CHAPTER 41 KAT
OVER THE next few days, she and Lee realized various pieces of their plan coming together.
The first major one was settling upon a launch date.
Placement applications were due the following Friday, so they’d want to be out of here before then.
The transports were expected to arrive this afternoon, which would leave the main hangar chaotic and bustling for at least a few days.
Combined with the raids going out, that Zane now monitored for them, it also created the perfect chaos to slip in and prep the ship unnoticed. Which directed them to next Tuesday.
They would be leaving a week from today.
Kat had done her best not to think about it for the last twenty-six hours.
So naturally, it was all she’d thought about.
All her secret hideouts, the places about the ship she was going to miss.
Like this too-chilly stairway. How many more times she would get to pound down the grates after Lee, ponytail bouncing with some obnoxious commentary.
And speaking of hair…
“I bet Whistler’s already inside,” Kat mused, scanning the central-skywalk ahead of them as they rounded the base of the Heptagon. He’d asked her and Lee to meet him down here in the main hangar at 07:40 hours.
Whistler had apparently already picked out a ship for them, a ship which, as of this morning, he was eighty-five percent certain would be available next week.
Given the circumstances, and the timeliness of their situation, the percentage was a much higher assurance than she could have hoped for, so they were taking it.
Lee grunted a response as he typed something back into his hyperband.
“Who could possibly be messaging you this early?” She glanced over as his hyperband buzzed once more.
“Jed, actually,” Lee said, frowning as he quickly read the message, before dropping his hyperband arm back down again
“Oh. Did we have him looking into cameras or something for this morning?” She didn’t recall them tasking him with anything else of that nature. Not since the break-in.
Lee grinned over at her wryly. “It’s not like that. This was for something else. I asked him to hack those bands from Segura.”
“The radiation monitors?” She perked up. “Anything?”
Lee shook his head. “It’s been harder to crack than he anticipated, it’s all hard-coded for their mainframe. He’s managed to decrypt parts of it, but we haven’t found anything we can use yet.”
“Oh. It was a good idea though. Here’s hoping,” she said, already shaking it off. There were still too many loose ends to tie down, and they were running out of time to check those knots.
Her eyes drifted down to her own hyperband and the messages where-within.
She was still waiting for the repercussions from their break-in and data breach with the Command wing.
Their fabulous run-in with Nolan. But—nothing.
De rien. Crickets and radio-silence, it was slightly off-putting.
Kat was a thousand percent sure Nolan was aware something was up, regardless of whether he’d started them off down this broken path or otherwise.
The Commander herself had been back on the ship for at least a full day.
This was his involvement on the line, too.
But it seemed he might actually have some faith in them…
Either that or it was still coming. She imagined how his precise, laser-marker strokes would appear on a holographic memo. How obnoxious it would be to receive something like that…
“Yo, Hanneman, Waters.”
Kat looked over in time to see Whistler duck out from the loading ramp of one of the central skimmers.
Nodding once to Whistler, Lee sidestepped around her, a casual grin slipping onto his face as he made instead for Flyn and his co-squadron lead, Ness, their fellow Gammas very conveniently going out on raid this morning.
Sidling up the loading ramp, Kat followed Whistler aboard.
“Meet Isla.” Whistler motioned to the gleaming, spotless interior of their new skimmer.
Tutting to herself, she peered about the sleek ship with new eyes.
Freshly renovated with top-of-the-line tech and the usual streamlined cabin.
In a matter of days, this could be their vessel.
She trailed her fingertips over the chrome mini fridge.
And without additional cadets, there would be ample room back in the bunks…
“Are we still pretty sure this one will be available and ready for us next week? What about last minute assignments? Those do come up…”
“Oh I don’t think that will be an issue,” Whistler said, smiling to himself.
“How so?” Kat demanded, stopping her perusal as she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Our lovely hangar managers and systems crew-members will be finding a leak in the transmission over the next twenty-four hours that will require full investigation write-ups and confirmed approval before they send it out again with cadets. Raider Bylaws and Regulations.” Whistler shrugged.
