Garrison Girl

by Rachel Aaron

  * * *

  Emmett was able to pry most of the dents out of her trigger handles. He couldn’t do much about the mangled grips, but he fixed the clamps so that her sword blades wouldn’t fall out. That was something, she supposed, but although he could pry the mechanical parts of her gear into place, he couldn’t do anything about the straps.

  Vertical maneuvering gear was designed to distribute the incredible force required to lift a solider into the air at high speed equally across the person’s body. Proper fit was critical. If the turbine that sat on the small of her back slid to one side during flight, the resulting imbalance could rip her arm off. But even when Rosalie pulled them past their last notch, the straps that cinched the gear to her shoulders were far too loose. When she reached her arms behind her back to see if she could tighten them further, the whole apparatus slid toward the ground, throwing her off balance.

  Emmett was there in a flash, catching the gear’s turbine before it struck the stone courtyard. Rosalie was left to fall, landing painfully on her rear end. Face burning, she looked up to see Willow snickering.

  “Where did you say you trained?” she asked as Rosalie got back to her feet. “You act like you’ve never put on maneuver gear before.”

  “I’ve put it on hundreds of times,” Rosalie snapped. “This is just the wrong size.”

  A few tries and some creative application of twine later, and her gear was in place: two reeled wire coils on either side of her waist, control triggers holstered under her arms where she could grab them easily, sword sheaths hanging from her hips, and the gas-powered turbine that powered the whole thing secured at the small of her back.

  “There,” Emmett said, stepping aside as Rosalie put her white military academy uniform jacket back on. “Try not to put too much weight on your left side, and let’s just hope our sergeant doesn’t send you off the wall today.”

  “I’m going to have a talk with our sergeant,” Rosalie muttered, tugging at the knotted string that kept her straps in place. “It’s an absolute disgrace that any soldier should have to wear this.” She craned her neck, looking around the crowded yard. “Which one is he, anyway?”

  “Don’t know,” Emmett said. “Haven’t seen him yet.”

  With a frustrated huff, Rosalie reached out to pluck the sleeve of a lanky soldier walking toward the mess hall. “Excuse me, do you know where we go to find our officer?”

  “He should have found you,” the soldier said, doing a double take at Rosalie’s polite tone and another when he saw her academy uniform. “You’re one of the new recruits?”

  “Yes,” Rosalie said proudly. “We’re squad thirteen.”

  “Thirteen?”

  He said that the way someone else would say ‘firing squad,’ and Rosalie shifted nervously. “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” the soldier said, shaking his head. “But you might want to notify your next of kin. Squad thirteen is Jax’s unit, and his soldiers never finish a tour.”

  “What does that mean?” Willow demanded, pushing her way forward.

  “He means they’re dead,” said a new voice.

  The soldier who’d been talking to them froze. From his expression, you’d have thought a titan had climbed over the wall. When Rosalie turned around, though, she only saw a man.

  The sergeant was just a hand taller than she was, but the way he stood made Rosalie feel like he was looming over them. He was dressed in the same tan uniform and maneuvering gear as the rest of the Garrison, but he wore his like he never took it off. His thick black hair was ragged, as if he cut it himself using a dagger and no mirror. The sergeant didn’t look that much older than she was, but his face was hard in the way Rosalie associated with grizzled veterans. Pity, too, because he would have been handsome if he’d been a bit softer. He had a good, strong jaw, and his nose, though once broken, was still mostly straight. A smile would have helped enormously, but the man didn’t look like he did that very often. The only lines on his face were from scowling, as he was now, glaring at the gossiping soldier with blue eyes that looked more like chips of broken glass than anything that belonged in a human face.

  “Finished?” he asked the lanky soldier.

  The soldier didn’t reply. He just turned and bolted.

  “Sergeant?”

  The hard blue eyes flicked to her, and Rosalie flinched before she could stop herself. “My name is Rosalie Dumarque, and—”

  “Don’t care,” he said, turning to address Willow and Emmett instead. “I’m Sergeant Jackson Cunningham. It’s my responsibility to keep you idiots in line so long as you’re on my wall. I’ve only got two rules: do your job, and don’t talk back. Stick to those, and we won’t have any problems.”

