by M. D. Cooper
Kylie glanced over at Rogers. “I’m going to bring Grayson a dish. Hold down the fort here? Make sure things don’t get out of hand.”
As she spoke, she glanced at Winter and Lana. She saw Rogers grimace out of the corner of her eye.
Marge whispered to Kylie.
Rogers’ reply, however, was nonchalant. “Sure thing, Cap. You know I dropped out of the academy for a reason.”
“Party animal. You never joined up as I recall,” Kylie said with a grin as she rose from her seat.
She grabbed a plate and loaded it up with some meat, potatoes and bread. Placing the plate on her wrist, she picked up a bottle of amber ale and walked to the galley’s entrance.
When she glanced back, Winter had his arm draped behind Lana’s chair and his fingers were rubbing her back beneath her shirt.
He glanced at her and Kylie gave him a shake of her head. Seriously. What the hell was he doing? What was he even thinking?
Winter rolled his eyes, but removed his hand and put it back on the table. Well, at least he still remembered how to listen.
Kylie carefully carried the plate of food to Grayson’s quarters and gave the door a sharp rap with her knuckles. “I have food and beer. Two of your favorite things.”
There was a pause before he answered. “You can just leave it by the door.”
By the door? Kylie didn’t think so. She pressed her hand against the lock plate and used her command codes to unlock it. The indicator flashed green and the door slid open.
Kylie stepped in to see Grayson at his desk with his back to her.
“Are you going to do that now whenever you want to?” he asked.
“I guess I am.” Kylie placed the plate and drink down onto the desk. “I’m captain of this ship and…damn you, Gray, look at me when I talk to you.”
He glanced at her. “I know you think I’m acting like a spoiled brat.”
“That’s because you are. I need you on my side. I need you to get your head in the game. I know everything that’s happened isn’t ideal—”
“Isn’t ideal?” Grayson laughed and stood up from the table. He grabbed his beer and twisted he cap off. “I’m AWOL. Gone rogue and siding with the enemy, which is you, if you aren’t keeping score.”
“I am. Trust me, I know the score but soon it’ll be over. We’ll have Nadine. We have Lana.”
“And then what? We just fight and run forever, going place to place? Hiding inside the Gedri System? That’s not me and you know it.”
“So, what then?” Kylie couldn’t keep the hurt out of her voice. “You go back to the SA? You hunt me and Lana down?”
“Silstrand needs that tech if they’re going to fend off Scipio! Without it we’ll lose the war, a war that has not yet begun, but it’s brewing, trust me. They’ve already infiltrated us, I’m sure of it.”
“Now you sound paranoid.”
“It’s only paranoia if it isn’t true, and it’s true. If they have their way, Silstrand will be absorbed by Scipio, be just another province in their empire.”
Kylie thought about that. “Then why did you stand against Samuel? Why didn’t you just turn your gun on me like you were ordered to?”
“You know why,” Grayson said softly. “I’m…my judgement was compromised. My feelings for you got in the way.”
“And you hate that, right?” Kylie’s teeth grated together and tears threatened to spill.
“It’s…” Grayson sighed. “Confusing, compromising. My integrity…I don’t think I have any. Not anymore. I gave it all up for you and soon you’ll have your girlfriend back. If I’m useful at all, it goes away as soon as that happens. Like a worn old shoe.”
“You’re at least a very well-polished shoe.”
Grayson gave her a look that broke the tension. “Thank you so much for playing with me when I’m clearly weak and vulnerable.”
Even the fact he could admit that, mystified Kylie. “We’ll get through this. You were a great officer before Jerrod and that hasn’t changed. If you think the SSF needs the nano tech…”
“You’d go to them willingly?” Grayson asked with his brow lowered.
“If they don’t kill me. If they don’t put me in prison forever but how can I trust them not to hurt my crew? Me? Even you?”
“Do you trust me?” Grayson asked.
“You’ve lied to me since the moment I saw you aboard the Imperial Dawn and every moment since then. I shouldn’t trust you, but I do.”
“Then I’ll work it out. I’ll find a way. Silstrand wants this nano more than anything, and if I can find a way to make that happen and save you, I will. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, Kylie.”
“I know,” she said softly. “I never meant it to ruin your career though.”
“There’s a lot of things I never meant for,” Grayson said quietly and just when Kylie thought he might kiss her and she’d fall into him again, he turned his back. “I’ll join everyone in the galley shortly. I just need a few more minutes to myself.”
