Chapter 12
"Where is Gold Leader?"
"What happened? I have no visual!"
"Gold Leader's been hit!"
The hubbub of voices on the bridge faltered for a moment, and Vanessa, shocked at the latest transmissions, whirled to face May.
"Gold Leader is… down," May said robotically. She was hunched over her station, hands braced against the console. The cold blue monitor in front of her read -SIGNAL LOST-. Vanessa saw two tear drops splash against the back of May's hand, and started to reach for her friend.
"M-Musket Leader, take over command of the assault force," May ordered, her voice low and husky. "Bridge requests a status report."
"Understood, Bridge. Strike module's main weapon batteries have been reduced by fifty percent. Estimating… twenty-five percent of secondary batteries knocked out. We're taking heavy losses, and need to withdraw."
"Negative. Press the attack until otherwise ordered," May answered distantly.
"Acknowledged."
Vanessa's fingertips were almost touching May's shoulder when Ensign Garo called out to her.
"Moy Kapitain! Phobos reports they are taking heavy fire from the strike module!"
Vanessa let her hand drop. She had to let May do her job. There was no time. She hurried over to the comms station.
"Get me a channel to Phobos!"
The signal was bad, cut through with static from energy discharges and the enemy's jamming attempts, which was why they hadn't been able to task veritechs with the mission. Doctor Priest's voice was choppy when it came through the speakers, and warning sirens sounding on the bridge of the Phobos were competing with his voice.
"Captain Vucic is a little busy right now, Captain. The veritechs are helping, but we've taken some bad hits. Two hull breaches, and damage to power distribution that we're still trying to bypass. Engines are at full, but otherwise, we're operating on battery power - oof!" Phobos was struck another blow that sent a momentary squeal of feedback through the transmission.
"Get out of there, Jacob!" Vanessa called back urgently. "I'll ask the admiral to redeploy some of the other destroyers and give you better cover. We'll try again!"
"Captain, the Zentraedi mecha have reformed their squadrons and are breaking past our front line fighters," Lieutenant Abargil warned.
"I count approximately six battlepod cohorts vectoring in on us, Manhattan, and Lothal," Penelope added.
"We'll need every destroyer on fleet defense," Liem said grimly.
Priest grunted, and she couldn't tell if he might have been injured. "I agree. There's no time, Captain. Our orders are to continue on course at all costs."
Vanessa clenched her fists, hating that they were right. "Understood, Phobos. Good luck." The current situation could only turn worse for them all, and she did not intend to remain idle. The Jeanne d'Arc shook as its barrier system shrugged off two more near misses, and a terrible resolve formed in Vanessa's heart. She pounded her clenched fist into the palm of her unyielding cybernetic hand. "That's enough! Conn, steer course one-eight-three-five! Take us between the enemy cruisers and the strike module. Maximum combat thrust!"
"Aye, aye Captain!" Reda called back gleefully.
"Ma'am?" Liem questioned calmly.
"We're not going to sit here and wait for the battlepods to surround and overwhelm us, Commander. Update the admiral, and request close support from our destroyers and Manhattan, then ready all batteries to fire to port and starboard. We're breaking the enemy line!"
"We won't last long at point blank range against that many capital ships," Liem pointed out. "This is not the SDF-1."
"We won't last at all if the Phobos doesn't get through. You have your orders." Vanessa's voice was uncompromising, and Liem nodded deferentially.
"Yes, Captain."
"Concentrate firepower on the strike module. It has to be stopped!"
Jeanne d'Arc's main drives hummed beneath her, and the heavy warship powered toward the enemy formation. The REF's escort destroyers blew past the bridge observation port in a blur, doing their best to form a bulwark against the cohorts of battlepods, now pouring past the fleet's beleaguered Lightnings by the hundreds and encroaching on the carrier's portside flank.
"Target locked, Captain!" Liem confirmed.
