Chapter Four
Jenna surveyed what she could see of the now-empty crash site. The CSS had to have left at least one soldier behind—it was logical procedure. Yet she hadn’t seen any movement since the ships had left over half an hour ago. She didn’t like variables, and this didn’t make sense. However, she couldn’t spend the rest of her life sitting in this tree house with Sebastian Rayne. She was already a few hours behind, and had a meeting to make in the city tonight.
Besides, as time had stretched on, she’d become more and more aware of their close proximity, how his leg brushed up against her every now and then, how she couldn’t escape the warm, masculine scent of him, how broad shouldered and larger than life he seemed in the cramped space. She was definitely ready to be out of here.
“Let’s move out, but take it slowly and keep your guard up.” She slipped the scope into her tattered jacket.
She pulled some of the branches out of the doorway, easier than carefully moving them aside, since they didn’t need the cover any longer. Once on the ground, she headed straight for the river, taking a quick drink while she surveyed the surrounds.
“Now what?” Seb asked, stopping a few steps behind her.
“Now we follow the river upstream until we get well clear of the crashed shuttle, then we go our separate ways.”
He didn’t reply, but cast a short glance around, too, before setting off. He hadn’t said much since he’d told her about his friend who’d turned out to be a CSS mole. The good-time charm had disappeared, and while she wouldn’t exactly say he was brooding, he did seem worn down. Like the war had started diminishing that spark of amusement at the world he worked so hard to keep up.
With a cursory check of her surroundings that was more habit than need, she set off after Seb, keeping half her attention on the tight set of his shoulders ahead of her.
She couldn’t imagine how much it would hurt, learning someone so trusted was actually the enemy. Her current extended assignment—to find any and all information pertaining to possible traitors serving in the UEF—had come about in light of several people, like Seb’s friend, uncovered after a number of inside attacks on board the Valiant Knox.
On a big-picture scale, she knew exactly how much those traitors were costing the UEF in this war. On a personal level, she hadn’t experienced that price firsthand until today, until she’d seen the shadows in Seb’s gaze as he confessed the recent trauma.
Truthfully, she hadn’t thought about how these things affected people, as it hadn’t been relevant to her. But now, for some reason, even though she only knew the basics about the sub-lieutenant, what had happened to him made her assignment that much more vital, made it imperative that she retrieve the information and get it into the right hands.
Neither of them tried to make conversation as they picked their way over rocks, heading upstream. The late afternoon shadows were lengthening into the long cast of slanted evening light. Once it got dark, it would be much safer to travel without worrying about being seen.
“Is it easier being CI?” Seb asked suddenly from in front of her, breaking the lengthy silence.
She took a few quick steps to catch up with him so they weren’t yelling at each other. “Is what easier?”
“This. The war, facing the enemy.” He shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “Though, I suppose that’s the point. You don’t actually face anyone. You just creep around in the shadows.”
Maybe she should have been annoyed at the dig, but since the revelation about his friend, his cavalier words didn’t bother her. Probably because she knew exactly what was behind them.
“I’ve faced plenty of the enemy, believe me. Thinking of a career change?”
The look he shot he was all kinds of hell no. “Pretty sure a stick jockey like me isn’t cut out for anything remotely subterfuge based. I like the enemy to see me coming, usually screaming right up in their faces with a dirty payload to unleash.”
“That’s one way of doing things,” she mumbled, negotiating a slippery rock.
“I was just curious, that’s all. You keep to yourself, right? Don’t make friends, don’t have ties. That’s how you guys operate?”
“Yep, that’s how we roll.” A brush-off comment to cover the truth his questions exposed. His completely accurate description of her situation left her feeling uneasy, like there was a trap set to fall into and she just couldn’t see it.
But no such ambush was forthcoming, just Seb muttering, “Yeah that’d have to be easier.”
“Not really,” she blurted out, with no idea where the truth had come from or why.
He glanced back at her, questions written all over his face.
She stopped walking, finding herself in this weird place where she wanted to be honest with him. Like, brutally honest. Like, more honest than she’d been with anyone since the day she’d signed her name to a CI document, pretty much giving away her life and donning a permanent disguise. It’d been so many years since she’d seen her own face in the mirror, she was a little hazy on the details of exactly what it looked like.
“I mean, yeah, it’s easier to not worry about being vulnerable because you’re emotionally tied to someone. But it also makes it impossible to trust anyone, ever.”
Seb took a few slow steps back to where she’d halted in her tracks. His closer proximity left a slight shiver tracking through her.
