Cover Fire (Valiant Knox)

by Anastasi, Jess

  As Seb relaxed beneath her in the aftermath, blowing out a long ragged breath, she didn’t gently come down, instead landing straight back into too-alert territory. But she did allow herself the small luxury of sinking against his shoulder. And while she tried to catch her breath, she listened to the muffled voice of the pilot conferring with launch bay control tower to make sure they hadn’t given themselves away. Nothing sounded out of the ordinary.

  “You know,” Seb murmured in her ear. “When we climbed into this cupboard, I was just imaging giving each other a hand, if you catch my meaning. I actually can’t believe we took it all the way and then some. I’m starting to think you might be the degenerate one in this relationship, leading poor impressionable me into all sorts of trouble.”

  Though she was calling herself ten kinds of idiot, her insides got all warm and fuzzy over the word relationship. “And if I’d warned you what you were getting yourself into, it wouldn’t have been as much fun leading you down my dark path.”

  Getting dressed proved to be harder than getting undressed, though she was the one who had more clothes to set right. Seb tried to help, but mostly didn’t, attacking her with the occasional teasing kiss that made her wish they were back in his apartment and didn’t need to worry about a stitch of clothes between them for the next two days at least.

  When she checked the time, she was surprised to find it’d been more than ten minutes and the other pilot hadn’t returned.

  “I don’t think we should wait any longer,” Seb said once they were decent again. “If someone notices I’m gone from the holding cells on MP level, they could lock down the ship—if they haven’t already. Maybe that was the delay.”

  He might be right, which would make escaping that much harder.

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I assume you’ve got a gun?”

  Instead of answering, she pulled the small pistol out of her ankle holster. “I don’t think shooting our way out is going to work so well.”

  He sent her an exasperated look. “I’m not going to shoot my own people. But they don’t know that.”

  Before she could reply to that cryptic comment, he maneuvered them around and quietly pushed his way out of the locker.

  “Seb!” she whispered furiously, but he waved a hand in a shut-up kind of motion, sweeping a glance around the empty cargo bay, then sneaking toward the unsuspecting pilot.

  Doing her own sweep, Jenna kept a lookout so no one could come up behind him.

  When he reached the pilot, he shoved the gun into the back of the man’s neck.

  The pilot stiffened, but immediately started reaching for the emergency icon on his control screen.

  “Take your hands off the screen, or I’ll have to separate your head from your neck.”

  The pilot froze, then slowly brought his hands up.

  “Good.” Seb used his other hand to grab the man’s shirt collar. “Now stand up. Don’t turn around, and no sudden movements.”

  “Sub-Lieutenant Rayne, is that you?” The pilot’s voice held a tight note of confusion. “Sir, what the hell is going on?”

  “Don’t ask questions, Ensign, just do as you’re told.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Seb gave a slight tug on the ensign’s shirt collar. “Step away from the flight console. I’m going to walk you off the ship, and I’m ordering you not to report this.”

  “Sir?” The man glanced at Jenna as Seb steered him across the cargo bay to the ramp.

  “Don’t question me, just follow orders. This is top secret. No one can know you saw me.”

  At the ramp, Seb released the soldier and propelled him a few steps down the ramp, hurrying the ensign on his way. Backing up, he kept his gun trained as he reached over to the ramp controls to close up the ship. “Not a word, Ensign.”

  The soldier half turned and gave a tight nod, before the ramp finished coming up and blocked him from sight.

  Seb hurried over, handing the gun back to her.

  “Think he’ll keep quiet?” She followed Seb to the helm and dropped into the copilot’s chair as he slipped behind the pilot’s controls.

  “Hard to say, and probably depends on what he knows. He might follow orders, or if he’s heard any rumors about me getting locked up earlier today, he might go straight to Bren.”

  His hands moved quickly over the controls, bringing the shuttle online in what seemed like record time, and then aiming it toward one of the launch hatches. Just as the hanger atmo-doors split open, the comms came to life, the ship’s control tower ordering them to desist.

