From Darkness

[Manticore]

LAMBERT

It had been an excruciatingly long day, and Lambert’s patience and decorum had been taken to the very brink by having to deal with Lieutenant Steven Falkland. Several uncomplimentary descriptions of the man ran through his mind, each more vulgar than the one before. It was clearly going to be a long deployment aboard the Mesa Verde, for not only was this man commanding the ship that should be Lambert’s, he was seemingly going out of his way to make his subordinate’s lives more difficult.

The only solace Lambert could find in the situation was that the lieutenant didn’t seem to have any real interest in the marines or their work. Perhaps that would leave Lambert some room to spend a little more time among the marines than he would otherwise. That was assuming the damned lieutenant would lay off him for long enough, of course.

He sighed and leaned back in his pilot’s seat, the trade lane glowing outside the cockpit glass slowly fading to black as he closed his eyes. Things had really been starting to look up for him - until today. Funny how that always seemed to work out – the thing he’d been looking forward to the most turned out to be the biggest disappointment.

After a long moment, he opened his eyes again. The Hudson gate was looking back at him through the glass, as if taunting him to pass through. Technically he wasn’t supposed to patrol so close to the Rheinland border alone, but tonight he desperately wanted to. He had last seen Pita in Hudson two months ago, and every week or so he found himself battling the urge to swing by Atka just one more time… just to check.

Damn it, man. She’s gone. You’re going to have to deal with it.

Yet… somehow his hand found its way down to the console, and initiated the docking sequence.

Inside the endless tunnel of light that carried him to Hudson, he lamented his lack of good sense.

* * *

After taking the lane to Atka, he was surprised to pick up an unidentified contact on his scopes. It wasn’t reading as hostile, which a Rheinland Military patrol certainly would, and it was too small to be a transport.

For the barest moment, he felt a glimmer of hope, despite the realist within him insisting it was all but impossible.

Yet as he drew closer, his scans grew more detailed. Definitely a light fighter, and with that shape… it had to be a Liberator.

It can’t be. There’s no way.

Yet his hand reached to key the comm, and he spoke into his headset. “Is that who I…?” With a choking noise he cut the sentence off. He was embarrassing himself. This was no way for an officer of the Liberty Navy to behave.

Space was silent for a long, agonizing moment.

Then a voice crackled to life on the other end of the comm. “Hi…”

It was Pita’s voice, without the barest shade of a doubt. Against all odds, he’d found her once again.

(Credit to Widow for her character's portion of this chapter.)

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