“Oh, sure.” Sato pointed. “There’s a Union Standard medium-flow powerport there. Be sure to set recharge rate 3 so you don’t blow out their circuits, okay?”
“Understood, sir,” Rick said, and plugged into the indicated power. A few seconds later, the armor was charging. He looked back at what Sato was doing and saw various starmaps being displayed. “May I ask what you’re doing, sir?”
“Trying to decide on our next destination,” Sato replied and turned on one of the slates’ built in Tri-V, causing their sector of the galaxy to spring into a bright 3D rendering. Rick could see he had several destinations highlighted.
“Earth?” Rick asked and pointed. “I had the feeling your goals were more far reaching than back home.”
“You know, you’d be right.” Sato stared at the display, waiting, as if it would have something to say. “Only we need to go to Earth first.”
“Why?”
“I wish I knew.”
Rick observed Sato, who appeared no different. Earth, he thought. He didn’t think he’d been to Earth since he’d left. Reviewing his personnel file confirmed the thought. Once he’d signed on with the Winged Hussars, he’d traveled for several missions, but never to Earth. Still, he didn’t know if he really wanted to go. He briefly considered waiting on Karma before remembering two things.
One, Earth was at war with the Mercenary Guild, for reasons he didn’t understand. He knew it would be a waste of time to ask Sato, so he’d been reading articles on the GalNet. Unfortunately they were mostly propaganda pieces, so there wasn’t much to glean. Either way, if he couldn’t trust Sato to make it back to their hotel without getting mugged, there was no way the scientist could travel to a war zone without being arrested. If they found out his real identity, it was certain he’d be imprisoned as a valuable member of the Winged Hussars.
Two, he wanted to go. The realization was a little surprising. He glanced at his armored hand and wondered what his mother would think. She’d probably gotten a death notice from the Mercenary Guild months ago, along with quite a few credits.
Still, he owed her a chance to explain, and to see him again. Don’t I?
“Pack up tonight,” Sato said as he finished and put his slates away. “We’ll find a way to get to Earth tomorrow. Shouldn’t be too hard.”
“True, sir. It’s not like there’s a war.”
Sato glanced at him and frowned. He picked up the case he was keeping the credits in and shook it. “This should make it possible.”
“And you can do me a big favor by not flashing them around.” Sato opened his mouth to complain. “The more thieves and various lowlifes I have to chop up, the less likely we’ll get wherever you want to go.”
“You have a point,” Sato admitted.
“Good. Can I have some credits, too, please, sir?”
“Of course,” Sato said, then opened the little case, fished out a handful, and handed them to him. He didn’t even look at the denominations.
With Rick’s improved visual and recognition capabilities, he knew he’d been handed 229,000 credits. It was so much because Sato had given him the 100,000 credit chit. Rick retrieved the high denomination one and handed it back. He hefted the remainder. “This is more than enough. Thank you, sir.”
Sato examined the large denomination chit and nodded, adding it to the five remaining million-credit chits. “I’m going to get some rest; you should too.”
“Of course, sir.” Rick stored the 129,000 credits in one of his many little storage areas. They fit almost perfectly in the one on his left forearm. “Good night.”
Sato went over to the sleeping platform and made an improvised bed from the printed sheets provided, which would be recycled after they left. In minutes, he was quietly snoring. Rick watched him for a short time, then set his detection systems on medium—he didn’t want to be woken by some little vermin crawling around, or a servicebot—and shut off all external input. Utter darkness and silence enveloped him.
It’s not the same, he thought and found some music to listen to. All the media files from the Winged Hussars were saved in his datalogs. Something made him pick a group called Led Zeppelin, dating back more than a century. The track was called Immigrant Song. The tones made him feel nostalgic, though he couldn’t remember ever hearing it before. He had a fleeting memory of an overweight boy sitting in a chair with a piece of pizza in one hand, singing along. It was gone as fast as it had come.
Rick drifted off, trying to recall who it was and remembering the taste of pizza. Ok, Earth would be fun.
* * *
He woke early. A no-shit Earth fly had crawled across one of his acoustic sensors, sounding like five people were breaking down the door. He had his gun in hand in a fraction of a second and aimed before he realized what had happened and replaced the gun.
“Hello, my Terrestrial friend,” he said. It was a common housefly; his scanner and computer confirmed it. “I wonder how many worlds we’ve dropped your kind off on?”
“A lot,” Sato said, yawning. “Same with cockroaches and rats.”
“That’s kind of disturbing,” Rick said.
“You need to look into how many battles against alien invasive species we’re fighting on Earth. We’ve gotten some help from the Science Guild…” Sato blinked and seemed to lock up.
“Mr. Sato, are you okay?” He remained—what, locked? Frozen? He stayed in that condition for over ten seconds before he blinked and looked up at Rick.
“Well, come on, we need to get down to the ship hangars.”
“Are you okay?” Rick asked, genuinely concerned.
“Yeah, why do you ask?” Sato was up, carefully packing his slates and other gear. He seemed to always have
