Chapter 31 Ranking officer

Sara had reached the end of her first full day in command of Excalibur Outpost. It had been a day of dull conversations about grain stocks, water pressure, maintenance shifts. And twenty other things she’d never concerned herself with as paladin.

Sara had always wanted a command like this, like her father. But the feeling of being unfit and unworthy of the task hadn’t left her since she’d dropped John out in the wastes, alone.

She checked her new antique wristwatch taken from the bank vault that John helped her break into. He won’t be alone now, she thought, feeling almost jealous. She’d love to shack up with someone for a few days, sleep, get laid, unwind. Of course she could send a signal and a Vertibird would come get her, John couldn’t. He was in the wind like a kite without string. Her first aspirant, her teammate and friend. A true knight forced out of the Brotherhood because his elder couldn’t trust or believe in him. She hated that her father had betrayed him, and hated herself for betraying her father in turn.

It’s not like John and his girl haven’t earnt a taste of the quiet life after living in that awful place. Thinking about the other kind of Vault made her skin crawl, bringing back memories of the Filth infested hole John had led the team through. The thought made a shower a welcome respite.

Sara ignored the stack of papers left on the metal desk in her spacious quarters. Fighting the urge to pin the increasingly dull reports down range and sign them with automatic fire.

Sara tied back her blonde hair, dressed in a fresh set of dull green fatigues, and went to find Valkyrie. They’d walked for two days straight to establish the fiction of John’s escape. Nothing for Sara, in or out of her power armour. Valkyrie on the other hand, while fighting fit, wasn’t used to trekking through the wastes. She usually zipped across in a bird, using her feet to work pedals.

Val wasn’t in her quarters, she'd checked herself out of the infirmary hours after being sent there so Sara didn’t bother looking. Instead Sara started checking their usual hangouts. Finding her in the knights hangar, lay across a couch on her stomach while Acheron checked her feet.

“How is she?” Sara asked her teammate.

“I’m fine.” Val snapped, Sara ignored her, waiting on the team’s designated medic and sniper for an answer.

“Blisters need to stay clean, the cracks at the heel are deep, but a week off her feet should help.” Acheron didn’t seem overly concerned, that eased Sara’s mind. She’d dragged Val into this mess, now she had to bring the rest of the team up to speed, at John’s request. “Deep breath Val.” Acheron smeared some of his homemade medicine on her feet as gently as he could. Val yelped as the grease like paste coated the soles of her feet, the pale green colour had an unpleasant odour.

The workbenches, gym equipment, and bar were empty. Most of the knights still in the field. Sara caught Styx on his way in and sent him right back out to find Grimm. A few minutes later her team, her friends Val and Grimm, sat near the bar as Crixus poured everyone a stiff drink.

“As you know, we dropped John back at his Vault a few days ago so he could get his girl out and start to arrange a resettlement for his people.” She’d told Crixus what she’d planned on telling the rest of the team when she got back. She had to tell someone, the freed slave and her second in command had not reacted well. He’d already drank his drink and poured another.

“What you don’t know is that I had orders to follow him, let him make contact, then take him into custody.” The faces around her became confused. “And arm the warhead we recovered outside the door to make sure he cooperated.” Shock and betrayal went off like a flash grenade, leaving stunned silence round the table. “Orders I did not follow.”

“Who gave you these orders?” Grimm knew, they all knew, but he had to hear it.

“My father.” Sara’s words hit Grimm like a right cross. His aspirant, the boy of nineteen he’d trained to be a knight. Him becoming an elder sat as a crowning achievement in a long and storied career. Grimm could have made elder a dozen times, and each time he turned it down. Opting instead to accept the venerable rank of sentinel and train the next generation of knights. Like he’d trained John.

No one spoke. Crixus, a slave forced to fight a kill for sport until Elder Maxwell freed him, broke the silence “You did the right thing Boss.”

