Chapter 51
Immediately I started cancelling the lock in sequence. I was about to head back out, when Sebastian blocked the exit to the pod, though I already saw Lamassu’s lights fading in the distance.
“Remain in the transport,” Sebastian insisted. “We’ll hold as long as we can, but we need to be ready to leave immediately if necessary.”
Frustration boiled over in my chest. These fucking men. “I can—” I started, and Conrad stopped me.
“There are only ten enemy Ghuls in proximity on the radar. Marx and Delacorte can handle it.” The suggestion was firm and shut me down completely. “I know you’re more than capable, so don’t take this the wrong way, but this is one case where I’m going to tell you to listen to your unit captain.”
I stilled, deflated, worried, while still jittery with adrenaline all at once.
“Why?” I asked Conrad, trying to sound calm instead of disappointed.
“I can help,” I repeated for what felt like the hundredth time.
They were all making me feel like a burden, when I knew I wasn’t one, dammit.
I understood Elio’s reasoning, whether I was happy about that or not, but no one else had an excuse for belittling me.
“Because not all tactics are about your raw capabilities. You should know this better than anyone.” He took on a lighter tone, but the weight he put on each word still held impossible gravity.
“Sometimes the best way the crew can help is to stay on the life raft while the captain makes his last preparations.”
Bull shit. “That’s not a tactic. I may as well be fucking cargo.”
“Yep. But it’s your captain’s job to make that call when it needs to be made.
I’m not going to discount your value as a single soldier, but no one is going to survive and win a war alone.
Trust your leaders, and learn from their decisions.
Once you’ve gained the experience to be in their position, you’ll understand.
” Conrad made it hard to argue, and fuck did I hate it.
But with Sebastian fiercely guarding the staging area, and Elio and Breaker clearing the closest enemy wave to assure safe transport of the small crew who remained, I had to remind myself that this was bigger than just what I wanted.
I had already proven my worth to some extent, and I would have plenty more opportunities in the future if I could keep my impulses in check.
“All ten units are eliminated,” Conrad said next, and my heart rate slowed a few beats on my vital monitor. “Marx and Delacorte are en route with unit 989, Hodge Alvarez. No further threats in the vicinity. They’re safe, kid. You can strap in.”
Unit 989? “Aren’t there only supposed to six of us left?”
“Enemy unit—” Leo’s voice cut into the local channel.
Elio came online at the same time, the group channel sounding in my other ear, as he shouted, “Seba, Mishka—abandon the pod. 199 isn’t ours—”
Both men’s shouting was drowned out by the heat and violence of an explosion right behind me, searing my nerves, and sending an equally powerful burst of agony through every muscle and vertebrae of my back.
My Shinka was thrown forward from the energy dispersion, slamming my machine into Vetala and sending us both crashing off the edge of the staging platform into open space.
A montage of bombs, fallen students, and the burning wreck of Zircon Station flashed through my mind as quickly as I was ejected into the blackness, tangled in Sebastian’s mobile armor.
Another surge of heat hit me, and I didn’t know where it had come from.
Violently and viciously, a cannon’s full energy beam ripped into the side of my hip, narrowly missing Sebastian, while I took on the brunt of the blast.
The all consuming, full body, life rending sensation as my Shinka’s lower body was severed from my waist down sent my vitals into orbit, and all I saw then was the white hot world turning black, as Sebastian held tight to my remains.