When her hands stopped trembling, Aris rose and peered from the mouth of the cave, again searching the ravine floor and cliff edges for signs of Safaran soldiers. Aside from a pair of birds skimming the breeze above and a small brown lizard skittering along the edge of the stream, there was no movement. No sound, save for the tittering of the birds and the distant burble of running water. Cautiously she emerged, gripping her empty canteen like a talisman.
To the south, she could hear a distant rushing. When she’d flown over the canyon, the glowing green nav map had indicated a waterfall, with a large pool of water at its base. She headed that direction, keeping to the shadows along the canyon wall. Her eyes flickered constantly across the open space, but she didn’t look behind her, didn’t let her eyes fall on the transport.
The sound of the waterfall grew louder until it filled her head. When she came to the pool, she kept walking until the cold water had reached her chest. The icy liquid revealed cuts and scrapes she didn’t know she had; they burned as the water flowed against them. She dipped her head beneath the surface, washing the bile and sweat from her face and the blood from the back of her neck. When she emerged, her teeth were chattering but she felt clean once more.
Aris filled the canteen and walked slowly back to the cave, her cold, wet uniform dragging against her. The sun beat down on her aching skull; the warmth seeped into her skin but couldn’t entirely kill the chill.
Major Vidar was lying where she’d left him. She removed his helmet carefully then used her wet jacket to wipe the blood from his face and neck and the gash on his forehead. They’d had basic aid training, so she knew what to do to disinfect and dress the wound. When she was finished, she propped him up on her arm and got him to swallow some water from the canteen, though he didn’t fully wake.
All the while she listened, waiting for the sounds of enemy soldiers. Once, she heard a scream and shot to her feet, banging her head on the curved roof of the cave, but the sound warbled into a howl as it faded. And then, quite close, a rustle as the animal scurried after its prey.
When she noticed her hands shaking, she dragged herself to the pack and removed a pouch of nutrigel. It tasted vaguely like cherries and slid down her throat like oil, but her hands steadied once the nutrients reached her stomach.
All through the day, Aris watched the rise and fall of Major Vidar’s chest, stared at the pale scar that ran from his eye to his lip, studied the wide white bandage circling his head. As the sun slid toward the horizon, she replaced the wrapping, now dotted with blood, and poured more water into his mouth.
She wondered when they would be rescued. If they would be rescued. Would Commander Nyx tell Dysis that the mission had been unsuccessful? Her stomach clenched. And she remembered, for the first time, that faint pink blob at the northern end of the ravine. Had that really been Jax? Was he still there?
The questions ran like dogs in her head, chasing their tails and finding no resolution.
Aris was sipping from the canteen and staring intently out at the shadows lengthening along the ravine floor, watching for movement, when a hoarse cough broke the silence.
Aris spun around and smiled with relief to see Major Vidar’s eyes open, his piercing gaze locked on her face. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
Aris paused. “Sir! Don’t you remember me?” Had he lost his memory? “It’s Specialist Aristos Haan, sir.”
He squinted at her in the gloom. Maybe he couldn’t see her in the dark? She grabbed the lantern from her bag and brought it to his side. The light bloomed, golden and comforting. He still looked pale. Tilting his head, he studied her face more closely.
“You aren’t Aristos.” His voice was quiet, but in no way uncertain.
She sat back on her heels, confusion making her frown. If he knew who Aristos was he couldn’t be having trouble with his memory. “But, sir—”
And then she knew. Her voice . . . it was her voice.
Her hand flew to the back of her neck. The large bump at the base of her skull, right where her military brand was. The veil.
It had shattered.
Chapter 47
“Major Vidar,” she whispered. She held her hands out, an entreaty.
“Who are you?” he repeated.
“Sir, I am Aristos. Really I am. Only . . .”
“Only you’re a woman.” His eyes ranged slowly from her face to her chest; the tight, still-damp fabric of her Military-issue shirt left little in question, even with the band binding her breasts. She couldn’t meet his eyes.
