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  MEETING THE LOCALS

  The entrance to the skyscraper was completely vacated, empty baggage and spilled clothes lining the room. The trooper also spotted some graffiti on one of the walls, with one specific one reading ‘GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN’.

  With the possibility that Jackson wouldn’t stumble into actual residents, but looters sifting through what was left by others, the trooper decided to take it slowly. He wasn’t here to enforce law, for all he cared a looter was as good as a big happy family.

  But the corporal was also aware that looters could be a shifty bunch.

  And though activity outside had died down a bit, he wasn’t about to let his position be compromised by some two-bit bandit firing off a few rounds.

  With none of the lights working, Jackson assumed that the elevators were likely out as well. Still, the trooper gave the button a try but found it giving him no reaction.

  Power was completely out, so it seemed.

  Recalling where he’d seen the Lightsource, the trooper made his way up the stairs to the tenth story. Though, in the middle of his trek up the stairs, Jackson did quickly check in on the fifth story, poking his head through the door and into one of the hallways that made up the floor.

  It was the same story as the entrance.

  Some doors were blockaded, others were open, others still had been ripped from their frames. And amidst all of it, were strewn about belongings from fleeing civilians… and more silence.

  Jackson hadn’t thought about it, but it was starting to unnerve him just how deafeningly quiet the entire building was.

  Faint sounds of battle and thunder came in from the outside.

  Yet inside, all he could hear was the white noise of the empty hallways, the occasional creaking from a pipe expanding and the distant clanking of hidden metal straining against its restraints.

  As much as he exerted his ears, he could hear neither voices, nor footsteps.

  Continuing up, Jackson was eventually met with the tenth floor, making his way into the pitch-black hallway. The scene looked much the same as everywhere else.

  Though, as he slowly shuffled down the hallway, his eyes caught something barely moving. Amidst the usual clutter, there was a small candle.

  And though it wasn’t lit, he could see faint smoke rising from the wick.

  Like it had been blown out just a moment ago…

  So someone was here after all.

  Jackson was weighing his options on what that meant for him and his situation. Likely, the residents that remained had elected to stay hidden away from the invaders, clearly having heard someone coming up and making an effort to let their home appear as empty as all the others.

  With that, the corporal was left with the choice to either make his presence known or sneak further along and see if he could spot them himself.

  As much as it went against his instincts and training to make himself known to an unknown entity, the trooper decided that he couldn’t risk the civilians harming him or themselves in a misguided ambush.

  “Corporal Patrick Jackson, Solar Coalition Navy, Skycorps… you can come out, I’m here to help.”

  After a few rather unnerving moments of silence, one of the doors further back slowly creaked open and the corporal was met by a pair of young eyes staring back at him.

  Human eyes, thankfully.

  Blessing his stars, Jackson tentatively waved, before his unknown counterpart opened the door further and beckoned him inside.

  It looked to be a girl, no older than fifteen or sixteen.

  Following her, Jackson carefully stepped through the doorway and was met with the rest of the floor’s residents: a family of four. What the trooper surmised were likely the two parents, a man and woman, the girl that had opened the door and a young boy, that couldn’t have been older than six.

  Though the thought of these kids having to have survived what was basically a hostile occupation stung in his chest, Jackson pushed it back down again and focused on what was important: Information.

  Taking his helmet off, the trooper presented his face to the family, hoping to build some rapport by not just being a faceless goon hidden behind the visor.

  The father started talking, which immediately presented Jackson with a problem: he didn’t understand him.

  Any member of the SCN had translator implants, but it seemed that this civilian was talking a language that wasn’t yet covered by the software. The technology was still fairly young, so far only accommodating the most common languages: English, Mandarin, Turkish, Hindi, French and Spanish. It covered a wide margin but still left plenty of languages unaccounted for.

  Clearing his throat, Jackson made it known that he didn’t understand and asked if any of the residents knew English. The girl perked her ears at that, a glimmer appearing in her eyes as she answered: “I do! Learned it from some online friends!”

  Well, that was a start.

  “Good… what language does your father speak, if I may ask?”

  Evidently, the father had made note of the language barrier and was asking the girl something, who answered back in her native tongue. After a moment, she turned back to the Droptrooper, explaining: “We speak Ukrainian. I thought you’d have guessed, what with our city being named New Poltava and all.”

  Not only fluent in a different language, but also cheeky. Jackson supressed a sarcastic remark of his own, instead acknowledging that in hindsight, that made a lot of sense.

