Night Squadron - Out in the Cold

Summary: One event, three points of view. Story takes place prior to the Battle of Siria.

***

Chapter 1...

Shine on Me...

If he was going to die, this was a stupid way to go.

Of all the ways Jac Jordan had pictured himself blasting out of life—flying the Ghost into a supernova, being blown out of space by an Jaheem cruiser, being disintegrated by a bounty hunter, even losing a cantina fight—any of those would be better than slowly freezing to death in a rickety survival shelter with nothing for company but a delirious kid and a dead!

It was embarrassing.

Jac checked the power supply on his heat torch; it was only half depleted. That was good to know. Shielding his eyes against the flare, he aimed it at the piece of rock he'd uncovered earlier and fired. With the pistol set on half power he could heat the rock up enough to provide a little warmth to the shelter. The power cell on the survival heater had given out an hour ago. At least that's how long ago he'd thought it'd been. The tiny chrono had frozen about that time, too.

Look on the bright side, Jordan, at least the Goji doesn't stink now that it's frozen!

Johann moaned feebly and his body twitched a little. He wasn't thrashing around anymore, which Jac knew was a bad sign; the kid's body was shutting down. He shoved the boy as close to the faintly glowing rock as he dared and tented the shiny thermal blanket covering Jo's body so that the warmth from the stone reflected back on his injured friend. Han thought that it would have been nice if the survival kit had been designed to accommodate more than one individual, but he supposed its creator had never dreamed that there would be two people stupid enough to get stuck outside overnight on Siria.

Taking off one glove, Jac reached over to check the boy's pulse. It was slow, too slow, and very weak. He rubbed Jo's arms, hoping to stimulate his circulation

"C'mon, Jo," he scolded in a conversational tone. "You can't die, you know. The Reich needs you. Besides, you don't want to give her Ladyship any more reason to hate my guts than she already has, do you?" Jac's cold face cracked into a wry, lopsided smile. Knowing how Jo felt about the Princess, the kid would probably love to give Gisela another reason to detest Jac Jordan!

Gisela the Princess, her Ladyship—why did he keep thinking about her? Struggling to get his glove back on over fingers that were stiff with cold, Jac formed a picture of the petite woman in his head. In his mind's eye, he envisioned her from earlier today, nose to nose with him in the icy corridor—which was actually sounding pretty warm to him right now—with her dark eyes cold, her face set in angry, unyielding lines. God, you'd think she had ice in her very veins!

Jac shifted a little on the icy floor of the shelter, hoping that would provide some relief to his freezing posterior. It didn't help, of course. Why he thought that it would escaped him. He shivered a little, then realized he hadn't been shivering very much. Shit! That wasn't good; if he weren't careful, he might freeze to death right along with Jo. He wondered if that might bother Gisela. If he froze to death, would she even notice?

Nearly everyone called her the Ice Princess. Jac knew why. It was because everything Gisela Deja did was for the Tarsus—for the Reich. She suppressed all normal emotions: joy, sorrow, fear, grief; in order to focus on defeating the Jaheem. He supposed he couldn't blame her, she had watched her entire world get turned into black slag and glass. That certainly was a good reason to shut down your emotions. But if she didn't start feeling something, anything, she might end up actually becoming the ice princess everyone accused her of being!

Leaning over to check on Jo, Jac noted that the kid's lips were blue, his face as white as the snow outside their semi-useless shelter. With a shaky sigh, Jac fired at the rock again, holding the trigger down a little longer than before. The stone took on a brighter glow, just as his torch chirped once, signaling that its power cell was down to one-quarter strength. Shit! Jac pulled his knees tight up against his chest, trying to conserve body heat, but he had a very bad feeling that neither one of them had much chance of lasting through the night.

Gisela would miss the kid, and mourn him, if he died. She loved Jo as well as she loved anyone. Who knows, her Ladyship might even miss him if he died along with Jo. She might even mourn him.

There were times Jac was sure there was something between him and Gisela—he just wasn't sure what that something might be. Sometimes it was subtle; a look from her that was soft instead of businesslike, or caring instead of angry. There were times when it seemed like she might actually like him—as a person, not as a fighter in her Reich. But then there were the other times, when she looked at him—usually when they were arguing—and it felt like he'd been hit by an pulse cannon set at full power. Did Gisela love him? Sometimes he thought it was possible.