“Do you want to trust someone?” he asked in a low voice.
She stared up at him, afraid to answer, which seemed ridiculous after all the danger she’d faced in the past few years. Scared of a few measly words? But honestly, it wasn’t so much the words, as the stark truth behind them.
“There’s been a time or two I could have used someone at my back.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Yeah, she knew that. She studied his features, taking in the perfect, hard angles of his face, those stupidly kissable lips, and intense amber gaze. Was it simply his looks causing her body to have some idiotic, hormone-driven response that made her want to go all therapist-hour and share things she’d never let herself consider before, let alone speak aloud? Or had she finally—and without fanfare—reached some kind of burnout stage that left her questioning her life choices?
Either way, Sebastian Rayne had gotten under her skin in a few short hours. And instead of freaking her out like it should if her brain was operating on sensible logic, it only left her more intrigued by him.
But this wasn’t about trust. This was about convenience. What did it matter what she told him when she would never see him again after they went their separate ways?
…
Seb didn’t think Ms. Kickass would give him a straight answer no matter which way he came at her, but those too-honest eyes seemed to mesh with her appearance even less now as she stared back at him, not moving, and not answering his question.
She didn’t need to put anything into words, he could see in it her naked gaze.
Some instinct, some drive sent him forward without conscious thought, bringing him closer to her until a scant inch separated them.
“You can talk to me.”
Hell, he didn’t know what he was offering. Hadn’t he been telling himself earlier in the tree house they wouldn’t see each other again after today? So what exactly did he think was happening here? Like she’d call him up once she got back from her assignment and tell him all about her classified adventures, so CI could wipe him from existence for knowing too much?
It was those damn eyes. No matter what her face said, those eyes told him something different. Something he couldn’t ignore. Something that made him want to—
Hell, he was not going there, wasn’t even going to finish the idea. But he didn’t have to, because his mind had already shot off in senseless directions, providing him with a visual on exactly how that little train of thought would have ended—with his mouth devouring hers and his hands all over that lithe body.
Which was no doubt why he ended up facedown on the ground, eating dirt and snorting leaves ’cause of dumb distraction. He kicked into a roll, putting himself on his back as his hand went to his skull where something had impacted. Leaving him bleeding. Freaking great.
Above him, Jenna was in a gun-stare-down with a young CS Solider nervously cutting glances between the two of them.
The guy—couldn’t have been more than eighteen—reached for a radio, an ancient one on a wire attached to his belt, but Jenna squeezed off a single round from her electromag pulse and exploded the plastic receiver into tiny pieces.
“Don’t move,” she ordered, her voice lean and mean like a pauper before payday. “Seb, you okay?
She didn’t take her eyes off the CS Soldier, but held a hand out to help him up.
“Got my bell rung, but I’m conscious, so there’s that.” He accepted her firm grip and got to his feet, impressed with himself when he only swayed the one time. But he felt the blood track down the back of his skull. Damned if he probably didn’t need a couple of stitches. The kid swung his old-fashioned rifle back and forth between them, and Seb went still keeping his hands well away from his body in case the guy thought he was going for his weapon.
Jenna, on the other hand, didn’t seem fazed by the kid waving the gun around like a flag on parade day.
“Are you alone, or do you have a partner lurking around here somewhere?” she asked, as he raised the nozzle of his gun back to her.
“My patrol will be back—”
“So that would be alone.” Jenna launched into a lighting fast half-spin kick thing and knocked the gun out of the guy’s hand. Seb dove for it, getting a grip on the weapon before it’d barely touched the leaf litter.
“Now what?” he asked, turning the clunky weapon toward the soldier, who’d literally started shaking in his boots.
“Kill him and keep moving. I’m already running behind schedule.”
“Wait, what?” He took his eyes off the young man, gaze crashing into the unyielding pose she’d struck, apparently ready to rid the universe of one more dumb farm boy masquerading as a soldier because he didn’t know any better.
“He knows we’re here. If we leave him alive, he’ll tell his patrol and then before we know it, we’ll have an entire contingent of CS Soldiers hunting us. You want to get back to the ship alive, right? And I don’t have time to evade a search party.”
“I am not going to stand here and watch you shoot some kid in cold blood.”
“Then don’t watch. Walk away.” She cut him an impatient glare, eyes narrow and gaze ice-cold as though she didn’t have a single emotion in her soul.
Had he been thinking just a few minutes ago that there was something more to her than the killer-babe frozen-queen agent he’d first met? How freaking wrong he’d been.
“We’re wasting time. If you’re going, you better turn around now.”
