“No, I just felt like saying goodbye so you hear it in my voice.”
“I appreciate you being romantic, but we don’t have much—”
“I love you.”
Molly snapped her visor closed and popped her helmet off. She brushed her hair back off her forehead and looked up at him.
“I love you, too. And stop worrying, this is gonna go smooth as milk.” She watched the lines of worry in Cole’s forehead deepen. “I’ll see you on Lok,” she said. “Walter’s in your seat, and he’ll have my back.”
Cole laughed. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?” He smiled down at her. “All right, see you in a bit.”
With that, he snapped his head forward, throwing the visor of his helmet down without touching it. Molly laughed at the hotshot maneuver and watched the cockpit glass slide forward and seal tight. She ducked under the fuselage and looked up at Riggs, but only the side of his helmet was visible. She ran back to Parsona, pulling her own helmet back on.
Inside, she settled into her seat and nodded at Walter, giving him the okay to depressurize the airlock. He punched commands into his computer, and the atmosphere within the chamber became visible as it was sucked into the large side vents, condensing into moisture as the pressure changed.
Molly watched the thrusters ahead of her fire up, the Firehawk humming to life. She had to fight the urge to do the same with Parsona. It felt unnatural to watch the airlock empty of atmosphere while keeping her ship powered down.
As soon as the air had been completely evacuated, she gave Walter another thumbs-up. For Cole’s benefit, she tried to keep her surface thoughts to a minimum; she didn’t want to distract him while he sweet-talked the patrol watch.
In her own head, meanwhile, she could hear Cole read off Riggs’s authorization numbers, sensing them on the surface of his mind as he spoke them, and then feeling the tension as he waited for the guard to acknowledge.
Beside the hangar bay’s red atmosphere light, the integrity light went from green to red. The doors opened a crack, then slid apart and revealed the star field beyond. Cole eased forward, pulling the slack out of the towline. Parsona lurched, the landing gear scraped on the deck, then Cole angled up and brought both ships high in the lock before they exited into clear space.
As the two ships pulled out of the massive StarCarrier, the only eyes looking their way were electronic ones. Their signature on SADAR would appear a little larger than normal, but communications officers aren’t taught to fear anything leaving the belly of their own ship, which meant the duo didn’t merit a second glace. And besides, the ship ID blinking over the blip would perfectly match the newly revised patrol roster. Screen-watchers no doubt would sip their cold coffee and continue swapping lewd jokes and lewder lies.
It would be another hour before anyone was scheduled to check the hangar bay or deliver breakfast to the detention cells.
Should be more than enough time.
“Okay, we’re well outside the fleet perimeter,” Cole thought. “Any further and they’ll wonder what we’re patrolling.”
Molly laughed and glanced through the starboard porthole; the constellation of cruisers and destroyers flashed and twinkled like bright, nearby stars.
“This’ll do,” she agreed.
“What’ss sso funny?” Walter asked her. “I wanna wear a red band.”
“They aren’t toys, now keep it down so I can concentrate.”
Walter sank in the nav seat. “What a wasste, ssending one with him,” he grumbled.
Molly ignored Walter and reached for the tow release. “Disengaging,” she thought, as she pulled the handle. The taut cable ahead of her wavered with the release of tension, and they were free, drifting with their forward momentum. Cole pulled the Firehawk far enough away to not throw her jump off with its small bit of gravity.
“Ladies first,” he thought.
She smiled, but there were better reasons for her to jump before he did. It wouldn’t look great if his ship ID disappeared from the fleet’s SADAR, leaving hers exposed. Plus, if he jumped from the same general area, it might confuse both of their hyperspace signatures, confounding, or at least confusing, the pursuit efforts.
Her hyperdrive had been spinning up ever since they left the carrier. Molly brought the rest of Parsona on- line, her ship’s identification moments from broadcasting to the fleet. She watched the nav screen, just waiting for the jump coordinates to register, her finger hovering over the hyperdrive switch.
“Be careful,” she thought.
“You, too,” Cole replied.
The ship came on-line. Half a second later, the nav indicator flashed green.
“I wanna pussh it!” Walter yelled.
But it was too late. The stars had already shifted.
Cole watched his SADAR display intently.
Success.
His own hyperdrive was already spinning up; he checked the coordinates on his nav display one final time.
The radio on the dash cracked to life: “Flight three-two-seven, this is the Cruiser
Riggs writhed against his restraints and shouted into his cheeks, desperate to signal his allies.
Cole saw an opportunity to delay the pursuit. “Roger,
After a pause, the radio cackled with more questions as Cole lifted the cover on the jump button. But something came through his consciousness besides the radio: Molly’s words slicing through his own thoughts.
But Cole was wrong. Dead wrong.
He pressed the red button with his gloved finger, and the instruction to jump coursed down a fiber optic wire, racing through the nav computer on its way to the hyperdrive. Normally, it would pick up the coordinates locked into the dash display and carry this location to the drive in the rear of the Firehawk.
Not this time. The program had been changed. No matter what numbers were computed in the nav display, only one set of coordinates were ever going to be sent to the hyperdrive ever again. Those numbers were picked up and sent back. If Cole could have seen them, looked at what they referenced on his nav chart, he would have been screaming right along with Riggs.
The Firehawk containing the two old friends winked out of space, departing the fleet forever.
The ship reappeared four light-years away, directly in the center of Delphi II.
The largest star within a single jump of the fleet.
