by E L Strife
Atana slid through. Bennett followed, setting his feet on a catwalk.
Their wristbands buzzed.
Code 83014 apprehended.
SGT Porter escorting Reju to Detainment.
One Assailant Remaining: Level Three. Maint. shaft below elevator 2.
Atana bolted down the metal lattice walkway. Saw him!
The panels of the catwalks rattled as Bennett hurried after her. Together, they zigzagged through a tangle of bridges and passageways, chasing the last Linéten. The air was stifling, mirages of heat rippling the steel walls. Sweat ran in beads down their faces and backs. Bennett’s soaked t-shirt clung to his skin.
Atana slammed to a halt in front of him and waved him back around a corner. They hustled through a slender room filled with tanks, transformers, and manual control panels all lit up in a variety of patina colors—Home Station’s backup, an anachronistic system, but one hard to hack without physical presence.
Silently opening the door on the other side, Atana gestured a loop with a finger.
Bennett couldn’t help the smile on his face when she corralled him back against the wall and closed her eyes. He knew she was listening, but he couldn’t hear anything through the rush of feeling her pressed against him.
Atana looked up. Why did your heart rate jump?
When she became distracted, he took her place and closed his eyes, searching his senses for signs of the traitor.
Rapid breaths grew from whispers to nearby rasps. Not knowing what the Linéten might carry, he gave Atana a command he could count on. Shield.
Her blue shell went up without protest.
Pushing her aside, Bennett spun into the opening and threw a punch straight out into the hallway, knocking a man’s head backward. A fireball left the Sergeant’s SI.
Atana’s shield disbursed the flaming bullet.
The man toppled, covering his broken nose. At his groan, her shield flickered out.
“Nice,” she remarked.
Bennett ripped the S.I. from the man’s grasp. Together, he and Atana picked the man up by the shoulders of his tactical vest. Bennett shoved the hot muzzle of the S.I. into the man’s ribcage.
“You won’t get away with this forever!” The man grunted as Atana patted him down. “There are so many Verros; you will not win!”
“Verros, huh?” Bennett asked. “I thought you were just pissed Linétens.”
The man’s eyes widened at his blunder.
She held up a small initiator and a remote detonator she found under his pant legs. Inspecting them, she broke the pieces apart. “You picked the wrong partnership to try and suicide bomb.”
“How? I found the top two sergeants.” He grinned. “I would’ve ended the Universal Protectors with just you.”
Bennett frowned, ochroid light surging to life in his veins. We are bombs.
Beside him, Atana smirked. The surface of her skin illuminated like glowing ice.
The man staggered back, but Bennett’s grip was too strong. Pressing the muzzle harder into the man’s ribs, Bennett urged him on.
Atana helped control the fidgeting man through the shafts. Wisps of smoke from burning flesh made Bennett look over at her. The way the man screamed and pulled away, despite Atana’s inattention to him, said enough.
A field team stopped in the hallway as they exited the maintenance shaft. Sergeant Vellins broke off, eyeing the pieces in Atana’s hand. “What’d you find?”
Atana tossed him the bomb scraps.
“We’ll escort you.” Vellins waved for his team to follow as he contacted security and EOD.
They climbed the stairs to Level Two and the nearest door of Detainment. The man squirmed harder as they approached the sign-in window.
Bennett grabbed one of the man’s hands and shoved it through the slot where the booking sergeant pressed it to a scanner. “Code: 85017, Sergeant Claymor. Isolation, room thirteen.”
Vellins’s team stood guard outside as the door buzzed open. Bennett and Atana had to pull most of Claymor’s weight as he sunk to the floor.
The security shepherd who greeted them, whose nametape read Baern, slapped a set of wristlocks on Claymor. “On your feet, Sergeant. Unless you want me to stun you until you can’t walk.” He paused. “On second thought.” He reached for his SI.
Claymor stood himself up.
“Better.” Baern pointed to the end of the hall. “March.”
They threw Claymor into a solid-walled cell with only a tiny window in the door for light. Baern slammed it shut, glared into the cell, and turned away.
