“Be my guest,” Wash said distractedly, reading the news headlines on his datapad. He casually held out a hand inviting the stranger to sit.
“What’s new in the galaxy?” asked the stranger.
That was a loaded question. No sooner had Psydon wound to its close, with an official end to hostilities, than the House of Reason had begun talking about some new system threatening to walk away from the alliance forced during the Savage Wars.
“Not much,” Wash answered.
As the man sat down, Wash pulled his eyes away from his screen to study him. He was dark-skinned, with short hair, mostly gray but still with a bit of his youthful color. An older man. He was dressed in casual clothing, slacks and a pull-down, but there was an edge to him. A certain awareness of his surroundings, like he was on guarded alert. Not panicked, but not taking everything at face value either.
Wash realized that he’d allowed himself to completely retreat into his mind. He needed to do a better job of observing life. Like the Legion had taught him.
Like your life depends on it.
“So, what did you want to talk to me about?” Wash asked the stranger.
The man didn’t smile. “What makes you think I want to talk at all?”
“Because this place is full of empty seats where you can not talk to your heart’s content, but you chose this one. And… you asked me what was new in the galaxy.”
“Maybe this is my favorite table.”
“Sorry to intrude.” Wash stood, grabbing his bowl of soup and datapad.
The man thrust out his hand and chuckled. He looked around as if laughing with someone else unseen. “Okay. All right. Yeah. We want to talk to you, Captain Washam.”
Wash settled back into his seat. “Who’s we?”
The man gave a half grin, showing the creases of age around his mouth. “I could play coy and ask you who you think ‘we’ is, but I won’t. ‘We’ is Dark Ops.”
Wash nodded.
“And we’ve been watching you for a while now. Because… we weren’t exactly sure about you. At least not until you booked this jump.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means that we’ve heard things about you, Captain. But since we aren’t the type that trades in unsubstantiated rumors, we started looking to see whether what we heard was true.”
Wash was interested. He stirred his soup, watching the steam rise from the bowl to fog the metal spoon handle. “And?”
“And as it turns out, you did graduate from the Legion Academy as the top point in your class.”
“The only one to show up is more like it.”
“But you did show up.”
“I did.”
“I know you did. But I had to work to find that out. Your drill instructors weren’t keen on talking about you. Didn’t want to admit it. But they came clean. Eventually.” The Dark Ops stranger leaned forward. “They said you took every little bit they threw at you and then some.”
Wash let his spoon clink to the side of his bowl and leaned back in his chair. “That’s the truth. So why wouldn’t they just tell you the truth?”
“Don’t think less of them—they’re good men. But there’s a fear that every inch the Legion gives to this new program will spell the eventual ruin of the Legion. And admitting that some point is capable of meeting Legion standards… well, that feels like much more than an inch.”
Wash went back to his soup, blowing on a spoonful before quietly slurping in the spicy broth. “So you know my commission is legitimate. But you said you were watching until I booked this trip.”
“Right. The Academy was step one. Then we started going over Psydon, tracking down SLIC crews, bots, soldiers—anyone who spent time with you while stationed there.” The stranger laughed. “There was a basic supply clerk who gave us an earful about your response to improperly submitted requisitions.”
Wash smiled at the memory and took in more soup, content to let Dark Ops do the talking. The way he saw it, they were either going to burst in with a kill team and arrest him for what happened at Psydon, or they were going to ask for a favor.
“Those three marines who made it out of the jungle with you, they spoke real highly of you. But… it wasn’t until now that we finally decided to have this little chat.”
Wash dabbed his mouth with a napkin. “Is this about my being asked to run for the House against Horkoshino? Is that some sort of violation to my remaining terms in the Legion?”
Wash was on prolonged administrative leave pending a full review of Psydon. He figured it would drag out long after his commission ended, and then he’d be quietly discharged.
“Hell, I don’t care about your politics, Captain. You’re free to do what you want as far as we’re concerned. But we hope that what you want is what we think will be best for the Legion. Still, I couldn’t ask you about all that until we were sure about you. And now… I’m betting that it’s okay to ask.”
“Ask what?”
“Whether you still care more about the Legion than yourself.”
Wash felt more kinship with the marines than the Legion, truth be told. But that didn’t mean he harbored the Legion any ill will; he had simply reconciled himself to the fact that they would never let him in. Still, that didn’t diminish what they stood for, or the men like Subs who exemplified everything good in a broken galaxy.