“You did Tempest, took real grit.” Grimm’s approval brought Sara a sense of relief. It faded quickly.

“There’s more. My Uncle Brandon, his team isn’t on a long term Recon mission.” Crixus and Grimm knew the truth about Brandon, who wasn’t her uncle at all, but had married her father in secret almost a decade ago. “He saw this coming, he knew that my father...wasn’t himself. Brandon refused to hand over the intel he’d found on Vault X. He begged my father to leave it alone, to call off the mission to find it. My father cast him out. Ever since Brandon has been working to find Vault X and destroy it. And I’ve been helping him.” Sara took a deep breath and waited. Any one of them could have relieved her of command right there, and she’d let them, but they seemed too shaken to do that.

“What’s the plan Boss?” Styx spoke up first, his bright eyes and big grin shone with absolute trust in his team leader.

“I’m not going to order anyone to do anything. If you want to walk, go now, I’ll reassign you under the guise of keeping you busy while I’m in charge.” No one moved. Sara choked down the lump in her throat. Knowing a good leader displays strength and confidence at all times, especially when lacking both. Her father taught her that.

“I won’t serve under an oath breaker.” Grimm spat the words out and cleansed his mouth with vodka. “What are your orders Tempest?” He asked for her orders. Sara had a plan, she’d ran through the options on the long walk back, now she could set it in motion.

“Retire.” Sara saw Grimm’s mind grasp the plan instantly, but he let her present it. She caught Styx and Acheron communicating without talking, the lifelong brothers in all but blood were trained by Grimm. He’d pulled them from the hellish river they grew up on and made them true knights. Grimm might as well have been their father. She knew what they’d do, and it broke her heart, but this wasn’t a time for sentiment.

“We’re four months out from our fifteen. Put in our papers, we’re out too.” Acheron spoke for them both, his deep brown eyes resolute in their long held plan of retiring and setting themselves up as their own bosses.

“John’s out there without support.” Sara hated to think of one her team out there without backup. “I know he’s got a place west of Shadowtown, and I know he’s friendly with the woman on the radio. Grimm, go off the grid and find him. Much as I hate to admit it, he sticks out like a bad rivet so it shouldn’t be that hard.” A ripple of quiet laughter went round the faces, each thinking of John’s lack of knowledge about the world.

Sara thought about her weekend with him in Farmborough, his face when he’d thought she’d given him mole rat to eat. Seeing things as new like he did made everything exciting again, bringing out simple pleasures in things she’d long taken for granted.

“I want you two set up somewhere in Shadowtown. Loud and proud, send up a flare so he can’t miss you. I want him to have a safe place to go.”

“We can do that.” Acheron already had something in mind. Sara would miss his quiet, methodical, thoughtful manner. Not nearly as much as she’d miss Styx and his jokes.

“I’m not retiring.” Crixus would never leave the Brotherhood. Some chapters didn’t let knights retire. Her father had always challenged what he called short sighted thinking, on more than just this. Letting knights retire gave the Brotherhood contacts, eyes and ears in far off places.

“No such thing as an ex-knight Crix.” Grimm said the right thing, and took the vodka away from Crixus without him realising.

“I don’t want you too, but that spill you took an hour ago has set off your bad back. You better head to Farmborough and let Beverly look after you.” Sara knew he’d like that, and it sounded entirely believable. “John knows your place, if he shows up, you’ll be ready.”

“I’m not retiring either, I’m too young and pretty!” Valkyrie flicked her dark blonde hair. Even in dull green trousers and a baggy t shirt, with foul smelling paste on her injured feet, she had charm. She’d never retire either, not unless she found something more fun to fly than a Vertibird.

“Valkyrie, the men of this world aren’t ready for you to have nothing else to do but chase them full time.” Sara lightened the mood, even if she wasn’t really joking. “I want you plugged in to the pilots, anything code victor related I want you on it.” Her friend nodded and threw her a wink. Her status amongst the flight pool would keep her well informed. “Till you get back on your feet though, I’m going to need a hand with the paperwork.” Sara’s joke amused everyone but Val, who knew she wasn’t joking.

