Carbine struggled up the slope and threw herself down behind some boulders near the top. Her hip twinged and she winced. Damned old body giving out on her. She couldn't remember the last time she had been out in the field. In fact, there were a lot of things lately that she had trouble remembering. She frowned, and slowly crawled forward under cover. It was hard going, and she was panting by the time she reached her vantage point. How stupid she had been to allow herself to get this badly out of shape. She rested at the top, and looked down across the plain.
The camp below her was full of activity. She squinted into the glare and reached for her binoculars. Her hand encountered only smooth fabric, and she looked down, surprised. She was wearing a long, white smock. What on Mars? She sat up behind a boulder and tried to think. Why was she out in the field without her kit? What was she wearing? What had happened?
She pressed her hands to her eyes. Visions of people in white coats, a white room, a bed. She had been held somewhere. But where? And how had she escaped? She cursed her memory and her aging body. She had no time for this, no time to be weak when her world, her mate, needed her.
She crawled forward again and studied the camp layout. The blurred figures below could be anything; traitorous mice or sand-raiders. It didn't matter which; they were enemies of Mars and they had her mate. Movement at the edge of the camp caught her eye and she turned. An ATV pulled up at the edge of the camp and a mass of bodies climbed out. In the middle of them was a golden shape she knew so well. She watched carefully as the group moved across the camp and into one of the tents.
The afternoon passed with agonising slowness. She carefully marked a route to the tent where her mate was being held. Over and over as the hours passed she made and discarded plans, all the time wondering, fearing, what they were doing to him. Interrogation? Torture? She pounded her fist on the rock. There were too many; she couldn't go in alone. And where was her support? Modo? Vinnie? Stoker? She swung her head around. Where were they? Again her head went into her hands. She hadn't seen them for a long time, for so long. Why? When she needed them so badly, why were they not here?
Thought, regrets, filled her head until the pale red sun finally slunk behind the distant hills. As the dim shadows lengthened she moved down the slope, slowly, painfully, aware always of the lack of Throttle beside her.
Camp security was lax and she exulted to be able to move so easily between the candle-like tents with their flickering shadows. She slid from shadow to shadow, nearer to her goal, the tent where the held her mate.
She was almost there when someone grabbed her.
"Hey! I've got her! Over here!"
Instinct moved her and she lashed out and caught her assailant by surprise. The camp came alive around her. Everywhere she looked were running figures. She bolted for the tent where her love was being held. Her breath rasped in her throat and her heart pounded. She had to reach him. She had to reach him.
A voice behind her cried out to stop, but she ran on. Her vision blurred and her head began to spin. The tent was before her. The tent flap moved aside and she saw a golden blur reach out for her. She collapsed into his arms and her heart gave a great leap.
"Throttle," she whispered.
Then all was blackness.
The light in the tent was dim and she blinked. Where now? She became aware of choked sobbing and looked around. A golden-furred figure knelt beside a narrow cot.
"Throttle!" she cried and stepped forward. But no, the slender figure before her was not her lover but her son. He wept on the chest of a frail, white-haired women.
"Jen," she said softly. She reached out to touch his golden locks. "Jen-love, don't cry. What is the matter?" But he did not answer her. She moved around to get a better look at the dead woman. Carbine had no sense of familiarity until she saw the fine, straight scar across her muzzle.
"Yes, love, it's you."
She whirled around. Throttle stood there, full of life and strength. Her Throttle. She ran forward and he flung his arms around her.
"Where have you been?" she scolded. She pushed back and looked up at him.
"Waiting for you, my love. These nine long years. Waiting for you to finally give up and join me."
"Join you? I don't understand. It was you who left me."
"I couldn't help it, Carbine. The Black Mouse waits for none. It was my time."
Still she couldn't grasp, couldn't fathom what he meant. He had left her, and her life had been empty. Nothing.
Throttle shook her gently. "Carbine. You're dead. Finally. Do you understand?"
"I-" she glanced around as someone pushed aside the tent flap. A brown mouse entered and made his way quickly to Jen's side. He put an awkward hand on the tan mouse's shoulder.
"There," said Throttle, "Star will look after him. Those two were always inseparable."
"And always up to mischief."
"Why shouldn't they be? They're young, they're proud and they're the sons of Freedom Fighters. Let them live while they're young, in tis time of peace."
"Peace…" Yes, they were at peace. Long years of it. Now she remembered. Long years of comfort, and quiet, and the gradual loss of friends. And then Throttle gone, and she had been alone. And then…
Memory, fickle memory, showed her what she had become. The memory lapses. The loss of time. The gradual decline into dementia.
"I was, have been-"
"A mad old woman." Throttle grinned at her. She hit him, hard, then exclaimed. Hands so recently wasted and white were now strong and grey again.
"Are you ready to go, general?"
"Go?"
He gestured behind him, to a dazzling whiteness, growing stronger by the minute. "I've held off for nine years, but it's getting impatient, whatever it is."
"But we can't just leave!" She gestured to Jen, now leaning against the bed, talking to Star, with the tears running freely down his cheeks. "Look at them! They're just babies! They can't cope without us!"
"Babies!" Throttle threw back his head and laughed. "Love, they're no younger than we were, and we fought a war and won our freedom."
"How will they cope-"
"They'll be fine. They'll live and love and hurt and die, just like us. You can't stop it. You can't change it. You just have to do the best you can. All these long years, and you still haven't figured that out?"
She looked up at him. "But-"
"No, general." He took her hand. "Let them be. They have their own lives to live. Our lives are done. And we have our own ending to go to." He gestured to the white glow behind them.
She looked down at the strong, scarred hand in hers. Slowly, she squeezed the fingers of the man she loved. She looked up at him and smiled.
"All right, hero." She took a deep breath. "Let's go.