For a moment, they all just stood there, the words washing over them. Nobody moved a muscle or said a word, rooted to their spots as they were. Finally, Rebecca stepped forward, as if in a daze.

"You're lying…" she muttered. "You have to be. I was told there was no way he could have survived what happened to his ship."

"Apparently, we were wrong," the bald-headed man said. He motioned towards Eric's house. "But perhaps this conversation would be better had indoors? I would prefer not to draw a crowd."

Eric looked around. Sure enough, a few of the neighbors had already started to gather around. Slowly, he nodded.

"Fine," he said as he led the way back to his house. "But don't touch anything – I'll never be able to get the stench of government agent out if you do."

"Charming," the other suited man said as they all began to follow Eric back to his home.

"You ought to have known what to expect when you came here. You've read my file, after all."

After a few seconds, they were all back inside the house, and Eric closed and locked the door behind them. Once that was done, he took a breath, then rounded on them.

"Alright, start talking," he demanded. "I want to know everything. And, for the love of God, some names from the two of you would be nice. If you're going to try to screw us over, at least have the courtesy to give us that."

Both men exchanged a glance with each other before shrugging. "Davis," the dark-skinned man answered.

"Roy," said the other.

"Alright. Now, Davis and Roy, do me a favor – why the fuck are you both here?"

"Because her mentor-"

"I know, but you could have gone to any of the other Angels for that," Eric pointed out. "Particularly, any of the ones still in the service. Instead, you came all the way out here to find one that was retired, after she'd had a few weeks to start adjusting, mind you, and then you try to bring her back into the fold."

He crossed his arms. "Do you realize how cruel that is? Does she not deserve better than that in your eyes? Has she not given enough already?"

"This has nothing to do with what she deserves, or how much she's given," Davis cut in. "This is about the most effective person for the job. And I think you'll all agree with me when I say that it's her."

"Bullshit," Eric replied, rolling his eyes. "She's the best of them, true, but you're really telling me this is going to be a one-person job?"

"Yes, actually."

Eric stared at him in confusion. Before Davis could respond, Roy stepped forward.

"This is likely going to sound unbelievable, but we have it on very good authority that Major Miller is not only alive, but that he's now working for the Iprenians."

Before anyone could react, Rebecca surged forwards. She grabbed Roy by the throat and hoisted him off his feet, then slammed him into the nearby wall, where she began to choke the life out of him. Roy flailed in her grasp, his feet several inches off the floor, and his face steadily turning more and more blue with every passing second. Davis' hand went inside his jacket, and Eric's eyes widened.

"Rebecca, stop!" he called. "Let him go!"

"The Major would never willingly sign on with the Iprenians," she snarled. "Anyone who would accuse him of that is lying."

"All the more reason for us to figure out what's happening before we do anything rash," Eric implored. "Put him down, please."

Rebecca let out a grunt, but did as he asked, roughly dropping Roy to the floor. Immediately, Roy's hand went to his throat, and he began to suck in deep gulps of air while massaging his neck. After a few seconds, he struggled to his feet, shaking his head the entire time.

"Jesus Christ…" he managed to gasp out.

"Talk," Eric demanded. "Because I don't know if you noticed, but I only just barely managed to get her to release you, and I don't think I'll be quite as successful the second time."

Roy gave him a death glare, but said nothing, instead continuing to gulp in air. Davis put a hand on his shoulder in solidarity before turning to Eric.

"I'm going to reach into my suit pocket," he announced. "For a file. Can I trust you to believe I'm not going for my gun?"

Eric nodded in understanding, and Davis breathed a sigh of relief before presenting a small folder. He offered it to Rebecca, who hesitantly accepted it.

"Photos from the black box of one of those ships that was recently destroyed by pirates," Davis said. "Take a look at the pictures, tell me what you see."

Rebecca's expression tightened, but she opened the folder all the same. The moment she did, her whole body began to tremble, and her expression on the photo turned white-knuckled as she grit her teeth.

