“Sir?” Aris asked, after she’d done two loops above the village.
“Turn on your heat sensor,” came the reply.
Dysis touched the nav, and a red-purple glow filled the cabin. In the center of the village, a group of strong signals revealed the presence of the injured soldiers. Elsewhere, deep purple blobs showed the buildings that were still aflame.
“Center of the village.” Aris gave Major Vidar the coordinates.
As he commenced the retrieval, Aris circled above, scanning for any signs of the enemy. On her third pass, she noticed something on the nav screen. At the end of the far eastern row of houses, a slight hint of pink.
“Do you see that?” She pointed to the spot.
Dysis nodded. “Yeah. Looks like we missed a couple.”
“Sir, we’ve got another heat sig, to the east.”
“We’re almost done here. Stand by,” Major Vidar said.
“The heat signature’s weak, sir,” she replied.
“Hold your position.”
She followed the transport’s progress on the nav panel as Lieutenant Wolfe returned to the air, then flew down toward the house with the faint pink glow.
Vidar’s voice crackled over the radio, startling her. “Need you on the ground this time, Haan. Debris on the landing pad. There’s a small clearing behind the building, just to the south of a patch of trees. Can you make that work?”
Aris dipped toward the house, studying the topography on the nav panel. “Yes, sir.”
“The soldiers we recovered said they have two men unaccounted for. They were sent to confirm that all civilians were evacuated. We need to get them out of there.”
“Will do, sir.” Aris slid into a hover above the open space.
“Easy now,” Dysis whispered. Her hands clutched the gun controls and she kept staring out of the glass toward the ground, as if she could see through the darkness.
With a jolt, the wingjet touched down.
“Report as soon as you find the soldiers,” Major Vidar said. “We’ll look for another landing spot, where we can transfer them to the transport.”
“Understood, sir.” Aris touched the nav panel, and the dome hissed open. Taking a deep breath, she flicked a glance at Dysis. “Ready?”
Dysis nodded. They slowly emerged from the recon, solaguns held at the ready.
Cold pricks of rain stung Aris’s face. Her helmet protected her head, but the wind still tore through her clothes, leaving an icy chill. The air was thick with the smell of mud and mold.
After listening for any sign of movement, Dysis flipped on her solar-powered torch.
One side of the roof had collapsed, but the entrance was clear. The open door thudded rhythmically against the remains of the wall.
“Do you see anything?” Aris whispered as she followed Dysis into the entryroom.
The torch light flicked across a broken table streaked with rain, a mud-splattered tile floor, and what looked like shattered plates, bits of food still clinging to them.
The shiver of unease under Aris’s skin intensified. “Major Vidar, do you know if the soldiers found civilians?”
Dysis stepped further into the house, sweeping the torch before her in slow, steady arcs.
“No, but I’ll find out,” Vidar said. “Keep moving, Specialist. The signals are fading.”
Aris swallowed as she stared at the destruction; every room they walked through was torn apart, water pouring through still-smoking holes in the roof. In one, a dollhouse had fallen on its side, tiny furniture and figurines scattered across the floor.
“There,” Dysis said quietly. The light touched on another open door, with the black hole of a stairwell beyond.
A chunk of solar panel tumbled through a hole in the roof, crashing to the tile floor in a rumble of noise and water. Aris sucked in a breath and tried to keep the solagun in her hands steady. Behind her, something popped. She whirled, weapon raised, but it was only a broken lamp in its death throes, flashing and hissing in the whisper of the rain.
“Still no other heat signatures, sir?” She panned her torch back and forth, wishing the light could fill the dark corners. There were too many places where someone could hide.
“Losing the signals we do have.”
“Got my back, Mosquito?” Dysis asked, before descending into the basement.
Aris took another deep breath. “Right behind you.”
Dysis stopped so suddenly at the bottom of the stairs Aris bumped into her. “What?” she whispered. She couldn’t see past the taller girl’s shoulders.
