Requiem

by E L Strife

  Drawing the card out, Cutter noted her rank circled in the top right-hand corner. An R4. Like Atana.

  NAME: Sergeant Esmerella Tia Rinada

  CLASSIFICATION: Ari

  PARENTS: Delihla and Rimerez Rinada (of Arasu)

  SECURITY CLEARANCES: UR: unrestricted

  BLOOD TYPE: Ki- Ari, or compatible O+ Human

  NOTES: Abnormal psychological strength and control, good with all life forms, technical skills in electronics management, with pinpoint accuracy.

  One Compatible Mate remaining: Sgt. Steven Roan Cutter. (Roan Ukoa Aresanté of Arasu)

  “Roan Ukoa isn’t on my card,” Cutter said.

  Rio rubbed his hands on his thighs. “Command has their reason, I guess.”

  “Is her name really Esmerella?”

  “Yes.”

  “Command let her keep her real name? Like Sergeant Bennett? Why?”

  “A handful were allowed. As to why, for her, I don’t have a clue.” Rio nodded toward the paper. “I have to return it to the files to avoid raising questions. I made a copy for you and have it hidden in my office if you ever need it.”

  “She did die, didn’t she?” Cutter asked. “I remember her lying on the operating table.” He lifted a hand across the grass in front of him. “Then they dragged me away but—”

  “As far as I know, Steven, what they said was she passed from the bullet in her stomach.”

  Like Lyle. Gutshot in the field. Cutter’s lips quivered, the serum strengthening them every minute.

  Rio wrapped an arm over Cutter’s shoulders. “You’re the last one. Don’t throw your life to the wind. Be strong, for her, Steven. It’s what she would want.”

  The two of them stared out at the reflection of the night sky on the ocean.

  “Remember, the sun still rises in the morning.”

  —Flint & Steel—

  Chapter 33

  BENNETT COVERED HIS FACE in the early morning shadows, hiding the light radiating from his eyes. He couldn’t seem to shut it off no matter how many meditation mantras he repeated or the number of deep breaths he took.

  It had to be the stress. Emotions ignited Xahu’ré eyes. Maybe a prospector’s operated the same way.

  He stood outside Atana’s bedroom door, wanting to reaffirm the plans for the major Earth meltdown they would have when the Coordinator told the Earthlings the truth. Azure had left minutes before with a sleepy Kios, headed for Rio’s office. Bennett had been up waiting for a sign she was awake, not wishing to disturb her before then.

  She hadn’t left the room.

  Bennett knocked but got no answer.

  Growing concerned for her health because of recent events and the fact they were running on two hours of sleep, Bennett leaned back against the wall outside and tried his first conscious dive into Ether.

  Closing his eyes, he visualized her smooth mocha skin and the way she’d shoved the handles of his SIs in his stomach the day they’d met.

  He smiled to himself, letting the memories of them fighting side-by-side, arguing, and making out in his transformation dream cascade through his mind. She was an addicting contradiction.

  Nakio, where are you? Bennett swatted away the amber clouds of his Ether.

  Human, not human. Her voice was a faint whisper in the darkness.

  What does it mean? The prophecy— Even when I do everything right, there is still death, still pain. Why? Why me? There was a long pause before her mind shouted loud enough to rattle his mental walls. “Why?”

  Bennett cringed and spread his feet, holding his ground. Nakio, I’m here.

  The desperation inside thrust her hands out, searching for something she could hold on to. Her head slammed against a hard flat surface. Gravity vanished, and she rolled up the back of a ship.

  Atana flailed, clambering for a handle as the ship jerked and swayed.

  A male voice called out over his headset from the pilot’s seat. “Dispatch, Transport One, this is Shepherds Two Six One and Two Five Three. We’re coming in hot!”

  “Roger, Transport One. Helos on their way.” Dispatch crackled through the speaker in his wristband.

