Cloak of War by Casey Calouette

Author:Casey Calouette [Calouette, Casey]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Published: 2017-10-18T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I walk down the length of the Orca and back again. My thoughts rumble on the mission, the future, a decent steak dinner with a bottle of cheap whiskey, and Captain Hallverson. The captain has surged back into his stormy self and is not pleasant to be around.

So I pace in my off hours. The ship is just long enough to get a decent train of thought going, and then I have to turn around. It feels like I’m getting nowhere, figuratively and literally. Just like the Orca.

Every day, Tyrolean freighters pass through. Big, bulky things with holds filled with all sorts of goodies. All headed to the same place: to support the fleet that is chasing after Admiral Roberta.

And every day, we let them go.

The mood of the crew matches that of Hallverson. Shitty. They sulk. They slam fists when the iridium detector is silent. They grumble under their breath about losing the war.

Darkest of all is Hallverson himself. He takes to sitting in the captain’s chair with rings under his eyes. Hours pass, on watch and off, and still he stares at the signals moving in and out of the system.

First, he orders the tech crews to inspect the iridium detector. Then we clear cloaking gas off of the detector port just to make sure the signal isn’t masked. Bertha, the empty torpedo, goes out with our test sample of iridium.

It sounds like a church bell. Our detector is working perfectly.

This doesn’t make Hallverson feel any better. He swears and runs his scarred hands over his head.

How long can he function like this? He is a chained tiger, one that will eventually snap that chain.

I try to patch things up with Henna. Her mood isn’t much better, but at least she talks to me. She watches me go past half a dozen times before finally calling out, “Halt!”

“Hi, Henna,” I say as I look down at her.

She pushes a strand of auburn hair off her brow. “Can you pace all day?”

“Can you sleep all day?”

Henna slides off her bunk and stretches. There’s a half-washed patch of grease on one arm that has stained her blankets. “Any excitement up front?”

I shake my head. “Any excitement in back?”

Henna frowns. “They’re grumpy as hell.”

“Same up front.”

“How you doing otherwise?”

“This ship weirds me out.” She sits back down onto the bunk.

“A ghost ship, I know,” I say back to her.

“Jager,” she says in a quiet voice, “don’t mock me. I’m telling you, there’s nothing good that will come out of this tour.”

I cock my head. “And how do you know?”

“I’ve got a hunch!”

I look back at her. She’s dead serious. “Henna, I can’t run a ship on a hunch.”

She shakes her head and lies back down. “You probably should.”

The intercom crackles to life. “Mr. Jager, to the bridge, please.”

“Duty calls.”

I walk away. One of these days, when we aren’t stuck on a tube surrounded by cloaking gas, I’ll ask her out on a date. Superstition or not, she’s cute. Why haven’t I already? I mean, back at the frat, I was a bit of a ladies’ man.

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