“Commander, we have the maps.” Intoh walked into the rear of the ship and sat down in front of the big screen at the back. She switched off the feed from the news channels on Parn and flicked across a file from her handheld.

Drake stood as the maps flashed onto the screen. "Have any trouble getting these?" he asked.

Intoh said nothing, but from the thin line of her lips, Nick guessed she'd had to use Drake's threat on Tarr and she hadn't liked that he'd forced her to do it. She'd hoped Tarr would behave better, and he'd let her down.

“I’ll take that as a yes." Drake sent her a quick, almost apologetic glance. Then he focused on the screen in front of him. "Ah, yes. It's coming back to me. We thought we saw them going in here a few times.” He pointed to a deep gorge and then stepped closer, tapping the screen. "They used more than one spot, though. Changed it up. After a while they realized we weren't going to go after them. They got cocky, more or less taunted us, and that's why we were able to get the jump on them in the end. They didn't expect us."

"Ever think that they didn't expect you because you were actually going against orders at the time?" Stru asked.

"Did we think they had someone leaking information to them?" Drake asked. "Yes. Though that wasn't why I did what I did. But it helped that I had no official backing in the end, rather than hindered me. Special Forces tried to spin it that it was all part of the plan afterward, but that fell through pretty quickly."

He sounded like he was talking about an interesting case he'd had nothing to do with, whereas Nick knew he must have known he risked his own and his team's life, and all against orders.

His respect for Drake had always been high, but he had to admit seeing the maps, understanding what the situation had been like, that respect had increased.

He could see the same on the faces of Intoh's team, as well. They were impressed, and every one of them was questioning whether they would have had the nerve to go against orders in such an audacious way and pull something like Drake had done off.

"So where do you think they could be?" Intoh drew them all back to the present with a bump.

"One of four places. My suggestion is we go in very quietly, and send a team to each place. Whoever finds it calls the others, and we try to infiltrate."

Intoh walked up to the screen herself, studied the places Drake had lit up with his pointer.

"All right." She turned to her team. "Two to a team."

"We're coming too," Nick told her. "That's why we're here."

“That goes without saying.” Drake crossed his arms over his chest and he and Intoh stared at each other for a long moment, in a silent battle of wills.

"You'll have to get dispensation, Commander. You get killed on this mission, it's my butt in the sling."

"You'll have full immunity, Lieutenant," Drake promised her. "I'll get it now."

He walked into the pilot's cabin, and for a moment there was silence among the team.

"How personal is this?" Stru asked Nick.

Nick looked over at him. "Pretty personal."

Stru frowned. "How does Drake know her so well?"

Nick shifted uncomfortably. He waited a little too long to answer. "He was obviously part of the team who rescued her."

"This isn't personal for Drake, it's personal for you." Intoh had picked up on his mistake, her eyes narrowed, her tone accusatory.

"Tila Dor Rio is my next door neighbor."

They all leaned back, shared quick, neutral looks.

"You two really want to be involved in this?" Stru asked. "It's never a good idea to be in on something when there's a personal element . . ."

"That's so much bullshit and you know it," Nick held his gaze. "You telling me it's not personal for you if one of your team is hurt or captured in the line? That every time you all step out there you aren't on some level worried about your teammates?"

There was silence.

"I thought not. I want Tila safe. No one cares about that more than I do."

"That's where you have it wrong." Drake was back, flicking a file from his screen to Intoh's. "There are your guarantees, Lieutenant. And let's be clear. My priority is getting Tila free. My guess is, your priority is capturing the smugglers who've been blowing up the Hub."

Intoh inclined her head. "That's true. My orders are more skewed to capture than rescue."

"Then let Bartega and I handle the rescue, you can engage the smugglers to your heart's content."

"I can get behind that." Intoh looked down at her screen, nodded when she'd checked the file. "We'll send Stru with you in a team of three. We keep silent until and unless we come across the smugglers."

"Where're we going to land?" Stru asked.

“On the dark side," Intoh told him.

* * *

They landed in a hover so silent, Nick and Drake shared an impressed look. Nick was sure Drake was thinking the same thing he was—they had to get one of these for the Protection Unit.