“No, ma’am,” he returned in a hard voice, catching a glance toward the kid, who’d sunk to his knees, all but cowering in the dirt. “I’m not going to let you kill him and that’s final.”
But Jenna wasn’t paying attention to him. Her gaze had shifted to scan the surrounding forest. “There’s someone coming.”
He looked around, but couldn’t get a clue what had given her that idea. “I don’t hear—”
She shushed him, holding up her left hand and flicking her fingers off to the right before holding two fingers up. Two hostiles, right of their position. He nodded, skirting around Jenna and heading into the trees, straining to hear any noises and surveying the dappled light for any sign of movement.
He’d gone maybe a hundred feet when something caught his eye. He crouched behind a trunk, going still, waiting for whoever it was to reveal themselves. The figures emerged from a nearby thicket, but they weren’t hostiles.
No, they were goddamned deer.
As he blew out a relieved breath that it hadn’t been another patrol sneaking up on them, the crack of a single shot sounded through the forest. It jerked through his whole body like he was the one who’d taken the ammo, the sudden noise startling the animals and sending them fleeing.
Jenna. Damn it. Had she gone and shot that kid while he’d been on this not-a-patrol hunt? He shoved to his feet, running back the way he’d come, but she met him halfway, expression resolute, her steps tight and hard, like she was pissed about something.
“Did you shoot him?”
She sent him an impatient look, as if that’d been a dumb question. “Come on, we’re losing daylight.”
His guts pinched and she turned away. He stalked after her through the trees, hating himself with every step he took. Technically, she’d been right—the kid’s knowledge of them made their situation even more dangerous. And he’d made the poor life choice to put on the CSS uniform, he had to live with the consequences—or not live in this case.
But Seb’s conscience was laying the boot in hard, telling him he was an idiot because her suspicions about the “hostiles” had probably been a trick to distract him while she took the easy way out for them.
No big deal for her; she probably randomly killed people all the time. In fact, it was probably in the CI handbook. Kill the enemy no matter their station or innocence.
Did she really not care about wasting some almost-innocent teenager?
Actually, nix that. He didn’t want to know what was going on in that crazy-hot-chick brain of hers. He just wanted this little jaunt to be over and never, ever have to deal with CI of the likes of her ever again.
The woods thinned out and they hit a road—if the narrow, wheel-rutted dirt track could be called that.
“Keep going that way. You’ll find a barn.”
“Where are you going?” He didn’t know why he asked, since the whole shooting people in cold blood thing had effectively killed any affinity they’d developed.
She motioned vaguely to the woods-and-more-woods on the other side of the road. “Due west to the city. I have a meet to make in a few hours.”
He sent her a casual salute. “Good luck with that. And try not to kill half the population between here and there.” Turning, he started to head in the direction she’d pointed out the barn, but a solid shove in the middle of his back sent him to a stumbling stop.
“Screw you,” Jenna spat as he spun back to look at her. “How many teenagers do you think you’ve killed in your fighter jet? Other pilots you’ve shot down. Bombs you’ve dropped on cities. You think my hands are bloody? You’re swimming in it.”
A cutting kind of rage raked up his insides and left him sweating. “The CSS only send select older and experienced soldiers up in their pathetic excuses for ships. And the only bombs I’ve dropped have been on specific, designated military targets, no civilian—”
She scoffed, adding an eye roll for extra insult. “Don’t feed me the lines about designated military targets. I’m fully aware what kind of targets you’re given. I’ve fed a few of them down the line myself. You really think no civilians were hurt? That no fresh-off-the-farm kids who’d slapped on their uniform five minutes ago didn’t get buried in rubble under your so-called military targets?”
It was the burn in the back of his mind that’d been haunting him for years, the line of thought that usually led him to giving himself the necessary evils pep talk. He clenched his fists, riding out a wave of gut churning.
“That’s different—”
This time she gave a cutting laugh. “Different? No, it’s not. Just because you’re not staring them in the eye when they go down doesn’t make them any less dead.”
“Are you done now?” His voice came out uneven and he had to swallow down the tension. “Was there a point to this, or do you like verbally taking chunks out of people you don’t know, people who are trying to help you?”
She seemed a little taken aback. Not that it was apparent in her plastic expression. But those damn eyes of hers, those eyes that he no longer wanted to be able to read, widened with a small dose of surprise. “I just wanted you to realize we’re not different. You’re not better than me.”
“And what gave you the idea I thought I was better than you?”
