Damage Control (Valiant Knox) (19 page)

“Seems like a lot of trouble to get in here when the mole could have accessed the systems from anywhere, right?”

She watched information scroll across the screen. “Probably, which is why I’m hoping we can find some clues here that I couldn’t access remotely.”

Except what she was seeing made no sense. According to station logs, this machine hadn’t been used for months. She rechecked the datapad to make sure she hadn’t gotten the bays mixed up, but the logs confirmed this exact location had been used. So which one was telling her the truth?

“This is going to take a little longer than I anticipated.” She set the datapad down and got to work pulling up more information on the station.

“How much longer?” Leigh checked his watch. “Messdeck starts serving breakfast in less than an hour.”

“I don’t know. It depends on what I find.”

He pushed to his feet and paced the short distance they had between the machinery. She sent him an exasperated glance, causing him to stop.

“What?” he asked, almost sounding defensive.

“You pacing like a caged tiger isn’t going to make me work any faster.”

“Sorry.” He walked over to lean on the opposite side of the console, which was even more distracting, damn him, because now his hands were in her peripheral vision and her mind didn’t want to do anything except imagine exactly where he could put them.

She gave herself a mental slap as a small section of information jumped out at her. But before she could confirm the notion that had started forming in the back of her mind, a dull clunking sound echoed through the bay and she froze, glancing up at Leigh.

“What was that?”

He looked past her, an expression of dawning realization on his face. “The atmospheric doors. Mia, run!”

He’d barely finished saying the words before he took off, leaping the engine block he’d been sitting on, then scrambling over a hull section and disappearing from sight.

Her heart thumping with apprehension, she grabbed Leigh’s datapad and followed after him, clearing all the obstacles they’d navigated on the way in. Only to find Leigh standing in front of the inner hatchway now closed and blocking them from escape.

He went over to the control screen, but it was flashing a red error message. A hydraulic hiss started from somewhere behind them, deeper in the bay. Leigh slapped a frustrated hand over the uncooperative screen.

“What’s happening?” She didn’t know why she asked, when she really didn’t want to know.

Leigh stepped back, shoving a hand through his hair, expression tense. “Venting. The outer doors are opening.”

“Into
space
?” Her near shout echoed over the increasing hiss.

He looked over at her, features grim. “If we don’t get out of here—”

“It was a trap.”

It all made sense. The station had shown her the real information, instead of the baited information she’d found using Leigh’s datapad: if anyone tried to track the traitor’s activities, they’d get sucked into oblivion.

Maybe she’d gotten too close to something with those system checks, or maybe she hadn’t covered her tracks well. Either way, the mole had turned the tables on her and she’d walked them into this snare without a second thought.

“What are you talking about?” Leigh stepped closer as the air around them started whipping into a frenzy, the vacuum increasing.

“We walked into a death trap.” Around them, smaller, lighter pieces of debris were picked up and tossed around. They only had a few minutes, if that, to find a way out of this bay before everything got sucked out into space.

Chapter Nineteen

A
drenaline-driven fury washed through Leigh once he grasped what Mia had told him. But with the very air getting sucked out from around them, starting to drag anything that wasn’t bolted down, they didn’t have time to discuss the particulars. The inner atmospheric doors had already been closed by the time he’d reached them and the control screen was a loss. He’d already tried putting in his officer codes to override it, but got nothing except an error message.

He dashed over to a cabinet and pulled it open, grabbing a pry bar as the rest of the tools on the shelf succumbed to the increasing vacuum, falling to the deck and skittering past his boots. He returned to the doors and jammed the end into the gap. He glanced over at Mia, who still stood where he’d left her, working at his datapad. Probably trying to find a way to stop whatever protocol was about to vent this bay.

A light but sharp piece of debris flew by her head and she didn’t even notice, just about giving him a heart attack. Beyond her, past the stacks of engine and ship junk that were starting to whine and shift, a seam appeared in the outer launch hatchway. They only had a minute or two left.

“Mia!” he yelled over the increasing noise. “Get over here.”

She hurried over, hunching against the whipping air. “Leigh, I can’t help you with that, I’m trying to override—”

“I know. Just get down next to the door and keep doing whatever you’re doing.”

She didn’t even look up at him again as she crouched down and pressed herself against the hatchway. With a tense half breath that was getting short on oxygen, he rammed the bar harder into the seam of the atmospheric doors and pushed, putting all his weight against levering. It was probably a lost cause, but he had to do something. He wasn’t going to stand there counting his sins until the outer hatchway finished opening and sucked them into space. Still, vehemence washed hotter through him when shoving against the bar got him exactly nothing. He took another breath, this one feeling like it burned his lungs, as there was even less atmosphere to suck in.

