Naero came out of jump a few hours later, far outside of the Memosan system.
Her three surviving Shadowforce escorts followed her, maintaining a close, protective formation around her battered craft.
One of the other pilots spoke up. “We should all be dead. What happened back there? None of us could have survived that level of fire.”
Their commander cut in over their secured link.
“Cut the speculation, Shock-Three. The point is we did make it out, even though we lost Shock-One and Shock-Four. Proceed on mission. Spacechild, this is Shock-Five leader. Continue to rendezvous at uploaded coordinates. Anything goes wrong, jump to secondary destination and seek out your first trust code backup contact. Do you wish us to take any of your friends with us?”
“Negative,” Naero said.
“They’ll be easy to make while you’re trying to escape. You might be better off alone or with a single companion.”
“I’m calling it. I won’t abandon my friends now.”
“We’ll cloak for your approach and stay in orbit until you jump out of system,” the commander said. “We will not contact you further, but we’ll be around for a while, if you run into trouble again.”
“Thanks, guys. Did Baeven tip you off?”
“Unknown. We obey orders. Don’t trust the outcast. He’s notorious for pursuing his own agenda.”
“I figured that out,” Naero said. “Was he really family at one time?”
“Emphasis on the ‘was.’ He got exiled for many good reasons. Remember that. Over and out.”
Naero thought hard about Baeven. He kept surprising her.
She still ached with each breath from his little lesson. Still tasted the faint coppery tang of blood in her mouth–her own blood. But she continued to heal rapidly.
Yet without Baeven’s masterful power play during the fake auction, they would not have their answers and in a way, in theory at least, an ability to both detect and decode the Kexxian Data Matrix.
First she needed to know something.
Om, that flash of defensive screen there at the end. Was that you? Did you somehow manage to…
Silence.
Om? You still with me?
The response when it came, felt very weak.
Om…nearly destroyed. Must…shut down other functions, including contact with Naero. Must…affect repairs. Signing off.
Om? Om, what happened? What did you do?
Silence.
Whatever happened, Om sounded in pretty bad shape.
Naero unstrapped from her pilot seat and got out. She had her own worries.
She needed to hurry while they were still on approach to their rendezvous with Spacer Intel.
First some continued self-healing, and then–revive her friends.