Page 273 of Commander’s Mate

He shrugged inside his armor.

“You said it first.”

We descended.

Harper.

Not a plea to save me. A name.

“Team One diverting to lower nursery access,” I transmitted. “Registry priority received.”

The nursery was below the processing level, behind a door jammed by a structural shift. We used cutters, not explosives. It cost four minutes we did not have.

Inside were three children and one dead caretaker.

The smallest child was screaming his mother’s name.

“Lio Tarven?” I asked.

He stared at my armor, terrified.

I opened my helmet again.

“Your mother is alive,” I told him. “She sent your name.”

He stopped screaming.

I carried him out myself.

The enemy troop shuttle came in low while we crossed the compound. Our covering shuttle hit it before landing; it crashed beyond the fence in a burst of dust and flame. A second group of Sargus soldiers had already reached the processing lane.

I turned to return fire and felt an armor-piercing round strike hard along my ribs.

Pain flashed white.

I went to one knee.

“Commander!” Pyrr shouted.

My suit sealed around the breach before I finished cursing. The round had penetrated the outer plate and scored flesh, but not deeply. Painkiller flooded my system.

“Functional,” I said.

“That was not the question.”

“It is the answer you are getting.”

I rose.

Somewhere on Dreadnought One, Harper was probably hearing enough command traffic to know I had been hit.

She was going to be furious.

The thought steadied me more effectively than the stimulant.

We loaded the last reachable prisoners as Degatu called final withdrawal. Dread Eight had crippled the enemy carrier but more ships were appearing at the edge of the system.

“We leave now,” Degatu ordered. “Anything not aboard stays.”