"But Bean, I won't be a distraction, and I can help you whether you want to believe it or not".
This is what he expected her to say. After all, he had been with her when she used her little gift on most of her targets and he did not forget that he himself was also a target. Not that it was dangerous or anything, but it made him feel uncomfortable to know she would go to such lengths to get the information out of him.
Then again, was it such a good idea to keep the information from her? He remembered how he used to let himself fall in to her traps just to learn from his mistakes, get to grips with her strategy and find a new counter strategy and deploy it the next time.
This was just as it had been when he had command of an army in Battle School. He purposely lost all his battles, but he wasn't crazy. To him, it was a way of teaching his army to learn from mistakes and various outcomes and then talk about them and what the outcome would have been if their actions had been different.
A win is no good. Well, not if most of your army is frozen or partly disabled, some due to self-inflicted injuries thanks to Ender's tactics. But now Bean is in the real world. How would his tactics in his last few battles there have fared in the real world with his specially trained platoon?
His men were loyal, trusted him because he earned their trust by putting himself through their vigorous training and he always took the best course of action when it came to life and death situations. He would never send them into battle without an escape or several exits. If a mission became too hot, he aborted it and the men respected his decision. However, he thought them well enough to know not to obey an order if it meant certain, meaningless death. At best he would suffer a mutiny and placed under house arrest by his own men and he would have no one else do it.
They were the men he trusted when Achilles made an attempt on his and Suri's life in Thailand and that is why they will always be his men. The Hegemon may have used them but he was the one they were truly loyal to.
But Petra never said anything that he expected of her. In fact she said the complete opposite. Bean was stunned but in the back of his mind he was still processing the information, analysing the situation subconsciously as he had always done. It came naturally to him or rather unnaturally, due to his inherit past. Two steps ahead of everyone else. It was the only way to stay alive.
Then it occurred to him. Could it be a new strategy of hers, to look as if she wanted so desperately to stay behind and maybe then he would say that it was in her best interest if she was to come along. But he knew he would never allow her to come anyway, even if it meant locking her in her room. No doubt she would escape anyway. She was well able to look after herself. She had proven that many times.
No. This time it was the fear, that she would get caught by Achilles and it would be India all over again. Bean never failed to remember how much a mistake it was to let Achilles and the Chinese soldiers go that day. He had never forgotten that but he did give his word and his word was worth a thousand safe passages.
But Achilles is no longer protected by this verbal pact between Bean and the Chinese officer. That was a good time ago and now he deserved to die and rot in hell and I am the only who can do it he thought to himself.
Bean took Petra by the hands, pulled her in close and whispered, "Are you sure?"
Not a rhetorical question. Bean had now willingly given her the option to go on this mission. "After all he's done to you, Petra, this is the least I can offer you; Assurance that it will end when we finally meet face to face in battle. No catches and no hope of escape. I'm doing this for you".
There was no need for her to answer his question and for the first time in a long time she didn't. She would stay and he would go. He would do battle with Achilles deep in enemy territory and at best die at an early age, for he was destined to do so from the beginning of his unnatural life.
He pulled her in close now. Their noses touched first, then their lips. A deeply emotional kiss was followed Bean giving the choppers the order to move out. Once inside there would no turning back.