She was so deep in her thoughts Farmer poked her with the stick twice before she realized it was her turn.
“Oh,” she said, “thanks.” He handed the stick to Miranda. She held it for a minute, not really wanting to say anything else, but not knowing what she could add to the conversation. Lights out would be coming soon, and there were three more people after her that had to talk before they could close out the circle. Everyone was waiting on her. She gulped and looked at the Chaplain. His eyes had an expectancy. She knew this would be her one shot.
There were only five Chaplains assigned to the Care units. Five people for four sectors, each with twenty five units just like hers. That meant they had up to 100 units to care for at any given time. Five people to see over two thousand recruits. That didn’t even count the care of other support staff like the drill sergeants, cooks, and officers. Miranda’s team was lucky to even get a share circle. Most of the time you got thirty minutes on Seventh day to listen to God’s word, then back to the rest areas before the dinner meal and lights out. After that breakdown, the week before, she didn’t know where else to turn.
“I lost my family in a rebel raid,” she said. After that, the words kept flowing. How she’d found their bodies. Why they’d been killed. She let each of the men make up their own minds about it all, keeping her opinions close to her chest. She focused only on the Chaplain. Telling him the story, as if he could absolve her of her guilt at leaving. At still being alive even though three other people had died during BASIC for who knew why.
She skipped over her mission to save the prince, opting to tell the story as if she’d gotten on the transport to BASIC after the recruiting office, instead of what had happened to her.
“I should be dead,” she ended. “Instead I’m here, and I don’t know which is worse.” She said the last line to lighten the mood. Looking around to see if anyone laughed. Farmer had a frown on his face like he was seeing a puzzle where he’d seen a tool before. Sergeant Dan was sitting back in her chair, arms crossed, Miranda imagined. While the Chaplain had tears in his eyes.
“Thank you for sharing,” he said, dabbing away the tears.
“Recruit Dusaller?” Miranda passed the stick to her left, knowing her time was done. She felt better. Part of her hollowness was lighter. Eric had been right. Telling the story helped. Even if just a little bit. These people around her understood. They’d been through similar things, and come from similar places. Maybe they hadn’t lost their families exactly like that, but just being here meant that most of them would never see their parents or siblings in person again. That was the way of the Empire.
They all thanked the Chaplain as he left. He prayed for those that wanted prayer and talked with those that needed another minute outside the circle.
“It’s comforting,” she told Farmer as they both stripped down to their undershorts and shirt.
“What is?” It was the first non sarcastic words he’d ever said to her.
“Having someone here that knows how to listen.”
“That’s his job.” Farmer climbed up into his bunk. Miranda slid into hers.
“I know, but it’s more than that.” She could see Farmer’s outline as the mattress sagged down under his weight.
“Lights out,” Sergeant Dan said. The few that had lingered with the Chaplain raced for their beds. The week ahead would be long, like all the cycles here. Everyone wanted as much rest as possible.
Miranda leaned her head against her pillow and, for the first time since her parents died, fell into a restful sleep.
“Why is she with us again?” Grumpy Farmer complained for the umpteenth time. It was starting to get annoying.
“Miranda was assigned to us for the day because her battle buddy is stuck taking the retake exam,” Miner One replied. There were only two Miners in the platoon; most Miner children were wealthy if their parents survived their time on a planet mine. It was a way to get rich quick, but mostly because few who started survived to split the reward. That meant few of their children joined up, unlike Farmer kids.
“And she’s not there because?”
“I passed,” Miranda said. It was the first time she’d beaten Farmer at anything, and she couldn’t hide her gloat. Farmer being in the remedial class was the best thing that had ever happened to her. Even though they’d missed the same amount of classroom time due to all of Miranda’s visits to med bay, Miranda had passed the exam. Farmer had not. So now he was redoing the hours.
“Really?”
“What can I say? Some people are better at vid learning than others.”
