by Eileen Sharp
Simon spoke up, his gaze sincere. “Stewart, the Licentia colony has agreed to honor your financial accounts as they were before the Nostekoi came. We wanted you to know that. You have a home with us, if you wish.”
Caina looked over at her father. They’d talked about someday going back to Remington, when it was safe, but Licentia’s offer was generous.
“Thank you, Simon. I’m not sure what I’m doing, but that means a lot to me.”
An elegant woman in a flowing purple gown swept into their conversation. Her dark skin was accentuated by lavender makeup, her lips a dark pink. Caina recognized her as Zerina, the new premier for Apollux.
“I understand how much courage it took for you to stand with the Alliance.” Though Apollux was now owned by the Nostekoi in a legal sense, the Council fought back by appointing new premiers. Few of the old premiers wanted to endanger their families by defying the Nostekoi. The new ones like Zerina were taking a serious risk.
“I can say the same for you,” Caina’s father said. “My son and daughter stayed on your colony at one of your medical clinics for a brief time when the Nostekoi first took over the Remington colony. Your colony’s hospitality to him will not be forgotten. “
Zerina shook her head. “I cannot take credit. The compassion of the Arin Medical staff is their own. They’re already sending some of the staff to the Council military. At least, while they can. We know it is only a matter of time before the Nostekoi take everything. We’ll hold out as long as we can.”
Her father looked tired. “I don’t know how an army of that size could have developed with such secrecy. How did no one know?”
Castellan shrugged. “It answers the question we never asked. If you believe evil no longer exists, you stop building walls. All of us thought that because we didn’t build walls then we wouldn’t need them.”
Zerina shook her head. “If we doubted it, we know it now. Monsters are real.”
One month after the Council’s declaration of war on the Nostekoi, Caina put on her uniform for the first time. She made the decision to be a soldier in the Alliance military against her father’s advice, but she needed to fight. The choice for most of those who could serve was easy, though there was still an alarming number that slipped away to find the Nostekoi. Colonies reeled with defections.
A few weeks into training, rain beat down on the windows of her barracks as she prepared for the usual morning run with everyone else.
Her new, temporary home used to be a hangar for luxury craft construction, but it had been turned into barracks. The women’s quarters were partitioned off from the men’s by lightweight plasticrete walls. Her fingernails were blue from the chill. Organizing this many soldiers so quickly had proved a logistical challenge, one of them being makeshift barracks and equipment that didn’t always work, like heating systems.
She stepped into her boots and stamped her heel in. The other women around her were making similar preparations, some of them bantering with one another.
The commanding officer barked out a call for attention, hastening the activity to leave the barracks. She joined the ranks lined up at the entrance of the hangar. In one of the many lines, Brian and Geoff stood at attention. They’d never said anything about it, but she knew her cousins had probably requested her squadron to keep an eye on her.
Geoff did it in his usual taciturn manner, as if he just happened to be in the same squadron. He almost managed to look surprised when he met her during orientation. Slightly taller than average with wiry hair and a bony build, he was a quiet young man who did not attract much attention.
Brian didn’t bother with pretense, openly admitting that he was there to watch over her. They’d been there at her mother’s funeral, Brian steadfastly at her side, filling in the space where Joshua would have been.
The doors to the hangar opened, and she followed the rest of the barracks out into the rain. Her boots hit the tarmac, splashing through the occasional puddle. In the distance, a few trees stood at the edge of the airfield, and long green grass bowed in the rain. It had been raining since she arrived, the weather cold and gloomy.
A pair of footsteps marched in cadence with her own. She looked across at Brian. His pale hair was shaved short, his forehead white where his long hair used to lay. His dark blue gaze caught hers for a moment, a sad, teasing glint as he mimicked her run. He could have passed her easily, but he ran at her side.
She let herself smile back at him, a drop of water sliding between her lips and to her tongue. She picked up her pace, moving past another girl.
Brian kept the same tempo, even edging ahead of her a little. He had to shorten his strides, his long legs outreaching hers.
