Rene shook his head, partly in negation partly in wonderment. She was trying to protect him. Not only from the very real danger here but the future danger of entanglement with the nobility. He didn’t suppose anyone in the halls of power would be happy to see him again, he ran a very real risk of being shot on a trumped up charge of desertion if he showed up anywhere without Solae to provide an account of events. Hells, they might even decide he was a likely conspiratory and shoot him for treason. The irony of it made the corners of his mouth tug up into a grin that was wholly inappropriate for the situation.

“Solae,” he began and then paused trying to find the right way to convey what he needed to say. Things had been much easier when he had just been a grunt and needed to do little more than follow orders and endure the ire of whichever officer was unlucky enough to be cycled through whatever backwater they stuck him in.

“I’m not going to let you go on alone,” he said in a voice that had the calm certainty of an astronomical projection. Her hand was warm in his and he kept his pulse from raising only by dint of the training the Corp provided for operators who might be called upon to fight in vacumn suits where air was at a premium.

“What would my life be worth if I let you go off alone just to save my own skin?” he demanded. Solae was probably right in that, if they were caught, she would be spared and he would be tossed into a shallow grave or blown out an airlock. Even if that were true he might well be the lucky one. Rene had gone through the crushing loss of identity when he had been forced to enlist in the marines but at least his fall from grace had been political and not personal.

“It is my duty, to protect you Solae,” he paused for a moment and then forged ahead.

“My duty and my honor, after I get you somewhere safe… well we can worry about that if it happens.” It occured to Rene that if he took her up on her offer to lay low, and the Empire was eventually victorious, he might well be shot as a traitor for NOT accompanying her. If it came down to that, he would just as soon be shot by the enemy.