  Admittedly, the corporal wasn’t sure if he simply didn’t know because the briefings didn’t mention it, or if the likelihood of him having received a concussion on making landfall was getting likelier.

  With the family beckoning Jackson over to a table, the mother made sure that the windows were covered, before lighting a small candle and placing it in the middle of the table.

  Though Jackson’s had been starting to adjust to the darkness, it was nice to have some light.

  From here, Jackson could also get a closer look at the civilians; they looked about what one would expect for a family surviving a hostile occupation. The slightly gaunt cheeks of the father made it clear that he had certainly lost some weight since the invasion began. The rough and calloused hands also hinted towards him having been engaged in physical work, so seeing him in this state only furthered Jackson’s theories about the food situation.

  The mother was in a bit of a better state, though the bags under her eyes told their own story. Unsurprisingly, the kids were in far better shape.

  The parents had seemingly foregone a few meals to ensure that the little ones would get plenty of nutrition. A cynical voice inside Jackson’s mind wanted to mentally chastise them for endangering the whole group by making the adults weaker, but his softer side won that argument handily.

  After all, if he had the choice between eating something himself, or sharing it with a starving kid, wouldn’t he do the same?

  Small snippets of his time back on Lumen flashed before his eyes, but were quickly gone again once he blinked a few times and grounded himself.

  “I was hoping you could tell me about what’s been happening since the occupation began.”

  On that topic, the girl looked decidedly unsure. While she was stewing over the question, Jackson glanced over at the mother, holding her six-year-old boy. The kid was giving the trooper a side-eye that was an impressive mixture of wonder, apprehension and fear.

  Evidently not sure how to broach it on her own, the girl turned to her father, speaking to the man in Ukrainian.

  After a few minutes of their exchange, the girl turned back and recounted what she and her family had seen during the occupation.

  New Poltava had been mostly spared from direct fighting, with the SDF from this sector pulling out and regrouping out in the nature reserve. Planetary administration and SDF alike had advised the citizenry to stay inside, if possible, with only the most necessary work being continued.

  For a while, life had continued in a normal, if somewhat apprehensive, fashion. They had heard reports of fighting in Nebesni Vorota and Nova Chorna. On a few nights they’d even been able to spot flashes in the distance from artillery fire, though their side of the continent continued to remain relatively quiet.

  Unil, after a few months, power was cut and direct occupation by alien troops began.

  At first it seemed like they simply partook in normal patrols, but after a while, an unspoken curfew had been established, as anyone that ventured outside after sundown, never returned.

  So, with a direct enemy presence, everything went as one would expect. The ever-present invader staring over their proverbial shoulders, establishing blockades and setting up defences.

  Though the family noted that a lot of the defences seemed to be ground bound, aimed at deterring possible attacks from the SDF or any kind of resistance. A small voice in Jackson’s head was wondering if perhaps the aliens hadn’t expected a counterattack? But how could that be possible…

  Though then – and the family noted it had come without warning - the abductions started.

  At that, Jackson halted the girl in her tracks, asking: “Abductions? What do you mean by that? Are they ferrying people away? Is that why you’re hiding?”

  The girl nodded her head. “They’d send the faceless men into our homes, beckoning us to come out and follow them… my father actually didn’t want me to look for you after you called us. But I heard it in your voice. Your voice sounded natural… not like theirs…”

  Suddenly the girl looked rather forlorn, distant eyes looking at nothing in particular.

  Faceless men? Beckoning civilians out of hiding?

  There was one thought that was creeping its way up Jackson’s spine, but he wasn’t sure if he’d be ready to accept such an idea.

  “Did they… take your neighbours too?”

  The girl nodded her head again.

  Looking back towards the door from which he had entered, Jackson tried to remember just how many floors this skyscraper had. Twenty? Thirty? A horrible thought slithered its way into his consciousness.

  “Are you the only ones left in this building?”

  Again, a silent nod.

  A cold shiver made its way down Jackson’s back, as the implication of it all started dawning on him. “Were they all taken or did some manage to flee?”

  “We know of one family that decided to flee… we don’t know if they made it. But most simply… disappeared. One day after another, more and more people were gone. We realized that for the faceless men to not appear, we’d have to hide… act like we don’t exist.”

  Tears were welling up in the girl’s eyes, though she was quick to rub them away. The father laid a careful hand on his daughter’s shoulder, rubbing it and sharing some soothing words with her.

