She wasn’t a Merc.
Not anymore.
The idea was not entirely new to her. After losing her teammates on Thule, she’d often thought she would never work as a Merc again. Then Col. Barnes had come along with a chance for revenge.
Even then, Fairchild had figured her days with the Guild were numbered. One last job. Kill Slayn. Avenge Dane and Bryce. Tie up all those ragged and bloody loose ends. And after that… who knew?
Then those damned guys had come along and changed everything.
Reece. Dutton. Nash.
Fairchild’s mind time-traveled a week into the past, taking over Slayn’s ship with her guys, the four of them naked and bloody, killing everything that stood in their way. She remembered the sound of their battle cries as they killed, the screams of their enemies as they died, the weight of the pistols in her hands, the smell of cordite and hot metal and death.
God, it had felt so good to be part of a team again. A real team. Fairchild knew she would never be able to find that with another group of Mercs. Not like how it was with her guys.
Herguys.
She stopped her feet and stood in the middle of the concourse, letting the last of her tears roll down her cheeks. Around her, other soldiers marched by on their way to training sessions, mission briefings, loadouts. A few of them glanced in her direction as they passed, but none of them stopped to offer a kind word or ask her what was wrong. That was fine with Fairchild. She wasn’t looking for comfort.
The Guild had been her home for about as long as she could remember. Before that, all she had were flimsy scraps of a childhood, ragged memories of scrabbling among ruins for something to eat or some shelter from the weather. The Guild had given her the closest thing she’d ever had to a real family.
Was she truly ready to give that all up now?
Yes.
If she couldn’t fight alongside her guys, she wouldn’t fight at all. Not for the Guild, anyway.
But the way she’d gone about it was all wrong. She hadn’t just walked out on Lennox and Barnes; she’d walked out on Reece and the others too, without so much as a word of goodbye.
Damn it.
Damnit!
She wiped away the tears that were already drying on her cheeks and started to turn around. If she hurried, she could make it back to the briefing room before—
Her body slapped into another body, bigger and harder than her own. A massive torso clothed in a sturdy combat vest. A pair of arms bulging with muscle. Two eyes shining out from beneath the shadow of a weatherbeaten hood.
Reece. He had followed her.
Fairchild was so surprised, she couldn’t think of anything to say, aside from stating the obvious.
“You followed me.”
It was part statement, part question, and part something else grammarians didn’t have a name for. Fairchild cast her eyes back and forth as she said it, looking at the other two Mercs standing a step behind their leader on either side. Dutton and Nash. They had followed her too.
“That’s right,” Reece said. His voice was low, barely even audible over the hubbub of the concourse, but Fairchild could feel it rumbling deep within her body. “We would follow you to the ends of the galaxy and beyond.”
He lifted a hand to her face and thumbed away a tear she had missed.
“But…?”
“But what?” Reece asked. “Our new assignment? Lennox will have to give it to someone else. We’re retired.”
“What?”
“We, uh, tendered our resignations,” Nash said over Reece’s shoulder. “Shortly after you tendered your own.”
“That’s right,” Dutton added from the other side. “We quit.”
