by J. N. Chaney
“Would you have really stabbed me?” Thorn asked, his voice flat.
“Damn right I would have. Three inch blade, wouldn’t be fatal but it would sure as hell get your attention. I couldn’t make an attempt on your life in public. Too open.”
“Why?” Thorn asked, his eyes slits.
Kira sighed again, and this time, she lifted her eyes upward, forming each word with care as she spoke, studiously avoiding eye contact with Thorn. “The Nyctus can turn that which we know against us, including our—our friends, and our own minds. Everything. Every person, object, even emotions, all turned against us by the squid because at their cold, double-heart, they’re the finest liars the universe has ever seen. We’re pretty good at bullshitting each other, us humans, but the squid are built to get inside and make the lies real. And when that happens, you have to be ready.” She paused, then let her eyes rest on his. He was smiling, slightly. “I take it you understand?”
“Some of it. I—some of it,” he admitted. “What am I missing?”
“That despite all your gifts, and the way you wield them, you can still be attacked. You’re not bulletproof, Thorn, and your natural ease is going to be pierced to the core one day if you don’t realize that inside that reservoir of magic is a body that can be killed, either by the Nyctus or by space itself. Likely, you’ll be in some distant shithole, so far out in the darkness that no one will ever know you’re dead. Unless one of us Joiners sends word, and your corpse is cooling in hard vacuum. Do you understand? There are threats you can feel—”
“And those I can’t. Like just then,” Thorn said as the tumblers clicked into place. “This is a function of being a Joiner?”
“It is. We sense and feel that which is beneath your psychic radar. Maybe it’s because we had to work so hard to get it—no, don’t give me that look, because I’m not judging you. I’m a little pissed that you’re so friggin’ gifted, but not angry at you. But I needed you to see this. To see me as Kira, and then see me as an enemy. The lie made real, and close enough to reach out and touch you.”
“You mean smash your face against my Castling effort?”
She made a face. “Well, now that you put it that way, yes. But my second attack--
Thorn winced. “Yeah. That was better. And a better—illustration.”
“Good. We get one shot with you, and then we’re back to fighting with a lot of gifted people who have one trick in their bag. You have all the tricks, Thorn, and beyond that, you’re all I have left from everything that used to be good. Before this war. Can you remember that far back, even?”
“Sometimes, no. But I can now.”
“Good. Because losing the feel for what we used to be is the easiest way for us to all get killed. You don’t have the option of walking into a safe, secure gym and being attacked. When the squiddies do it, they’ll be arrayed across a half-light year, hurling rocks and trying to crack your mind like a nut. And someday, they might do it,” Kira said.
“It’s less likely now,” Thorn said quietly.
Kira gave a sharp nod. “I’m glad to hear that. Remember—the quiet places between attacks can be dangerous too.” She looked to the door, then back at him. “Let’s see how good you are at defensive magic.”
With that, she vanished.
Thorn sighed and started for the door. Before he reached it, it slid open and a squat Petty Officer bearing an ON Security badge stormed in, a pair of armed and armored guards at his back.
“Just what the hell is going on in here?” the man blurted, his expression as hard as deck-plating. “There’s a maintenance crew two compartments over reporting all kinds of weirdness. They practically shit themselves with fear for no good reason, and then I learn a Starcaster has booked this gym—”
Thorn held up a hand. “Yes, Petty Officer, I know. I had a magical effect go a little wonky, I’m sorry.” In truth, his Castling had worked to perfection. It was the magnitude that was the problem.
The Petty Officer’s unibrow wrinkled up like a frightened caterpillar. “I’m going to have to report this, sir.”
“Yes, of course you will. Just please also put in your report that I now know practicing ’casting anywhere inside the FOB isn’t going to work, and I’ll have to find somewhere more remote to do it.”
For a long moment, the PO kept his glare trained on Thorn. Finally, he spun around, muttering something about Starcaster freaks, and stormed away, his security backup in tow.
