by Jay Shaw
Leaving Brendon in charge of the recovery, she went with Hayden and the others to the conference room. Fear and desolation were her only companions beneath a cloak of fuzziness separating her from everything; voices garbled as if they were underwater.
Someone guided her to a chair and molded her hands around a glass of water; lifting it to her lips when it started to slip from her grasp. It could have been aviation fuel for all the attention she was able to pay. But the water had the desired effect, and the cocoon receded. A shockwave of arguing voices crashing over her as her mind returned her to the moment. Anora smiled when she saw Julia’s gaze refocusing.
“Better?”
She nodded once, thanked her friend with a look, and stood up to join the discussion.
“So, what’s the plan?”
Her question executed all conversation and drew every eye in the room to her. Mr Clayton looked at her with sympathy, as did many others, but the rest avoided direct eye contact. The atmosphere was one of defeat, and Julia, was disgusted.
“M-Colonel Holden knows that we will come for him, and he will stay alive no matter what, until we do.”
“Every moment we waste bickering, they get further away.” She turned, eyes searching out one person in particular. “Stephen, what’s the plan?”
There was a shuffling of feet and the creak of chair springs as people shifted in their seats. The silence stretched and morphed but didn’t break, and Julia slumped back into her chair. “Have we got anything? At all?”
She sensed Stephen’s desire to provide useful answers; especially with the entire room’s weight of expectation bearing down on him. Hayden had moved to her side, a large hand gripping tight on her shoulder in support. He also wanted an answer to her question; something to unleash him on the galaxy so he could bring Mark home.
“We have their ship’s radiation signature and we’re tracking using the LORA sensors. But it’s like looking for a single needle in a bazillion haystacks.”
“Will that prevent us?” Hayden growled.
“No, of course not.” Stephen answered, shying away from the rage emanating from Hayden’s steely gaze. “But it is important to be aware of the enormity of the task before rushing in.”
Hayden opted for a withering stare over the inadequacy of speech to express his displeasure and Stephen fidgeted under its weight. “Also there’s Colonel Holden’s DNA transmitter. Provided they don’t know about it, or can’t turn it off. Once we locate their ship’s energy reading, and get close enough, we can find him with the glider’s display, go in, and rescue him.”
“Great.” Julia said. “How do we locate the ship?”
“I have people tracking their signature via portal trace. It’s an algorithm I created which opens multiple portals throughout the galaxy at one time. It’s similar, though infinitely more complex, to an APB the police use when they’re searching for felons. We’ll analyze the feedback to ascertain if their ship’s energy reading can be detected. When they find something you’ll know.”
Julia loosened her grip on the chair arms. It wasn’t much, but there was something they could do.
“Major Dawson, organize strike teams to be ready to go the moment Doctor Garrett has coordinates.” Mr Clayton ordered.
“Yes, Sir.”
Lieutenant Flynn followed the major from the crowded room, nodding as he received his orders.
“Mr Clayton.” Julia spoke quietly amid the din of exiting department heads. “Hayden, Anora, and Doctor Garrett, will need a pilot.”
She glanced up at Hayden and he nodded. He knew she would obey his orders and she wouldn’t be a liability in a combat situation. There was no way in hell she’d be made to stay home like the little wifey. Hayden knew it. And Mr Clayton knew it too. He paused for two breaths, weighing up the risk of sending her out with the teams versus having her remain her on Phoenix, hounding him every moment.
“Yes, Julia.” He nodded, resigned. “I’m assigning you as temporary pilot for Glider one.”
There was little doubt in the minds of those keeping witness to the conversation, that when Colonel Holden returned Mr Clayton would receive an earful for having let Julia go. It was a moot point. None of the men in Julia Holden’s life could prevent her anyway. And they all knew it. Well, Hayden could have, what with being a towering pillar of muscle; but he was on her side. Mark wasn’t the only Holden with a stubborn streak a mile wide.
“How long before we have a lead, Doctor Garrett?”