Being a dancer had some advantages, though. Other than a lean body, her slight frame concealed a capacity for endurance. She could afford to go a little faster if she wanted. She moved ahead of him, passing someone else. Before she knew it she was ahead of all the women, her breath still coming easily.
She stretched out her legs and pushed herself to lengthen her stride. What should have been drudgery felt like release. Reckless with the energy uncoiling in her muscles, she sprinted ahead of Brian, her eyes fixed on the steady figure of Geoff. His head was bent into the rain, his shoulders rounded with the effort of fighting the weather. His gait was the ugliest thing she’d ever seen, but his long legs ate up distances with surprising speed.
Water ran down the back of her neck as she sprinted forward, her thin jumpsuit clinging to her legs. Footsteps matched her own, but she did not look back to find Brian. She knew he was beside her.
Geoff’s dark eyes slid over to her as she caught up with him, her lungs burning now. She slowed to his pace, though it wasn’t slow enough for her to fully catch her breath. She ran in tandem with Geoff, Brian on her other side. As their feet pounded together she got lost in the rhythm. She couldn’t hear her own footsteps anymore. Her feet hit the ground with theirs. Suddenly, she realized the constant loneliness she felt had been replaced by a sense of belonging. Tears stung her eyes, though she wasn’t sure why. Shouldn’t she feel as if she belonged, as least sometimes?
She licked the tears off her lips as if they were rain, swallowing the salty taste. She had to slow her pace, unable to breathe. Two bodies slowed with her, their steps losing her unsteady cadence for only a brief moment before finding it again.
On the last mile, her mind went as numb as her legs. At the end of the run, she bent down over her knees, breathing hard.
“Not bad,” Brian said, as breathless as she was. “For a girl.”
She smiled, wiping the water from her eyes. “That’s no way to talk about your brother.”
Geoff’s stern face cracked slightly, his lips turning in a smile.
Their commanding officer barked out a time limit for showers as they headed inside the hangar.
“There better be hot water,” Brian said.
“We’ve had hot water ever since we got here,” Caina pointed out. “So if there isn’t any today, I’m coming after you, Jinx-Boy.”
“I’m just saying…” Brian said.
Fortunately Brian’s fears were unfounded. The women’s shower room was filled with steam. Caina let the scalding hot water run over her chilled skin. She scrubbed at her long hair. She’d thought about cutting it, but if she ever saw Cristian again, she wanted him to be able to recognize her. Plus her mother had always loved her long hair. She washed the soap out of her hair, running the wet strands through her fingers. There was no reason to hope that Cristian was still alive, but she could not reconcile herself to a life without his return.
And if he did…she gave in to the few seconds of fantasy. He would step out of the Suki, standing in the light between night and day, and his eyes would find her. He would hold her tight against him until she couldn’t breathe. And the way he kissed her…it would be the same as it was on the beach. She turned the water off and stepped out of the warmth, grabbing her towel off the hook next to the shower. Her mind made
him so real she almost felt as if he were there. Hope might be ridiculous, but it made her feel alive. Despair didn’t do anything but make her tired.
She wrapped the towel around her and stepped under the dryer, shaking her hair out. When it was dry, she dressed in the thick khaki jumpsuit that was the standard uniform, and twisted her hair behind her neck.
As the women all left the plasticrete partitions for the dining hall at the other end of the hangar, no one asked her to sit with them. They had at first, but she always sat with Geoff and Brian. She wondered if it was a mistake. She didn’t mean to close herself off from them, but her inner life seemed to take up everything. Geoff and Brian were okay with her silence.
Standing in line next to her, Geoff slid a tray in her direction. She caught it lazily, glancing up at him. He took a hot bowl of grain cereal and passed it to her, taking two for himself. Brian cut in line between them, his feet sliding on the floor and hitting the counter.
Geoff reached out a lanky arm and nabbed a tray for his brother. “You’re late.”
“Writing to my girlfriend,” Brian said, taking two bowls of cereal.
