“Help!” I screamed. “Help! Jesus Christ, someone help me!” I looked at where I thought the cameras were, lined up in a panel beside the lighting array. “I know you’re watching, you fuckers! I know you’re watching! Help!”
They came faster than I thought they would and dragged me out of the way, the circle of onlookers swelling rapidly as more Reds and Whites from Medical streamed in. I looked at my gun, released the magazine, and stared down through the empty witness holes. And then I tore open my ammo belt, flipping through the extras until I saw the first one, and then the second, and then the third: bullets spliced randomly in between the charges, about two in every other magazine. Most of the ammo bounced out of my hand and onto the floor as I dumped it, but the grip on my glove was sticky enough that some of them were still clinging when I balled it into a fist and ran towards the door.
I didn’t want to believe it, but it was more certain than anything I’d ever known. By the way the urgency around the huddle had faded, it was clear that Sebastian was dead.
Chapter 44
I got about three meters from Caelus before someone tackled me and we both went sprawling. I was stunned, but so bent on forward motion that I was up again in seconds, the tackler discarded, slamming into a trio of Blues who’d wreathed themselves around the block captain. When Daries charged in, decking two of them at once, it almost felt like we were going to get to him, but the initial paralysis of surprise had worn off and a whole troop of his courtiers bore down on us around the Great Room tables.
Fists and feet swung from every direction. I dispatched the person in front of me, but two more had taken his place before I could move forward. “I know it was you!” I shouted through the gate of limbs. “You had someone switch out the ammo!”
Caelus took a bite out of the roll he was holding. “That’s quite the accusation to be flinging around.”
And then he flashed a smile and I knew it had been him. And that Rhys had been him. And Pierre had been him. And Zoellers had been him.
A manic kind of energy took hold of me then and I drove through the mass of bodies to within only a few centimeters of where he was standing before I got hit in the eye, and everything toppled inward in a smear. I was still fighting—still lunging against the pile—but it was aimless and fatigued.
“I’m going to kill you! I’m going to fucking kill you!”
“Murder’s a serious offense,” Caelus replied. “Generally, you wouldn’t want to broadcast your intent to commit it to a roomful of hostile witnesses.”
“I’m going to fucking kill you!” I cried again, softer and out of breath.
I saw Daries go down hard and then another of the Storms who’d followed me after I’d confronted Fin in C3. I’d gone there first and I’d screamed at her incoherently until she’d simply held up her hands, revealing fresh day-old marks, saying that they’d been using the cord to spar, along with other common items, all term in the Mat Room. Another C3 Blue went down. And another. And then me, too, smashing into the floor.
“It states clearly in the weapons safety manual, section fourteen, subsections seven E through G, that the student with the higher weapons score must check out the ammo before beginning a training session,” said Caelus. He was much closer, almost whispering in my ear. “Sometimes the manual can seem a little Byzantine, but it’s all quite practical, and at a certain point nonadherence stops being simple oversight and becomes gross negligence. In the face of this negligence, I understand the compulsion to deflect blame, but I’m afraid doing so will only rob you of an important opportunity for penance and reflection.”
I tried to get up, but someone kicked me in the stomach and then the groin and I doubled over, bracing myself with an elbow before my head hit the floor again.
“There’ll surely be an inquest, and a word to the wise: They’ll go much easier on you if you own up to your mistakes instead of playing the blame game.”
I spat blood out onto the tile. I was about to be kicked again, but then some Reds finally trickled in and got between me and the other Blues.
My body’s pain didn’t register, but the desolation did, budding in the places the fury had outrun, monstrously quick in its succession. I was hot and cold and nothing all at once. I was raging, but it was hollow. A fire without oxygen. The Blues and Reds bled together like melting crayons, pushing and shoving against one another until they were one spiraling gradient.