"The assault team has evacuated the surface of the strike module. Our firing lane is clear," May reported in a stiff voice, keeping her back to her crewmates.
"Then fire!"
The Jeanne d'Arc lashed the strike module with every turret that could be brought to bear, even as the enemy warship continued to direct all the weaponry it had left at the distant form of the Phobos. Interrupting the deadly encounter, a cluster of missiles blossomed against the Jeanne dArc's defenses, turning the energy bleeding off of the barrier system a worrying shade of sickly green.
"Enemy fire is intensifying on our port side. Both enemy cruisers are focusing on us."
"Steady as she goes," Vanessa replied. "We have to hold them off for a few more minutes. Port side batteries, concentrate on the trailing cruiser. If we hit it hard enough, it may have to drop out of the fight entirely."
"Moy Kapitain, I'm monitoring an incoming transmission!" Garro yelled triumphantly. "It's Task Force Five!"
The unfamiliar voice came over the speakers, laced with static, but strong.
"- repeating, this is UEF cruiser Hastings. We are receiving your signal, Task Force Two. We have four destroyers and a fleet tender with us. There are several thousand survivors planet-side that urgently need evac. Please advise."
"Operations is relaying them a coded burst with their mission orders," Garro said. A ragged round of cheers and sighs of relief sounded through the bridge. The battle was not won, but hope was returning. Then Penelope spun her seat around to face Vanessa, alarmed.
"Captain, Phobos is in trouble!"
The strike module, unknowing or uncaring of the communications that had already reached the Hastings, was ignoring its tormenter, and continued to direct all of its dwindling energy at Phobos.
"Captain, our main drives are hit!" Priest shouted, his voice barely intelligible through the heavy hiss of static. "We're abandoning ship! We're-"
The voice of Vanessa's science officer abruptly cut off. Penelope, watching her instruments closely, stiffened and lost all color. "I'm reading a Reflex furnace overload... Phobos destroyed."
"The strike module's thrusters were critically damaged by our last salvo." Liem reported. "It's tumbling out of control."
"Damn them," Vanessa whispered. Anger and grief were curdling in her gut. Another crime to lay at the feet of the Masters.
"Captain?"
"Finish them off," she said flatly.
"Aye, Captain. Locking main batteries."
Everyone bent to their tasks- everyone except May, who roused herself and locked eyes with her captain. Vanessa felt a jolt. The grief she expected was there in May's glistening brown eyes, but also concern and… reproach? What did I just do? She turned back to Liem.
"Belay that last order, Commander. Retarget all weapons on the cruisers. They're the primary threat. Conn, bring us below the plane of their advance. We'll try to sandwich them between ourselves and Task Force Five."
Vanessa wiped sweat from her brow and looked over at May again. Her XO was back at her station, as if nothing had passed between them. Banishing any more second thoughts untilt after the battle was won, she focused on keeping her command intact. Within moments, Commander Duy's skillfully targeted fire tore open the belly of the rearmost cruiser, and a followup barrage of missiles from the Manhattan ripped the burning vessel apart in a titanic explosion. But the destruction of one foe gave the Jeanne d'Arc no respite. The other cruiser put itself in a plunging dive relative to the REF flagship, and cut loose with a close range volley of its heavy dorsal weaponry in the few seconds before their differing vectors separated them again. She shielded her eyes against the strobing of the barrier's energy field, and saw May's monitor flash red for the second time since the battle began.
"Barrier collapse," May intoned emotionlessly. "Subsystems D, C, and F have overheated and fused. Restarting is impossible. Engineering is deploying repair crews. Estimated repair time… eight hours. Captain, we are now without defenses."
Outside the forward viewport, the green glare of the barrier had faded. Vanessa saw the squadron of friendly escort fighters, which had matched the Jeanne d'Arc's every maneuver since the beginning of the battle, suddenly power up their engines. By fours, they broke formation and disappeared from view in flashes of blue-white thruster wash.
