33. Kian
KIAN
O n the monitor, the elevator doors closed on Areana, Navuh, and Daniel, and the Eight looked at each other for a moment before heading to their rooms.
Kian let out the breath he'd been holding and sat back in his chair.
"That was a close call," Onegus said after a long exhale came through the speaker. "It could've ended much worse."
"We need to work on those elevators." Kian rubbed a hand down his face. "They are not built to stop enhanced soldiers or the Kra-ell. They need an upgrade."
"It's more than that," Onegus said. "We need to change the SOP for the Guardians in the security office.
They wasted precious seconds to notify me instead of immediately stopping the elevator between floors.
The Eight still could have busted out of it, but it would have taken them longer, which would have been just enough time for the other elevator to arrive and Daniel to push Navuh inside.
This whole thing could have been avoided, and we would have put the blame for the elevator stopping on a malfunction. "
"At least they warned Daniel."
"Yes," Onegus agreed. "He had his hand ready on his sidearm, although I'm not sure it would have done him much good against the Eight. They pulled that elevator door apart like it was a shower curtain."
"Actually, it took just one of them," Onegus corrected himself. "The others kept talking about their movie. They assumed it was a malfunction."
"That's good." Kian reached for the coffee cup that had gotten cold while he'd watched the fiasco unfold. "I don't want them to think we are afraid of them."
"But we are," Onegus said. "We have good reason to be. They are unstoppable, but because they have done nothing wrong so far, we can't implement more obvious security measures."
Kian snorted. "After that demonstration, we should rethink what we thought were sufficient safeguards. If they can break through the elevator doors with such ease, they can just climb the cables all the way to the lobby and leave the keep whenever they want."
"They could have done that regardless," Onegus said. "They could compel any of the Guardians to take them outside. As we have just seen, disabling the elevators or sealing the doors between levels wouldn't have worked."
Kian let out a breath. "It's like dealing with Igor but doing it with kid gloves because we need to be nice to them."
They were both quiet for a moment, and Kian looked at the frozen frame on his monitor showing eight males mid-stride.
"They almost got me where their eyes glazed over," Onegus said quietly.
"I thought Navuh got them, commanding eight enhanced soldiers, and I didn't know whether Daniel would make it out alive.
I was pretty sure that Navuh wouldn't try anything too outrageous the first time, that he would only test the waters, but still.
Navuh is unpredictable. When it was all over, I was angry at myself for not telling Daniel to activate the neurotoxin as soon as their eyes glazed over. "
Kian nodded. "It was like watching a collision about to happen. But as soon as Yaaf lied about their means of escape, I knew it was theater. They faked being compelled to fool Navuh, and it was a pleasure to watch him believe it and then realize that he'd been pranked."
Onegus chuckled. "I loved how they did that in perfect sync to make a point, and how they showed respect to Areana in the end. They are so uncharacteristically polite for Doomers."
"They still manage to get what they want while being polite. They told Turner that they will think about the earpieces, when they had no intention of ever using them."
"True. But can you blame them? They don't trust us any more than we trust them. They probably think we are hiding something in those earpieces, like a way to subdue them or just track their movements."
Onegus was right, but the Eight's refusal to wear the earpieces could have ended very badly if Navuh had succeeded in asserting his control over them.
"I like how they handled him," Kian said. "They could have killed Navuh, and there would have been nothing we could have done to stop them. Instead, they chose to toy with him a little, taking satisfaction in just humiliating him."
Onegus nodded. "Perhaps they spared him for Areana's sake. She's one smart lady to organize that get-together as a preemptive move."
It hadn't occurred to Kian that Areana might have done that so the Eight would feel beholden to her, and therefore not harm the male she loved, but Areana knew exactly what she'd been doing.
She'd spent thousands of years managing Navuh, probably the most difficult male on the planet, so managing eight young soldiers was a piece of cake for her.
Nevertheless, their behavior had shown restraint.
"They passed a test we hadn't designed," Kian said.
"True. Someone needs to talk to Areana. She asked us to keep the Eight out of Navuh's way, and we failed her. Perhaps she suspected that he would try to compel them, and she didn't want to take chances."