Some Brave Heroes

Where the Hell is Agent Washington?

***Three weeks later***

I bit back a groan as I sat at the groups usual table in the mess hall. The mission was shit and now everything hurt. I sighed and rubbed my hands over my face.

"Quit beating yourself up," James said sitting across from me. He slid a plate to me, "Here. Eat."

"I..."

"Don't tell me you don't want to. Even Psi can confirm that you need to eat."

"He's right, Colonel," Psi said.

I sighed and grabbed the fork, "Fine." I poked at what they were passing off as potatoes.

"Hey," James said, "We'll find him."

I looked up at him, "Will we? Because every time we think we have him, he's gone before we get there."

"I know."

"We don't even know what they're doing to him. You saw all that..." I trailed off as Tucker sat down next to me. He gave a small nod in greeting but didn't say anything. I turned back to staring at my tray. God, there had been so much blood. There was no way anyone was alive after that.

"I know where you're going with this," James said, "And you don't know that it is."

"And you don't know that it wasn't," I snapped.

"Hey," Grif said as he, Simmons, and Caboose joined us. He looked to me and James. "Oh, did we interrupt a lover's quarrel?"

James rolled his eyes, "I'll meet you in Kimball's office after dinner. We'll talk to her and figure out a new plan." He stood up and kissed my temple, "Eat." He walked off.

"Aww, so sweet," Grif drawled, "Anyway, you will not believe the day we've had?"

"Please, do tell us," Tucker grumbled.

I eyed him before looking at Grif, "What happened today?"

He went to answer but Simmons put a hand on his mouth. "Training," Simmons said, "Nothing interesting. But you two had missions, how'd they go?"

"Fucking awful," Tucker said.

"What happened?"

"Locus showed up and killed two of my men."

I put a hand on his arm, "It's not your fault."

"I'm their Captain and I put them in a situation to get them killed. I fucked up. All for some stupid drive to get information."

"One life compared to thousands."

"What?"

"One man loses their life to get information that saves thousands. That's some damn good odds if you ask me."

"I guess."

"Tucker, I've had to make calls like that before. Granted, it was always my own life at risk, but still. And I was a lot younger than you when I did it."

"How old were you?" Simmons asked.

"17. I had been a Freelancer for a year and made a call that saved everyone in my squad and should have killed me."

"Holy shit," the guys breathed.

"Yeah, I was reckless and selfless way before I met you guys." My datapad dinged. I looked at it to see a new message from James. I opened it to find some images that were horrifying. They were of David and how badly beaten he had been. Locus was trying to make a statement now. There was no way in hell I was letting him win this.