by Sara King
“I got called away,” David said to the tarmac.
“Called away?!” Milar’s younger self grabbed the man by the shirt. Even knowing what David was, what he could do to him, he ripped him off the pavement and screamed into his face, “Where is she?” Milar demanded, spittle flying from his lips. “Tell me where they took her. We’re getting her back. Now.”
“She’s…” David swallowed and looked up at him, then, and Milar’s younger self saw the truth. He collapsed right there on the pavement, unable to think, unable to breathe. With shaking hands, Young Milar had drawn his gun, put the barrel between David’s eyes—
Almost there, Milar’s father said. Almost there, almost there…
The current came to a sudden lull and they drifted in the Void, tiny spheres of moving color all around them. Milar saw the self-contained scenes play out from afar, finding some curious, some abhorrent, some utterly mundane. He was getting lost in them, idly floating amidst the countless bubbles of reality, watching them like trillions of little viewscreens, all playing at once.
Found it! Joe cried.
The leash jerked tight again and Milar’s world exploded in a violent burst of color and agony as the spheres around him ripped away, flinging him back inside a lone, inconspicuous globe that appeared to him like all the others. An instant later, Milar felt himself slam back into his body with a force like taking a bullet to the chest. He sucked in a sudden, startled breath, rolled to one side, and gasped onto the floor, heart hammering wildly.
Panting on his side, still fighting nausea, he opened his eyes to Tatiana’s unconscious face, her body sprawled in a fetal position beside him. Her cheeks were still stained with tears, and it was obvious she had cried herself to sleep at his side. Unlike his experiences with the apparition in the shape of his father, Milar now felt every bone grinding into the floor, every hair tickling his skin, every stitch of cloth on his body.
Am I back? he thought, more than a little afraid he was somehow still dreaming—or whatever it had been. Aanaho, am I actually back?! After the mind-numbing rush of time-space, he’d given up hope. Yet, in his other visions, he hadn’t felt so physically solid. He hadn’t felt the ground against his face or the air in his lungs—he’d just been. He remembered the drifting feeling of being out of place, of having no anchor, of not knowing where he was, or where he would end up next. Could he actually have made it home?
Home, yes! You made it home!
Milar froze. That elated voice had not been his own.
I only have seconds, his father’s voice insisted. Go to Silver City. Meet with the pharmacist’s son, Steffen Hayes. Tell him about her screams. Tell him you know what he is. Get him to make you drugs. Special drugs. Then go rescue Patrick.
Milar frowned. “What’s wrong with Patrick?”
Patrick’s in Rath, getting— The voice cut off suddenly.
Milar frowned. “Dad?”
Nothing.
“Dad!”
Not even a mental static.
Milar sat up, frowning. Immediately, he saw that the outside of the tent was dark, the mountain air filled with the sounds of nighttime.
Hours, Milar realized, stunned. He’d only been gone hours. It had felt like months. Even years. Shakily, he yanked his knife from its sheath and glanced at his face in the blade’s mirror-clean reflection, half expecting to see the white-rimmed eyes of the Wide.
A normal—yet decidedly pale—face peered back at him, haggard with the trials he’d just been through. Trials that, the longer he sat there, the more he realized were actually over. Relief hit him like a wave, and Milar slumped back to the wall, letting the knife hit the floor. He tilted his head back, on the verge of hyperventilating, struggling against the urge to weep with gratitude at being home.
“Miles!” Tatiana sniffled, startling him. A moment later, her tiny arms were flung around him, squeezing. “I thought you had the Wide!”
“I…” Milar didn’t know how to respond. He’d never experienced anything like that before, and the pieces of past and future he had seen still felt branded into his mind—a mind that, by its very nature, couldn’t forget. He remembered things that he had no right to remember.
Things like Anna…
That little bitch! He’d seen her do things, horrible things… And he’d seen Aashaanti. And Phage…
His heart started to pound, having been through so much in the past few hours that he almost didn’t feel like he belonged in this one place anymore, and that thought left him struggling against tears. What if he did have the Wide? What if this was just one moment of lucidity before he slipped back into the hallucinations? He’d been so relieved to be back, he hadn’t even thought about what could come next…
“You know,” Tatiana said, cocking her head up at him, “if I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re manfully fighting the urge to cry.”
