The day flew by faster than it should have. People were in full preparation mode and since I was their only expert in this, all their questions landed right on me. Evening had come down bythe time I broke away and walked back toward my shuttle. I was reaching for the hatch when I heard footsteps.
Aila. She came up beside me and took my hand.
“What is it, little one?” I asked her.
She looked back to the village, then up at me. “Are we going to win?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “But we’re going to do everything we can to.”
She considered this. “Gr’pa, will you teach me to fight too?”
I stopped breathing.
She’d said it simply, as though the name she’d called me was natural. I knew I should probably tell her to call me Gilrox, remind her that I wasn’t her grandfather, but I just couldn’t. The name she’d just used for me added a new layer of weight to all this, and made it even more important that I not fail them.
“We’ll talk about it.” I flicked the end of her nose. “Now go on home.”
“Okay,” she said. She dropped my hand and ran back toward the lights.
I stood by the shuttle.
Just stood there.
Fleck. All I’d wanted was a solitary retirement of fishing, napping, and maybe picking up another hobby or two, like whittling. I was good with a knife. Instead, I’d gone and acquired a family of several hundred. Being a mercenary was a walk in the park compared to this.
Chapter
Nineteen
Everyone has a hidden talent
The beach southof the village was flat enough and far enough from the water’s edge. I set up targets on the first morning. They were simple, rough shapes cut from salvage board, mounted on posts driven into the sand. I stood at the front of my training group with ten blasters in a crate at my feet.
I’d pulled them from theAndromeda’sstorage. Set each one to visual flare modeonly. It produced a satisfying burst of light on impact rather than a hole in whatever you’d aimed at. No point in casualties before the enemy even arrived. At the end of each session I’d collect them, count them, and lock them back up. I wasn’t squeamish about arming the Runams. It had to be done. The Rivonok Alliance wasn’t going to arrive armed with flutes and flowers.
Twenty-three Runams turned out on the first morning. I had them line up in a loose row facing the targets, and I stood to the side and watched them arrange themselves.
Right, I thought.Here we go.
Micher arrived in his healer’s whites.
I noticed this because it was absurd. The whites were clean, pressed, and thoroughly unsuited to any activity involving combat, wind, or exertion. I decided not to say anything, since he’d come at all and I’d take what I could get.
After a thorough explanation of how the weapons worked, how to hold them, aim, etc., they all got to take turns shooting. This seemed to generate a good deal of excitement, and I refrained from telling them that at some point, it was likely that they’d have one pointed at them.
Micher picked up his blaster, checked the charge indicator, settled his stance as if he’d done it a thousand times, and fired. The target lit up in the center. He fired again. And again. Four more times after that.
I walked over and looked at the target. Six flare impacts in a grouping tight enough to cover with my palm. A guild marksman would have had complicated feelings about that grouping.Ihad complicated feelings about it, and I’d been one.
Micher stood with the blaster held loosely at his side, watching me look at the target.
“I have steady hands,” he said.
Fleck, yes. He did. Thirty years of precise movements on bodies that couldn’t afford for him to flinch had paid off. His hands had learned to do what they were told regardless of what the rest of him was feeling. Apparently, this translated.
I stared at him. He stared back.
“Well done,” I said, which was a significant understatement, and moved on.
