by Susan Kelley
After checking Vin’s vitals again and finding them unchanged, Emma used his hand to open the computer again. Her stepfather had never learned to live frugally and would be tapping into the mining company’s earnings. She sent a message to the company accountant, questioning her investments. Anyone could trace her location from such a direct contact. How long until the admiral came for her?
* * * *
Vin feigned unconsciousness and watched Emma from beneath his lashes. She glanced at him now and then, but mostly she concentrated on his artificial intelligence device. Her mouth turned down as if reading something unpleasant.
He drifted to sleep and each time Emma moved he woke up. Numerous parts of his body hurt, but something, perhaps drugs, softened the pain. Probably why he sank into sleep … and then woke up when she walked toward him. The soft light from the ceiling lamp gleamed on a vial in her hand. She lifted it toward the intravenous bag hanging above his shoulder. He snagged her hand as she reached up.
Emma gasped and the vial clattered to the floor. A smile curved her lips. “By the strength of your grip, I guess you’re feeling better.” She twisted her hand so the tiny bones of her wrist turned beneath his hand.
Vin released her, not sure if she meant he held her too tight or if she only commented on his health. Pain spiked outward from so many places on his torso, he couldn’t differentiate how many wounds he’d sustained. “I’m awake.”
Emma’s smile broadened. “So you don’t feel better?”
“I feel worse than I did when I walked out on the street today.” Vin noted that no sun light filtered in through the small windows in the front of the room. “Is it still the same day?”
She bent down and picked up the vial. “It’s nearly the next day. You lost so much blood I wasn’t sure you would ever wake up. I used up all my stores on you and stole from your supply. It’s time for a dose of pain meds so you can rest and get your strength back.”
“Is it stealing if you told me you took it?” Vin glanced at the AI computer.
Emma’s face darkened. Anger or embarrassment? “I saw your computer when I went for medicine in your room. We’re pretty isolated from the rest of mankind here, and I wondered what might be happening out there. I should have asked first but you weren’t saying much.”
Her answer made sense even to his drug befuddled mind, but he’d discovered in his travels that most civilians didn’t care about what happened in the wider universe unless it touched their own settlements. The likelihood of her using the computer to discover his secret seemed unlikely. He’d melded so smoothly into Hovel Port, hiding his discomfort and differences without giving away his identity. “No one else was hurt by the drones?”
Emma set her hand on his bare shoulder, and Vin suddenly realized he was completely unclothed beneath the thin blanket. “You saved all those children, Vin. Everyone is grateful beyond their ability to express. Vannie sat outside all day to give reports on your condition as everyone in town stopped by at least once.”
Vin started to sit up, but Emma’s small hand held more strength than he’d expected. His weakened condition couldn’t overcome her insistence he stay prone.
“Lay still or you’ll open those wounds. At the least you’ll pass out.”
Vin sighed and relaxed back. Skin and muscle protested his attempt, shrieking in quiet agony. He wouldn’t pass out but a few more hours of recovery might improve his body’s status tenfold. “You must tell everyone to stay off the streets. There could be more drones.”
“I’ll have Vannie and Moe spread the word, but it’s rain day so not many people are out except to check on you. Perhaps the weather will keep the drones grounded too.”
“They work on heat signatures and simple laser avoidance systems. They can operate in anything. People should stay away from their windows too. Regular glass won’t hide living things from their scanners.”
Emma’s face paled, amazing Vin with the range of emotions her beautiful face revealed. If only he could interpret them.
“You mean those machines targeted the children on purpose?” she whispered.
“They targeted anything warm that was outside. I don’t see why they would specifically try to kill children. It would serve no strategic purpose in weakening your settlement.”
“No purpose!”
Vin analyzed what he’d said, wondering what had caused her fierce reaction. Had he revealed too much military knowledge? “It would make more sense to kill men like the traps in the river intended.”
Emma took a deep breath and then spoke in a slow, tight manner. “Vin, killing the children would weaken Hovel Port by taking away the hearts of the adults. It takes away any reason to fight. The people here with children are trying to build a future for them. Without their children, they wouldn’t care about a future.”
Understanding swamped Vin. For a very short time, he’d planned a future with Yalo and their child. The tiny being in her womb had represented everything he’d ever dreamed of, love, a home, and a real life free of war and killing. Then they’d been taken away from him. “Losing their children would leave vengeance as a reason to go on.”
Emma carried the vial back to the cupboard. She kept her back to him as she spoke. “Not everyone is the kind of person who overcomes tragedy by seeking revenge. And most people who satisfy their need for vengeance find their lives as empty as the first moment of their loss. Revenge helps no one.”
“It stops people from hurting anyone else.” Vin already knew vengeance wouldn’t fill the hollow spot inside him.
She turned back to him and nodded. “Some people do need to be stopped. I’ll go tell Moe to spread the word about staying off the streets. Maybe everyone should stay home tomorrow after the rain stops.”
Vin closed his eyes and tried to rest after Emma left. Usually he could sleep whenever the need arose. But between the pain spiraling higher and higher and his need to figure out Emma’s words, sleep eluded him. He pushed with his arms and managed to sit up and swing his legs over the side of the raised bed.