Bennett looked at Claymor through the glass. “Why Eight and Nine?”
“Three, Five, and Six had the other bombs,” Baern offered as they headed back to the front. “Been listening on the coms. In the office.”
Atana drummed her lips with her fingers. “Maybe they thought if they took out the foundation and the other levels, the entire station would crumble. Four and Seven couldn’t have held up that weight on their own.” She dropped her hand and let out a tired sigh. “Fortunately, they built Home Station into the mountain at every level.”
“Remember Linas’s last words,” she said. “They wanted to kill the shepherds, make Command watch.”
Baern scanned his badge, and the exit door buzzed, letting Atana and Bennett out.
Krett, Hyras, and Miskaht stood beside the check-in counter, talking amongst themselves.
“We will interrogate them today,” Krett said acidly.
“You won’t be anywhere near them,” Miskaht said as she and Hyras were escorted inside by Baern. Vellins’s team held Krett back.
Krett’s nostrils flared when the door shut. The shepherds released him, and he turned his attention to Bennett and Atana. “I guess Command would like you two to interrogate them as you are our strongest, most impartial shepherds.”
Bennett let out a short, haughty laugh. It has nothing to do with that, I’m sure. “With respect sir,” he glanced over his shoulder through the office windows to the hall beyond. Miskaht and Hyras sauntered to the cells holding traitors. Bennett raised his voice. “I would love to break all three necks with my bare hands.”
Miskaht paused and glared back at him.
Bennett shrugged. “Rule Seven: honesty prevents failure.”
Drawing her blade from the small of her back, Atana flipped it in the air and caught it with ease. “I could gut their scrawny, impudent asses. Sir.” Despite the inflections, her voice was flat and factual. A brow arched high and mighty on her face.
Krett glanced between them as if he didn’t expect to hear such things.
Atana slapped the knife back in its sheath with a devilish grin. “However, the balance must prevail. Besides, I have a better idea.”
Krett gave her a hesitant nod. “I trust—you will do our shepherds justice.” Giving Bennett a befuddled inspection, Krett left for Command’s offices with Vellin’s team at his back.
A quiet squeaking caught Bennett’s attention. In the waiting area sat Porter, e-rifle hugged to his chest, his leg bouncing. The young man stared at the floor, looking pale and sick.
Atana brushed up against Bennett’s side. You’re still glowing. Does Porter know this about you?
Can’t remember, he admitted.
She jerked her nose in the air. Come here. Deep breath.
Bennett did as instructed.
Atana sent her shield outward around them and yanked it in tight, snuffing out the fire.
Porter looked up.
“I figured that was better than using dirty janitor water,” she said, directing at the closest closet.
“Oh, yeah, way better,” Bennett said with a grin. “You took my breath away, literally that time.”
She rolled her eyes, but a corner of her mouth curled in a half-smile. “You just keep it out, or those clothes won’t make it.”
Their wristbands buzzed.
Debrief 2-CA, 0530 hrs
The current time displayed:
045
8
“See you out there?” Bennett asked.
Atana patted him on the arm, and Bennett watched her leave. She often rescued him from threatening mental drifts. Who was going to save her? Sure, she was La’kian. But she was still a living thing that felt pain, loss, love.
Even now, her hair a mess of wet waves, dust and grease on her leather panoply, shepherds courteously moved out of her way, flowing back on their courses behind her.
Bennett sighed and took a seat beside Porter. He wanted the man to be comfortable opening up with whatever was on his mind without judgment.
After several long minutes, Porter choked out, “I wanted to kill him, Reju.” His face screwed up, and he looked away. “But I didn’t.”
“Why not?” Bennett asked, measuring voice.
“Because Lacuto wouldn’t have wanted me to. She believed in the system. Now I’ve failed her twice. I let her die, and I let my emotions nearly destroy everything. I was right there.” He flung a hand in front of him. “Barrel to the back of his head.”
“You’re upset with yourself for not killing him?”
