Chapter 4

This is an unedited first look at my next project! Scene details may change before the final draft, but the gist of the story is there. You may find the odd typo or a sentence that doesn’t read quite right, but all that will be polished up before publication.

The all-clear came through ship’s sensors. Bresto reached to the control deck and killed the klaxons mid-wail. The combat lighting clicked off, replaced by the stark white of fleet standard overheads. Something had overheated and blown, the stink of melted plastics and scorched electronics on the air. Could’ve been a lot worse, if Runt hadn’t outflown those squids.

His and Sevvers’s faces still glowed prominently on Major Kull’s datapad as she stared him down from across the table.

“What do we do with him, Major?” the nervous lieutenant asked.

“I’ll handle this.” She lifted a hand, motioning them away. “The rest of you see to your companies, and find homes for those grunts in the cargo bay.”

“Aye, ma’am.”

One by one, the major’s command staff filed through the exit into the sterile white of the jump bay and the cargo bay beyond. The lieutenant gave Bresto one last frown before the hatch sealed tight behind him.

On the forward bulkhead, the cockpit hatch cycled open, filling the ops bay with the sour smell of lupanthae musk. Runt ducked through the hatchway, pausing at the bottom of the steps. Her pack name was Cylla. She was shorter than most wolves despite still standing head and shoulders taller than him, so choosing her callsign had been easy.

“Pack safe?” She surveyed the room with her big, golden eyes, tugging at the bottom of the familial coat. Small, colorful patches adorned its chest and sleeves, each one part of a story Runt had so far refused to tell. 

“Yeah, Runt,” Bresto said. “Nice flying.”

“The sergeant is right. I’ll see you get a Flying Triad for what you did.” Kull pointed toward the colorful jacket. “A real medal to pin on that uniform of yours.”

Runt hooted a sad chord, lips curled briefly in a toothy scowl. But the anger wouldn’t last. The wolf was small for her kind and generally submissive—except when it came to the Gauntlet. Soon, her ears settled back along her head and she looked away from the major.

Kull wasn’t phased in the slightest. “Did you know anything about this?” 

She held her datapad where Runt could see it. Runt squinted at the screen, then padded closer, her potent smell wrinkling the major’s nose.

“Kerry Sevvers,” the wolf said, almost mournfully. “Is safe?”

“As safe as we are,” Bresto said, before turning to Kull. “Runt didn’t know. We didn’t get very far before the Concordat attacked.”

“Too bad.” Kull dismissed the Division alert from her datapad and tapped her wrist comms. “Flight Ops, Victory Five.”

“Flight Ops here.” A man’s voice came through loud and clear, the sound of heavy machinery and hydraulics loud in the background. “Send your traffic, Victory Five.”

“I want priority flight status given to the Gauntlet and her crew.” Kull leered at Bresto, almost playfully. “They have important business. The secret kind. Let’s not keep them waiting.”

“Copy priority status on Bay Two.” There was hesitation in the man’s voice. “Be advised, Victory Actual has ordered an azure drop package. All companies. All drop ships.”

Kull frowned. “How long?”

“Uh, we’re looking at approximately sixty minutes, Victory Five.”

Kull sat her datapad down hard on the table. “Understood, Flight Ops. Keep me informed.”

“Aye, ma’am. Flight Ops, out.”

“Let me be perfectly clear, Sergeant.” Kull’s finger struck the table. “You will remain on the Gauntlet until Flight Ops clears you for departure. You will not set foot on the Victory.”

So, no brig time, no Division handover. Just a kind of exile with whatever resources the Gauntlet had left. Smart play; if they lived, problem solved. If they died out there, she’d have a clean conscience. He’d seen officers make worse calls.

“Clear, ma’am.”

PFC Olsom peeked around the ops bay hatch, with Myers and the twins crowded in behind her. Their slack-jawed stares said they’d caught at least some of his dressing down by Kull. Too bad just being there put them at risk, too. Damn boots couldn’t read a room.

“Uh, excuse me, Sarnt?” Olsom said.

“Come in, Marines, you’re just in time.” Kull swiveled toward the door, waving them in. “You came in with Sergeant Bresto, right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Olsom said, the word ma’am two syllables in her slow, Vestian drawl.

Kull smiled. “Have any of you seen Kerry Sevvers?”

Twelfth keep their damned mouths shut. They had only followed his orders. He would take whatever sanction Kull gave. Wasn’t his first, definitely wouldn’t be his last. No need to shit on these young Marines’ careers.

