Synnr's Hope - Kate Rudolph Page 0,66

with a curse. “What the fuck? Get that off the stove.” She removed the pan before he could turn around.

“Braz.” Solan waved his hands around, hoping that would help disperse the smoke. At least they weren’t being judged outside of the missions. No one was paying him to cook.

“Holy shit, I know that guy. He was one of the people holding us.” Lena approached the hologram and stared at it, keeping a couple feet back as if she was afraid he could reach out and grab her through the projection.

The computer had frozen on the image of the man that Solan had seen in the village. “He was in the café a week ago.” This was bad. This was very, very bad.

“Any chance that’s his good twin?” Lena asked with a grimace.

“Not likely. There’s no reason for an Apsyn to be in this village. Not a good one. The nearest Apsyn settlement is on the other side of the moon. I need to report this.” While Aorsa was mostly populated by Synnrs, there were a few Apsyn settlements scattered across the land. The same went for Kilrym, which was mostly the home of Apsyns with the exception of a few Synnr villages. “Computer, call central command.” Solan wanted to rush into the village and find this man, find out what he was doing, but they needed to let someone in charge know what was going on.

A second hologram appeared, this one of Major Ozar. “Is there a reason you’re using your override code on city surveillance?” she asked instead of a greeting.

“Yes, ma’am. I recognized a person in town from my last mission on Kilrym. Lena can confirm. He has no reason to be on Aorsa.” Solan had the computer relay the surveillance data.

“One moment.” The major looked away from them, and while he could see her lips moving, he couldn’t hear anything. She had put herself on privacy mode.

He wanted to volunteer to go investigate with Lena. He wanted to jump right in. But they had to wait for the order. It chafed. But they were in remedial training for a reason, and if he ignored the rules they were bound to be drummed out of the military. He really hoped the major let them go.

“It will be a couple of days before I can get a team out there,” she said once she was done reading his report. “Your scores have improved greatly since you began your training. I’m trusting you with this. There is no backup coming. Go into town. Find this man. Confirm his identity. And keep it quiet. We don’t want to tip the Apsyns off.” She spoke quickly, rattling off the orders and giving Solan and Lena a real chance to prove themselves.

“We won’t disappoint.” They couldn’t.

“I know,” she replied.

Lena was standing beside him, rocking on the balls of her feet.

He grinned. “Ready to go hunt an Apsyn spy?”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

THERE WAS A VEHICLE in the storage shed out back that Lena and Solan took into the village. It was supposed to be used only during emergencies and official business, and this was definitely official business. They parked in the central parking lot and decided to split up. Lena would go west, Solan would go east, and they’d circle around to meet back in the middle. She was uncomfortably reminded of the simulation they had run where they had to protect the diplomat from an Apsyn infiltrator. She had failed terribly, mostly because of her insistence on splitting up. But this time splitting up was Solan’s suggestion, and he didn’t hesitate for a moment before making it. He believed in her. She needed to believe in herself.

While they were going through the village on foot, the computer was going through all available surveillance information. The cameras from the shops and café, the credit information from every business, and the guest records from the only hotel in the area.

Lena was grateful for the AI. She had spent months and months back on Earth combing through piles of credit statements and surveillance footage. No computer had the capability to do what the Zulir computers could.

As Lena walked down the street, she had a bad feeling. She’d been on jobs that went wrong with the DEA, and this was starting to feel like that. Would the Apsyn know they were coming? What kind of firepower would he have? Were she and Solan enough to take him on?

They had to be. No backup was coming.

She passed by the park