“At this point, I have no idea.” Stephen shrugged his broad shoulders and pushed his glasses back up the long slope of his nose. “I’ll check up on progress and get back to you.”
Mr Clayton nodded, then nodded a second time as if computing Stephen’s answer to memory and making his own estimates, before leading the rest of them from the room.
“Julia.”
She pivoted, and waited for Hayden to catch her up.
“It will get rough. Are you sure about this?” Hayden gripped her upper arms and searched her eyes for the truth.
“I know, and no. I’m not sure, but I’m not staying behind.” Her mouth was a thin line of bitter resentment as she sniffed and fought back the sudden onset of tears burning at the corners of her eyes. “Don’t worry, I won’t slow you down.”
“No, you will not.” She couldn’t decipher from his hard expression whether Hayden meant it as a command or a confirmation. “Gear up.”
“I’ll meet you there. I just have to catch up with my team.”
He nodded, and with a final squeeze of large hands over her biceps, he strode away; blue leather coat a dramatic flourish in his wake.
Julia found Levi and Zeb in the supply room restocking the jump bags.
“Hey.”
Both men looked up, neither one offering their usual open smiles.
“Zeb, you’ll be piloting Rescue one for the next while.”
He nodded. It was hardly unexpected news, knowing her as well as they did.
“I’ve gotta go, get geared up.” She shuddered. The tears that’d threatened earlier with Hayden brimmed on her lashes and blurred her vision.
Levi pulled her into a bracing hug and thumped her on the back. “Stay safe, Wings.”
“Thanks, you too.” She whispered back, feeling stronger as she walked back to the relocator.
~*~
Julia changed from jeans to BDUs and laced her boots, tied her hair in a ponytail and left their quarters in a rush. Reminders of Mark wouldn’t help her focus. In fact, they were more likely to turn her into an emotional wreck and she’d be no use to anyone. She took the relocator and hit the indicator for the armory on the fifth level. It was just a mission. No different than the fifty others she’d participated in since making Phoenix City her home. She would do what was required. Julia stifled the lecturing voice in her head telling her how wrong she was, that it wasn’t just a mission. It was the mission; the one that would determine the rest of her life. With a growl of rage, she slammed the mental door, drowning out the voice.
Hayden was lounging on one of the benches when Julia walked into the ready room off the armory. He was dressed in his usual blue leathers with laced seams and his blue leather coat that skimmed the heels of his boots. A sword with bronzed grip and an opal-esque stone in the hilt rested between his shoulders, and his blaster snug in its holster on his thigh. It seemed too minimalistic a look for someone of Hayden’s considerable presence and experience. He had to have many more weapons hidden out of sight.
“I’ll let you know when I find out anything.” Stephen said, adjusting the side fastenings on his vest as he left.
“Where do I start?” Julia asked Anora, who was zipping up her own vest.
“First you must wear a vest. Then we will find you suitable weapons.”
Despite her twice-weekly range experience with the T60s and the APX, she wasn’t naïve enough to think this would be a cake walk. Her state dinner adventure had given her a healthy respect for the sudden
and unpredictable nature of combat situations. No matter how prepared you thought you were, anything could, and usually did, happen. Their current situation proved Julia’s case and point. A run of the mill strike team defense had turned into a give us back our colonel you alien assholes mission of epic proportions.
The vest was bulky, but not heavy enough to weigh her down, and its pockets held everything for immediate survival. She clipped the catches on the thigh holster and took the loaded APX and two spare clips from Anora, checked and holstered the sidearm before putting the clips in a vest pocket. Anora attached a T60 to Julia’s vest and handed her two extra mags which Julia tucked between her breasts and the vest. She took a deep breath to steady the nerves that had been growing with the added weight of the weapons. It was vastly different to Anora helping her with her hair and makeup for the wedding.
“Strap this to your leg, under your BDUs.” Anora said, handing over a knife in a leather sheath.
