Lost Era 05_ Deny thy Father - Jeff Mariotte [44]
“I’ve got it!” Felicia interrupted. “It is in the clue, after all. ‘Bringing them home means bringing yourselves home.’ We just need to look at it more precisely than we’ve been doing. This is where everybody in the city comes to bring fish home. But our home, for now at least, is the Academy. And aren’t there a few vendors here from whom the Academy traditionally gets its seafood, for cadet and staff meals?”
“I think you’re right,” Dennis replied. “The Academy chefs like to work with people they know and trust. They contract with those particular vendors.”
“Do you happen to remember any of their names?” Estresor Fil asked.
Felicia and Dennis searched one another’s faces for a moment, as if the answer might be written there. “I guess not,” Dennis finally ventured.
“Then we’re right back where we were before,” Boon said glumly.
“Not necessarily,” Will pointed out. “At least we have something to look for. We’ve all seen deliveries come into the Academy. We’ve all seen the chefs. Instead of looking at all the fish, we need to look at the people. If we see anyone who looks familiar then we know we’re getting somewhere.”
“We hope we’re getting somewhere,” Boon, always the pessimist, countered.
Will was tired of arguing with Boon, who never had any better ideas to offer but nonetheless didn’t hesitate to criticize others’. Ignoring the Coridanian, he turned to Felicia. “Good job,” he said. “I think you’ve solved it.”
She returned his smile with one he could feel in his gut. She looked straight into his eyes and they held that for a moment, with Will finally breaking her gaze only so they could renew their search. As they walked, she moved over toward him and let her shoulder bump against his. Once again, Will wished he knew the right thing to say, but as usual it wouldn’t come to him.
Having rearranged their search parameters, it only took a few minutes to find a familiar face. But it wasn’t one of the faces they were expecting. Instead, Will saw the smoldering, dark eyes and thick crop of black hair of his friend and fellow cadet, Paul Rice. Paul was on a competing squadron, but Will had shouted out his name before he caught himself. It was only then that he noticed the rest of Omega Squadron: Hasimi Thorp, Naghmeh Zand, Ross Donaldson, and Kul Tun Osir, standing behind Paul at the booth. Paul set down the checkpoint canister he’d been holding and smiled at Will.
“Cadet Riker,” he said. “Just a little behind the pack, as usual.”
“Damn it,” Boon muttered from behind Will.
“I guess maybe we are,” Will said. He picked up the canister from where Paul had set it. Inside the stall, he thought he recognized one of the women who occasionally made deliveries to the Academy’s mess hall. “We’re doing the best we can, though.” He started to punch his identification code into the canister’s keypad.
“So how many more checkpoints do you have to make?” Paul asked him. “We’ve only got two to go.”
Will couldn’t hide the surprise that transformed his face. “Two?” he asked. He felt Felicia nudge him in the ribs, but it was too late. Anyway, he figured it didn’t really matter now. “This is our last,” he admitted. “We’re done.”
“Done?” Paul echoed. He sounded startled.
“Well, this is the last day, after all,” Will said.
“Yeah, but a couple of them took us more than a day,” Paul replied. “You guys must have had easy ones.”
“I don’t know about that,” Felicia put in. “Maybe we’re just better at this than you are.”
“Maybe they cheat,” Hasimi Thorp suggested. He was a squat, stocky native of Inferna Prime, with charcoal black skin and blazing orange eyes. He was a head taller than Estresor Fil, but at least double her weight.
“Will wouldn’t cheat,” Paul answered firmly. “I know him better than that. I don’t know about the others, though.”
“We didn’t cheat,” Will said. “None of us.”
“Come on,” Ross chimed in. “How else could you guys be so far ahead of us?