Ccg — 8.1.4

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

Elara stayed until the whine stopped. Then she took the chip, sealed Jin’s pod, and walked back to the Vindicator . Ccg 8.1.4

“The mission logs. The real ones. I stripped the encryption before the pod went dark.” He pressed the chip into her palm. “Promise me you’ll get this to Fleet Command. Not the Guard. Command . The people who don’t wear black.” Then she engaged the thrusters, and the Vindicator

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. “The mission logs

Elara knelt beside him. “Jin. We saw the Orion blow. We saw everything blow. How?”

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.