Caina dispensed a generous helping of sugar into her bowl. She liked it sweet. “Which one?”
“Shannon and Tonya. They’re my favorites—they write back right away.”
Caina wasn’t so sure either of the girls took Brian that seriously. Collecting servicemen was rapidly turning into a new fad for young girls. The more they wrote to the better.
Brian’s wrist cell vibrated on his arm, and he grinned, flipping it around so they could see the message light. “Shannon. She misses me.”
“Good morning,” a familiar, authoritative voice came from behind them.
The three of them turned around to look at the older man. Caina recognized the principal of Sterling Academy, President Lenoir. He’d since been promoted to a colonel in the gathering new forces of the Council military. “Aren’t you Caina West?”
“Yes, sir.”
His weathered face softened. “I’m sorry about your mother and Joshua. Your brother was extraordinary.”
She felt a stab of pride and pain. “Yes, he was. Thank you.”
He glanced at Geoff and Brian. “These are your cousins?”
Geoff answered for her, his voice rusty. “Yes, sir.”
“Your commanding officers have recommended all of you for accelerated training. Would you be willing to participate in a new program on Hades?”
Caina could not speak for the boys, but she was thrilled at the idea. “I’d be honored, sir.”
Geoff and Brian spoke at the same time. “So would we.”
“Excellent.” The former principal clapped a surprisingly hearty hand on Brian’s arm. “We leave in two days.”
Chapter Nineteen
New Level
"TEN MORE REPS."
Joshua was already shaking with fatigue, but he complied, pressing his left leg into the machine and lifting the weight. His knee had taken six weeks to heal. Almost a year later the cyber joint was incredibly strong. Initially, he’d been afraid it would slow him down; instead, it had increased his speed.
His trainer seemed pleased with his progress. Joshua felt no pride in his accomplishments, however. He’d been trained to be dissatisfied with his current level, whatever that might be. He did nothing but train, eat, and sleep. The discoveries along the way were eye opening.
The first revelation was that he could shut out emotional pain and pretend he wanted to be a Nostekoi. The second revelation came as an affirmation of his abilities. He’d always known there had to be an explanation for his extraordinary sight, hearing and strength. The soldiers with red eyes were genetically engineered to fight. They were called Cyphers. They trained and lived separately from the regular soldiers. Faster, stronger, and quicker than any human being could possibly be, they were lethal, and from what he understood, hard to kill.
It answered a lot of questions about his origins, though not as many as he would have liked. He asked them how he ended up on Remington, and they told him that he was actually a shipment, meant to go to one of the colonies for some testing. His ship was only supposed to stop on Remington, but after the crash, the Nos had let him stay there. They wanted to see what would happen if they let him live as a colonist.
The re-education process turned out to be time consuming, so they’d halted the other immersion experiments. Having to resort to torture compromised the trainees’ abilities and their loyalty. There were only about five of them who had gone through the re-education ordeal. Two of them hadn’t made it.
“We’re going to the next level tomorrow,” his trainer said. Tall and big boned, Mick enjoyed pushing his trainees to the limit, his appetite for competition insatiable. Typical of the Nostekoi, no cost was too high for victory. Mick had once ruptured his appendix in a sit-up competition, and expected the same fanaticism from his trainees.
Sweating and exhausted, Joshua pulled himself out of the weight training machine. Finding out his genes had been tampered with just to make him a soldier was depressing. He struggled to reconcile himself to the idea that he probably never had parents. In a way, it made the loss of his adopted mother even more acute. For a time, he had been someone’s son. He drew in a breath and closed his eyes for a moment. His mom would say he was still someone’s son. He knew she would if she were here. He might just be a tool to the Nostekoi, but nothing they did could break what he had with his parents and his sister. They belonged to him.
He wondered if Caina and his dad were safe. He hoped that they were taking care of each other, that Caina was able to overcome her grief. He knew she missed him, maybe even believed he and Cristian were dead. He knew she’d fallen in love with Cristian, but there was nothing he could do to help either of them. It was all he could do to keep Cristian alive.