“And with the bump in raid traffic going out over the next few days, it will take at least a week to confirm she is back up to standards.”
“Eighty-five percent good.” She understood it now.
“Nah, I think if I play it right, I can bump us right up to ninety-five.” Whistler winked.
But his wink quickly turned to business as they strode the length of the cabin up into the cockpit.
Knowing Whistler, he would have selected this particular vessel for its engine capabilities.
It would be something special when he was through with it.
She could practically feel the phantom thrum of the engine underneath her. She was just itching to test her out.
Soon.
“As to the transmission leak,” Whistler went on, casually motioning to the engine panel below them as if he were merely commenting on the size of the grates, “it will, in fact, not be an actual leak, merely the misalignment of a valve that will have zero effects on the current energy reserve levels or residual problems. They’re fully charged, I might add, and will continue to be kept so, along with the fresh transformer module I plan to swap out prior to your engagement. ”
“And the tracking systems—” Kat began to ask.
“Will be fully disengaged with a photon blocker.”
Kat nodded. She tried to think if they were missing anything. But it seemed like he had it all covered.
“I can’t believe you guys are really going,” Whistler said, quietly.
“You’ll say goodbye to Demi for us, if we don’t get a chance to explain?”
“Of course.”
Something in the tone of his voice had her scanning his warm hazel eyes, the jaunty planes of his face, searching for some hint of that usually present crooked grin. But there was only somberness and seriousness there this morning. “You will be missed,” Whistler said.
And with the way his eyes caught on her own, with the intensity in them, that light, she really couldn’t believe that not too long ago she’d counted him among the wayward cadets of the Academy. A joke. Or an adversary, even.
Because now, all she saw was friend. He was Whistler.
“My friend, like a waterfall,” she whisper-smiled, remembering the silly words to the music that had run through her head those days over break while she was away on Bri’s Bala resort, trying to just ride the wave while she was still numb to everything going on back at the Academy.
She had changed. And so, it seemed, had Whistler. “We go on and on and onnnnnn.”
“What?” Whistler choked on a laugh.
“It’s a lyric, from a song. One of Lee’s songs. It’s quite catchy, really. But I think I get it now.” She smiled, again. “I’m glad I had the chance to get to know you.”
And partially because she wasn’t quite ready to make this moment final, and partially because her eyes had already begun to mist over—she was probably one line away from overflowing—she went for theatrics and dramatics.
“I’ll have to let Lee know that we’ve already started saying our goodbyes,” she teased, flipping her hair behind her.
It was much easier to make light of the moment.
Because she was really going to miss this.
Lee caught up to them as they were descending from the skimmer, the action beat buried like their appearance here this morning as Flyn and squadron loaded into their own ship for the morning’s raid. The very bustling they were going to be depending upon as a distraction in the days following.
“So something else I’ve been thinking about that I don’t know if you two have discussed,” Whistler began, stopping them as they cleared the hangar and the central skywalk.
The dining sounds clattered over to greet them from the over-eager cadets filling up for their morning trainings.
Kat could feel her ears perking up. If he had something to add to help them out, she was all for it.
“Say you do find them,” Whistler said. “Gaia, Dyinai, the whole crew. Wherever this base of theirs is, assuming, of course they have things up and running by now, what then? How do you plan to get the skimmer through?”
“Through… I didn’t even think of that. Of course they’d want to have their tech up and running again,” Kat said.
And this was exactly why they’d wanted Whistler onboard with them.
She expressed as much, with as much flattery and unneeded batting eyelashes as she could manage, which Whistler of course saw right through.
But he turned up that crooked grin she’d been missing.
“I’m guessing you have some ideas?” Lee asked, neutrally.
“One,” Whistler said, some of that glee at the challenge sparkling in his eyes. “And I hope you guys don’t mind, but I already took the liberty of looping in a couple of my most trustworthy cadets.”
“Kiara and Kamata,” Lee said under his breath.
“Exactly, the very ones,” Whistler went on, as if he hadn’t already violated their initial request to keep this close. “But don’t worry, I didn’t give them specifics, more of a hypothetical project of sorts.”