“Yes, sir,” she whispered.
“How.” It was more command than question.
She opened her mouth to answer but saw his face go pale. Blood was seeping through the bandage. “Let me help you.” She scrambled to her bag and returned with a pouch of nutrigel and some clean dressings. In silence, he let her tend him. By the time she’d changed the bandage and he’d eaten the gel, his color was a little better.
He raised one eyebrow, and the scar pulled his lip into a more pronounced sneer.
With a sigh, Aris felt along the back of her neck and released the device. She handed him the transparent—now cracked—rectangle. “It masks my features. And changes my voice.” A hole had started widening in her stomach. She would be kicked out of Military and sent to jail. She forced back the tears that built behind her eyes.
He held the disc up to the light so he could inspect it more closely. She waited for him to yell at her, to tell her the game was up and she was going home.
“How does it work?” he asked instead. His eyes found hers again, glowing a darker blue in the dim light.
“You have to get your body mapped and an implant put in your voice box.” Her hand went to her throat, where she could feel the tiny bump. He reached out and touched the spot, lightly, moving her fingers out of the way. His touch sent a shiver through her; she told herself it was because his hand was cold.
“Where did you get it?” He was staring at her like she was a puzzle he was determined to solve.
“Please, sir,” she said, leaning back. “Don’t make me say. I don’t want anyone else to get in trouble.”
Major Vidar let his hand fall. “Ar—wait, what is your real name?”
“Aris,” she whispered.
“Aris, I need to know.” He looked away, his eyes thoughtful. “Do other dominions have this technology?”
She shook her head. “Atalanta is the only one. They didn’t sell it to other dominions.”
For a long time, Major Vidar didn’t say anything. Finally, as he looked carefully at the device in his hands: “I think perhaps someone did.”
“Sir?”
He shook his head, as if clearing his mind, and looked up at her. “We’ve got to find Lieutenant Latza and return to point as quickly as possible. Have you been in communication with Lieutenant Wolfe?”
This time she couldn’t contain the tears. “They’re dead.” The image exploded in too-vivid detail in her mind. She thought of Galec’s family. Helena, little Calla, who would grow up with his face. What would they do when they found out? She swallowed back a sob.
“You’re sure?” Vidar’s voice was hard.
Aris nodded and turned away.
“Signs of pursuit?”
“Two soldiers, over by the other jet. I . . . took care of them.” She busied herself with her pack, pulling out more nutrigels and a couple hard loaves of bread, wishing she could erase the image of the soldiers’ crumpled bodies from her mind.
“And no contact with Lieutenant Latza, or anyone else?”
She shook her head.
“We have to find him. It’s even more important now, you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Aris said, but she didn’t, really.
Major Vidar held up her nearly empty canteen. “Where did you find the water?”
“There’s a pool at the end of the ravine, sir. I’ll go get us some more.” She stood quickly, nearly bumping her head again. He handed her the canteen
, but as she turned to go, he grabbed her arm with his other hand, his cool fingers sliding down her Enviro brand to rest on her wrist. Goosebumps skated along her skin, and her pulse picked up.
“Aris.” He waited until she looked at him. “Well done, Specialist.”
•••
When she returned to the cave, Major Vidar had moved farther away from its mouth and was leaning against the rocky wall. He’d removed his jacket and his pale, defined arms were crossed, which made the muscles stand out.
She reached for her still-damp jacket and put it on, uncomfortably aware of her own body now that it was no longer hidden by the veil. Vidar gestured to a spot beside him, but as she handed him the canteen and sank to the ground, she scooted back a little, to put distance between them.
He tossed her a loaf of bread, and she chewed until it turned to dust in her mouth.
“We need more light to conduct a proper search for Lieutenant Latza. We’ll wait until just before dawn,” he said.
“Wouldn’t he have come to find us, sir? After all the noise last night?”
“He may be injured. Or not realize that we were the ones shot down.”
