Lonely Castles by S A Tholin

Author:S A Tholin [Tholin, S A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781076363145
Published: 2019-07-23T22:00:00+00:00

38.

HOPEWELL

Triple-checking did not change the unfortunate facts.

Fact one: Rearcross was eleven months older than her, but his enlistment date was seven weeks later than hers.

Fact two: The mission had turned into a complete shit show.

Fact three: Seven damn weeks made her the team's senior officer, and the shit show entirely her responsibility.

"Fuck!" Even the freedom to swear seemed hollow. She'd often wondered why commanders didn't curse more – who was going to reprimand them, right? – but now it made sense. When you were in charge, fuck just didn't cut it. If there was some command-level swear word that worked better, she wasn't privy to it, and Earth have mercy, hoped she'd never have cause to be. "Damn it!"

She didn't really want to say that. Had pretty much got the swearing out of her system, but what she really wanted to say was what the hell do we do now?, and that, she was fairly sure, wasn't something leaders should say.

Oh, stars. Leader. The word churned in the pit of her stomach. This wasn't what she was meant to do. She was all about teamwork, but now, looking at the team, all she could think was you poor bastards, stuck with me. Did Commander Cassimer ever feel like that? Did he ever wonder what the hell to do? It was comforting to think that of course he did, everyone did – but deep inside, she felt pretty sure that the commander knew what to do even when he didn't. Like decision-making was his marrow.

But the commander was kneeling in the pouring rain, surrounded by RebEarth troops, and they'd been in this situation once before, him and her. Only difference was, he'd called all the shots then. He'd told her what to do and when to do it, and she'd done a damn good job.

"All right, so..." She squared her shoulders to at least give her ragged little team an impression of confidence. They'd regrouped in an abandoned apartment overlooking the hospital. Not safe, but safe enough to catch their breath. "So we've got to go back there and get them. We've still got explosives and..."

A shotgun blast rang out. In the hospital courtyard, the commander fell to the ground as the RebEarther who'd shot him reloaded. He was still moving, fingers clutching at his Morrigan, but it was kicked away from him and the shotgun pressed against the back of his head and fired again.

"No; oh mercy, oh please no. Daneborg, you got a shot, you take it now, you hear me?"

But Daneborg didn't hear, comms still down and would stay down until Lucklaw woke the hell up, and outside, the commander was still moving. She willed him not to, to please stay down, and she could hear Tallinn, restrained and struggling, shouting for him to do just that. The RebEarther put his gun to the commander's head a third time, and thank the stars, he finally stopped moving. He lay prone in the rain, smoke rising from his cracked helmet.

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