Test of Mettle (A Captain's Crucible Book 2) (30 page)

“Negative,” Lazur answered.

Jonathan had hoped the craft was within communication range as well by then, but obviously the Raakarr vessel had a far more powerful comm node equivalent.

“All right.” He sighed. “Tell Barrick we’ll allow them to fly no closer than thirty thousand kilometers from Task Unit Two. Instruct the
Dagger
to expect a visitor. Eventually.”

The comm officer nodded. A moment later: “Barrick says they agree.”

“Let me talk to him,” Jonathan said.

Barrick’s voice came over the comm a moment later. “Hello Captain.” The telepath was difficult to understand thanks to the digital warping caused by the radiation.

“Tell me Bridgette was aboard the lifepod with you,” Jonathan said.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” Barrick replied. “I took the leader of the Zarafa faction with me, not the commander’s wife. There wasn’t room.”

Robert slumped visibly beside him.

“But she did escape the destruction,” Barrick continued. “Thanks to the Zarafa leader’s help—part of his show of good faith. You are tracking an unidentified object, aren’t you?”

Lewis glanced up urgently. “Captain. I can confirm, that’s definitely one of our Dragonflies out there.”

L
ieutenant Lin Akido floated, disembodied, above the hull of the
Salvador
. Well, she wasn’t quite disembodied—looking down, she could discern the ghostly outline of her bodysuit. And though she couldn’t see it, she resided in an Avenger attached to the port-side Whittle layer of the warship via magnetic mounts and grappling hooks. She hung upside-down so that the heat shields of the fighter faced outward. Those shields had seen little use—the warship’s entire port-side currently faced away from the subgiant, and for all the
Salvador’s
frantic and evasive maneuvering, the destroyer had only turned that particular side to the sun once. During that short time the Avenger’s heat shields had held up, of course, and the anti-rad subdermals had kicked in when the radiation spiked.

She felt quite useless. Two days she had been out there. Two useless days of sitting around, waiting for action. Fighter pilots were trained to have the same patience and discipline as snipers, with the expectation that sometimes missions could last weeks on end. There were more than a few elite units that specialized in sneaking unnoticed behind enemy lines to assassinate an SK traveling in a business shuttle, for example.

She had survived on liquid sustenance via a straw in her helmet, and relieved herself by means of the cup strapped over her groin. A fecal collector protruded from the rear of her bodysuit. Electrodes in the suit stimulated her muscles to contract at different points throughout the day. Those electrodes weren’t inducing any contractions at the moment, but even so her right calf spasmed annoyingly—one of the unwanted side effects that came from hours of involuntary flexing.

She sensed her copilot shifting beside her.

“You know,” Lieutenant Grisham’s disembodied voice said. “I don’t see why the commander didn’t just let us operate the fighters remotely, if they had known we’d be operating so close to the hull the whole time.”

“We volunteered for this, Gris,” Lin said.

“True enough. But you know I’d go anywhere for you, babe.”

He was joking, of course. The repartee shared between warriors. Still, she was accustomed to sexual harassment in the navy. And while what he said didn’t qualify, it was close. The unwanted advances and remarks had lessened as she rose through the ranks. It was the worst when Lin first signed up. The navy frowned on such behavior, and so at the time she took it upon herself to show every incident of harassment to her superior officers, as recorded by her aReal. The men in question would be disciplined, but it made working with them a whole lot harder. She learned it was best to suck it up, and never lead them on.

Unless you wanted something more.

She thought of Wolf. She never meant things to go as far as they had. It was just sex, at first. And that was all she wanted, and Wolf seemed to want the same. But after they escaped from the alien ship, their relationship had subtly changed. The lovemaking was just as wild as ever, but it had a note of desperation to it, not just for him, but for her, as if both of them were suddenly all too aware how temporal their relationship was. Wolf had begun to behave differently outside the sex, too. He seemed more possessive, and was quick to grow jealous if she even looked at another man. She liked it, in a way, but was afraid of the implications.

She had experienced similar issues of jealousy with him. An incident came to mind when he was talking, no,
flirting
, with a young ensign a few weeks back.