  It seemed to have done the trick, with the girl calming down again and regaining her composure.

  Jackson was reminded once again why so many from the Skycorps dreaded civilian interactions.

  It wasn’t some cynical superiority complex or annoyance at any perceived ignorance.

  It was the simple truth that civilians offered an unfiltered window into the reality of war, into its immeasurable cost.

  With that in mind, it seemed so much easier to simply ignore civilians and try to avoid the deeper implications, to simply shut down and focus on the next mission.

  Heeding his own advice, Jackson took a deep breath and reminded himself of what he was here to do. What needed to be done.

  “Do you know of any resistance movements, or any SDF remnants?”

  The girl answered that they hadn’t seen much of the likes. There were rumours of SDF troops hiding away from the cities and engaging in guerilla actions, but the reality was, that with the power grid down, they didn’t have access to the solar internet, nor the planetary one.

  Added with the fact that very few transmissions from Sol had come through since the start of the occupation, the residents of Odessa were left completely in the dark as to what was happening outside of their immediate surroundings.

  “It could be that they’re out there. My father believes as much, but we simply don’t know. New Poltava has been very quiet since it all started. No one ever came to help us…”

  Though slightly disappointed that there didn’t seem to be a direct resistance cell in this city, Jackson remained hopeful that some of the civilians and SDF remnants had taken up arms against their occupiers. Or at the very least left the cities for the relative safety of the countryside.

  After what those monsters had done to Langstrom, Jackson didn’t want to imagine what might’ve happened to the initial defenders after their surrender.

  He hoped enough of them had the sense to disappear instead of letting themselves be torn to pieces by these extraterrestrial psychopaths.

  “I see… Well, I still have a mission to fulfil, but can I ask one last favour from you?”

  The girl answered in the affirmative.

  “I need to find out where exactly I am and where my target is. Think you can quickly guide me to the roof?”

  Once again, the girl voiced her understanding, quickly turning to her father and explaining the Skydiver’s request. The old man looked apprehensive at first, his eyes darting between his own daughter and Jackson, but he seemed to eventually relent.

  Though his gesticulation and stern voice made it pretty clear that he urged his child to be quick about it and not take any chances.

  It wasn’t like Jackson could fault the old man for that.

  Acting like they didn’t exist had kept the family safe so far.

  With that, the girl motioned for Jackson to follow, the trooper nodding and going after her. Once the corporal was outside in the hallway again, he decided to put his helmet back on, so he could once again appreciate the usefulness of night-vision.

  For a moment he wondered if the girl would be alright navigating around, but it seemed that her eyes were well adjusted to the dark, if her determined steps were any indication.

  Quietly moving through the abandoned building, the two made their way upwards.

  That is, until they reached a part of the skyscraper that had partially collapsed, with the stairs now being little more than a pile of useless rubble.

  The girl whispered her apology, explaining that she hadn’t been up here in months and evidently hadn’t known about the collapse of the upper floors.

  Examining his options, the trooper came upon the elevator doors. Power was still out, but Jackson had another idea: pulling tentatively on the doors, he noticed that while their mechanisms were unpowered, he could move them.

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  Thusly, pressing his weight into it, the corporal managed to slowly leverage the doors apart, revealing the empty elevator shaft behind them.

  “What are you doing?”

  “There’s more than one way to get up there… you can go back to your family, I’ve got this.”

  Though, as Jackson turned back to the girl, he could see she looked unimpressed. “I didn’t agree to this just to help you. Or do you think I’d climb up all those stairs just to miss out on the view from up there?”

  She was certainly feisty. On top of that, Jackson wasn’t in the mood to argue. This girl had helped him and if she was confident, she could keep up, he’d certainly let her try.

  “Then let’s just get this over with. But let me go first. If the cables can hold my weight, then you should be fine.”

  Climbing up the elevator shaft was a mundane ordeal for Jackson, though he did periodically look down the cable to where the girl was following him. She’d seemed timid at first, evidently perturbed by the height and the prospect of falling down the elevator shaft.

  But, after a few meters of climbing, it seemed she found her stride in it. Jackson could see a certain glint in the girl’s eyes. This was an adventure to her.

  A break from the mundane. And perhaps a chance to distract herself from the harrowing reality that life had become since the occupation.

  Once again, despite her age, Jackson couldn’t find it in him to blame the kid. A Skycorps trooper swooping in and then being able to join said trooper on a climb up a ruined tower must’ve been the most interesting thing to have happened to her lately.

