“There was one ofthem dressed just like your new friend up there,” he pointed up toher cockpit. “Probably their next victim and you would have forcedme to kill him. These birds aren’t exactly sniper platforms,kiddo.”
The ‘kiddo’stung and so did his point. She’d let herself focus on the guy tiedto the rock and didn’t look, really look,at what else was going on.
“We don’teven know why they were killing those guys,” Luna added. “If theywere murderers or traitors, then we’re the criminals now.”
“If they were justtrying to ensure a good harvest,” Adelina spoke up, “then she didthe right thing.”
Gabriella was a riot ofemotions. Grateful to her mom for speaking up but ashamed that she’dput her in that position in the first place.
“True,” Luna agreedsoftly, putting a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “We’ll knowmore after we can talk to him.”
She looked back at herniece. “He may be useful. Saving him might end up being thebeginnings of friendly relations with his people but we won’t knowfor a while.
“But that doesn’tmean you can just ignore orders and do what you feel like. I’ve putHotdog in an impossible position. I realize that now. He shouldn’thave to be responsible for your safety if you have no intention oflistening to him.”
She sighed. “I thinkwe need to leave you on the ground for a while, give you time tothink things through.”
Gabriella felt asthough she’d been slapped. She looked down, nodding but sayingnothing.
“We’ll takeour new guest back with the squadron,” Luna said. “Isuggest you do some serious thinking about all of this,Rascal.”
She shook her head whenher sister caught her eye. Luna nodded Adelina toward her fighterwith a look of warning. She set the example by walking off to her ownfighter.
Adelina hesitatedfor a moment, then moved off with a glance at HotDog,who was clearly waiting for a moment alone with his protégé.She moved to her fighter, thirty feet down the road, but waited bythe sponson, watching warily as the Texan approached her daughter.
“Sorry,HotDog,”she said, meaning it more than she wished.
He chewed thatover for a second, then gave her a curt nod. “I know, kid.” Helooked down the road, frowning at nothing for a short while, thenlooked her in the eye. “I’m still pissed,” he said evenly, “butthat was a pretty ballsy move, Rascal! You’ll do alright.”
He turned and walkedoff before she could absorb what he’d said, let alone respond.
Adelina must have likedwhat she saw in her daughter’s face because the tension drainedfrom her expression and she mounted the steps of her fighter for theflight back to headquarters.
Engines allaround Gabriellastarted humming to life and she looked down, hopping back to get outof the projected warning zone from Luna’s fighter.
The squadron flew off,her own fighter following on automatic. She scuffed an armored toe inthe loose surface of the road. “I suppose Rascal is the right namefor me after all.”
Saplings
Northern Highlands, Ragnarok
Frank had to admit it.The EVA armor was less cumbersome than he’d expected. They werewearing the suits completely closed up today, hoping it might filterout whatever effect they’d been subjected to before.
He already knew howthey could reduce fatigue during manual labor. The suits provided asmuch or as little muscle assist as the wearer wanted but that was alittle like SCUBA diving. After a long session in the Pacific, Frankalways felt the accumulated fatigue when he climbed out of the waterand returned to normal gravity.
A big advantage withthe suit, however, was you could keep that assist going until youwere home and ready to recuperate from a long day’s work. Thehelmets were a little harder to acclimate to.
They’d been workingwithout the helmets on previously but the strange events wereunsettling enough for them to try using them. They weren’t halfbad.
Not bad at all,”Frank thought. Now that he was getting used to the interface, it wasalmost better than working without it.
The cooling, for onething, was a gods-send. His body had been cool enough previously,thanks to the suit, but he’d been borderline sun-stroked after thatweird time-loss that had stranded him in the sun. Now he was barelysweating at all and the under-armor suit he wore was more thancapable of dealing with it.
He’d expected to haveblind-spots and limited range of motion, purely because of thestandard Human idea of space-suits. This was no NASA suit with afixed helmet.
It moved with hisbody, flexing and twisting like a living thing and his field ofvision hadn’t been compromised at all. In fact, he now had accessto new data, like thermal and infrared imaging. Hecould even create close up views of distant objects and set theonboard computer to track them.
At the moment, though,his family was using the suits’ muscle assist to plant coffeesaplings.
The nanite-basedequipment probably could have been programmed to do the job butneither Frank, Trisha nor Terry trusted the machines to handle thedelicate saplings they’d brought all the way from Earth.
Vikram had been anenthusiastic supporter of the automated equipment. He’d felt thatthey ought to make use of the things, since they’d been shipped allthe way to Ragnarok from Lady Bau’s dominions.
They owed it toher kind generosity, he’d argued. He’d also insisted, despitenobody else bringing it up, that it had nothing at all to do with areluctance to spend days slogging through the hauntedhills north of Unity doing heavy labor.
He’d beenoverruled, of course, and they’d been working since first light,planting by hand. To hiscredit, Vikram had done more than his part. Frank suspected theyoungster was feeling proud of the results.
Every now andthen, Frank would see him looking back at the long row of plantedsaplings he’d put in the ground. Kid’s gonna make agreat farmer. He reached intothe sapling bag.
He looked down at theempty bag that hung over his shoulder. It wasn’t the empty bag thatsurprised him so much as the fact that his armored fingers were stillsensitive enough for him to notice without having to look.
He stepped over to therunabout to reload the bag from the cargo bed at the back. Terry hadrigged a panel of nanites over the top to
