IGO: Sudden Snow by RaeLynn Blue Page B

“What happened, Bob? Sandra? What happened that made this all fall to pieces?”
    It sounded surprisingly like a prayer, but she didn’t care. She needed all the help she could get.

 
     
     
    Chapter 10
     
    “Sergeant Snow, we’re approaching the EPSS,” Kovacs reported. Clear-eyed and well-rested, Kovacs sat rigidly in his chair.
    It seemed the curfew Darryl had instituted for Kovacs had worked. It was either the curfew or an official red mark in his file. Captain Reyes, the leader of the entire unit to which The Discovery was dispatched, wouldn’t be nearly as kind as issuing a curfew for the private. No, the captain would’ve sentenced the private to Mars Outpost duty and caused him to remain locked on the main spaceship, cleaning up the muck of others.
    “Excellent,” Darryl replied brisk and firm -- completely in command mode. “I’ll let the commander know.”
    Darryl pressed the small green button on his earpiece and waited.
    Commander Taylor’s deep voice creaked through to his ear.
    “We’re here, sir,” Darryl said.
    “Coming,” Commander Taylor said, strained and taut.
    Energy flowed over him and Darryl realized he was squeezing the chair’s armrest. He released it and watched as the Earth Prime Space Station grew larger in the window. Before long the docking clamps jostled the vessel, but Darryl’s stomach was already choppy from the fact that this was the halfway point to the Mars Outpost Station 1 and The Discovery . Once on board, Cricket would be taken from his protection and into long interrogations with Alpha Team. He didn’t know if he’d see her again. If the Alpha Team wasn’t done before his team’s next assignment, he’d be forced to leave her for Saturn knew how long. Something the last few days made harder for him to do.
    The lift’s doors slid back, and out he came. Commander Taylor’s brow was furrowed. Darryl got up and went to the security console, sending Rojas to the navigation seat.
    “Kovacs, let them know we’re here to refuel and be on our way,” Commander Taylor ordered, and then turned to Darryl. “The crew can scamper off to replenish whatever they need, if they have the funds.”
    Darryl nodded. He remained at the station, running a brief diagnostic of the security system. With a chance to go shopping, many of the crew would leave the vessel in favor of cashing in their credits. Sometimes pirates and thieves found a sparsely populated spacecraft was easy pickings for hijackings. Not on his watch. The system came back as operational and up to optimum performance. Good.
    “Uh, Commander Taylor? Dr. Moore is requesting to go aboard the space station,” Kovacs said, forcing the entire ’shoe’s murmurings to fall into strained silence.
    All eyes appeared to be on the commander, but his icy blue orbs were burrowing into Darryl’s. His grim expression didn’t make Darryl feel any better about the request. He was chief of security. Normal operations required him to stay on The Inquiry .
    “Permission to escort the doctor,” Rojas said, bolting from his seat and saluting the commander.
    A flash of angst rushed through Darryl. For a moment, all he saw was shades of scarlet. Though he and Cricket hadn’t discussed it, he felt Cricket was his . The thought of another man escorting her around the cramped space station’s snug corridors with its sweeping views of Earth Prime and star glitz sky burned him. His fingers ached from gripping the console so hard that he had to remind himself to breathe, to relax.
    When Darryl moved his eyes back to the commander, he found his superior staring at him. Embarrassed, he shifted his eyes back to his console and pretended to be reading the flashes of text scrolling across the monitor. Sweat coursed down his face, but he fought the urge to wipe it away.
    Come on, Commander. You ordered me to protect her, let me do that. Rojas wouldn’t last two minutes against anyone, hell, even her .
    Darryl’s skin crawled and he