“Information Ministry, then,” Violet said. She sipped from a bitter hot drink the Earthers seemed to favor and studied EJ as the other woman squirmed in her chair and tried not to look at anyone. The lawyer nodded to herself. “Definitely the Information Ministry. How far did you get?”
EJ rubbed her face and sighed, looking suddenly tired. But at least the nervous energy wasn’t making her bounce in her seat anymore. The fidgeting made Nokx want to scoop her up in his lap and wrap his arms around her until she stilled. “Not very far. I got through the training, right until they put me on my first ship. That was when I saw—everything. How they treat people, how they treat non-Alliance, what they wanted us to do... All the criminal stuff going on in the background. They wanted to use me as bait to draw in rebels and criminals. The first time they did it...”
Her voice cracked and she had to clear her throat a few times before going on. Nokx tensed, on edge as EJ struggled with some unfamiliar emotion, and he carefully reached out to touch her back.
She gulped for air and forced a pleasant expression to her face. “The first time just showed me they didn’t have a plan to get me out if something went wrong. If the target had been violent or whatever, I would have suffered the consequences and that would have been that. They didn’t value me—I was just another body they could put on a problem. That was it. There were a dozen or more like me in that graduating class. I just happened to look the youngest, so they sent me. But it could have been any of us.”
Violet nodded. “It’s true. That Ministry is particularly ruthless with its people. It was a test to see if you were strong enough to survive for the other jobs they would have had you do. And a test to see what you would do to protect yourself, and whether you would see a mission—any mission, no matter how unpleasant—through. It’s very typical.”
EJ’s lip curled. “It was awful. I couldn’t—I knew I couldn’t do it. But they wouldn’t just let someone leave. I’d already done the training. Everyone knew if you graduated, you were stuck there. They couldn’t afford to let their secrets out. Graduates with a problem disappeared. Everyone claimed they transferred to a different department, a secondary skill or something, but one day I was searching for something and I saw...”
Again her voice trailed off, and that time, she hunched over and curled in on herself, as if she still needed protection. Nokx couldn’t stand her misery, couldn’t stand how vulnerable she looked. He caught the back of her robe and pulled her into his lap, arranging her so she could still face Violet if she wanted, then wrapped his arms around her and held EJ against his chest. “You’re safe. They won’t find you.”
He was grateful she didn’t shriek or elbow him or flail around, as Gemma sometimes did when Wyzak surprised her. EJ leaned against him just the smallest bit. He didn’t even mind Violet’s sharp look or the consideration in the lawyer’s gaze. He didn’t care whether she judged him for comforting EJ. The nervous little marmox needed a steady hand to help her through her distressing memory.
Violet drummed her fingers on the table. “What did you see?”
“They killed them,” EJ said, her voice muffled as she rested her head against Nokx’s chest. She shook her head and her hair tickled under his chin, but he wasn’t going to move for anything in ungoverned space. EJ took a shaky breath, fists clenched in her lap, and her voice dropped to a thread of sound. “I knew there were two others who struggled, who weren’t performing how the instructors—the mentors, they called themselves—expected. Everyone knew they would get booted out. Everyone else had kind of moved on, they just assumed these two would get sent to marines or engineering or galley or something.”
“But they weren’t,” Violet said quietly.
Nokx kept his attention on EJ, even though he wanted to shake the other Earther to keep her from upsetting his marmox further, and held her closer.
EJ shook her head. “No. I was in one of the training warehouses, looking for a good place to hide if I needed to avoid someone, and I saw the mentors—inject Theo and Nika with something. They said