Gareth was still huddling in place.

“Pen? Is everything…”

“I think so. I guess we weren’t targets.”

“What makes you say that?

“Because if we were we’d be dead.”

She moved over to the man’s corpse and examined the new hole in the stonework. Gareth followed behind her.

“Well, strong as you are maybe they-”

“Ha! Strength has nothing to do with it. A bullet is a bullet. I’d be dead. I was careless, though to be honest, I’m not sure how helpful the armor would be.”

The round was buried too deep to fish out and the hole was too small for her to even try.

“Small caliber round would have a tough time against any of the plates, but they went for a headshot. Not that it was a long shot from up there but any shooter who goes for a headshot is either dumb and lucky or immensely confident in their ability.”

“How so?”

“No reason to go for a more difficult shot when the easier one would still do the job. I was trained to always go for center mass.”

“And yet they didn’t. Perhaps they were trying to send a message?”

“Maybe.”

“What kind?”

“They bowed before they left too.”

“...”

“Eh, whatever. Don’t know, don’t care. I’ll take care of cleaning this up, but we should get something to cover him in the meantime. I’ve also got to get the armor and everything back in their crates… probably have some explaining to do to these poor people as well.”

“… Right.”

A few sheets were found for the grizzly scene and while Gareth set about finding someone in charge Pen recovered all the borrowed gear from the spaceport. She was assisted by a very grateful port mechanic.

By the time she returned to the town square with everything Gareth had found a number of elders who were responsible for the colony. The Nebula’s crew, who had landed on the outskirts of town, disembarked to help people with the recovery effort. Deag had joined Gareth.

“Oh no I’m quite sure we can accommodate her. It’s the least we can do after all.” Penelope heard one elder say as she walked up.

“What’s this?”

“Oh, we were just talking about your staying here miss. Your captain speaks highly of you, not that it was needed after what you’ve done for us…” his hooded head looked towards the spaceport.

“We’re sure we can account for any dietary differences or the like. I’m not sure any of our buildings would suit you but we can start construction on a sufficiently sized one and once the power grid is up and running, we are set to be quite the trade hub. I wouldn’t be surprised if more comforts made their way here eventually.” Another elder continued.

“That’s very generous of you, thank you. I’m more than happy to make myself useful as well so just let me know where and how I can help.”

“We will but please rest for now. After all of this you must be exhausted.”

“… Of course, thank you.”

“We ended up landing at the outskirts of the town but if you’d like to oversee the offloading of the cells, I can have a crewmember take you there.”

“Ah yes, that should be done sooner rather than later and I’m sure we must talk payment.”

“We can talk payment later. There are more important things to be done right now. We’ll be right behind you.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Deag flagged down Thwilll who led the elders off to the Nebula.

“It’ll be sad to lose you Pen but we’ve a bit longer before we say goodbye right?” Deag started to try and help with the pile of Human weapons and such.

“Sure… not quite yet.” She donned as much as she could and carried most of the rest.

Soon enough the energy cells were being moved to a storage area and the only large things left in the cargo bay were three Terran military crates. Their contents had been returned save a few dozen rounds of ammunition and plus one kit of disparate military gear whose previous user had no more need of.

The work of the town continued well into the planet’s evening. The sky was a vibrant red before the Blue Nebula started to make ready for departure. Though it was time to say their farewells, no one could find their ex-security officer.

“She can stay if she likes but I’m not letting her just disappear without saying goodbye. Find her.” Deag commanded.

He, Thwilll, Ton’et, and Gareth, all went out into the town to find their friend.

---

Gareth was the one to find the human sitting on a hill on the outskirts of the colony. She sat in the blueish grass and looked out at the setting sun. He was just starting to be able to decipher her facial expressions. Serene would be appropriate but… there was something else there too.

“If you’re trying to sneak up on me, you’d have better luck from the back, I can see you in my periphery right now.”

“Sneaking was not my goal, no. Besides I figure you could hear my approach. Sightlines or no.” Gareth preened his head frills furtively.