Slowly, Dysis moved out of the way.
In the pale light of the torch, Aris saw an overturned bench. Behind it, a series of humps scattered across the floor.
“Are those . . .” Aris’s light revealed more details. Two Atalantan soldiers sprawled on the floor, face down, their legs spread straight. Behind them, a woman, her faded blue eyes wide, mouth open in a soundless scream. A man’s red-clothed arm flung out toward her. And between them, so small and pale in the shaking torchlight, a girl. She was lying on her side, as if sleeping, the front of her lovely white dress stained black with blood.
“By all that is holy . . .” Aris whispered. It was a plea, soft as a breath, painful as a scream.
Dysis moved quickly to check for pulses, to assess their wounds, but Aris stood frozen, staring at the little girl. As Dysis bent over the open, unseeing eyes, Aris felt a wave of ice crackle and snap through her, from her head to her heart to her shaking knees. She should be over there, helping . . . she needed to . . .
“We’ve landed and are heading to your location.” Major Vidar’s voice filled her head as darkness threatened to overwhelm her. “Report!”
Dysis stood from where she’d crouched by the bodies. Their eyes met.
“They’re dead, sir.” Dysis’s voice was quiet, but it didn’t shake. “Two soldiers. And . . .” She swallowed. “ . . . and a family. There’s a child, sir. No more than five years old. They were all shot in the back of the head. Recently. They’re still warm.” Light flashed along the mottled bundles of clothing. Dysis’s hand, the one that held the torch, was trembling. “They were executed, sir.”
Aris couldn’t breathe.
She stumbled up the stairs, banging her knee and bruising her hand as she tripped. With a hoarse sob, she fell out of the darkness and into the rain.
Strong arms grabbed her, hauling to her feet. She screamed.
All her training, everything she’d learned, left her. She scratched and writhed, shrieking, as she struggled to escape, tears soaking her cheeks. In that moment, everything about her that was Aristos broke, exposing who—and what—she really was.
Without warning, the restraining arms released her and she fell hard against the shattered tile floor. A figure loomed over her.
Major Vidar.
Chapter 32
The flight back from Feln, where they’d delivered the surviving soldiers, was agonizing. Aris and Dysis didn’t speak. Major Vidar’s voice filled their helmets, giving details to the nearest stationpoint with the manpower to retrieve the bodies of the family and soldiers who hadn’t survived. By the time they landed at Spiro, the cloud-choked sky was easing slowly from black to gray.
Aris dropped from the recon to the tarmac on stiff legs.
“Specialist Haan, debrief. Now.” Major Vidar swept by her, heading toward the building. She fell in behind him, with a quick, panicked glance over her shoulder at Dysis, who was following slowly, Lieutenant Daakon at her side. Dysis shrugged miserably, face pale.
Aris wiped again at her face. She knew her skin was red and blotchy; not for the first time she wished the diatous veil could hide pigment as well.
Men didn’t cry.
But she had, when she’d seen those bodies. When she’d seen the blood spattered on the small face of the little girl.
Even now, the image refused to fade.
Dysis had checked the cellar for other victims. Her face had gone tight
and grim, but she’d stayed in control. And Aris, she’d run weeping from the building and straight into Major Vidar’s arms.
Now he would reveal Aris’s secret, expose her for the weak, whimpering woman she was. Expose her and send her to jail.
It was over.
And the worst part? At that moment, as she followed him into the building and slumped into the chair before his desk, as he closed the door and turned to her, she didn’t care. She didn’t care about her future, or Calix, or flying. She didn’t care about anything.
Except that she’d been too late to save that little girl.
“I’m so sorry, sir,” Aris said, her voice close to breaking, as Major Vidar sat on the edge of his desk, facing her. “I didn’t expect . . . a family. And . . . and they were dead. And then I thought you were the enemy grabbing me . . . I’m sorry.” She swallowed, desperately hoping she wouldn’t cry again. How could someone shoot a person like that, so clinically? And a child? Two soldiers and a whole family, gone from this world. Her stomach churned and for a moment she thought she might be sick.