She glanced away from him, as if she was ready to check out of the conversation. “Everyone knows what the rest of UEF thinks of CI. It’s no secret.”
“Oh, so you’ve got a chip on your shoulder because people think you’re psychopathic, cold-blooded killers—which happens to be completely correct—and you decided to take it out on me?”
Her gaze returned to him, devoid of anything now, leaving him with no clue to what she was thinking.
“Good-bye, Seb.”
She turned her back on him and strode off into the woods, slipping into the shadows and disappearing in a blink.
“Yeah, screw you right back, lady,” he muttered, pivoting on his heel and marching off down the middle of the track.
He hadn’t walked more than about a click when the forest gave way to a field, and in the not-too-far distance rose a barn or farmhouse as Jenna had said.
If he could find a change of clothes to hide his identity, then he could work out where the heck in Farmerville he could find himself a ship capable of getting him back to the Valiant Knox, far away from Jenna and her wheel-of-crazy CI shit.
Halfway across the field, a group of cows ambled over to check him out. He eyed them as they eyeballed him in return, and weirdly enough, the animals took to following him. He tried once or twice to shoo them off, but they were determined sons of bitches, and he ended up feeling like an idiot, since he didn’t know the first thing about farm animals. At the fence, he vaulted over the barrier and glanced back as the cows lined up, staring after him balefully. Wow, those were some freaky-ass bovines. He shook his head and picked up the pace, closing in on the structure that was looking more like a barn.
Just as he’d hoped, nothing in Farmerville was locked, so he had no trouble letting himself in to search for more suitable clothing. At first all he saw was stalls—some empty, some with horses. Then a grain storage area, and of course, the loft full of straw. At last, when he’d just about given up, he found a small room of saddles and other horse-related stuff. The term “tack room” came to mind, but he didn’t have a clue where he’d heard that, considering he was a city boy who’d gone into space as soon as he’d graduated pre-military school.
A quick search turned up a wooden chest buried under several folded musty-smelling horse blankets and inside, he found exactly what he needed—old, worn farm clothes. Once he changed, he stuffed his UEF uniform into the chest and then covered the trunk with the blankets.
Feeling a little less like a target, he left the tack room and headed over to a barrel of apples he’d seen earlier. Might as well take some supplies. Who knew how long he’d be stuck down here before he managed to find a ship?
“Can I help you?”
Seb spun, hand dropping to his hip where his gun wasn’t holstered any longer. He’d secured it at his lower back, where it was more easily disguised. A boy stood across from him, maybe fifteen years old, though it was hard to tell since it seemed a hard farming life had already etched itself into his face and bearing.
“I’m a CS Soldier. My shuttle went down in your field. I need to find some new transport to get back to base.”
The boy glanced around. “Yeah, I saw that ship go down when I was out in the south pasture. We don’t get many CSS around these parts. Too far from the frontlines. There were patrols earlier. Why didn’t you go with them?”
“I got out of the shuttle after it went down, but I’d hit my head.” He pointed to his bloody hair. “Walked into the forest and dropped, lights out. The others must not have found me. But I’m due to report back, so does your family own a ship?”
The boy’s lips twisted into a cynical, dour grin, one much too old for a kid of his age. “No family around here owns any ships. There’s a shuttle that stops in daily on its way to the big city, but you’ll have missed that by now. The only two people in this area with a ship are the law enforcer and the mayor.”
Of course, because it would be too easy to steal from the everyday people. The CSS had probably taken anything of value under their required “donations” mandate. No way was he taking on the local law enforcement, so the mayor was about to lose his ride.
“Thanks, kid.” He started to step past, but the young CS Soldier Jenna shot surfaced in his mind, the face now apparently glued to his gray matter. “Do me a favor. When you get old enough to enlist, don’t do it. Don’t believe what they tell you about making a better life for yourself. No matter how crap things seem, what you’ve got here is much better than anything they can offer you down on the frontlines. And more than likely, they’ll send you home in a box. Stay here, run the family farm, and have a passel of kids instead.”
The boy’s lips pressed together, the disappointed gleam in his eyes hinting he’d probably planned on leaving here, no doubt as soon as he was old enough to march into the nearest CSS office and sign his name on an e-contract.
Seb turned away, heading out of the barn, back into the last of the evening’s golden light, the sun just touching the horizon. He’d never fought on the frontlines, but he knew the CSS filled its ranks with kids not old enough to drink yet, but who were apparently more than capable of taking up arms.
