“Mom.” He grew uncomfortable with her compliments.
“I don’t give compliments easily or often, Jace. And I’m not just saying this as your mother. Because I have to be more than your mother and you have to be more--”
“Than your son? I think that’s a good part of me in this. It’s why I’m not freaking out. Well, not freaking out much.” He grinned and shrugged.
She chuckled and nodded. “I’m sure in a week we’ll freak out for real. But for right now, we need to keep it together.”
“Right. I can do that,” he said.
“I know you will.”
She embraced him once more and that was when he saw Khoth in the doorway with Gehenna hovering behind him with Thammah. His exo-suit was similar to Jaces, mostly white with blue on the sides and patterned across the front. His long hair hung over the shoulders of his suit. The beads in his hair clicked together. His blue-on-blue eyes met Jace’s.
It was time.
He and his mother broke apart. His father brushed by Khoth and went to him and his mother. His father put a hand around the back of his neck and looked at him for long moments, saying nothing.
Finally, he said, “Whatever you see in there, Jace, in that ship--”
“You’ll see it with me,” Jace told him.
“Yes, but being there… Training is nothing like the reality of flying,” his father said and leaned forward, kissing his forehead. “If you need us… if you need anything…”
“I’ll be okay. I’m going to be helping those people. And we need to see the enemy we face,” Jace told him, surprised how certain those words came out as if he had been training to fight all his life.
You have been, Jace, Gehenna told him.
He embraced his parents one last time before turning to the counter where a rahir, a draagves, a laser pistol, several mines, forcefield chips to augment the suit’s defenses, and something that looked rather like a thumb drive that could be inserted into the Khul’s ship to end the suffering of all those inside. There was no slot. It was smooth all around and simply bringing it into the ship and pressing on the outer casing would unleash destruction.
It had been Gehenna’s contribution though she was going with them. But just in case something untoward happened to her body, they would have the thumb drive to upload a virus that would, supposedly, be able to take down even a Hive’s defenses. He easily slotted each piece of equipment in his suit, slung the rahir and draagves over his back, slid the pistol into a side holster, before he finally took the drive and put it in a pocket over his heart.
“Ready to go?” Jace asked Khoth, knowing the Thaf’ell Commander was.
Khoth gave a brief nod. Jace gave a brief look at each person. His parents gave him watery smiles as they laced their hands together. Thammah saluted him in a rather ironic, loose manner which he doubted was Thaf’ell, but more Top Gun. The general stepped up to him.
“You’re doing a service to those people inside the ship, Jace,” General Intoshkin said with a kindness that Jace was surprised by. “I’ve been in combat. And I’ve also sent soldiers into combat. I will honestly say that it's much harder to do the latter. What you will do… you’ll be ending suffering.”
Jace couldn’t quite believe that he would be killing people in less than 30 minutes. He couldn’t quite get his head around it. Even as Gehenna told him over and over again that, truly, all he was doing was saving them from intense pain. It didn’t seem real. Maybe it would when he was there.
That’s why I have to see this. So what happened to them doesn’t happen to anyone else. That I’ll be able to make the hard decisions ahead, because I’ve seen what awaits anyone the Khul capture, Jace told himself.
But still he couldn’t quite believe it.
He simply nodded to the general and strode over to Khoth, Gehenna and Thammah.
“You sure you don’t want to join us, Thammah?” Jace asked.
“Go into a Khul ship or stay here and check out the Krytoria 2? Hmmm, let me think.” She tapped her right temple.
“Okay, okay! Just don’t snoop around too much. The Osiris is willing to let us see some of its secrets, but not all,” Jace reminded her. The Osiris had actually offered this after releasing the weapons and armor to them. “Enjoy yourself. But not too much.”
“Oh, yes, I do all things in moderation,” Thammah assured him.
“The Slim Jims would suggest otherwise,” Khoth replied dryly.
A soldier, whose name was William Farmer, stepped up and gave a real salute, though none of them was officially in the US military.
“I’ll be the one driving you to the ships,” he said.
