Damage Control (Valiant Knox)

by Jess Anastasi

  She swallowed, and he wondered if her throat was still raw. His own felt stripped dry and he’d only been breathing that smoke for a few moments.

  “Sir, Sub-Doctor Moore released me. I feel fine, sir.” Her gaze flicked away to focus somewhere over his shoulder.

  “And what orders did the sub-doctor release you with, Wolfe?”

  Her lips pressed into a thin line, and for a moment, he thought she wasn’t going to answer.

  “Sir, to rest for at least twenty-four hours and use the breather every two of that, sir.”

  He’d suspected as much. “Do you call this resting, Wolfe? And how long ago did you last use the breather?”

  “Sir, I used the breather one hour and twenty-five minutes ago, sir.”

  And she so conveniently didn’t answer his question about resting. He checked over her uniform, finding her neat except for the glint of a gold chain under her tags.

  “We don’t need any heroes in our ranks, Wolfe. We need dependable pilots. Take that gold chain off. You’re dismissed until tomorrow. Follow the doctor’s instructions, or you’ll find yourself demoted to the front lines on Ilari before evening messdeck.”

  After what he’d done, he’d take any excuse he could get to see her wash out before the mistake he’d made turned into a full-blown catastrophe. However, he couldn’t conscionably sabotage her on purpose and still call himself a decent CO. Still, he could sure as hell hope she didn’t get through the first day or two.

  Her expression tensed, but she saluted him and turned, picking up her rucksack and disappearing across the deck. Leigh shook his head. That one had complication written all over her, the likes of which he didn’t want to know about.

  He turned his attention to the next recruit in line to finish tidying up his sorry bunch of wannabe fighter pilots. Once he had the recruits looking closer to respectable, he stepped back into formation next to the other instructors and gave a run down of how things would play out. His crew took turns introducing themselves and then each recruit got handed a map of the Valiant Knox.

  The Knox was one of the UEF’s bigger battleships, with a few thousand military and civilian staff living and working on board at any given time. The ship even had a commerce level that acted as a trade center when the ship wasn’t stationed in a war zone. For now, the level simply provided entertainment and places to socialize—like bars and restaurants—for the crew. There were several levels of crew housing apartments, a couple of dedicated levels such as the command center and the fighter-pilot-squadron level, and any number of other amenities and storage. The Knox was like a huge space-bound city or military base, with everything necessary to cope with long deployments.

  But there would be no guided tour for these young soldiers. They learned the layout fast on their own or it was just one more way they could wash out. After all, if they couldn’t navigate a battleship, how the heck did they think they’d be able to fly a fighter jet through space?

  The recruits were dismissed and he caught more than a few looks of relief. He shook his head. They thought introduction-parade day one was hard? Wait until training commenced.

  Leigh turned to Bren, Seb, and Lawler, who’d started discussing their initial impressions, none of which were glowing.

  Across the hangar deck, where the recruits milled waiting for the Ilari shuttle, he caught a flash of shining gold hair. Couldn’t be. Not after his specific instructions for her to get lost. Yet the glimpse of hair turned into a full profile as the crowd shifted. Yep. Recruit Wolfe, chatting away to another recruit like they were in a damned mother’s club meeting. How had the psyche-eval come up with the brilliant notion that this five-foot-nothing chick would make a damned fighter pilot? Must have been a glitch in the system.

  “What is it?” Bren asked.

  He glanced at his XO; obviously some of his pissed-off had shown on his face.

  “Nothing. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  If Recruit Wolfe didn’t want to rest, then he’d give her something to do. Keeping an eye on her, he crossed the deck, ready to teach her a lesson in how to follow orders.

  Mia waved good-bye to Penny, who had pulled ground duty. Mia had promised earlier in the day to see her off. Who knew how long it would be before they got to see each other again? She was going to miss her friend, who embodied everything she’d always wanted to be. Penny was easygoing, confident in her body, and had the kind of personality that attracted people like bees to a pretty, shiny flower, reminding her not to be so uptight, and relax every now and then.