  “Yes, sir,” Rosalie said, pressing her fist against her chest in salute. “As I was saying, I’m Rosalie—”

  “Did I ask?” he snapped, whipping back to her. “I’ll get your name when I want it, Private Rich Girl. Right now, the only thing I want is for you to get your fancied-up carcass to the top of that wall. We’ve got a cannon that needs to be moved, and it ain’t going to push itself.”

  “But we’re still one short, sir,” Willow said. “A wall squad should have five—”

  “I know how many soldiers are in a bleeding squad,” Jax snarled. “But the new recruits broke up unevenly, so I volunteered to take the short straw.” He glowered at Rosalie. “The very short straw.”

  Willow gaped at him. “You mean you’re going to make us do a full squad’s work with only four people?”

  “Yes,” he said, turning his glare on her. “That’s the job. Do it or get out.”

  Willow snapped her mouth shut. Emmett said nothing. When Rosalie remained quiet as well, Jax nodded like he’d won and pointed at the stairs. “We’re moving cannons today. If you work half as well as you complain, we’ll be done in time for dinner. Now move!”

  * * *

  The cannon was already on the track when they got there.

  It was a big one, too. Not quite as large as the twelve-pounders pointed at the closed gate on the street below, but the iron barrel was still as long as Rosalie was tall. Add the wooden brace that kept it locked to the iron rails running along the top of the wall, and the whole thing had to weigh a ton, which made the fact that Jax expected the four of them to move it all the more insane.

  “Right,” Jax said, resting his hand on the cannon’s iron muzzle. “Our orders are to move this big bastard two kilometers to the wall’s western bend. Blonde Girl and Freckles, you push first. When one of you drops, Short Boy there will take over.”

  Rosalie couldn’t believe it. “You expect the two of us to push that?”

  “I expect you to follow orders,” Jax said, looking down on her. “It only gets harder from here, Private, so if you have a problem, I suggest you find somewhere else to play.”

  Narrowing her eyes, Rosalie stomped around him and positioned herself behind the cannon. Willow joined her a few seconds later, her previously sour face looked decidedly nervous as she placed her hands beside Rosalie’s on the cart. But no matter how they tried, the cannon didn’t move.

  “Push…Dumarque…” Willow gasped. “Pretend…you’re shoving a…butler down the stairs…”

  “I am pushing,” Rosalie gasped. “It’s supposed to take…five people to…”

  Emmett moved to help, but Jax stopped him, reaching out to give the cannon a push with his own boot instead. The extra shove was enough to finally to get the thing rolling, creaking down the rails at a snail’s pace.

  “Come on,” Jax chided, strolling beside Rosalie and Willow as they struggled to keep the momentum going. “We’ll be up here all night if you don’t put your backs into it.”

  Rosalie kept her mouth shut and her head down, forcing the cannon down the rails through sheer stubbornness.

  Willow was having a harder time of it.

  “This is…ridiculous,�
� she panted, her freckled face bright red with exertion. “We’re going to…pull something…if we keep this up.”

  “We can do it,” Rosalie whispered back, blinking the sweat out of her eyes. “He’s just hazing us.”

  “He’s…killing us…” Willow flopped forward against the cannon. “I can’t anymore,” she gasped. “Just bury me here.”

  “Don’t stop,” Rosalie hissed, grabbing her. “That’s exactly what he wants us to—”

  A shadow fell over them.

  “What’s this?” Jax asked in an infuriatingly superior voice. “Slacking already?”

  “She’s not slacking, sir,” Rosalie said, glaring up at him. “The cannon’s just too heavy. We need help.”

  “Sorry, Princess,” he said, leaning closer. “We ain’t got no servants up here. Pushing cannons is part of the job. If you can’t do the work, get off the wall.”

  At that, Willow’s flushed face went white and Rosalie gritted her teeth. “It’s not failure if two people can’t do a job meant for five,” she said angrily. “If you actually care about moving the cannon, perhaps you should assign the correct number of soldiers to the job. Sir.”