Chapter 45
Pierre had returned, but it hardly seemed to matter. There was nothing left to hold together. He and Daries tried to make me feel better but their voices were distant, like they were on the outside of a snow-globe world. When a word or phrase managed to slip through the miasma, as when I heard, dimly, “It wasn’t your fault,” they only retreated farther away.
Of course it was my fault. And not just because I was negligent, but because I was selfish. Giving Sebastian hand-to-hand and weapons training wasn’t really going to help him, it was just going to help me clear my conscience. And he’d known it, too, when he’d said, “Let’s not pretend that this is going to . . .,” yesterday while we’d been sitting on the bunks in C3.
“I just don’t understand why Caelus would do it. I thought he needed Sebastian for the inter-block Challenges,” I said.
Pierre looked even worse than when I’d seen him in Medical. “Having the block competition locked up for the term, the only possible way he could’ve lost the points race was if he had lost his captaincy. And the only possible way that could’ve happened is if C3—with Sebastian’s help—routed him in the next Challenge. He just took the one card that could hurt him out of the deck.”
“What about next term, when he’ll have to fight the other blocks again?”
“That’s tomorrow’s problem.” Pierre shrugged. “I don’t know . . . maybe he knows something we don’t.”
Tears streaked down my cheeks; with no hope to soak them up, they just ran and ran. It wasn’t an accident. It was me. I was the accident. I killed my family. I killed Sebastian.
No one ever checked inside the magazines in the Weapons Room, because charges were the only thing in the ammo packs—they were the only thing allowed in. But on the other hand, given everything that had happened, I should’ve known to suspect things. Suspect everything. Of course I should’ve checked.
Sebastian had been so brave in the face of all the abuse and unexpected physicality. Never once complaining. Never once hiding away. Even though he had so much to be concerned about, he was always thinking of me and everyone else first, and wanting to solve the next big problem. He was so charmingly cautious and methodical about doing things, too, that if he had known guns at all I’m sure he would have had the foresight to check the packs himself. But he was totally out of his element in the Weapons Room, coming only because I’d asked him to. He was there because he trusted me. He was there because he thought I’d keep him safe.
A message was scrolling red across my U-dev when I woke up: Report to Commander Marquardt’s office at 0500. It was already 0450 but despite the hopelessness, I couldn’t bring myself not to go. A part of me wanted to be excoriated.
Most of the C3 Blues were asleep as I padded out the door and Jared McLaughlin, who was on sentry duty, jerked upright as I emerged. “Christ, Jared. You fall asleep after what just happened?”
“Aaron, I . . . ,” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes.
“Just save it,” I said, not looking back.
The hallways were dim and mostly quiet, except for the water from the early-morning showers trickling blue in the pipes above me. Most of the instructors and administrators had their offices on the Inner Ring, but Marquardt, Paters, and a handful of other disciplinary personnel had ones on the Outer Ring, so it was only a five-minute walk.
It didn’t seem like even half that time, though, before I was there and Marquardt was saying, “Good morning, Aaron,” while two other men took places on either side of him.
“Sir,” I said, just above a whisper.
“Suffi
ce it to say, everyone is very saddened by the event that transpired yesterday. And given the tragic loss of life of one of our most promising students in an entirely routine training activity, I’m sure you can understand the urgency we all feel about getting to the bottom of this.”
I instantly hated myself for answering, “Yes, sir,” and nodding. I should have been screaming at them, lunging across the table in a rage like I’d come in expecting to do, exposing this farce for what it was. But the more I looked at Marquardt’s somber, deadpan expression, the more obvious it was that he was completely serious, and that seriousness made fear drip into the anger. Not a fear for my own safety—that in itself didn’t matter anymore—but a fear that I wouldn’t be able to keep helping Eve. That was the last good thing I could do.
“Given the sensitive nature of our military operations here, we prefer to handle everything, including this issue, on station. I can assure you that isn’t code for sweeping it under the rug. We only protect our own as far as they deserve to be protected. I hope you understand that.”