Once they were on the ground, they each got an individual hover of their own, and Nick liked that even more. It didn't so much as hum.

He followed Drake and Stru, letting them take the lead while he hung behind.

The terrain was far rougher that it seemed from the air, the hills were higher, the valleys deeper.

Something in the way the light reflected off the sun, then off the Child, and then onto the Mother, he'd heard. Whatever the reason, it played tricks with the eyes and they decided to keep their height far higher than any of them would have liked. It was better to hug the ground, but better still to be alive at the end of the journey.

Drake had chosen the target they were going to, and from the way he held himself in check, the suppressed air of excitement about him, Nick was sure he'd picked the location he thought most likely to be where the smugglers were hiding.

It was no surprise, then, that after an hour of flying, they settled down their hovers and crept to the edge of a high gorge to find a sleek black ship nestled between the dull gray walls.

"Is that . . .?" Stru breathed out on a gasp.

"The ship from Cepi. It's the ship from Cepi." Nick couldn't take his eyes off it.

Everyone in the Verdant String and beyond had seen the feed from the Kalastoni battleship that had swooped down on Cepi to save an Ankhoran Special Forces team and the Halatian woman Nyha Bartali, only to come face to face with a sleek ship of Verdant String origin but with technical modifications that were unusual to say the least.

It had been fast, too. Destroying the ruins and then pinching away into the black, leaving nothing but questions behind them.

“It's not showing up on any of my instruments.” Stru pushed back, away from the edge, and flicked through his tiny screen.

“They've set themselves to maintenance mode, or to dead,” Drake said. “There'll be nothing coming in or out, which means they're either all there is, or they're on their own with this mission of theirs. Sink or swim.”

“What does that mean for us?” Nick asked.

He saw Drake's smile through the glint of Stru's screen off the glass of his helmet. “Well, given our good luck in finding them, it means they won't be able to see us. They're hoping they're invisible down there. Their ship is black and non-reflective, they're hidden in a deep canyon, and they aren't emitting a single signal.”

“Finding them really was incredible luck.”

Nick saw Drake's faint smile as he turned back to Stru.

He just stopped himself laughing.

Sure it was. Incredible luck that Drake had gotten to choose which spot he wanted to investigate before the other teams had picked theirs.

"This find is huge." Stru toggled on his comm. "Lieutenant, we found them, and take a look." He lifted up a little over the edge so the camera feed on his helmet would capture the ship.

Intoh was silent for a long moment. "This has turned into something way bigger than we thought, so you hold there. Do not try anything until we assemble a bigger team. There is no question of infiltration without some serious backup now. The Verdant String Coalition will need to be involved in this."

Nick moved his gaze from Stru to Drake, saw the fury on his commander's face.

"Same as last time, then?" Drake asked Intoh. "Death by committee in the VSC?"

He heard Intoh's sharp intake of breath. "It's not the same as last time. This ship blew up the Cepi ruins. It's stolen Verdant String tech. This is a big deal, Commander."

"Last time was a big deal, too. Look how that turned out."

Intoh's voice rose a little. "I won't have you making unfair comparisons. I can't proceed without further advice, and you know it."

Drake didn't answer, and Nick felt like leaning over, ripping the comm unit off Stru's arm and throwing it down into the gorge below.

He didn't know about Drake, but he was not sitting around waiting for some VSC councilors to make a decision while Tila was down there, on her own.

Intoh let the silence tick by, and when she spoke again, her voice was a few degrees colder. “Stay put. We're sending the other teams to your position, and I'll contact SF Command for further orders.”

She cut off the transmission, and Stru's worried gaze moved from Nick to Drake.

“What are you going to do?”

Drake moved closer to the edge to look over again and didn't answer.

“Bartega?” Stru sent Nick a desperate look.

“The thing is,” Nick told him, “we don't take orders from Lieutenant Intoh, or anyone from Special Forces, for that matter.”

Drake glanced at him over his shoulder, and there was a small smile on his face. “Yes. I don't think the lieutenant remembered that.”