something else happened. I believe someone disguised themselves as scythkin and launched an attack on the planet.”
Karen sighs. “We don’t want this to be an issue.”
“Don’t want what to be an issue?”
“It’s before my time. it’s before IHPZ time. We haven’t pulled these records, well, ever.”
“Human, we both know there is no such thing as time. Tell me what you know.”
“I still think you should submit an official request.”
“If I have to fly there, human, there will be trouble. Someone decided to transport our prisoner in the company of murketeers instead under proper guard. I doubt that order came from the head of the IHPZ. I think someone decided to cut corners to get rid of a prisoner they didn’t like having aboard.”
This human has obviously gotten far too big for her proverbial human boots. They’ve given her too much power. Too much access. She needs to be taken down a whole washing line of pegs. But that is not my problem. Getting the information is my problem.
“One moment,” she says, officiously and snippily.
Tusk mimes slamming his head onto the desk.
I can wait. I know the games humans like to play, especially the female ones starved for even a little personal power. I will be having a word with this Karen’s mate when we are done here. The entire IHPZ could be taken down by a human with too much influence.
“I don’t have endless time,” I growl. “Send us all records pertaining to Patch, and to the human you know as Silver.”
“I have some information, if you will listen long enough for me to give it," she snipes over the line.
Whoever is responsible for handling this human is not doing his job even a little. I have to wonder if the IHPZ isn’t already too far gone.
“Go ahead, Karen.”
“Patch was attacked a decade ago.”
“I know that. Tell me something I don’t know.”
“It was attacked by a Galactor mission disguised as scythkin for the purposes of obtaining fresh human genetics for their various projects.”
“If that were the case, then Silver and any other humans taken from the planet would have ended up at the IHPZ, correct?”
“There is no record of any human from that expedition being added to the IHPZ. The simulation has always been a closed herd.”
“So what were they doing with them?”
“The records from that time have been chewed by murketeers. There are a lot of heavily redacted and digested parts,” Karen mutters unhappily.
“So there’s no useful information…”
“Hold on, cowboy,” Karen interrupts me. “I don’t have anything on the initial attack. Nothing concrete, and I don’t have anything else concrete either, but there is murketeer chatter which indicates there’s an illicit source of humans still being held captive and being bred by Galactor. They call it the Human Pet Farm. If you're looking for a human from Patch…”
“We didn’t say we were looking for a human from Patch,” Tusk interrupts her.
“No. You didn’t, but I have two brain cells and I rubbed them together very hard and came to the obvious conclusion that is the information you are fishing for.”
Tusk and I look at one another. She’s got attitude, but she’s not wrong.
“Anywayyyy,” Karen says, drawling the word out in a judgmental sigh, as if she is suffering with the sheer tediousness of dealing with us. “That is where she’s most likely to be. The IHPZ is planning a scouting party and possible incursion, but that won’t take place for several months. Budget constraints.”
“Do we have a location?”
“Your prisoner, Silver, will know. It’s the same region of space she took out her first ship, the Aphex Predator.”
That name sends a ripple through the room. I instinctively look around to see if anybody else heard her words, though only Tusk and I are here.
“Did you say Aphex Predator, not Apex Predator?”
“Aphex. It’s right here in green and black.”
“Saya never could spell,” Tusk murmurs.
The Aphex Predator was Saya’s ship. If I heard her correctly, Karen just casually revealed that Silver was the one responsible for Saya’s death. I look at Saya’s picture, then back at Tusk.
“Don’t tell him,” I say to Tusk. “Don’t tell any of the others, either.”
Tusk knows who the him I am referring to is. Scizzor. The one who barely has himself under control ten years after Saya’s loss. If he heard what Karen just said, there would be no stopping his rage.
“How can I not tell him? We all deserve to know,” Tusk says. “We have wondered for years who was responsible.”
“We knew it was the Q’Ren.