Alliance of Exiles by Caitlin Demaris McKenna

Author:Caitlin Demaris McKenna
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: outer space, science fiction, aliens, Expansion series
Publisher: Scoria Press, LLC
Published: 2020-06-05T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Brassy midmorning Teluk sunlight flashed off the platform cantilevered over the side of the caldera.

Shomoro squinted against it, checking the urge to rub her eyes in the presence of the Challa’iti aide beside her in the cable car. After Daikar had left last night—all right, after she’d thrown him out—she’d paced her apartment in an excess of frustration and hurt, before bedding down in her nest to sleep fitfully. She’d tossed and turned, fragments of their confrontation spiraling up from the dark behind her eyes and preventing her from drifting off, even though she’d desperately wanted, if not to sleep, than at least not to be conscious for a few hours.

Yet she must have gotten some rest, because she’d awoken around dawn with her head aching but her thoughts clear. She’d made the appointment with her Council representatives and fallen asleep for a couple hours of true sleep.

Other than the bleary eyes, she didn’t feel the least bit tired now. The cable car ground to a halt on the platform’s edge, the clamps engaging with a thump. The Challa’iti aide gestured her on with a sweep of the dun gliding flaps stretching between their upper and lower sets of arms. Shomoro crossed the platform and sacrificed her drop of blood to the biometric scanner.

The Challa’iti hurried to follow, and they proceeded together down the short corridor.

As the two of them entered the small conference chamber, the aide shuffled to one side of the door and announced, “Shomoro Lacharoksa, co-director of the Teluk Security Nanodefense Research Project.” Having suitably enhanced Shomoro’s importance, the aide melted back into the corridor, leaving her alone with two—if their alien expressions could be judged—rather surprised councilors.

“You know, you could have called on your PagePendant,”

Whalg-General said. “It’s not as if you’re delivering a status report to the full Council in session.”

Unfortunately, she thought. Yurll and Whalg-General were both influential, but they were only two; possibly not enough to bring off what she had in mind. Then again, somewhere among the other five must be Water Dancer and Daikar’s supporters. She had realized, sometime in her recriminations last night, that the two of them couldn’t carry out their plan without tacit approval by someone on the Council. Better to restrict her requests to the two members she trusted to be as blindsided as she by the turn of events.

Scorning the offered chair that had risen from the floor at her arrival, Shomoro stood with her arms folded above the saddle of her lower back, her gaze focused on a point exactly between Yurll and Whalg-General. Without preamble, she said, “It came to my attention last night that Water Dancer plans to divert Mose to a black site.” Her unfocused gaze took in their expressions of shock, but she didn’t stop for them to interject.

“I believe she has the allies to bring it off, including supporters on the Council. I don’t know who they are yet.” Though she would find out, yes.

Yurll’s tail gripped her branch tighter, while Whalg-General looked askance and muttered what might have been a curse.

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