“Promise me, son,

Not to do the things I've done.

Walk away from trouble if you can.

It won't mean you're weak

If you turn the other cheek.

I hope you're old enough to understand:

Son, you don't have to fight to be a man."

Kenny Rogers - “Coward Of The County"

Tango glared at the two young stowaways and shook her head. “I won’t bother asking if your father knows you’re here,” she growled, grabbing each of them by the arms and dragging them out of the compartment. “Just what the hell were you thinking?”

“Did you find the problem?” Graybird called back.

“...you could say that,” she snorted, as she shoved the Saurotaurs into the main compartment.

Musashi turned in his seat to look and did a double-take. “Oh, jeez…” he sighed.

“Get on the horn and tell them we’re RTB,” she snapped. “Mission is scrubbed.”

“...Tango, I know we should not have snuck aboard, but we did not know what else to do,” Taichist said at last. “Father would never agree to us doing our duty.”

“Since when is this your duty?” she fired back. “You two are way out of your depth.” She looked over at Graybird. “What’s our ETA back to Chiron?”

“...forty minutes, give or take,” he said after a moment. “If we’re lucky, we can dump them off and turn around…”

“...INCOMING!”

It knocked Tango and the kids off their feet, as an explosion rocked the shuttle. Grabbing a console she pulled herself to her feet, but with their heavier bodyweight, the twins were not so fortunate. The pair were tangled up together when they slammed into a bulkhead, leaving them dazed.

“Evasive maneuvers!” she shouted. “Get us out of here!”

“I’m trying,” Musashi yelled back as he fought with the controls.

“Status report!” she snapped at Whisper, who was the only one unoccupied at that moment.

“We’re taking ground fire,” he answered, checking the display. “Looks like the zombies have a new trick.”

Another blast shook the craft, not as violently as the first. “Losing altitude,” Musashi reported, “we took a hit to the thrusters.”

“Can we still climb out of the atmosphere?” Tango asked.

He checked his readings. “Negative,” he said with grim finality, “we’re not pulling out of this one. I think I can give you a landing instead of a death dive...but you better call it in while you still can.”

“Shit,” she grimaced, grabbing onto a console. “Someone up there will not be happy,” she snapped, giving the young Saurotaurs the evil eye.

The look on Xeemvois’ face was a study in horror as he faced Nassat. “Sir, we’ve received a distress signal from the shuttle,” he disclosed, as he struggled to meet his eyes. “They have been hit by ground fire and are making an emergency landing.”

Nassat nodded. “Can you retrieve the team?” he asked. The thought of losing Tango brought back the memory of Sergeant Lin’s death with vivid clarity and it took every gram of self-control he had to push that flashback aside.

“We’re working on a plan now, Sir,” the Ophipteran answered, “but…” He froze, unable to say the words.

“Speak up, commander,” Nassat ordered. “Is there something else?”

Xeemvois closed his eyes. “Yes sir,” he said at last. “It seems...there were two additions to the roster…”

Tango popped the emergency hatch, climbing out of the cockpit and onto the hull, giving a low whistle as she stared at the kilometers-long furrow the shuttle had gouged in the planet’s soil before coming to a halt. “Well...any landing you can walk away from…” she shrugged, before dropping back inside.

“Is it as bad as I think?” Musashi asked.

“Worse,” she confirmed. “We’re stuck until help arrives.” She turned her attention to Graybird. “I don’t suppose your Death Ray survived?”

“It’s not a Death Ray, as her eyes slid over to the runaways. They both bore dazed expressions as they began to unstrap themselves, and Tango grimaced as she decided.

“You two wanted to see what it was like?” she snapped, as she yanked open the weapons locker. “Well, congratulations...you just got your wish.” She pulled out a pair of M-7 assault rifles and held them out. “To complete the mission, Graybird needs to fix his Death Ray…”

“...it’s not a Death Ray…” he yelled from across the compartment.

“...so you two have just been appointed as his bodyguards,” she finished, not missing a beat.

An unreadable look passed between Chechla and her brother before they reached for the proffered weapons, holding them at Port Arms. “I do not understand,” Taichist replied. “How are we to do this?”

Tango rolled her eyes. “While he’s busy fixing, you kill anything that tries to stop him.” Her glacier blue eyes sent chills down their spines as she glared at each of them. “His life is paramount to the mission’s success...yours is not.” Their eyes grew wide, and Chechla started to protest, but Tango shut her down. “You two idiots wanted to see the elephant...well here he is, in all his fucking glory.”

The pair were still struggling to come up with a response as she turned to the rest of the team. “Musashi? Whisper? Gear up. You know the drill.” They were already up and moving as she reached in one more time and withdrew a long gun, cradling it in her arms.

“Hello, baby,” she murmured, “Mama missed you.”

Whisper had his ax tucked away once again as he and Musashi each took a grenade launcher, digging in nearby as they readied themselves. Tango was in an overwatch position topside of the wreck, scanning the horizon with her beloved Bertha, while the Saurotaur twins scratched out a foxhole of their own. Graybird had the bulk of his laser disassembled as worked to repair the damage.

“Perhaps this was not the most well thought out idea we have had,” Taichist admitted, as he threw another shovel-full of dirt over his shoulder.

“Father will be furious with us,” Chechla said in a small voice, as she worked to shore up a wall.

“What else could we do?” her brother sighed. “Father would have kept us wrapped in a cocoon because of his fears. How could we ever justify that?”

“There must have been a better way,” she answered. “If the shuttle had not crashed…”

“...but it did,” Tango cut in on the radio, from her perch. “And maybe you couldn’t have predicted that...but neither did you allow for the possibility. Which proves yet again that You. Are. Not. Ready.”

“...I did not realize you were listening,” Taichist replied after a long silence.

“I’m always listening,” she chuckled, before growing serious once more. “I get why you did it, but it was still stupid. You’re so far above your ability level at the moment that I’m surprised you haven’t developed altitude sickness. In fact…”

Her tirade came to a sudden halt. “Shit,” she muttered under her breath. “Graybird?” she asked, “Where are you on those repairs?”

“I’m still tracing the problem,” he explained. “Why?”

A loud Crack came from the top of the shuttle, quickly followed by another. “...because we’re about to get company,” she said in clipped tones.

Crack

Crack

“...make that a lot of company.”