"Rebecca?" Eric asked gently. "What's-"

Her only response was to shove the photo in his face. Eric accepted it, then looked it over, a chill going down his spine in the process.

It was the interior of a civilian passenger ship, full of humans… or rather, it had been in the past; now, they were little more than mutilated corpses, piled high atop each other. And standing there in the center was a tall figure clad in a slate-black suit of power armor. It was unmistakably human; Iprenians were taller than that, and looked closer to bipedal wolves than anything else. No, there was no denying it – this was a human, a male by the looks of their body, and they were clad in the kind of power armor that had only ever been issued to the Angels.

There was no denying it, then – Rebecca's mentor had thrown his lot in with the Iprenians. Eric didn't know how or why, but the picture was irrefutable.

Slowly, he let out a sigh, then passed the picture over to Rosa. While she examined it, he turned back to Davis and Roy, uncertainty etched across his face.

"What do you need her to do?" he asked softly.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"We need her to find the Major and either kill him or bring him back to us for interrogation," Roy managed to get out, his voice coming out slightly gruff and choked. "We'd prefer him alive, obviously, but if that's not possible, then we'll take him dead, too."

"And it has to be her? Nobody else can do it?"

Davis shook his head. "It has to be a single Angel, I'm sorry to say. We're not even supposed to have any out in the field at this point according to the treaty we signed, so two would be much too risky. And if we're stuck sending just a single one…"

"Then it makes sense to send the deadliest one." Eric crossed his arms once again, his gaze narrowing. "Still, you have to realize that she's been adjusting to

civilian life. It's only been a few weeks, sure, but she's gotten along nicely."

Both men exchanged a confused glance at that, one that didn't go unnoticed by Eric. His brow furrowed. "Alright, what's that supposed to mean?"

"It's just…" Davis hesitated. "...Her actually adjusting wasn't part of the plan."

"What the fuck are you talking about? I thought that was the entire reason you put her with me."

"Are you kidding?" Roy asked. "You're an alcoholic mess of a man. You were one of the worst choices of candidates when it came to giving her a normal life. That was by design – we needed her to retire, yes… but we also needed her to be ready to come back to active duty if we ever needed her. And so we put her with someone who had no business housing her, who she wouldn't get attached to."

"You didn't truly think all that shit about you being the best possible candidate was true, did you?" Davis questioned. "Come on, we could have put her with any number of candidates and she'd have been better off. We picked you because we figured neither of you would get attached."

Eric was dumbstruck. He turned to Rosa, who was just as confused as him. After a moment, Eric turned back to the two of them.

"Let me get this straight," he said slowly, his voice low. "You lied to me, and you lied to her – made it appear like this was going to be a permanent thing for her when you always knew it was possible she'd have to be reactivated for one reason or another. And to that end, you purposely put her with someone you thought was unqualified to help care for her and assist her with adjusting. So you knew she'd be in a bad spot after coming out of the military, but you decided to potentially make that worse by putting her with me?"

"It wasn't our decision," Davis interjected. "It came from higher up in the chain. We were just responsible for making sure the plan went off-"

Eric didn't let him finish. Instead, as Davis was talking, he cocked his fist back and punched him full-on in the face. Davis' sunglasses shattered under the force of the blow, and he fell to the ground, clutching at his nose as it streamed blood. Eric stood over him, his face contorted in rage and his hands curled into fists.

"Get the fuck out of here," he growled. "Don't ever come back if you know what's good for you."

Roy helped Davis to his feet, and both men glared at him.

"The hell is your problem?" Roy demanded. "You just assaulted a federal agent!"

"I'm about to assault a second one if you both don't leave my property in the next five fucking seconds."

"Make another move towards us and I'm placing you under arrest."

"That'll be tough to do when you're out cold."

Eric went to take a step forwards, but Rebecca stopped him by putting a hand on his chest. He turned to her in surprise, but she didn't reciprocate, instead looking over to the two agents.

"I'll do it," she said, her voice full of conviction.

