Page 61 of Salvation for the Alien Mercenary

"With Anson's help, maybe. Yeah." Covak reactivated his comm. "Anson, I'm sending you a direct feed. Need your decryption expertise."

Davis reactivated his systems as well, bracing for Mira's reaction.

"What the fuck, Davis?" Her voice came immediately, tight with anger and worry. "You can't just cut me off like that."

"Sorry," he said, meaning it. "Covak needed to focus on hacking the terminal."

"And I'm such a distraction?"

"No, it's not—" He sighed, struggling for words. "I just didn't want you involved if this goes south."

"I'm already involved," she pointed out.

Before he could reply, Covak whooped softly in triumph. "Got something. Partial data recovery."

Davis moved to look over his shoulder. "What is it?"

"Project names, mostly. References to something called the Latharian Medical Archives at Kaaraxis." Covak scrolled through the fragmented data. "Looks like research notes, heavily encrypted."

"Kaaraxis. I know that name," Mira repeated, excitement creeping into her voice. "The ship's database says that's a massive medical research repository. If Laaer was working with K’ell, that has to be where they'd store their research data."

Davis exchanged a look with Covak.

"Davis?" Mira prompted when he didn't immediately respond. "This is it. We need to go to Kaaraxis."

Davis closed his eyes briefly. He didn't know much about Latharian history, but he was familiar with events in the last couple of years. "Mira... Kaaraxis was razed to the ground last year. Terrorist attack. Nothing survived."

Silence stretched between them.

"You're sure?" Mira finally asked.

"Yeah. Positive," Covak confirmed. "It was all over the news feeds. The Latharian Purist movement claimed the attack. They targeted it specifically because it had research on genetic modification and the Latharian integration with humanity."

"So we're back to square one," she said, her voice flat.

Davis clenched his jaw, frustration building inside him. Another dead end. Another delay in finding answers.

"We need to wrap this up," Anson's voice cut in. "Eight minutes remaining."

"Copy that," he replied, forcing himself to focus. "Covak, anything else useful?"

The Vorrtan continued scanning. "Nothing immediately obvious. I've copied what I could, but most of it is corrupted. Anson, Jesh, or Jex might be able to make sense of it."

Davis swept his gaze around the study again, as if answers might suddenly appear.

"Okay, we're heading back. We'll have to try something else."

12

Mira paced the engineering bay, boots thudding against the metal plating. Her fingers tapped her comm unit for the fifth time in as many minutes. Still nothing from Davis or Covak.

"They're fine," she muttered, pushing hair from her face. "Just running late."

The knot in her stomach tightened anyway. After the failed mission to find Laaer and Davis's ongoing changes, worry gnawed at her. It felt stupid to fret when he'd survived years with an alien mercenary unit before meeting her.

But this supply run was taking too damn long.

A soft chirp sounded near her feet. Spot circled her, optical sensors tilted upward with what looked like concern.