Nor was he Lord Healer Laarn. Her notes indicated that all Latharian healers were heavily scarred, like the other man. She flicked through her notes again, but that guy was listed as the ambassador of Izaea… So she had no clue what that meant. Perhaps he was just scarred?
“I think,” she said, tapping the screen to indicate the dark-haired guy. “That no one likes him. Not even his own people.”
Cam snorted. “Not surprised. That’s Prince Rohn, and he’s a dick of the highest order. Needs taking down a peg or two.”
She grinned as she slid him a sideways glance. “Putting yourself forward for that one?”
Cam shook his head as he leaned back more comfortably in his chair. The observation room was dark, but she easily picked out the little smirk that played on his lips. “Not sure I need to. I think the rest of them are planning to bury him somewhere out of the way.”
“Not on the base,” she argued. “General Haney will have kittens!”
“Yeah and then General Guerra would dig him up to dissect him.”
Cam reached forward to help himself to some of her coffee, wrapping a big hand around her mug before she could stop him.
“Hey!” she hissed, slapping his hand. “Go get your own!”
There was a reason the observation room was situated where it was, little more than a small closet tucked between one of the VIP suites and a large galley. Its door was small and in obtrusive, so you had to know it was there to find it, but it was easy to slip out and next door for a top up. And they did do the best filter coffee on base down here.
“No time,” he threw back, totally unashamed as he continued drinking her coffee. “Besides, they make it nicer for you. It’s never the same when they do it for me.”
“You’re the goddamn president,” she groused, going back to watching the screen. “Just tell them how you like it made, dickhead.”
“Are you aware you just called the president of Earth a dickhead?”
She rolled her eyes at him.
“That’s mild to what I want to call you. Now pay attention,” she ordered, looking at the screen.
“Apart from the VIP group, they seem to have split off into two other groups.” She pulled up two different feeds onto the monitors. One of them showed the analysis suite that had been arranged for the Lathar to use.
“The ones in the fancy armor suit things are mostly in here,” she said. “Several of them haven’t moved since they arrived. I’m assuming they’re still alive because they’re breathing, but for all intents and purposes they’re just statues.”
Cam nodded, his pale gaze intent on the screens. Even though he wasn’t asking questions or replying to her, she knew he was taking in everything she said and everything he saw. He was analyzing and studying every little clue, and then he would make leaps of logic that completely confounded her. But then she wasn’t a strategist. She was just a street kid with an ability to read body language. And Cam used her specifically for that skill.
“They’re B’Kaar,” he said in a low voice. “Hackers. They mainly wage war on a technological level from what I understand. The rest of the Latharian empire pays them for viruses to disable their enemies' technology, or to hack into facilities and disable the defenses. Plus, those suits are like tanks. They’re armed and armored.”
She looked back at the screen, nodding in agreement.
Even though the suits didn’t cover all of the wearer’s body—she could clearly see arms and legs in most cases—it was obvious that the protuberances on the shoulders were weaponry of some kind. “I’ve not been able to get a read that would indicate any of the weaponry is live.”
“I don’t think it needs to be.” Cam shook his head and leaned forward. “They seem to have some kind of wiring under their skin.”
He indicated an image on the screen and she blew it up so they could take a closer look. Her breath hissed out between her teeth as she saw what he meant. A fine lattice of lights was embedded under the alien’s skin. It pulsed for a second and then disappeared.
“That’s how they control their suits. It has to be. What about these two… They were in the VIP group?”
She indicated two of the unarmored warriors in the digital suite. She hadn’t been able to figure them out yet. The lighter-haired of the two had body language that was so closed off he might as well have been a corpse while the other one seemed to prefer being with the final group. Although group was a misnomer since there were only two of them.
A human, and a younger looking Lathar she hadn’t been able to take her eyes off.
“Those two are War Commander Risyn, and his second in command, Berrick. They’re both B’Kaar, but I don’t know why they’re not in suits.”
Cam finished off her coffee and turned to throw the empty mug at the recycling unit behind them. It hit dead center and disappeared into the chute.
“The other two are Major Stephens, formerly of the Frontier Marines but now a member of the champion’s family… but as for the one you’re eye-fucking, I don’t know. He’s not a B’Kaar, and we don’t seem to have that leathers configuration on file… Do we?”
She frowned as she looked down, rifling through her notes. Then back up at the screen at the unknown alien.
He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Tall and lean, he had muddy brown hair slicked back to his scalp and dark eyes. He looked young, maybe mid-twenties, but she knew that didn’t mean anything for the Lathar. Their intelligence all pointed to the fact the aliens aged a lot slower than humanity it. The guy was probably over a hundred or something.
It had taken them a while to realize that the leather clothing the Lathar wore didn’t mean that they were some kind of space bikers but were in fact a uniform. It had taken them longer than that to work out that the shoulder design, and in some cases stitching, differentiated the clans. So far, they could identify the K’Vass, the K’Saan and the B’Kaar… although the latter were more identifiable by their suits. The configuration the handsome young Lathar was wearing was one she had never seen before.
“No. That’s a new one. And he doesn’t look like the rest…” she commented, watching him closely.
“The way he moves is different. Those leathers don’t fit him right either. The rest look like they’re sprayed on, tailored to fit. But those look older… More like hand-me-downs?”
“Hmmm, yeah, I see what you mean.” Cam gave a sigh, running his hands through his hair, and then scrubbed to his face. Automatically he looked at her, tilting his head to the side.
She nodded, knowing what he was asking. “You’re good. You don’t look like a zombie yet. No skin flaking off.”
He smiled, the synth skin over the scars on his cheek still in place and pulling naturally. He always wore a coverup when in public, minimizing his dangerous past. For some reason the general public didn’t like the idea that their president had almost had his face torn off in battle. Personally, she’d have thought it would give a measure of reassurance that the president was such a badass. Especially when facing down a warlike alien race who could quite easily wipe them out.
“Okay, so quite apart from your crush there… What else do we know?”