"All defense turrets to full readiness!" Duy Liem announced. "A large force of battlepods is entering our critical threat range! We are about to come under close assault!"
For twenty minutes of intense battle, Task Force Two held its ground, enduring missile attacks and mecha raids, but Admiral Mbande's skill and the bravery of the crews prevented the superior Zentraedi forces from overwhelming the REF. The destroyers Minotaur, Medusa, and Harpy executed a daring counterattack, plowing through the swarming battlepods, firing their turrets in every direction, and temporarily scattering the attackers, but at the cost of the Harpy, which spun away towards the planet, leaking precious atmosphere from a dozen major hull breaches.
Lieutenant Abargil, white-knuckled and dripping sweat at his station, but steady-voiced, exploited the brief opportunity, and rallied the dwindling Lightning squadrons, keeping the battlepods back from the capital ships just a little longer. But then the enemy command ship arrived to deliver the coup de grace. It might have lacked the heavy beam cannons of its lost strike module, but it had powerful weapons of its own. Launch silos disgorged another four dozen anti-warship missiles, spreading like grasping tentacles from a venomous jellyfish, and setting off howling alarms on the bridge of the Jeanne d'Arc.
"All stations, brace for impact!" Vanessa commanded, and down the ship's thousand meter length, the crew prepared as best they could, sealing every blast door, and temporarily cutting off the flow of munitions from the carrier's prodigious magazines to its missile tubes. The great hangar bays were shut like a medieval fortress closing its gates against a siege, leaving three squadrons of Lightnings, freshly rearmed, unable to launch, and stranding still more outside in the wild, unmanageable dogfight that promised to soon engulf the big warships. Gunnery officers, engineering technicians, and damage control teams spared brief, anxious glances and hastily stepped into vacuum suits, helping each other to pull on the unwieldy garments before grabbing their helmets off of stowage racks. Reda Sertos took the ship into another extreme turn, angling to take the incoming missiles on the bow, as far away as possible from the most vital components - the bridge, the flight decks, the ammunition magazines, and engineering. Taking one last look at her bridge crew and making sure they were secure, Vanessa folded down a jump seat and strapped herself in, Penelope's grim countdown to impact ringing in her ears.
When they arrived, the missiles were not a single impact, but a wave of overlapping blows that crashed against the ship for heartstopping seconds that seemed to drag on forever. Never, in two previous engagements, nor even in today's battle, had the Jeanne d'Arc been wounded like this. The bridge lights failed, then came back the cold, dim, sepulchral blue of the emergency backups. The bridge operators hung on, enduring the assault with gritted teeth, and Vanessa's stomach gave a lurch as Gravity Control flickered out, and for a full count of thirty, Down became Sideways. Everything not secured to the deck or a bulkhead cascaded onto the portside bulkhead with an unholy noise, and on the flight deck, the waiting Lightnings, launch crews, and service equipment tumbled into an untidy heap. Vanessa and the others gagged as the force of gravity wobbled in different directions for a nauseating moment. Then Gravity Control snapped back into operation, and the corridors and compartments rattled a second time with a hail of falling and skittering ship's stores. At last the battering ended, and Vanessa panted as she unstrapped from her seat, already feeling new lines of bruises forming across her chest.
"All stations, report! Are we still in the fight?" Casualties would be addressed and mourned later, right now, for the sake of everyone in Task Force Two, and the survivors of Task Force Five, more practical concerns reigned supreme.
"Main drives at full power," Reda answered, sounding a bit dazed. "I'll bring us back in line with Manhattan."
"Heavy damage to sections forward of bulkhead forty-two. Frontal point defenses are down by sixty percent. Number One and Two turrets have taken direct hits and are out of action," Liem reported.
"The Flight Deck is a complete wreck, and there are heavy casualties down there," Abargil said resignedly. "We can't launch or recover any fighters until the damage has been dealt with. I'm sending destroids in to untangle the wrecked Lightnings. We'll see if any of them are still spaceworthy."