But none of that mattered anymore. She and Wolf were apart, serving on different ships in the same fleet. He was probably fucking that young ensign already.

Her attention was drawn to the tactical display overlaying her vision. Lin saw that the two dots representing the
Callaway
and
Salvador
were decelerating, moving to a lower orbit, while the remaining ships of the fleet stayed high.

“What’s up?” came a voice over the general comm.

According to her aReal, the voice belonged to a Lieutenant Commander Roland, from Emerald Squadron, attached to the
Dagger
. The digital warping affecting his words wasn’t too bad at the moment, thanks to the signal boost provided by their proximity to the massive comm nodes in the starships, but it would worsen as the vessels grew farther apart.

Wolf came over the line from the
Callaway
. “Albright says we’re moving to a lower orbit to rescue a civilian in a Dragonfly.”

“A civilian?” someone in Wolf’s Squadron returned. Ensign Tim Brown. “How the hell did a civilian get out there? It’s not Commander Cray’s wife, is it?”

“Apparently it is,” Wolf replied.

She had mixed feelings hearing Wolf’s voice. On the one hand, she missed him terribly. Those bushy brows framing eyes that always seemed so sad. That crooked grin of his, and the dimple in his cheeks that accompanied it. But then she thought of the ensign moaning his name and all of that gave way to anger and resentment.

Many times over the past several hours she had stared at his indicator on the display, yearning to contact him, or for him to reach out to her. But she hadn’t done it. All communications would be reviewed afterward by the space wing commanders, and she didn’t want to further besmirch her record. Wolf wouldn’t wish to do that either, she supposed, though that didn’t make her any happier at his silence. In fact, it only made her suspect his infidelity all the more.

After several minutes, the
Callaway
and
Salvador
assumed positions alongside the Dragonfly, one kilometer away from the starboard and ventral flanks respectively. They matched its speed.

Lin watched on the display as both vessels slowly nudged toward the Dragonfly. The
Salvador
ceased its approach about thirty meters underneath the shuttle, using her giant shadow to shield the object from the rays of the subgiant. The
Callaway
meanwhile came to a relative halt when the shuttle was twenty meters from the closest superstructure on its starboard side.

The minutes ticked by uneventfully.

“Why isn’t the Dragonfly firing grappling hooks?” Grisham said over the comm.

“Dunno,” Wolf answered.

“Did anyone else notice it’s on a rapidly decaying orbit?” someone in Wolf’s squadron asked. Lieutenant Jeremy Walker. “At this rate, that shuttle is going to fall past the solar event horizon in ten minutes. I’m surprised we haven’t started pulling back already. The Delta V costs of achieving escape velocity from this orbit are hella steep.”

Wolf spoke again after thirty seconds.

“Okay, about the grappling hooks,” Wolf said. “Apparently she tried, but the bay doors melted shut because of the heat. She can’t launch the hooks. Albright thinks someone’s going to have to get her.”

As Lin watched, the
Salvador
vectored to the left, slowly moving out from underneath the shuttle.

“What’s going on?” Brown asked.

“I think the starships are getting ready to stabilize their orbits,” Wolf answered. “They’re probably extremely low on propellant as it is. Like Walker said, the Delta V costs of breaking this orbit are steep enough.”

“What’s...” Roland’s voice came over the line from the
Dagger
, which was several thousand kilometers above them by then. “Down there?”

“Can’t hear you,” Wolf said. “You’re breaking up.”

“What—” Roland tried again. But then there was nothing.

Lin shook her head. “I don’t like this,” she told her copilot. “Not at all.”

The
Salvador
must have issued countering thrust because its motion stopped relative to the Dragonfly, locating the object fifty meters off the port bow, ten degrees inclination. The
Callaway
meanwhile maintained its twenty meter distance on the other side.

“Okay, I just heard from Albright,” Wolf announced. “Looks like they’re finally putting us to use after all. One of us is going to have to break away from the safety of the ships to retrieve that shuttle. My copilot and I have volunteered.”

Wolf, no.

“Why not send a drone?” Lin sent hurriedly over the line.

“Albright is worried the radiation will affect the local AIs,” Wolf returned. “Their cores aren’t as shielded as those aboard the starships.”

