The last part of Part Four. And, yes, it’s a little weird. These are raws and I’ll clean it up in one of my editing passes before I give it to my copyeditor; otherwise, he’d likely delete it and email “what the f*ck was that!?”

It’s a matter of Chekov’s Gun: you mention the rifle over the mantlepiece in Act One, it damn well better go off later. Konev and his team came across Joseph, so here he is again.

I’m half done with the Epilogue. That half is about Bob, El, others, and yes, “Joseph” gets an explanation. The second half, hopefully later today – BTW, it’s 0500 right now – will be about Konev. Then, for all contented porpoises, I’ll be finished and able to begin my three editing passes.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Hardt opened his eyes.  “How long…?” he asked to the ship’s cargo bay.

“Seconds, sir,” one of his men replied, holding Eloise, who was also coming to.

There was no smell of anything burning – their ship had no fuel, after all – but they needed to move before CSIS ground troops caught up to them.  Fortunately the ship was cantered up about thirty degrees and the dilated hatch was just there.

“Let’s get out of here,” he ordered before talking to the mike at his collar.  “Ship’s captain Michelson and midshipman Murray, you two okay?  Good.  Does the self-destruct look operable?  Better.  Set it for five minutes and get out.  And send word home:  Code Eleven and code Black.  Got all that, gentlemen?”

Letting the greatest secret of the Polar Alliance fall into enemy hands would mean mother kills me with her bare hands.  The two codes will tell High Command a ship is down and we need evac.

Three of his men tried to form a tiny perimeter while Bob held Eloise and waited for the last two from the ship’s command deck.  The woods were dark and deep but he could still hear sirens somewhere off to the west.  How far did we get?  Probably not very; that must have been a lucky shot with a shoulder-launched AA missile.  Even if she doesn’t kill me, Mom is still never going to let this mistake of mine go.

“Let’s move out, due south as we can, and see when we hear back about being lifted out of here.” He pulled his naked friend to his side.  “Any idiot can get into trouble.  It’s we legionaries who get out.”

The men grunted agreement.  The two with machine pistols forward again, followed by Hardt and Patel, with the pilots bringing up the rear.  They had made it about two hundred feet when they heard a mule bray just ahead.  No one moved.

“Centurion?” Hardt mouthed.  “Take her.  I’m going forward to see what’s there.”

With his team giving him a ten yard lead, they followed, slow.  Hardt saw the cracked pavement of a narrow road just beyond, with what looked all the world like a peddler’s cart, bags and bales in the back with pots and pans hanging from hooks on the rails just up from the cart’s sides.  If that thing moves, it will make enough noise to be heard from miles.

“Evening, Prince Robert,” a surprisingly young man’s voice said from the cart’s bench.  “You are in a spot, aren’t you?”

Impossible.  Unless Mother sent him, no one, well, Reina, knows who I am and that I’m here.

 “Yes, we are.” He decided to brazen it out.  “Imperium?  Russian?”

“Dead,” was the other’s answer.  For a moment the clouds split and there was enough light from the half moon to see each other’s faces.  The face of one in the cart looked at least a hundred years old.

“But,” the young voice, old face cocked his head at what now sounded like car sirens.  From east and west.  “But, I can get you, your men, and your prize out of here.”

“I would appreciate such help,” Hardt said, taking a brief moment to turn and wave for his men to go to ground.  “As you know who I am, you know I can reward you.  I can promise the moon and planets, Mister…?”

“You can just call me Joseph.  But I would imagine your family would call me someone else.”

The man in the cart actually cackled.  Hardt had never heard that outside of a stage play.  That reply tells me nothing at all.

“No… I’m stuck here, it seems.” His throat cleared, his voice was even younger, almost girlish.  “But it will cost you.  An arm and a leg.”

With their colonies all over the solar system and trading posts following in the wake of his older brother’s scouting missions, money was not an object.

“I agree.  To be precise, you will aid me and my men and Eloise Patel to avoid and escape all, all, hostile forces until we are secure at an imperial facility,” he said a little legalistically, still not trusting this man.

“Heh, heh.  You agreed, so I am not a hostile force, Prince.” He seemed to stretch his left arm and leg out.  “These were pretty used up.”

“What…?”

He opened his eyes and from the look of the ceiling and sound he recognized as a T-5.  Normally used for interplanetary travel.  Guess mom wanted us home quick.  Ouch!  Looking right, a medic stabbed a needle attached to a thin syringe into his arm.

“My men,” he demanded of the legionary medic.  “Are they all accounted for?”

“Yes, Prince, they are,” he replied with a nod of his head.

Prince?  Shit.  My legionary career is over.

Hearing crying, he looked left.  Someone had finally found a shirt and legionary pants for Eloise, but her tears went on and on. 

“Hey, El!  We made it!  And part of the plan was an evac of your family, too!  We’re all safe and sound!” He made to reach up and touch her face, but nothing happened.  Huh?

He looked down just as he began to feel the dull ache masked by the morphine injection.  There was no bleeding but…

His left arm and leg were gone.