Page 69 of Starfighter’s Salvation

I was proud of her. Proud that she'd chosen me. Proud that she was mine.

Over the open channel I heard Gina stop hard. “You,” she said, and something in the word turned my head from my control panels to the ramp's video feed. She’d dropped beside a man crumpled against the clinic wall — Velerion, chest and side a ruin, one hand already lifted toward her as if he’d been waiting for exactly her face. “Of all the—” She bit it off. His mouth was moving, fast and urgent through the blood, forcing out words he didn’t have the air for. Gina pressed two fingers to his lips. “Don’t. Don’t you dare waste breath on talking. I know you. Ferros Trench.”

A rough sound cracked out of her, closer to a sob than a laugh. “You have the worst luck in the galaxy, you know that? Twice. Save it. You can tell me when you’re not busy dying.”

I had almost no memory of him. Didn't recognize his face. I’d probably dismissed him as alive and stable in that bunker on Xenon and forgotten him. Gina hadn’t forgotten anyone in her life. Whoever he was, she already had him on a frame and moving before he could argue.

Weapons' fire struck the section of the outer dome closest to us. The pressure warning for the entire base changed from yellow to red and alarms screamed. Soon, no one would be able to breathe in here. The dome could no longer contain the pressurized air.

“That breach in the outer ring is expanding,” Mia reported. “You have three minutes before the emergency seals fail.”

“You said we had eight.” I watched as Gina disappeared inside the clinic.

“That was five minutes ago.”

Two clinic staff tried to run back inside for a medical generator. Gina blocked them at the clinic doors and waved them back toward the ship. “Leave it.”

“The respiratory patients need backup power.”

“The ship has power. Those patients need you alive. Move.”

One staff member hesitated. Gina pointed toward the ramp. “That's an order.”

He moved. I watched the ramp, the ship’s sensors, and Gina, in that order and in no order at all, while the mission timer ticked off seconds with a ruthless pace.

“Enemy infantry unit entering through the maintenance ring,” Jamie reported. “We can hold them off on the outside. The ones already inside are yours. Heads up.”

Already inside? “Mia?" I was very glad we had Gina's new friends along on this mission. Jamie and Alexius were skilled fighter pilots. Mia and Kassius could hack into the Dark Fleet's control systems, and the dome's. "Mia? You there? Do you see them? Talk to me.”

“I see them. Two units. On foot. They are moving toward your position.”

Fuck. I hopped out of my seat and ran to the rear of the ship to find Gina. The final patient came through the back ramp on a suspension frame. Clinic staff followed and started buckling in. Twenty souls on board. A pilot I didn't recognize, a Lieutenant walked past me with a broken left arm but seemed otherwise unhurt. "Name?" I asked him.

"Lieutenant Maro, sir."

“Lieutenant, we've got incoming, wounded, and my mate on this ship. Tell me the truth. Can you fly?”

He looked around the Salvation. “This?”

“Yes.”

“With one arm?”

“Yes.”

“Absolutely.” His confidence allowed me to let out the breath I'd been holding.

“Good. Take the pilot's seat and get ready to take off.”

Gina appeared at the base of the ramp looking up at me through the transparent face of her helmet. The air in the dome was almost gone. “Why is my patient going to the cockpit?”

“Contingency.”

She narrowed her eyes. Before she could ask, Mia’s voice cut across the operational channel.

“Corvan, change of problem. The enemy is not moving toward the clinic. They reached the cradle control ring. They're taking it offline. You're going to be stuck."

The station's locking clamps shifted, made the Salvation's hull screech. Warning lights sparkled inside the ship. The cradle doors began closing under the ship like two giant blades sliding horizontally across the small cargo area. If they continued on to close, they would crush the Salvation's underbelly or cut her in half.