  It certainly would’ve excited Jackson if he were her age.

  Reaching the top of the elevator shaft, Jackson looked down one last time and asked the girl if she was alright, hearing an affirmative coming back.

  “Okay, hold on tight then. The cable’s gonna swing wildly when I jump off. Suggest you close your eyes… knees can get wobbly when you hang on something like that.”

  The girl answered that she was ready, to which Jackson angled himself towards the wall adjacent the elevator doors.

  Kicking off said wall, the corporal swung towards the doors, before letting go of the cable and having his momentum carry him towards the opening. Barely keeping balance, Jackson held unto the frame of the doors, trying to find leverage to hold on to while he figured how to open them.

  Doing it from the outside had been easy, plenty of room to get proper leverage. Doing the same from the inside was certainly harder. There was a small ledge just in front of the exit he could tiptoe on, with perhaps a few centimetres of room to manoeuvre.

  It certainly had seemed easier in his mind on the way up…

  Hooking his fingers into the gap between the two doors, Jackson slowly, but surely, widened it enough to stick his hand through and began the arduous process of opening them. All the while he could feel the girl’s eyes burning holes into his back, probably watching to see if the trooper could get it done without plummeting to his death.

  Still, eventually, the doors relented, and Jackson opened up enough of a gap to squeeze through and push his shoulders against the weight of the mechanism. Finally, being on the other side, the soldier wrenched the doors completely open and extended a hand to the girl.

  Having seen how the trooper had done it, the kid similarly kicked off from the adjacent wall and hopped towards Jackson’s waiting hand, grasping it, perhaps with a bit more force than she’d let on and letting the soldier drag her from the ledge out of the doors and into the room proper.

  Though Jackson had noticed just how light the girl was.

  She barely weighed anything…

  Even with the parents sacrificing some of their rations for their kids, it seemed the family was skirting dangerously close to starvation. At least the girl had enough energy for a climb like this and didn’t seem anaemic. Still Jackson couldn’t help but feel a stinging pain in his chest when the family and their situation came to mind.

  Part of him wished he could tell them that everything was going to be alright, but that’d be a lie. Planetary invasions were costly and required a lot of time. Depending on how things would go, it could take months, or even years, until Odessa was fully liberated.

  If they ever managed to drive the invaders away…

  Casting those thoughts from his mind, Jackson returned to the matter at hand: they were on the topmost floor. Now, it remained to see if they could reach the roof.

  Looking for any kind of service door or other maintenance access, Jackson felt the girl tapping on his shoulder. Turning towards her, he could see her hand point towards a spot in the ceiling: an access hatch.

  Having finally arrived on the roof, Jackson was met with an expected, yet still impressive sight.

  New Poltava, covered in darkness and rain, save for the parts that were burning, lighting up the night in a rather destructive and melancholic display.

  On one horizon, Jackson could see a shimmering sea of faint light extend out towards the distant darkness. The nature reserve. Much of Odessa’s flora was known for its bioluminescence, usually resulting in the sorts of displays one would see on all sorts of holiday cards. All that was missing were Odessa’s two moons hanging lazily in the sky.

  Towards the other side, he could see the city extending kilometres away from him, with anti-air plasma cannons occasionally lighting up the sky. A notable rift in the buildings indicated where the Dnipro River carved its way through New Poltava.

  Further out, he could barely catch glimpses of the coast.

  From here, Jackson also had plenty of references to just where the hell he was.

  The trooper spotted a sports stadium in the distance, as well as a larger skyscraper that had the remains of the Oxco Corporation logo on it. A large player in the colonization market, taking up contracts for construction of housing and helping out with civilian infrastructure.

  Hydroponics domes were shouldered by storage houses and commercial hubs. Notable were the none-hydroponic domes, christened with subtle streaks of gold and evidently modelled after similar buildings back on earth, though perhaps a bit less lavish and more oriented towards pragmatism.

  And far off, Jackson even spotted the squat form of the transit hub.

  Pulling up a map on his wrist computer, the trooper went to work, looking back at said landmarks, then back towards the map, triangulating his approximate position. And the position of his target.

  Shockingly, his drop had missed its mark by a few kilometres, dropping him in an entirely different district from the one he was supposed to be in.

  Something had gone horribly wrong with their drop…

  It also explained why Jackson had seen so few friendlies so far. The other troopers must’ve been scattered all over the place, all either trying to get their bearings or engaging targets of opportunity.

