“Where do you want these?” she asked over the comm as she closed the case and returned it to its position on her thigh.

Presumably the telekinetic had retreated to the right, so I waved to the left. Kee tapped on the display strapped to her arm and the drones zoomed off in a searching pattern.

The drones had tiny cameras, but they flew so fast that watching the video was nauseating. Instead, Kee relied on their software to flag any potential enemies using a combination of heat signatures, sounds, and visual recognition.

Drones weren’t quite as good as an in-person search, but they were way, way faster. Of course, they also gave away the fact that someone was here searching, but in this case, that ship had already sailed.

While we waited on the drones to finish their sweep, we split up the team and took defensive positions in the rooms the drones had already cleared. Torran and I were in the kitchen, a spare room that was meant to feed soldiers, not win interior design contests.

The telekinetic did not return, and every second that ticked past brought more worry. Was she escaping? Was Torran’s nephew in danger? Were they setting up an ambush?

At least one of those was certainly true. I wanted to press ahead, but doing so when we didn’t know if more soldiers would come in behind us was a good way to end up dead, so I stared at the slice of the main room I could see and forced myself to stay put.

“This side is clear,” Kee said a few minutes later. “Checking the other side.”

The drones split and each one took a hallway on the other side of the room. The first one returned quickly and headed down the hallway that the telekinetic had taken.

“Front is empty,” Kee said. “Only one hallway left.”

Torran and I eased out of cover. Our team fell in behind us as we headed for the hallway in the back of the room.

When we reached the doorway, Kee groaned. “First drone is down. It registered three people before it died, but there might be more.”

“Do you have a map?”

She moved closer and held up the arm with the display attached. Reading drone maps was something of an art, but luckily, I’d had plenty of practice. The drones built a rough floor plan as they went, thanks to the scanners, but they were often incomplete.

For Torran’s benefit, Kee pointed at a large room that was the intersection of several of the lines. “We’re here, and the drone died here.” She pointed at the room where one of the lines ended. Only the first part of the room had been mapped, so I didn’t know how big it was, but it was at the end of the main hallway. We’d have one corner for cover, pretty far back, and that was it.