“Yeah, but we’re not any better. Are we?” Beauty commented. “Look at the oonat. We use them as servants or species like the Ovverta or the Seratovians.”
Those were names Eris wasn’t familiar with, but the rest of the group reacted with outrage.
“The Ovverta were barbarians!”
“Deserved everything they got!”
“The Seratovians? You’ll start talking about the human’s Easter hippo next.”
“Bunny,” she corrected quietly, but it went unheard as everyone looked at Beauty.
He looked back, his arms folded over his chest. As tall as the other Warborne, he was more slender in build, but he had a dangerous edge around him that warned against underestimating him.
His pale blue eyes held a look she’d seen before, on soldiers coming back from war and people who’d survived disasters. The look said he’d seen and done terrible things to survive. She suppressed a shiver. She would never want to cross this man, not unless she wanted to spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder.
“Regardless, the fact stands. This...” He jabbed long fingers at the tabletop to emphasize his point. “Is no worse than shit the Lathar have done. Just take people like Red, for example. It’s not her fault her mother was raped by a clutch of Krynassis. Now was it? And did her family support her through it? No, they expected her to get rid of Red when she was born and forget it ever happened. Sorry, Red.”
Eris’s eyes widened. Shit. She’d had no idea of the woman’s history, but that was…
“Crap. Doll, I’m sorry that happened to you.” Sparky took the words out of her mouth, his expression unusually serious as he looked over at the Amazonian alien.
“Don’t be.” Red’s reply was brusque and no-nonsense. “And not all Lathar are dicks. Just that group of assholes. Fucking clans, it’s all about their name and bloodlines. My mom… was made of stronger stuff. She taught me everything I know.”
T’Raal reached out, covering her hand on the side of the tabletop. “She was an amazing woman, Red. Truly missed.”
There was definitely history there, but unlike with Fin, Red’s relationship with T’Raal seemed more familial in nature.
“So… now we’ve established we’re all as shitty as each other,” Beauty pressed on, rubbing at the stubble on his jaw. “What are we going to do about this group of assholes and the woman they’re experimenting on. Do we know what species she is, or what condition she’s in?”
“Nope. This is all we have from Dr. Archer.”
Zero flicked up the data-stream again. It was mostly reports and analysis from Eric’s work. She didn’t understand most of it. Eric had always been the more cerebral of the two of them. Still, from his spidery notes dotted throughout the data she followed his suspicions about the data source from idle musings through to full-on panic.
“It appears his project is a cover for another one, the Chimera Project. They’ve been feeding information to several different research projects, but Eric couldn’t get information on all of them. Just enough to paint a very unpleasant picture. It looks like they are experimenting on other species to apply genetic advantages to their own DNA.”
Red frowned. “That’s nothing new. The Lathar have been doing that for countless generations.” She nodded toward Fin. “Adaptations like the Navarr have, or stronger bones like Skinny’s for heavy-gravity planets. If gossip is right and humanity are a version of Lathar, their DNA is easily alterable. They don’t need to experiment on other species for that, just themselves.”
Eris sighed and pushed her bangs back off her face. “Yeah… about that. We’ve got a history of doing that as well.”
“Savages,” Beauty shook his head. “Well, there’s nothing for it. Whoever this female is, we need to go find her… then nuke this place flat as a warning to these assholes not to do it again.”
“Shouldn’t we inform the Earth government?” Fin broke in.
Everyone turned to look at him, eyebrows raised. He lifted his hands in surrender. “Hey, just playing devil’s advocate here. Perhaps we should keep them in the loop, that’s all.”
“We’re a Latharian crew operating behind enemy lines in an area of space under the emperor’s personal protection,” T’Raal growled. “When would you like your execution scheduled...morning or evening? Because that’s what’s going to happen the instant anyone finds out we’ve been here.”
Fin shrugged. “Yeah… point taken. Probably best to do this on the down-low.”
“If that’s the case...” Eris leaned in and altered the holomap in front of them. Turning it on its axis, she highlighted a couple of trade routes. “We can take the Icharus route. When we hit this tri-sun system here, sensors from any other system are compromised. Basically, we can drop off the grid and reappear…” She flipped the map again. “Here. Practically on the doorstep of the moon this lab is supposed to be on. Hopefully, Eric is there and we can nab him at the same time.”
T’Raal nodded. “It’s further into Terran space than we’ve ever been, so we’ll take your word for it. You and Sparky are familiar with these systems?” He looked up at them.
They both nodded.
“Shipped out of Helios here a few times.” She pointed to another system nearby. “Purely military base.”
“Yeah, I went through Helios station a time or two,” Sparky admitted begrudgingly. “Before they shoved me into Mirax.”
“Okay, so yeah. This should be a walk in the park. Looks like a small moon base, mostly scientific staff,” she continued, pulling up the plans Eric had included. “Minimal resistance. We should be in and out without too much trouble.”
“Perfect. Skinny, plot us a course,” T’Raal ordered. “We’ll reconvene an hour out and go over the final battle plan. Until then, get some rack time.”
He looked up. “That means fuck off out my sight, you ‘orrible lot.”
There was laughter as the group around