And did he love her? No, of course not! And he was on his way out of here; they were both clear on that count.

A loud snap brought Jac's head up off his knees. What was that? His heavy lidded eyes surveyed the small shelter. He watched as the wind shook the strong, thin fabric of the shelter's roof; that was where the noise had come from.

It was just the wind.

Jac held the emergency lamp over Jo. The kid was in bad shape; he was barely breathing.

"Jo!" Jac shook the young man's shoulder, none too gently. Jo's head lolled from side to side, but there was no hint of a response. The dried blood on his face had frozen into crazy patterns on the white cheek.

"C'mon kid," Jac cajoled, "you've got to hang on till morning. They'll find us as soon as it's light."

There was no response, but Jac hadn't really expected any. It was starting to look like when the searchers found them in the morning, it would be too late.

His face set in resignation, Jac aimed and fired at the rock. He held the trigger down until he heard two chirps. The power cell was down to ten percent.

With a sputter and a pop the small lamp went dark. Jac pulled his knees back up against his chest, his drained blaster still hanging loosely from his hand. He shook his head and blinked his eyes in the dark. What he wouldn't give for a hot cup of java right now!

He wasn't sure what it was that woke him, the soft light of dawn hitting his face, or the heavenly smell of java. Jac stretched his arms over his head, then crossed his hands behind his head. The only sound he heard was that of his naked skin rubbing against silky sheets as he moved. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this good. He didn't want to open his eyes, for fear the feeling of absolute bliss would disappear.

"Come on, sleepyhead! I know you're awake." A soft, sultry voice whispered in his ear, the speaker so close, warm breath tickled his ear.

Jac's eyes shot open as he raised himself to his elbows. Gisela knelt on the wide bed next to him, surrounded by crumpled sheets, a cup of java in her hand. There was another cup on the chest next to the bed. He squeezed his eyes shut to clear them, then opened them again. The scene hadn't changed. The Princess was clad only in the veil of her long, silky hair, which hung down her back past her buttocks, and flowed across her naked breasts down to her pubis. It was bewitchingly tousled. To Jac, it looked like she'd just woken up after a night of really good sex. A quick look down at his own naked torso revealed that he, too, had apparently just woken up after a night he really wished he could remember!

"What are you looking at?" Gisela asked him. "After last night, I don't expect there's anything for you to see that you aren't already familiar with."

Jac felt a slow smile lift the corner of his mouth. "Sorry, Princess," he said, "but you are a sight that needs to be taken in slowly."

"I hope that's a good thing."

"It definitely is," he assured her. He reached a gentle, tentative hand up through the tangled mass of Gisela's hair to cup the back of her head, pulling her down for a kiss. She didn't resist. Instead she put her mug down on the night stand and leaned over him, into the kiss. It was long and deep as their breath mingled and their tongues probed.

Gisela withdrew gently, shifting herself so she could sit next to Jac on the bed. She handed him a mug of the fragrant java and reclaimed her own.

"You better drink that," Gisela recommended. "We're going to have to get going."

Jac only nodded and took a sip of the java. It was at least a million times better than the swill they served in the base commissary.

The Princess leaned familiarly against him. Every millimeter of her soft skin that touched his seemed to tingle with electricity.

"I'm going to hate to leave here," Gisela sighed as she drank from her mug. "I can't believe how perfect this has been."

"Me neither," Jac managed to choke out.

"But duty calls, Flyboy," she continued. Gisela put her mug back down on the chest and started to rise. "It's time we got back to reality."

"Wait!" Jac caught one delicate wrist in his hand, halting her progress. It couldn't just end, Jac thought desperately, not when he'd just discovered this warm, loving, part of her.

Gisela didn't struggle, or try to pull away. "Haven't you had enough yet?" she asked him, eyebrows raised.

"I can't get enough of you," he said. He couldn't let her slip away, not now. Now that he knew how she felt about him, and how he felt about her.

She said nothing, only smiled in invitation.

"Come here, your Ladyship." Jac reached his other hand around her waist and pulled her down on top of him. He shut his eyes, the better to feel her, smell her, taste her. He knew, this was where he wanted to be.

When light once again penetrated his closed eyes it was a cold, sharp white.

Cold!

Jac jerked his head up and blinked his sticky eyes open. The walls of the emergency shelter swam into view. He could see his breath in the frigid air. God! How long had he been out?

