“Report in,” he said into the comm. Trying to keep it all out of his voice.
“Hawk Three, all systems go,” Aimes said.
“Hawk Seven. Also go,” Kallie added.
“All right, hold steady for FTL in ten and counting. First jump is roughly five hours, coming out in AHX-783. Nothing there. We just swing around for the second jump. That one's three hours and takes us right in.” His ship's computer had already shared all of that information with theirs long ago, but it felt better to say it. “We come out on the other side, hang back. We should be set far enough out that they wouldn't even see us with military scanners.”
Kallie snorted a laugh. “If military scanners in farmtown, will be shocked.”
“Me too, but that's how we play it. We can work our way in from there. I know these ships aren't supposed to show up on anything, military or otherwise, but this is the first run and so we act like we're in skelts as much as possible. Until we know for sure.”
“Sounds good, boss,” Aimes said.
Colson ran one last check of the systems. FTL drive at full, same with the sublight. Heavy cannons charged and standing by. Revolving cannons both outfitted with projectile weapons, which tended to be a bit better against ground forces. Shields full and holding.
He closed his eyes for a second, then looked back at Riccana. Impossible not to think of the last time he'd had this view, desperately reaching for the dead girl's hand, staring out of the burning fighter bay on the destroyer, strapped into the skelt's ejection seat and wondering if he was doomed to ride it blazing all the way to the ground.
This time the planet moving slowly and serenely away from him as they accelerated for the jump point. Just a frozen ball of ice in the brutal cold of space in a outlying system. A place he'd hated when he'd arrived and thought he wanted to leave every day since.
But he still felt something, drifting away from it. He reached his hand back and tapped twice on the glass canopy. Closed his eyes again for a moment, thinking of Kiena there in the halfdark and the lightning burning on the horizon and that light washing over her above him, and then he opened his eyes.
“Prepare for jump,” he said.
The Dead Ship: Episode Three (Firehawk Squadron Book 3) Page 4