‘Way to keep it cool, Miranda,’ she chided herself.
“That still doesn’t explain why she’s with us,” Grumpy said.
“Like I was saying,” Miner One replied, rolling his eyes, “Farmer was added to our group because she’s short on range training.”
“And we’re on the range today,” Grumpy filled in the blank. “Got you. Okay.” She huffed, but didn’t press anymore.
They stood in line to take a short bathroom break. The latrines were small tubular stations set up on the end of the field markers. There were never enough stalls for the number of needy recruits, but somehow they all got their business done before being called back out onto the field.
Soon enough, it was her turn.
She shifted her rifle up to fit in the tiny tube. Once she’d relieved herself she got out of there as fast as she could. They might have separated the parts, making it environmentally friendly, but that didn’t mean it didn’t stink like a milk cow’s backside on bean day.
Grumpy Farmer was waiting for them over by the sideline. Miner was still using a tube. Miranda tried to unlatch her rifle from her back so she could sit down. It didn’t budge.
“What?” Grumpy Farmer asked in her condescending tone. She sat cross legged, her own rifle across her lap. Miranda fought the urge to slap her.
“It’s jammed,” Miranda said.
“Just give it to me.” Leaning her own rifle to the side, Grumpy tried to pull the weapon from Miranda’s back. It didn’t give. Grumpy stood up and looked at her.
“What the...?” Grumpy pulled again. If Miranda had had her long hair it would have torn at the pull. As it was, Grumpy Farmer shifted Miranda off balance. She fell back onto the other girl. When they untangled Miranda made up her mind to seek help.
“I’m going to take it over to Sergeant Striker and see what’s wrong,” Miranda said. She couldn’t handle another yank like that. Grumpy was stronger than she looked.
“We have to wait.”
“Why?”
“Miner,” Grumpy reminded her. Right. The two of them were her battle buddies for the day.
“Besides, I bet if I just....” Grumpy pressed into Miranda’s back. Something clicked.
“There.” The rifle came free into Grumpy’s hands. Miranda turned around.
“Thanks,” she reached for the weapon. Grumpy went to hand it to her. A high pitched whining noise cut through the air. Miranda didn’t even have time to duck as her rifle exploded in Grumpy’s hands.
Chapter 11
“I don’t understand,” Medic said as he wrapped her hands in bandages. “That should have blown your hands off.” She was back in med bay. Back with her old battle buddy. Farmer had finished his training. Now it was going around the camp. She was officially the girl that blew up the latrines.
She thought, not for the first time, that med bay should give her a stamp holo. So many visits and you get one free. Who was she kidding. She was in BASIC. All med care was paid for by the Empire here. She was just lucky they’d let her take a shower first. Miner sat next to his battle buddy. He was in a brand new uniform, having had his own removed for disposal after his trip in the flying latrine.
“Well it didn’t,” she said. She wanted to cross her arms, but he had them pinned down as he tied the lucky hands up. He whistled.
“Those skin nano’s I prescribed must be stronger than I thought.” He stood up
and looked for another can of the stinky things. Miranda looked around the room. Miranda and Grumpy had been brought to a new part of med bay, away from the hustle and bustle she’d been used to. There were a ton of reasons they might have been separated, but Miranda didn’t want to try guessing. The training was draining away her questioning spirit. If it wasn’t for the fact that someone was out to kill all the Farmers in her unit, she might have not questioned anything ever again.
“Do you think she'll be ok?” Miranda asked. There was hope in her voice, but it rested on his answer. She turned her head so she could see behind her. Grumpy Farmer lay bandaged from head to toe. Not even her eyes were visible. A ventilator pumped air into her lungs.
“We have some nanos here. For cases like her’s, but...” he let the sentence die. Grumpy Farmer was a lost cause to Medic.
“All of us Farmers must seem so fragile to you,” she said, not able to keep the venom from her tone. Medic couldn’t meet her eyes as he bandaged up her hand.
