Page 55 of Radiant Exception
I couldn’t think about seeing Lark. It was all too fresh. I knew she’d try to apologize and explain why it was him instead of me, and I couldn’t bear it.
As for Cassidy, if he had any sense left in him, he’d resign when we returned to Phobos, so I didn’t have to make up a bullshit excuse as to why Starlane needed to reassign him. It was a shame. He was good at his job, he didn’t complain, and the rest of the crew liked him. But I didn’t think I could ever look at the man again and not see him all over Lark.
“Captain!” Natalie barreled onto the bridge in a panic.
“What happened?” I asked, dread sitting low in my stomach. Natalie was excitable, but not one to overreact.
“Lark and Chadwick are MIA. I can’t get a read on either of their comms, and we’ve only got ten minutes before we’re scheduled to begin departure procedures,” she said in a rush without pausing to take a breath.
Their comms being off was almost unheard of. Alarm bells immediately sounded in my mind. Something was very wrong. However furious I was with Lark, I couldn’t just turn off caring about her. I didn’t want her to be hurt or lost.
But then I realized something. “They both should have stayed on the ship.”
Natalie shook her head frantically. “Ethan said Lark left right after we landed, trying to find you, and Chadwick slipped out without telling anyone.”
Fuck, I have an awful feeling about this.
“Can we trace the path their comms took?”
“Cassidy can,” she replied.
“Fuck.”
Natalie’s head cocked at the expletive.
“Cassidy!” I barked through my comm. “Report to the bridge immediately.”
“Copy,” his alarmed voice came through the speaker.
Heshouldbe afraid.
A minute later, he came dashing into the room, but was surprised to find Natalie there, wringing her hands. Just as swiftly as she’d explained the situation to me, she repeated it to Cassidy, while Iglared at him, holding back all the things I wanted to say because finding Lark was more important than telling him how I really felt about him.
When she was finished, he pulled up a map on his comm where two diverging lines were displayed. “These are the paths their comms took; Lark’s in red, Chadwick’s in blue. It looks like hers went out quickly, maybe fifteen minutes after she left the ship. She went to the marketplace first, then quickly rerouted to the docks, but was heading away from our slip when her comm signal went out,” Cassidy provided.
“Do you know where she was going?” Natalie asked.
“No clue.” My eyes scanned over the map, but none of it made sense.
“Chadwick’s stopped transmitting a few minutes ago, but his last location was clear on the opposite end of the port,” Cassidy offered.
“Natalie, call the port authority and see if they can locate their devices at their last known positions. They could have been stolen and the beacons turned off, but it’s odd that it’s both of them, and like I said, they weren’t even supposed to leave the ship.”
“Yes, sir.” Natalie moved to her station to my left to follow my instructions.
“Captain, about before—” Cassidy began.
“Not the time!” I barked.
Natalie craned her head around, suddenly very interested in what was happening between Cassidy and me while she waited to get someone from the port on the line.
Noticing we had an audience, he lowered his voice when he spoke again. “I just need you to know she didn’t do anything wrong. I kissed her. She made it clear she was with you, and I did it anyway. I’m sorry.”
My jaw clenched at the information.
He visibly gulped. “I can get off the ship and find a way back to Phobos,” Cassidy offered.
My fury was unfathomable, but I needed to quell it to work through this emergency. She was gone, and both of us had a hand in setting the wheels into motion. I’d deal with all of it later. I just needed to find her and make sure she was alright.