Goddamn it
. He did not want to die like this. Without enough oxygen, it was like his muscles just decided to pack it in. He lost his grip on the bar. It clattered out of his hands and spun across the deck as the vacuum got stronger.

He dropped down, covering Mia with his body and locking his hands into the metal grate of the floor. She was still working the datapad, her expression burning with determination, but edged with fear. Christ, even a second before what would no doubt be a horrifically painful death, she was still fighting. Most people, even seasoned soldiers, would have given up by now.

He leaned into her. Somehow, even with the failing oxygen and pulling burn of the vacuum wrenching at him, he could smell the now familiar nutty-vanilla on her hair. Or maybe it was just his imagination taking him to a better place.

Either way, he buried his face in her hair, his muscles stinging as he struggled to hold on for both of them. Just as his fingers started loosening on the grate, Mia grabbed onto him.

“Leigh, I did it!”

He barely heard her over the rushing roar, but as he looked up, the hatchway in front of them cracked open. Unfortunately, this created a new problem, as a burst of air cut through the gap, almost blasting what little grip he still had. At least they had something to breath now, and as he gasped a sharp inhale of air, Mia grabbed onto the edge of the doors, pulling herself through.

He risked letting one hand go to help push her out, fighting the rushing air to get himself hooked onto the edge of the door. She seized him under his arms, helping to haul him through. For a second he thought they were both going to slip and tumble back in, but he found a hold with the toes of his boots and pushed with his legs, launching himself over the threshold. They collapsed onto the deck on the other side and Mia slapped at his datapad lying on the floor nearby, snapping the doors closed.

In the sudden silence, his ears started ringing, his head throbbing from the pressure. For a long moment he let himself lie there, sucking in deep lungfuls of air and thanking whatever deity was out there in the universe for the fact they were both still alive.

Holy hell, he’d had some brushes with disaster over the years, but he didn’t think he’d ever been that close to certain death before. He rolled to the side, looking down on Mia lying next to him, her eyes closed as her chest rapidly rose and fell.

“Are you okay?” His throat felt stripped raw, and he swallowed over the dryness.

She opened her eyes and slowly propped herself up on her elbows. “Physically, yeah, because clearly I’m not dead. Psychologically? I’ll tell you in a couple of years.”

He gave a short laugh of relief, knowing exactly what she meant.

She blew out a jagged breath and flopped back onto the deck again. “Oh God, we almost died. I walked us right into a trap. How could I be so stupid?”

“Hey.” He caught her hand as she swiped it over her face. “How were you supposed to know? You were just doing exactly what I asked you to do. If this is anyone’s fault, it’s mine. I should never have gotten you involved in this.”

She opened her eyes, lashes damp as she stared up at him. “Don’t blame yourself. You’ve got enough on your plate without adding this to it.”

He cut his gaze away from her sincere expression, focusing on their joined hands. No matter what she said, it wouldn’t make him feel any less responsible for nearly getting her killed. “I think we should take this as fair warning. I don’t want you looking for this guy anymore.”

She let go of his hand and sat up. “I’m not going to let this scare me off. We have to find him, if only because this proves he’s willing to kill anyone to keep his identity secret. Considering he set this trap, he obviously knows someone is looking for him.”

“Which is exactly why you need to leave this alone. You’ve nearly been killed twice now. It’s too dangerous.”

Her expression became stubborn. “And what about you? Are you going to leave it alone? Because the way I remember it, I wasn’t the only one who got shot at last week and almost vented just now.”

“It’s my squadron. My people, my responsibility. I can’t just stand by and leave it to someone else to take care of.”

“If you’re not giving up, then neither am I.” She tipped her chin up, her obstinacy as infuriating as it was admirable. He wanted to be angry at her for not stepping back like he asked, but instead he felt humbled that she wanted to stick with him despite the danger. He also wanted to kiss that damn stubborn expression right off her face, but they’d made a pact to stay away from each other. They may have narrowly escaped getting sucked into space, but that didn’t change the fact that he was still her CO and had already taken things between them way into forbidden territory.

He sighed and ran a hand over his hair. Despite it being fairly short, he could feel it sticking out all over the place. From what he’d learned of Mia, he got the feeling that she’d continue with this mission whether he wanted her to or not. At least if she worked with him, he could make sure she stayed out of harm’s way.