"Jo!"

Jac crawled stiffly over to the prone form of his friend. For one horrible moment, he was afraid the young man had slipped away while Jac had slept; then he saw Jo's chest rise and fall.

"Hang on, kid. It's daylight. Someone will be here any time.

As if on cue, Jac heard the comm crackle with static. He grabbed it and turned up the gain.

"...Commander Strauss, do you copy?"

"Good morning! Nice of you guys to drop by for breakfast."

Jac felt a weight lift from his chest at the sound of an engine approaching. He crawled out of the shelter and into the blinding white dawn of Siria, waving his arms at the H-75 Hawk heading toward him.

As he waited for Kev to come in for his landing, Jac thought about his dream. Had it been a dream, or a vision of the future?

He snorted. Obviously, he'd been hanging around the kid too long; of course it was only a dream! But he'd never had any dream feel so real before. He didn't buy into any of this Mystica stuff Jo was always spouting off about, but it wouldn't hurt to hang around a little while longer, just in case dreams might come true.

***

Chapter 2...

The Cold At Midnight...

Aiden Hunt shivered.

War is just one of the hells, he reminded himself. And it really wasn't so different from the rest of life. Beings died in accidents, or were murdered; they were killed in battle, or sometimes they just went missing. You went on; there wasn't anything else you could do anyway. As long as you had a few friends, a game of poker, and a bottle of something smooth to take the edge off—life was good.

Unfortunately, none of those things was working for him tonight.

He shivered again as he walked toward his quarters.

***

Rumors traveled fast in a closed system like Shadow Base. It was no more than a standard hour after Johann Strauss had been reported missing—and that Jac Jordan had gone after him—before every pilot, soldier, mechanic, tech, and droid knew about it. The speeders still weren't flying in the cold, but there were search parties out on Gojis. It would only be a matter of time before Jo was located; certainly he and Jac would be back in time for the nightly poker game. The Knights would have a fine time tormenting their desert born and raised commander over this one! Aiden grinned in anticipation.

The searchers straggled in as day turned to night, in ones and twos. They all told the same story: there had been no sign of Strauss, or of Jordan. The good news was that they hadn't found either of the men injured—or worse. The bad news was that they hadn't found either of the men. The strong winds and blowing snow obliterated any tracks their Gojis might have left, and the darkening skies made long distance visuals virtually impossible. The scanners gave false readings in the cold.

"You didn't find any trace of them at all?" Aiden asked, trailing after one of the searchers as she trudged toward the base mess.

"Nothing, sir." The young woman blew on her blue-tinged fingertips, trying to warm them. Realizing that this maneuver wasn't going to work in the chilly air of the corridor, she stuffed her gloves into her belt and tucked her hands into her armpits. She stopped suddenly, turning to look at him. Aiden almost ran into her. "Honestly, sir, I don't hold a whole lot of hope." Her thickly accented Basic reflected one of the outer rim territories. "Something must have happened to Commander Strauss; he's surely frozen by now." Her pale eyes were sad. "Captain Jordan ought to be coming in now, too," she continued. "But you know Jordan, sir; there's no way he's gonna stop searching for his friend. By morning he'll be frozen, too." The young woman continued walking. "I'm sorry I can't say better."

"Thank you, soldier, for your honesty," Aiden assured her. "Go get warm." He watched as she hurried away down the corridor.

'But you know Jordan, sir...'

Aiden did know Jac Jordan, he counted the man among his few real friends, just as he counted Johann Strauss. His mouth thinned to a hard line as he began to walk slowly toward the Knights' quarters. Aiden didn't have so many friends that he could afford to lose any, and it felt to him like he'd lost too many already. But the thing he knew about Jac Jordan—and that the young soldier didn't—was that Jordan had more skill, tenacity, and just plain luck, than any being had a right to have. If anyone could pull this rescue off it was the Korscian smuggler.

With more spring in his step, Aiden continued on toward the Knight poker game. It was as good a place as any to wait for his friends to return.

***

The game was more crowded than usual, with bunks, boxes, and other assorted equipment pushed back against the walls to accommodate the additional parties. Aiden noted a healthy number of less familiar faces among the usual crowd. Along with almost every Knight, a number of mechanics and deck hands had joined the pilots, all of them obviously hoping to hear some news about the missing men. More than a few looked at him when he walked in.

