Eyes of Tomorrow (Duchy of Terra Book 9) by Glynn Stewart (best e book reader TXT) 📕

friend had decided that joining Imperial Fleet Intelligence was a use for her skills that would put Marines between her and any more space pirates.

And Lawrence had been on the team that had disabled the Taljzi Dyson swarm.

“That would require me to reveal one of the deepest secrets of the Grand Hive to, at the very least, the team you assembled,” Oxtashah said quietly.

“We would need to bring Tan!Shallegh in at a minimum,” Rin told her. “That decision is yours. I will not betray your secrets, Princess Oxtashah, but to do what you want, we will need to bring in others.”

“Thank you, Dr. Dunst,” Oxtashah said. “I will consider my options. I appreciate your assistance and your honesty.”

Rin, for his part, kept his gaze on the hologram of the Dyson swarm. The Alava had never thought small.

He had to wonder if that was related to how they’d convinced the Infinite that the entire Alavan species needed to die.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

To a very real extent, Morgan had never bothered to unpack on Va!Tola. She’d never quite had time, and it appeared that had been the right call. She’d served as an analyst team lead for Tan!Shallegh for less than thirty cycles.

Once everything was packed away, she took a few minutes to sit on the bed and breathe. She still needed to meet with her team and let them know she was shipping out, but everything was running at maximum velocity.

Her ulterior motive proved out, though, as Rin knocked on the door before she gathered herself enough to leave.

“Come in,” she told him.

Her boyfriend took in the neatly packed duffel on the bed and her posture with a calm expression, then his gaze focused on her collar.

“Division Lord, huh?” he asked. “Congratulations.”

“It’s temporary, theoretically, but they needed an Imperial officer both a Wendira and Laian detachment would listen to,” she said. “I’m commanding a special joint mission—can’t say much more than that, I don’t think.”

“But you’re shipping out,” he concluded, sitting down on the bed next to her and squeezing her hand. “And you had no warning, so there’s nothing to blame you for, is there?”

Morgan chuckled. She hadn’t been thinking about that, not really, but the worry had been there.

“Still good to hear that you don’t blame me,” she told him. “How was your meeting with the Wendira Princess?”

“Complicated,” he murmured. “I… I can’t talk about it. Not yet. Maybe not ever. I gave her my word.”

That was strange, but Morgan knew she couldn’t press him. She squeezed his hand back and leaned her head on his shoulder for a few precious moments.

“You have a thousand and one things to be doing, I’m sure,” Rin told her. “I saw you weren’t at your station, and thought I could steal some emotional support, but I don’t want to get in the way.”

“You only get in the way when you think it’s the right thing to do?” Morgan asked, reflecting on the time he’d gone over her head to get himself attached to a mission as a civilian advisor. He’d been right—not least because they’d needed to keep some of her clearances and knowledge secret—but that hadn’t made it less aggravating.

“Sometimes, that’s what it takes,” he agreed. “Professionally and personally, I’m supposed to have your back. Regardless of what you think about it at a given moment.”

She sighed.

“Right now, you’re probably right in sending me on my way,” she admitted. “I just needed a moment to breathe and, well, hoped that you’d see I was off duty and check in.”

“Well, here I am,” Rin said with a grin. “And you’ve told me that you’re leaving, which sucks, but I always knew what I was getting into, Division Lord.”

“Be nice, Doctor,” she countered with a smile of her own. “You think you’ll survive on your own?”

“I did before; I will again. Tan!Shallegh appears to have adopted me,” Rin told her. “I don’t know if I’m being nearly as much use as I’d like, though. It’s not like we’re going to find a forgotten Alavan archaeology site with all of the answers about the Infinite.”

“Would be nice, though,” she admitted. “Feels like we don’t have nearly enough answers.”

And she was about to make sure they never got those answers. Obliterating the main core of the Infinite was unlikely to convince the survivors to sit down for informational interviews.

“Well, either way, it looks like you need to get to it,” Rin told her. “Up and at them, Morgan. Space waits better than the tides did, but duty waits for no one.”

“It waits a little,” she replied, then kissed him fiercely. Coming up for air, she smiled at him. “But not much. I’ll be back, Rin.”

“Don’t make promises you don’t know you can keep, Morgan.”

Rin’s words were echoing in Morgan’s mind as she walked into Va!Tola’s Fleet Operations Center. Her entire team was on duty, but the moment she walked in, everyone stopped and turned to look at her.

Shotilik was there a moment later, the big Noble-caste Rekiki saluting fist to chest.

“I see the news already made it,” Morgan said drily—and then noticed that Shotilik had acquired a third gold pip on her insignia, marking her promotion to full Captain. “And that congratulations are in order, Staff Captain Shotilik.”

“We were informed a hundredth-cycle ago,” Shotilik confirmed. “I was informed…a hundredth-cycle before that? Along with the promotion.”

“So, you’re taking over, I hope?”

“Until the Fleet Lord finds someone better,” the Rekiki said. “Or you come back. Whichever works.”

“The only person I can think of who even might be better is going with me,” Morgan told Shotilik with a chuckle. “So, you’ll be keeping the job.”

She stepped past the Rekiki and faced the rest of the team. She hadn’t had a chance to get to know most of them as well as she’d have liked, but they were still her people.

“Everything about this team has been a rush,” she told them. “So, I guess it’s no surprise that my leaving is a rush. I’m transferring to the battleship