Cover Fire (Valiant Knox)

by Anastasi, Jess

  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 the
n, 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 an
d 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.

  Chapter Five

  Jenna crouched in the eaves of an almost-intact building, one of the very few in the bombed-out, abandoned section of this underprivileged city. She kept her gaze focused on the structure next door, which had once been a bank. Inside laid the body of the woman she’d been tasked to meet, a deep-cover agent who’d turned out to have an ulterior motive for the get-together.

  They ordered my death.

  The thought didn’t stop recurring, no matter how many times she shoved it down. She didn’t know for sure that her apparent execution charge had come from higher up the CI chain, but someone had betrayed her, contacting this agent and demanding she end the meeting with Jenna’s death.

  The woman had tried to take her by surprise, but—maybe because Jenna’s adrenaline had already been running high from her crash landing and trying to stay one step ahead of the CSS patrols—she’d reacted fast and with force. Jenna had managed to save herself and turn the tables. Unfortunately, the fierce fight had resulted in the other agent’s death. Jenna had been hoping to simply subdue her so she could get some answers.