“I’d like you to fly back to the States with us, if you’re willing—though I guarantee the State Department won’t like it. They’ll want you in their custody. They’ll want to interview you—but I want to interview you too, work with you during the flight home, see if we can figure out who Jon Helm really is. Interested?”
His voice returns to normal volume. “Sure. If you can make it happen. I owe you a lot more than that.”
The lights of another aircraft appear in the night. It’s flying low and slow as it approaches the field. Miles draws back, watching it with a tense gaze.
True recognizes Blackbird. “No worries,” she tells Miles. “That one’s ours. A Kobrin Remote Lift 900 stealth. Leased for the mission from Eden Transit and flown by one of our AIs.”
The little ship buzzes in. As it draws closer, True makes out Juliet’s figure suspended beneath it. She’s laden with extra baggage beyond the standard backpack and weapon. Out beyond the fuel truck, Blackbird lowers her to the tarmac. Chris and Nasir set off to meet her while the 900-s moves away toward a line of three hangars.
“Juliet used to pilot machines like that,” True muses. “So did I. Now the AIs get to do the flying and we’ve been demoted to cargo. Pretty soon this business of war won’t involve humans at all—you know, except as targets.”
Miles gives her a cool look. “And the PMC that fields the best robots wins the day?”
“You got that right,” she says, crossing her arms. “It’s the only reason you’re here.”
“Yeah, sorry. From what I’ve seen, your outfit is damn good at what you do.”
She nods, too aware of the contradictions. “We’re a private military, but we still serve our country. And we’re in business only because there’s a need for our services.”
Some would make a counterargument that PMCs exist because they’ve created a need for their services: When one side buys protection, it encourages their rivals to seek armed protection too, and there’s no financial incentive for military companies to seek peace.
Miles scratches at his dirty beard. “I got to ask you something.”
Her lips quirk in cynical amusement. She can guess what’s coming. It’s what everyone asks eventually. Why the hell are you working as a hired soldier? Especially after what happened to Diego?
But he surprises her, asking something quite different, “How the hell are you old enough to be Diego Delgado’s mother?”
His question stirs a faint, bitter echo of old battles—her father’s harsh criticism, her own stubborn defiance. I would do it all again, she thinks as a melancholy smile tweaks the corner of her mouth.
She says, “I had him when I was still seventeen. Fell in love with a nineteen-year-old soldier. Dumbest thing a girl can do, you know? Thirty-one years later we’re still married. Three kids. Like they say, through thick and thin.” She whisks her hand through the air, a gesture that encompasses the helicopter, her fellow soldiers, the airfield, the entirety of the mission, maybe too, the historical weight of her marriage. “Alex hates all this. He’s a paramedic now. Got out of the army after his first term.”
Miles cocks his head, eyeing her uneasily. “At Ranger School, one of the instructors talked about Diego’s execution.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that.” She crosses her arms. It’s not her favorite subject, but it’s not one she hides from.
The pump has stopped. She watches the ground crew working together to reel the fuel hose back onto its spool at the side of the truck. “They should talk about it,” she says. “Young soldiers need to understand that what they’re taking on is not a game. Things get fucked up.” She turns back to him. Hard shadows cast on his face by the blue-tinged lights make him seem older than his years. “You know how fucked up things get.”
“I know.”
The pilot signs off for the fuel. The ground crew wishes him well. They climb into the fuel truck’s cab. The engine starts up with a rumble and the truck pulls away. In the distance, the little Kobrin is being pushed into a hangar lit with amber lights. Three figures walk together toward the H215—Chris, Nasir, and Juliet.
Miles glances over his shoulder to where Rogers is sitting, a row away, then tilts his head, indicating the tarmac. True nods. They jump down together and walk a few steps away. In an undertone, Miles tells her, “Every day in that cell we wondered if it was our last day. Maybe because I’d seen that tattoo, I kept thinking about Diego and that video and how people reacted to it. All the war talk that followed it. God forgive me, but I was angry about it—because Hussam was one sadistic bastard and I knew something like that could happen to me. And if it did? The world wouldn’t notice. People are so jaded, that kind of stuff doesn’t even make the news anymore.”
True doesn’t agree. “I don’t think people are jaded,” she says, surprising herself with the admission. “I think it’s self-defense. There are so many tragedies, who can process them all? You can’t grieve for everyone.”
“That tattoo though, what it said… ‘The Last Good Man.’ Doesn’t that sound personal to you? It’s like he knew Diego, admired him, grieved for him… you think?”
Her mind doesn’t want to go there. “No, I don’t believe that.” Her voice has become as soft as his. “I’m not saying they never met. You meet a lot of people in the service. But I think it’s a fetish. Fame and horror and martyrdom—they pull people in. Diego kept his friends close. I knew who they were, and I can account for every one.”
He glances around at Chris and the others as they approach. “Maybe another prisoner at Nungsan?” he suggests. “Someone you never heard of?”
“No. No one got away. Shaw Walker was the only other prisoner and he died there. Everyone at Nungsan, everyone who saw Diego, who touched him, hurt him, all of them—they’re dead. I made sure of it.”
As she says it, she realizes how it must sound, so she adds a clarification. “Not dead by my hand,” she says, moving back to the H215’s open door. “I just looked into it, because yeah, for a while, I wanted revenge. But you’ve gotta let that stuff go.”
“It must be hard not to hate.”
A slight, bitter smile as she lingers on the tarmac beside the cabin door. “Who said I don’t hate? The truth is I’m pretty indiscriminate about it. There are millions of people I could hate. Everyone who wants to give themselves rights they deny to others, who wants to fuck with self-determination, individual freedom—and a woman’s freedom matters too. It’s like this, Miles. We want to be friendly with people, but what I just said, that kind of philosophy? It’s deadly to most traditional belief systems. Most of them, maybe all, require violent enforcement or, at the least, emotional blackmail, or they fall apart. Tolerance cannot coexist within intolerant systems. Not back home and not here. One of them has to die.” She moves out of the way as Chris approaches, carrying two shielded collection bags. “Personally, I’m voting we push the intolerant assholes out the airlock.”
“You proselytizing again, True?” Chris asks.
“Always on,” she assures him. She trades a fist bump with Juliet. “Did you find us some treasure?”
Juliet’s expression has an electric intensity as she leans in close and grabs True’s elbow. “Lincoln didn’t tell you about the emblem, did he?”
The way she says it sends a shiver up True’s spine. “What emblem?”
“Rogue Lightning. Their emblem. We found it on the crashed Arkinson.”
“Remember that motorcycle you asked me to watch?” Naomi asks when Tamara returns to the command post after a short break.
Lincoln turns around, head cocked curiously.