  At the very least, Jackson now knew where he was.

  Updating the waypoint on his map, he selected a series of coordinates, marking them and creating a breadcrumb trail for himself, finishing up by loading them unto his visor and having them display in his HUD.

  There was little for him to do in this district. It was mainly just civilian housing, some mild industry and the usual helping of storefronts.

  If he wanted to make a difference, he’d have to reach his original objective.

  With that all done, Jackson turned off his wrist computer again and looked out towards the skyline, letting out a small sigh. None of this was how it was supposed to go.

  Their jump had somehow fucked up, they were off from their original timetable, and it seemed everyone was out of position.

  For a moment Jackson considered using his radio but eventually decided against it.

  Command had ordered strict radio silence until the strike-force could enter. They didn’t know if the aliens could monitor their communications or even crack their encryptions, so the order was to treat the enemy as if they could do all those things.

  The Skydivers were to maintain radio silence, unless absolutely necessary, so as to mask their positions and movements from the enemy.

  For now, Jackson was still on his own.

  As another lightning strike light up the distant sky, followed a few seconds later by the sound of thunder reaching them, Jackson was temporarily overwhelmed by how lonely he felt.

  He was away from his team and from his platoon. No one to cover his back, no one to turn to for advice, no one to even share in some good old gallows humour.

  Still, the trooper shook his head and chastised himself mentally for losing composure. They were Droptroopers. Operating alone was a necessity that all of them had to be able to deal with. It was part of the job.

  As the old saying went: they were meant to be outgunned and surrounded.

  Looking to his right though, Jackson could see the girl, unbothered by getting rained on, looking out at the city silently.

  It was hard to read her expression. Melancholy and wonder, quiet resignation but also… a tinge of determination. It must’ve hurt to see her hometown in this state, but he could also see that she wanted it to return to how it once had been.

  “I never asked your name.”

  Deciding that he wished to offer her some distraction, Jackson tried asking the girl her name, with the kid being visibly ripped out of her thoughts.

  “Oh… uhh… its Halya. Can I ask you something as well?”

  “Go for it.”

  “You said you were a member of the ‘Skycorps’… what does that mean?”

  Jackson had to slightly chuckle to himself. He didn’t expect a teenage girl of all things to express interest in his job, but he thought it could be fun to indulge in her curiosity.

  “I’m a Droptrooper. That means we’re sent in from low orbit via droppods. Usually around the Stratosphere or Mesosphere. That’s about fifty to a hundred kilometres up in the sky give or take.”

  Halya was visibly shocked at the implications, looking up towards the heavens in disbelief.

  “Sounds crazy I know… basically, imagine this big metal rod. Attached to that rod are three pods, with Skydivers in them. The Skycorps swoops down into low orbit with an assault boat, before they plunge down into the upper layers of the proper atmosphere. There, they shoot out the rods from torpedo tubes. The rod and the pods attached to it are encased in armour and heat-resistant plating. From there, we let gravity do the rest. At around thirty kilometres, the casing – or what’s left of it – is detached. Shortly after that, at around twenty-five to twenty kilometres, the rod engages in a spin for a few seconds. That spin is so that the pods, which then detach, accrue enough force and speed to gain distance from the rod. After that, the rod engages in distraction, shooting off flares and other countermeasures, while the pods begin to slow their descent towards the surface. All of this is so we’re able to break through enemy defences. Anti-air and surface-to-air rockets are deadly business, so you need to be fast. Anything else wouldn’t reach the surface without being shredded to pieces.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then? Then we get the job done, whatever that might be. Usually, it’s to secure a landing site for the Strike Force, but it can also include sabotage, reconnaissance, pathfinding and general disruption of the enemy. Its why we’re trained to be fast and efficient… there’s only so much you can carry with you down to a planet.”

  To that, Jackson pointed down towards himself and slightly shifted his coat to the side to present the rigging and armour below it. Still enough to get the job done, but with less protection than the regular grunts.

  The only benefit given to the skydivers was that their loadout configurations were fairly customizable, with the individual troopers given some freedom in how they wanted to go planetside.

  The only caveat was that they didn’t exceed the weight threshold.

  “The droppods require extremely precise calculations. A bit too much weight, or too little of it, and there might be a fault in the staging, or it might not reach the right speed at the right time. That’s why we travel lightly. You make do with what you have. What you don’t have… well, that you either find, borrow… or steal.”

