Chapter 40
They sat in the hangar bay.
The Major had declined Seori’s offer to return to her quarters with Elijah, which did nothing to improve Wraith’s mood.
And if the man didn’t pull that damned protocol manual out of his ass in the next minute, she was going to let Phantom loose on him. Void, she was going to cheer him on.
“We have a unique opportunity here,” the Major was saying. “One I didn’t expect to get. So, I’ll ask the most important question first. Why are you restarting the War?”
The reactions were not what Kael was expecting.
Seori looked shocked. Turned to her husband with a question in her eye.
Believable.
Wraith rolled her eyes.
Expected.
But Phantom…
Phantom smiled, crossed his arms, and leaned back on his chair. Said nothing.
They sat at a circular, black-surfaced table, the kind that looked custom-grown rather than built.
It probably was.
Kael had chosen the seat directly across from Phantom without even meaning to. Wraith sat to the side, halfway between them. Seori lingered beside Elijah, not yet seated.
Silence echoed through the hangar. Wherever they kept the rest of their ships, it wasn’t here.
Kael didn’t mind silence. He weaponized it. Wait long enough, and someone always cracked.
Wraith drummed her fingers on the table. Not the tapping she normally did. But an irritable, repetitive cascade of fingernails on whatever this table was made from.
He would have glared at her. But she’d just ignore him.
“Eli?”
Seori put a hand on Phantom’s shoulder. He didn’t move.
Time to press the knife in.
“Here’s what I know,” he told them. “Over the last eight or nine months, your people have been making increasingly brazen attacks on our settlements and ships.”
He leaned forward, “Civilian ships, more often than not. Then you disappear until the next time.”
He laid the data pad he’d retrieved from the Banshee on the table. The images on it were the ones he’d shown Wraith when she’d first arrived on the Eventide.
Seori gasped and placed a hand over her mouth.
“Now, you could tell me that this is the work of just a few of you. Pirates. A splinter group. Except for one thing.”
He swiped to the next set of images. Even Wraith leaned forward. These, she hadn’t seen.
“This was a full military command post. It hosted two battalions and a Flight wing. It was completely destroyed. Overrun and overwhelmed in under three hours. By an army.”
His eyes were hard and fixed on Phantom’s.
He waited. Was rewarded for his patience when Phantom leaned forward again, loomed over the table towards him.
“You’re absolutely right.”
Wraith leaned back in her chair. Glanced at Seori, who was looking horrified. It seemed she didn’t know her husband quite as well as she thought she did.
The two men were leaning towards each other, all fake formality and a hair away from violence. Wraith considered banging their heads together again. It would be so easy.
But it would solve nothing and probably disturb Seori even further.
The seconds dribbled past.
Okay, enough.
“Are you going to tell him what he’s right about, Tom? Or are you waiting for him to gut you with the blade he’s holding under the table?”
They both turned to look at her.
“What?” she asked, spreading her hands, eyes deliberately wide.
Kael looked at Wraith, exasperated.
He drew his blade and laid it on the table with a quiet clink. Seori’s eyes widened.
Phantom was clearly trying not to laugh.
“Spoilsport,” the human tank told Wraith, who remained unrepentant.
“Seori and I were about to pass out from testosterone poisoning. Besides,” her gaze darted to Seori, “I get the feeling she hasn’t seen this side of you that often.”
Elijah turned to his wife, stricken. He wrapped her in his arms the way he’d held Wraith only minutes before. They didn’t speak, but Kael was sure they were communicating.
It was probably a good thing Wraith hadn’t shown him how to speak to her that way, yet. He hoped it was yet.
Because right now, he had a hell of a lot to say to her and most of it warranted shouting.
He had to settle for glowering.
She blinked her eyes at him. The picture of insincere innocence.
His lip twitched.
He stilled it, but she’d seen it and gave him a smug look.
Elijah sat back down. Shifted into Phantom.
“You’re right that it’s an army, Major. It’s just not ours.”
“Ours?”
“Don’t get me wrong. I like you. And I love her.” He tilted his head to Wraith. “But if this war really does reignite? I’ve changed sides.”
There was a lot to unpack in that statement. But most of it was deliberate misdirection, and he refused to be baited.
“Whose army, Captain Tommasi?”
Phantom shared a look with Wraith, “Does he do this a lot?”
“You have no idea.”
Dark eyes turned back to him, held his gaze with unflinching steel. “It’s quite simple, Major, that army you’re chasing, the one killing your people and destroying your infrastructure? It’s yours.”
Kael’s eyebrows drew together. Phantom couldn’t be saying what he thought he was saying.
“Yeah,” the big man replied with a humorless smile. “Your army. Your Fleet. Completely SID-planned and High Council mandated”
Phantom gave it a beat, let the weight drop. “What do you have to say to that, Major?”