  The increasingly heated demands didn’t cause Seb to miss a beat. In a matter of moments, he’d launched, shooting them out into the star-studded blackness beyond the ship.

  The intensity of the officer’s voice on the other end of the comm changed, now threatening injunctive weapon’s fire to disable them if they didn’t turn around.

  Seb still didn’t reply, simply punched up the speed, his expression tense, but not worried. Would they really fire on one of their own vessels? Actually, there was no point in asking, because if they suspected this ship had been taken by a CSS mole, they wouldn’t hesitate in blowing them out of the non-atmosphere they were streaking through toward Ilari.

  “Sub-Lieutenant Rayne.”

  He finally glanced down at the comm tab on his screen as the voice of his CO came through. He clenched his jaw, but didn’t make a move to answer.

  “Seb, I know it’s you on that shuttle, so answer the damn comm.” Bren’s voice held a tight note, but not simply of annoyance or anger, more concern. Like she was truly worried. Maybe even more anxious than a commander would usually be about one of their pilots.

  “Listen to me,” Bren’s voice softened the slightest bit, and Jenna eyed Seb’s expression. He clenched his jaw, clearly struggling with ignoring the CAFF. “I get it, okay? Maybe I don’t know exactly how it felt for you, but I understand. I know you want justice, you want him to pay for what he did to you, for what he did to all of us. But this isn’t the way. This won’t give you that sense of justice. It’ll more likely see you dead, and we can’t lose you, Seb. Lawler is not worth your life—”

  He reached down and slapped at the icon, silencing the comm. His face had set in a hard, grim mask, Bren’s words obviously striking the vulnerabilities he worked so hard to hide.

  “Seb—” Jenna didn’t know what she could say to help him, but the look he cut her effectively silenced her.

  “Just don’t, okay?” He returned his attention to the controls, tight shoulders telling her the conversation was over. “Just make sure you’ve got a sound plan for us when we get to the ground.”

  She nodded, not that he saw, since he was very obviously not looking at her.

  According to the map she’d checked during the two hours she’d been waiting for him to wake up, it’d take four days on foot to reach the crash site. Of course, if Seb could repeat his CSS ship-stealing trick once they got behind enemy lines, they could reach the site within a few hours. Unfortunately, CSS ships were few and far between, and usually zealously guarded. But they had to try. They simply didn’t have the time to spend getting to the site on foot.

  The engines rumbled as they hit atmo, Seb making some adjustments and putting them on a trajectory for the Ilari base.

  Jenna forced herself into agent mode with some difficulty, not quite able to bury her worry for Seb’s frame of mind or the outcome of this mission.

  This definitely wasn’t the life for her any longer.

  Chapter Twenty

  Seb followed Jenna off the transport, hurrying to conceal themselves behind another ship in the next bay that looked like it’d been parked for repairs and forgotten about a decade ago. No doubt the ground MPs were already mobilizing to find them.

  Though he’d turned off the ship’s tracking beacon, the Knox still would have used advanced radar technology to find their ship. Plus, Bren would have notified the base as soon as he’d cut communic
ations. He’d conferred briefly with ground command for a clear flight path, letting them think he was surrendering when he touched down. But instead of landing on the pad they’d designated, he’d picked a rarely used one on the outer edge of the base that would give them a few crucial moments to disembark and hide.

  “So what’s the next move in this little clandestine operation?” he asked as Jenna crouched near the short wing half covered by a tarp.

  She pulled out the datapad, and he got the sense that somehow, even though she had her attention trained on the screen, she was fully aware of everything around her.

  “Now we hack into base security and let ourselves out.”

  Like it was that easy. “Wasn’t security heightened after the bombing at the old base?”

  “Yes, but all those measures are to stop people getting in, not people wanting to get out. So if we do happen to make it back from behind enemy lines after we’ve sighted the wreckage, it’ll be harder to sneak back in.”

