The Star Thief (Star Thief Chronicles 1)

Renna raised her eyebrows. “You mean to tell me he’s only sending six people to save the galaxy? What—did his budget get cut recently?”

“I don’t think you understand. Six MYTH agents is like having a full platoon of other soldiers.” The sergeant pressed her finger to a scanner, and a door slid open, leading down another corridor.

Renna cursed under her breath. MYTH’s facility was huge, and she had no idea of the layout. Dammit. She desperately needed to fix her implant or find a new one before they left, but she’d bet her life MYTH didn’t have the resources on site for something like that. Cyborg tech—especially black market—was frowned upon by most governments.

They walked for almost a minute in silence before turning down another utilitarian hallway. Gheewala finally stopped in front of a plain steel door. Inside was yet another standard-issue table surrounded by chairs made of some inexpensive but long-lasting polyplastic.

Dallas and the rest of the team were already waiting for them. “Please have a seat, Renna. We were about to get started with the debrief.” He pointed to one of the empty chairs, and she slipped into it, crossing her arms.

“Is this going to take long? My feet are starting to get itchy.” Always a good sign trouble was on the way, trouble she didn’t want to be a part of.

“We have medicine for that,” Gheewala said, pausing in her scan of the room to focus for a moment on Renna. She looked very concerned.

“It’s a figure of speech, Sergeant,” Renna explained kindly.

Across the room, Keva snorted and quickly pressed her fingers to her lips, turning away. Dallas took his spot at the head of the room, but Captain Finn stayed on his feet near the door. He’d changed out of the ninja suit into a crisp black uniform that looked almost as stiff as his spine.

The major paced, his shoulders around his ears. “Comm chatter has picked up in the last hour. We need to get you on your way ASAP. We’ve had reports that the planet they held Myka at prior to Hesperia has been attacked.”

“Status?” Finn asked.

“Destroyed.” Dallas tugged at his collar. “Dr. Aldani has been notified that Myka is safe. He assures us he has been working on the tech to get us inside the bunker. We need you to go to his labs on Iniros to pick it up and deliver the boy, but your route will have to be top secret. No one must know where Myka has gone. Even our own controllers will be told you are going to another planet. I will, unfortunately, be unable to communicate with you due to the sensitive nature of the mission and the chance of interception. Captain Finn has his orders and will fill you in on a need-to-know basis.”

Dallas turned to Renna. “What I am about to say is not to leave this room.”

She smirked. “I’m a thief. I know how to keep a secret.”

“You also know how to sell them to the highest bidder,” Keva muttered.

Renna clenched her hands in her lap. Someday she was going to knock that smug smile off that woman’s beaky lips, and it wouldn’t be in the sparring ring.

“I assume you’ve heard about the attack on Banos Prime three years ago?” Dallas asked, jerking her out of her dark thoughts.

She nodded. The murder of ten thousand civilians was always big news. “Myka said his parents had been killed there.”

“Correct. They were there as scientists, ostensibly working for the mining colony doing research. In reality, they were part of the MYTH team investigating a strange mineral found on-world.”

“And Myka didn’t know?”

“Of course not. He’s a child. But what his parents found put us on high alert a few days before the attack. Someone had built a station to take the minerals found in the Banos Prime soil and convert them into a new type of clay.”

That drug seemed to be the cause of every problem in her life. She took a deep breath. “So someone killed an entire colony to keep production secret?”

“Partly. We also think the Aldanis had additional information about technology they discovered.”

Renna tapped her finger on the smooth white surface of the table. “Well, you have the kid now, and I’m assuming the tech I retrieved was the stuff you were looking for. What else do you need me for?”

Dallas’s lips tightened into a thin line. “Whoever was behind the attack on Banos Prime hasn’t stopped. They’re still after something, and we need to know what.”

“I haven’t heard of any attacks.”

Dallas stopped pacing long enough to tap the holopad on the table, careful to keep his eyes averted from the screen. The map of the galaxy on the wall flickered and then disappeared, replaced by high-definition photo images.

Mangled bodies, smoking cities, blood, death, and destruction flashed by in a blur. Renna’s stomach roiled, and she pressed a hand to her mouth.

“That’s Nath. Or what’s left of it. Two months ago, it was attacked without warning, and most of the humans on the planet killed. We don’t know what the attackers were looking for or if they found it.”

Renna dragged her gaze from the screen, swallowing the acid burning the back of her throat. “There’s been no word of this. Not even a hint.” She had contacts on every planet. There was no way the Coalition could have kept this a secret.

“MYTH is a powerful organization.” Dallas’s gaze fell to the table and his expression tightened. “And there were few survivors left to talk.”

“But what do they want? Why are they doing this?” The pictures kept coming, and she wanted to scream at him to turn them off. She’d seen it all before, but there was something about the way the bodies had been gutted, the way their blood splattered everything around them… It was horrific.

“That’s what we need your help to find out. We know the gamma particle destabilizer is part of it. So is Myka. Dr. Aldani agreed to help us if we rescued his nephew, but he refused to work on anything until Myka was returned. We think he knows more than he’s telling us.”

Myka’s uncle seemed like a very smart man. “Nice to see someone able to stand up to you.”

Dallas’s face darkened. “We’ve found another manufacturing installation in the middle of the desert on Banos Prime, about twenty klicks from the city’s ruins. We think it’s the same people.”

Renna’s gaze rested on Lieutenant Keva and the two silent men sitting beside her. They all looked more than capable. She already knew the captain was. “I’ve seen how your space ninjas work. You’re telling me they couldn’t rescue a little boy from thugs like the Cordozas?”