LITMIR.BIZ

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each other with our fingers crossed behind our backs.”

      Trust was the biggest casualty of the events of the last year. Elena, despite her years of experience in the Corps, used to trust her superiors to be in the right, at least as far as their intentions were concerned. The loss was a small one, he suspected, but it was a loss all the same, on the heels of far too many others. “Elena,” he began, “you know I—”

      A high tone sounded, and the wall readout flashed red. He stood, but across from him Elena was already moving, sweeping away both of their documents with a wave of her hand and pulling up a tactical view of Galileo. Out the window the field dimmed and dissipated into stars, and they hung still for a moment as the ship changed their flight plan. Then the stars blurred and they were in the field again, and if he had not heard the alarm he would have thought nothing had changed.

      A priority Central distress call.

       All ships in the vicinity, help us.

      “Status,” he said tersely. Above his desk, his ship rendered a reconstructed tactical display of a starship similar in design to Galileo, only three times the size: a great sprawling eagle rather than a sparrow. The CCSS Exeter. He stole a glance at Elena, who was staring at the display, her jaw set. In addition to being the Corps ship that had patrolled the Third Sector the longest, Exeter had been Elena’s first deployment. She still knew people who served there.

      Emily Broadmoor, Greg’s chief of security and infantry commander, entered the room as Galileo gave status. “CCSS Exeter reports being under attack by twenty-seven Syndicate raiders. Current readings count twenty.”

      Twenty-seven. He could not recall ever hearing of a Syndicate tribe so large.

      “Additional status is available,” Galileo added helpfully.

      Jessica came in, trailed by Greg’s medical and comms officers. He caught her eye. “Give us what you’ve got,” he told his ship, as Jessica moved to stand beside him.

      The display animated with twenty-seven small ships, replaying the status relayed by Exeter’s sensors. The small ships spiraled in eerie unison, blasting somewhat futilely at Exeter’s solid hull. Exeter was firing back with external weapons, but her response was sluggish, and the raiders looped and dashed and avoided more shots than they took. As they all watched, one raider split from the others, heading abruptly toward Exeter’s belly. Exeter shot at the small fighter, a single gun, over and over again. She missed each time.

      The little ship pitched and yawed like a drunken soldier, and for a moment Greg hoped against hope that it would miss Exeter entirely. But as they watched, it sped up and lurched into Exeter’s side.

      Greg’s office was lit by the playback of the massive blast, and when it faded there was a flaming crescent carved out of Exeter’s side, debris flying out of the gap. One-third of the starship had vanished. That the ship had survived to send a distress call was a minor miracle.

      Greg’s fists clenched involuntarily as they watched the remainder of the reenactment. He knew it was already over, but he found himself waiting for the battle to go differently, for their gunner’s aim to improve, for some impossible sign that Exeter would recover. Instead, a single raider flew, unmolested, into Exeter’s wrecked side and attached itself like a limpet to the open wound. The remaining raiders kept circling the starship, drawing Exeter’s meager fire. Five of the tiny ships flamed out in the path of the starship’s crippled weapons. Someone with some skill had found their way to the targeting controls.

      Or maybe, Greg reflected, thinking of the futile shots before the impact, they were just luckier than they had been before.

      A moment later the reconstruction looped back to the beginning, and Greg dismissed it. “Audio?” he prompted.

      A voice began to speak, garbled by digital artifacting. “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday,” a deep voice said. Greg recognized Captain Çelik. “We are under attack. Syndicate raiders. We’re down to one gun, no shuttles. All ships in the area, please respond. Emergency. All ships—”

      The voice broke off.

       Christ.

      The Syndicates had never moved so boldly against Central. There were skirmishes, sure—over the past year, there had been a handful of swipes taken at Corps starships, but nothing remotely this aggressive. Their goal had always been theft and escape, not engagement.

       What the hell could have prompted this?

      But the why of it was secondary for now. “ETA?”

      “Three minutes, fifty-eight seconds.”

      Too long. “Has anyone else acknowledged the Mayday?”

      “The PSI ship Orunmila will arrive in one minute and seven seconds.”

      With Orunmila’s help, Exeter might stand a chance. Thank God, he thought, for spiky, suspicious PSI captains. He looked up. “I want two ships on deck for a boarding party. Two platoons, armored. That limpet likely means they were boarded. And Bob, I want a full medical team in with the infantry.” Surely there would be survivors. Surely there would be some hope to salvage out of all of this. “Mr. Mosqueda, I want all comms in and out monitored, and I want to know what they heard before they got hit. Chief,” he told Elena, “you’re on weapons, and watch out for jammers. I don’t know why Exeter couldn’t defend themselves, but if those bastards try that same trick with us, blow them apart. Commander Lockwood, you’re with me. I want this over fast, everyone. We’re not losing anyone else.”

      He watched them disperse, all efficiency and purpose, and tried not to imagine the crew of Exeter, not three minutes earlier, doing exactly the same thing.

       CHAPTER 3

      Elena ran down the hall, thinking back to the last time she had been in a firefight. The battle had been on a much smaller scale, but the odds had been overwhelmingly against her, and the outcome had been far less certain. Strange how little she remembered of the actual shooting. Most of her memories were of her companion: levelheaded, experienced, strong, and good-humored, even in the face of what had seemed like certain death. He had stood with her, unwavering, despite the fact that she had brought him all of his trouble, that he had known her only a day. Here, diving into a fight to save what was left of Exeter, she thought of how invulnerable she had felt when she was with him, how she could fight anything. She let the memory flood her bloodstream, leaving her cool and determined. You’ve done this before. You can do this again.

      She entered engineering, her eyes sweeping over her crew. They were already at their stations, subdued but composed, even the new kids who were dumped on Greg before they left Earth. She tried to remember how many battle drills she had done with them. She tried to remember if battle drills had helped her at all the first time she had been shot at. She didn’t think so. Real-world battle had little to do with drills, and everything to do with who you were underneath.

      She would have spared them this early test if she could.

      Ted Shimada, her second, was waiting to take her aside, pulling her away from the others before she could reach the main weapons console. “What do you think we’re facing here?” he asked, his voice low enough to keep the others from overhearing.

      She studied his expression. Ted’s reputation as a clown was not entirely undeserved, but she had known him for more than ten years, and she knew his clowning masked a sharp and observant mind. He was one of a short list of people whose judgment she trusted absolutely, and the only one—with the possible exception of Greg—whom she would trust to look after her engines. He would have noticed the same anomalies in the replay of Exeter’s hit that she had.

      “Your paycheck and mine says the bomber

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