”“Captain Parker, the last of your crew has entered the airlock. You are the last human on Corsica,” the AI called out.“I just got the call th...t my crew is headed to the surface,” I said. “I’ll be the last man off Corsica and it will lock down until I return.”“Got it,” Sergeant Griffiths said. “Enjoy your leave.”I shut down my command chair and stood up. Raising my hands over my head I stretched and then turned to head for the airlock.The eerie silence followed me though the passageway. I had. A quietness settled over the kitchen. Then the toast popped up and startled me.“Oh shit.” I got myself moving and went upstairs to mom’s bedroom. The door was open, so I walked in. Mom was lying on the bed face down with her head on her arms, sobbing. I went over, sat on the edge of the bed and started to rub her back. “It’s okay, mom, it’s okay, we can fix this.”Mom sat up while wiping the tears from her cheeks. “How can we fix this? Men just don’t like me.”“I don’t think that’s true. Can I. One of the guys asked if he’d got time for a game of pool to which Eva said that she liked pool. I thought that if Eva got playing pool no one would want to go to the party so I spoilt her fun telling her that we had a party to go to and that we could play pool anytime. Eventually we left the pub and headed for Mike’s place. It was dark by then and one of the guys asked Eva if she would take the tank top off so that everyone could see what she’d got under it. Well Eva isn’t a girl who is. I let Koch cut their coin purses quickly and make a hasty examination for other portable loot but there was little to be had other than their arms and leather armor, which although valuable, were much too bulky to take with us now. Their coins were not particularly plentiful, suggesting that these were not newly hired mercenaries recently assembled to deal with me, but probably Blackguard soldiers out of uniform. The matchlock was of no particular quality, just common military grade stock, but.