Chapter 27
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
Hope is lousy strategy (until it isn’t)
“Krax,” the mercenary said with a grin. “You remembered me. Glad your memory hasn’t failed you in your—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” I growled.
“…old age.” He broke into laughter.
I sighed. “You’ll be lucky to live to my age.”
That was actually true, and he knew it. The laughter stopped. “Right. Well, good to see you vertical, Gilrox.”
So he knew my name. Around us, the aftermath was proceeding with the efficiency I would have expected from a guild operation.
Morra’s people were being walked in groups toward the landing shuttle, hands secured, with two or three mercenaries to each cluster.
Somewhere behind the east buildings, suppression equipment was running over the remaining fires.
The air was starting to smell more of foam than smoke.
“What will happen to those people?” Maive asked, watching the Rivonok forces being led away.
“They’ll be escorted to their vessels and told not to come back,” Krax replied. “They won’t.”
I looked at Maive. I looked at Krax. I looked at the warship still sitting above us and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Start from the beginning.”
“Which beginning?” Krax asked.
“Just pick one.”
Maive and Krax looked at each other. Maive crossed her arms and took a deep breath.
“Fine. Let’s begin with the mountain Runams,” Maive said, then poked Krax in the arm. “This part is you.”
He rolled his eyes, but complied, of course.
“After your visit to their base, we received a communication from their leader, Anlara,” Krax explained.
“She and her people are not as isolated as they appear. As it turns out, she was a guild member herself, once. I’d make a joke about you two knowing each other, but I want to get through this with my teeth intact. ”
“He can learn,” I muttered, then waved a hand. “Go on.”
“Anlara retired from the guild before you joined it, from what I understand,” Krax said. “But she still had channels, and when she met you, she recognized that she was looking at a fellow mercenary.”
“A retired mercenary,” Maive added.
“Yes. She found that interesting,” Krax said. “So she reached out to the guild and told them what was happening here. What you’d said to her.”
“Did that happen to be the same day,” I said slowly and with a grimace, “that I sent them my last message?”
“Yes.” He paused. “Before that, the guild had a theory about you.”
“I know the theory.” I closed my eyes briefly. “The junver syrup. They thought I’d gone into trade.”
“The merchant operation made sense from the outside. A retired Level Ten sets up on a remote planet with a rare biological resource? It reads as a smart business decision.” Krax looked at me. “Then we got your message, followed soon by Anlara’s.”
Maive turned to look at me.
“What message?” she asked.
“A communication,” I said. “To the guild. Clarifying the misunderstanding.”
“What kind of clarification?”
Krax found this exchange very interesting.
“That he had no financial interest in the junver syrup,” Krax told her with a little too much glee.
“He also included a lengthy, moving statement about how important the villagers were to him, that he would fight to the death for them.” He smiled wider.
“That he had fallen in love with a woman. I assume that’s you, ma’am. ”
“I should hope so.” Maive’s head turned toward me, one brow raised. “You told the guild this?”
“In the course of the explanation, yes.” I pinned Krax with a hard look. “I hate you, by the way.”
Krax just shrugged. “The lady asked. I answered.”
Meanwhile, Maive had done the mental calculations. “You told the entire mercenary guild that you loved me, before you told me you loved me.”
“There was an unfortunate sequence of events.” I crossed my arms. “I won’t apologize. Emotions are new for me.”
She looked at me for a long moment. I had the clear sense that this conversation would have a second half that was going to happen in private, and I had earned every word of it.
I circled my hand in the air. “Get on with it, newbie.”
Krax was only too happy to comply. “So the guild receives an emotional personal communication from a retired Rank V, saying he’s in love with a Runam village leader on an outer-quadrant planet, denying he’s doing any kind of business out here.
Then, that same day, we receive a separate query from Anlara, about you, both backing up your claim that you’re not a merchant and your…
affection for these people.” He spread his hands.
“Two retired mercenaries. Same topic. Same day. That has not happened before. No one could remember anything close to it. People got curious.”
