Operation: Marauder

Chapter 12

They took Zoey away. Just like that. And Rowan did nothing to stop it. Not when his instincts burned for him to throw Sergeant Timber into the wall and pull her close to him. Not when her fear crept up in her voice when she tried to stay with him. He couldn't do anything. His relationship with the humans was too delicate. Any sign of him losing control and he could kiss going home goodbye.

Jack and Colonel Shaw left for a debriefing while Rowan was locked in his seething rage, leaving his crew alone in the hangar.

Cas gripped his shoulder. "She's safe, Rowan."

Safe. She was safe from the Wraythe, but now she was a prisoner here. Because of him.

"I want to see her." What he really needed to do was talk to her and explain their misunderstanding. He hadn't lied to her and he certainly would never hurt her, if the Wraythe had made her believe he was something to be afraid of.

"You know they won't allow that," Maliki reminded him. "She was supposed to have never met us. They don't want her to know anything that's going on."

He clenched his fists. He wanted to hit something.

"She's a big girl," Knox assured him. "If she can kill a Wraythe, she'll be fine here. Let's focus on finding the rest of them so she doesn't have to stay long."

Rowan liked that plan. The sooner they did that, the sooner he could talk to Zoey and hope she'd give him another chance.

He led the others back to their quarters. It consisted of three bedrooms, each containing two bunk beds that barely held the weight of one of his men. They met in the middle via the main room where their kitchenette sat on one end and the living room on the other. Knox and Maliki usually took up most of the living room, spending their downtime playing Call of Duty on a console. They had similar pastimes on Arthos, but they didn't have remotes, the console was a room and it would create the world around you. Much like the humans' virtual reality concept.

Tonight, however, Rowan had declared it the war room. He gathered a map of the area and laid it on the coffee table. "Cas, you talked to Zoey. What did she say?"

"She was taken from here." The medic crouched and drew a circle around the airport. "She doesn't think she was in the van too long--which she thinks was a rental, something else we can look into. They took her to a warehouse. When she escaped, it was too dark for her to see any landmarkers, but she thinks the warehouse was in this general area." He circled the massive district only a few kilometers away from the airport. "She said she saw a meadow, too, which rules out these ones." He drew a line through a row of warehouses that ran along a trucking road.

Rowan looked at the two blocks that left them, impressed by Zoey's quick thinking. Was there anything she couldn't do?

"All right. Starting tomorrow, we'll scope out the area."

"What are we doing?" Jack came through the door, turning a suspicious pair of eyes their way. "What's going on?"

Rowan straightened up, regarding Jack carefully. He'd been gone some time with his superiors. The fact he was here was a good sign, but they wouldn't have let him get away with bringing his sister to the base, almost exposing their secret. "How did Colonel Shaw take the news?" Depending on his answer, Rowan would tell him what they were up to.

Jack scratched the back of his head and sighed heavily, deflating as he did. "I'm here. For now. He thinks I've lost the objective of our arrangement, that I'm too buddy-buddy with you guys."

"What does that mean for us?" Knox asked, hopping onto the back of the couch to get a better view of Jack as he joined them in the living room. He chose to stand away from the rest of them. Rowan didn't like how aloof he was being. It wasn't a good sign.