  That wasn’t something he was going to worry about now. They had enough obstacles, and everyone seemed to think that coming back alive was an impossibility, so planning how to get back in was probably a big fat waste of time.

  Maybe he shouldn’t have been making light of this admittedly moronic suicide mission. He’d done stupid, dangerous things and defied orders before, but nothing like this.

  Even if Jenna could get answers from Lawler, it would more than likely get them both killed. But he had to go through with it. It would haunt him for the rest of his life if he didn’t find out whether Lawler had escaped and survived. He would spend every waking moment, every time they faced the enemy, wondering if Lawler was in the background feeding the enemy every personal tidbit he’d ever learned.

  And the sexcapades in the locker before coming down here had been a bad idea. They were probably damn lucky they hadn’t been caught. But after finding out about Lawler, after getting sedated by those traitorous jackholes he called friends, he’d felt raw. Had this tense, wild fury deep inside him he couldn’t shift, the intensity of which actually freaked his crap out.

  And then Jenna had been there, lithe and sexy, vivacious and formidable, and he’d grabbed onto her like a spacewalker on an anchor line. The fire she lit within him had burned everything else away, giving him relief from the sentiments of betrayal and anger that he hated feeling.

  “Come on.”

  Jenna pushing to her feet and ducking around the back of the tarped shuttle roused him out of the admittedly enjoyable recollections from that time they’d spent in the locker.

  “Where are we going?” he asked as they wove through the maintenance workshop, avoiding a small group of four staffers on the far side of the hangar.

  “There’s a wheeled transport of supplies leaving the base, headed for the front lines in just a few minutes. If we can get on it, that’s our best bet for getting out.”

  At the doorway of the maintenance bay, she paused by an open-faced locker to grab a base uniform jacket and shrug into it. He followed her lead, finding a larger coat, slipping it on as they headed outside. Just as they exited, a group of soldiers appeared at the far end of the walkway, jogging toward the hangar. Without a word, he and Jenna scurried to duck into the next building.

  Seb cracked the door a bare half inch as the soldier passed, cursing under his breath at the CO leading them.

  “What’s wrong?” Jenna whispered beside him.

  “It’s Colonel Cameron McAllister, one of the base commanders. He’s leading the MPs. Bren or Alpha must have contacted him. If he sees me, I’m done.”

  “Then let’s get off base ASAP.”

  They left the doorway, and once they’d cleared the maintenance hangars, Jenna didn’t bother sneaking and looking for cover any longer. She walked right down the middle of the path as if she belonged there, with a direction in mind and duty to attend.

  “It’s freaky when you do that,” he murmured.

  “Do what?”

  “I don’t know. Just, like, settle into a place like you’ve been there all your life and it’s exactly where you’re meant to be. No one ever looks twice at you.”

  Which he didn’t understand at all. Ever since he’d gotten a glimpse of Jenna’s real face, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her.

  “Well I wouldn’t be a very successful agent if I stood out in a crowd, now, would I?”

  They reached the end of the buildings and walked across an open stretch of grass. Jenna stopped by a bench set under a tree, which was probably a spot many people came to eat lunch. From here, they had a direct line to the east gate and heavily guarded perimeter fence.

  “Okay, the transport should be coming along from the supply depot any second.” Jenna glanced down at her datapad, and then at the main path which cut through the center of the base. “There.”

  She nodded at the large, wheeled transport trundling along, clearly weighted with supplies covered by tarps. The vehicle could be sent out unmanned, but in this case, there were two soldiers riding shotgun. Probably on the small chance that the CSS tried to intercept the transport and steal the supplies.

  “How are we going to get on without anyone noticing?”

  Jenna didn’t look the least bit worried. “Just give it a second.”

  The transport stopped at the gate, and a few other soldiers did a cursory check, lifting the tarps and checking the supply schedule.