“I…” Olsom looked right at him, brow wrinkled with concern. She didn’t have to say anything. Her freckles screamed guilt.

Kull’s datapad buzzed with an incoming message. She glanced at it, pursed her lips, and turned back to the Marines.

“I’ll make you a deal.” She stood and straightened the front of her white-and-grays. “Join Victory’s defense of Aegia and all is forgotten. Or,” she hooked a thumb toward Bresto, “go back with these two and take your chances out there. Your choice.”

Kull’s wrist comms chirped. “Major. Colonel Reede.”

“Go ahead, Skipper.”

“Report to the command deck, double time. We’re drop ready in one hour.”

“Aye, sir.” She toggled the connection closed and gave the group one more appraising look. “Don’t take long, Marines. We won’t wait for you.”

The boots gave the major a wide berth as she exited the ops bay. Bresto rose from his seat and stretched. Capital ship gravity felt good on his aching frame. Constant and balanced, nothing like the Gauntlet’s low-power fields. He glared at the young Marines, the anger just a slow burn in his belly.

“What in the hell are you still doing here?”

“We’re with you, Sarnt.” Olsom’s eyebrows lifted expectantly. Doc didn’t look so sure. The twins didn’t look like anything except maybe a reflection in a funhouse mirror. “What’re our orders?”

“I’m no officer, boot.” Bresto laughed. “You think that major gives twelve shits about my orders?”

He stepped to the control deck and brought up the local tac net feeds on the holoproj. Aegia Prime was a scramble of blue and red sensor returns. Tactical estimates put the Concordat forge ship at just over three hours from low orbit, with a forward wing of raider corvettes only sixty minutes away. The race to be the first ones planetside was going to be close, and there was still no sign of a coordinated response to the enemy incursion into CDF space.

Just seeing the archenemy so close to his homeworld made him furious. That he, Sevvers, and Park might have led them here… he didn’t want to think it. To give those dark thoughts power over him. Holy Mother, help him. Too much at stake to doubt himself now.

“Number one priority is to secure Aegia,” Bresto said. “You can’t let those things loose on the surface. There are… families down there.”

Doc nodded coolly. “Yeah. Sarnt’s right.”

“You say that like you ain’t coming.” Olsom’s brown eyes bored into him. She was a slight girl, even with her wider Vestian shoulders. She reminded him of Lance Corporal Dalon, his fireteam’s breacher on Park’s little mission to Cradle’s edge. Dalon was Vestian too; a good Marine. The longer he looked at her, the more the memory of the boy came flooding back. Damn shame what happened to him. Lost no more.

Bresto cleared his throat. “You heard the major. Runt and I are void bound the second we get clearance. You all don’t want to be here when that happens.”

“Why not?” Olsom fired back. She had a mouth on her, too. Not like Dalon at all.

“Not your concern, Private.”

“We helped you,” she said, all teeth like a wild little thing. “Hurt people to break that skeeg out, for you. All due respect, Sarnt, you made it our concern.”

Insubordinate little shit. His jaw clenched as he fought for control, same as he had since his first block drills.

“Sevvers didn’t belong in that cell, Private. Especially now,” he said, swiping a hand toward the crowded threat display. “Can’t help we had to smash a few skeeg heads to do the right thing.”

“Bugs, come on, drop it,” Doc urged.

“Drop it?” Olsom spat, eyes still locked on Bresto. But all he could see was Dalon locked in combat with that Lost abomination, aboard the same forge ship now burning for Aegia. “You haven’t been straight with us, Sarnt. Not once. What out there is more important than saving your home? Why are you leaving us now?”

Each question drove the memory of the daxed’s blade deeper into Dalon’s hard suit. The upstart little boot had run her mouth a second too long. Bresto balled his hands into fists, felt the fast twitch of muscles in his shoulder and arms. Olsom’s eyes widened, her weight settling back on her heels, when Runt’s long, clawed hands held him firm.

“No,” was all the wolf said. No sad chords. No anger. No judgement. Just no. Olsom didn’t move, didn’t even flinch. But the memory of Dalon was mercifully gone.

Bresto had forgotten to breathe. Holy Mother, keep him from his anger. Faith took root in a quiet heart. So did self-control. He breathed in through his nose and held it in his belly, waiting for his pulse to settle. A simple technique all Aegians learned as young betas, some quicker than others. And his heart had always been so stormy. 