Milar jerked, all other considerations paling in the horror she knew he was close to tears. “I am not.”
She pulled back and lifted a single black eyebrow. “Really.”
“I don’t cry,” he blurted, hurriedly wiping his eyes. “I’ve never cried.”
“Uh…huh. Sure, coaler.” Tatiana yawned and looked around the room, then back at him. “Man, I was sure you were a goner. You were twitching and talking about fires and tractors and Nephyrs and alien ships and some dude called Brackett betraying you.” She frowned, looking thoughtful. “You know, they’ve got a Brackett on the Forty-Third. Nice guy, but always wins at poker. And kind of quiet. Not really my style.”
“Not the same guy,” Milar said, swallowing hard. “It was a kid from fifteen years ago.”
“Oh. Huh.” She squinted at him. “You know, nobody can cure the Wide.”
Milar swallowed hard, knowing that, somehow, he’d been in that particular fire, and had been shoved right back out again—by, were his instincts to be trusted, his lunatic father. “I, uh…”
“So don’t go getting it, okay?” she said. And, this time, he could see tears beginning to show on her face. “I start to give you the Wide again, just shoot me. I don’t wanna hurt anyone else.”
And, seeing her tears, Milar knew she was a hundred percent serious, and that she would take matters into her own hands if he didn’t do something, and fast.
“I know a guy who can get you drugs that’ll fix it,” he blurted.
Tatiana stopped sniffling and gave him a suspicious look. “Who?”
Milar grimaced. The only one he knew of with the expertise to make drugs like that was Anna Landborn, and he still wanted to shove an ice pick through her eye. “Sweetie, I’ll fix this. Don’t worry…”
“I almost killed you, Miles,” Tatiana interrupted. “I’m not taking the chance I’ll lose control again. If you’re just pulling shit outta your ass—”
“No!” Milar cried.
Tatiana gave him a completely dubious look.
“His name is Steffen Hayes,” he went on, pulling a name out of his ass. “He lives in Silver City. He’s a pharmacist’s son.”
Tatiana sniffled, and the look of hope on her face stabbed at him like a knife, making him acutely aware he had just spouted something for which he had no proof, just parroting a voice in his head. Gingerly, Tatiana said, “So…this guy can get us something that could stop the Shrieker stuff, but still save the baby?”
“Yeah,” Milar babbled. “He’ll be able to save the—” He froze. All he could say was, “Really?”
“Yeah,” Tatiana sighed. “You lying there all twitchy and slobbery on the floor gave me some serious time to think on it. I mean, I’m thirty, zoomtime. Thirty-nine if you count the dozens of cryo trips all over hell and gone. You’re pretty much the epitome of what I was looking for in a guy—” then she frowned and cocked her head, “—well, minus the open-mouth halitosis after I mind-blasted you, but that’s an easy fix.”
Milar recoiled at the idea he’d tried to fumigate her. “I don’t have bad breath.”
She threw b
ack her head and cackled. “Collie,” Tatiana said, “it was all I could do to remain dotingly by your side as you got all gibbery and drooly. I’m pretty sure you could team up with your Neanderthal friend Jeanne and use area-asphyxiation as a successful hunting technique.”
Milar squinted, deciding, right then, that he would invest in breath mints just so he could proceed to shove them up her ass.
Tatiana cocked her head at him. “So?”
“So what?”
She pointed in the direction of the ship. “I’ve agreed to carry your baby. I want drugs. Good ones. Now.” She wiggled her arm again. “And if you wouldn’t mind picking me up some chocolate ice cream, I’d appreciate it.”
Milar narrowed his eyes. “You don’t get cravings the first day you’re pregnant.”
Tatiana’s grin widened. “I guess we’ll see, huh?”
