The ride back to Station 1 was quiet. I kept coming back to the split second when I reached for the gun. Was it old age? Did I slip? All I could see was the twin grinning faces. A small shiver brought my mind back to the present. Jacey was driving back. Was she smirking? I couldn’t tell. She probably had reason to, having just saved a man twenty years her elder. Were my hands sweaty? I started to rub my palms on my slacks. What was it?
“What?” Jacey turned and looked at me quizzically.
Damn it, now I’m muttering. Great, just make yourself look even more codgerish.
“Nothing, just thinking.”
She smiled.
“Come on, don’t worry about it Jack. Everybody freezes up every once in a while. Hell, I’ve done it more than once. Last year, even, out in the magnesium fields, I was ambushed by some ore bandits. My partner saved me there. Old guy like you.”
There was the smirk. And now he was back on the hill, staring down the devils. Now he did groan, and sunk back in his seat. He was getting old.