Kylie nodded. “See you then.” Slowly she edged out of his quarters, part of her hoping he’d stop her from going, but he didn’t.
And maybe that was for the best.
REGROUP
STELLAR DATE: 09.21.8947 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: SAS Hanover, SSF Garrison Capricorn, Einendart
REGION: Gedri System, Silstrand Alliance
General Samuel stood at the window of the shuttle as it approached the Hanover, his flagship. Crews were still working on patching the hull near the dorsal beams, though the damage around the port fusion engine and the scanning arrays were repaired.
That she had suffered so much damage at the hands of a ship like the Barbaric Queen still made Samuel seethe with rage.
For years he had lobbied High Command to step in and clean up the Gedri system. And for years they had ignored him. Samuel knew why; the GFF—what a misleading name that was—paid their federal taxes on time and took few exemptions. They maintained their own space force, and asked for little federal assistance.
As far as the Silstrand Alliance government was concerned, Gedri was a money tree, and they were content to keep picking its fruit. So long as the bulk of its piracy stayed there, or operated in the fringe, the Alliance was content to let sleeping dogs lie.
They were shortsighted fools. Scipio was moving into the fringe, with their eyes on Silstrand. The piracy coming out of Gedri bothered the empire even more than Silstrand’s independence.
But it would end now. Samuel now had evidence that the Black Crow was working for Harken, and Harken had deep ties right to the top of the GFF. After firing on a SSF ship, the Black Crow was fair game, and once he had their ships and captains, they would talk. They would give up Harken, and she would give him what he needed to take out the GFF leadership.
The shuttle slipped through the Hanover’s shields and into a small bay. Samuel turned and walked toward the hatch, putting the Black Crow, Harken, and the GFF from his mind.
They were valid targets, but there was something more valuable than all of them, and it had slipped from his grasp again.
S&H’s nanotech.
The Veritas and Caspian had reported that the Dauntless was not at
the coordinates Jerrod had sent, and there was no evidence it had made a jump to Trio.
Samuel wasn’t one to entertain frivolous hope. Kylie Rhoads had slipped from his grasp once again. That she was so resourceful surprised him—it was a shame that the SSF had lost her. And now it had lost Grayson as well.
He shook his head and sighed. If he got Lana back, it would all be worth it. With S&H’s nanotech in the hands of the space force, they could mount an effective defense against Scipio.
Don’t use her name, he thought, and pushed the image of her being shot on the Dauntless from his mind—an event which she seemed to have survived. His daughter had lost her place of being foremost in his mind when she had agreed to smuggle tech out of Silstrand.
Samuel didn’t know who had contacted her, just had a name: Fra-X. A stupid name, at that. Either way, whoever Fra-X represented could not get the nanotech, neither could the GFF or that two-bit crime lord, Maverick and his rogue lackey, Harken.
If Samuel had to burn down the entire Gedri system to prevent such an outcome, he gladly would.
The general walked slowly through his flagship. There was no need to rush. Repairs would not be completed for another day.
Crew saluted him as he walked by, but Samuel did not return the gesture. He was lost in thought, contemplating his options for purging the Gedri system of its various infestations.
He took a lift to the command deck and ambled down a passageway to the CIC. With the fleet muster, the Hanover’s Combat Information Center had been re-designated Fleet CIC and was filled with the hubbub of dozens of officers all working to organize the attack force.
Officially, the thousand ships that Samuel was mustering were under the command of General Sweeny, but Samuel had leveraged his presidential orders to secure the nanotech to assume command of all SSF ships in Gedri.
General Sweeny had taken a fast pinnace to the Silstrand System to appeal to High Command, but that would take over two weeks. By then, Samuel would have the Gedri system under his heel, and the tech secured.
“General Samuel, sir!” an ensign called out. “We’ve just received a message from Jerrod. It had been caught up in a relay that was undergoing servicing, which delayed it.”
“Play it,” Samuel ordered.
Major Larson, the OOTW approached, also listening to the message as it played over the CIC’s general Link.”
Consider it assumed, Samuel thought.
Losing Grayson was one thing, but Jerrod was something else. The AI had been with the SSF for centuries. That a crew of junkers and criminals could take him down—and plan to remove him…
“Ensign!” Samuel growled. “The coordinates?”
“Yes, sir, I have them. There’s nothing there on the system maps. Just empty space.”
“I don’t care!” the general snapped. “Major Larson! Get the Veritas and Caspian in pursuit immediately. Get me six other cruisers that can meet them there. I want that location secured, but no one attacks until we arrive on the Hanover!”
