as Aunt Kira would call them.
Elena wasn’t supposed to know that last part. One of her aunt’s many secrets.
This person was colder than Odin though. Their expression almost cruel as they looked arrogantly at the Tsavitee.
The seven, all children or very close to it, were arrayed around the Sye like an honor guard. They were roughly Elena's age. A couple slightly older and one or two a few years younger. The age spread was around twelve to eighteen or so if they aged like humans. With the Tsavitee you never knew. Some aged as slowly as the Tuann. Others had an accelerated aging process.
There were three generals among their number. A male around eighteen or seventeen. Another near Elena's age of fourteen. The last was the most interesting. A female. About fifteen.
If only Auntie was here to see the answer to her question of whether there were female generals or not.
The rest were an assortment of species. A yellow, so named by humans for the way they bled yellow blood. A wraith and a telepath who hovered at the back of the group. Along with two others whose appearance didn't match any Elena had studied in Aunt Kira's files.
Unknowns—which meant their species hadn't made an appearance during the war.
The children stared straight ahead, ignoring the rest of the Tsavitee as they waited.
Elena tucked herself further into the depression in the uneven surface of the wall, relying on the grayish mud she'd slathered all over herself for camouflage. The pit she'd been dropped into had a lot in common with a damp cave. Water dripped from the ceiling and walls, the moisture it left in the air and cool temperatures ensuring those inside never felt truly warm.