HostileIntent Read Online Free Page A

communications badge. “Tactical
officer to Captain.”
    “Captain here, go ahead.”
    “There seems to be a technical problem with my console. I’m
going to need maintenance here at the earliest convenience.”
    “Is it a critical error?” Irritation buzzed through the comm
with the usual static.
    “Looks superficial, sir. One of the technicians must have
snagged a wire on his way out. It needs to be fused back together.”
    “It’ll have to wait until after we jump.”
    “But—”
    “If I send him now, we’ll miss our scheduled window.”
    And if a ship missed its window, it was thrown in a standby
rotation, which was overseen by the flight control captain. Adam didn’t want
his assignment’s timetable in someone else’s hands any more than she apparently
did.
    “Of course. It can wait until after the jump. Thank you,
sir.”
    “Captain out.”
    After the jump. They’d be able to set a secured channel
after the jump.
    That left the exit strategy. His hand went reflexively to
the canister of sleeping gas in his flak jacket. He was going to have to find
someplace to hide it now that he was on the ship. The last thing he needed
right now was to have it found. There was no justification for him to have
sleeping gas.
    “This is your captain. All systems are a go and we’ve been
given launch clearance,” her voice crackled through his communicator.
    The ship creaked as it was slowly lifted and guided out of
the docking bay by two single-person vessels. It was the hollow metallic thud
of the vessels detaching a few minutes later that told him they were in space.
“All hands strap in. We’re jumping to null-space as soon as we clear the
station’s gravity field.”
    Looked as if hiding the gas was going to have to wait until
after the jump as well.
    Still, as he pulled the safety harness over his head, he
couldn’t help but smile. This was it. Once they jumped, she couldn’t throw him
off her ship. Or at least it became a lot harder for her to throw him off. Everything
about the woman cautioned him that she would, given the right incentive,
though.
    The vessel shimmied as it launched into the vacuum of space
and then—there was nothing. For an eternity the room wrapped around him and his
lungs refused the order to breathe. Even his heart seemed to stop. It was only
when his lungs burned and the pressure in his ears was unbearable that they
burst through the veil and were back in normal space.
    It didn’t matter how many times he’d been in null-space,
each time the experience was as terrifying as the first.
    “We’ve reached the outer realms.” The captain’s voice was as
calm and collected as before they’d jumped. “From here on out we’re flying
silent, which means slow. Get comfortable, everyone.”
    Slow worked for him, especially while he was still gulping
in large lungfuls of air and clutching his hands together to keep them from
shaking.
    Undoing his restraints, he hit his communications badge to
call the mechanic but was stopped abruptly as a metallic boom rocked the ship
around him. The explosion’s bass was so deep and intense he could feel it
radiating from his sternum to his toes.
    “Two shielded ships off the port bow, Sans.”
    It was too early for the Coalition to act. That could only
mean that someone else had plans for the captain. Though he couldn’t imagine
who else would have a dog in this fight. She was the military and he was
Coalition. Who else was there? He looked at his console screen but the radar
was blank. “Can’t see them on the radar, Captain.”
    “They’ve got stealth tech. Let’s knock on the heavens and
see who answers, shall we?”
    “Aye, Captain.” The burst of electromagnetic energy swept
through the void of space until it collided with the vessels. There were twin
pings on his radar but the ships recovered too quickly for him to gain any
other information. Flipping his view screen on, he was immediately dismayed to
see static instead of the