Epilogue

Hayden Subcontinent, Later

It had been a good career, she decided as she looked over the repaired SOLCOM armor where it stood in an alcove built into the wall at the back of the room. On either side were the Alliance weapons she’d managed to scrounge up on her way back, one captured pulse rifle, and a few pieces she’d picked up from the Arkanans.

Fixing the damage her kit had taken had been harder than healing the wounds it hadn’t been able to entirely protect her from, but that was what the gear was for, all things considered she supposed.

SOLCOM had come and gone, weeks of interviews with everyone from the Old Man to Ruger to a parade of officious assholes whose names she wouldn’t remember by choice. She’d given them her intel, all the data she’d scrubbed from the Ross computers, of course, and everything she’d seen.

They tried to take her ship, but Sorilla told them all where they could shove that order. SOLCOM didn’t have any right to it, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to give up her own Jump Ship, even if it was an obsolete Parithalian beast of a ship. Of course, since she’d paid for it with essentially public domain intelligence controlled by SOLCOM, they might actually have a case… but she had no intentions of ever letting them know that and the only person who knew what she’d paid was sure as hell not going to let anyone else know where it came from. Controlling the market on life extension drugs was certainly going to be extremely lucrative for Eri in the short term, after all.

She had allowed them to help repair her baby, though. SOLCOM paid for the parts and experts, she got to watch and learn, and they both got to keep the information they learned about how the thing was put together.

Once they learned it was unarmed, Mattan and Ruger had even managed to get her permitted to fly into SOLSPACE.

Sorilla thought that maybe she might, at that.

Eventually.

For the foreseeable future, though, she was going stay on Hayden, at home.

They hadn’t asked about her armor, which surprised her. She had taken a peek at the reports, and Mattan had obliquely implied that it had been damaged beyond repair during her escape from the Ross.

He wasn’t far wrong, she supposed, but ultimately it had been repairable.

Sorilla stepped out, letting the heavy door seal as she walked up the stairs and into the clearing behind her home. She flipped the heavy storm doors closed over the stairs and decided that she’d put flowers over the door.

Something nice, roses maybe.

Sorilla didn’t plan on ever digging up what she’d stored down there, but years of training wouldn’t let her dispose of any of it either. Out of sight, though, would be out of mind, and that was good enough.

She walked around the back of her home and looked out over the rolling hills to the ocean beyond. The shimmering gossamer thread of the new orbital thread gave a surreal touch to the beauty of the scene.

The Alliance would send their first diplomatic teams soon, or so she had been told

The Old Man had let slip to her that SOLCOM probes had returned with intelligence that indicated the Alliance was experiencing something of a shakeup. Fighting was being reported in several systems, from the sounds of things the Alliance was cleaning up a mess that someone had exposed.

She hoped that meant that the intelligence had gotten out with the group she’d traveled with.

Sorilla wondered if she’d see Kriss or Sienele again?

That would be nice, She thought wistfully. Perhaps she’d prepare special rooms for them in the city.

She picked up her hunting rifle from where it had been resting, slinging it over her shoulder, and started off across the fields to the landing pad. The Socrates was due for a visit shortly, and she had a dinner date with Jerry and Tara in the evening.

As she walked away, a MOFAB unit trundled into action behind her, covering the storm doors with dirt while another rolled in and placed a statue of an old, broken, plow being pushed by a happy looking man over top of them.

We paid a lot for our plowshares, Sorilla thought as she walked. But I suppose we always do.

 

END

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