They Won't Get Away With This

'lliance pursuit suddenly dropped on me. I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out why, except that either my craftiness had given 'em the slip, or that they found a bigger fish to fry. I wasn't countin' on the former, but I took a chance on the latter and caught a transport home. Seems they did find a bigger fish.

It was unreal, the destruction. Hale's Moon's still burnin', bits of flamin' debris is still scattered across the town. From the sketchy stories I got, seems like the 'lliance hit the town hard with a team of operatives, shootin' the place up, then blowin' up the ships, includin' the Gen. I don't understand, but I don't need to.

I stood by the beds of the Cap'n and Khaz, their still forms helpless beneath white sheets, tubes runnin' out of 'em in every which direction, steady, monotonous beepin' about the only thing tellin' me they were alive. Why'd this happen? Why're my friends and family, the people I care about, havin' to suffer this? I don't understand, but I don't need to. I don't even think I want to. 'Cuz that would mean I'd have to understand the sick minds of the 'lliance. Don't rightly know if I wanna know those bastards that well.

The 'lliance went too far this time. Dunno who issued the order to attack, and part of me don't really care. 's far as I'm concerned, the whole gorram government and any who side with 'em's responsible. Though, there's a little part of me that wouldn't mind comin' face to face with the insufferable asshole who made the decision, just so's I could give him a little bitta insight on what my crew, what the people on Hale's Moon, had to experience.

My mind's made up. Even if I gotta spend the rest of my life on the lam, even if the rest of my life consists of a week cuz of it, I'm gettin' revenge. Don't rightly care at this point what 'lliance civilians get hurt in the process of me retaliatin', cuz those civilians choose to live under that crackpot gov'ment, they choose to let this kinda thing happen, so to my way of thinkin', they partially to blame. Maybe it'll stir 'em outta that gorram grand fantasy they all live in and let 'em see the ugly side of reality. Maybe it'll just make 'em hate us more. Thing is, I won't let us sit back and let 'em stomp us into ashes.

Maybe God'll be mad at me, and maybe I'll burn in hell, but doin' nothin' sits even worse on my conscience than takin' vengeance for hurtin' good folk. I think God'll understand why I gotta do this. Maybe he'll even help, and maybe he agrees that it's about time someone wanted to show the 'lliance that humanity won't lay down and die, we won't succumb to their evil way of thinkin'. Maybe revenge is wrong, but sittin' around with yer thumb up yer ass while you wait in terror for people like that to decide to kill you ain't right either. People got a God-given right to freedom and to protect their own.

I'm just goin' by my conscience and firin' back in hopes it'll send a message to the gorram 'lliance. I want them to take one look at what I'm doin' and know I'm sayin, "It's an eye for an eye 'verse - what you do to me, I do back to you. So, let's just ignore eachother 'til we go away." They might be evil men, but we're naughty men (and women), and while they got superior technology, they ain't defendin' their homes and families and way of life like we are. That makes us more dangerous than all the superior technology in the 'verse. If I die defendin' what's mine, I won't be too upset. But I'll be damned sure I take as many of those bastards with me as I can. And when we all come face to face with God, it'll be me standin' there knowin' I did what I knew to be right, and them knowin' what they did was wrong. And I can live with that. Well, in a figurative kinda way.