“Fine,” he agreed reluctantly. “But we’re not tracking the shooter or his accomplice directly any more. Keep running the background checks and building profiles on everyone in FP squad instead. We’ll just have to hope we can pinpoint the traitor that way.”

For a long moment she stared at him, and he could all but see her mind working the angles, probably trying to figure out if he was playing her.

“Okay, but only if you promise not to go chasing any leads by yourself as well. You told me not to wander off on my own, so now I’m telling you the same thing.”

A smile tugged at his lips, washing away some of the tension. He shouldn’t have been so charmed by her apparent concern for him, but after nearly being vacuumed into oblivion, he was going to give himself a break.

“Come on. We need to get ourselves looking respectable and back up to squad level for the morning’s session.” He pushed to his feet, held out a hand, and helped her up.

Her gaze shifted upward and she reached up and ran her fingers though his hair, sending a shiver spearing down his spine.

“Yeah, people are definitely going to be suspicious about what you’ve been up to.” She grinned.

“Yeah, well you look like you were on the losing end of a fight with a hair dryer.”

She gave a surprised laugh and socked him one in the arm. “Hey, you’re not supposed to say stuff like that to a girl.”

He rubbed his arm as they set off toward the transit. “Somehow, I think you can take it.”

She cut him a considering sideways glance. “I already know I can take it.”

Maybe it was the leftover adrenaline, but his body flash-heated, and he was sure he could see something more in her gaze than just friendly banter. He clenched his fists and focused his gaze ahead, not letting himself look at her.

Yeah, those urges ripping hard and fast through him were just the aftereffects of almost getting killed. Riding a high like that, the downturn was always going to be difficult to keep a rein on. So he was just going to keep his hands to himself and run battle drills through his mind until they got back up to squadron level and could go their separate ways.

Chapter Twenty

M
ia filed onto the troop transport with the rest of the class, the recruits more animated today at the news they were taking a trip down to Ilari. Leigh had explained earlier it was to show them the reality of the war they were fighting, because in the air or on the ship, it was easy to forget the cost being paid on the ground.

Considering the shadows she saw in his gray-blue eyes sometimes, and what he’d told her about the men he’d lost over the years, she could say without a doubt that Leigh, at least, never forgot the true price of this war.

Since agreeing to help him find the traitor in FP squad, she’d been getting some hard and fast lessons in this herself, not the least of which had been almost getting sucked out of a launch bay two days ago.

She still couldn’t believe how close she’d come to simply not existing any longer. But worse was the paranoia that the mole would work out who she was and get to her or Leigh before they could find him. She’d started looking twice at everyone, even her fellow recruits, scrutinizing the way they talked or how they acted. It was damned exhausting being so on edge all the time.

Those last few moments in the launch bay kept replaying over and over. At first, she hadn’t been able to believe it was really happening, and started using Leigh’s datapad to override the command in a bit of a daze. But when he’d ordered her to crouch down near the doors, the hard, grim expression on his face rammed home that they were seconds from getting sucked into space.

She admired him for trying to pry the atmospheric doors open, even though the double reinforced hatchway had been designed to withstand the vacuum of space. In that last second, when he’d given up and sheltered her with his body instead, it had been like an explosion of too many emotions inside her. But his protection had bolstered her resolve, because she’d been determined that would not be the last moment they spent together.

Seeing him only in class the past two days had been harder than she’d anticipated. Not because she missed him, or wanted him in a way that left her muscles knotted—though both sentiments were true—but because she’d fallen so far for him that she’d become anxious of giving her feelings away, or slipping again and using his first name.

Whenever they’d had to interact, she’d kept herself locked down and distant, only speaking when absolutely necessary.

The whole sneaking-around thing was just too hard; she had no idea how people managed to do it. She couldn’t lie to save her life and keeping what she’d shared with Leigh, as well as the extracurricular assignment, under wraps proved to be almost harder than the FP training program.

Mia also had to work hard to avoid Steve, who acted like he’d done nothing wrong. Most of the other recruits, however, having heard she’d bested him again, would shoot her a thumbs-up when she passed. Apparently Steve had won no new friends since coming into the program, but she still hated the additional scrutiny when all she wanted was to be left alone.