"Do your best," Vanessa told him. She looked at May. Her XO had weathered the attack, and found herself in a place beyond grief, fear, or pain. Without prompting, she had again taken over management of damage control. But what, Vanessa wondered, would remain of her friend at the day's end? Then Garo put through a priority communication from Admiral Mbande.
"Your damage assessment, Captain? Can the Jeanne d'Arc continue to fight?" she asked curtly. The Operations Center, relatively safe at the heart of the ship, was far from pristine. Vanessa could see cracks in one of the huge displays, shaken technicians regaining their seats, and a small blizzard of scattered paperwork, but the admiral projected calm as always. Only Vanessa could see the subtle shift of her shoulders, the tilt of her jaw.
"There's no backing out now," Vanessa said. "Our formations are too intermingled. We fight on regardless."
Mbande nodded her approval. "'I'm sending the destroyers ahead to screen us from the enemy command ship. Manhattan will hold off the other cruiser. You'll have to rally the veritech squadrons and endure whatever the battlepods can throw at us."
Vanessa looked at Penelope's monitor, confirming the positions of the destroyers and their foes, then turned back, disturbed by what she saw. "The destroyers can't go in unsupported! They're almost certain to be wiped out if you do that!"
"We must, Captain. We can't survive another barrage like that last one… unless you feel retreat is an option?"
Vanessa frowned. Mbande was doing it again, probing, prodding, testing, when we're fighting for our lives! But she knew the answer, much as she wished she could think of another way. "Retreat is not an option."
Mbande nodded. "We have little time, but neither do they. Carry on, Captain."
The screen blanked. Vanessa took a breath. Trust is meaningless if it's not tested, she told herself.
"Conn, cut us across the command ship's approach vector and angle our belly to face them. Tactical, keep up a steady fire. I don't want its attention wandering. We'll have to rely on Manhattan to guard our flank."
The five destroyers surged forward gallantly, every turret firing, and throwing out a full spectrum of jamming, managing to thwart two missile barrages that would have torn the Jeanne d'Arc to pieces. Manhattan continued its duel with its enemy counterpart. The mecha battle was close now, easily visible from the Jeanne d'Arc's bridge. Scores of winking firefly flashes of light signaled the deaths of Terran and Zentraedi pilots, and once, more alarmingly, a battlepod flew past the bridge tower, hotly pursued by a Lightning from the Werewolves, identified by its full moon and wolf's head insignia.
Then the last four Zentraedi frigates, lurking at the fringes of the battlespace like hyenas after the bloodying they had received earlier, descended on the vulnerable destroyers, timing their attack as the command ship unleashed another full salvo of missiles from its dwindling supply. The destroyers held course, refusing to leave their flagship unprotected, intercepting most of the missiles, and then the frigates knifed through their formation from above, spitting death.
"Damn it! Minotaur and Medusa destroyed!" Penelope yelled. The Jeanne d'Arc rattled, taking two hits amidships.
"Changeling reports a drive failure, moy Kapitain! They're out of the fight!" Garo added. Anger boiled in Vanessa's blood. Too many had sacrificed themselves already.
"Tactical, retarget ventral batteries! I want those frigates gone! Conn, take us to point blank range with the command ship. We'll nullify their missile advantage."
"Ha! I can do better than that! I can out-turn that big green slug and leave it spinning circles trying to get a decent lock on us!" the cocky lieutenant assured her.
"I thought the Jeanne d'Arc was 'a clumsy tub'?"
"Just watch me," Reda said with a feral grin.
"Then do it."