  As her friend headed toward the Ilari-bound shuttle, she gave one last jaunty wave, then disappeared into the crowd. Mia sighed, her shoulders drooping and body aching in a way she just knew would make training tomorrow that much harder. Stupid of her to drag herself to the meet-and-greet parade, and Captain Leigh Alphin had called her on it in front of everyone.

  Great way to start basic training, loser.

  And just how had she ended up in training to be a freaking fighter pilot anyway? Sure, jets and ships fascinated her, but she’d wanted a Command Intelligence posting, or if her dreams were coming true, an aeronautical engineering position. Of course, such things were rare, most recruits ended up as grunt. She supposed she should thank herself lucky she hadn’t been posted on the front lines.

  Fighter pilot hadn’t been at the top of her list when considering positions in the UEF. It hadn’t even been on her list. In fact, she wouldn’t have even put it on a backup list if she’d been so inclined to make one. But no one turned down the opportunity to join the UEF’s elite air squadron, especially when their name got assigned to the Valiant Knox under Captain Alphin.

  So many times she’d almost asked to be retested, but the computers were never wrong. And if she’d flat-out refused the opening, for the rest of her career, everywhere she went she’d be that recruit who’d turned down the chance to serve and learn with a living legend of the UEF. So here she was. And she’d do better than her best, because that was what she always did.

  At oh six hundred tomorrow morning it would begin and she’d see just how far her body, mind, and attitude could get her. Please God, don’t let me wash out on the first day. She pressed a hand against her forehead, a fine sheen of sweat dampening her hairline.

  “God, what the hell am I doing here?” she muttered at the floor.

  “They usually tell you that before you leave pre mil training.”

  Her head shot up, and she swallowed a gasp when she saw Captain Alphin standing there.

  “Hope you didn’t sleep through that class, Wolfe, or it’ll be like floating through space when your aft-thrusters have been blown to hell.”

  She snapped to attention a little awkwardly, her breath catching in her throat.

  Captain Alphin regarded her with a steady, cool stare, his expression unreadable. In the field they called him Alpha, the nickname he’d earned as a recruit. There’d been a class on him back at pre military school as one of the UEF’s best fighter pilots currently deployed.

  Well, she could say firsthand the man lived up to expectations. His cool, gunmetal-blue gaze shot all the way down her spine into her toes. Just like when she’d first laid eyes on him at the deck triage, the back of her throat dried up as she took in the masculine angles of his face and the military, short-cut perfection of his coffee-black hair. With a quick breath, she turned her attention to her boots, her pulse skittering enough to make her jumpy.

  When he’d come to see her in the ER medbay, he’d been like a different man. She got the feeling he didn’t let people see that side of himself very often. And it had taken until nearly the end of the conversation for her to realize he had no idea she’d been assigned to him.

  The way he’d spoken to her, the depth of emotion in those gray-blue eyes…the feel of his large, rough hand gripping her fingers… She shivered, unable to help her sensory response. She’d already admired the man, because who didn’t? Except by the time he’d left her room, she’d started ha
ving very un-soldier-like feelings for him. God, could she be any stupider?

  As if training wouldn’t be hard enough, getting starry-eyed over the CAFF would just add an extra layer of uncomfortable to the torment of the coming weeks. Okay, so he was freaking sexy as all hell. She’d have to be dead not to notice. And the side of him she’d seen this morning had opened up a crack in her heart.

  There’d been rumors that every year at least one female cadet went crushing hard for him. And the story went that he never paid any of them the least bit of attention. If anything, they became more invisible to him.

  Please don’t let me be the idiot who gets the hots for the CO…aka God.

  She’d already started things off badly enough without becoming a soppy-spined female over his handsome face. And tall, muscled body. And in that uniform. She swallowed and cleared her throat, forcing her mind to go blank.