Aris tried to get comfortable against the craggy side of the cave, but it was difficult. Her racing mind, and sweating palms didn’t help. She felt like a hog, waiting for the blade. She didn’t know whether to ask Major Vidar outright what he planned to do with her when they got back, or if she should just keep silent and hope, somehow, that it would all work out.
He turned off the lantern, plunging them into darkness. “Why are you here, Aris? Why did you join Military?”
The questions caught her off guard.
“There were a lot of reasons,” she replied, after a moment. “It started because of someone I knew, back in Lux.” She slid down the wall until she was lying on her back. Her head throbbed, radiating pain down her spine. “He was selected Military and sent away.”
“And he left you, alone and Unpromised.” Major Vidar broke in. He must have remembered their conversation about her “girl back home.”
She shifted, uncomfortable with his tone. “He was trying to protect me.”
Major Vidar let out a bitter laugh. “Apparently, Specialist, you are very hard to protect.”
“I love to fly,” she said softly. “Back home, no one really understood that. And it wasn’t important, not like it is here. What I’m doing here, the people I’ve saved . . . Calix came first, but now this is who I am.” She paused, steeling herself. “Please don’t report me. I’ll find another disguise. I can’t do any good from prison.”
His clothes rustled as he slid down to stretch out on the hard ground. The cave was narrow, and when he shifted, his leg brushed hers.
“I’m not going to report you. Not now, anyway,” he said. “I can’t. You’re the best blighting flyer I’ve ever seen.” He cleared his throat. “And the only one I’ve got at the moment.”
“And when we get out of this?” She ran her hands over her skull, the prickling beginnings of stubble catching against the tips of her fingers.
“We’ll worry about that when we have to.”
Her stomach sank. It was such a diplomatic, noncommittal answer. With a deep breath, she closed her eyes against the darkness and whispered, “Does it bother you?”
“Does what bother me?”
“That I’m not Aristos. That I’m a woman.” She was strangely comforted, in spite of everything, by the sound of her real voice.
“Not for the reasons you think.” He sighed. “Now go to sleep. Only a few hours until dawn.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, wondering what he meant.
A few moments later, his voice floated a last thought into the darkness. “The simple village girl from Lux. You didn’t do her justice.”
As she drifted off, she saw the lone figure of her former self, standing still as stone on the edge of a beach, the edge of the world, the sunset tangled in her long, wild hair. And Dianthe’s words, from so long ago, echoed in her head.
There are no women in Military, Aris. We’re all just ghosts.
Chapter 48
Aris woke at the touch of a hand on her arm. Major Vidar’s face loomed over her in the glow of the lantern. She sat up too quickly and hissed when her head cracked against the wall of the cave.
She’d dreamt of Lux, and Calix. It took a moment for the sound of crashing waves to fade from her mind.
“Sorry,” Major Vidar said, rocking back on his heels. “No more beauty sleep for you. Time to go.”
In an effort to avoid his eyes, her gaze swept up and caught on the bandage binding his forehead. A little blood had seeped through. “Let me check your wound first, sir.”
“We have to hurry.”
“It’ll just take a minute. The dressing needs to be changed.” She pushed on his shoulder to get him to sit and grabbed the small canister of disinfectant and a fresh length of gauze. He held up the lantern so she could see better.
“You don’t strike me as the mender type,” he said as she reached up gingerly to remove the bandage.
“You’re right.” She smiled. “Usually I’m the one getting mended.”
He laughed a little. She accidentally met his eyes, and her hands froze against his forehead.
He didn’t look away. An unfamiliar expression flitted across his face: surprise, with a bemused sort of recognition. Like he was seeing her for the first time.
She held his gaze and felt herself sway just the slightest bit toward him, as if drawn by a string. Under her hands, his head tilted back. Her lips parted.
Then he blinked, and the spell was broken. She rocked back on her knees and dropped her hands, as if scalded. “I . . . I think—” she stuttered, turning away. What was she doing?