“Nothing is more important than Aegia,” he finally said. “But you heard the major. I’m a liability so long as the Division is looking for me.”

The twins’ faces wrinkled into frowns. “Don’t they have—”

“—bigger problems now?”

“You’d think.” Bresto smirked. “But Sevvers is a magnet for trouble.”

“Where will you go, Sarnt?” Myers asked.

Bresto eyed the threat feed, ignoring the hitch in his chest. “Wherever my CO sends me.”

“What about us?” she asked, her voice low but steady, a flicker of hurt in her eyes gone as soon as he saw it. “What are we supposed to do?”

“You follow orders, just like me.” Bresto eyed the open hatch. “Look, I know you want answers, but right now, staying alive and defending Aegia is what matters. The Victory gives you the best shot at both.”

“Ooh-fucking-rah.” Myers pushed past Olsom, head bobbing excitedly, and extended an open hand. Bresto eyed the young man so ready to prove himself a proper Aegian. There’d be plenty of chances for that when the Concordat touched down. “It’s been an honor, Sarnt Bresto.”

He jabbed a finger into the serpent and piston section patch on Myers’s white-and-grays. “Just keep the blood and oil moving, Marine.”

“Aye, Sarnt.”

The twins offered mirrored nods then followed Myers out of ops. Olsom had only just relaxed her stance, her eyes still wet with emotion as the fight drained out of her. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again, shaking her head slightly. As she walked out, her dragging steps echoed in the suddenly quiet ops bay.

With the other Marines gone, the ops bay felt almost cavernous. Only the soft hum of electronics and the distant, muffled sounds of the outside hangar deck remained. The harsh overhead lighting cast long shadows across the planning table, its holoproj now idle and dark.

Bresto stood there, one hand resting on the edge of the table, the other rubbing the nub of his left ring finger through the glove. He hadn’t expected the boots to put up such a fight about staying. Hadn’t expected them to care. It left him feeling… unsettled. Like he’d missed something important.

Runt loosed a big, keening yawn. “Hmph. Pups.”

“No shit.” Bresto flopped back into his chair and sighed. A dull ache knotted in his left hip. “Looks like you and I are going back out there.”

“Will make it,” Runt assured him, slapping a hand against the fibrosteel bulkhead. “Is perfect machine.”

“Even after that scrap with the raiders?”

“Cargo bay, damaged.” The wolf nodded, warbling a bright, upbeat chord. “Forward bays, good.”

“You’re the jet jockey. I just work here.” Bresto poked at the control deck with his index finger, hunting for the comms logs. “Any traffic from the lieutenant?”

Runt shrugged. “Much int… interf… much noise.”

“Yeah. If the Navy and Division don’t take that forge ship out, we’ll all be Lost before long.”

He scrolled through the endless list of tac net packets relayed through the Gauntlet’s systems. IFF updates and control handshakes mostly, no direct messages from Lieutenant Park or Sevvers. He had been prodding at the control deck for what felt like a very long time when he noticed Runt’s reflection staring back at him from the flatscreen display.

“What?”

“Pups,” Runt said, golden eyes on the hatch. “Need pack.”

Bresto grunted and kept working the controls. Wolves and their pack instincts. Way different than Marine unit structure. “They’re Victory Marines now. That chain of command will take care of them.” 

Simple as that. Had to be. But Runt’s disapproving snort filled the ops bay.

“What?” he snapped. “Our mission’s blown. The Concordat are back. Our one shot at stopping them just vanished with Lernus and that girl.” He stabbed at the keys. “Park better have a plan worth all this.”

“No.” Runt’s claws clicked across the controls. Aegia materialized above them, eternal storms masking the threat markers converging on his home. Her hand pressed his chest. “Bresto’s pups. Need pack.”

Her touch burned through his uniform, past the certainty of duty into something he couldn’t control. Not pain or guilt, he could handle those. This was older. Deeper. His family was down there, while he chased mysteries in the void. Same choice. Same cost. Every time.

“Stow that shit.” He pushed away Runt’s hand. The control deck’s tactical feeds showed him what he needed to see, enemy positions, vectors of attack, hard data that demanded action. The Holy Mother taught that faith required sacrifice. He’d given up enough family moments to know that lesson by heart. One more wouldn’t break him, not if it meant keeping the Concordat off Her mountain. “I’ll find the lieutenant. You make sure we’re ready to fly.”