Chapter 11 Kian
KIAN
The dining room was full despite the absence of some of the Friday night usuals. It was noisy and a little chaotic, and Kian loved it, especially because the weekly family gatherings made his mother and wife happy.
Allegra was in her highchair between him and Syssi, stacking pieces of bread into a tower and then demolishing it with her spoon to the sound of Evie's delighted laughter.
"Big tower, boom." Evie clapped her little hands. "Again."
Phoenix, who was sitting across the table next to Nathalie, was watching Allegra's architectural efforts and provided sage advice. "You should use the cheese as glue. It's sticky."
"No cheese," Allegra declared. "Just bread."
"Bread doesn't stick."
"Yes, it sticks." Allegra slapped a piece of bread onto the top of her tower, and it promptly slid off and landed on Kian's sleeve.
"It fell," she announced.
Kian removed the bread from his arm and placed it on the edge of her plate. "Food is for eating, Princess. Not for building towers."
She looked at him with a frown as if he were talking nonsense. "Okidu makes towers from pancakes and waffles."
"She's making a good argument," Amanda said while feeding Evie a spoonful of mashed potatoes.
"That she is." Kian leaned to press a kiss to the top of Allegra's head. "I stand corrected."
That earned him another puzzled look from his daughter. "You're not standing, Daddy. You are sitting."
He shifted his gaze to Syssi, who took pity on him and started explaining what Daddy had meant.
Across the table, Andrew was telling Ell-rom something about a recent policy change at his agency.
Ell-rom was listening with interest, fascinated by the intricacies of intelligence work he had never been exposed to.
The guy and his twin sister had grown up in seclusion in a Kra-ell temple, and they were still learning about the new world they had awakened into.
Jasmine and Nathalie were talking about fashion, so Kian turned his attention to Morelle and Brandon, who were seated at the far end of the table. The two were such a new couple, yet they looked like they had known each other for decades.
His mother must have noticed the same thing because she was smiling benevolently at her half-sister and her mate.
Okidu was delivering courses, clearing plates, and refilling glasses. It was fortunate that he could keep going after only one hour of recharge because he had worked most of the day on preparing food for tomorrow's party and was going to continue after the family dinner was over.
It was a warm and loud evening, full of casual chaos that Kian appreciated even when his mind was elsewhere, because these dinners were the reason he did what he did. The endless putting out of fires, strategizing, negotiating, and worrying were in service of this.
Family. Love.
The problem was that he was more preoccupied tonight than during previous Friday night dinners, even though there was always something to ensure that he couldn't enjoy himself fully.
The conversation with Volkov and the meetings that followed made it clear that this was a unique opportunity to shift the balance of power between the clan and the Brotherhood.
He hadn't told his mother yet. He should have called her immediately after the meeting, or at least before dinner, but the afternoon had been consumed by the planning session and the follow-up conversations.
Annani did not appreciate being the last to know things, especially things that pertained to Khiann, and he needed to tell her as soon as possible about the new developments.
He waited until there was a lull in the many conversations going on simultaneously around the table.
"I have interesting news to share," he said, and turned to his mother. "I apologize for not bringing you up to speed on the new developments sooner, but I've been in meetings all afternoon and didn't have a chance to call."
Conversations paused, and everyone's eyes turned to him.
Annani set her fork down. "What is the news you bring us tonight?"
"This morning, Onegus received a phone call on Losham's line, but instead of Losham, it was Doctor Dimitri Volkov, one of the Russian scientists working on the Brotherhood's soldier enhancement program."
Amanda stopped feeding Evie mid-spoon, and Andrew straightened in his chair.
"Volkov wants to escape the island," Kian continued. "Along with his colleague, Doctor Petrov, a woman named Matilda Johnson, who is his girlfriend and lab assistant, and the eight enhanced soldiers Elias told us about."
"Eluheed," Annani corrected. "He has told everyone his real name already."
He just hadn't told anyone that he was an immortal from another planet, and given how things were going, that would remain a secret for a while longer because Kian didn't have the bandwidth to deal with Eluheed's request.
"I'm used to calling him Elias. Anyway, back to Volkov. He claims that the soldiers have the ability to thrall other immortals, which is how they were able to borrow Losham's phone while he slept and contact us."
"How did they even know about us?" Syssi asked.
"Evidently, the enhanced soldiers were released from their imprisonment in the laboratory and have been assisting Losham, which explains how he managed to hold on to power and keep up the illusion that Navuh is still on the island.
Their thralling ability must have also allowed them to look into his mind and find out about his contact with us. "
He didn't add that this was how they had found out about the chests as well. He needed to build up to it so his mother wouldn't panic.
"What do they want from us?" Amanda narrowed her eyes into slits. "Are they attempting to blackmail us?"
"No. They just want our help. With their thralling ability, they can escape the island on one of the departing supply ships, but they need a safe destination and support on the other end.
The soldiers are dependent on a drug protocol that Volkov and Petrov produce for them.
I'm not clear on whether they just suffer from withdrawal the same way the enhanced soldiers we captured did, or if they can't live without it, but in either case, they need a lab and resources to continue producing the drugs. "
"What did you tell them?" Annani asked.
"I told them we'd get back to them in two days after I conferred with my team."
"What are they offering us in return?" Andrew asked. "Or are we helping them out of the goodness of our hearts?"
The truth was that Kian would have offered the clan's help regardless of what the enhanced soldiers and the scientists had to offer, but he was very glad that, as a result of their escape, the Brotherhood could no longer manufacture monsters.