“I’m angry.” Porter picked mindlessly at the curves of his e-rifle. “Because some part of me doesn’t feel control was enough. Justice hasn’t happened.” He lifted his reddened eyes to Bennett. “Lacuto deserved better.”
“Don’t blame yourself for what you can’t control. But I think you did right by her memory. She would be proud of you.”
Porter wiped his face dry on a sleeve and jerked his nose toward Detainment. “What are they going to do with them?”
“Atana’s doling punishment.”
“Atana—” Color returned to Porter’s face, a hint of triumph in his eyes.
Bennett winked and held out a fist.
Giving Bennett’s fist a bump, Porter pushed himself up and slung his e-rifle over his shoulder. “Guess we better get to the debrief.”
…
Bennett left Porter in the auditorium, where other shepherds congregated. The strange woman he’d rescued from the cliff dive had come to mind. Bennett turned down the main hall of the medical wing behind Command’s offices, hoping to get an update.
Entering the wing they’d set up for survivors, Bennett had to step back. Nurses rushed by him like frantic albino bees moving a nest. Seventy cots were crammed inside, almost every one filled with a body. IVs hung from posts at the head. Tablets with health data blinked at the foot.
He cautiously walked the rows, a silent beacon of gold and black amongst the pale colors of the makeshift infirmary and its occupants. But he could not find her, the woman with silver eyes and blond hair, the one who had given him her gift of air.
Moans and coughs filled the room. Bennett hated standing there while they suffered and took to stopping by each bed. If they had a hand, he took it. If they didn’t, he touched a shoulder or a knee to give them warmth hoping to reassure them they were not alone in their battle to live. He talked softly with those awake: gleaning what information he could without being clinical about it, offering his sympathies and wishes for recovery, and then moving on to the next bed.
Command preferred neutrality. Bennett chose humanity.
He couldn’t find words for those whose eyes were shut. But he set a hand on them for a breath, two, three, then squeezed gently and left. It was all he could do for them now.
Finding Ilyrmi and Tiisan in a corner, Bennett walked to the foot of her bed. “Any change?”
Tiisan traced the hydrodynamic curves of her face with a tenacity in his tenderness that eminated devotion beyond the impartial mask across his blue eyes. “Breathing but nothing more. I think she overworked herself. It didn’t help she was cut several times on the wreckage. Tamshark took a piece of her—foot.”
“The serum you gave her—” Bennett started then stepped aside as nurses scrambled to a patient three beds down with a flashing heart monitor.
“Rio.” Tiisan didn’t move except to continue his caress. “She saved me once, years back. An F-201 spun out of control, knocked a tool cart across the deck which threw me into the ocean.
“Don’t know how long she’s lived down there. I check on her now and then, just beyond the tide pools.”
Bennett thought back to transferring the silver-eyed woman to Ilyrami’s arms. She gave me her breather and— He studied Ilyrami’s motionless face. The shepherd he’d rescued had hugged Ilyrami’s body upon departure like they were old friends. Reaching out, he brushed a thumb up her forehead, repeating the sounds he’d heard in his mind. “Shanom kaloe.”
Ilyrami sucked in a rattling breath. Her eyes flew open, exposing the largest irises of the deepest sea green Bennett had ever seen. She cried out when she saw her bandaged legs.
Tiisan did his best to calm and steady her body. It’s temporary, remember? It’s not forever.
Bennett lurched back. He hadn’t expected the words to wake her.
Holding Ilyrami close, Tiisan repeatedly muttered his thanks to Bennett.
Not knowing what else to do, Bennett slunk off, leaving the two to hold one another in the corner. He hadn’t known what he had done. He hadn’t done it. The words belonged to a woman with unfathomable mental control and comfort with Ilyrami as odd as Tiisan’s.
Bennett’s skills felt like a poorly planned retroactive solution, a reaction, instead of proactive prevention. His jaw clenched, and he sank onto an empty cot along the side, closing his eyes.
I don’t know if you can hear me, Universe. I hope you can.