  “Sensei?” Atana muttered from her bed. “Why— always die— they always—” She sucked in a breath loud enough Bennett could hear it through the door.

  Her muscles tensed as the ship groaned, taking another hit. She tumbled through the billowing, black smoke, a wall meeting her body with blinding force, thrusting her into the air. The impact pulsed a hard, dull ache through her bones. Rivets popped free, tinkling through the fuselage. Sheet metal curled back and disappeared.

  A support broke, ramming into her thigh, lancing pain up into her hip. It sent her spinning end over end toward the warping floor. When she crumpled against it, it launched her body upward, and for a moment, sound held its breath and bright golds and blues blurred her vision.

  She wanted to stay there forever.

  Behind her, a shuddering screech made her look over a shoulder. Gray swallowed her again. Something slammed into her shoulder, slowing her advance toward the grating noise. Frantically latching onto the closest approaching flange, she felt her shoulder pop and cursed. But her grip held, the sharp edges digging into her fingers. Another body flew past her: a girl from testing.

  Atana clamped her mouth shut as bloody mist painted the cabin and her side. One sob from the shock and the ship impacted the land, jerking her grasp free. Sand sprayed through the wreckage, catching in her eyes, her mouth, and every sticky slice on her body. The hiss of the engine faded into the distance.

  She fought to stay conscious. Fragments of the ship mixed with the sand as the rear half skipped off the dune crests.

  A flash of light stung her eyes. She heard the whistle of wind around metal points and knew its trajectory. Her commands to move weren’t fast enough, her battered body unwilling, despite the cry from her heart. The explosive pressure bit into her skull, splintering her thoughts.

  Bennett shuddered in the hallway. The throbbing pang in his head made him double forward, his stomach clenching.

  “That’s where the scar is from, why she doesn’t remember,” he muttered under his breath, rubbing the eye-watering sting from his face.

  Everything rocked to a standstill.

  Beneath her feet swung a golden floor. She rolled her head back and found her body tangled in a net of straps. Atana wrestled herself free with one arm, the other limp, her fingers numb. She fell through smoke then heat, to a soft land and a susurrus of sand.

  Dazed, head pounding, she dug her elbow into the earth, pulling herself toward a gaping hole. Finding a handhold overhead, she got a foot under her and pushed. Her blood felt like acid, her bones leaden. She cried out from the effort, staggering to her feet. Through the waves of mirage in the moving amber structure, breath short and rapid, she studied pieces of glinting silver spread across the desert like diamonds.

  Everything was on fire. Puffs of orange smoke whirled up into the air from scattered cans. Her rag clothes were singed with holes. She stumbled out of the burning chunk of the cabin into the mayhem, eyes dancing among the flames and bodies in disbelief. Her head and shoulders hunkered in defense, too many questions racing through her aching mind to focus. White spots flashed in her vision, ones she couldn’t blink away, nor the images of things and people she couldn’t place.

  Hanging her head in frustration, she noticed the skin on her right shoulder was ripped open. Blood oozed out of her left side, a jagged piece of metal protruding from in it. Oh, stars. She reached out to free it, retracting upon contact. A jab of pain added to the weight of her dislocated arm.

  Dense clouds formed overhead, casting darkness over the carnage. The devastation was so familiar. And yet she knew it was not where she was supposed to be. The sky thundered like the rage in her heart. She’d been torn from something she loved, something also a nightmare.

  A man rushed in her direction, flinging sand with his boots. “Luna!”

  She stood in
a numb dysphoria, bracing her arm, staring.

  Dark eyes. Frantic eyes. No identifiable color.

  Sad eyes. Atana slowly cocked her head. Familiar.

  Body shifting. Smoke billowing. Closer. A running body. A moving cloud.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and forced them open. Body and cloud were one. And separate.

  “Luna!”

  “Sensei,” Atana mumbled in her room. “I miss y—”

  She looked behind her, at a girl’s body strapped to a workbench. It was dark as coal, flames whipping up and through its shredded frame.