  “Big words from someone who can’t even be bothered to put on the correct uniform,” Jax snapped back, reaching out to smack the gold fringe sewn onto Rosalie’s sleeves. “You joined the Garrison, not a costume party. Where’s that get-up from, anyway? The Fancy Lady’s Pony Club?”

  “It’s the uniform of the Royal Military Academy,” Rosalie said proudly, “where I graduated first in my—”

  “The Royal Military Academy,” Jax repeated mockingly. “Oh, well, a thousand pardons, Your Grace. You, short stack.” He pointed at Emmett, who’d been hovering behind Willow to catch her if she fell. “Take over for her ladyship. It seems her hands are too delicate for cannon pushing.”

  “I can do my job!” Rosalie said angrily, holding her ground as Emmett tried to take her place behind the cannon. “I just can’t do one meant for three other people!”

  “Yet you complain enough for five,” Jax said, pushing her out of the way as he stepped behind the cannon. When he was in position, he ordered Willow to move as well, “before she had a heart attack.”

  Unlike Rosalie, the medic didn’t argue. She gladly stepped aside, clutching her chest as she struggled for breath. Emmett took his place beside Jax, looking nervously at the giant cannon in front of them. Rosalie still didn’t see how they were going to move it. Emmett wasn’t any bigger than Willow, and though Jax was definitely bigger than Rosalie, he wasn’t superhuman. Or, at least, that’s what she’d assumed before he braced his feet and shoved the cannon down the rails.

  “And that’s…how it’s done,” he said through gritted teeth, walking the cannon down the rails at a slow—but still much faster—pace. “That’s how…a soldier works. Learn something from it, and maybe today won’t be a waste.”

  Rosalie couldn’t say a word. She was too busy gaping at Jax, who, despite Emmett’s best efforts, was basically pushing the cannon by himself.

  “Wow,” Willow said. “He’s strong.” She wiped her brow with her sleeve. “No wonder they let him go out a man short. He’s like two soldiers.”

  Rosalie nodded silently, hurrying down the wall before Jax accused her of slacking again.

  * * *

  Jax pushed the cannon all the way to the two-kilometer mark. The moment he locked it into position, Rosalie hopped up behind it. Determined to make up for her failure as a cannon pusher, she threw herself into preparing the gun for battle. Turning the crank on the side, she lowered the cannon to the optimal firing position. She even leveled it off, using the smaller fine adjustment crank to maneuver the barrel to a perfect forty-five degrees.

  When the gun was where she wanted it, she leaned over the wall’s edge to note the elevation of this particular section compared to those around it. Height and drop off were important variables if you wanted the cannon’s explosive shells to hit a titan’s neck, the only target that would kill it. With that in mind, Rosalie went ahead and triangulated what she felt was the most likely shot—directly ahead, twenty meters from the wall’s base—and scratched the firing angle into the cannon’s wooden brace with the point of her pocket knife. She was trying to think of anything else she could do to be useful when Emmett came over to join her.

  “Nice math,” he said, looking down her sighted barrel. “But how did you figure out the shot without a reference?”

  “The wall is the reference,” Rosalie replied, tapping her foot on the stone. “No matter where you are, the walls are always fifty meters tall. Twenty meters out from the base is the sweet spot for accuracy on this make of gun, so by putting those two together, I was able—”

  “To calculate the firing angle,” Emmett finished, flashing her a huge smile. “Nice.”

  Rosalie beamed proudly. “My advanced cannoneering instructor made us triangulate firing angles on demand every day for three years. If you got it wrong, you had to run twenty laps. I hated laps, so I learned not to be wrong.”

  “If you spent so much time studying cannons, why’re you so bad at pushing them?”

  Rosalie jumped. She hadn’t heard him approach, but when she turned around, Jax was right behind her.

  “Isn’t this our lucky day?” he said, his blue eyes colder than ever. “We got our very own expert come down from Wall Sina to teach us how to point a cannon.”