Milar swallowed at the thought of what was to come—and how he needed to fix it now or the love of his life was going to kill herself, their child, and everyone else in a half-mile radius. “I should get going. You gonna be okay here?”
“Yes. Leave your gun.” She held out a dainty hand expectantly.
Stiffening all over at the idea of losing one of his cherished Laserats, Milar blurted, “No.”
Tatiana lifted a brow. “No?”
“You might hurt it,” he said.
She lifted her brow further. “Oh, you’re not worried I might hurt myself? Or, gee, your unborn child? Or maybe that big, bad jaggle that comes sneaking up on us in the—”
“It’s not ‘us’ yet,” Milar gritted.
“—night, smelling the sweet scent of helpless pregnant off-planet coaler—”
“I am impervious to manipulation,” he said, crossing his arms. “Ask Patrick.”
“—and her tiny, unborn child, gender as yet to be determined—”
“I’ll leave a shotgun with you, instead. Harder to destroy a shotgun.”
“—huddled terrified and alone in some mountain crevice, wondering why her soulmate left her with inferior weaponry—”
“Goddamn it, fine!” Milar cried. He grabbed her and pulled her close, kissing her until neither of them could breathe. Pulling back, he growled, “But we’re getting married.”
Inches away, Tatiana, instead of reacting to what he had said, winced like the world had just become awash in sulfur. She coughed and waved a hand in front of her face dramatically. “Does air quality have anything to do with birth defects?”
Milar narrowed his eyes. He pulled the Laserat from its holster and held it out for her. When Tatiana reached for it, Milar tugged it back, lifting a brow. “We are getting married?”
She blinked at the gun, then at him. “You’re offering me a gun for my hand in marriage.”
“It’s not just any gun,” Milar growled. “It’s a first generation Laserat, and there’s only a handful left in existence. David Landborn gave it to me, and if you lose it or break it in the short time I allow you to carry it, I will extract its value in pushups.”
Tatiana squinted at him. “Why pushups?”
Milar gave her his most demented grin. “Because I’d hate to injure the baby.”
She sniffed. “So I get to keep it?”
Milar immediately yanked the weapon back, blurting, “No.”
“But you said you were offering it for my hand in marriage.”
“No,” Milar retorted, “you said I was offering it for your hand in marriage. I said I was letting you borrow it for a few hours while I go hunt you down some drugs and ice cream.”
Tatiana gave him a pointed look. She held out her hand. “Milar, I want your prized Laserat pistol in return for my hand in marriage.”
Milar felt his eyes narrow. “Why you little twi—”
She raised a single brow, and in that moment of cocky female confidence, he realized he was about to lose a hell of a lot more than a Laserat.
Muttering, he dropped it into her hand.
“And now the sheath, please,” she said, dropping it in her lap and holding out her hand again.
Hearing a holster called a ‘sheath’ gave Milar an odd kind of bristly, body-stiffening goosebumps. “It’s a holster,” he said evenly.
“Whatever. Give.” She snapped her fingers expectantly.
Muttering to himself, Milar unstrapped the holster from his leg and dropped it in her hand. “That thing’s dangerous,” he said, nervous, now. “You ever used a Laserat before?”
“Only once, when I stole one from a Nephyr who was passed out on my couch.” She flipped the gun around, getting a good look at its lines. “He wasn’t too happy when he woke up. I’d put a beam through the kitchen sink, the outer wall, and his skimmer outside before I got it shut off.”
Seeing the weapon cradled in her lap, Milar got cold chills. “‘Accidentally firing’ a Laserat isn’t the same as ‘using’ a Laserat.”
She shrugged. “You may proceed to get me drugs.” She waved him off. Like an Egyptian fan-bearer that was no longer useful.
Milar narrowed his eyes. Growling, he reached for her, and, just as her eyes were widening and she was blurting, “Gun might go off—” he crushed her against him and gave her the greatest kiss of his life.
Apparently, it wasn’t the greatest kiss of her life, because her nose was wrinkling again when he put her down. Heart pounding, barely able to see or hear over the thunder of his own heart, Milar demanded, “What?”