I nodded again, the fear intensifying.
“I know you’re anxious. And honestly, you should be; you shot your friend with live ammo when you were responsible for making sure it wasn’t. I’m not so inflexible as to ignore the possibility that there wasn’t more to it than that, which is why we’re here now, but that is the bottom line.”
“Sir, we both know that someone swapped out the ammo.”
“We don’t know anything, and that’s why we’re going to conduct a formal inquest, starting from zero. But first, today Lieutenant Brauchenbuer, our master-at-arms, and Lieutenant Rochelle, our weapons officer, are going to ask you a few preliminary questions. Okay?”
I had been about ready to add that two of the bullets had stuck to my glove when I’d dumped the ammo, but it occurred to me now that if they were going to pretend that they didn’t have the cameras, instead of that being proof that I’d found the bullets there, it might make it look like I’d had them all along. That I’d been the one to plant them. Jesus Christ. I should’ve already gotten rid of them the first chance I’d had, but all I’d been able to think about was getting to Caelus.
“Okay,” I said.
“Aaron, what time did you and Sebastian get to the Weapons Room?” Lieutenant Brauchenbuer asked.
“Zero five hundred hours.”
He jotted something down on electronic paper. “You indicated in your initial statement that you both were training in both the Weapons Room and Mat Room that morning, correct?”
“We were supposed to go to the Mat Room after.”
“And what was the purpose of these early training sessions?”
“To get him prepared for his weapons and sparring classes next month.”
He nodded, scrolling down on his U-dev. “I’m also seeing in your statement that this was to be one of what you called ‘many practices and work outs.’ What was your aim in this, practicing with someone so below your skill level?”
“My aim? Well, to make him better. That’s kind of the point, right?”
“Of course, but I think what the master-at-arms is asking is: What was your aim?” Marquardt interjected. “You’re a busy guy, by the look of things, and usually we see students training with those at parity or above so they can raise their own proficiency.”
“Well, he was my friend and he was scared about getting rank-disciplined or beaten up, given everything that’s happened, and I wanted to help him protect himself.”
Lieutenant Rochelle and Lieutenant Brauchenbuer shared a glance.
“So you were teaching him how to defend himself from other students with a gun?” asked Lieutenant Rochelle. “You do know tha—”
I shook my ahead. “No, we were in the Weapons Room so he wouldn’t fall below the line in his class next quarter. He’s getting rank-disciplined in the Tread Room this rotation, and I didn’t think he could take any more abuse.”
“So it wasn’t just self-defense?”
“In a way. If he’s the weakest in his class, and everyone sees he’s the weakest, and he’s worn out from all the extra drilling, he’s a target. I wanted to make him a smaller target.”
“Because of how he was helping C3 in the Challenges?” Brauchenbuer asked.
“Because he was my friend,” I said. “Is that so hard to believe?”
“No, it’s not. But you would be best served by simply answering our questions for now. You’re new here and under duress, but you need to speak to us as officers. Is that understood?”
In that moment I wanted more than ever to call out their cameras and unmask this for whatever it was, but a voice inside my head kept saying, Don’t do it, Aaron. Don’t do it. You might not ever get to see her again. Who would you be helping?
And besides, even though I knew Caelus, or someone following his orders, had switched out the ammo, I’d still pulled the trigger. I’d still killed Sebastian. There was a part of me that wanted off but there was another part, maybe even a larger part, that wanted them to tear me apart. That wanted them to do what I’d set out to do when I’d joined the Fleet in the first place. “Yes, sir.”
“I have to ask this, Aaron. Was there anything you two might have had a disagreement about? Even something small, just so we can rule it out.” Lieutenant Brauchenbuer took a step closer, breaking the plane of Commander Marquardt’s desk on the opposite side of the room. He looked humorless and bureaucratic. I couldn’t imagine him being moved by a play or a film or really loving someone. I used to think that anything could be worked out if everyone just had the chance to sit down and explain themselves to each other. That a failure to communicate was at the root of everything that ever went wrong. But that seemed like such a childish notion now.