“Yes, sir!” Major Larson nodded and walked to the comm officer’s station to send messages to the ships closest to Maverick’s secret base.
Samuel turned to the holotank displaying the Gedri system, the criminal’s secret base now highlighted in the outer system. This time he wouldn’t talk. They would take down any opposition and if his daughter sided with them, well…the nano could still be harvested from her body.
NADINE
STELLAR DATE: 09.23.8947 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Dauntless, approaching Krenko, Chiras
REGION: Gedri System, Silstrand Alliance
Kylie couldn’t help but think that Krenko looked a lot like hell.
The moon hugged Chiras, the gas giant it orbited, drifting through the void only seventy-eight thousand kilometers around the massive jovian.
Though Krenko’s proximity to Chiras tidally locked the moon, preventing the moon from spinning, it still experienced massive tidal stress and flexed constantly.
The result was extensive volcanic activity, mostly around the moon’s twelve-thousand-kilometer circumference equator, though ranges of smoking fractures and volcanic mountains stretched toward the poles.
The moon’s mass was enough to give it 0.24g, enough to hold clouds of ash and corrosive gasses close to the surface, volcanic glows shining through, accented by massive lightning storms that constantly swept around the moon.
If any ancient religions had ever learned of the place they would have agreed that hell was an apt descriptor.
The appearance was enhanced at present by the moon’s current position in its orbit of Chiras. At present the gas giant blocked the brighter orange light of Gedri, leaving only Townsend’s ruddy glow—currently fifty AU distant—to light it.
Caridan Station, the location of their meet with Jason, rose fifteen kilometers above the moon’s surface, near the north pole where there was less volcanic activity.
Even so, its base was shrouded in thick sulfuric clouds and Kylie suspected that protecting the platform from those clouds was a never-ending task.
It was no surprise that the outpost appeared to have seen better days, though was still be fully operational; all its refineries and extractors lit and adding their own clouds of dust and gas to the moon’s thin atmosphere.
The Dauntless dipped low as it approached Caridan, swooping around to the north side of the outpost where a series of docking bays and landing platforms jutted out, suspended ten kilometers over the hellscape below,
It was on one of those platforms where they were to meet with Jason and exchange Lana for Nadine.
If anyone had been in position to see it, they may have noticed two small shapes drop off the underside of the Dauntless just before it rose above its designated landing platform and settled into the cradle.
The cradle seemed to take forever to latch onto the ship and extend its ramp. C’mon… Kylie thought as she waited.
Kylie’s chest tightened with anxiety and impatience to do just that.
They had received a communication from Maverick before departing from Persephone. The senatorial committee would be convening in five days. They’d already chewed up two in getting to Krenko.
The rescue had to go off without a hitch, if they were to get insystem to Freemont for the hearings in the three days remaining. Still, if they saved Nadine, Kylie was willing to handle a tardy slip from Vaax and Maverick.
Once Nadine was saved, not if.
Kylie chuckled. Rogers always had a way of lightening the mood before a mission.
Lana cycled the airlock open as Kylie approached. “Expecting things to go that bad?�
� she asked as she gave Kylie’s armor a pointed look.
Kylie glanced down at her Trylodyne IA99 stealth armor, theoretically in proper working order this time. She had debated whether or not to wear the helmet, her memories of the last time weren’t pleasant, but she had decided it was better than getting her head blown off by Jason.
Of course, it meant that she couldn’t speak aloud.
Lana wasn’t unarmored either, a ballistic under layer hidden beneath her casual outfit. Lana had asked for a weapon too, but Kylie was worried that Jason would spot it and then the jig would be up.
Kylie, on the other hand held her Spectre U5RA multifunction rifle in plain sight, necessary for the fiction that Lana was her prisoner, but it would also be useful for filling Jason full of holes.
Dockside regs on the outpost forbade anything heavier than pulse pistols, but Kylie suspected that if Jason had picked this place, they were pretty lax with enforcement.
Jason reached out to her over the Link almost immediately.
Jason sent a picture across the Link of Nadine. She wasn’t in a dress this time. Now, she stood on a catwalk above one of the landing platforms. She was wearing a tight pair of black pants and an elegant tunic top. Her blue hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she wore the same earrings she’d had on that fateful night at The Shade.
The view shifted, panning around and above Nadine to show the Dauntless on a platform half a kilometer away. Kylie barely noticed her ship. Her eyes were drawn to the steel bands around Nadine’s wrists and forearms, pining her arms securely behind her back. The top band was connected to something around her neck.