“It’s true,” he confessed, “the Empire stopped inoculating Farmer children a century ago. Budget cuts and all that.”
“The rich stay richer,” Miranda said.
“Maybe,” Medic said, “or maybe the Empire stopped nanoing everyone because they ran out of money, and the poor choose not to spend their own money on it. People don’t think of that when they bash the end of government programs. You can inoculate a kid for the same price as a new vid screen. Makes me wonder which parents choose to afford which, planet bound and colonialist alike.” Medic had a gleam in his eyes. Like he’d seen too much to give in to a simple generalization.
“The price for the stuff might drop if enough people cared to buy it, but what do I know. I’m just a medic. You’re the farmer. Did your parents ever talk about affording nanos for you?” Miranda had to stop and think.
“I can’t remember,” she said. The truth stung more than the nano cream that he lathered on her second hand. “I don’t even remember them talking about it.”
“Not even with your siblings?”
She thought back to when her little sister was born. Mom and Dad had taken her into town on her first birthday for the normal Imperial check up. She didn’t remember anything special.
“How do you know I had siblings?” she asked. He laughed, making the bandage go off at a weird angle. He doubled over her hand he was laughing so hard.
“You are a classic middle child,” Medic said when he could breathe again. He righted the bandage and finished with her hand.
“All done.”
Miranda nodded and looked back at Grumpy Farmer.
“She’s a fighter,” Miranda said, more for her own comfort than Medic’s. She hadn’t liked Grumpy Farmer. But then, she hadn’t really known her. A couple of weeks working and sleeping together, a few life stories shared around a Seventh day circle, did not a friendship make. In all the work to become a soldier, Miranda had isolated herself from her fellow Farmers. She tried not to think about it; the death that seemed to follow her around like a halo of ill fortune. But quiet moments like this opened those doors in her mind she was trying to force shut.
“And so am I,” Miranda said. Medic pulled on Miranda’s arm, forcing her to look back at him.
“The more you fight me, the longer this is going to take.”
Miranda turned back to Medic. He ran a scan, sealing the band aids one last time. They melted into her skin. She could see the small lip between the bandages and her real skin, but she had to look at it at just the right angle.
“There,” he said, “wear that until the next shower cycle and you should be fine.” Miranda frowned. Did these doctor types always live in maybes? It made no sense. Either she would be fine or she wouldn’t be. There was no should.
“Do I need to do anything to them?” she asked.
“No, they will fall off on their own.”
She nodded. Dismissed, she rose and headed for the door.
“Hey Miranda,” he said. She stopped short at the door. Having not heard her first name in forever, it sent a shock to her system.
“I feel like I should warn you. Someone’s out to get you. You should be more careful.” He cleared his throat. “As much as I like seeing you, I would rather not.” He waggled his eyebrows. Miranda got the message.
“I’ll try,” was all she could promise him. It would have to be enough. With the killer still on the loose, anything could happen.
She and Farmer left the med bay once again.
“This is kind of becoming our thing, isn’t it?” Miranda joked.
“What do you mean?” Farmer asked as they picked their way through the sand dunes back to the training field.
“You, me, med bay.” She swung her arms around to emphasize her point.
“Yeah, sure.” An Ironside passed them. Miranda and Farmer saluted. The Ironside saluted back, then kept walking. Miranda wondered which of her three Ironsides it could be. They had one of their drill sergeants with them. Striker.
“Are those the Ironsides that keep interrogating you?” Farmer asked. Miranda shrugged.
“Maybe. Or they could be someone else. Who knows.”
“Yeah, but how many Ironsides are around here?” he pressed. Miranda didn’t give in.
“It’s an Imperial base. How am I supposed to know how many Ironsides are on an Imperial base?” she deflected.
Farmer went back to his questionable silence. Miranda sighed. At least she’d tried to have a conversation with him. Her new initiative to get to know her fellow recruits was starting off with a bang.