"Sorry," he said to the room in general, as he took a seat at the makeshift poker table. "I don't know anything more than any of the rest of you."

"Shouldn't they be back by now?" Derik asked. He was the youngest member of Knight Squadron and he particularly looked up to Johann Strauss.

"There's still time," Aiden said with conviction. He reached for a bottle of ale, then pulled his hand back. He might need a clear head to help with the search, if by some miracle they got those speeders up and running, and Jo and Jac weren't already back.

"I can't believe Jordan went out there alone," one of the mechanics commented. "He's usually a smart guy. I can't figure what he was thinking." He took a long pull on his bottle of ale. "He didn't even take his Bwandi with him."

Kev's hands froze mid-shuffle, and Hanson looked cautiously between the Commander and the mechanic. Aiden had straightened in his seat and his face had taken on the angry lines that every Knight knew meant trouble. It wasn't often that Aiden Hunt lost his temper, but when he did, it was memorable.

"Let me explain something, soldier," Hunt began, his voice as cold and hard as Siria's ice. "Jac Jordan is a more loyal friend, and a better man, than most." Several of the other Knights nodded in agreement. "He does not sit back when someone needs help." The mechanic shifted uncomfortably under Aiden's laser sharp stare. "And Kono is nobody's Bwandi." Aiden drew a deep breath "I don't think we need your kind of attitude at our game," he announced.

The mechanic, and a few of his friends, scuttled out the door.

"Okay," Aiden said. "Somebody deal the fucking cards."

***

The card game broke up early, but it was just as well, Aiden thought, it hadn't been a particularly enjoyable game anyway. He thought that it might be because he hadn't touched any of the normal libations—and neither had anyone else. Or it could have been the cards; they certainly hadn't been cooperative, changing at will to no one's benefit. But the two missing players—three if you counted Kono—had cast a gloomy pall over the evening's enjoyment. And while all of those things had played a part, it had been the sound of the alarm that ended the game.

It was something they heard every evening, most times Aiden ignored it. But this night, at exactly 2019—much later than usual—the blare of the siren announcing the closing of the shield doors for the night had cut through base like a scream. The card players looked at the chrono, and they looked at one another. Then, one by one they had folded, or just laid their cards down on the packing crate they were using for a table.

"Maybe no one came to tell us they were back," Derik began hopefully.

Jarro Fenn, usually a joker, shook his head mournfully. "We would have heard, you know that."

"They've given up," Hanson stated.

"Commander Strauss; he's surely frozen by now... Jordan... By morning he'll be frozen, too." The young soldier's words replayed in Aiden's head. But Aiden Hunt wasn't accepting it—not yet.

"Just until morning," he told the Knights, and the other's who'd remained.

"Sir?" Derik looked uncertainly at Wedge.

"The searchers are in for the night," Aiden clarified, "but they haven't given up. More patrols will go out at first light."

One of the Valkyrie mechanics who'd been observing the game stood up, giving his companion a poke in the shoulder. "Come on, Waco," he invited the other man. "Let's go give those asshats working on the H-74's the benefit of our expertise so those things are ready to fly in the morning." The first mechanic nodded respectfully at Aiden as he and his friend left the room.

Aiden rose and stretched. "We're going out at first light tomorrow," he informed his pilots. "If they can't get those speeders to work, we'll have to use the fighters." He looked around the room, noting the nods and murmurs of agreement. "Get some rest!" he ordered.

***

The sound of his footsteps on the corridor floorboards sounded unnaturally loud to him as Aiden made his way to his own bunk. But then, the narrow passageway was unusually empty of personnel. He knew that there were a fair number of mechanics working on the H-74's, scrambling to insure they'd be functional by the time the shield doors were opened at dawn. There had also been a handful of beings—hopefuls or gawkers, Aiden wasn't sure which—who'd been hovering near the hangar entrance, waiting for news. The Princess and Kono had been waiting there, too. He prayed they still weren't there.

Well, at least one of them wasn't. Apparently the princess was so lost in her own thoughts that she wasn't aware that Aiden was there. It seemed to him that those thoughts weren't good company. Her downcast face was a ghostly white, Aiden saw, and there were deep lines of strain around her eyes and mouth. Her dark eyes glittered with unshed tears. This had to be harder on her than it was on anyone else on the base.