Ccg — 8.1.4

No one else could know that name. The Colonial Guard had scrubbed it from every record after the disaster.

“You have to.” He tapped his chest. The life-support monitor there was a flat, green line. “The paste ran out this morning. I’ve been running on adrenaline and spite for the last six hours. I just wanted to see your face one more time before I went.”

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. 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.” Ccg 8.1.4

“It’s a trap,” Mercer said. “The Syndicate. The Tarrans. Someone who cracked the old archives.”

“Sundog,” he whispered. His voice was sand over gravel. “You took your time.”

Then, a second line appeared.

The coordinates led them to a shelf carved into the rock, hidden behind a thermal vent. And there, welded to the cliff face, was a Colonial Guard emergency pod. Its paint was blistered. Its beacon was dark. But its airlock cycled open as they approached.

Jin reached into a pouch on his harness with his remaining hand. He pulled out a data chip, no bigger than her thumbnail.

“Set course for Earth,” she said. “Fleet Command. Full burn.” No one else could know that name

Ccg 8.1.4 wasn’t a message. It was a ghost.

The data-slate chimed, a soft, three-note tone that cut through the hum of the Vindicator’s recyclers. Captain Elara Vance looked up from the frayed webbing of her crash harness.

Elara sat in the command chair. The data chip felt like a loaded gun in her pocket. The life-support monitor there was a flat, green line