Thorn sighed. Yes, he’d undoubtedly get chewed out for letting magical effects spill over into other parts of the FOB. At least he could keep that off Kira, though. Her lesson—and that’s what it had been—was good enough that he could handle a little heat.
Thorn walked into the arboretum, eager, but also wary. He hadn’t expected Kira to call him, waking him up, and ask him to join her here. He really didn’t think she’d make another stab at some sort of telepathic ambush—not in such a well-used, public part of the FOB. Even at this early hour, there had to be a least a dozen people here.
But he couldn’t dismiss the idea entirely, either. What if, as he’d imagined during the night while lying in bed and staring into the darkness, she’d somehow been influenced by the Nyctus? Could she actually be a danger?
Thorn walked around a stand of trees rising from a low group of bright pink bushes, their color almost alarming. Kira sat just ahead, staring at a flower that looked more like a small furred mammal than a plant.
“What’s that?” he asked, easing to the ground.
“Shh. It’s hunting,” Kira said.
“It’s what?”
“Watch.”
The flower extended a thin brown tendril, which accelerated in a blur and pinched the bud from a nearby neighbor.
“Shit. Vicious little thing,” Thorn said, impressed.
“Mother Nature takes no prisoners.” Kira turned to him with an easy smile.
“Okay, so is this smiling Kira just another Joiner projection, and you’re really about to pop out of the azaleas and shank me?”
Her smile changed to something close to an apology. “No shank, and I prefer the term shiv. Much more dignified.”
“Spoken like a true vagrant. Then let me adjust my inquiry. No shiv today?”
“No, not today.” She shook her head, and the smile drained away. “I hope you took my demonstration to heart.”
“I did.”
She looked at him sharply. “That’s it?”
“Sure. You had a point to make, and you needed it to happen in person, and in real time. You did so. End of story.”
“Well then. I sort of thought there’d be more of a fight, or at least some quest for a second opinion,” Kira said.
“No reason to, unless you have one.”
Kira leaned back on her outstretched arms and sighed. “I’ve been reading reports about the Starcaster Corps. About the things Starcasters have accomplished—victory, for one thing, even in the face of us falling back across multiple fronts.” She glanced at him sidelong. “And not to be too specific, but what you’ve accomplished. Hell, I’ve been with you for a bunch of it.” She sighed again. “You’re not the kid I knew, or even the same as you were when we left Murgon with muck caking your boots. The war is changing all of us, but it’s shifting you most of all. I hope you’ll remember that when the time comes.”
“When the time comes? For what? Our collective suicide charge into the bosom of the squiddies? Hell no.” He regarded her for a long moment, but she said nothing. “We’re not going away, Kira. Not even if the Nyctus get close enough to split my skull with a meteor. We’ll fight, and we’ll win. We’re Starcasters, not the scared recruits we used to be.”
She held up a hand. “I know. And you’re right. But despite the glowing reports, ’casters are still looked at as freaks by most of the rest of the ON.”
Thorn thought about the Security PO’s muttered words the night before, damned Starcaster freaks, and just nodded. “I know. They treat it like witchcraf
t.”
“It is witchcraft, Thorn. For . . . hell, hundreds, maybe thousands of years, it’s been seen as something—” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Dangerous. Sinister. Evil, even.”
Thorn stretched out his legs. “Yeah. Eye of newt and all that.”
“What of what now?”
He waved her off. “An old reference, and a bit niche. But you’re right. They used to hang and even burn people for what we now know is ’casting.”
She nodded. “I know. And even though it’s helping us—well, if not actually win, then at least not lose this war, everyone’s trying to come to grips with it.” She sighed. “Anyway, if you think it’s bad for ’casters, it’s worse for Joiners. Seeing someone throw a fireball or whatever is scary, but it’s obvious, and it’s easy to see how that’s something we can use against the squids, like right here, right now. But knowing that someone can slip into your mind and screw with how you perceive reality itself is insidious and terrifying.”
Thorn had to nod at that. “Fair point. I’d never really looked at it that way before.”