Running the last of the profiles took longer than she’d anticipated, too, and she still had three more pilots to go. She’d left the program instructors—Bren, Seb, and Lawler—until last, since they seemed to be Leigh’s core group of officers. She hated the idea that the traitor could be one of them, so she had avoided their profiles until she couldn’t any longer. Worse, the program had stuttered when filling out a complete profile on one of them the night before. The blanks in the report made her suspicious, and she’d planned to dig deeper today until she’d found out they were heading for the ground and wouldn’t need their datapads. The delay was frustrating. She wanted this whole situation to be done with, wanted to find the traitor and concentrate on completing the program, so she could request a transfer and end the exhausting charade that she was all peachy.

On the shuttle, she took the closest seat to the door available, a slight cold shiver tracking through her as the memory of her last experience on a troop transport pushed up in her mind. Kayla squeezed past her to sit in the window seat she’d left vacant, carrying on a one-sided conversation about the flight simulators they were due to start in two days.

When Steve boarded, she averted her gaze, but then a wave of anger swelled up within her. Every time that exact billow of antagonism toward him washed over her, it got stronger and harder to ignore. If she weren’t so caught up in the profiles, getting through the FP program, and pretending like she wasn’t half in love with her CO, she actually might have started entertaining the notion of vengeance, even though she generally wasn’t a vindictive person.

As Steve passed by the row she and Kayla were sitting in, she looked up, letting the anger into her expression. Damn it, he didn’t even look at her.

“Whoa. Lucky you don’t have psychic powers, or I’m pretty sure Steve would have just exploded into a fireball.”

She focused on Kayla, feeling a little sheepish. “Sorry, it’s just that seeing him is making me angrier every time.”

Kayla gave her hand a quick squeeze. “Hey, you don’t have to explain it to me. And don’t think I haven’t considered spitting in his morning coffee or throwing a dumbbell weight at his smarmy face in the gym a time or two.”

She breathed out over a laugh at Kayla’s ideas for revenge.

However, her amusement was short lived as Leigh, Lieutenant Brenner, Sub-Lieutenant Rayne, Sub-Officer Lawler, and one other pilot boarded before the hatchway slid silently closed.

“Buckle in and settle down, recruits. We’ll be on the ground in around ten minutes.” Leigh announced as the other instructors found seats and the transport vibrated to life with a low rumble.

The only empty seat close to the front was to her right, on the aisle end of the row. As Leigh took a step, she turned to look out the window, heart thumping against the inside of her chest. Some of it had to do with the anticipation mixed with the apprehension that he’d sit next to her. But she had to admit part was because the transport had started moving and her last experience on a shuttle hadn’t exactly been fun. She nearly laughed aloud at that, albeit hysterically—a potential fighter pilot afraid of flying.

However, all of that got lost as she sensed him dropping into the seat beside her—she was so hyperaware of him, she could have sworn the very air around her changed to become thick with static as he settled next to her.

“Are you okay?” The words were murmured so low, she nearly missed them under the noise of recruits’ conversation.

Despite her earlier determination not to look at him, her gaze was drawn to his profile, like a moon trying to defy the gravitational pull of a larger planet. It was useless to resist.

“I was concerned you might be nervous, considering how your last flight in a transport ended,” he continued, not looking directly at her as he spoke, his expression impersonal. But there was something in his tone, something she couldn’t fail to miss now that she knew him so well.

Her heart stumbled over a few beats. He’d thought of the possibility she might be afraid. She hadn’t even realized it was going to be in issue herself until she’d been faced with boarding a few minutes ago.

The transport started moving, making her stomach kink, but she forced out a slow breath. “I’m okay…now.”

He gave a single nod, his gaze sliding over to consider her briefly, nothing but warm affection in his eyes. “Just think of something else, and we’ll be on the ground in no time.”

She took another breath, the air catching when a gentle pressure registered on the outer side of her thigh. Leigh had shifted his leg outward so that it rested lightly against hers. His hand was just above his knee in what looked like a relaxed pose, but two of his fingers almost imperceptibly stroked in short movement up and down her lower thigh.

Okay, thinking of something other than being aboard a transport was not going to be a problem, not when his illicit, secretive touch rippled through every cell in her body with a thrill.

God, this was torture. If he’d been any other boyfriend, they could have held hands, she could have leaned in to him, let him wrap his arm around her and hold her tight until they landed, found comfort in being able to relax into his hold. Instead the way he almost not touched her soothed, but wound her tighter, both with longing and the trepidation that if anyone looked really closely, they’d give away the truth.

She’d never imagined that one day she might fall so hard and fast for someone, only to need to pretend like she didn’t feel anything at all for him. It was ridiculous when she thought about it. The one man she shouldn’t want, and she couldn’t stem the emotions blooming higher and brighter within her every hour.

