“Max,” I hiss as he charges past me, heading toward the squads like a man who has finally seen a clear solution to his most vexing problem. “Max!”
He pauses and turns back toward me, irritation clear on his face before it smooths out to his normal concerned expression.
“You can’t shoot at whatever it is. It’s not some minor warlord in a country that Verux is tired of doing business with,” I say.
Max gives me a disapproving look. As if I don’t know who I’m working for.
“It doesn’t work like that. This?” I point to the security teams and their guns and the entities around them. “Is a bad idea.” I can already imagine it. They’re firing on things that aren’t there or maybe are, and either way people die. Especially if they manage to blow holes through the hull of theAurorain the process. Look at the damage we did to ourselves and each other without a single gun between us.
“Let us worry about that. You just focus on you,” Max says, the verbal equivalent to a condescending pat on the head, if there ever was one. Then he turns around and leads on.
I shake my head. If he won’t warn them, I will. I have to try.
Max stops in front of the squads, feet wide and braced in his worn leather shoes, his hands tucked behind his back, in that “I’m in charge” posture that I’ve never understood. “Teams Alpha, Bravo, Charlie.”
“Sir, yes, sir!” they respond immediately.
“Thank you for your service,” he says, and then gives a curt nod that evidently serves as a signal.
The three security teams break from their formation and head for the surrounding crates to begin loading them onto the transport. Something about this is wrong, something beyond the obvious “way too much firepower for an already unstable situation.”
But the obvious problem is the one I need to handle first.
I wait and watch, as Max—and Reed tagging along after like a desperate child hoping to hang with the big kids—consults with one of the security personnel, a team leader of a different variety than I am… was, most likely. The rest of them move about stowing the crates and cargo, oblivious to the ghosts trailing after them.
When Max seems thoroughly occupied with his conversation, pointing at something on a projected display I can’t see from here, I make my move.
Another team leader, or so I’m assuming as he’s not doing any fucking work, is standing—again with his hands behind his back, what is that?—supervising his people at a distance.
I sidle up alongside of him, keeping a distance of a couple feet, so maybe it won’t be immediately obvious to Max what I’m doing, if he happens to look over. “Listen. I know you don’t know me. But you need to hear me. Guns aren’t going to solve this.”
The man—the patch on his arm readsMCCAUGHEY—doesn’t respond. His mouth is a firm, determined line as he monitors the progress in front of him. He’s probably been told about me, told to ignore me.
Frustrated, I continue. “It’s dangerous. You won’t know what’s real, who you’re firing on. You’re going to see things—”
A woman breaks off from helping to carry a crate, sending it along with her teammates, and stomps toward me. Diaz, according to her patch. “Who are you talking to?” Diaz demands, her hand moving toward her sidearm. An unconscious protective gesture.
“McCaughey,” I say with a sinking feeling, even though I know as soon as my mouth forms the syllables that it’s a mistake. That I’ve made a big mistake.
Her head rocks back as though I’ve punched her, her face going pale.
Then she’s up in my personal space, jabbing a finger at me. “You think they didn’t tell us about you? You shut the hell up about McCaughey. You aren’t getting into our heads that easily.”
Next to me, McCaughey shifts, responding to Diaz’s approach by stepping back and turning so he can keep an eye on her. And ofcourse, as soon as he does, I see the front of him and I’m greeted by the gravity of my error. McCaughey is bloodied and dead, the left half of his face demolished, just meat with twisted metal shrapnel still sticking out.
An explosion during the course of a mission. Probably happened so fast, he never saw it coming. He was working then, so he continues to work now. Reliving his last moments, which are apparently tied to Diaz and possibly her teammates.
Damnit.I lost track when the security personnel started moving around. Or maybe McCaughey had blended in from the beginning, not being among the shouting, pleading ones.
I hold my hands up, tearing my gaze away from McCaughey to focus on Diaz. “I’m sorry,” I say carefully. “I didn’t know, but it doesn’t change anything. This is still—”
“At ease, Diaz,” Max says mildly next to me, startling me. I hadn’t even heard him approach.
She stiffens, her spine going straight. “Yes, sir,” she mumbles.
I gape at Max. What the hell does he have on them? He’s just a grandpa-y guy in worn-out shoes and days or maybe weeks from retirement. A paper pusher from the QA Department.
“Go on,” he says in that same gentle tone, nodding toward the shuttle. Diaz stalks away to return to her tasks, but she tosses a glare at me over her shoulder as she goes and her fists are still clenched at her sides.