Major Vidar’s hand snaked out and circled her wrist. His touch made her skin tingle, hum like the diatous veil had done, only these vibrations echoed deep beneath the surface. “You’re injured, too,” he said, sounding concerned.
“I am?” She looked down as if she expected to find fresh blood on her shirt.
His fingers gently touched the back of her skull, and pain flared. She winced.
“Sorry,” he said, his other hand still warm on her wrist.
She pulled free, not looking at him. “It’s fine, sir. We should go.”
“Are you sure? It looks like a nasty bump.”
“It’s fine,” she said again.
“Alright, then. I trust you.” There was something in his voice she couldn’t quite identify.
She started to move away, but he cleared his throat. “Aris?”
“Yes, sir?” She glanced back at him, and caught his amused smile.
“Could you finish my dressing? I’m a bit undone here.” He lifted the edge of gauze that dangled along the side of his face.
Heat rushed from her scalp to her toes. “Of course. I’m so sorry.” She finished disinfecting and bandaging the wound as quickly as she could, relieved that he kept his eyes trained on the cave’s entrance. By the time she was done, the amusement was gone from his face, and his eyes were narrowed in thought.
He stood, hunching to avoid hitting his head. “We’ll refill the canteen at the waterfall, then head north. By now a search team should have been assembled. We’ll check the wingjet for comms, but our priority is finding Lieutenant Latza.”
“Very good, sir,” she said, and moved to the entrance of the cave, looking around before venturing into open ground.
They kept to the wall of the ravine, solaguns drawn. Major Vidar stopped at the recon to see if the sunlight had recharged any of the instruments. Nothing worked.
“So where’s this Calix? Does he know what you’ve been up to?” he asked as they made their cautious way toward the transport.
Glancing at Vidar, she found his eyes on her. “No, he doesn’t know. I haven’t seen him. But I think he’s at Mekia.”
“A mender?”
She nodded. Vidar turned his attention back to their pro
gress through the canyon. The walls of the ravine were steep, with patches of red clay in some places and gravity-defying trees clinging in others. It would a difficult climb to freedom. As their shoulders brushed the wall, leaves and little stones were dislodged, tumbling to the ground. Aris jumped at every noise, worried it would expose them.
The closer they got to the wreckage of the transport, the harder it was for her to breathe.
When they reached it, she shrank back. The bodies of the two Safaran soldiers still lay on the muddy ground beside the stream.
Major Vidar moved away from the wall, toward the jet.
“Sir, I think I need to stay here,” she whispered. The charred skin, the rusty stains . . . Galec’s ravaged face. She turned away, afraid she might be sick.
“Keep going. Stay along the wall, in the shadows if you can. Keep your eyes open. I’ll be just a moment.”
“Are you sure you have to go over there?” she asked. “It’s . . . not a pleasant sight.”
Major Vidar moved closer to the transport, his eyes scanning the lip of the canyon. Without looking back, he said, “I have to see for myself. Lieutenant Wolfe and I . . .” He paused. “We worked together for a long time.”
Wolfe and Talon . . . they were men she’d come to trust, rely on during missions. Galec had been more than that. He’d been her friend. Now they were dead, gone from this life.
They’d given their lives for the mission. For Lieutenant Latza. Aris couldn’t fail them now. I will find your brother, Dysis. I promise.
She crept along the wall, her hands steady as they held her solagun. No more fear. Not with Dysis in her head.
The canyon curved, effectively cutting off her view of the northern portion. Safaran soldiers could be waiting just out of sight. She paused, listened. All she heard was Major Vidar’s footsteps behind her, the ripple of the stream, and the faint call of a bird far above. She tilted her head back and watched for a moment as it dipped and soared. Trapped down here, the wing of her jet behind her like a giant gravestone . . . she felt like a bird with clipped wings, broken and alone.
The Diatous Wars 1: Rebel Wing Page 21
