Rohan's hand slipped from Elane's shoulders. He gasped, hoping desperately that he'd misheard her.
A Hoplite?
Here of all places?
That made no sense at all.
Of all things Elane could have said — a beast, ambusher, scout, even lunatic — Hoplite should have been the one thing impossible enough to dismiss on instinct.
Hoplites were not some vague distant enemy from stories told to children. They were the enemy. The race every human even with a little bit of education grew up hearing about. The dominant alien power that held the most land inside the Origin Realm, that they knew of, than any other alien nation dared to challenge directly, and several star systems in the outside universe as well, to the point that the Federation looked like a province in comparison.
And Elane was saying one of these terrifying beings was sitting right in front of him?
Deep enough into human territory that its mere presence here felt like something had gone horribly wrong on the border.