Major Vidar cleared his throat. This was it. When he told her he could see through her disguise. When he sent her home.
“What you saw today upset you.” It didn’t sound like a question, but he paused as if expecting an answer.
“It did, sir.” She resisted the urge to wring her hands.
Vidar leaned back slightly against his hands and studied her. “Your reaction is perfectly reasonable.”
“What?” Her eyes widened.
“The things we see in this job . . . they can turn the stomachs of the most hardened soldiers.” He stood and paced the room.
She wondered what awful things he’d seen.
“But.” He paused. “Even among the horrors of war, a soldier must do his job. And, above all, he must protect and support his team. Your sectormate, Specialist Latza. He can’t have you falling apart when it might put him in danger.”
She nodded, remembering with shame how she’d fled, how she’d cried while Vidar had barked orders at her. For the first time, she considered what could have happened if the Safaran soldiers hadn’t been gone. If they’d been lying in wait, deeper in the cellar. And she’d left Dysis there, alone.
“I know,” she murmured. “I’m so sorry, sir.”
“You’re the best flyer I have,” Vidar said, so matter-of-factly Aris hardly noticed the compliment. “I need to be able to trust that you can handle this. Can you prevail, even when faced with the kind of tragedy you saw today? If only for the safety of your team?”
The questions echoed in her mind, with the memory of the executed child. Can I?
She grimaced. “I feel like it’s my fault, sir. We were so close, if I’d flown just a little bit faster, gotten there sooner, maybe—”
“You must fly as fast as you can, save as many as you can.” Major Vidar stopped pacing and turned to look down at her. “But you won’t be able to save them all. Can you accept that?”
She met his eyes. Their intense blue reminded her of the ocean at noon on a hot day. He looked tired, younger than he did when he stood before them in formation. As if he’d relaxed his guard, just for a moment.
Without warning, she heard another voice in her head: Dianthe’s. You have a gift. I can’t let it go to waste. This isn’t about your mender friend, it’s about saving lives. Don’t you understand that?
And she did. She finally understood. “Yes, sir,” she said, nodding. “But I’m going to try. To save them all, I mean.”
“I won’t ever tell you not to try.” His smile was small, sad. Then he straightened, again the hardened officer. “Now, get out of here.”
Aris stood slowly, taking a second to collect herself.
Major Vidar moved behind his desk, to the monitor mounted there.
She paused at the door. “Why was the family there?” she asked. The question had been nagging her. “Wasn’t the village evacuated?”
Vidar didn’t look up from the screen. “It was. They didn’t get out in time.”
“Do . . . do you think there were other families there, sir?”
He looked up at her, his eyes softening just a hair. “Commander Nyx will debrief the team shortly. In the meantime, don’t talk to anyone about what you saw. This kind of information must be handled carefully. Ward Balias will find it more difficult to deny war crimes now that we have proof.”
But Aris wasn’t thinking about Ward Balias. She was wondering how those Safaran soldiers had stomached shooting that little girl.
They weren’t soldiers. They were murderers.
Chapter 33
“How did you do it? How did you give that imposter my face?” Galena asked, the next time Elom came to free her from the bed.
He grunted, jerking his finger toward the washroom door.
“The electrodes, that awful hum under my skin? Was that it?” She moved her legs to the edge of the bed but didn’t stand. When he didn’t say anything, she continued, “It’s really quite clever. Why assassinate me and risk someone with similar ideals being elected when you can just transform me into an ally, with no one the wiser?”
Still no response. And what did she expect, that he’d reveal his entire devious plot?
She dropped her feet to the floor with a slap. “Clever, maybe, but stupid, too.” She slid toward Elom, as close as she could stand, and growled, “It takes more than a face and a voice to be Ward. To be me.”