For all intents and purposes, Ilari was a poor farming planet of God-fearing people that just happened to be the CS Soldier’s strongholds. Partly the populace was kept so poor because the constant warring made it difficult for them to trade with other planets and systems, but mostly it was because the hard-line CSS leaders believed in taking the universe back to the bad old days of the dark ages where technology was the devil and to be avoided at all costs. Funny that the same people who preached that BS also had no qualms about using what they deemed as an “acceptable” level of weapons and ships that were a few hundred years old—some of the earliest tech—to fight their quasi-religious war. In truth, the Pontifex and his beliefs weren’t any better than a cult rooted in abuse and fear.
The CSS offered deprived farming kids stories of riches and glory on the frontlines, luring them away from their homes and families. In reality, when they got to the battlefront, all they’d find was gore and an ignominious death. Possibly from his own finger on the launch sequence of a bomb.
Jenna had highlighted that starkly.
Seb found the dirt road leading away from the farm and followed it, walking along the grassy edge as the sun gradually disappeared from the horizon. Just after dusk, when everything had fallen under the gray-lavender mantle of pre-darkness, he made it to the outskirts of the quiet town.
It wasn’t hard to work out which was the mayor’s home—the newer, bigger building sat apart from the smaller, more modest homes of the working families. Besides, no other house had a shuttle parked in front of it, glinting in conceited glory beneath one of the only electric lights in town.
The best time to steal the ship would be in the early hours of the morning, when the town would be sleeping and slower to react if someone noticed him. He considered finding a bar or some kind of communal eatery until then, but the less people who saw him, the better. So instead, he hunkered down in a laneway between two houses, listening to the evening sounds of families settling into their homes for the night.
Several hours later, he was truly sick of waiting. Patience had never been his strong suit, which was why he’d have never made it as a CI agent like the one he’d had the dubious pleasure of chauffeuring earlier today. Jenna had crept into his thoughts every now and then, leaving him to speculate on where she might be and what she was up to. The fact that he continually wondered if she was safe was eating up his sanity like a freaking weevil in a bag of flour. That he still cared after the way they’d parted, after he’d seen the type of person she really was, gave him a headache of maddening proportions.
Limbs stiff from the cool temperature and long hours of inactivity, Seb pushed to his feet and crept out of the laneway. It had to at least be midnight, so he’d call that close enough to enact his plan.
There were no guards patrolling the mayor’s house, though there were two black and tan mutts on duty lolling on the porch, their ears pricked and gazes too alert. Hell, he hated dogs. Cats were a different story. He’d take a snooty, independent kitty over a slobbering attention-whore dog any day. The question was, how could he distract the two guard dogs while he got into that ship?
He walked back to the laneway and checked a couple of trash cans, until he came up with some dog-approved goods—a couple of large bones, cooked and stripped of meat, but they should buy him time.
Back over at the mayor’s house, the dogs started in with the expected ruckus as he approached the fence. Except once he sent those bones sailing as far into the yard but away from the ship as he could manage, they took the bait and disappeared with their prizes.
Seb snuck into the yard, keeping to the shadows as he approached the shuttle. It certainly wasn’t the first time he’d boosted a ship, and knowing his luck, wouldn’t be the last. In a few minutes, he’d dismantled the alarm system, broken into the small four-seater shuttle, and hotwired the engine, bypassing the security protocols that usually required palm-ID to start.
A sweet trickle of relief swept through him as he got the ship off the ground and heading straight up into the ether.
“And that’s how you do that, ladies and gentlemen,” he announced as he set his course and settled back into the pilot’s chair. Commander Yang might be put out about him destroying that confiscated CSS ship, but the replacement he’d found was so much nicer.
As he broke into the upper atmosphere, he pulled his personal comm out of his pocket and turned it on. The device would send out his individual ID signature, so hopefully that would stop any friendlies from accidentally blowing him out of the sky.
Almost immediately, the ship’s comm-system crackled to life.
“Unidentified vessel registered Romeo-Victor-Mike-seven-two-two, you are entering United Earth Force sanctioned space. Please name your intentions, or we will be forced to take hostile action.”
Seb grinned as he tabbed the screen to return communications. “No need for that, Lieutenant Brenner, unless you secretly want to off your best fighter pilot.”
The CAFF—Captain of the Fighter Force—Lieutenant Theresa Brenner sighed loud and clear through the comms. “Seb. I should have guessed. And if you’re my best fighter pilot, then God help us. Where have you been? You should have reported back hours ago. We were just about to send Alpha down to search for you.”