The battle had become unsustainable, each side worrying at the other like a dog with a bone that had been stripped of meat. When Liem's gun crews punctured two of the retreating frigates and burst them like balloons, it gave the crew little cheer, for their own destroyers were now driven away or destroyed, and the ragged remnants of the fighter squadrons were closing in an ever tightening sphere around their mothership, struggling to keep the much reduced, but still superior battlepod hordes at bay. More than two dozen enemy tri-thrusters broke through the defense and made a reckless strike on the Jeanne d'Arc, and Liem was calling the remaining forward defense turrets to action, when the Lightnings of Fenghuang squadron, resplendent in crimson and fiery orange livery, slashed across their path, destroying half and forcing the rest to abort their attack run.
"Gotcha!" Reda called out triumphantly. Vanessa steadied herself against a wave of vertigo as the Jeanne d'Arc's bow plunged precipitously, but watching the screens, she saw that her helm officer had succeeded in drawing the command ship into a spiraling pursuit. Its next missile spread went awry, unable to get an accurate lock on the Jeanne d'Arc at such close range. Visual range. The SDF-1, in all its battles, had only closed to that distance a handful of times. The enemy vessel, now appearing more like a sinister, headless cuttlefish without its strike module, looked close enough to touch. Like wooden ships of the line, the two flagships now traded energy broadsides, leaving bleeding wounds of molten metal on each other's hulls. May regarded the sections flashing and turning yellow or red on her schematic readout, and looked over her shoulder at her captain. "We won't be able to stand up to this much longer," she said quietly.
"Moy Kapitain! Manhattan has lost engine power! They warn that the enemy cruiser has changed course and is moving to intercept us!"
"Our reinforcements are coming," Vanessa said firmly, watching a pair of Lightning battloids floating back to back above the scorched upper deck and firing into the sea of mecha swirling around them.
"Energy spike!" Penelope yelled. "Bearing two-nine-five! It's- it's- !"
It was the Hastings, and over two hundred veritechs, cresting the planetary horizon, the system's sun at their backs and obscuring their approach. The REF cruiser unloaded every one of its beam cannons into the command ship's thruster array, piercing it to its burning heart. The Zentraedi ship lost thrust and broke up slowly, secondary explosions splitting its armored skin and sending out plumes of fire, metal, and atmosphere like short lived solar flares. But there was no time to celebrate. The Jeanne d'Arc gave another shudder, taking a gut punch from the weapon batteries of the last enemy cruiser. Outside the viewport, battlepods were descending directly on to the upper deck, and their paired particle beams cut across one of the red and orange Lightning battloids, sending an arm and a leg spinning away, trailing bright droplets of melted alloy. It tumbled out of view and slammed into the superstructure just a few meters below the bridge, sending an even greater shock through Vanessa and her crew. This time, even the backup lights failed, leaving only monitors and instruments to light the desperate faces of the bridge operators in a fractured kaleidoscope of blues, greens, yellows, and reds. Abargil cried out and fell from his seat, his station sparking and pouring smoke from its panels and vents. Liem lunged for the fire extinguisher stowed above the forward stations and attacked the electrical fire with bursts of vapor. Reda glanced sidelong at the flames and gulped, but kept resolutely at the conn. Vanessa rushed to Abargil and dragged him away from the fire, then helped him to his feet. He was alive and unhurt, but she knew the hit was a bad one. No mere glancing blow would have knocked out the backups, or surged through hardened bridge systems. The Zentraedi might not claim victory today, but they could still claim vengeance.
"May, get a damage control team up here, and then grab another extinguisher. I need Tactical and Flight Direction back!" Vanessa ordered, determined to keep control of the situation.
"Aye, aye!"
"Comms, Sensors, what can you tell me?"
"Hastings reports they're on approach, moy Kapitain, but they're still too far to be effective against that cruiser. Their destroyers are tied up chasing away the last of the enemy frigates."
"Enemy cruiser is angling for a close range intercept!" Penelope met her Captain with a wide, frightened gaze. "I think it's a suicide run!"
"Reda, can you evade?"
"I'm trying, but that last exchange knocked out a lot of our maneuvering thrusters! They might not even need to ram us to finish us off!"