Elom turned, finally, and smiled at her, teeth gleaming. “Of course it does. That’s why you’re not dead yet. Why we won’t kill you as long as you’re Ward. You’re going to tell us all your secrets. You’re going to help us make the deception work.”
Galena glared at him. “No chance.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, as if he were about to laugh. “We’ll see.”
“Who’s ‘we’? Balias?”
“We do not have to share our secrets.” With another disturbing smile, he pointed to the washroom again.
When she emerged, he waited until she sat before placing a tray on her lap. This morning, breakfast was dirty yellow custard and a glass of milk that smelled strongly of goat.
It had to be Ward Balias. Galena’s shoulders sagged. And now Fake Galena was recovering at home, Josef—who might have seen through the disguise—conveniently dispatched. Now that imposter could support Balias in his effort to destroy Atalanta. Galena had been elected only a year ago; that meant four years of wreaking havoc before the next election.
And there was nothing she could do.
She handed Elom the tray and paced her cage, her body shaking. All would think she, Galena, had betrayed her country. And the trust of Atalanta. Of Pyralis.
The world would fall to ruin at her hands.
She paused in the corner of the room, leaned forward to rest her forehead on the cold, smooth wall. But they hadn’t found her son. If they did, Elom would gloat, show the footage on his digitablet, make her watch. So they hadn’t found him. Yet. Don’t go home, she prayed with every fiber of her being, as if just by willing it, he would be able to hear her. Don’t go home. Keep fighting.
Elom could threaten her all he wanted; she wouldn’t tell him anything. Someone would see Galena had changed. Someone would guess.
Pyralis would know.
Chapter 34
A trail looped around the Spiro stationpoint. It curved through the dusty, open plain and up into the scrubby woods that surrounded the grounds, and every morning the S and R unit ran it together.
In the quiet twilight after dinner, when all the other men went to check comms or play cards in the rec room, Aris found herself pounding along the dirt track. Three months ago, she never could have imagined running willingly, but now it was the only thing she could do to be alone and think. Her feet pounded, her limp finally gone. It had disappeared so gradually she’d hardly noticed.
The evening was cool and smelled of dying leaves and earth. She missed the salty scent of the ocean, th
e sound of the waves. As she ran, she imagined the ebb and flow of her breath was the lap of water on sand.
Phae had finally written her back. But her words provided no comfort or absolution. Instead they dogged Aris; she couldn’t outrun them.
You’re right. I don’t understand. How can you think so little of our friendship that you couldn’t be bothered to come to my wedding? Because you’re so busy and important now in Panthea? Is that it? I never thought you’d abandon me. I wish even more now that Calix hadn’t left. You’ve become a stranger without him. The old you would have been here, no matter what. Who in the world have you become, Aris?
It was colder in the long shadows of the trees. The air burned against her cheeks as she pushed herself faster, felt sweat slide down her back in the groove between her shoulder blades. Phae’s words, her parents’ worry . . . it had all worn a spot of pain into her heart that twinged and ached like a sore muscle each time she thought of home. But what bothered her more than the pain was the size of it. It was so small, a pebble in the groundswell of anger she’d felt since she’d seen that murdered girl.
She pumped her arms harder as she flew up a rise in the path. Her life in Lux had become a pleasant dream that lingered with the scent of basilis and wine upon waking. It was nothing like the nightmares that drove her forward now.
Sweaty and trembling with exhaustion, she swept onto the hard landing pad and slowed to a walk, slipping into the building just as night fell.
“Evening,” Pallas said as he passed her in the corridor. She nodded, continuing to her room. Dysis would be wondering where she was. She’d been out later than she’d meant.
She touched her key to the wall beside the door. “Sorry Dysis, I’m . . .”
She stopped short. Her sectormate was standing in the middle of the small room, head tipped back slightly, gazing into Lieutenant Daakon’s eyes. He was very close to her, the fingers of one brown hand threaded with hers.
The Diatous Wars 1: Rebel Wing Page 15
