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As soon as the air had been coave Walter another thumbs-up For Cole’s benefit, she tried to keep her surface thoughts to a minimum; she didn’t want to distract him while he sweet-talked the patrol watch

In her own head, s’s authorization nu them on the surface of histhe tension as he waited for the guard to acknowledge

Beside the hangar bay’s red atreen to red The doors opened a crack, then slid apart and revealed the star field beyond Cole eased forward, pulling the slack out of the towline Parsona lurched, the landing gear scraped on the deck, then Cole angled up and brought both ships high in the lock before they exited into clear space

As the two ships pulled out of thetheir ere electronic ones Their signature on SADAR would appear a little larger than norht to fear anything leaving the belly of their own ship, which lace And besides, the ship ID blinking over the blip would perfectly match the newly revised patrol roster Screen-watchers no doubt would sip their cold coffee and continue swapping lewd jokes and lewder lies

It would be another hour before anyone was scheduled to check the hangar bay or deliver breakfast to the detention cells

Should be h time

••••

"Okay, we’re well outside the fleet periht "Any further and they’ll wonder e’re patrolling"

Molly laughed and glanced through the starboard porthole; the constellation of cruisers and destroyers flashed and twinkled like bright, nearby stars

"This’ll do," she agreed

"What’ss sso funny?" Walter asked her "I wanna wear a red band"

"They aren’t toys, now keep it down so I can concentrate"

Walter sank in the nav seat "What a wasste, ssending one with hinored Walter and reached for the tow release "Disengaging," she thought, as she pulled the handle The taut cable ahead of her wavered with the release of tension, and they were free, drifting with their forward h away to not throw her juravity

"Ladies first," he thought

She smiled, but there were better reasons for her to jureat if his ship ID disappeared fro hers exposed Plus, if he juht confuse both of their hyperspace signatures, confounding, or at least confusing, the pursuit efforts

Her hyperdrive had been spinning up ever since they left the carrier Molly brought the rest of Parsona on-line, her ship’s identificationto the fleet She watched the nav screen, just waiting for the ju over the hyperdrive switch

"Be careful," she thought

"You, too," Cole replied

The ship careen

"I wanna pussh it!" Walter yelled

But it was too late The stars had already shifted

••••

Cole watched his SADAR display intently Parsona’s ship ID flashed for a brief moment, then winked away

Success

His own hyperdrive was already spinning up; he checked the coordinates on his nav display one final tiht three-two-seven, this is the Cruiser Denali Riggs, we just had a glitch on our SADAR Picked up a ship ID near you guys Can you do us a favor and sweep that area? We s writhed against his restraints and shouted into his cheeks, desperate to signal his allies

Cole saw an opportunity to delay the pursuit "Roger, Denali, we have an anoonna check it out for the science boys Be right back"

After a pause, the radio cackled with more questions as Cole lifted the cover on the juh his consciousness besides the radio: Molly’s words slicing through his own thoughts

"Did you say so?"

"Molly?"

"Yeah? Where are you?"

"We haven’t juuess we’ll be able to keep in touch on the way to Lok"

"Well, it ood for whatever kinda batteries these run on"

"Yeah Hey, I gotta jump One of the cruisers saw you leave"

"Okay Hey, Cole?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you"

"Me, too See you soon"

But Cole rong Dead wrong

He pressed the red button with his gloved finger, and the instruction to juh the nav computer on its way to the hyperdrive Normally, it would pick up the coordinates locked into the dash display and carry this location to the drive in the rear of the Firehawk

Not this tied No matter what numbers were computed in the nav display, only one set of coordinates were ever going to be sent to the hyperdrive ever again Those numbers were picked up and sent back If Cole could have seen them, looked at what they referenced on his nav chart, he would have been screa the two old friends winked out of space, departing the fleet forever<ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>