Like heroes do.
You ain’t no hero, the captain told himself.
But maybe this guy was.
It didn’t seem like much of an offer. More like a statement of fact. The leej was going, with or without him. But it’d be a heck of a lot easier on the legionnaire if he could make the last known location without first having to fight his way out the main gate, past the marines and the Soshies waiting for just that.
Fifteen minute round trip.
He could say he needed to… hell, there really wasn’t a good excuse. But maybe they were past excuses. Maybe what Amanda, and the leejes out there—most likely with bags over their heads—needed, what their families needed right now, because everyone’s got a family, was for someone to forget the excuses and consequences and just do something.
A bad decision was better than no decision. They’d at least taught Kirk Walters that much in officer school. And he’d learned it just so he could fly.
And after this… you might never fly again.
“In,” mumbled the pilot. Feeling sick and unheroic in the same moment.
Yeah, that other voice told him. You ain’t much of a hero.
“I’m in,” he repeated. “Pad sixteen in an hour. Just find her, Leej.”
10
The skies over Detron were summer-storm-tossed. Boiling and violent and yet with no rain that might back everyone off. Give some space and a moment to let cooler heads prevail. Here, like on Suracaõ, it was late summer. The Obsidian Crow had fled one burning season for another.
Rechs had just barely escaped the wrath of Gat Hathor’s fighters in hot pursuit as the agile light freighter raced for its jump point. Then he had stopped over in a quiet system to make the transfer with a Guild-approved detention transport. Gat Hathor, bandaged and still unconscious from the beating Rechs had administered, growled from within dreams that must’ve been about revenge, violence, wealth, and power, as the handoff was made at the bottom of the boarding ramp.
Rechs didn’t feel too bad that the lizard would wake to a nightmare that was only just beginning. If he didn’t sleaze his way out of the Republic’s justice system, he was likely to do several decades on a UM dead world.
Something no one had ever escaped from.
After the transfer the Crow jumped away. A week’s journey had been reduced to three days as Rechs ordered Lyra to override the navigation safety parameters and decrease flight time. Something she noted as “extremely inadvisable, Tyrus.”
But the situation on Detron was getting worse. Much worse. The Soshies had taken control of both downtown and the Heights section of the city. The marines had been ordered by the House of Reason to withdraw and were now at the Docks, currently drawing down. The House wanted to de-escalate the situation despite the fact that two legionnaires were dead and two more, as well as a marine, were currently missing and presumed captured by the Soshies. Or perhaps the House was de-escalating specifically because of that. One thing Tyrus Rechs knew well was that not everyone shared the same instincts when a crisis hit.
Rechs had watched the holofeeds of a legionnaire identified as Sergeant Sean Lopez, now a captive of an organization called the Crimson Guards, a paramilitary front for the Soshies. It was obvious the leej had been beaten or badly injured in the capture. Lopez said nothing for the cams, but a Crimson Guard spokesman wearing a typical guerrilla costume of black and red, face obscured by a black knit balaclava, indicated that Sergeant Lopez had apologized for his crimes against the “free peoples of the galaxy” and was urging the Republic to dissolve the current government.
Lopez tried to blink some kind of message, but one eye was so battered shut it wasn’t moving.
“I ran it through all the known codes the Guild has access to,” said Gabriella over the hypercomm as the Crow swam through hyperspace. “Best I could come up with is he was basically trying to blink what they could do with themselves and that he knew he was still somewhere inside Detron but didn’t know exactly where.”
Rechs remained silent, as usual. And as usual, Gabriella filled the void.
“But I don’t know how the Legion runs their E-and-E schools and the codes they use. You’d have a better idea about that, Tyrus.”
“It’s been a long time,” he rumbled from the cockpit. “Things were supposed to change once a year.”
“Still,” continued Gabriella, “seems like a pretty fair guess. He’s somewhere inside the city. The Repub Navy is running a pretty tight cordon around Detron. No one’s getting in or out without the proper clearances. The House hasn’t shut that down. Even though the rioters have some delegate ally claiming the interdiction is unjust and inhumane. But she’s being voted down.”
This piqued Rechs’s interest. “Not often a delegate runs the risk of getting shot down in a public hearing.”
“Well, this one is an idealist. And she says people are starving on the ground. No proof of that happening, mind you, but she gets a lot of play in the media because she’s young and says everything they want to hear.”
“Were you able to get the new idents for the Crow?” Rechs asked, switching gears. “I’ll need to get through the blockade.”
“Yes. I’ll send them now.”
He could hear her type like the Furies were hovering over her, her fingers thudding on a flat control screen. Her voice remained calm. Rechs wondered if she had a cup of tea by her workstation. If it was afternoon wherever she was at. Maybe raining outside her window.
He shook his head at the thought of her having a window. He’d been making a reality of baseless speculations when imagining this girl he’d never seen.
Fall would be nice right now, thought Tyrus.
He shook his head again, striking just behind his ear with
