Half buried and half dead by the looks of him. Jessica shouldered her way in. “I’m a doctor,” she said, backing off several larger men with an air of authority. Pulse was thready but there. Aside from multiple contusions and an obviously broken clavicle, the only thing he had to worry about was internal bleeding. “Get a blanket on this man and call in for an emergency pick-up. He needs a chopper right away.”

“You’ll have one in ten minutes,” a man promised. He was one of the men she’d shouldered aside, and had a rough but competent look to him. “I’ll call it in myself.”

Jessica spitted him with an exasperated glare. “Call it in to the spaceport and we can have it in five,” she said, nodding at the distant terminal on the far side of the tarmac. “They’ll have a helicopter somewhere over there.”

The foreman nodded and made it happen. Water and blankets were brought, and a VTOL emergency transport thundered across the landing field to set down only a few minutes later. Jessica helped two corpsmen get the patient aboard, gave them her evaluation, and then ducked clear as the fast-copter leapt back into the sky and made a beeline for River’s End.

As was common after any emergency situation, the fading adrenaline rush left Jessica empty and lost for a moment. She wandered back toward where Raul had left her. The foreman caught up with her there.

“Hey. I wanted to thank you for your help.” He sounded frustrated, having to make that admission, but manners won out over pride. “No one thought to have paramedics out here two days later.” He took in Jessica’s civilian clothes with a quick glance, measured her, and then made a guess. “You need a ride back to River’s End?”

“I have a car,” she said haltingly. Then, “But I’m here, and already filthy. What can I do?” It wasn’t in her to simply turn her back on work, even physical work, now that she was here. Not to mention her recent emotional investment.

“I don’t know,” the foreman said. He had tangled blond hair and a scar at the edge of his left eye. His voice was respectful, especially after her earlier help, but held no time for games. “What can you do?” he asked.

“Besides be on hand for injuries?” Jessica smiled thinly. “I can drive simple vehicles, organize shift schedules, and apply bandages as necessary to bruised egos.” She remembered her cooler, found it where Raul had set it down. “I have a cooler full of sandwiches and apples, and I know where I can get more.”

The foreman laughed, then nodded. “You’re hired. Pull anything you need from the spaceport and I’ll sign my name to it. And thanks again for coming out.” He glanced with a readable amount of disdain toward the distant capital of River’s End. “Most people don’t want to get involved.”

Including her. Jessica did not tell him that, though. As she’d said, she was here and there was work to be done, and it wasn’t in her to turn her back on people who needed help.

Not so different from Raul after all, she decided.

Perhaps.

Officer’s Club, Achernar Militia Command

Achernar

The militia’s base facilities were limited but had all the basics, including an officer’s club.

After checking back in with the duty officer, Raul barely had time for a shower before he met Tassa Kay coming off a work shift. His dark curly hair was still damp, and he had grabbed nothing more casual than the utility fatigues all militia members preferred for everyday routine. His one concession to comfort, and maybe to Tassa’s presence as well, was to roll his sleeves up to the elbow. Raul had strong arms, and his tawny coloring shone with a burnished hue under Achernar’s bright sun.

The two placed an order at the bar for food and drinks, then chose an outside table. A late afternoon breeze worked its way over the low wall that protected the club, stirring the edges of the tablecloths. Raul nodded toward a table with an umbrella awning well away from other dining groups. Most others sat alone, or in subdued pairs talking about the hard press being dealt out by the Steel Wolves, and Raul did not need their dark moods coloring his talk with Tassa.

Taking his seat, Raul spread his hands on the table, suddenly nervous and still feeling a little guilty that he’d left Jessica at the spaceport. He hadn’t lied to her. Not exactly. Relieved by the new driver, his standing orders required him to report back to the base. And this wasn’t a dinner date. It was dinner, and the chance to finally learn something more about Tassa Kay.

Okay, so Tassa was attractive. Raul didn’t see any reason why that should make him feel guilty. Except that it did.

“You look bothered by something,” Tassa noticed. She pulled the sweatband off her head and used it to tangle her hair back in a makeshift ponytail. Tassa wore dark leathers and looked perfectly at ease, an attitude Raul wished he could adopt as easily. “I hope it’s me,” she said with a sly grin.

Digging some money out of a pocket, Raul threw it on the tray as a server brought their drinks. “I had to rush away from the spaceport to make it here. I may have left… a bit of a mess behind me.”

“I have noticed that about you, Ortega.”

Raul tasted his drink, grimaced. The iodine taste burned all the way down his throat. The bar whiskey was not Glengarry Reserve. “Then why are we here?”

Tassa stirred her drink by sloshing the ice around in a quick circle. “I didn’t say that was a bad thing.” She took a healthy sip. “I came along to see who you were going to upset today.”

“No one. Unless you don’t like questions.”

“Still trying to get something out of me?” she asked, giving him a dark smile.

He coughed into his glass. The alcohol burned up into his sinuses. “Maybe,” he said, trying to recover. “You did say that you owed me. Twice.”

Tassa Kay regarded him long and cold over the rim of her glass. Her green eyes narrowed to razor slits. “I think I paid one of those debts out on the flatlands. Gimped Legionnaire. Persistent Jagatai. Any of that ring a bell?”

“Fair enough,” Raul agreed.

In fact, without Tassa in the field, the Republic militia would have been hurt badly that first day. Since then she had gone out twice more to push back Steel Wolf probes, but never again with Raul who always seemed to draw alternate duty as the ready-alert. He missed her, truth be told. Tassa lived the life he’d dreamt of for so long, and never once seemed bothered by the same moral qualms that pricked at Raul’s conscience. When he was with her, he could set aside some of those problems. Unfortunately, Tassa did not always share his sense of camaraderie.

Though she relented, slightly, when Raul didn’t press. “All right. I still owe you and that is why I am here,” she admitted. “You backed me up twice off the field, and I appreciate your timely arrival that first day.” She downed a slug of whiskey. The alcohol fed a warm blush to her cheeks.

“You’re welcome,” Raul told her, guessing that it was as close to a thank-you as she was likely to offer. Tassa glanced over sharply, as if suspecting sarcasm, but then relaxed. The woman seemed to have a gift for switching between states of readiness in the blink of an eye. The security officer in Raul wondered where she had needed to develop such a hair-trigger defense mechanism. One more mystery concerning Tassa Kay.

“And you want to know about Dieron?” she asked.

Feigning casual interest, Raul shrugged. “That’s your choice, Tassa. You’ll give it up, or you won’t.” Throwing innuendos back at her for a change felt good.

Tassa Kay gave him an appraising stare, so long that he began to feel warm and uncomfortable. Finally she set her glass down and said, “All right, then, here it is. I have no idea what really happened on Dieron. How it started, or how it ended. I arrived in the middle of a firestorm. The DropShip was blindsided by fighters from two factions, but we made a safe landing in the middle of a swamp. I slogged out of there and discovered that everyone seemed to be shooting at everyone else. Dracs, Fists, Foxes, pro-Republic and anarchists—I spent the first week fighting for my life and the lives of a patched-together mercenary company.”