Tatiana grimaced and gestured at his face. “When was the last time you brushed your teeth?”
Milar felt himself caught between acute embarrassment and complete indignance. “Well, forgive me, Majesty, if I’ve been by your side in the jungle, protecting you, for days.”
“My point exactly.” Tatiana yawned again and stood up, taking his Laserat with her. “God I could use a bath.”
Damn. It had been awhile. He supposed he could pick up some toothbrushes at Silver City…
“This bed is big enough for two,” Tatiana said, going over and squishing it down with her hand. “Not very comfy, though…”
As soon as Tatiana wasn’t looking, Milar breathed into his palm and sniffed, trying to find out how bad it really was. He frowned, not being able to smell anything. Was that because a man couldn’t smell his own reek? He breathed into his hand again, sniffing deeper this time. Nothing. Dammit. He’d never had anyone tell him he had bad breath before. But what if that was because they were afraid of him, because he’d painted himself such a good picture of being a badass, what with the knives and weaponry he toted around, that they were terrified to piss him off?
Milar would have bet a gun that Patrick would have told him the hard, painful truth years ago. The fact that he hadn’t told him hurt.
He froze when he realized Tatiana was sitting on the bed, watching him with amusement.
Clearing his throat, Milar dropped his hand.
Tatiana grinned at him. “Just kidding about the bad breath thing. You’re fine.”
Milar flushed crimson. “Fine?”
“Yep! Couldn’t have you thinking you were perfect, you know?” She winked.
He scowled.
“Honey,” Tatiana said, eyes twinkling mischievously, “you’re the one who wanted to marry me.” She hefted the Laserat, looking it over, then put it under her pillow. Still grinning, she clasped her hands around her knee and said, “Think you can handle eighty more years of this? If, that is, you and your friends can win this war and we don’t all die in horrible, unspeakable ways because there’s too few of you and the Coalition’s got both the Orbital and Rath?”
At the thought of eighty more years with Tatiana, all of Milar’s irritation sputtered out and he forgot about everything else. He got up, went over to her, and answered her with another kiss.
CHAPTER 18: FlameOn
23rd of May, 3006
Silver City
Fortune, Daytona 6 Cluster, Outer Bounds
Milar made a run to Silver City that night, dropping by the safe ho
use first to see if Patrick was awake and wanted a burger and beer—and maybe get his help figuring out how the hell to find a doctor that could make some sort of drug to block Tatiana’s Shrieks and slow down the node’s insertion of alien elements to her DNA. Oddly, the apartment was empty, the guns and equipment missing, not even a note on the door, and he had to skirt six different Coalition patrols just to sneak inside the back.
Weird.
Looking out at the street below, Milar was pretty sure he could see a Nephyr lurking near one of the rain barrels, listening to an r-player. Come to think of it, there had been more Nephyrs than usual, crawling in every nook and cranny from the midtown airlot to the business district, almost like something major had happened to the city in his brief absence.
Go to Silver City. Meet with the pharmacist’s son, Steffen Hayes. Tell him about her screams. Tell him you know what he is. Get him to make you drugs. Special drugs. Then go rescue Patrick.
Remembering those words, Milar felt a little chill, but then shrugged it off, knowing that they wouldn’t have Nephyrs everywhere just to hunt down one colonist and his demented father. Besides, Milar’s father hadn’t been well for three decades, so it had to be some sort of wishful auditory hallucination. Despite what he had told Tatiana, he hadn’t even really considered looking for a pharmacist named Steffen Hayes because pharmacists only lived and worked on the Orbital, Glassburg, or in Rath, where Coalition military or Coalition contractors could pay for their services. There wasn’t money in serving the dirt-poor denizens of Silver City anything other than the pre-packaged, standard-issue colony medicine kits—at the prices colonists could pay, pharmacists couldn’t even afford to ship it from the Core for them.
Milar waited an hour for Patrick to get back, then went out to get that burger alone, knowing that Tatiana was going to be impatiently awaiting his return with some miraculous cure to something he didn’t completely understand, and therefore nobody else was going to completely understand.