“Do I need two knives?” Julia asked, showing Anora the one strapped to her right calf. Mark had replaced the one she’d left buried in the Arcadian invader during the state dinner assault.
“No such thing as too many blades.” Hayden grinned with a guess how many I have look. “Put it on your other thigh.”
She did as he suggested and stood straight again. She felt about three inches shorter under everything, not sure how she’d move when the time came.
“This stuff looks lighter on TV.”
“If you were coming through the door to rescue me, I would be a happy man.” Hayden offered.
“I guess all this comes with the territory when you’re married to Colonel Holden.”
“Wouldn’t know.” He grinned, teasing. “Never hand-fasted a colonel.”
Anora’s lilting birdsong of a laugh made Julia’s own snort of amusement sound loud in the small room. It was a comfort knowing these people had her back.
“So, how will this work?” She asked when silence smothered their hard won levity.
“You’ll fly because I don’t trust Garrett to get us there by the direct route.” Hayden arched a brow, his mouth tugging up to join it.
Stephen, despite having the X2 had never managed to maneuver the gliders with any kind of useful skill.
“Oh, I see now,” Julia rose up on her toes, stretching her calves, fingers tucked into her belt. “You just needed a Holden to fly the glider.”
Hayden glanced at her, face blank. It was obvious the thought had never entered his mind. Julia was a glider pilot with the X2 gene and she was Mark’s wife. His team was complete in essentials, if not in the details.
“Good point.” Hayden nodded, white tresses rippling in the light.
If that wasn’t an omen for success, Julia didn’t know what was.
Chapter 24
The four of them ran up the ramp and into Glider one. Julia closed the hatch with a thought and brought the little ship online as she took Mark’s seat at the console. Flight control gave a scratchy permission through her earpiece and she thrust them into the portal. The rainbow haze filling the windshield as Glider one whisked them across time and space to the co-ordinates Stephen’s scientists had configured, based on the energy trace.
Arcadia was a planet with its own system of moons, in a deserted neighborhood on the far side of Dragonus. The entire tangled mess orbited twin green suns which looked more like two halves of a yoyo with glow-in-the-dark string writhing from its core. To the naked eye it seemed simple enough to navigate safe passage and on the upside it was asteroid-free, which made materializing gliders into open space less complicated. Provided the coronal mass ejections brought on by unpredictable solar flare activity didn’t vaporize you into oblivion on arrival.
Four hours after the attack on Phoenix, Julia’s team was among the first to descend through the fiery mesosphere layers of Arcadia’s largest moon. They were taking no chances. As each glider exited its portal, it cloaked and nosedived after its fellows, the pilots using the holographic displays to keep formation.
“Anything?” Julia caught her lower lip between her teeth and kept her eyes on the alien landscape rushing up to meet them as she altered their angle of descent.
“Still scanning.” Stephen replied, his attention on the lower corner of the display while virtual glider icons continued to appear in holographic formation behind their own.
“Would it help to move in closer?” She suggested, jaw taut as she brought Glider one to a textbook hover five-hundred feet above the deck. Patience had never been one of her strong suits.
“Yes. But not until I’ve scanned for the radiation signature of their ship.”
Julia drummed her fingernails on the edge of the console, the repetitive clicks just loud enough to irritate. Stephen eyed her, deep gouge of annoyance between his brows, and she stopped; pulling her hand into her lap and clutching it tight to its mate.
“Ha-ha! I’ve got it.” Stephen crowed, what seemed like eons later. “They have been here.”
“Do they still remain here?” Anora asked from her seat behind Stephen, leaning over his shoulder to read the display for herself.
“Well, I don’t know. That’s where the going in closer and searching part of this plan comes in.”
“Attention all gliders, Doctor Garrett’s confirmed the ship we’re after has been here.” Julia radioed. “Sending search parameters now.”
“This is Dawson, beginning designated search now.”
“Copy that, Major.”