"What?!" Eric couldn't stop himself from asking. "Rebecca-"

She turned towards him, and he paused when he saw the emotion that had suddenly crossed her face. There was pain there, sure, but it was mixed with determination as well. It was a far cry from her usual monotone – so much so that it stunned him into complete silence.

"If it was your father, you'd do the same thing," Rebecca said to him. "That man raised me – raised all fifty of us, turned us into the people we are today. I owe him everything, Eric. He's the closest thing to family I have left, aside from the other Angels."

"That's not true," Eric said softly. "You have us."

Rebecca grimaced, but didn't look away. "...I know. And it hurts, having to leave you both behind… but I have to do this. Please, don't deny me this."

The two of them held that gaze for a moment before Rebecca let out a sigh and nodded.

"Okay," she said to the two agents. "Let's go."

***

At first, Eric had thought that they were just going to take Rebecca with them, but Rosa had somehow talked them into letting her and Eric ride with them. As it turned out, there was already a ship waiting at a nearby spaceport, full of Rebecca's old gear. They were going to drop her off there, she was going to get geared up, and then she'd be on her way. The entire thing would probably only take an hour, by his estimation.

One hour, and he couldn't think of a way to properly say goodbye. Hell, he couldn't think of anything to say during the car ride to the spaceport – try as he might, nothing seemed to fit. He wasn't the only one struggling with his words, at least – neither Rosa nor Rebecca said anything during the entire car ride. The trip was silent up until they made it to the spaceport, and all of them exited the vehicle.

Predictably, the brass was already there – several very high-ranking officers were gathered around the hangar, all of them waiting for her. A few of them tried to speak with her, but Rebecca wasn't having it, and merely stepped past them, headed for a large metal container. As Eric and Rosa watched, she opened the container, revealing a familiar-looking set of armor.

Eric had seen what the Angels' armor looked like before, in the propaganda videos and pictures created to show them off. But nothing compared to seeing it in real life – it was big; with her armor on, she'd be about his height. And it was thick as well, so much so that he knew it'd stop anything short of very high-intensity plasma, heavy armor-piercing ammo, or explosives.

Most striking of all, however, it was colored a deep navy blue. He'd heard rumors that the Angels had been allowed to customize their own armor a bit, at least as far as the paint job, and apparently, that was true.

As Eric watched, Rebecca began to pull on the armor piece by piece. She did so with practiced ease, and before long, she was fully armored up, save for her helmet, which she picked up and stared at before setting it down and turning back towards him and Rosa. As he watched, she reached up and removed her eye patch, then let it fall to the ground before opening her artificial eye and staring at the two of them. A moment passed, and she began to walk over to them.

Then, once she was within range, she carefully stepped forward and pulled them both into a big hug.

And somehow, despite her armor and her augmented strength, it was so gentle.

"You both looked like you needed a hug," she said softly. A moment passed, and she added, "I'll miss you."

Something about that statement got to him. Eric felt tears come to his eyes, and barely managed to avoid letting them leak out, instead wiping them away before pulling her even tighter. Rosa, on the other hand, didn't even try to hold herself back, the sound of her quiet choked sobs echoing through the hangar. Eric swallowed the lump in his throat.

"...Just come back to us," he begged. "Please."

Rebecca's only response was to nod.

A few seconds passed, and then the three of them reluctantly broke the hug. They separated, giving each other one last glance.

And it may have just been a trick of the light, but Eric could have sworn he saw Rebecca's eyes glistening, too.

It only lasted for a moment before she gave a shuddering sigh, then turned and picked up her helmet. She slid it over her head, and in that instant, artificial electric blue gave way to an opaque black visor. Eric felt his heart skip a beat at the sight of it, but he said nothing, even as she turned and marched over to

the small attack ship that had been provided for her.

As he watched, Rebecca got inside the ship and started the engine, the high-pitched whine filling the hangar, finally drowning out Rosa's crying. Rebecca flipped a number of switches, but then hesitated at the last one and looked over to him.

And she waved at him.

Eric didn't get a chance to wave back before she hit the final button.

And just like that, she was gone.