"[i]Cool it[/i], Sloane!" Edwyn snapped, when he saw her level the rifle. He'd watched the whole ordeal, and had been about to step in and say something when the other soldier, Edwyn thought his name might have been Ushkov, grabbed her, but thought better of it after she put him on his ass. It was a fight, they were bound to happen, and he was going to let it play out. Then, guns started getting pointed. "We're all on the same side." He looked to the man against the tree trunk. "Isn't that right, Ushkov?" 

"I ain't working with no fuckin' freak." Ushkov was talking to Edwyn, but his eyes were trained firmly on Kyra. Something in the space between fear and anger in his eyes. Edwyn took a moment, then, to really study the man. Ushkov was older than him, he guessed, but by how much was hard to tell. He was bald, with a nasty-looking scar on his neck. Edwyn didn't know his story, but he didn't seem like a man that was used to losing fights. 

"I've been surviving shit like this for more than a year, and I do not intend to die on this goddamn rock because you're scared of Jaysers, Ushkov!" The edge in Edwyn's voice surprised himself. He figured his words were probably fueled by his own fear, his own anger. He guessed you didn't need a reason to live to be afraid of dying. If he survived the only future ahead of him laid in more battles, more near-deaths. But as bleak as that was, dying amongst strangers on a planet that no one would remember in twenty years felt bleaker. 

"I ain't scared of shit." Ushkov said, finally looking away from Kyra to spit at the ground, presumably to punctuate his point. Edwyn allowed himself a slight grin at the man's expense. 

"Good. Then there'll be no more problems?" He met Ushkov's eyes, and when Ushkov didn't respond he sighed and amended his words. "No more harassing your squadmates while we're in enemy territory?" And then Ushkov grumbled in agreement and stood up, purposefully not looking at Kyra. He felt a little guilty. He didn't have a problem with Jaysers, personally. He'd had a cousin with J Syndrome, but he'd drank himself to death on account of the migraines. He'd taken a soft stance, with Ushkov. But the last thing he needed was someone who hated him watching his back. Besides, Kyra was very clearly able to take care of herself. "And, Sloane, try and keep that thing pointed toward the people who are getting paid to try and kill us." 

[hr]

He'd been a leader, before. Back home, on Manifest. A union rep, and then a revolutionary. He'd lost the taste for it, after all of that had crumbled, and he was surprised to find that he still had any kind of ability to do so. Then again, it was easy to lead when the fear of getting gunned down if you made a wrong move hung in the air. Scared people were easily led, as any of The League's high councilors or any of the corporations boardsmen could tell you. Still, though, he almost wept with relief as they neared his dropship. Reyes could find someone else to play corporal.