A Pilot's Mind

        Shutting the door of her quarters behind her, Nika leaned back against it and turned her face toward the ceiling, closing her eyes. She drew in several deep breaths. The past several days had been all too familiar in ways that she wasn’t sure she was too happy with. She'd fallen too readily back into the mindset of a soldier, and their new passenger? Yeah . . . guaran-gorram-teed he was going to be trouble.

        Blowing a breath out softly, she looked around the small quarters. It was a damn good thing she didn’t have to share with anyone, cuz right now? All she wanted to do was hit something. Or someone. Her mind awhirl with questions that had no answers except those found in her heart, which could just as easily be wishful thinking, Nika moved into the room. Dropping to the side of the bed, resting her elbows on her knees, she buried her face in her hands and struggled with memories. Good ones and bad ones. Right now, though, they were mostly bad.

        "Are you sure the message came from there? How do we know this poor man will even survive? Anyone fanatical enough to commit an act of terrorism is fanatical enough to kill a potential security risk."

        Sometimes you just have to go with your gut. My gut was the only thing I had right now, and Christian's questions were making me question it. Had Shyla and Brian and Harry fallen in with the hardcore crowd? I couldn't even fathom that . . . sure, they were Independents. Sure, they'd fought in the war. But even in the immediate aftermath, none of them had been that kind of hardcore. We all did what we had to, what was needed. But we were soldiers, she thought. Not terrorists. On the other hand . . . I suppose one man's soldier is another man’s terrorist. Am I gambling their lives on a false belief in my friends? Is Brian going to betray me? After so many years trusting them, I couldn’t take the step sideways required now to doubt them. They saved my ass too many times to count. I’d fly through Hell itself to get to any one of them. I had to keep the faith with them; if I didn’t, the very bedrock of my life for the past ten years would quake out from under me. Three things I knew in the 'Verse: My sister would always be on my side; the Black was where I belonged; Shyla, Brian, and Harry would come if I needed 'em and not bother to ask questions.

        "These people led us straight into murdering for them and now we're going to them for help."

        Was Christian right? Oh God . . . I don’t know what to do. Please, give me something to go on here? There’s an ancient joke about a guy who goes to Heaven and when he gets there, he asks the Lord why He didn’t save the guy from some catastrophe. And God's answer was incredulity: I sent you a horse, I sent you a boat, and I sent you a freakin’ spaceship, how much more help did you want??

        I want a gorram road sign, that's what I want. I don't know if I'm making the right choices here. I don't even know if I'm qualified to be the person making the choices, cuz Heaven knows I'm not the innocent.

        "How many innocent people died in that warehouse, Rina?"

        And therein lies the crux of all my doubts. In spite of the face I gave to the others . . . our actions caused people to die.

        Screams. Blood. A boy no more than sixteen, holding his guts in and crying for his mother. The images haunt me. The huge barn out in the middle of nowhere was a stockpile for stolen weapons, and we didn’t know that the place had been compromised. The caravan of wagons that came through needed someplace to hold a wedding, and gorram it, we all wanted just a little bit something good to happen that week. Streamers hanging off the rafters, music just getting started. And then the explosions. The fire. The intense heat that seared the people closest to it.

        When it was all done, we realized that one of the crates of explosives had been set off by a Fed mole. The fire was blamed on an Independent attack, we took all the heat for the deaths of 62 men, women, and children. And in truth? I think it really was our fault. We’re the ones who let them stay. The deaths of so many people who were just trying to live their lives amid the war rattled my conscience . . . And Christian’s accusations brought it all back. How many innocents died? Is this what it's come to? Working for people who would kill innocents in the name of a war that we'd already lost?

        Nika laid down on her bunk, trying to wade through the morass of guilt and worry and fear . . . we were back on the radar of the Alliance, some of us had prices on our heads. And I don’t have a stinkin’ CLUE what to do next. Except that I gotta square things with Christian.