Exile Sky by Kate Sheeran Swed

Author:Kate Sheeran Swed
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kate Sheeran Swed

CHAPTER 11

Sloane had actually managed to drift into a doze, despite the persistent clatter of the wind and the whipping patter of snow that hammered the tent. She was well on her way to sleep, in fact, when her comm sounded in her ear. It wasn’t the usual chime, but a beep, followed by the scattered almost-sound of Hilda’s voice.

“Hilda,” she muttered, voice thick with sleep. “I can’t hear you. Wait out the storm.”

“…empty!” The one word spat back at her loud and clear, Hilda’s tone frantic.

Sloane sat up, scrunching her face, as if that would somehow help her to hear better through the static and the storm. The tent was quivering all around her, doing its best to keep out the weather that battered it from all directions. Ivy and Alex were both breathing slowly, still facing opposite sides of the tent. Away from Sloane.

She ran a hand over her cheeks. “I can’t hear you, Hilda.”

“…ander. He’s not… his tent.”

It was all Sloane could make out before Hilda’s voice disappeared behind a wall of uninterrupted static.

Unfortunately, it was enough. Or fortunately. Depended on who had to deal with the problem.

Gareth wasn’t in his tent, and Hilda somehow knew it. Probably up there bored and running scans—or BRO was—to keep track of them in the storm.

Sloane didn’t need to be a wilderness expert to know that no matter how much survival training the Fleet Commander might’ve completed, he’d be lost in a second in this storm.

She didn’t know where the man had found an orphaned kitten to rescue out here, but that was the only explanation she could possibly cobble together to explain this. That he’d heard something cute meowing outside and made a point to throw himself in harm’s way on its behalf.

Unless he’d been taken from his tent. But who could steal him in a storm like this? And how?

No time. Sloane threw off the sleeping bag and crawled out, already cursing the cold as she fished under the bag for her gloves. She probably should’ve slept with them on, but they’d felt tight, so she’d stowed them away at her feet. She located them and shoved them on her hands, adding a handful of tools from the backpack as an afterthought. A flashlight, a stack of mysterious dried puck things, and a canteen.

“Goddamn it, Gareth,” she said, mostly under her breath.

Not entirely, though. To her right, Ivy roused slightly. Sloane heard the movement more than she saw the other woman, and she tapped her lightly on the foot until Ivy said, “Hmm?”

“If I die,” Sloane said, “you’ll need to save the galaxy. Good luck with that.”

Ivy sat up, a question on her lips, but Sloane opened the flap and threw herself into the storm.

Snow coated her face as soon as she was out of the tent, and she snapped her goggles down over her eyes, shielding her nostrils with her gloved hand as ice tried to work its way into her sinuses.

Not that the goggles did a single goddamn thing to help her see.

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