Secrets spilled, orders given and plans set in motion, Sara felt her mind clear. As she slumped in her comfy, fake leather seat that still looked new, Sara felt a hand brush her shoulder. She opened her eyes to see Grimm drawing her over to the bar. She followed as he made it seem he couldn’t find the good vodka.

“It’s a poor send off, I’m sorry about that.” Sara spoke quietly as Grimm poured them both an ice cold shot.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry about.” Grimm smiled warmly and placed a battle scarred hand on hers. “Besides,” Grimm nodded to the team sat around the table. Val shrieked with laughter, Styx had made a crack about her feet and she’d flicked the paste at him, spattering his face. “Could do worse than good company.” Grimm threw back his shot and Sara did the same.

“I made the right call...didn’t I?” Sara needed advice, and knew Grimm would tell her the truth.

“Absolutely.” Grimm didn’t hesitate.

“It broke John’s heart.” Sara hated taking away the new life John had forged for himself.

“He’ll get over it, tougher than he looks that one.” Grimm had always been a good judge of character. “You got handed a knife sharp at both ends, and you did right by your men and kept to your oath. I’m proud of you, your uncle will be proud of you. And, in time, so will your father.”

“I disobeyed a direct order.” Both knew the punishment for violating the most sacred Brotherhood law and breaking the chain that binds. Death. “I betrayed my father.” Sara felt the lump return to her throat as she said the words out loud for the first time. The man who’d taken an orphan girl from the streets and given her a last name. A home, family, a future, and she’d betrayed him.

“You saved him Sara.” Grimm held her gaze to make sure she understood. “The worst thing an officer can do is give an order they won’t be able to live with. I know Clarke, when he sees sense he’ll hate himself, you spared him that.”

“When he sees sense.” Sara wished she’d spoken to Grimm sooner.

Sara took the opportunity to enjoy the good company she found herself in. Valkyrie complained about not being able to fly. Styx and Acheron bickered about what their new venture would be. Styx, ever the life of a party, wanted a bar. Acheron wanted a bookshop. Crixus took himself away and worked the heavy bag.

Sara watched him throw his muscular arms and shoulders into punches that threatened to topple the bag stand. He’d loved having a worthy student that he could spar with, being a similar build to John. Now that had been taken from him by someone he called Brother. He joined the others for a few drinks but even after having more time to sit with the betrayal he couldn’t keep it from his mind for more than a few minutes. Grimm started a drinking game, throwing back shots and placing the glass on his bald head, and Sara took that as her cue to leave. It wouldn’t do to have a hungover commander running a morning briefing.

“Fuck.” Sara had forgotten the paperwork on her desk, and it looked to have increased in size. She made a bleary eyed start on the field reports and inventory logs. She got two thirds of it done before noticing that beneath the beige folders were letters and packages, delivered by a courier.

A brown paper parcel drew her attention, seeing the coded shopping list she’d sent to her uncle pushed under the twine. The various sundries and a few comics she ordered had been ticked off. Yet the book about the detective that her uncle loved had been labelled out of stock. She had a copy, yet always included it on the list as part of the code.

Out of stock meant the hidden numbers would relate to that book. She fluttered the scrap of paper over a lighter, exposing the numbers written in invisible ink. There were only two. Sara flipped to the page and line, and reading it sobered her right up. ‘Come at once if convenient, if inconvenient come all the same.’ The code for an emergency meeting in Farmborough.

Sara checked the last field report above the package, typed up days ago. The time sensitive message from her uncle had arrived the morning after she left with John and had been sitting there ever since.

“Fucking couriers!” Sara slammed down her fist on the piled papers. Cursing the meandering and easily distracted couriers that aggravated her, and knowing this wasn’t on them. Now she had to find a reason to leave the outpost on the second day of her command.