  “Everything all right there, recruit?” Captain Alphin had moved to stand next to her while she’d been having her inner crisis and she hadn’t even noticed. She tipped her chin up and set her gaze straight ahead, putting him in her peripheral vision.

  “Sir, everything is fine, sir.”

  The few remaining recruits dispersed, leaving her standing alone with Captain Alphin.

  Her legs had started trembling, muscles aching through every inch of her body. That rest Sub-Doctor Moore had recommended sounded better and better. But she couldn’t walk off on the CAFF without being dismissed or committing career suicide.

  “Sir, was there something you wanted, sir?”

  “I seem to remember ordering you to follow the doctor’s instructions, did I not, Wolfe?”

  She locked her knees against her weakening muscles. “Sir, yes, sir.”

  Captain Alphin moved to stand directly in front of her again, but she didn’t let herself focus on his face. She’d never seen that particular shade of gray-blue eyes before. One glance at him and she’d lose the small amount of nerve she was clinging on to.

  “And did doctor’s orders include gossiping in the launch bay, Recruit?”

  She shook her head, not trusting her voice.

  “Well, since you’re so determined not to rest, come with me.”

  He waved his hand to indicate she should precede him, even though she had no idea where they were going. Well, there was only one main corridor leading from the launch bay.

  She caught a few interested glances cast her way as the CAFF marched her through the ship. Everyone greeted Captain Alphin with deference, even the few superior officers they passed. Every now and then, he would murmur a direction to her and by the time they’d gone down several levels, she’d started feeling like a prisoner being paraded about before heading for the executioner’s chair.

  The captain led her through the gym on squadron level, mostly deserted at this time of day, and continued into the locker room. Privacy on board a ship like this wasn’t exactly ideal. A few soldiers, both male and female, were in various states of undress in the locker room and no one seemed too concerned about it. Her cheeks heated, and she kept her gaze averted. One more thing she would need to get used to.

  At the opposite end of the locker room, down past the showers, was a small laundry room. It was divided down the middle with a fat yellow line, one side for dirty, the other side for clean. The dirty side had an overflowing, wheeled container of soiled towels sitting next to a chute that went into the ship’s automated washing system. The clean side had another chute where the washed and dried items got spat out into another container.

  Captain Alphin stopped and pointed at the dirty side. “Feed the towels in one at a time or the chute will get jammed. And let me tell you, the maintenance crew does not like crawling in there to fix it. In a few minutes the towels will come out on that side, and then they need to be folded and put away.”

  He turned to look at her.

  Laundry duty?

  She’d pulled stinking laundry duty her second day here because she hadn’t followed the doctor’s orders? Technically she hadn’t even started training yet. She clenched her teeth over the tightness in her throat, because more than anything, she wished she had followed that advice instead of keeping her promise to see Penny off.

  Except she got the feeling this might be more about what had happened between Captain Alphin and her in the ER. She’d seen his weak side and now he would do everything in his power to shove her away, make her fail, because they’d crossed a line. A very small infraction, but it had happened. If the truth came out, it would be bad for both of them. So she would suck it up and take whatever he threw at her.

  “Sir, yes, sir.” She moved past him to the overflowing container and picked up a damp towel off the top. Really, she didn’t want to think about where it had been before it got here.

  She fed it into the chute, waited a beat, and then followed it with another. Captain Alphin crossed his arms and watched her. She felt the weight of his stern regard all the way down to her toes. In a few moments, clean towels puffed out into the container on the other side. She went over and started folding, her back aching as she bent down to grab the cloths from the deep bottom of the container.

  Captain Alphin nodded. “Very good, recruit. Carry on.”

  He spun on his heel and strode out of the laundry room, leaving her alone with the slight vrooming sound of the chute. And just how long was she supposed to keep this up for? Until the container of dirty towels was empty? She glanced at the towering pile. How long would that take?