“Neither had I, until it became known through the fleet I’m a Joiner. I had people I used to sit beside in the mess suddenly start moving away if I even made eye contact with them. Like I’m going to Join and screw around with people I consider—considered—friends.” Kira’s voice had gone hard, and she glared at a spot in the grass just beyond her feet. But she stopped and took a breath. “But I really didn’t ask to meet you just to vent, or even to confirm that you’ve seen the wisdom in my lesson.”
He smiled. “Hope not, because I’ve got about ten minutes and then I’ve got duties starting up. I’m kind of hoping that we can—”
“I asked you here to tell you two things, Thorn. One, to guard yourself at all times, even from the ON itself.” She drew up her feet and hugged her knees. “You’re one of the few friends I’ve got left—mainly because you know I can’t hex you, or whatever.” She gave a rueful smile. “You kind of made that clear last night.”
Thorn held up two fingers. “I’m not hex-proof, because I for one welcome the form of a frog. Always wanted to jump like that.”
Her bark of laughter scared the attacking mouse-flower. “Good, serves you right, you little menace,” Thorn said. “The second thing? What is it?”
“Yeah. I did a lot of thinking last night after I left the gym. Didn’t really sleep. Just wandered, came here, spent a lot of time thinking things over.” She looked squarely into Thorn’s eyes. “I really do believe Joining is powerful, that it has huge potential. And I can feel mine growing, getting stronger. But I’ve only ever had the most basic training when it comes to controlling it.” She plucked a blade of plant matter, gave it a cursory glance, then dropped it and turned to him. “So I’ve submitted a request to be transferred off active duty and reassigned for advanced Joiner training at Code Nebula.”
Thorn gave a slow nod again, liking the direction she was going. “Sounds like a good plan. More important, though, it sounds like it might help make you happy—or happier, anyway—with how things are when it comes to Joining, and ’casting, and just generally serving the ON.” He made a point of meeting her eyes squarely. “I hope it works out for you, Kira, and that you do find what you’re looking for.”
She nodded. “I hope so, too.”
Thorn checked the time. “I really do have to go. How about I catch you later for dinner. The mess here might make shitty sandwiches, but the meals are actually decent. As long as it’s not pink food.”
“I don’t trust pink food. Or blue, for that matter,” Kira said.
“As usual, your instincts are above reproach. Come see me for dinner. I don’t want the war to steal everything from my past,” Thorn said.
She favored Thorn with a smile that somehow seemed a little sad. “Same. See you there. I’ll call ahead and order.”
“You can do that?” Thorn asked.
“Sure. You do it by color. Anything but pink.” With that, she was gone, leaving him to stand in the fragrance of flowers that knew nothing of the war, or loss, or his wishes.
As soon as Thorn had finished the end-of-day briefing—which wasn’t much more than a succession of variations on, Situation stable, no change, from all the FOB departments—he left the HQ and headed off to find Kira.
“I need a channel to Lieutenant Kira Wixcombe,” he said into the comm. He kept walking as he waited for the comm AI to establish a link to her, heading generally in the direction of the main Mess.
“Wixcombe, Kira, Lieutenant is no longer at FOB Gauntlet,” the computer-synthesized voice came back. “She left a message for Stellers, Thorne, Lieutenant.”
Thorn stopped just clear of a junction between busy corridors. Kira was no longer at FOB Gauntlet? What?
“Go ahead, play her message.”
“Hey, Thorn, if you’re hearing this instead of seeing me, I’m gone—not for good, just for now. I’ve got a long trip ahead of me, and a lot of time to think, but what I know right now is that you matter to me, and I’ll be damned if I don’t say it out loud at least once. I’m sorry we both know loss, and I’m sorry so many stars and miles are between us, because you’re a fixed point between me and the past. I need that past, and I hope you do too, even though it hurts like hell sometimes . . .” She trailed off into a moment of silence. “I can’t hear you right now, but I need to . . . to say it, to say that you’ll fight like a demon against them. Against the enemy and everyone who thinks your power is a bad thing. You’re not a bad thing, Thorn. You’re the best thing in a sea of hurt and loss and shit, I’m rambling.” She paused and took a long breath, and when she spoke again there was a richness to her voice that was far different from the girl Thorn knew all those years ago. “Thorn, come back to me when you can. Through all this emptiness is between us, fight. Survive. Win. Promise me, and . . . I hope this matters, but I’ll promise the same to you.”