Everything hurt between his neck and his waist. Thick dressings covered his entire torso. Luckily the drones carried only small rounds. A larger caliber would have blown him to bits.
He grunted to suppress a cry as he set his feet on the cold wooden floor. He tugged the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around his waist, tying up the corners so it wouldn’t trip him. Sweat beaded on his skin. By the time he reached the door, perspiration ran from under his hair and down his neck. The few steps outside in the damp air to the door of his shop felt like a mile uphill. Not even the cold wind blowing with the rain could cool his straining body. He paused a moment to check the street, listening for drones and the movement of people. Quiet except for the patter of the diminishing rain and the hiss of water striking and running off roofs and trees.
His shop stood dark but welcoming with its solitude and orderliness. Irregular crumbled shapes covered his work tables. The crashed drones. He could backtrack their flight plans though there seemed only one possible origin. Someone at the Hadrason Mining complex had to have sent the drones though Vin still couldn’t figure out why the commercial monster cared about Hovel Port.
Vin’s body yearned for rest and relief from the pain, but his mind conjured images of the children of Hovel Port being struck by the bullets instead of him. Even one of the high velocity rounds might have been lethal for their tiny, soft bodies. He went to the first drone and switched on the overhead lamp he’d fixed days ago. Whoever had sent the weapon would answer for waging war on children.
* * * *
Emma found him sitting on a high stool and leaning over the remains of a drone. The white bandages on his torso and the blanket around his hips set off his bronzed skin and lean physique. The bright light shining on his bent head caused his dark hair to gleam. Just as she opened her mouth to lecture him, he spoke.
“I need my AI unit.”
“AI?”
“The device you borrowe
d from me isn’t a simple computer. It’s the latest artificial intelligence techno tablet. Could you return it to me?” His face appeared gaunt beneath the unforgiving light, and lines of pain bracketed his mouth.
“You need to be in bed.” But when Emma started toward him, he held up his hand.
“I need my AI. Please get it for me.”
Emma hesitated while he stared at her with a calmness that didn’t hide the steel keeping him upright. She hurried to her surgery and grabbed the device, cradling it to protect it from the rain. AI devices cost a small fortune. She’d thought it a simple computer. Hopefully Vin wouldn’t check her activities on it.
Vin took it from her without a word and opened a port on the side of it.
She walked around him, checking the integrity of the bandages while watching his stiff movements. He reached into the wreckage of the drone and tugged out a wire with a connector on the end. He stuck it into the port, and the screen of the AI lit up.
Vin touched the screen here and there, his fingers moving rapidly from one command to another. Emma looked over his shoulder. The first thing that came up showed a topographical map between Hadrason Mining and Hovel Port. Vin taped something and a jagged line appeared connecting the two.
He pointed to the line. “This is the route programmed into the drone.” He touched it again, and a line of code popped up beside the route. “These are the instructions on the command chip. This is an old-fashioned man hunter drone, used to fight pirates on hostile planets. This code instructed the machine to detect animal heat sources within the borders of Hovel Port and shoot them.”
“Those bastards!”
Vin raised an eyebrow but continued to search the memory of the drone. “I might be able to use the AI to research the sale of these drones. The military keeps track of them, but they’re not supposed to be in the possession of civilians so they’re probably stolen or were purchased on the black market.”
Emma watched Vin now instead of the screen. How could they have thought he was brain damaged? When he worked at things he was comfortable with, his intelligence was as obvious as his male beauty.
“Hell.” Vin’s soft curse called her attention back to the screen. A video rolled, showing the Hovel Port’s fence and then the street as the drone tore down it.
Emma gasped as the drone focused on the children. Then she and Vin arrived in the street, the quality camera capturing their likenesses in full focus. The video took a sharp turn down and the image was the street rushing toward it as it crashed.
Awe grew in Emma after seeing how fast the drones had moved. Reading about Vin’s abilities and actually seeing him in action were two entirely different things. When the attack happened, she’d been too terrified to appreciate the near impossibility of his marksmanship.
“The video feed went back to the person who’d programmed the drones.” Vin touched the screen, bringing up the route and map again. He manipulated the picture, enlarging it until the origin came into view. A tall building filled the screen filled the screen. “And that’s where the video feed went to.”
“Hell.” Emma repeated Vin’s earlier curse. “Someone saw us both.”
Vin’s fingers flew across the screen. A list scrolled down the device, an accounting of the research on Vin Emma had done while he slept. He looked at her, wincing a bit as he twisted to face her. “I guess we both know why I don’t want anyone to have me on video. Why do you care if someone saw you?”
Emma looked into his clear gray eyes and thought about him putting his body between bullets and a small child. “I’m hiding out.”
Vin raised an eyebrow and waited.
“My stepfather is looking for me, and I don’t want to be found.” Though that was no longer quite true.
Vin turned back to the AI and brought up a picture. “Your father, Admiral Ben Lester.”
“Stepfather,” she corrected him, moving up to lean on the table beside him so she could see his face.
