Unity by Carl Stubblefield (epub read online books TXT) 📕

the Crew if we spin our story a bit. I’m sure that bringing Gwen back will be the main focus, and not what we were doing to bring her back. Plus the intel on Mengele should be useful; we have so little to work on for the more elusive villains. The public expects us to deal with them because they are beyond any reg’s abilities to manage.”

“I get it, you guys have responsibilities. I’m just glad we got Mom back.”

“Your father says we need to get her back to the Faction so they can look at her. I can only imagine what she’s been through. Hopefully, someone can ease the psychological stress she’s undergone and coax her back out as we nurse her body back to full health.”

“Did you know her, Seneschal?”

“Yes. We were… at odds at times. But there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for your father. We’re all on the same team.”

“I’ll let him know. Thanks for telling me.”

“I’ll make a general announcement soon, I just thought I’d let you know why.”

Gus headed back to the medical bay and poked his head in, giving his father the news.

“She’s stable,” BoJack said, weariness evident in his voice. “She should be fine until we get her back to the Faction, anyways.”

“Thank you, BoJack. It is going to be a major undertaking taking care of her, so it is probably for the best that I am out of leadership. I can focus on helping her heal, and not worry about neglecting any duties at the Faction. A priority I should have rearranged a long time ago.” Tempest reached out and gripped Gus’ shoulder.

“Gus, I know you want to come along, but I kind of need you for a bit. You’re not an official member of Purple Faction and it would take a while to get vetted anyways. Then you would have to go through the Academy before you’d be official and could join us on missions. I don’t want you tied up like that. Excuse me if that’s selfish, but I still need you to be available.”

Aurora poked her head in and pointed to Tempest and Gus, signaling them to follow.

BoJack waved a hand. “I’ll watch her, don’t worry.”

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Tempest promised, taking one last look at Gwen before closing the door softly.

“Seneschal just made an announcement that we’re heading back to HQ. They want me to make a full report since I was captured. One problem, though. You know that tracker I put on Mengele’s ship? Well, its signal is very weak and intermittent. If you could sync it with the manor’s scanning network protocols, I think you could boost the signal. If he gets too far out of range, we may lose him. It’s only a level one tracker, so it has limited access to the network. By connecting it to the full power of the manor, we could keep track of him in real-time. When the Crew has finished up with Faction business, we could come back and deal with him together.”

“That’s good thinking. Thank you so much for not letting him get away.”

“It’s the least I could do. I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Aurora. I’m grateful you helped me keep the manor from Manticorps, and gave me my first lessons on being in a team. I’m horrible at ‘thank yous,’ but I really am grateful for all that you have done. I wouldn’t be here without you, I’m pretty sure.”

“I don’t know about that either. You’re pretty savvy. But thanks. Mengele has made a refueling stop in Spain, so he should be there for a while, at least a day. We need to get you back to the manor within a day.”

“I’ll authorize a portal,” Tempest offered.

“I guess that’s settled. It’ll be weird to be home again, after all that’s happened. I just wish it were under better circumstances.”

“We all do,” Aurora said. “ETA is less than an hour, so I’m going to gather my things. You guys good?”

They both nodded and Tempest went back into the medical bay. BoJack came out soon afterward and put an arm around Gus.

“Hey, your dad says that you’ve been having headaches again. Let me check you out again.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“That’s the life of a medic, Gus. Utter boredom, stop-your-heart stress, or bone weariness. It’s part of the job description. Your dad said he saw you struggling in that battle at the hospital. What’s going on?”

“Headaches again, much more intense. Any time I try to access my abilities,” Gus admitted.

“Is that it?”

Gus sighed. “Well, to be honest, I’ve really been doubting myself again. I still feel like I don’t deserve to be with you guys. I’m worried I’m going to mess up and compromise the team. I was a liability at the hospital.”

“It happens to the best of us, Gus.”

“I suppose. But, on top of it all, I just feel weary. The stress of all these responsibilities is crushing me, but I can’t let everyone down. I can’t let myself down. All those promises I made about what I would do differently if I only had the chance. I don’t want to let myself get cynical and justify why I am not being true to what I think is right deep down just because I am painfully aware of my weaknesses. I realize that I made a lot of those choices in ignorance and naivete, but I still feel that I was onto something when I made those commitments.”

BoJack smiled ruefully. “I would like to tell you that it goes away, but that’s not really true. That feeling will be with you as long as you try to be a super, unfortunately. You just learn how to manage how much it affects you to a certain extent.”

“But how do you choose what is the best thing to do? My mind is full of conflicts and I feel paralyzed by making a crucial failure. Mixed in with that is a weird type of malaise that is