I do not like not knowing what I’m doing. When you send this power through me, I’m out of control. I can no longer rely on my skills or knowledge. I don’t know what’s real anymore. Innocents get hurt.
I hate it. This. Me.
Speaking his mind was calming, and Bennett relaxed a little as he rested there.
But you helped me save a girl I cannot find and heal a woman I cannot talk about. Or whatever she is. But now, I do not know where to draw the line between my shepherd duties and the responsibilities you have given me.
Pressure pounded with racing force inside his skull. Bennett swayed at the whooshing image of a hallway below. The words Level Three crossed his vision.
Bennett grumbled and held his head. So that’s it. Just as needed?
The pressure increased and faded like a voice emphasizing a word.
Okay, okay. I’m going.
Bennett staggered to his feet and aimed for the doors.
“What’s wrong?” a nurse asked as she walked by.
“Nothing, just a headache,” Bennett lied. “Have you seen a platinum blonde with silver eyes come in here?”
The nurse paused, surveying the room. “Can’t say I have, sir. I’m sorry.”
He nodded his appreciation and stumbled out of the medical wing. He hurried past the gathered shepherds in the auditorium and down the stairs on his left, no longer concerned about the debrief. Whatever the universe was warning him of prickled beneath his flesh into his bones the way the sight of his burning childhood home and finding his mother and brother dead had long ago.
It wasn’t anything general. This was personal.
The pressure inside his skull increased— a timer ticking away. His heart thumped hard for fear he’d overlooked the part of his vision no one had addressed: the deaths of his team and Azure’s.
Chapter 29
ATANA’S FEET SANK HEAVILY on the steps to Level Three. Shepherds rushed past her on their way up for debrief. An EOD team bolted in front of her, heading off to the west end of Home Station. Atana turned left, aiming for the group room. Bennett had been right about checking in on Agutra’s kiatna. Atana just didn’t think it was pertinent until the station itself was safe.
She tried not to think about the shepherds they’d lost, but the memories of their cold, blank faces in the ocean wouldn’t stop. Blood had tainted the water and drawn Tamsharks out in the middle of the night.
Atana braced her aching side, the bruise beneath feeling deserved. She
should’ve pushed harder, worked faster. Maybe she could’ve saved a few more, spared them the end the shark nearly gave her.
They’d lost over two hundred shepherds.
Atana groaned from a shifting rib and slunk off into a residential corridor, sliding to sit against the wall. The cauterized cut in her shoulder stung, but it was nothing compared to the pangs in her heart. Her fingers clawed up in her damp hair as she scoured her memorized schematics for weaknesses in Home Station’s security, wishing she could find a problem to fix.
Ultimately, it came down to two members of Command—one Security, one Munitions—whose loyalty had swayed for a reason she understood. If a person knew pain, anger, fear, or oppression, she could relate. Kiatna and their emotions, perceptions, and expectations were organic things she struggled to understand. Beyond pain, she switched off. It didn’t mean she valued their lives any less.
Shepherds were the closest thing she had to family for over a decade, even if they avoided her whenever possible. And now Home Station, the safest place on the entire planet, had been compromised.
She could no longer let her guard down here. No place was safe.
Hanging her head, Atana let the tears fall between her knees in the silence. No-one stopped to check on her. No shepherds left or entered the rooms in that hall. She’d placed herself in the perfect shadow, tucking her feet behind the line of angled light so she could cry in peace.
The war ahead felt increasingly daunting and impossible as the number of fit-to-fight shepherds continued to drop. For some, it was serum trouble. Others it was psychological trauma from the knowledge they were something other than human underneath. Most were dead.
The pressure on her to lead beside Bennett and Azure kept building. She didn’t want to sit on a pedestal. She wanted to work. And be left alone in the dark. Let the universe deal with its bullshit.
A hot igniter tapped the bottom of her chin. The searing of her flesh was nothing new, and it healed instantly. But the action made her jerk her head up. Black and red eyes glared down at her. Red skin with black spots peeked out of a shepherd’s uniform.