Another hit caused Vanessa to stumble, and she caught herself against the rear bulkhead, aft of Penelope's station. Her fingers brushed smooth, polished brass and etched letters. The Jeanne d'Arc's dedication plaque. The bridge lights were still out, but Vanessa knew the words well. I am not afraid. I was born to do this.
"You won't let them beat us, Reda. None of you will," Vanessa said, her voice carrying to every station.
The enemy cruiser loomed large ahead of them now, partially obscured by the constant crisscross of battlepod and veritech energy weapons, and it struck Vanessa just how much the other warship looked like the head of a great crocodile. Reda was angling to avoid that terrible visage, though it was anyone's guess as to whether they would survive the storm of fire that it would unleash as it passed. Then a flash of white lit the bridge like day and Vanessa thought the end had come.
But it was still a day for rescues. The glow faded, and something was between them and their attacker. Something big.
"Defold reaction!" Penelope belatedly reported, her voice squeaking with disbelief.
"Impossible!" Vanessa said, shaking her head. "Space Station Liberty hasn't even assembled a relief force yet! What ship is that!"
"Type is… Tiresian freighter? It's the Shalazar!"
Kaden what have you done? Vanessa wondered, furious. You promised to protect them! "Open a channel! I want to talk to Colonel Kravshera immediately!"
"Pardon me, Captain," Reda interrupted, sounding the collision alarm, "but you might want to strap in. We're about to hit the Shalazar." She sounded more offended than anxious.
In fact, the Shalazar somehow managed to strike glancing blows to both the Jeanne d'Arc and the Zentraedi cruiser, one after another. The three ships, with their super tough Robotech hulls, suffered only minor damage, but they all caromed off of each other in new directions, and the desperate firefight between the mecha was briefly snuffed out by the terrifying passage of millions of tons of metal through their midst. The Shalazar recovered first, and its yawning launch bays disgorged hundreds of fresh battlepods and tri-thrusters. If the REF crews were surprised by the turn of events, then their foes were shocked into near paralysis by the arrival of a Tiresian ship and swarms of hostile Zentraedi attackers. As Reda stabilized the Jeanne d'Arc, and Vanessa found her feet again, she was treated to a view of battlepods, crudely emblazoned across their plastrons with the interlocking red circles and black triangles of the REF, blasting their counterparts to bits. The Shalazar was extremely close, and she could make out individual portholes and the open portals of the launch bays. It was partially shielding the Jeanne d'Arc with its own bulk. Beyond it, the enemy cruiser's blackened snout was drifting into view.
"Moy Kapitain," Garo said, frowning with concentration as he held his headphones to his ear, "I think I have the Colonel. Putting him through now."
A familiar voice crackled through the damaged amplifiers. "Launch the tanks."
"Launch the what?" Vanessa wondered, exchanging a confused look with May.
"He can't! The man's insane!" It was Commander Duy, and Vanessa had never heard him lose his cool like that. "The space flight augmentation packs aren't even in field trials yet!"
Vanessa rushed forward and peered out past her flabbergasted tactical officer. Another pair of airlock portals had irised open on the Shalazar's belly, and by pairs, every hovertank in Kaden's battalion was
hurling itself into space. There was no true up or down, but each one switched to battloid mode as it exited, and appeared to drop, spread-eagled, towards the Jeanne d'Arc's upper deck, which was a shambles of torn hull, burned out weapon turrets, and crippled or destroyed mecha. Vanessa strode back to Garo's station and roughly grabbed the voice transmitter from his hand.
"Colonel! What are you doing out there?"
"Bringing the artillery," Kaden answered with dry amusement. "I'm afraid the Shalazar's own armaments are quite inadequate."
The ship rattled again and again, as if it was being hammered by rocky asteroids. The hovertanks were colliding with the deck and reconfiguring to gladiator mode as they scrabbled and slid, mag-locking their immensely broad feet to the hull. Two missed the ship entirely, spinning off into the void along with the debris trailing the Jeanne d'Arc, their drivers trusting in a victory and quick action by search and rescue craft to save their lives. The rest righted themselves and brought their heavy cannons to bear on the enemy cruiser which was now more than half exposed.