"They offer intelligence on the enhancement program and the Brotherhood's military operations, as well as something else that I'll get to in a moment." Kian took a sip of water. "First, I want to tell you how these soldiers can help us in our mission to retrieve Khiann and his companions."
Annani went very still. "How?"
The explanation was complicated, and he didn't want to repeat everything that had been discussed earlier, but his mother deserved an update.
"They can thrall the crews working on the excavation to report to them their real progress while reporting a delayed schedule to Losham and the brothers.
That way, we can get the chests out using our original plan and make it look like the crews hadn't reached the hidden chamber yet.
We might be able to get in and out without anyone noticing us. "
Syssi frowned. "There is no way the Brotherhood wouldn't know we were there after the EMP deployment."
"The thinking now is that we might not need it. We may be able to accomplish our objective using more stealthy methods. But we are still keeping the EMP as our fallback position in case things don't go as planned."
"No EMP is good," Syssi said, and Kian could hear the relief in her voice.
She had been worried about the unintended consequences of using such a weapon since the inception of the plan.
Annani's eyes were bright with hope. "That's wonderful, but can you trust these soldiers?"
"Not really, which is why we are not going to tell them the truth about our operation.
They will be under the impression that we want them to extract the chests and load them onto a ship.
We will let them know at the last moment that the chests were already taken care of and that they should just worry about getting on a departing ship themselves. "
His mother's eyes narrowed. "That will involve telling them about the chests."
"They already know," Kian admitted. "If they knew about Losham's contact with us, they also knew why we were contacting him and what we wanted."
Annani closed her eyes. "I hope this is not going to backfire. I am not comfortable with them knowing about the chests."
"Neither am I, but it is what it is." He put his hand over hers. "We will make the best of it, Mother. It will be okay."
"You said there was something else they're offering," Morelle said from her spot at the end of the table.
Kian nodded. "It's actually something that they want us to help them with.
Volkov asked us to help liberate the Dormants and their children," Kian said.
"It would be great if we could, and not just from the humanitarian standpoint.
It would halt the growth of the Doomer army.
But we can't liberate two thousand people.
I told him it wasn't feasible. We don't have the numbers to overtake the island, which is the only way to do that. "
"What was Volkov's response?" Syssi asked.
"He was disappointed, but I think he was expecting that to be my answer.
He didn't sound surprised. I told him I would think it through and tell him my plan when he calls again.
Turner proposed a phased approach. We recover Khiann first because that takes precedence, and in exchange for their help, we will provide the scientists and the soldiers with what they need, a safe haven, a lab, and resources.
If they can manage to extract some of the women, we will naturally offer them sanctuary as well, but it's up to the soldiers to decide how many women they can take along. "
"That's smart," Andrew said. "You're not refusing to help. You're just not taking operational responsibility for the extraction."
"Precisely."
"Can't we do something for the other women?" Amanda asked.
Kian shook his head. "For now, they have to remain on the island. We estimate that our military development, the humans training with the exoskeletons, the drones, and the assault robots that William is designing will be ready in about two years. We can't engage the Brotherhood before that."
He had hoped to build an army of Odus, but that would take even longer, so it was decided to build a more conventional robotic army with existing materials and technology. The work on the Odus would continue, but neither William nor Kian wanted to rush it.
"Two years is a long time," Annani said.
"I know, and I hate it too." He cast her an apologetic look. "But we need to be realistic about our capabilities."
She nodded. "Khiann must come first, and this new path is preferable to the EMP plan. I'm also curious about these enhanced soldiers and want to meet them."
"So do I," Kian said. "The hive mind that Eluheed talked about fascinates me. It might be the next step in immortal evolution. Something that even the gods didn't foresee."
Across the table, Ell-rom nodded. "Despite what they believe about themselves, the gods are not omnipotent or all-knowing."
Annani sighed. "Arrogance is usually the Achilles heel of the powerful. When my Khiann was about to embark on his final journey, my father assigned ten immortal warriors to accompany his caravan. He refused."
"Why?" Amanda asked.
Annani smiled sadly. "Because my Khiann was stubborn and a little arrogant.
He said that he did not need ten warriors.
Before becoming my husband, he had never taken more than two immortal guards with him.
I tried to explain that being the husband of the heir was a dangerous position, and that the area he was traveling through was infested with bandits who would try to kidnap him for ransom.
He laughed, saying that humans could never kidnap a god.
That he could freeze them with a thought. "
"He could," Amanda said. "But only when he was awake. What if they ambushed him at night?"
Annani smiled at her. "That was precisely what I said, but Khiann thought that I was being unreasonably protective of him, and that traveling with ten immortal warriors would send the wrong message."
Syssi frowned. "What message?"
"That he was fearful. That he expected an assassination or kidnapping attempt. He said it would reflect badly on my father's court."
"That's stupid," Amanda said. "No offense, but really. What was he thinking?"
Annani chuckled. "That is exactly what I told him, but Khiann insisted, and after a lot of arguing, he agreed to take four immortal guards.
I have always regretted not putting my foot down and demanding that he take all ten.
For thousands of years, I have replayed that argument and imagined what might have happened differently if I had been more forceful.
If I had commanded instead of negotiating.
" She took a slow breath. "But as it turned out, it would not have made a difference.
Khiann was not murdered by Mortdh or ambushed by bandits, as I had feared.
He was claimed by an earthquake, a force of nature that no number of warriors could have saved him from. "