Chapter 7 #2
“Watch the display.”
“Focused coward.”
“You used that insult already.”
“Still accurate.”
A patrol ship crossed the far edge of our sensor range. We stopped talking. It moved around the moon in a standard search pattern, closer than intelligence had predicted. Its active sweeps lit our display every thirty seconds.
“If it completes the orbit, it’ll pass within nine thousand kilometers,” Priya whispered.
“The Wraith should remain below detection threshold.”
“Should?”
“Nothing is certain in enemy territory.”
“I liked you better when you lied about us not dying.”
The patrol continued toward us. I calculated three escape routes. All required engine power. All would reveal us. Priya studied the patrol’s path, then the moon’s surface.
“There’s an iron deposit below us,” she said.
“I see it.”
“Can we lower the Wraith into its magnetic field?”
“The terrain is unstable.”
“Not what I asked.”
“Yes. If we descend four kilometers.”
“The patrol sweep will think we're part of the deposit.”
“And if your descent is too fast, we strike the surface. Too slow, they detect us before we reach it.”
Her hands settled on the controls. “So I’ll do it exactly right.”
I should have taken the pilot controls. I had flown a hundred deep runs. She had flown one real corridor and one qualification sim. I rerouted the sensor display to her screen instead.
“Descent window in five seconds,” I said.
She did not look at me. “I have it.” The patrol sweep moved closer.
“Three. Two. One. Now.”
Priya released our orbital hold. The Wraith dropped. There was no engine sound, no acceleration alarm. Only the moon rushing up on the display and the pressure of Priya’s thigh against mine beneath the thermal layer.
“Two kilometers,” I said.
She made one correction.
“One.”
The iron field caught us in its magnetic field.
The patrol sweep passed over us. Priya fired the attitude jets in two short bursts and leveled the Wraith thirty meters above the surface.
Rock filled the lower canopy. The patrol ship passed without changing course. We waited until it cleared the moon.
“Exactly right,” she said.
“Thirty meters is unnecessarily close.”
“But memorable.”
“My reports about you are becoming repetitive.”
“Reckless, insubordinate, brilliant?”
“Trouble.”
“Add good under pressure.”
“That was already in the first report.”
She turned to look at me. I returned my attention to the sensor array before I did something irresponsible.
We brought the Wraith back to observation position and finished the recording.
The unidentified freighters unloaded at the largest shipyard.
Their cargo was shielded, but the yard’s power draw spiked the moment transfer began.
“Whatever they’re carrying, it isn’t food,” Priya said.
“Weapons cores or drive components.”
“Can we get closer?”
“No.”
“You didn’t even consider it.”
“I considered it before you completed the question. The answer remains no. Our orders require identification if possible. It is not possible without exposing the Wraith.”
She sighed. “Fine.”
“You dislike following orders.”
“I dislike incomplete information.”
“A useful trait in a scout.”
“Was that more praise?”
“Do not become accustomed to it.”
The count completed. We had recorded every yard, every active military hull, and six unknown supply ships whose existence would make General Aryk very unhappy.
All that remained was the run home. I restored life support to normal while Priya lined up the ship for our escape run.
Warm air moved through the cockpit. She held her hands over the vent.
“Tell me something true about you,” she said. "A secret."
“Everything I tell you is true.”
She laughed softly. “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone. We have time.” I should have refused.
“I named the Wraith,” I said.
Priya lowered her hands. “She didn’t have a name?”
“A hull designation. After Tavik died, I requested permanent assignment and changed it.”
“Why Wraith?”
“Because I intended to become one. No partner. No attachment. Nothing the enemy could use against me.”
“How’d that work out?”
I looked at the woman sitting beneath my thermal layer with her leg pressed against mine. “Poorly.”
“Good.”
“You are pleased to have destroyed a six-year operational strategy?”
“It was a bad strategy.”
“It kept me alive.”
“It kept you breathing.”
She knew the difference. Now, with her here, I did as well.
“Your turn,” I said.
Priya watched the planet on the display. “My mom used to leave me alone overnight when I was a kid. Sometimes longer. She had problems. I learned early that needing people was a great way to get hurt.”
Anger moved through me, immediate and useless. “How old were you?”
“Old enough to make cereal. Too young to be alone.”
“Where was your father?”
“Not there.” She said it without drama. A fact she had lived with for a very long time.
“I became the dependable one,” she continued. “Good grades. Good job. Calm voice. Forty airplanes could depend on me at once, and I didn’t have to depend on anybody. I thought I’d beaten the system.”
“Then you met Gina and Alisha.”
“They’re persistent.”
“Like you.”
“Exactly. And then I built a hot alien out of a character menu, in a game which was, apparently, the galaxy’s cry for help.”
Her hand rested on the console between us.
I laced our fingers together, grateful when she did not pull away.
The contact was simple. No desperate kiss.
No sexual challenge. Just her cold fingers warming in mine while an enemy world filled half the sky.
I had once believed needing another scout was a weakness.
Tavik had taught me otherwise. Losing him had made me forget.
Priya squeezed my hand. I squeezed back.
“We've got everything we need,” she said. “Let's get out of here.”
“Take us home.”
She brought the Wraith to the edge of the moon’s shadow and aligned us with the transit corridor command had marked as a blind route. We had what we came for. No one on Xandrax knew we had been there.