“Stephen, would you mind running over the plan again, please?” The lines of her body as tight and straight as her mouth.
Stephen bit off his retort, closing his mouth with an audible click when he caught her expression. “The gliders scan their section of the planet, searching for the ship matching the energy pattern of the one that attacked Phoenix and scanning for life signs. More specifically, Colonel Holden’s transmitter signal.”
Julia nodded for him to continue. Her gaze watchful of Major Dawson’s wing tip at two o’clock.
“If we find it, we land, attack them, and take him back.” Stephen concluded with a da dah tone that made her feel like she should be applauding.
“When.”
“What?” Stephen half-turned in his chair, annoyance evident in the lines around his pursed mouth.
“When we find him.”
The display bleeped into the awkward silence that followed her optimism.
“There’s an entire fleet of those ships ahead.” Stephen’s voice cracked in panic.
“Can you tell if it’s among them?” Hayden asked, leaning over Julia’s chair.
“Yes I can, and yes it is.”
The atmosphere within the cockpit of Glider one, eased considerably; as its four occupants inhaled a collective breath. The space barracks on Arcadia’s seventh moon was the right haystack.
“Wings, calling all gliders. We’ve located the ship amongst its fleet, two clicks north of our current position.”
“All pilots keep formation and land three hundred yards from the compound. Acknowledge.” Hayden ordered in a deep growl no one would ever think of disobeying.
Julia used the display to maneuver Glider one to the center of the semi-circle line up of cloaked ships and landed with a gentle thud, before opening the hatch. It was disconcerting to watch heavily-armed Marines appearing from out of nowhere and to take up their positions.
Hayden signaled, and as a unit they advanced on the Nahfenite dome nestled within a meadow of azure five-point flowers, and flanked by a legion of towering ashwoods festooned in cherry-blossom pink foliage that rustled overhead. Julia spared no more than a passing glance for the landscape around her and followed tight on Hayden’s heels. The T60 ready in her hands while a single thought ran like a hamster on a wheel in her mind.
Mark’s transmitter signal was yet to register on any of the copious tech Stephen had brought with them.
The strike team lined up along the exterior wall, ready to enter the compound on
Hayden’s signal. He kicked in the surprisingly flimsy door and tossed a couple of stun grenades. Six seconds and they were stampeding through the narrow door. Fanning out like every single training exercise had taught them to do. Julia stayed with Hayden as he had expressly ordered her to do. As the smoke cleared they found themselves in an empty open room with barred doors following the curve of the wall.
Her heart leaped in her chest.
A prison meant prisoners.
“Anything?” Julia whispered around the lump in her throat, she was asking that a lot.
Stephen was already scanning for life signs on the screen strapped to his thigh.
“Four below, looks like three levels down.”
Major Dawson signaled six of his men to investigate.
“Check those cells.” Hayden ordered.
Four Marines broke ranks and started clanging the iron doors open, yelling clear each time, until…
“Sir, I’ve got something.” A Marine signaled to Major Dawson and Hayden, his shoulders rigid as he backed away from the dark maw of the cell.
Julia’s breath was tight in her chest, body frozen in place while her heart pounded for freedom against her ribs. Stephen had said there were no life signs; none except the ones three levels down.
“Julia.” Hayden called her; used her given name instead of the one she used on missions.
She didn’t want to acknowledge his summons, didn’t want to see what he’d seen. But her body moved anyway; ignoring the petrified girl huddled inside, and scuffing the soles of her boots on the uneven floor.
It was dark, damp, and dirty in the six-by-three cell. Julia gasped, raised her hand over her mouth and turned her face into Hayden’s chest; hiding from the image forever burned on her retinas. The weight of Hayden’s arm across her back held her upright, but offered no comfort.
A body, wearing Phoenix off-world regs and Mark’s flight jacket, lay motionless and moldering in the filth at their feet.
“It is not him.” Hayden whispered after a second inspection, each word coated thick with relief. “It is not Holden, Julia.”