Ccg 8.1.4 Review

Mercer leaned closer. “That’s insane. Point of origin for that code is Tartarus. We swept that sector. Nothing left but slag and silence.”

Then she engaged the thrusters, and the Vindicator rose out of the methane dark, carrying a dead man’s truth toward the stars.

“You stupid, stubborn bastard,” she whispered.

He looked like a corpse that had refused to lie down. His skin was gray. His left arm ended in a cauterized stump. But his eyes—those sharp, dark eyes—were alive. And they were smiling. Ccg 8.1.4

Elara’s hand trembled. She hadn’t seen that sequence in eleven years. Not since the Orion’s Fall had bled out over the methane lakes of Tartarus Secundus. Not since she’d left Commander Jin Sol for dead in the burning CIC.

Mercer didn’t ask questions. He just looked at her face and said, “Where to, Captain?”

“It’s a trap,” Mercer said. “The Syndicate. The Tarrans. Someone who cracked the old archives.” Mercer leaned closer

“I know what it is,” Elara said. “I wrote the damn protocol. Ccg: Command Contingency Group. 8.1.4: Abandon all protocols. Return to point of origin. The dead are not dead. ”

“Why didn’t you signal? We were in-system for a week after the battle.”

“We swept the debris field ,” Elara corrected. “We never went back to the surface.” We swept that sector

Jin reached into a pouch on his harness with his remaining hand. He pulled out a data chip, no bigger than her thumbnail.

“Captain—”

Elara’s blood turned to ice water. Sundog had been her callsign. Her secret callsign, known only to the eight members of Ccg Unit 8. Jin had given it to her after she’d navigated an asteroid field by the refraction of a distant star—a “sundog” in the void.

Elara went alone. Mercer argued. She went anyway.