  A female soldier ducked in and tossed a couple more on the heap, shooting her a sympathetic look. With a sigh, Mia got to feeding the chute, blanking her mind of everything but getting through the task one sopping towel at a time.

  Chapter Four

  Leigh stepped out of the transit on alpha flight deck, glancing around to see the maintenance crew getting things back into order after the previous day’s chaos, while a few medicos packed up the last of the deck triage.

  He spotted his intended target standing next to an armed personnel carrier, facing off with Lawler.

  “Cam, were you really going to leave without saying good-bye?” He clapped the colonel on the back as he stopped next to him, but his buddy shot him an annoyed glare.

  “Yes, I was trying to leave before you made it up here, but Lawler wouldn’t get out of my way.”

  “Just following orders, sir.” Lawler shot Cam a bland smile, then gave a salute that had a definite edge of sarcasm to it.

  “I already told Yang, I don’t need an escort to the ground. I got here by myself just fine yesterday.”

  Leigh clasped his hands behind his back and shrugged one shoulder. “Like the sub-officer said, we’re just following orders.”

  “When it suits you,” Cam muttered in resignation.

  He grinned and sent Lawler a nod, who stepped aside from blocking the hatchway to the personnel carrier.

  “Don’t consider us an escort, just pretend like we happen to be running a routine patrol on your exact trajectory. Either way, Lawler and I will be on your tail.”

  “Still a stubborn hard-ass, Alpha?” Cam stepped through the hatchway and shot him an unimpressed look, though it didn’t have all that much heat to it. They’d known each other for too many years to really take offense at any small disagreements, especially since Cam knew full well that no one in the Brannon System had the balls to defy orders given by Commander Yang.

  As the hatchway snapped closed on Cam’s form retreating to the shuttle’s controls, Leigh shared a quick grin with Lawler.

  “Seems almost getting blown up should have given Cam a new perspective on life, not made him surlier.” Lawler stooped down to scoop up his flight helmet where it’d been on the deck next to his boots.

  Though the comment had been said flippantly, it sobered Leigh’s light mood like flipping a switch. “Yeah, well I suppose if nearly all the other officers you’d worked with for the past ten or twelve years were killed in that blast, your life perspective wo
uld be pretty grim, too.”

  The amusement faded from Lawler’s expression and he clenched his jaw. “Well, I guess we better make sure the damned CSS don’t try for any more intercepts. And if they do, then so help them God.”

  Lawler turned on his heel and stalked over to his jet, pulled his helmet on, and then scaled the side.

  Leigh went over to his own V-29, where his flight jacket and helmet had been left for him. In a matter of moments, he’d settled himself inside and taken up position on Cam’s six, while Lawler took point as they left the launch deck.

  They took a wide slingshot around the Valiant Knox and settled into a direct trajectory to the secondary Ilari base, which had become the focal point of ground operations since the primary base had been bombed a few weeks ago. The second battleship that had joined the front last week, Farr Zero, was only just visible on the horizon between Ilari’s atmosphere and one of its three moons.

  Since the attack the day before, all scheduled transport between the two battleships and the ground had been delayed while a permanent escort system could be arranged with the FP squadron. It was going to stretch their resources and put more strain on his already overworked pilots, but he knew not a single one of them would complain about it.

  “Coming up on the edge of the safe zone in ten.” Lawler’s announcement through the radio brought him out of his thoughts, and he switched his sensors over to long range. “In four, three, two, one. And we’re out.”

  “You picking anything up, Lawler?” His own scans weren’t showing much, but some of the CSS ships were so old, they were occasionally missed by UEF sensors.

  “Four coming up off the ground. Could be a coincidence, not sure if they’re headed our way or not.”

  Leigh waited for his jet’s computer to extrapolate a likely trajectory for the four ships appearing on his radar.

  The readings scrolled across his screen, and he swore and tabbed his weapons live. “They’ll be on us as soon as we break higher atmosphere.”

  “Yeah, I see it. Weapons are hot.”