The Gunner He Left Behind

Ivet Osei watched her captain ride the Bellwether into an enemy line so the fleet could get out. She spent eight months learning to breathe without thinking about him. Then a signals tech plays her a captured transponder, and the call sign on it is his. The Union says the file is closed — Captain Ellery Vane disobeyed orders to save a fleet that has since signed away the system he died for. So Ivet steals a courier, buys a false registry, and flies nine days through enemy pickets to a prison barge, to bring back a man nobody wanted to remember and see if he still deserves to be.