Kill by Numbers: In the Wake of the Templars Book Two by Loren Rhoads Page A

awake?”
    “Homework,” she pouted. “I have to write a poem to perform tomorrow.”
    “When did you get the assignment?”
    She hung her head.
    Haoun laughed at her. “I won’t keep you long, then. I just wanted to tell you …” His voice trailed off. He’d wanted to tell her not to worry, but clearly she wasn’t worried. Was it possible she didn’t know about the recall of the tesseract engines? She was very mature for her age , he thought proudly, but she was still a child .
    “I’m going to Capital City,” he finished.
    She tilted her head and looked at him skeptically. “You called to tell me that?”
    “I called to ask if you wanted a souvenir. I’ve never been before.”
    “Who are you talking to, Jexx? You’re supposed to be finishing your homework.” Serese appeared in the doorway behind the desk. She’d gotten heavier since Haoun left. The muscles bunched around her jaw looked strong enough to bite through metal. She was so beautiful.
    “Hello,” Haoun said. He hoped the pang he felt wasn’t audible in his voice. “I was about to let her go back to work.”
    “Hello, Haoun,” Serese said coldly. It was uncommon for Na’ash males to hang around their families after the eggs hatched. Serese felt that Haoun’s interest in his spawn was creepy.
    “I wanted to let the kids know I’m okay,” he said quickly. “The Veracity has an old Earther drive. It’s not affected by the recall.”
    “Good, Haoun. I’ll tell the boys in the morning. For now …”
    “Get to work, Jexxie,” he said dutifully. “I expect you to be brilliant.”
    “Love you, Daddy!” she chirped, as Serese leaned over to disconnect them.
    “Love you too, Baby,” he told the empty screen.

CHAPTER 6

    A s Raena left her gym for the day, Coni called to her from the cockpit. “Come up front. I think I have this about finished.”
    “That’s great news, Coni.” Raena draped her towel over her shoulders and came to perch in Haoun’s oversized pilot’s chair. “But first: can I ask you some questions? You probably know the official story of my life better than I do.”
    Coni nodded. “As far as the old Imperial records were concerned, Raena Zacari was captured, court-martialed, and executed.”
    “Imperial procedure was to incinerate the prisoner and send her remains back home at cost to the family. Did that happen?”
    Coni poked around online. Raena sat back in Haoun’s chair, arms folded across her chest, content to wait. She thought of herself as fairly adept at human-centric computer systems, but Coni understood the wider galactic systems—Raena still thought of them as alien, which she knew simply betrayed her myopia. Coni could read languages Raena couldn’t even identify and find virtual niches and backwaters that Raena could not. She could be a powerful ally, but Raena couldn’t figure out where Coni’s true allegiance rested, other than with Mykah.
    It surprised Raena to discover how much of her interaction with humans had been reliant on her ability to read their emotions. Coni, with her dry way of speaking and her inexpressive muzzle, was impossible for Raena to interpret. It left her feeling continually off balance.
    “I don’t see anything right away,” Coni said, “but I’ll keep looking.” Without glancing up from her screen, Coni added, “Did you have a home for them to send things to?”
    “Not that the Empire would recognize as such, probably. I doubt Thallian reported to them that, before he inducted me into Imperial service, I had been a runaway slave. The Shaads would still have legally been my owners, but they couldn’t have been defined as my next of kin. It doesn’t matter, I guess. I doubt the Shaads would have wanted to claim my remains, if it cost another credit.”
    “Your life is just one unending tale of woe, isn’t it?” Coni asked. If it had been Mykah saying that, Raena would have known he meant to tease her. If it had been Vezali, her new translator was