“Probably” was all the human responded, her eyes still gazing out at the horizon.

“We wanted to say goodbye. The Nebula is about to take off. I also… well… I uhhh… Penelope, I owe you an apology and I would be remiss if I let us part without offering it in earnest.”

This was enough to pull her eyes to him, “An apology? For what?” she asked with genuine curiosity.

“I have treated you poorly. I was rude and dismissive. I let my assumptions and biases color my treatment of you despite your many acts proving your character to be the exact opposite. You’re a good person Penelope and I apologize for how poorly I treated you-”

“Shut up.”

“…uh, I… What?”

“You don’t need to apologize Gareth. If anything you said was unwarranted, I would have called you on it from the beginning.”

“I… I don’t think… Penelope you saved my life twice now. I thought I knew you and I was wrong…”

“Gareth you don’t know me, but I’ll set this straight. I am a killer, okay? We’ve gotten to know each other and now maybe you want to ignore that but the person you are looking at right now has done things you would find horrific. I… I do too but…”

“But…”

“I don’t know. I’m of two minds. On one hand I agree that killing is a terrible act. I understand that. In every context, I am taking away everything from a person. Every second they would have had, every future choice. I like to think most of the people I’ve killed were doing terrible things in their own right but even in that case I’m stealing their ability to ever make amends, make a better choice. On the other hand, when I say some people need to die, I believe it. I have killed people that, had they lived, would have killed hundreds. If I didn’t do what I did, those lives would have been on my hands.”

“Pen I-“

“I mean, you people preach all this love and forgiveness and I want to believe it but this is reality right!? If that scum could be truly rehabilitated but would have slaughtered everyone here before he saw the light… That’s easy math to my mind. Kill him. I meant it when I said I wouldn’t lose sleep over him Gareth.”

“…”

“But I look at the rest of you guys and you don’t have these issues! You all left them behind ages ago. Some of you never had them to begin with. When you look at me like some kind of monster, I can’t rightfully disagree… I don’t know, maybe we are just broken as a whole. Just some failure of a species.”

Gareth was stunned by her words, scared by the look in her eyes, but most of all shocked at the fact that despite all of this his only thought was empathy. He could see the regret in her eyes. This had obviously been something she’d grappled with for some time. He hadn’t the faintest idea why she’d chosen him to confide in, but he couldn’t help but want to comfort her.

“… I can’t speak for your people or your own past. If secluding yourself on this planet is what you need then stay. However, Pen, you saved people on that ship, you saved everyone here, and you saved me. That fact is as undeniable as all the other things you’ve done.”

Penelope offered no reply. She looked back out at the setting sun and Gareth followed her gaze.

Not taking his eyes from the horizon, “You know my people have a saying. Lumis shed its light yesterday and it will shed its light tomorrow but the only time you can enjoy it is today.”

She said nothing but nodded her head slowly, contemplating. No words came from her mouth, but her posture changed somewhat; she relaxed in a way that invited him to share the space with her. He accepted and for a couple of minutes they simply watched the sky until finally she broke the silence.

“You know ‘Gareth’ is a human name too.”

“Human? Hm... An interesting coincidence of language then as it’s a common Weilan name. It has meaning in our tongue.”

“What does it mean?”

“Translated it means… well… it doesn’t have an exact translation but sunset,” he chuckled and motioned upwards at their shared view, “would be the closest approximation. On my home planet the sun never sets fully; Gareth is the word for when the sun sits on the horizon.”

“…”

“If I’m not mistaken, the sky would look silver to your eyes.”

“That… sounds beautiful… Gar-eth,” she sounded it out and looked over at him, “an apt name.”

“… Thank you. I wish you well, Pen. Truly. I’ll tell the others you said goodbye.” He stood and placed a webbed hand on her shoulder for only a moment before walking, slowly but surely, back to the town and the Blue Nebula.

Penelope watched him leave and then looked back to the sky. She glanced over to her small storage box.

Her mind wandered to what she was thinking the day she met Gareth and the Captain.

She looked back to the horizon and sighed.

“Well shit…”