  The sneer in his voice made Rosalie bristle. “With respect, sir, I wasn’t trying to brag. I was only answering Emmett’s question.”

  “Why shouldn’t you brag?” he asked mockingly. “You’ve got advanced training. How kind of you, Miss Sina, coming all the way down here to share your knowledge with us lowly wall guards. Should I prostrate myself at your feet now or later?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” she said furiously. “And my name is Rosalie.”

  “Your name’s whatever I say it is, Private,” Jax said, his voice low and dangerous. “Right now, it’s Disappointment. I’d have thought an elite solider from the Royal Military Academy would have herself together, but you can’t even put your vertical maneuvering gear on straight. Just look at this.”

  His hand darted down, snatching something off Rosalie’s belt. By the time she moved to stop him, Jax was already dangling one of the metal gas canisters that powered her maneuvering gear carelessly from his fingers.

  “Here’s your problem,” he said, holding the silver cylinder just out of her reach. “I’m sure you had servants to take care of this sort of thing back at the Royal Academy, but here on my wall, you’re responsible for your own gear. Leave it flapping about, and—” He snapped his hand back, tossing her gas canister over his shoulder. “—it could fall off anywhere.”

  Rosalie’s stomach lurched. The silver metal canister spun through the air, flashing in the sunlight. She jumped to grab it, but it was far too late. The canister had already sailed over the Maria side of the wall. She sprinted to the edge just in time to see it land with a distant clatter in a copse of overgrown bushes at the edge of the field below.

  “Oh no,” Jax said. “Now look what your carelessness has done.”

  “My carelessness?” She whirled on him. “You did that on purpose!”

  Jax didn’t bother to deny it. He just looped his fingers through his belt and sneered down at her with a look of hatred so deep, Rosalie had no idea where it had come from. “Go get it,” he ordered.

  Rosalie swallowed.

  “Um, sir,” Emmett said nervously. “Going off the wall on the titan side is strictly—”

  “Did I ask your opinion?” Jax said, keeping his eyes on Rosalie. “This is between me and Princess Dumarque.”

  Emmett cringed at the threat in his voice, and Rosalie crossed her arms over her chest. “So you do know my name.”

  “I could hardly miss it with the way you were telling everyone,” Jax said. “But yo
ur fancy breeding won’t do you any good out here. I don’t bother listening to Woermann’s speeches anymore, but I’m sure the old skinflint’s policy of putting equipment over soldiers hasn’t changed. A lost canister’s enough to get you docked half pay for the rest of the year, not that soldier’s pay matters to someone like you. I’m sure your daddy can buy you out of any trouble, but I don’t need spoiled little rich girls who are only here for tourism in my squad.”

  “That’s not why I’m here,” Rosalie said, stepping forward. “I—”

  “I don’t care!” Jax yelled in her face. “You want to shoot the big cannon and kill a titan for your trophy collection, do it on your own time! But so long as you’re on this wall, you’ll do your bloody job just like the rest of us. Now get down there and get your equipment, ’cause I ain’t getting it for you!”

  “Fine!” she yelled, grabbing her spare gas canister and screwing it into her maneuvering gear. When the rubber seal locked into place, she grabbed her worn-out control handles from their holsters and stepped to the edge of the wall. “Be right back.”

  “Wait!” Emmett cried. “There’s a—”

  But Rosalie had already jumped, falling straight down the wall toward the dead grass below.

  If she hadn’t been so angry, she would have felt terrified. For all the hundreds of hours she’d spent training in vertical maneuvering gear, jumping off a tower was a far cry from plummeting off Wall Rose wearing mangled gear that was probably older than she was. The first time she squeezed the triggers, nothing happened. It wasn’t until she squeezed with all her might that the cables finally fired, shooting from the coils at her hips to stab their barbed hooks into the stone of the wall.

  The sudden stop a second later when the line caught was enough to knock her breath out. Her body was used to being jerked around, but she’d fallen a lot farther than she meant to. She was dangling only five meters above the ground. If she’d cut it any closer, she would have landed splat in the grass.