Dark Minds (Class 5 Series Book 3) Read Online Free Page B

other occupants of the room. Standing with him was a Grihan and two Krik——the four clearly a tight-knit team.
    And if Cam were to guess, smugglers or pirates.
    Beside him, Pren shifted. She'd picked up on it, too.
    They'd wondered why the Krik had captured them. Cam had been sure it was to do with their mission, but the moment they'd been shoved into this holding area deep inside the Class 5, that theory had changed.
    The prisoners they were now sharing space with were a mixed group, the cross-section he would expect to find in the spaceways in this section of Grihan territory, so close to the Garmman border.
    It was looking increasingly as if they had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, one of many rounded up and dumped into the hold.
    There were groups of Garmman and Grihan traders, Grihan mining teams, the Vanad and his crew, and two Fitalians who stood together, placing themselves slightly apart from the rest of the crowd.
    Cam had organized his own group so the flight crew and his team stood behind himself and Pren. Yari was conscious again, but she needed to sit, and they ranged themselves along the right-hand wall so she could lean against it, surrounded by her team.
    He and Pren would protect the others as best they could, although the Vanad's crew were the only real threat.
    The traders and miners looked capable enough, but they were subdued, and many were injured. They also had no reason to cause trouble.
    “You want to ask those Fitalians if they'd like to join us?” Cam asked Olan, and the elderly scientist looked up from his thin, intertwined fingers with a jerk.
    It was always hard to judge emotion on the Fitalians' faces. Their skin was far more rigid than the other members of the United Council and their eyes were huge and completely black, but Cam realized Olan hadn't even registered that some of his fellow citizens were in the room.
    Cam stepped aside to give Olan a clear view. “You recognize them?”
    “I . . . no.” Olan glanced up at him. “But they are very far from home.”
    Cam looked over at the two Fitalians. The moment they noticed Olan and himself watching them, they stared back for a beat and then pretended interest elsewhere.
    Olan fluttered his hands. “I'll go talk to them.”
    “They look like military.” Pren's words were soft, and Cam gave a nod as the Fitali turned toward Olan. One of them flicked a glance over Olan's shoulder at Cam, and then focused back on the elderly scientist.
    Olan began a conversation in the clicks and whirrs of Fitali, a language that Cam had never learned, and they seemed to relax. Cam could see them mentally shift from combat-ready to alert.
    Olan returned to the group with the Fitali trailing behind him.
    “This is Haru and Chep.” Olan waved his hand in their direction and they bowed at the sound of their names. “They only speak Fitalian but they are most grateful for the invitation to join us. They were relieved to find we are envoys of the United Council.”
    Cam nodded in welcome, and the two nodded back. Haru looked at him a moment longer than was polite, and Cam had no problem doing the same.
    “What are they doing out here in Grihan airspace?” he asked Olan.
    Olan's look was bland. The crafty old man was nobody's fool. “They say they're tourists. Headed for Larga Ways. Just like us.”
    Cam nodded again. Pren caught his eye, disbelief in her own, and he gave a minute shake of his head.
    If they were tourists, which he doubted, they were taking a break from their duties in the military, or a job that required military training. And while the way station orbiting the planet Balco was considered a sight to behold, Larga Ways was hardly on a sight-seeing route.
    But why they were here could be sorted out later. He would rather have them in his camp than outside it.
    He let his gaze sweep the room, noticed the Vanad was watching him, had probably noted the way they'd assimilated the Fitali. Then the mercenary's attention went