“You stupid, stubborn bastard,” she whispered.
Her first officer arrived in ninety seconds, still wiping synth-grease from his knuckles. “What’s got your wires crossed, Captain?”
Elara’s hand trembled. She hadn’t seen that sequence in eleven years. Not since the Orion’s Fall had bled out over the methane lakes of Tartarus Secundus. Not since she’d left Commander Jin Sol for dead in the burning CIC. Ccg 8.1.4
Then she engaged the thrusters, and the Vindicator rose out of the methane dark, carrying a dead man’s truth toward the stars.
He looked like a corpse that had refused to lie down. His skin was gray. His left arm ended in a cauterized stump. But his eyes—those sharp, dark eyes—were alive. And they were smiling. “You stupid, stubborn bastard,” she whispered
“Why didn’t you signal? We were in-system for a week after the battle.”
She hadn’t stopped running for eleven years. She hadn’t seen that sequence in eleven years
“That’s a Colonial Guard priority distress,” he said. “Class-One. The kind you only pull if the alternative is feeding your crew into a star.”