Thorn spat a curse. Kira was gone?
She was gone, and yet, she wasn’t. She’d left a thread for him to follow, or for her to follow back to him, and maybe there was something in that. A thing worth nurturing beyond the simple act of surviving. An act of hope that spanned something longer than a single fight, or a running battle that left wreckage among the stars.
“She’s out there,” he said, but no one heard.
He knew, though, and for now, that was good enough.
Thorn resolved to at least record a message to her, and even started to turn back to his quarters to do just that. But a voice over the comm system stopped him dead.
“Specialist Stellers, report to the Hecate, docking bay sixteen-alpha,” the computer said. “Crash departure in thirty minutes. This is not a drill.”
Again, shit.
Thorn did hurry back to his quarters, but only to grab his go-bag, then get to the Hecate. Something urgent was happening, and that meant messages across the miles would have to wait.
For now.
3
The Hecate’s Tactical Officer glanced back over her shoulder. “Captain, the Nyctus ships seem to be making a run for that nebula off to our starboard, low.”
The Hecate’s Captain, a sturdy rock of a man named Galen Tanner, leaned forward as far as his crash suit and seat harness would allow. “Fascinating. They’re trying to lead us into a dust cloud. I wonder why.” He glanced at Thorn. “Stellers, is there anything you can do with your Starcasting to block or undo the Nyctus and their damned dust attacks?”
Thorn shifted in his jump seat. The witchport, set on the ship’s prow, had been damaged in a previous skirmish with the Nyctus and hadn’t yet been repaired. For the time being, that left him consigned to a temporary station on the Hecate’s bridge, so casting meant finding a quiet space and letting his power go.
It was an unusual sensation to hurl magic from a meeting room, or a glorified closet—neither of which had the sense of wonder that the ’port gave him when he stared out into the black. It left him and Captain Tanner as the only
ones that weren’t sitting at workstations—the whole ship was Tanner’s workstation, while Thorn just didn’t need one. But while Tanner had a big, sophisticated g-seat, Thorn only had the piddly little jump seat—not even a permanent fixture, being folded up into a bulkhead while not in use.
Thorn felt a lot like a kid when he wasn’t being treated as a questionable member of the ON. Like the jumpseat, Thorn could be put away when he wasn’t in use. The sensation left him bitter, but he said nothing, lost in his moment of reverie.
“Stellers? The dust?” Tanner asked again, sharply.
Thorn shook his head. “Sorry, sir, no. The Starcaster Corps is working on the problem, but no one’s come up with any solutions that actually work.”
Tanner grunted and turned away. “Alright, then. Helm, bring us back to our original patrol course. We’ll just have to let these bastards go.”
Someone on the bridge muttered, “Again,” and Tanner’s head snapped around.
“Whoever said that,” he said, his eyes set firmly on the Tac O, “should feel free to add their own solution to the Nyctus dust attacks—or else shut their damned mouths, because I won’t have editorial comments about my orders on my bridge. Do we all understand this?”
A chorus of “aye, sir” rattled around the bridge. The Tac O glanced at the Captain once, then focused on her console, cheeks coloring in embarrassment. If she was innocent of the comment, she wasn’t doing a good job of defending herself.
Thorn bottled up a sigh, staring ahead at the screens. Ever since the disastrous battle in the nebula that mauled the Centurion, this event had been a script for the war. Just a series of brief, inconclusive clashes between patrols, and pursuits broken off as one side or the other managed to get under the cover of the big guns. Fixed fortifications—bristling with those same big guns—were springing up along the fringes of no-man’s land, also known as the Zone.
