The Lackey - The Sooth, S1/E7

Juniper gets maybe shanghaied by a maybe government man. 7 min. read

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Previously: Juni meets with the headmistress of the Sooth Academy and someone lies about important things.

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The Lackey

Planet: Mariner

Robie flew his ship, The Grunyan, in a large arc over the cliff walls that sheltered the beach. Both suns had set hours ago, but the signal from the injected tracker that the headmistress had slid in with the tattoo that afternoon blinked on his screen. Down in the dark, on the sand sat a girl. He dropped altitude and flew out over the water, then spun to get a clear view of the beach. Yes, a small campfire. And just enough space by the sandstone wall for him to land.

The ship set down with a soft thud.

“Standby mode,” he said.

“Standby mode,” the ship’s voice repeated in deep growl of a voice. “How long?”

Robie grunted.

“Until I get back,” he said.

He buckled on his weapons belt as he did for every foray outside of his ship, his home. Something streaked past his viewscreen and ran down the beach. Damn it! The girl. Robie scrambled to the hatch and yelled as he hustled into the chill of the evening.

“Stop!”

She was nearly to the end of the sand. If she made it to the trees, this operation would become much more difficult.

“Stop!” he shouted again, but she didn’t even slow. Robie pulled his weapon and fired just behind her feet.

She stopped.

Robie took a deep breath. He’d seen the one sheet on false sooths and studied the old reports from the war. Do not escalate, his orders had read. This was a bad start.