Hard Drop (32 page)

Tyco stared, seeing the deep-set purples in the man's skin where his capillaries had burst, seeing the heavy bruising across his skin and the haggard, emaciated frame that barely fit his uniform. He marveled at the amount of pain the man had suffered, and suffered willingly.

"You could have escaped." He said, at last. "There were ships in the hangar with mid-range engines! You could have made it to a moon, or a station. No one would have blamed you - !"

But the man shook his head and frowned, grimacing as if the thought hurt his ears.

"Where would I go?" He had asked, spitting out the words and baring his teeth. "Where would I go, knowing they were still out there, and I let them escape?" He stared at Tyco through the darkness, his suffering now visible in every inch of his body. "No," he said at last, falling back against the console, his voice falling to a whisper but losing none of its spite. "I stayed to finish the job the only way I could. To make sure they bought it too. To make sure they came with me."

He broke into a cough, harsh and feeble and guttural, doubling over across the metal grate behind him. And Tyco looked away, out of respect and shame, struck by the full force of the man's conviction, feeling his judgment harshly in the darkness.

Later, Tyco watched silently as they carried him away, his frail limbs and red-splotched skin stirring just slightly under the thin blanket, his hands limp at his sides, clasping and unclasping as if not quite ready to let go of the torch.

And now, as his gaunt frame shifted on the stretcher, his smile shone, skull-like and triumphant, an answer to the darkness after all this time.

Fifteen years later, Tyco remembered that look above all.
 

With stiff legs, as night overwhelmed the terrible sunset, he rose at last. Without another look at the open hills, he turned and made his way back into the command center.

TWENTY-ONE: AFTERLIFE

The rescue bark descended in a long, arcing spiral, scattering trails of lingering smoke behind it as it burst through the blood-red sky at dawn.
 

They had come faster than usual, Tyco considered. He had been wise to use Flip’s identification on the comm. Without her, they might not have come at all.
 

The ship was hardly bigger than the command center itself. It came to an abrupt stop mere yards away, hovering over the concrete runway. Two men leapt down from within, hurrying past Tyco as if he wasn’t there.
 

Nor were they surprised by MAP-11 when he came to life, menacingly at first until he recognized the intruders as friendlies. He followed them out onto the strip, keeping a watchful eye as they loaded Chip through the ramp at the rear of the machine. Flip followed, limping and leaning against MAP-11. Tyco lingered, last on the tarmac, staring out at the devastated city and the smoke cloud still streaming from its embers. He had lost more here than he wanted to admit, and yet now in the leaving, he felt a crushing sadness.
 

Soon, he thought, he would have nothing left but the dogtags in his hand to remind him of the men and women he had lost here. Soon, the city below and the planet as a whole would be forgotten, consigned to footnotes in Admiralty logs. Soon, he would retire, one way or another, and then there would be nothing left.

Soon, he thought, but not yet.
 

There was work to do.

THE END