Gambit, had made his way back to BP-66. He sat on the edge of his bunk, in his private quarters on one of the lower decks. He had gotten plenty drunk alone in his room, trying to use the alcohol to blur out and help him forget the last two runs into Leeds he had made. He barely remembered sending a transmission to the Bretonian government.
He could not get the screams out of his head. He looked at his hands and even though he had washed them at least 6 times, he thought he could still see blood in the creases of his skin and in between his fingers.
He had seen his share of blood in his lifetime. It had never bothered him. A soldiers blood was meant to be spilled, mopped up, honored and then you went out and fought again. In his younger days, so many years ago, he had spilled enough of it himself. That was a time so distant from where he was now. No one in the AFC knew about his stint with the Liberty Marines. His military service was not something he advertised or talked about. The dishonorable discharge, his stint in prison, had made him develop a rock hard outer crust that few things could puncture.
But the wailing of women and children, coming from the cargo area of his Voyager, with body parts blown off, the mangled cadavers, the smell of burnt flesh, had gotten to him. He wondered if he was getting soft. Every evac from Leeds had its own share of drama, but the last trip seemed to have broken something inside him
He took another swig of off his bottle of whiskey, and stared blankly at the wall in front of him. He just wanted the memories of the screaming and crying in his head to go away. He reached over to pick up a half smoke synth joint from the astray, when the communication speaker in his private suite chirped.
"(Beep.Beep,Beep) Gambit, the Prez needs to see you in the Black Cheery...(Beep.Beep.Beep)"
He had heard the message, it had registered in his brain. But he was slow on reacting to it, getting up and moving. He hoped that there were no issue to have to explain with Prez. He was not in the mood for an ass chewing. He took another pull off of his bottle, put the joint to his mouth, lit it and took a long drag and let his head hang between his shoulders. He sat for a few seconds more on his bunk looking at his boots. He had forgotten to clean them. They were still splattered with the blood of an innocent child and the brain matter of his mother.