Vin gave her one of his confused looks. “What is a step? I’ve heard this about your father before? Is it an ethnic identifier?”
Emma bit her lip but managed not to smile. “He’s my stepfather because he married my mother. My real father died when I was a child and a few years later my mother married the admiral.” She waited while Vin turned the information about in his convoluted brain.
“Stepfather as in a bit removed from the role of father.”
“Yes.” His insightful description amazed Emma.
“So he took your father’s place?”
“Not to me and only for a little while for my mother until she figured out what type of man he is.”
“So you have no blood in common with Lester?”
“No blood and nothing else. I despise him. So now you know about me, Recon Marine. Did you come here for me?”
Vin tapped the picture on the AI screen. “I came here for him.”
Chapter Nine
Vannie and Moe came through the door before Emma could pursue Vin’s blunt statement. “I think you should be in bed, lad,” Moe said.
“Probably.” Vin pulled another wired connector from the drone and plugged it into his computer. A long list of coded commands lit the screen. “This is the frequency of modar waves used to keep the drones in touch with their operators.”
“Can you change them?” Vannie asked.
Vin looked around the shop. “Not with what I have here but I can interfere with them.”
For the next hour, Vin directed Vannie and Moe to bring him gadgets and tools from around the large room. Twice he sent Emma upstairs to bring him devices totally foreign to her experience. Each time she brought him a drink of water. He drank it and nodded his thanks. But with each passing minute, his battered body sagged, his military posture faltering. She wanted to demand he stop but understood the necessity of his work. They used him to protect themselves as the Recon Marines had always been used.
Vin tore apart some things and put them together in others. A little wired board here snapped into a panel there. Lines were spliced, solar cells rigged together and water-proofed housing sealed tight. Finally two finished boxes sat harmlessly on the table, emitting no sound, light or other indication that they functioned. “Place one in the middle of the street inside the north and the south gates. They’ll confuse the drones and prevent them from carrying out their functions. But everyone should stay alert. The drones could crash when they encounter interference.”
“You’re sure they’ll work?” Moe asked as he and Vannie each picked up one of the devices.
Vin frowned. “Of course. Why would I make them if they wouldn’t work?”
Emma interrupted before Moe could answer. “You two put those down and help me get Vin into his bed. Right now.” She glared at all three men, daring any of them to protest.
For once Vin seemed to understand her expression. He pushed himself up from the bench but would have fallen if not for Moe’s quick catch of his arm.
The two big men each took one of Vin’s arms and helped him to the stairs with Emma following close behind. Vin lifted his foot to the first step and then wilted as if his knees had melted.
“We got you, lad.” Vannie said, taking Vin’s shoulders while Moe picked up his feet. Despite the narrow stairway, they managed to carry Vin to his cot.
After laying Vin on the bed, Moe looked around the loft and shook his head. “This boy has some real control issues. Not a damned thing out of place. Don’t know if I like you being here alone with him, Emma, since finding out what he is. Who knows what a man like him is capable of doing?”
“What he was.” Emma had shared Vin’s secret with her two friends only hours ago. It was only fair they knew what Vin’s story was so they’d stop thinking him brain-damaged. “What he’s capable of is saving the children of this town and doing his best to protect the rest of us. Now go set up those devices he thought so important to make he worked on them until he passed out.”
Moe and Vannie clopped dow
n the steps, muttering about stubborn women but obeying her anyway.
Emma checked Vin’s bandages, careful not to wake him. Perhaps Recon Marines had extraordinary constitutions enabling them to function beyond the limits of human endurance but Vin had pushed even those boundaries. If she hadn’t been sure of Vin’s identity before, the last few hours would have convinced her.
In sleep Vin still looked dangerous and alert. She didn’t doubt if enemies rushed up the stairs, Vin would find a way to rise from his bed and put his body between her and them. Such self-sacrifice, while noble, went beyond normal. Was she a good enough doctor, a good enough person and friend, to teach Vin that his life had equal value to those he would give it for?
* * * *
Vin woke every time Emma moved. Though the AI screen made no noise as she tapped it, she shifted on the wooden chair now and then. For some reason, her continuing presence comforted him and eased him back into healing sleep.
After a few hours, his body demanded he take care of some basic needs. Emma hovered at his side as he levered himself out of the bed and wrapped the blanket around his hips. She then walked beside him to the tiny bathing room. He kept her outside the door with a shake of his head, but she waited there until he came out.
“Are you hungry?” she asked as he took a seat on the edge of the bed.
“Yes, but we should talk first.” Vin reached into the shelf nearest the bed and pulled out a clean pair of underwear. Emma looked away while he pulled them on. “How did you guess who I am?”
Emma smiled, too much kindness in her face for him to believe she laughed at him. “I knew there was something different about you from the first time I saw you in the café. You were too watchful.”
“Watchful?”
“As if everyone around you might be an enemy. And the odd answers you give to questions.”
“I do?”
Emma’s smile grew to a grin. “Moe and Vannie thought you were a retired soldier suffering from some kind of brain injury.”
“My intelligence quotient is quite high.”