“I’d like to think I do. I didn’t join the Legion because I needed the money.”
The Dark Ops stranger smiled. “Over here, in my little neck of the woods, what we do goes without much recognition. What will earn a basic a Senatorial Valor Award is considered part of the job for Dark Ops.”
Wash nodded. He knew that much to be true.
“So here’s my offer to you, Captain. And it’ll only be on the table for you to decide until that bowl of soup of yours goes cold: Don’t stand for election to the House of Reason. Remain in the Legion—the inquiry is already decided, and nothing’s happening to you. The House of Reason knows what a good story they have with Major Berlin. They might let your name slip from view so his can shine brighter—the Order was part of that—but they aren’t going to let you go to trial for doing the same thing he did. No matter what the Legion proper might want.”
Wash cleaned his teeth with his tongue to remove a willowy strand of some leafy vegetable. “I’m not sure how giving up the chance for a seat on the House of Reason is much of an opportunity. Especially when staying in the Legion probably means spending the next however many years until retirement or discharge auditing supply requisitions.”
The stranger laughed. “No, man. You’re too big a fish for that now. Your future in the Legion as we see it involves serving as a House of Reason attaché. A career in the finest offices in the capital. You advocate to the Legion on the House and Senate’s behalf. And trust me, they’ll love trotting out an appointed officer who proves that the Legion was wrong about the benefits of the program. Basically the same thing they’d have done if you were a delegate. But with one important difference.”
“And what’s that?”
“You work for Dark Ops. Not the House. Not the Legion commander. Not the Senate. But us.”
Wash gave the stranger a quizzical look. “I’m not sure I follow.”
“No one is going to buy you being a true leej, Captain. That’s just a fact. But those of us in Dark Ops who took the time… we know. And if this whole thing, this whole Galactic Republic, ever goes sideways—and if you ask me, one day it will—you’ll be in a position to do something about it. If, say, Article Nineteen ever needs to be invoked, you’re the man up front who can help it go the right way. And we want you there, because we’ve been watching you. You care more about the Legion than you do about yourself. Is that right?”
It was. Wash cared about the legacy the Legion had crafted for itself throughout the Savage Wars. For the sacrifices the Legion had made on behalf of the galaxy. Sacrifices personified in men like Berlin. Men like Subs.
The man from Dark Ops looked down at the bowl of soup. “That looks like it’ll take a little bit of time to cool off. But if you know your answer now, I’d just as soon take it and get on the next transport back to where I need to go.”
Wash looked straight ahead, almost past the man. “I’ll do it.”
The stranger rose from his chair. “All right. We’ll be in touch.”
Wash finished his soup.
***
It was strange to pick up Alistair from his hotel. It wasn’t exactly like the two men were friends. In fact, other than a very short time on Psydon, they were complete strangers. But it was that common experience—Psydon—that opened a conversation. And it turned out neither of them could shake the ghosts of that battle, and neither had a road map for how to repair their soul-scarring wounds.
How do you make better something that’s so horribly wrong?
Wash had called Alistair with a plan to try to do that. To try to heal and make things right. The basic had been enthusiastic about the idea. But now, sitting together in a rented speeder winding along dark, country roads, the comm tech seemed nervous.
“You think this is a mistake? I’m worried this is a mistake.”
“I’ve been worrying the same thing, and I have no idea what will happen,” Wash said. “But… she didn’t have to say yes. And, anyway, the only true mistake would be for us to do nothing.”
“Yeah.”
The pair didn’t talk after that. No reminiscing about Psydon or swapping perspectives of that thin sliver of time where they’d both experienced the same doro assault. One that had cost them both their best friends.
Maybe that would come another day. When the pain wasn’t still so raw and fresh.
The speeder’s internal navigator chimed to tell them that the modest cabin they’d reached was their destination. The surrounding trees—the cabin was nestled at the bottom of mountain foothills—were lit by the cheerful glow of the cabin’s windows, which sent a warm yellow into the darkness.
Wash killed the speeder’s forward lights, and the stretch of forest the vehicle faced was instantly draped in darkness. That was something one rarely saw, as it was only visible out here, far removed from the city: pure night.