He had five minutes to shower and dress. The bright, sterile training rooms were all part of a large honeycomb of glass enclosures. The showers afforded some privacy, but that was the only place. He stepped into the locker room and stripped off his clothes, dropping them on the floor. They’d be picked up by bots as soon as he left, something his parents had never allowed in their house. Pick up your own clothes, his mother had told him time and again. He bent down and picked up his clothes, laying them on a bench. He didn’t know when her funeral happened. He sometimes dreamt that she was still alive.
He stepped under one of the spigots that lined the wall. Cold water gushed out, and he shivered, letting the soapy water wash over him. He scrubbed at his body with the hard sponge stuck in a cubby. He didn’t remember the pleasure of a hot shower. That had been before.
Out of the cold water, he stepped into the rush of air that dried him off and left him shivering again. A few others stepped into the showers, but he didn’t greet them. He rarely talked at all. He didn’t need to smile all the time to prove the Nostekoi indoctrination had worked. They knew it hadn’t.
He’d been told that the Alliance was unprepared for an alien invasion, and without the Nostekoi intervention, the colonies would vanish without a trace. They called themselves the Nostekoi after the name of the first ship the aliens had attacked. The only survivor had tried to tell other Galactic Alliances, but no one would listen.
His name was Darien Priest, and he had taken what he knew to Castor and Pollux, outlying colonies with military-minded leaders who were willing to heed his warning. Only the generals knew who Darien was. He’d created the Cyphers and built up an army to save mankind, the story went. They rumored that he had silver hair, that it had turned that way prematurely. His word was law, and the generals under him served with fanatic devotion. It was also rumored that you didn’t want to get his attention, if you could help it.
Joshua followed the dogma, but he kept a healthy skepticism. There were too many questions. Why hadn’t he heard of these aliens before, other than the usual sci-fi geek rumors and theories? No galactic Alliance would ignore that kind of threat. And why were the Nos so
bloodthirsty against a people they were supposedly trying to help? None of it added up to him.
He slipped into the black uniform and boots, flipping his wrist over to look at the small scar where they’d injected him with nano transmitters. His red irises glittered with nano recorders. His whole body teemed with nanos performing various tasks for the Nos. They knew every move he made. If they couldn’t read his thoughts, they at least made a convincing case that they could. When he refused to train, they brought out a battered Cristian so he would never make that mistake again. They didn’t even bother to threaten to beat Cristian, they just did it. So Joshua trained when he was told, ate when and what he was told to, and slept when he was told. Cristian’s survival depended on his perfect, exact obedience, and he made sure the Nos never had a reason to hurt Cristian again.
Other than seeing him that one time Joshua was not allowed to have any contact with Cristian. Sometimes he demanded to see him. Sometimes they let him, but never in person, and Cristian never knew that Joshua was there. They kept Cristian in a sterile little cell with a vid game so he wouldn’t go insane.
Joshua went past the locker wall and out into the corridor. A familiar figure walked toward him, her long black hair swaying behind her as she walked, her red eyes finding his. Nixa didn’t speak to him, but he was sure she remembered him. He had shot her, after all. He didn’t know much about her, even after all these months. He knew most of the Cyphers were there because they’d grown up with the Nostekoi, and had trained since they were young. A few of them were like Joshua, experiments in colonial immersion that had to be re-educated. He wasn’t sure which category Nixa belonged in. If she resented the Nos, she hid it well.
A low signal hummed in his auditory implant. He turned on his heel, going to the transporter bay. He could hear Nixa following him. She would have heard the same signal in her own implant.
This would be his third battle. He’d done well the first two times, by his standards. By Nostekoi standards he was a failure—no kills. If he didn’t have one in this engagement there might be trouble for him or Cristian. He didn’t know how long he could continue to play the part of the efficient killer without actually killing anyone. Near misses and maiming didn’t count for the Nos.