“People got curious,” I repeated, and let out a snort.
“Several of us were between assignments.”
“And?”
He looked faintly uncomfortable. “We took a vote.”
I regarded him. The guild did not vote on things. The guild had contracts and rates and a hierarchy that had functioned on those principles for longer than I’d been alive. “A vote.”
“Informal.”
“To come out here with a warship and fifty mercenaries?”
“The vote was close,” he said, which I did not believe for a second.
A pair of mercenaries walked a group of six Rivonok personnel past us, toward the landing ramp.
One of the Rivonok said something. The mercenary closest to him said something back, and the group began to chat as if they were old friends.
That was how these things worked. No real enemies when the only real metric was credits.
“So you what? Decided to come out here and see if the old-timer had lost his mind?” I asked. “Or to see if the junver syrup was an operation worth the guild’s time to take over?”
“We came out,” Krax said seriously, “and we dealt with your surveillance system.”
I looked at him.
“Your setup was thorough,” he said. “Trip wires, perimeter devices, proximity alerts. You did solid work.” He paused. “But you learned those methods from the guild. We knew your methods because they are ours. Disabling the system took us about forty minutes.”
“I spent three weeks on that system,” I muttered.
“I know. I’m sorry. We needed to move quietly.” He shook his head. “And actually, no. We didn’t think you’d lost your mind and we weren’t interested in the junver syrup.”
“Then why?”
“We’ll get to that.” He looked uncomfortable enough for me to let it go for now. And anyway, Maive had placed a hand on my arm in a signal that she was taking over the next part of the story.
“They came in the middle of the night,” Maive said. “Twenty armed mercenaries in my front room. I’d never seen anything like it, but they said they were there to help.” She considered this. “So I told them everything. The Rivonok, what they wanted, what we’d prepared, what the stakes were.”
“And then she told us that if we hadn’t come to help, we could put all the surveillance equipment back where we found it and go home, because she had a village to defend.” Krax shook his head. “Couldn’t believe she said it exactly like that.”
“I’m aware of how she says things,” I said.
“And you decided to stay and help,” Maive said to Krax, warmly. “We were very appreciative.”
“I’m still waiting for the why,” I said. “The guild isn’t a charity organization. It’s strictly for-profit. So who’s paying you? Anlara? Or did you—”
“No, Gilrox.” Krax looked tired all of sudden. Tired and wary. “It was hope.”
That wan’t a normal guild reason. It wasn’t practical, which would be something about guild presence in the outer quadrant, or a strategic interest in keeping the Rivonok Alliance from establishing a foothold in this system.
I was already running the calculation of what that would cost, what obligation it would create.
“That’s the truth,” he said, and looked away. “Go ahead. Deliver the insult. I’m prepared.”
But I didn’t have one. This was just confusing.
Krax set his helmet on the ground. He crossed his arms and looked out at the square, at the scorched buildings and the foam and the mercenaries working. When he spoke again, his voice was even but the words clearly cost him something.
“I know how that sounds. I’m aware of how it sounds.
” He exhaled. “Four years I’ve been in the guild.
I’m good at it. I’m going to keep being good at it for a while yet.
But there is nothing waiting for me anywhere.
No home. No version of what you have here.
” He glanced at me briefly. “My history before the guild wasn’t different from yours.
Where I came from, what I left. And your message got passed around, and Anlara’s, because everyone who read it thought—here’s a retired Level V, in the middle of nowhere, with a fishing rod and a woman who loves him, and a whole village of people who matter to him.
And it occurred to us that maybe it was possible.
That it doesn’t have to end in the field.
” He paused. “The others felt the same. That was the vote.”
Nobody said anything for a moment.
I thought about what I would have thought about this when I was four years in.
A green newbie with an attitude. If I’d read a message like the one I’d sent…
yes. I’d have come to see with my own eyes that it was possible to have something good after living the life of a mercenary.
I’d have dropped everything to see it. The hope.