Neither of them said anything else for the rest of the trip, but it was a case of not needing to. Despite the impossibility of their situation, Leigh had made sure she’d known he was here for her. Simply sitting next to her had been enough, his light touch an extra thrill that had distracted her from the tight anxiety in her stomach.

As the transport touched down, Leigh stood at the front of the shuttle. “Recruits, attention front and center. Listen closely, because I will not be repeating myself. Despite the fact that we’ve landed in UEF-held territory, we are close to the front lines and it will be dangerous. The occasional team of enemies does get through and will take any UEF soldier they find on their own or in small numbers for their Enlightening Camps. This is not some academy field trip where you can goof off or push the boundaries. Down here, if you make a mistake, it will cost your life.”

The other instructors joined him, and the hatchway opened and they stepped out into the weak, cloud-filtered sunshine. There wasn’t much chatter as people left their seats and filed out of the transport, the mood subdued by Leigh’s words.

“Well, this will be interesting,” Kayla muttered as they shuffled into the aisle.

“They’re right though. We need to see the realities of war. Some of us more than others.”

Kayla glanced back over her shoulder with a flat look. “I get the feeling there are
some people
who will still be imbecilic assholes no matter what they see.”

Yeah,
some people
being Steve and his buddies. They’d probably never see the death and destruction, only the glory of beating back the enemy.

When she stepped outside, it took a second for her eyes to adjust to the glare, despite it being overcast. One of the side effects of always being on a ship or station, a person’s eyes became a little more sensitive to actual sunlight.

They’d landed in a wide intersection of what looked to be an abandoned city. Some of the buildings looked mostly intact, but crumbled with age, while others were bombed out or damaged from bullet holes or energy blasts.

Leigh and the other instructors had walked over to stand in front of a structure with a half-destroyed sign: the Brannon system Earth consulate and GAHTO headquarters.

Their footsteps echoed as Mia followed Kayla and the other recruits over to the cracked sidewalk. She’d watched media-vids of abandoned cities, but had never seen one firsthand. It was eerie imagining that once people had gone about their everyday lives here until war came. How many people had died on the street in front of this very building?

“Does anyone know the significance of where we are right now?” Leigh asked the group over the quiet murmurs.

“This is where the war started, where the self-appointed Ponitfex, Ronald Martin, ordered the first attack on the UEC,” Kayla spoke up.

She shot her friend a surprised look.

“What? So I’ve got brains as well as beauty,” Kayla muttered.

Mia bit her lip over a laugh as she returned her attention to the instructors.

“Recruit Dawson is correct,” Leigh answered, clasping his hands behind his back. “This is where the first act of war was perpetrated. Martin felt that the UEC and Earth were exerting too much influence on his people, who strove to live a more simplistic life, rejecting the most advanced technologies and getting back to nature. When the Brannon system was founded by immigrants from Earth two hundred and fifty years ago, these ideals worked and the people thrived and existed quite well. But as time went by, the leaders began to resent any interference from the UEC.”

Leigh paused, glancing over his shoulder at the half-destroyed building behind him. There wasn’t a sound from the group, as though everyone was holding their breath while the wind whistled through broken windows and the far-off hum of a ship rumbled.

They’d all studied this back at the academy, but reading the facts and standing in the spot where it had actually happened were two very different things. A shiver rippled down her spine, sending goose pimples over her skin. She’d never been superstitious, but in that moment, she could almost swear the atrocities that haunted this place were touching her.

“Twenty years ago, the UEC and GAHTO sent in a team of aid workers with food and medicine after a storm flooded this city. Instead of accepting help, Ronald Martin dropped a bomb on his own city, killing the aid workers and many Ilari citizens. He declared the Brannon system to be a sovereign state and that any UEC, UEF, or GAHTO presence would be dealt with swiftly and by deadly force.”

Mia’s stomach went into a slow churn, unable to imagine what those people must have gone through.

“So, now that you’ve seen for yourselves the ruins of this war, you’ll be moving on to face your final test of survival training.” Leigh indicated toward the transport they’d flown down, and Mia glanced over her shoulder to see Rayne and Lawler had been unloading packs while the CAFF had been talking.

Oh, that couldn’t be a good sign. She shared a worried look with Kayla.

“You’ll each be assigned a pack, all of which are stocked with identical supplies. The UEF Ilari base is northeast of our position. You’ve got two nights and two days to make it back there. Those who don’t walk through the gates within that time frame will be cut from the program. Your packs also have emergency beacons. Only activate it if you are in an extreme medical emergency or want to quit the program.”