AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Goddammit.” Leon dropped the radio to the floor and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. He should bash his own head through the wall. Too little and too late. Always. Always! If only he’d let Sebastian make him see reason just a little sooner. If only he hadn’t pushed Sebastian to the point of driving him into a suicide mission. “Goddammit!”
He spun around. This wasn’t over. This was his mess, and he was going to fix it.
He jabbed his finger at the woman who had given him the radio. “Get a land cruiser ready for me!” Then a finger at Martha. “Get me a recon communication set. When I find him, I’m not letting him go ghost on me again.” And finally, a finger at Jason. “Wake everyone and put them on high alert. Martha will brief you once I’m gone.”
Everyone scattered to do his bidding, and Leon left the hangar to the nearest armory.
It had been a long time since he’d geared for a mission. He’d been behind a desk or a screen for all but the taking of the capital and the defense of Kaston, and even then, he’d been more leader than participant. But when he stepped into the familiarly organized room, his hands knew exactly where to go and what to grab.
Clothes better suited to fighting and sneaking than the ones he had on.
A couple of pistols and enough ammunition to make sure he got some use out of them.
A serrated combat knife.
A small bag of miscellaneous tools.
A heavy flashlight that worked as a club just as well as it worked as a light source.
He pulled on his boots, stuffed a garrote in his pocket, and left.
When he came back to the hangar, a small black land cruiser idled next to the exit, and Martha stood beside it, holding a small case.
Martha withheld the box when he came abreast of her. “It doesn’t have to be you that goes.”
“Yes, it does.” Leon held out his hand, and Martha pressed her lips together and handed him the small box with the two earpieces. “I need to help him, Martha. And if this all goes to hell, and we can’t get him onto that ship, and the Klah’Eel land that gas, then I need to be responsible for that too.”
“Alright.” Martha grabbed the back of his head and yanked him forward. Leon stumbled and almost reared back on instinct, but then Martha pressed her lips to his forehead. “I’m proud of you, Leon.”
Leon swallowed as Martha released him. “I know.”
Martha jerked her head to the cruiser. “Now get going. I’ve input the factory’s coordinates into the navigation. The way Sebastian flies, he might already be there.”
“Damn that man,” Leon grumbled as he climbed into the cockpit. He kicked up the engines, and Martha backed away. She didn’t stay to watch him go, though. With one last nod, she spun on her heel and left back into the stairwell.
Leon gunned the ship out the exit, slamming his back into the chair and half a smile onto his face. He hadn’t been in the pilot’s seat of a ship for a long time, but his hands remembered where to go as well as they remembered the layout of a Resistance armory. He pushed the speed until the buildings outside blurred beneath him and glanced at the navigation console. Still the better part of an hour before he’d arrive at the coordinates.
He’d have to find a place to land, and then he’d have to break into the factory and find Sebastian, and then they’d…. Leon shook his head. He’d have to do this one step at a time. It was no good getting lost in all the impossible things he had to do.
Find Sebastian. Leon clutched that directive tightly to his chest. It strangely comforted him—slowed his heart rate, evened his breathing—to center himself around the man that mattered to him the most.
How ridiculous Leon had been for so long to not have seen it sooner. He’d let himself be ripped in two by what he’d thought were the competing forces of his love for Sebastian and his love for his country. But they weren’t competing at all. They were the same damn thing when it all came down to it, and this mad dash in the dark through the outskirts of Ralscoln proved it.
Once Leon saved Sebastian and helped him save Southern Tava, he’d never dismiss or deprioritize him again.
Leon didn’t let himself think about the alternative.
As he sped closer to the coordinates on the factories, Leon killed his lights and spun down the engines to a low hum. He pressed the ship down to the ground as low as he dared and coasted quietly up to the factory compound.
It was dark and quiet, as Leon would expect. The factory, and others like it, hadn’t been doing great business before the war—part of why the owners had pushed so hard for the Turner investment—and most production in Southern Tava had ground to a halt the moment Leon had raised that black flag over the capitol.
Still, the compound was large and sprawled out in every direction. Sebastian would be impossible to find in that hulking maze, but Leon didn’t need to search the whole maze for him. Sebastian needed two things: a body with the right biometrics and identification and an interplanetary ship.
Leon turned along the perimeter—not wanting to fly over the fence and trigger any sensors—and cruised until he saw a large ship park beside a hangar. He maneuvered down to an area across the fence from it, and his heart leaped as he made out a small land cruiser half-hidden behind a boulder.
Sebastian.
He wrestled his heart back into place and all but threw his ship down behind the matte-black-painted ship. He was on the right track, but he wasn’t successful yet. He turned off all standby power on the cruiser to keep it as hidden as possible with his haphazard parking job and leaped out of the ship.
