~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br/>At the<b>Canyon floor</b>nearing the ridge line....<br/><br/>D knelt by Annie and peered at her, "<span style="color: red">Annie, are you going to be okay?...</span>" At a lost to how he could shake her out of it, he tried friendly compassion, "<span style="color: red">What do you need, Sweetie?</span>" Not getting much of an initial response, he knew he had bigger problems and so turned back to Project 19...<br/><br/><span style="color: red">"Duos? I see that name on your clothes. May I call you that? Well, listen, I can sacrifice my life for the mission, that is my choosing and even my obligation to do so for the sake of my employers goals. But those are my men up there, and the Legion, I know by now,<i> is</i> coming.</span>" He stood up and turned to the Project, arms comfortably at his sides, hands on his hips... "<span style="color: red">So the problem is that if they hand over their guns to your friends, and the Legion shows up, I don't want to commit them to extra time they would need to recover their weapons from your friends just to defend themselves and to save their lives.  Hence, I <i>will not</i> order them to hand over their weapons. I <i>will </i>order them to keep them holstered until I give an order otherwise. And I will have the door gunner throw the safety on .50 cal</span>" He sighed, a bit dejected,<br/><br/>"<span style="color: red">You could dislike my stance on this, shot me on the spot, run away and never meet my employer. I will be dead so I won't care much about my failure but at least I wouldn't have thrown away my men's lives in the process. Even in the wilderness, I have standards.</span>"<br/><br/>D waited for the response from the Project to know if he had finally played his last hand.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>