  Jackson couldn’t help but smile at that last part.

  The Skycorps was proud of their ability to improvise and make more with less. Each of their troopers was trained in survival, recon and even the creation of improvised weaponry if need be.

  Hell, a lot of the troopers had started giving the corps an unofficial motto: ‘Do more with less.’

  It was the reason why every Skydiver carried their mantle with pride; even if it was little more than a glorified raincoat, it symbolized the ruggedness that their corps represented.

  A simple tarp, that still got the job done.

  Halya meanwhile carried a mixture of amazement and befuddlement in her face. Perhaps it was a bit jarring to hear that what the navy called elites, were also simultaneously made to work with a hotchpotch of whatever they could procure on the ground.

  “Of course I don’t want to give you the wrong ideas. The Grunts do get proper armour, logistics and procurement. Especially the greater assault armies are armed to the teeth. Any SCN Marine worth his salt probably includes logistics in his prayers. Well, at least as long as they have a steady supply of grub.”

  That last comment did manage to get a slight chuckle out of Halya.

  “But Wingless Demons make do… it’s what we’re good at and more often than not, the reason we volunteer for the Skycorps in the first place. There’s nothing quite like barrelling down towards a planet at terminal velocity… well, depending on who you ask, the only thing better is apparently warm food and a soft bed. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

  Again, the girl smirked and let out a slight giggle at the soldier’s antics. Jackson couldn’t help but smile as well, though it was soon replaced by a rather melancholic look as he looked out at the city again.

  Jackson knew he couldn’t help the girl or her family, the mission would come first. And it was likely that he’d never see any of them again.

  But still, managing to make this girl laugh, even as her world burned and was occupied by non-human monsters, made the moment worth it.

  He… sincerely… hoped that, should the girl find herself once again hiding away in the dark, holding her breath so that these so called ‘faceless men’ wouldn’t find her, his words would help soothe her nerves.

  “So… how long do you think until Odessa is liberated? You are going to liberate it, right?”

  “I can assure you, the SCN will give it their all… but for how long… Listen kid, I’m going to have to be honest with you it’ll probably take…” Jackson trailed off as he saw the shift in Halya’s demeanour. It was likely the girl already knew that the Skycorps’ arrival alone wouldn’t instantly deliver her home from the invaders.

  She was smart, that much Jackson could gleam. Yet, there’d still been that slight spark of hope in her eyes, that perhaps the day was indeed saved, and she and her family could all happily ride off into the sunset, finally leaving this nightmare behind them.

  “Months? Years?”

  “Sorry Halya, I don’t know exactly how long. But it will take time. Probably longer than any of us wish. One of the ugliest things about war is that you can never seem to finish it as quickly as you’d like to. But you and your family have done well so far. Tell your parents to stay hidden until proper SCN forces arrive. With any luck, they’ll be able to establish some kind of shelter for civilians, or even an evac-corridor to get you off world. Until then… you’ll have to wait.”

  “What about you?”

  Jackson looked down, away from the girl. None of them had said it, but the corporal had seen it in the pleading eyes of the parents: they wished he could stay and protect them.

  After all, wasn’t that the whole point behind the SCN? Protect humanity and its people?

  Wasn’t that why Jackson and his comrades had signed on?

  He suspected that the only reason they hadn’t voiced that wish, was because the family knew just as well as he did that he couldn’t stay.

  There was nothing to be done… yet Jackson couldn’t help himself but wince at the stinging he felt in his chest at the thought of leaving these people to fend for themselves.

  Taking his helmet off, Jackson let the rain patter against his skin for a moment, drenching his short hair, as the cool water splashed against the scars his face carried.

  “I’ll do my job. Again, I know you’re a smart kid, so I won’t lie to you. I can’t stay and you likely will never see me again. That’s the reality of it. All I can do is promise you and your family that we’ll give these freaks hell and make them regret the day they set foot on Odessa. So, promise me that you and your family stay put and stay safe, okay?”

  Halya nodded, to which Jackson gave her a reassuring smile, before putting his helmet back on and making his way back to the maintenance hatch. Though before he could motion for Halya to follow, he heard her voice call out from behind: “You promise me too!”

  “What?” Jackson looked back at the kid, that determination once again glistening in her eyes. “Promise me that you’ll also stay safe!” Though it was hidden beneath his visor, Jackson couldn’t help but smirk.

  “I promise kid. I’ll see things through…”