Among the refugees, he spots a familiar face, the reporter from the bar, Cal Gentry. He’s helping the ground crew load the last of the refugees into Belle’s hold.
“Well, I see you got out,” Tiger observes.
“My editors ordered me out. Seems the Authority won’t guarantee safe conduct for any noncombatants. All the house-to-house fighting and kids coming at them with knives and women with IEDs got them spooked. They’re shooting anything that moves under the dome now, taking no prisoners.”
“Yeah, well … neither are we,” Tiger grimaces, seeing the mecha operator he shot in his mind’s eye. He knows that kid will haunt him ‘til the day he dies. But there’s nothing he can do about it now.
“I dunno where you’re going, but I have a pass from the Colonial government.” The man holds up his PDC, and a hologram appears, bearing the seal of the Independent United Colonies. “Guaranteeing me safe passage out.”
Tiger can’t help but laugh. “I doubt that and a point’ll buy you a cup of coffee right now, hoss.”
“They want me to be able to tell the story of the last days of the rebellion,” he insisted. “It was imperative to them that I get the story out.”
“Is that right?” Tiger can’t help but be a bit jaded. What difference will it make now? Is idealism always the first and last casualty of war?
“If everything you’d ever known and loved was just hours away from being eradicated, wouldn’t you want someone to know what happened? At least, the way you saw it?”
Tiger wonders if, at the moment of his dying, he’s really gonna give a shit who knows his side of the story. Is it gonna do him any good? He’s still gonna be dead, right? Luna Three may get its story told. What will it change? It’ll always be a pile of rubble.
But, then again, he’s just an old spacer and a tired one, at that. What the fuck does he know?
He nods toward the cargo ramp. “C’mon! You can ride up in the cockpit.”
“You need some help with something?” Gentry asks.
Tiger turns away. “Yeah, my conscience.”
He makes his way through the hold and up into the operations area. As he steps into the cockpit, the first thing he sees is Starr’s pup, Barfie. He’s sleeping in his makeshift bed Starr made him, an old shipping crate and rags. Tiger resists the initial instinct to pick him up and take him back to the hold and give him to the first kid he sees. He’s got no use for a dog, but it’s not just any dog. It was Starr’s dog. It was something of hers. Something he could keep. Something she’d dearly loved, even if it peed on the carpet and chewed his boots. It was living proof that Starr had been something unique. Something amazing.
He smiles to himself. Yes, amazing. Truly amazing, baby.
As the adrenaline wears off, exhaustion is setting in. He drops down wearily into the pilot’s seat, and rubs his forehead with his fingers, shielding his eyes.
He sees her. Beneath him on the bed, blue hair splayed out.
“Start engines, please, Belle,” he requests, his voice almost cracking as the emotion now rushes in upon him.
“Engines are firing … all systems are coming online …” She pauses. “Are you ok, Tiger?”
“Mmmph,” he grunts acknowledgement. She senses from the telemetry reading his chair is sending that he’s upset. She can’t see the tears he’s hiding, but she knows they’re there. Sometimes, it’s best just to let a man have some space.
“You want me to take us out?” she asks? “You can get some rest. I know you’re exhausted.”
“No.” He sits up and shakes himself from his moment of self-pity. Wiping at the corner of his eyes with his thumb, he clears his throat as quietly as possible and tries to focus. He feels a twinge of guilt. Poor Belle. She can’t comprehend betrayal. She’ll never understand why he’ll have to ditch her after all this is over. He can’t take a chance on her being IDed by Authority operatives. They’ll be out in full force after all this was over, looking for people like him. She’ll have to be “cleaned.” The Cap’n has people who can do it, but it’ll be the end of the line for the old girl as he knew her.
“Belle …”
“Yes, doll?”
“Thanks. Thanks for everything.”
“Let’s go home, Tiger. The Cap’n will be happy to see us.”
“Yeah. I’m sure he will.”
***
At Authority Headquarters, the mole waits.
She waits until she gets the coded signal that everyone who is getting out has gotten out.
“Sic Semper Tyrannis.” Thus always to tyrants.
Nobody will ever really know who sent the signal. Alvarez. Cody. Someone else. It doesn’t matter now.
At her console in the Space Guard operations center, she calmly begins typing. A minute or so later, red icons on her monitor turn green. She types in key codes that bypass the usual protocols and hundreds of thousands of miles away, high above the earth, an orbiting missile battery comes online. One of the missiles, in its many silos, gets new targeting coordinates: A city in the American Midwest on the banks of a Great Lake.
It doesn’t take but mere seconds for the Authority to realize the missile has been launched, where it’s headed … and who launched it. But by the time a security detail can get to the mole, she’s bitten into the poison capsule. It’s instant. It’s painless.
They find her slumped over her console. The murderer of millions will never see the result of her handiwork.
On the notescreen beside her, the words:
Sic Semper Tyrannis!
I die free!
«◊»
Chapter 20
It was just after shift change at the Astro Industries Shipyard, which floated in orbit above Huntsville. As such, a vast majority of its workers would witness the strange black spaceship that rocketed across the yard’s perimeter, with two Space Guard interceptors in hot pursuit.
Most of the workers here had seen old movies portraying high-speed chases of old,