“Here we go,” Wash said. He stepped out, stretched off the long drive, then retrieved the flowers from the back seat.
Alistair repeated the phrase. “Here we go. Here we go.” As if hyping himself up for the meeting.
The two walked up to the cabin, the soft pine needle carpet reminding Wash of the cushy jungle floor. He wondered if everything for the rest of his life would remind him of Psydon. Wondered whether that planet had become the measuring stick for all of his life’s experiences.
The front door was heavy and wooden, with no chime or automated greeting program. Just a slab and metal knocker. Rustic and charming. An entryway to the sort of place you’d visit and then spend your entire vacation contemplating never returning to civilized life.
Wash used his fist to pound on the door, then stepped back.
The door swung open, and they were greeted by a slender woman not a day over forty. Too young to be a widow, but she was.
She smiled somewhat awkwardly at the strangers. “Captain Washam and Specialist—”
“Alistair,” the basic interrupted her, sticking out a trembling hand. “Just Alistair. Thanks for agreeing to see us, Mrs. Boyd.”
“Gloria,” Subs’s widow said. She invited the men inside.
The cabin was modestly decorated, something of a hunting lodge. An old slug-throwing rifle hung on one wall. An antique. All the furniture was crafted out of logs. Other than the lights, the place seemed to purposely eschew all modern trappings.
“Did you have trouble finding the cabin?” Gloria looked down at the flowers.
“Uh… no,” answered Wash. He held up the bouquet he’d forgotten in his hand. “These are for you.”
“Thank you. I’ll just go find a vase. Make yourselves comfortable.”
Wash and Alistair didn’t wander far from the door. They inspected the books and the paintings on the wall. Kicked their toes dumbly against a well-worn area rug.
“I feel like I’m going to be sick,” Alistair said.
Wash looked at a photo of Subs’s wife and two young boys. They were smiling with a man who had to be Subs himself. It occurred to Wash that he didn’t actually know what the Dark Ops legionnaire looked like under the armor. “Is this him?” he asked Alistair.
Alistair’s eyes grew wet. “Yeah.”
“Thanks again for coming,” Gloria said, returning with a glass jar containing the flowers. She set it on the mantel. “I’m sorry about how long of a drive it is from the spaceport. Ellis liked to come out here whenever we could. He didn’t really like the city.”
“Oh, it was no bother,” Wash said, standing awkwardly with his hands in his pockets, feeling the velvet box he’d brought for the occasion.
Gloria smiled, then bit her lip as a fresh sting of sorrow rolled over her face. “So. You two, you said you were with him… when…”
“We were,” Wash said, stepping forward, cutting off the need for Gloria to say out loud words she no doubt dreaded. He retrieved the box containing the Order of the Centurion and held it out to her. “My friend, D’lay Berlin, he also… he was there too. His parents gave me this, and… we all feel it rightfully belongs with you.”
Alistair opened the box for Gloria to see. The medal caught the light of the fireplace and reflected the gleam onto Gloria’s face.
“That’s… thank you.” Gloria took the box and closed it. “The boys would probably like to see this. They’re actually excited that you’re coming, since you knew their father.”
That sentence struck Wash like a punch to the stomach. He tried not to wince. Tried to smile. “Of course. We’d love to meet them.”
“Boys!” Gloria called. “Come down, please.”
There was a scuffling of feet, and then two boys, maybe ten or eleven, Wash wasn’t good at guessing children’s ages, stood next to their mother. They were on the verge of becoming men, just starting the transformation.
“Hello, sir.” They politely greeted each man.
Alistair and Wash shook their hands, and Wash felt a sense of pride at the composure they both showed. As though he were in a place of privilege and honor for being able to meet them.
“Captain Washam and… Alistair both knew your father. I thought you might like to talk with them about Daddy.”
“Can we go out by the campfire?” one of the boys asked.
“That sounds like fun,” Alistair said, sounding like it was the best thing he’d ever heard.
“Why don’t you two go set up some extra chairs and we’ll be right out?” Gloria said.
The boys hastened to follow their mother’s wishes.
She turned back to face Wash and Alistair. “I didn’t… couldn’t ask this with them in the room. But… what really happened out there. At the end?”
Alistair looked down.
“He died a hero,” Wash said. “He died trying to save the rest of us.”
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Order of the Centurion Page 23