“No, not really,” I said.
“The reason I ask is because multiple students we talked to saw you and Sebastian arguing in recent days. Someone even said it was quite heated.”
“Who said that?” I snapped.
“That’s not your concern. And remember, you’re sticking to answers,” Commander Marquardt said curtly.
“Yes, sir.” I was trying to control myself, though I couldn’t get the image of Sebastian’s eyes fluttering out of my mind. “But we . . . we weren’t arguing about anything—or, not like you mean. Friends argue all the time, debate things, but it’s not because they’re mad at each other. They’re just trying to figure things out.”
“So what were you trying to figure out?” asked Mr. Brauchenbuer.
“Just personal stuff. Stuff we were struggling with. I suppose what you’re referring to, or whoever you talked to was referring to, was that . . . that he wanted me to help more with C4 than I was.”
“Why weren’t you helping?” Lieutenant Brauchenbuer asked, only half looking up from his U-dev.
“Because I didn’t know who to trust and that was paralyzing. I couldn’t even trust myself.”
“Why not?” asked Commander Marquardt.
I exhaled hard and then clamped my teeth together, doing everything I could do not to cry. I couldn’t let these people see me cry.
“Aaron, why don’t you think you can trust yourself?” Commander Marquardt asked in a softer tone.
“I know—I know you guys know this already . . .” A tear escaped and I fought the urge to swipe it away, hoping they wouldn’t notice. “But my family all died in a shuttle accident . . . and I . . . I caused it.”
Lieutenant Brauchenbuer and Lieutenant Rochelle both looked down.
“And when you say you caused the accident . . . ,” Commander Marquardt prompted, setting down his coffee on the desk. All the furniture was either gunmetal or glass, atop a white floor, along clinical white walls. The tomes on the bookshelf were different shades of grey and beige, tidy, in slender cases, worlds away from the rainbow of covers that erupted out of every nook in Professor Dalton’s office back home.
“I was flying it. And I still to this day don’t know what went wrong. The instrumen
ts said I was a few meters away when I hit, but clearly I misjudged something.”
“What did the Mars Transit Authority find regarding cause?” Mr. Brauchenbuer asked.
My throat was a desert. “Pilot error,” I said.
“Pilot error,” repeated Mr. Brauchenbuer.
“As tragic as it was, it’d be a shame to have a split-second error keep you from being able to trust yourself. You were only sixteen,” Commander Marquardt said.
“You shouldn’t have been put in that position,” Lieutenant Brauchenbuer added. “Your parents should—”
“It wasn’t my parents’ fault!” I shouted, glancing back and forth between them. Realizing that this was all starting to fit a pattern of negligence.
“Even so,” Commander Marquardt replied, ignoring my outburst, disorienting me with his sympathetic tone. “That was a technical mistake, not one of process. As commanding officers, it’s very important that we correctly identify the source.”
“At some point . . . everything blurs together,” I said, much quieter. “At some point it’s just you.”
“Well, getting back to the timeline,” Mr. Brauchenbuer continued after a silence. “You said that you started in the Weapons Room at zero five hundred hours. What kinds of things did you go over when you first got there?”
“Gun safety. He’d never really handled a gun outside the Box, so I started him on a standard nine millimeter Juniper. Fleet issue. And then we went over stance and grip.”
“It says in your statement that you then began bunker-to-bunker scrimmaging,” said Lieutenant Rochelle. He looked like an ex-athlete whose former muscle had gone to bulk, reminding me of Marco’s older brother, Aeneo, who’d been a starting Karachi forward back on New London’s pro team.
I nodded.
“With someone who had hardly held a gun before?”
“I—I thought that he would take his stance and grip more seriously if he knew why it was so important,” I said, stammering.
Lakes of Mars Page 30