I understood that, and I’d never insult a man for wanting that for himself.
“I didn’t intend any of it,” I said. “I came here because the fishing looked decent.”
Maive made a sound.
“I mean that,” I said. “I didn’t plan for any of this.
I found a good ocean view and I stayed.” I turned toward her and pulled her close.
“And I ended up with a woman who smells like the sea, and argues with me, and can bully a team of guild mercenaries into saving her village from a hostile syndicate.”
“I asked you to leave,” Maive said, placing a hand over my hearts. “I was quite forceful about it.”
“You were.”
“And you didn’t leave.”
“No.” I dropped a kiss on her forehead. “But I respected the spirit of the request.”
“Gilrox.”
“I’m just saying that I made a good-faith effort to—”
“I’m glad you didn’t go,” she said. “And you earned your place in our village. You saved Tregen and you used your equipment to restore his health. You were kind to everyone, you helped fix things, and traded with us, and gave our people rides from the Durbok’s trading post.” She looked at Krax suddenly.
“Will he be coming back, by the way? He’s our only merchant. ”
Krax blinked at her. He and the other mercenaries nearby had been staring at us, transfixed. “Ah, I assume so. Now that the Rivonok are gone.”
“Thank the stars. Hopefully we won’t be dealing with anything like this again.”
“I assure you that won’t happen. This system is now under guild protection.
Just that designation will keep would-be invaders away.
One more thing,” he said. “From Anlara. She asked me to pass along an invitation. To you, Maive, and to whoever in the village would like to come to her mountain fortress. She’d like to open contact between the two communities. She wants to meet you in person.”
Maive’s expression opened as she smiled. “I would like that very much,” she said. “Please tell her we look forward to it.”
He nodded.
I thought about Aila, who was still in the shuttle. Now that I was certain the guild meant no harm, and the Rivonok forces had been herded up and led away, I touched the control on my wrist and unsealed and opened the hatch. “So where is everyone? The villagers.”
Maive looked up at the Deadnight XI battleship. “Up there. All of them. There’s a crew bay that wasn’t being used and they’ve been in it for twelve hours.” She paused. “Last I knew, Celn’s youngest had been attempting to take apart part of the navigation equipment and had to be supervised.”
The thing that had been pulled tight in my chest for the last several hours let go.
All of them. Including Pasek and Braija and old Marvik and the children and the Pesh family, all currently inconveniencing guild personnel on a warship above the clouds.
Aila streaked though the village and into Maive’s arms with a squeal. “Gr’ma! I’m so sorry I hid in the woods. I wanted to help spot the bad people.”
“It’s okay, my little blossom,” Maive crooned, kissing the top of her head. “We’re safe. It’ll be fine.”
“They can come down now,” Maive said. She looked at the square.
At the scorched buildings and the foam and the places where the docks had been.
Her jaw was set. “We’ll rebuild. We start as soon as everyone’s back.
” She turned to Krax. “Thank you. Genuinely. Please tell your guild that they’re welcome in Valrim Village anytime. ”
Krax dipped his head. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“What does this cost me?” I said, still skeptical that this was all free. It cost credits just to fly this big ship here.
“Nothing,” Krax said.
“That’s not how the guild works,” I stated. “Also, I don’t owe debts.”
“I understand that.” He picked up his helmet.
“Although. If you’re open to it.” He turned the helmet over in his hands.
“There are mercenaries who would benefit from talking to you. Perspective from a retired member who got out and built a life. And if you were willing, when people need to get their heads straight, between assignments, or after. Somewhere to think.” He was barely coherent, but I understood exactly what he was trying to say and what it cost him to ask this.
He was asking if I’d allow this place to be an oasis of sorts.
“Just somewhere other than another fight.” He winced and looked off to the distance. “It takes a toll, you know.”
“Yes,” I said quietly, as I picked up Aila, who’d held her arms up for me. “It does.”
I looked at Maive, who smiled up at me. “I can do that,” I said.