Myitt starts her fighter's landing procedure, the ship decloaking and shimmering into view as its spindly leglike landing gears curl from the metal underside. It touches down nicely, like some nightmare mixture of a bird of prey and an insect.
"Corliss," says Myitt to her link, "I've narrowed down the nearest Yeerk outposts, but the ship signals are hard to separate from this distance. If this is Seran's doing, and I think it is, then he's one of two places: Nerkin-Jad or Olgin."
"Temrash's people seem to think it's Nerkin," replies Corliss, who is standing outside the bar, waiting for her to arrive. "He has an operative there."
"Good, because we don't," says Myitt, taking the link and a few tools from storage with her as she powers down the ship. "Come over here, I want to get this bloody thing off of my goddamned ship." She pockets the link so it's still audible, freeing her useful hand as she climbs down from the hatch in the ship's side. Right away she starts shining a normal pocket flashlight at the underbelly of the ship, which is perched so the bottom is just above her head. She puts the flashlight in her mouth and adjusts her bandaged arm, grabbing something that looks black and sharp. It glows red along several spots on its jagged side.
"Gothcha," she lisps around the flashlight, peeling the tracking device away with a slow and deliberate movement of the scraping device. The living metal of the ship oozes black and melts around the wound, scarring the hull but not causing any permanent damage to wiring.
Myitt crushes the unassuming black patch of metal with a faint red sheen under her boots, taking the flashlight out of her mouth and spitting for good measure.
Corliss has already made it halfway to her ship. "Myitt, why in god's name didn't you scan the bloody thing?" he calls.
"I was in a hurry," says Myitt dully, glaring down at the tracker's fading red glow, wiring exposed. "It was stupid."
Corliss exhales. "Well, we'd better hope Temrash's friend can wipe Seran's ship before the coordinates are sent. We aren't out of the woods yet."
"You can say that again," says Myitt, crushing the tracker again for good measure.
She closes up her ship, putting her tools away, and the two of them walk back to the bar. Myitt shakes her head as she steps over the threshold. "Looks like this is a day filled with **** ups, kids. But hey, we're still alive."
"For now," Corliss says with a smirk.
"We don't have a lot of time, so firstly we need to make sure that information gets erased," says Myitt, addressing her friends. "Thanks for helping, too. There isn't much we can do now, the real help will be if we need to get people out of the base en masse. We're going to need all the help we can get, ships and supplies and the like, if it comes to that. Let's hope doesn't." She turns to Temrash. "Your man on Nerkin had better know what he's doing. But thank you. After all the crap we've given you, you still go ahead and try to save our sorry asses." She puts a hand on his shoulder, appreciatively. "I'd say that helps your case." She grins a little to show she's kidding. Mostly. "Seran, that bastard coward," she continues to herself. "I should've known he'd try to trace one of us. Temrash, is there anything we can do to help your operative? I'd gladly fly to Nerkin-Jad and try to blow Seran's ship to kingdom come, if that'll help."
