Rechs closed the hatch and hit the nearest ship’s comm button. “Lyra, we’re all aboard. Get us out of here.”
A moment later the telltale whine and rattle of incoming ship-to-ship fire resounded over the soundscape. Damage to the deflectors rocked the ship, causing power to stutter for a second.
“I think we’ve just been hit!” noted G232. “Well, that wasn’t part of the plan. According to your plan, Captain, we were supposed to be well gone by the time—
“Get to the omni-cannon!” Rechs shouted at the little bot, which was already disappearing off into the inner recesses of the ship.
“Rechs,” said Lyra over the intercom, “I think you’d better take over.”
As Rechs stumbled off toward the flight deck, the Obsidian Crow’s powerful engines sent the ship hurtling skyward, racing for the jump point with a trail of mercenary fighter ships in hot pursuit.
09
On the ground, operations for the marines and the small Legion detachment on Detron came to an immediate halt as command attempted to respond to the government’s sudden freak-out that all had gone horribly wrong. Several dead. A downed bird. Four legionnaires and a marine missing in action.
There was some scuffling about that. About the MIA. A functionary had debated that point over the holo-conference with the House of Reason Security Council as everyone tried to get a handle on the developing situation.
“C’mon, guys,” he whined. “Can we really list them as missing in action when we’re not even in an officially designated conflict?” As though maintaining the protocols of lists and classifications was the most important thing at the moment. Not the missing troops, the dead, and the riot currently spreading from Detron’s city center outward toward the area known as the Docks.
There was also some disagreement as to whether they were technically “missing,” in the literal sense. Everyone knew that Naval Intel had drone recon all over the area and therefore had a pretty good idea what exactly had happened to the missing QRF team. But they weren’t saying anything. Suits had shown up, thrown everyone out of the Intel Command cluster, and secured all the drone footage. Threats of distant assignments out along the edge—manning forgotten listening posts, small isolated satellites often susceptible to pirate raids, with no backup for days—had achieved their objective of keeping lips sealed. The Reaper pilot had been taken care of as well—grounded, of course.
The commander of the Legion detachment was doing his best to keep the legionnaires from taking matters into their own hands and conducting a recon-in-force to find their missing brothers. And in the detachment barracks deep inside the Docks, the Legion sergeant major locked everyone’s heels and let it be known that to do anything would be to go ahead and “get oneself kicked right out of the Legion, boys.” Whether the old sergeant major thought you were a stud or not.
“Don’t do it, boys. Not yet. Now ain’t the time. Much as it pains me to have to say it.”
Upon departure, the sergeant major told his driver to let the leejes know that if a rescue op wasn’t started by the end of the week, the old NCO would go in himself and hope his rank and impending retirement might mitigate the promised wrath of retribution from on high. Even in saying that, he felt old and weak, and he hated the thing rank had made him become. But that was leadership. It wasn’t about you anymore. And as he rode up to the holo-conference, he wished he could once again be that private he once was—the kid who could do anything he wanted because nothing really mattered.
“That kid coulda done anything,” he muttered as he ran his hand over his scarred jaw. “’Cause he had nothin’ to lose.”
Tension was high.
Heads were already rolling.
Mistakes had been made.
Everyone not a leej was afraid to do anything for fear that matters might be made worse. And the leadership was afraid that same thing would happen if the legionnaires in fact did do anything. Dead soldiers were one thing. Dead civilians didn’t optic well for anyone but the side currently playing victim, martyr, and savior all at once. The side that didn’t mind if the galaxy burned down because they had an idea they might come out on top with just the right cards.
But the Soshies and their ilk had no idea what they were trying to attempt. They had no idea how dark the rest of the galaxy could actually get. They’d never had to slog through the nastier parts of it with an N-4 and a rock to put your head on at night.
Selective education, not experience, had convinced them they could get it right where everyone else had gotten it horribly wrong.
Yeah, no one was going to do anything. Especially those with something to lose. Because everyone’s got something to lose, don’t they?
Enter Puncher.
Puncher’s that guy. The kind of guy you know made sergeant on skills displayed when everything went pear-shaped. But also, the kind of guy who dangled between PFC and private for his entire first enlistment because, as the records file indicated, “Legionnaire has discipline problems. Retention questionable.”
Kinda guy who did all the things the safety brief before planetside leave stated he wasn’t supposed to do. Even marry a Tennarian dancer.
Did that.
She still got half his pay.
Puncher’s first enlistment didn’t go so hot—unless you happened to be the point LT who got into the heat with Puncher as his driver. At that time, Puncher had been awaiting Code Violations and Military Justice Articles Review. And the point LT, well, when the shooting started outside an angry village of Hools, he found out Puncher was called that for a reason. Because the legionnaire didn’t like taking incoming fire, and so he grabbed the LT and threw him in the mud right next to him while the Hool village lit up a Legion