  Just as they were finishing up, Jenna ducked her head and typed a couple of commands into her datapad. A spilt-second later, an alarm sounded, mobilizing the soldiers who’d been checking the transport.

  They hurriedly waved the transport on, then left only a few of the guards on the gate and fence and ran off along the perimeter.

  “Quick. Now’s our chance.”

  She dashed into a run, and it took him a second to catch up with the plan she hadn’t bothered to explain. The girl was fast, and he didn’t manage to catch her until they’d reached the transport, which rumbled into slow motion and started rolling through the gates. Because the few remaining soldiers were too busy looking after their companions, no one saw them clamber into the back of the transport.

  There wasn’t much room, but they managed to squeeze behind the tarp into a space between a couple of crates, which meant they could sit.

  “What did you do?” he asked once they were well away from the gates.

  “Created a minor malfunction on two of the other gates that may have made them think someone was trying to get in. But it was just a dummy program. It didn’t actually compromise base security.”

  “I’m beginning to think you actually enjoy creating chaos.”

  An impertinent smile tilted up her lips. “There’s a kind of mastery in creating exactly the right amount of chaos for my benefit.”

  Her smile started doing unsettling things to his insides, which made it hard to glare back at her. “I get the feeling that’d be all good until I was one of the poor saps who got caught up in your wake.”

  She didn’t answer, but her smile widened, clearly biding her time until breaking out the next round of anarchy.

  “So I assume we’re not riding this baby all the way to the frontlines.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve pinpointed the best location to hop off. It’ll put us within reasonable distance of an area where the lines aren’t heavily patrolled and we can cross over. It’s a spot I’ve used several times in the past.”

  “When you say reasonable distance…?”

  She shrugged. “A day’s walk. Maybe a little more.”

  “A day?” He crossed his arms. “Walking is a crime against technology. I’m boosting the first shuttle or ship I see.”

  “Because there won’t already be enough transgressions listed on your charge sheet if you make it back for the court-marital?”

  Though the trouble he’d face if or when he made it back had been lurking in the recesses of his mind, he hadn’t let himself think too closely about it. Jenna’s
words, though probably not intentional, sobered his mood right up. He’d been riding a little post-pleasure high since the trip down, but reality up and bitch slapped him.

  “Yeah, I’m probably going to be suspended, if not outright removed from my post. At this point, stealing a ship or shuttle probably couldn’t make things worse.”

  She took his hand. “Don’t worry, Seb. If we make back in one piece, we’ll figure something out.”

  “Back to the fun and games of you hiding from CI and someone wanting me dead just because I was apparently the last person to see you alive?”

  Her grip tightened. “Okay, so maybe not that.”

  The totality of his situation suddenly struck him like arriving at the bottom of a hill and finding a mountain instead—immense and insurmountable.

  “What if there’s no point in going back?” The words spilled out of his mouth before he’d even thought about it, leaving Jenna looking stunned.

  But he didn’t mean it. Did he? No. He’d always been a fighter pilot. He didn’t know how to do anything else. He didn’t want to do anything else. But there was no denying Lawler’s betrayal had destroyed something inside him. Had damaged the foundations of his confidence in himself and his judgment. The fact that he’d never noticed a single clue that Lawler was a bastard CSS traitor made him question everything he’d ever believed about himself. And with his self-assurance shot, there was no way he could slip into his jet and hit the battlefront, not without putting himself and the entire squad in danger. If he took even one moment to second-guess a decision, it could mean the difference between life-and-death for him or someone else. Someone like Alpha or Bren.

  “What are you talking about? The Knox is your home. You’ve got your team and your friends. They’re like family.”

  “And what if I put them all in danger?” He lowered his head to stare at his hands. “What if next time I go out on a mission, I get one of them killed?”

  She set a hand on his jaw and urged him to look back up at her. “What do you mean? You’re one of the best pilots on squad. In fact, you’re probably the best.”