Page 53 of Reformation
He smiled unsteadily. “I’m already disobeying one order; I’ve got no problem disobeying another one. Go on, I’ll be right there.” First he had to keep Cody’s grandfather from doing something stupid.
In another thirty seconds, it was just the two of them on the bridge. “I believe I told you to evacuate, Cadet Parrish,” Miles said, but the ferocious sense of purpose had gone out of his voice.
“I will, sir, but only if you come with me.”
“Don’t worry about me; I don’t intend to commit glorious suicide today.”
Darrel bit his lip for a moment, then rushed ahead. “Captains never do, but eight out of ten times in similar situations, they do it anyway.Mygrandfather did. I read all the transcripts of the battle he was in, I analyzed it over and over, and—he could have gotten away. He could have lived. Hechosenot to, because he thought he was helping more people by staying behind, but hedidn’t.
“I’ve aggregated reports for every major battle of the past fifty years and investigated similar scenarios, and with very fewexceptions, when a captain stays behind, they do so for no palpable gain. But theydoit because something about being in charge makes you feel too responsible.” He risked a touch of Miles’ arm. “Don’t do that to your family, please. Cody would never get over it.”
Miles raised one eyebrow. “I feel like you’re blackmailing me, Cadet.”
“Maybe I am, sir.”
“And I think it’s working.” Miles shut his eyes for a moment, then his fingers began to fly across the nav screen. “All right, I’ve autoset to pursue. If that destroyer gets smart, we’ll miss it entirely, but we’ve still got a chance of hitting it.” He got up out of his chair. “I assume Grennson is holding a pod?”
“How did you—”
“Oh, please. He wouldn’t leave without you. Lead the way, Darrel.”
The halls were empty of people now, and they couldn’t walk more than five steps without being sent staggering as another explosion rocked the ship. By the time they got to Grennson, Darrel was afraid theTriumphwould break apart under their feet.
“Oh good!” Grennson beamed at them, and it was like sunshine in the middle of Darrel’s mind for a moment. “You brought him! Get in, everything is prepped to go.”
The launch sequence seemed to take forever even though realistically, Darrel knew Miles was working as fast as he could. Finally, the airlock closed, and the mechanism gave the pod a gentle push away from the carcass of their ship. The three of them clustered around the single window, watching as theTriumphgradually came into view.
“Poor girl,” Miles murmured. “My poor, poor girl.”
“You did your best by her, sir,” Grennson murmured comfortingly.
“Perhaps. If not, then it’s too late for—” His voice cut off abruptly as the ship suddenly flared with light, a coruscating series of explosions breaking it into pieces at last. “Boys, get dow—”
They didn’t have time to strap in before the shock wave reached them, though, and sent the pod hurtling toward Pandora at breakneck speed.
Chapter thirty
Ten
Over two hundred little leaks amounted to a hell of a lot more confusion and discord than Ten had expected. Yes, of course there was going to be a certain amount of pandemonium; that was thepoint. But this much? Well, perhaps ze’d underestimated the effects of hir machinations just a tiny bit.
Almost as soon as they got to Pandora, Corva had thought better of being there. In her defense, Ten hadn’t expected them to come in quite socloseto the actual battle, and what a battle it was. The Box was the only city on Pandora, the place that all trade went through, and the warring fleets had massed above it and were going after each other with all the fire and fury they had. Bits and pieces of detritus struck the Drifter ship, a few of them causing minor hull breaches, and that was when Corva pulled the plug.
Unfortunately, her getaway attempt triggered the waste system’s meltdown, andthattriggered everyone else’smeltdown. It was—okay, it was messy, pretty gross, really, and Ten maybe hadn’t anticipated all the nooks and crevices that connected the waste system to other parts of the ship, because shit was getting everywhere. On the other hand, the shipitselfwas going nowhere, so … Ten was calling this a win.
“Time to go,” ze announced to Cody as ze joined him in the hold of Jack’s ship, where he was inspecting the new shield that they’d installed. It was meant to be a joint sophomore-year project, the sort of thing that they’d have months to work on and perfect before installing for a very careful—but not too careful, this wasthem, after all—test fall through Olympus’ fairly forgiving atmosphere.
Instead, they were going to try it over Pandora, which had one of the most tempestuous climates among any settled planet out there, Fringe or Central System. They had to plot a path through the battle debris, then through the storms, then down to the ground, and hope—very strongly hope—that the parachute deployed the way it was supposed to, and their thrusters didn’t overheat or freeze, and that they landed close enough to the city that they could walk inside of the shield, but also far enough away that they didn’t bounce off the surface of said shield on their way down. All of which also assumed that their oxygen held out, their restraints held on, and their nerve held, period.
It would be interesting, for sure. Ten wished ze had time to document all the variables more fully because it was hard to get a perfect statistic for their probable survival.
Ze would tell Cody seventy percent if he asked. That felt like the kind thing to do even if it wasn’t the honest answer.
“Are you really sure about this guidance system?” Cody asked, seating the module a little deeper into the front console of the bike.
“As really sure as I can be, given the tests I’ve been able to do. It’ll scan constantly until we enter the atmosphere, and as soonas we break out below the storms, it’ll pick up again. We’re in luck there, actually; there’s a big clear path over the Box right now.”
Cody nodded. “Okay, then.”