“Then have someone pilot the drone remotely,” Lin pleaded.

“Again, they’re worried about interference from the radiation,” Wolf said. “When you’re trying to latch on with a grappling hook, and you keep missing because the radiation interferes with your signals, well, it kind of rules out remote piloting as an option.”

“Then let the AI take over at that point,” Lin insisted.

“As I said,” Wolf replied over the comm. “Me and my copilot have already volunteered. A manned rescue operation has the best chance of success.” He sent her a direct message. “Lin. I’ll be all right.”

She raised her noise canceler so her copilot wouldn’t hear the conversation.

“Please, you don’t have to do this,” she returned.

“But I do,” Wolf responded. “Missions like this are why I signed up. Trust me, I know how to take care of myself.”

“I know you do, it’s just—” But she couldn’t finish, not when she knew her commander would review the logs later. She could delete them, she supposed, but then the commander would wonder what she was hiding.

“Look, I have to go,” Wolf transmitted. “Hang tight. I’ll be back in no time. Wolf out.”

A moment later, Wolf said over the general line: “Orange Leader is leaving the cove.”

Since Lin couldn’t see his fighter from where she was mounted to the hull of the
Salvador
, she focused her attention on the tactical display instead, and watched the dot representing his Avenger move away from the flagship.

Don’t you die on me, Wolf.

“We’re coming up with the edge of the
Callaway
,” Wolf said over the general comm line. “Rotating heat shields toward the star in preparation for crossing into the Heat Zone.” He paused. “Rotated. Moving into the Heat Zone.”

On her display, his blue dot moved away from the flagship.

“It’s a little hot out here,” Wolf continued. “But the thermal shielding is holding up. Internal temperature reads forty-eight degrees Celsius. Our bodysuits are filtering that down to thirty-five, locally.” He paused. “Radiation levels aren’t so good, however. My copilot and I are going to need a dunk in an anti-rad soup when this is done. Tell me again why the
Salvador
moved out of its shielding position?”

Though he was speaking on the general comm, Lin felt like he was talking for her benefit alone. Probably was.

I should be his copilot. It’s Cray’s fault I’m not. And the irony is, Wolf is trying to save the man’s wife.

“Lieutenant Turow has been trying to contact the pilot of the shuttle,” Wolf transmitted over the comm. “We’re not getting a response on any of the frequency bands. I think she’s fallen unconscious.”

Lin felt a sudden sense of anguish. She couldn’t help thinking, what if it was all for nothing?

Cray’s wife is probably already dead. If she was out there without any anti-rads...

Wolf was going to die trying to save a dead woman.

Via the tactical display, Lin watched his Avenger close with the shuttle.

“We’ve used up seventy-five percent of our propellant already,” Wolf said. A moment later: “Issuing stabilizing thrust.”

His dot became stationary relative to the
Callaway
and the Dragonfly.

“Firing grappling hooks,” Wolf said. “Magnetic tips have taken hold. We’ve got her. Reeling her in.”

The small dot representing the Dragonfly slowly moved toward the Avenger. Lin wasn’t worried about the grappling hooks failing. The lines were made of carbon fiber, and capable of withstanding immense temperatures.

When the two dots overlapped, Wolf said: “We’ve attached to the shuttle. Plotting return vector.”

Just then the
Salvador
began to slowly move upward. That meant the warship was initiating its deorbital pre-burn sequence. The captain had apparently decided the destroyer could no longer afford the Delta V costs of that decaying orbit. The
Callaway
remained in place, for the moment.

“Issuing return thrust,” Wolf said.

His dot didn’t move.

A moment later: “Something’s wrong,” Wolf said. “The last fifteen percent of the propellant we’d saved... it’s gone. We must have sprung a leak.”

“Grisham and I are coming for you,” Lin announced. She reached for the switch that would power down the magnetic mounts holding her to the
Salvador
.

“Don’t you move,” Lieutenant Commander Tara Casals said from the safety of the
Salvador’s
combat direction center. She was Lin’s space wing commander. “Someone from the
Callaway
will help them. We’ve already begun deorbital pre-burn.”