“Farmer and Farmer. Get over here now!” Sergeant Dan yelled at them as they approached the parade field. Farmer started to run. He wouldn’t leave her in the dust. Miranda increased her march to his run, matching him step for step.
They arrived, falling back into place with the rest of the troops. Sergeant Dan looked them over and nodded.
“Back to our discussion.” Sergeant Dan went back into the battle she’d been teaching them. Inside Miranda smiled. For the first time she was not called on to do push ups. They had finally done something right. A hot breeze blew red sand in her eyes. She stood there taking it. Just another day in paradise.
Oscar was still missing. Everything inside of her screamed for Miranda to track him down. Tethered to Farmer as she was, she couldn’t even slip away long enough to go to the bathroom, let alone track down her droid. The worst part was no one besides her missed him.
“He’s just a droid. You can pick up another one when you get off planet,” Eric said when she brought it up at their next meeting. He’d been calling her into “interrogations” like this one for him to get updates on any unusual activity that could possibly be sabotage.
“There have been a couple of sprains and a head injury, but nothing life threatening,” she said. “I don’t get it.”
“What?” Eric asked as he jotted notes on what she’d found out to date.”
“Why would he leave like that? Knowing that I can’t come after him. If he doesn’t come back by the time I graduate...” She didn’t want to finish that thought out loud. He would be lost to her. She would be alone. All of that, any of that, would be too much. She looked down at her boots. She’d polished them to a shine that morning only to find them mud splattered by breakfast. The red spots reminded her of blood. A long scratched marred the leather. She sighed. Both the scratches and the mud were outside her control. Not that that mattered. She was responsible for those boots. And if they weren’t shined within an inch of her life, she was going to hear about it.
She wanted to ask them how the investigation was going, what they had learned so far, but that wasn’t her place. Her place was to give her report of the latest attack, so that’s what she did.
They excused her. She went to eat dinner. The latrine explosion was all anyone could talk about.
“I heard that the tube rocketed him twenty feet in the air,” a recruit from the table over said.
“I heard
it was fifty feet.”
“What do you think did it?”
“Carcerus if I know. They don’t tell us nothing.”
“They said he lived.”
“I don’t know if I’d want to live after that,” the other one said.
“But you saw it, right?”
“The geyser? Who could miss it?”
“Everything was soaked with the stuff for miles!”
“I know, right?” The conversation faded back into the general noise of the room. Miranda hid herself in her food, glad that no one was pressing her about it. Soon enough they were in bed. Heads on pillows in sleepless dreams.
Miranda awoke to a screaming voice, which wouldn’t have been unusual, except it wasn’t human. The clear sharp notes of Droid rocketed against her ears. She put her hands over the top of them.
She blinked, dislodging a chunk of sleep from her eye, and sat up in bed. Everyone around her was still sleeping. The scream sounded again. She bent over under the force of it. Tears and snot streamed from her nose.
“What is that?” she wondered.
“Beep, beep, boooop!” an all too familiar voice startled her more awake.
“Oscar!” she cried. She reached forward and hugged the hunk of old scrap metal. She was more awake than ever, even if the dark of the barracks made it impossible to see more than shadows.
“Beep bop boop.”
“What do you mean it can’t wait?” She’d been worried about him. Sick with it. And now he was telling her what to do.
He repeated his first statement.
“Can’t be the dead.” She believed in the Resurrection. Everyone did. That's why bodies were spaced. But what human could speak Droid with that much force? None that she knew. Not even herself, and the only other droid she knew was back at her side.
She wiped her face with her blanket, unsure of what to do next. It was clearly still night, at least the part of it they got to sleep in.
“Get moving,” Oscar beeped. She got out of bed, only to have the sound bring her to her knees as it rang out through the barracks. She tried to listen this time. Not just to the pain, but if there were words in it.
Imperial Hilt (Imperial War Saga Book 2) Page 7