"Coordinate barrage on my target point," Kaden ordered his drivers. "Fire!"
The hovertanks loosed a ragged volley that left bright golden afterimages in Vanessa's vision. The cannonade converged just behind the nose of the cruiser and exploded, opening a small wound in the flank of the enormous ship. But Kaden's forces fired again and again, widening the hull breach into a gushing cauldron of fire.
"I want all remaining weapons locked on that area!" Vanessa ordered. "Push our targeting data to the Hastings. It's time to end this!"
The cruiser began to roll, attempting to protect the damaged area from further pounding, but it was too late. A pair of Warhawk anti-ship missiles streaked in, evading a cat's cradle of defensive fire, and found the breach. There was a double flash of light, and then the forward third of the cruiser slowly, almost majestically, separated from the aft section, glowing with the inferno raging inside it. Deck by deck, the last enemy capital ship lost power and went silent. Vanessa watched the incredible sight and listened to her crew's reports.
"Scopes are clear. No major threats remaining," Penelope said.
"Confirmed, all enemy capital ships are out of action. Destroyers are coordinating with our fighter squadrons to mop up the last battlepods." Liem added.
"Good. May?"
"Our damage control crews will be able to move more efficiently now. I'll have a damage report for you within the hour," May answered. Her friend still held herself rigid and controlled. It was admirable, but also worrying. Before she could respond, Admiral Mbande appeared on the monitor.
"A fine day's work, Captain, although the cost was considerable. My compliments to your crew."
"Thank you, Admiral. Your orders?"
"Prioritize search and recovery operations. I have Lothal docking with Manhattan to provide assistance. But also begin preparing a landing team to find and rescue the survivors of Task Force Five on the planet."
"Understood."
"Oh, and Captain?"
"Yes?"
Mbande smiled thinly. "I look forward to your accounting of Colonel Kravshera's actions."
Vanessa's answering smile was equally strained. "Of course, Admiral." As the screen blanked, she returned to Garo.
"I have the Colonel now," he said, anticipating her demand.
"Permission to come aboard, Captain?" Kaden asked sardonically. "It's getting rather chilly out here."
The nerve of the man! "Granted, Colonel," she answered, her tone one of false joviality. "And feel free to place yourself under arrest once you're aboard. You'll find it's chilly in here, too." Kaden had the audacity to chuckle at that, and she cut him off with a sharp stab of her finger to Garo's control panel.
"Captain, I have a priority update from SRR-Four," Abargil spoke up with unexpected excitement in his voice. "They've found Commander Reyes's Lightning and they've recovered him! The CAG is alive and conscious. His fighter took a near miss from a heavy beam turret that fused all of its systems. He's being treated for symptoms of heat exhaustion and minor burns. They're inbound now."
That was enough. As the other technicians shared smiles and happy chatter at the news, Vanessa watched the color return to May's features. Her XO's face screwed up as she clenched her fists.
"That reckless, irresponsible idiot!" May managed to choke out.
"XO!" Vanessa beckoned her from the other end of the bridge. "I have an urgent assignment for you."
"Yes, Captain?" May answered, blinking heavily at the tears already forming in her eyes. Vanessa placed her hands on May's shoulders and smiled softly.
"I need you to get down to Sick Bay and check on the status of our casualties. Place priority on visiting our CAG and assessing his condition."
"Aye, Captain. Thank you," May said, trying on a smile of her own.
And so it would continue, Vanessa knew. A day that mingled triumph, loss, tragedy, and hope. There were a thousand details for her to attend to, thousands of comrades-in-arms still to be rescued, and so many unanswered questions. Like what a certain Marine thought he was doing, playing cavalry.
Next chapter… the colonel's confession, surreptitious descent, and viridian skies...