  The strange man, the pilot in black clothes, was coming at her.

  Anger welled up again at her displacement. In a panic, Atana freed a chunk of metal from her arm and swung. The point grazed the surface of his Adams Apple. He had taken her from that someone or something. The images were fading fast.

  He stopped in his tracks, the sand at his feet whipping up into the breeze. “Sensei, I’m Sensei, don’t you remember me? You helped me find Luna, my daughter. Luna, the blond girl.” His eyes dropped to the glimmering light of metal pieces dangling from her limp wrist. “Sergeant Bennett’s dog tags? You grabbed them?”

  Bennett stepped back from the fiery main screen in his mind. Atana had told him about his father giving his life for her and Azure. But the visual cut far deeper than words.

  One side of the Ether screen before Bennett blotted out, plum-red.

  “Medic!” Sensei raced to her side as her legs faltered. His voice crackled overhead. “One alive!”

  His arms felt like clouds, his tears warmer than the rain that fell like bullets from tumultuous clouds. It dripped down Sensei’s face as he leaned over her, washing the blood from her torn skin.

  “Hang on, Sahara.” Callused fingers grazed her face as the world reddened. “You are so important. Don’t give up.” He shook his head, licking the water from his lips. “Don’t ever give up.”

  Pelting vibrations came from above. The winds picked up as her body lifted in the man’s arms. Her eyes closed.

  Atana clutched the dog tags in her hand swearing she wouldn’t forget. This person was good. She just wished she could remember why.

  The lights faded, and the fiery main screen vanished, leaving Bennett alone in the amber clouds. He dropped back from her dream until he found himself conscious, standing outside her door. He heard the bed creak and her boots set on the floor. She’d slept in her clothes again.

  She let out a heavy sigh. Why does everything around me always burn?

  Bennett rested his head against the wall. Her past was filled with fire, anger, confusion, and loneliness—like his. He wanted to comfort her, help her. He just didn’t know how. Or what Command would tolerate.

  “I don’t know what you made me.” He glared up at the ceiling to the stars he knew were beyond. “But at least make this torture worthwhile.”

  —Rio—

  Chapter 34

  SNOW SHIMMERED on the trees and across the lawns of Rio’s neighborhood in Mountain Zone Three. Atana had requested he take Kios away from Home Station for a day in case the press conference didn’t go as planned or the shepherds cracked. He’d tried to defend the need to stay, but Maria had said she could handle it. After Hyras got wind of it, there was no option.

  It was hard to deny the appeal of R & R. It’d been far too long since his last trip home.

  Rio tapped the glass coffee table in front of him, and the TV across the living room clicked on. He set a small bowl of pretzel sticks between him and a bouncing Kios, who furiously crunched away, a sippy cup of orange juice in his lap. Driving to the grocery store in the truck that morning, the boy had asked him questions about everything, sometimes in English, sometimes another language. Rio always gave him an answer if he could figure out what Kios was focused on.

  To most shepherds, children were just future UP members to be rescued from whatever disaster they were facing in the civilian world then plopped in the Instructors’ Ward on Home Station. Rio had sat with every single one over the last couple decades, explaining the serum, giving them probiotic and enzyme treatments so they could digest real food again, building them up to the strong sergeants they became. To him, every shepherd of UP was his child.

  Because he couldn’t have his own.

  Being the one member of UP not required to dose, he’d felt the urges of a normal human: the desire to love and be loved, to raise a family, to linger in the adrenaline kick from skydiving and not have it shut down.

  He’d been a Field Sergeant in his younger years. He missed the bonds with his comrades before Command forced his hands into the biochemical lab to create the serum.

  Miskaht had cut right to the bone. “We know you’ve been making something similar for your brother. You know why the shepherds need this.”

  He’d shaken his head. “What you’re asking is different. The one I designed for him was to help him keep—shape. You understand what that’s like as a full-blood Mirramor, don’t you? You and Glato?”