He rolled his eyes. Of course his buddy, Captain Leigh Alphin, would have been the first to volunteer for a search and rescue op. Until recently, Alpha had been the Captain of the Fighter Force, but he’d given up the squadron leadership for the sake of his relationship. “I’m sure Mia would have been so impressed with Alpha risking his neck behind enemy lines for me. I had some technical difficulties, but I’m headed back now, so do me a favor and clear the way for me to bring in our latest CSS acquisition.”
“Not so fast, Seb.”
He slowed the engines, putting himself into a holding pattern. They already wanted to send him on another run, when he hadn’t gotten back from the last one? Usually, the stupidly dangerous assignments were handed out only once every few months.
Twice in less than twenty-four hours was pushing it, even for him.
“What’s the sitrep?”
There was some background noise, as though Bren was conferring with someone else before she returned to the conversation.
“It’s about the CI agent you dropped off a few hours ago.”
Seb sat back in the chair and scrubbed a hand over his face, tiredness catching up with him. He’d been so close to getting back on ship for a decent meal and hot shower. He could all but hear his bed calling him from here.
“What, she needs a rescue or something now? I thought her deal was to make her own way out.” Like he wanted to spend even five minutes in the same confined space as her after the way they’d left things, let alone the not-quite half an hour it’d take to fly back to the Knox. He could just imagine the small talk they’d make. How many bodies did you leave behind today, sweetcakes?
“This isn’t a rescue, it’s a recovery.” Bren’s blunt words cut him out of his thoughts like a laser through string cheese.
“What?”
“We’ve gotten word the CI agent you dropped off has been killed. Her handler is adamant that she managed to retrieve the information she’d been sent in for and will have it on her person somewhere. We need you to go back in and get the body.”
He closed his eyes, swearing a litany of curses while his tight chest strangled the breath right out of him. Stupid to feel anything over a woman he’d spent five minutes with, someone who’d made it clear she didn’t need anyone and had all the empathy of a rock. But the knowledge that Jenna—with her too-honest green gaze that didn’t quite match the subterfuge she’d been rocking—was dead, struck him like a low blow to the kidneys.
“What happened?” His voice came out a little scratchy, and he cleared his throat.
“We’re not clear on the details. She may have been betrayed or exposed. Either way, apparently the UEF desperately need that information. Commander Yang tried to argue that CI should send in another agent, but the handler here insisted there wasn’t time, and since you were already on the ground…”
He clenched his jaw, because the rest of the story wrote itself. He was a convenient grunt, and the CI handler wouldn’t care if he ended up as dead as Jenna. Whatever information she’d been sent to retrieve would be more important than a hundred lives to the shadowy figures running Command Intelligence.
“Fine. Send me the coordinates.”
His personal comm vibrated in his pocket, and he took it out to see the encrypted message from the Valiant Knox with instructions on where he needed to go.
“Seb, technically you don’t have to do this.”
Huh. Bren actually sounded worried. Of course, he might have taken on some stupidly dangerous assignments in his time, but none of them held a candle to this baby—even yesterday’s adventure.
“You really want to piss off CI if we refuse? The only other person who might be able to do this is Alpha, and the idea of getting on Mia’s bad side scares me even more than the CI goons. Plus I’m already halfway there with a ship that’s not in any way associated with the UEF. I’ll be back in time for lunch messdeck, so you better tell the kitchen to make me some of my favorite chicken-vegetable-rice, hold the vegetables, okay?”
Bren laughed, though it sounded forced. “What am I, a waitress? Order your own damn lunch.”
“Thanks, CAFF. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an appointment behind enemy lines.”
Bren wished him luck then cut communications, and he turned the ship around. He set a course, which ended up taking him back past the small town where he’d stolen the ship, farther into CSS territory, to one of the main cities.
Years ago, the war had reached here and to the east of the sprawling metropolis, an entire section of homes and businesses had been abandoned to crumbling rubble. Still, the poorest bastards who otherwise had no homes dwelled here.
He found a relatively clear area and set the ship down. The decimated streetscape looked like the aftermath of an apocalypse where unknown evil lurked in dark corners. Somewhere out there, Jenna had met a sudden end, her life snuffed out while he’d been lounging about in a laneway.
Frustrated unease simmered deep in his guts. Her assignment hadn’t anything to do with him, he’d just been the driver, so it was a waste of time feeling as though he should have been there, that he might have made a difference.
He cut all thoughts and the few memories of Jenna out of his mind, because he had to focus on retrieving a body, and the easiest way to get through that would be to think of it as an object, not a person. With a long sigh, he shut down the ship and then headed out into the night.