“So we’re working against the clock.”

“Seems that way,” the ambassador admitted. “I noticed something else in your report,” she continued, smoothly changing her focus yet again. “You said you believe the attackers had help from someone working on the project?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“We may know who that person is,” the captain chimed in. “Sir?”

It was the ambassador who answered him. “One of our top technicians left the base UA just hours before the attack. Kahlee Sanders. We have reports she was last seen on Elysium, but she’s dropped off the grid since then.”

“You figure if we find her, we find Dr. Qian?”

“We won’t know that until you find her, Lieutenant.”

Anderson was surprised. “You’re sending the Hastings to track her down?” “No,” the ambassador replied. “Just you.”

Instinctively he turned toward his captain. “Sir, I don’t understand.”

“You’re the best damn XO I’ve ever served with, Anderson,” the captain said. “But the ambassador’s asking that you be reassigned.”

“Understood, sir.” He tried to keep his voice professional, but Goyle must have picked up on his disappointment.

“This isn’t a punishment, Lieutenant. I’ve looked over your service records. Head of your class at Arcturus. Three different medals of merit during the First Contact War. Numerous commendations throughout your career. You’re the best the Alliance has to offer. And this is the most important mission we’ve ever had.”

Anderson gave an emphatic nod. “You can count on me, Ambassador.” He was a soldier, sworn to defend humanity. This was his duty, and it was an honor to accept the burden being placed upon him.

“You’re going to be working on this alone,” the captain told him. “The more people we send after

Sanders, the more chance somebody outside this room finds out what we were doing at Sidon.”

“Officially this mission doesn’t even exist,” the ambassador added. “Humanity’s still the new kid on the block. We’re bold, we’re brash, and every other race is just waiting for us to screw up.

“I don’t have to tell you what it’s like out there in the Verge, Lieutenant. You’ve seen how hard it is to establish a colony and make it stick. We’re clawing and scraping and fighting for every little gain we make, just trying to survive. But if the Citadel gets wind of this, things will get a whole lot tougher.

“If we’re lucky, we’ll get off with an official rebuke and major trade sanctions, crippling our economy. If we’re unlucky, they could revoke our embassy here on the Citadel. They could make it illegal for any other Council species to deal with us on any level.

“Humanity’s not strong enough to make it out there completely on our own. Not yet.” “I know how to be discreet,” Anderson assured her.

“It’s not just you. Kahlee Sanders knows something about this. So does whoever was involved in the actual attack. How long until one of these people runs across a Spectre?”

Anderson frowned. The last thing they needed was for a Spectre to become involved. Elite agents of the Citadel’s covert Special Tactics and Recon branch, Spectres answered directly to the Council itself. Highly trained individuals authorized to act above and outside the law, the Spectres had one simple mandate: protect galactic stability at any and all costs. The Skyllian Verge — a largely unsettled border region of Council space that was a known haven for rebels, insurrectionists, and terrorist groups — was exactly the kind of place where Spectres would be most active. And a rogue faction in possession of the galaxy’s foremost expert on AI technology was exactly the kind of threat Spectres excelled in hunting down and eliminating.

“If a Spectre somehow finds out about this, they’ll have to report it to the Council,” Anderson said, choosing his words carefully. “How far am I supposed to go to keep this secret?”

“Are you asking if we’re ordering you to kill an official agent of the Council?” the captain asked.

Anderson nodded.

“I can’t make that decision for you, Lieutenant,” the ambassador told him. “We trust your judgment. If the situation comes up, it’ll be your call.

“Not that I think it’ll matter,” she added ominously. “By the time you find out a Spectre’s gotten involved, you’ll probably already be dead.”

CHAPTER NINE

Night was approaching on the planet of Juxhi. The dim orange sun was setting on the horizon and Yando, the smaller of the world’s two moons, was already approaching its zenith. For the next twenty minutes darkness would reign. Then Budmi, Yando’s larger twin, would begin to rise, and the darkness would give way to an eerie twilight.

Saren Arterius, a turian Spectre, waited patiently for the sun to disappear. For several hours Saren had been perched atop a rock outcropping, staking out a small, isolated warehouse in the desert on the outskirts of Phend, Juxhi’s capital city. Built in the sheltering stones of a small canyon, the run-down building was completely unremarkable, except for the fact that an illegal weapons deal was about to go down there.

The buyers were already inside: a group of guntoting thugs with basic military training known as the Grim Skulls, one of the many private security organizations active in the Verge. The Skulls were small, a few dozen criminal mercenaries who had never been worth Saren’s attention before tonight. Then they’d made the mistake of thinking they could purchase a stolen shipment of military-grade weapons that had disappeared from a turian transport freighter.

His ears caught the sound of an engine in the distance, and a few minutes later a six-wheeled ATV rolled up and came to a stop beside the shed. A half-dozen men got out; two were turian, the others human. Even in the dim light, Saren recognized one of the turians immediately: a dockworker from the Camala ports.

He’d been following the dockworker for days, ever since he checked the duty logs to see who was on shift when the shipment went missing. Only one worker hadn’t shown up for work the next day; figuring out who the thief was had been embarrassingly easy.

Tracking him down wasn’t much harder. This entire operation reeked of amateurs in over their heads, from the theft to the buyers. Normally Saren would’ve turned the matter over to local authorities and moved on to something bigger. But turians selling weapons to humans was something he took personally.

The door to the shed opened, and four of the figures, including both turians, unloaded a crate from the

back of the ATV and carried it inside. The other two took up sentry positions beside the door.

Saren shook his head in disbelief as he snapped his night-vision goggles into place. What possible use was there in leaving two men to stand guard outside a warehouse in the middle of nowhere? They had no cover; they were completely exposed.

Raising his Izaali Combine-manufactured sniper rifle to his eye, he fired two shots and both sentries slumped to the ground. Moving with an almost casual efficiency, he collapsed the sniper rifle and slid it back into the designated slot on his backpack. A more professional operation would have someone on the inside periodically checking on the sentries… or wouldn’t have left them out there in the first place.

It took him ten minutes to clamber down from his perch on the rock face. By then the twin moons were both visible, giving enough illumination for him to stash his goggles back into his pack.

Whipping out the Haliat Arms semiautomatic assault rifle from where it clicked into place on his thigh, he approached the building’s entrance. He’d scouted the warehouse earlier; he knew there were no windows and no other doors. Everyone inside was trapped — further proof he was dealing with idiots.

He pressed himself against the door, listening carefully. Inside he could hear angry bickering. Apparently nobody had the foresight to spell out the terms of the exchange before the meeting; either that or somebody was trying to renegotiate the deal. Professionals didn’t make that mistake: get to the meeting, make the exchange, and get out. The longer you’re there, the more chance something’s going to go wrong.