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He topped his glass off before leaning forward and refilling Viper’s glass when he held it out. Setting the bottle back on the table, he leaned back in his seat and stared at Viper.
    “We will find them. The traitors are running, but there is not a place in the star systems where they can hide,” he stated in a rough voice.
    “Why are you going to Earth?” Viper suddenly asked, suddenly curious. “I would have thought you would be chasing the traitors.”
    A slightly dark smile curled Bahadur’s lips. He released a sardonic chuckle as he looked around the round. There were close to a dozen men sitting around the room. Some were quietly talking while others were looking at tablets, reading or watching vidcoms. The lounge was dimly lit, a contrast to the majority of the ship which was brightly lit. The atmosphere was one of calm, quiet, a place to reflect, unwind, talk with friends, or to be alone without being alone.
    He knew what it meant to be alone. He had been alone since he was a young boy. His parents had died in an earthquake that had destroyed most of his village near the sea. He had been taken in by his grandfather who lived by the code of being a fisherman, a code that Bahadur had not inherited. When he turned fifteen summers, he left and never looked back. His grandfather died during a storm that same summer, just two weeks after he left. Now… now, he sailed a sea of black space, just as lonely as the waters near the village he had left so many years ago.
    “Even I need a break,” Bahadur admitted with a shrug. “After meeting Mandra’s mate, Ariel, I was curious about her world.”
    Viper raised an eyebrow at Bahadur. “And…,” he said.
    Bahadur grinned at Viper. “And I promised Ha’ven that I would watch Adalard’s back. Word has it that he has upset someone who has placed a very large bounty on his head. Until that person is found, Ha’ven asked that I keep an eye on Prince Adalard.”
    “And…,” Viper repeated dryly. “Don’t you think it is a little bizarre to have one of the Curizan’s most powerful Admirals acting as a babysitter, even for a royal?”
    “I volunteered,” Bahadur replied with a grin, raising his glass up. “Mandra’s mate is… unusual. Her species makes me curious. I wanted to see if all human females were like her.”
    “And what do you think will happen if you find out they are?” Viper asked with a doubtful expression.
    Bahadur frowned. “I’m not sure,” he admitted in a slow, thoughtful voice before he gave another crooked smile. “I don’t know. That is the strange thing about it. I don’t know. So, why are you here?”
    This time it was Viper’s turn to frown. He swallowed the rest of his drink, feeling the fire as it race through him. The realization that Bahadur was stuck doing the same thing as he was pulled a startled chuckle out of him. The more he thought of it, the more ironic humor he found in it. Unable to contain his amusement at their predicament, the chuckle turned into a deep, rusty laugh. It took several minutes before he could answer Bahadur’s question.
    “Vox has sent me to deliver some documents to his mate’s sister and return with the female and vicious grandmother,” he finally replied with a deep sigh. “He sends a prince to babysit a couple of females.”
    Bahadur reached for the bottle next to him again and held it out to Viper with a sympathetic smile. Viper took the bottle, emptying the last of the liquid into his glass. He set the bottle on the table next to him and held his glass up to where Bahadur was holding his out. The slight ring of glass on glass echoed through the room.
    “To Princes, wayward Curizan Admirals, and unusual human females,” Bahadur chuckled. “May the Goddess look down and have pity on the first two, and give us the last as a reward.”
    Viper grimaced at the taste, but pulled his glass back and took a sip of his drink. He wondered vaguely if Bahadur had another bottle hidden somewhere.