  Command had thirteen members then, and every one had him marked in their sights. Rio had tried every loophole in the book. He fought the order for years.

  “I will do this if I have complete parameter control. I can keep them from desiring sexual activity, adrenaline dumping, whatever you want. But I want to infuse it with a baseline stimulant package that kicks in when they’re heart rate drops, when they’re injured, exhausted. Morally, I can’t do this unless I can help them while being forced to cut them down.”

  Accepting the position left a bitter taste of guilt in his mouth. He loathed the thought of what he was doing to such prime soldiers. He’d relented because Miskaht was right. It was best.

  For most.

  The crunch of another pretzel stick beside him pulled Rio from his past. Giving Kios’s shoulder a reassuring rub, Rio slung his arm over the back of the sofa.

  He’d never had a child in his private home before. Kios felt like the closest thing he’d ever know to a grandson. He couldn’t adopt Nakio or Bennett, but worry for both lingered in his heart. They broke through the serum like their bodies weren’t the only source of emotions or drive. He’d invested more time with them than any other shepherds in the force. Atana was essentially his daughter, and Jameson Jr., well—

  Sitting with Kios meant more to him than anyone would ever know.

  “What do you think, kiddo? You like pretzels?”

  Kios bobbed his head, grabbing several more. “Hatoga mok!”

  It had taken an hour to get Kios to eat without shying away and guarding a single pretzel stick. The boy hated hearing Atana had to work. He cried and reached for her like she would disappear forever then refused to eat. It was something Rio had dealt with a lot. Every child in UP was an orphan. Yet Kios clung to Atana with an intense desperation he’d never seen before. She wasn’t his mother. Rio had concluded it to be a deep level of trauma bonding.

  Command had been inquiring on the status of their relations the last few days. Some were concerned about a child being at Home Station. All children were processed in the Instructors’ Ward before being shipped out to their designated bases. They weren’t permitted to mix with the active duty shepherds.

  “Atana and Azure are the best suited,” he’d defended.

  “They need to focus on the mission,” Command had countered.

  “Then I’ll take him.”

  “We need you in the lab.”

  He’d damn near cursed them out. “We’re all busy, including you. Stop wasting your time worrying about a harmless child and get the masses in line for this apocalypse. We’re handling Kios fine for now.”

  Rio looked out the window of his home, over his pair of SIs, on the end table. Xahu’ré and Mirramor members seemed to be more interested in the protection afforded the boy. Kios had Command on edge, and they weren’t explaining why.

  In the yard across the street, three young boys hung from the large tree outside their gray house, despite the snow, swing
ing and leaping from one branch to another.

  Definitely Simmaro, always wanting to climb things.

  It had been several months since he’d spent enough time in his own home to observe the usual happenings of the civilian world. Like every shepherd, he had his own domicile for R & R purposes, which meant his visits were rare. It was an important glimpse at the lives of those they protected. When shepherds weren’t working, they were studying.

  They’re a lot bigger than I remember.

  A woman stepped out of the doorway, glancing at three snowmen, all with tails, constructed in the driveway. Her heather gray apron was always dusty with flour and spices, her scent something of a mix of nutmeg and sorghum. Today appeared to be no different, judging by the powdery splotches. Rio wondered what it would be like to live in such a bright, welcoming home as hers.

  “Ta’a chia!” she barked, directing toward the ground with her wooden spoon. The boys whined and kept playing.

  Rio caught her gaze and waved. Athia was a fine woman with long, ash-brown hair, gold eyes, and rosy cheeks. He figured raising three boys on her own couldn’t be easy and had offered to help her now and then when he was home. She’d always thanked him but refused. Rio could tell she didn’t think he would understand.

  She knew what they were. She didn’t think he did.

  He’d kept his status as a shepherd from her, following the Code. With the Unveiling, he hoped it could change.