Free Shadows of the Gods: Crimson Worlds Refugees II by Jay Allan Page B

mind, but that had only made it more firmly entrenched. He cut it off every time it popped into his head, but any respite was brief, and it wasn’t long before it was back. He was too old a warrior to ignore the threats the expedition faced, the very real danger they were all in. He still felt the pain of Elizabeth’s loss…every day…and he couldn’t imagine losing Sophie too.
    No, she will come back. I’ve got Colonel Preston and fifteen hundred Marines down there to make damned sure they all come back . But the doubt still nagged at him.
    “Admiral…”
    It was Cortez…and Compton realized it had been the third or fourth time the tactical officer had called to him.
    “Yes, Commander…I was thinking about the repair schedules…” That’s the best thing you could come up with? I guess it’s better than ‘I’m over here pining like a lovesick schoolboy.’
    “Yes, sir.” Cortez was pretty stone cold with his reply, but Compton didn’t believe for a second the commander had bought his cover story. “I just wanted to report that Admiral Hurley had ordered Commander Fujin’s wing to scout the system.”
    “Ah…very well.” Mariko Fujin was quickly becoming one of Hurley’s ‘go to’ officers. No surprise after the way she handled herself in X18 . “Advise Commander Fujin that she is to report directly to the flag bridge as soon as her people have any data.”
    “Yes, sir,” Cortez replied.
    “And advise Admiral Hurley to get another of her wings on alert…just in case we need to check out any potential warp gate sightings.” He knew the fleet didn’t need to deploy fighters to search for warp gates, but sending them out would extend the range of close inspections…and possibly speed up the process. And Compton wanted to move on as quickly as possible and get the fleet farther from X48. Just in case.
     
    *    *    *
     
    “Alright, we’re going to do the same thing we did in system X48.” Fujin sat in her chair, snapping out orders and fighting the urge to reach out for the throttle that wasn’t in front of her anymore. It was a habit that appeared to die hard, though she had allowed herself to think it was getting a little better. “The Lightnings will drop a series of scanner buoys and remain in position two hundred thousand kilometers from the planet. I know this system looks empty, but the truth is we’d have no idea if there was an enemy ship somewhere, powered down and watching us.” A little mental aid to keep her people sharp. Let them imagine an enemy Gremlin or Gargoyle, lurking in the empty depths, just waiting to strike .
    She listened quietly while the Lightnings’ commander confirmed. Then she took a quick look at her display. “Wildcats, I want you to move into low orbit and do a north-south sweep around the planet. Thousand klick interval between birds.”
    “Wildcat leader, acknowledged.” Bev Jones was almost as young as Fujin, and she hadn’t had her squadron command any longer than Fujin had been in charge of the wing. The two hadn’t met before Jones transferred over from Saratoga to take over the Wildcats, but they’d gotten along very well from the start. Both were survivors from shattered formations, and both had been thrust rapidly upward in rank as a result of the fleet’s losses. Fujin had to remind herself she outranked her new comrade…and to realize that affected the nature of the friendship she could allow to develop.
    “Alright, Dragons, we’re going in on an east-west sweep at thousand kilometer intervals. Sending nav instructions now.”
    She looked across the cramped cockpit toward Lieutenant Wainwright. She’d been trying to decide for weeks if her new pilot was even cockier than she had been when she’d first sat in that chair. She wanted to say yes—for all his skill, she could see how reckless Wainwright was, how overly sure of his own ability to overcome any danger. But then she remembered herself, back before the crushing