“Check for heat sigs,” Dorr’s quiet voice came through my pickup.
I glanced that command and another layer of color swept down over my eye shield. The faint yellow of residual body heat passing through the cool station air filled my sensor scope. I followed the quickly fading signatures, stopped at a corner, and dodged a peek. My shield flashed into fiery color. The sound of kill bolts echoed through me. I pressed my shoulder to the wall, snaked my rifle around the corner, and shot blind to break up the enemy’s barrage. Footsteps pounded in retreat. I checked quickly again, then ran out in pursuit. Kris raced beside me, a sharply cut shape on my left. We fired in tandem into the retreating backs of the pirates, then dodged into doorways when they returned shots.
Our steady advance brought us to a four-way. The enemy fled down the twelve and nine directions. Out the corners of my eyes I saw a shape flash by on my right. I turned and caught a faintly illuminated figure running across the corridor into one of the rooms. Something about the way it moved told me it wasn’t a pirate. I ran down the corridor after it. Most of the jets behind me dispersed after the pirates, footsteps echoing.
“Musey!” Kris yelled.
I slapped the door release. It opened abruptly and I lay fire in before moving farther. A door on the opposite side of the room was just slamming shut. I avoided the green-bordered forms of sparse furniture in the darkness, through that door just in time to catch a pair of legs dangling from a maintenance shaft overhead. I thumbed to stun and fired. The legs went still but the torso still moved, arms heaving the now dead lower weight farther into the shaft. I jumped up and grabbed the body by its waist belt and yanked.
It tumbled down. I stepped back quickly and snapped my rifle to aim as it fell in a heap to the floor. Through the glow of night vision I saw the twining tattoo on the face and the dark spread of hair. Puddles of shadow showed where the eyes would be if the room had been lit normally.
Not a strit. Human features shone hazily up at me. A symp.
His hands twitched, going for weapons in one of the many folds of his coat. I shot them.
“Who ordered you here?” I snapped, in Ki’hade.
His eyes widened.
I stepped on his chest and shoved the rifle muzzle against his cheek. “Who ordered you here!”
“Kia’redan bae,” he rasped, glaring up at me. “Kia’redan bae.”
Niko.
“You’re lying!”
“Het kia’redan-na hamma de kan. De kan, ki sraga!” The one without comparison sent me here. He sent me, you fuck.
“What’s he saying?”
I swung. Kris stood in the doorway, weapon trained.
I took a breath. “How the fuck should I know?”
“You said he was lying.”
Through the night vision I saw the hard contours of my teammate’s face. Suddenly he fired.
I hit the deck, tumult and heartbeat in my ears. But I hadn’t been shot. I wrenched a look over my shoulder, rolling to my side. The symp lay still with a black wound in his chest and a blade in his motionless hand. I started to scramble to my feet, looked up at Kris. Not breathing.
Behind him materialized a shadow.
“Get down!” I swung my rifle around but he suddenly jerked where he stood, then crumpled to his knees. I shot past him into the shadow at the same time it shot at me. Laser lanced my shoulder armor. I rolled and fired again, over Kris’s head. And fired again at another shape that appeared behind the first one. Kris sank onto his chest and rolled in pain just as both targets fell.
I palmed my wirecomm, fingers feeling too large and numb to hit the connection properly.
“I need a medic here!” I scrambled over and put a hand on him. The enemies I’d shot lay motionless, tattooed. Dark figures with caste symbols I recognized. One of them held a dagger.
I wrenched the gun from the other’s hand and shot them both point blank to make sure they stayed down.
I bent close to Kris to feel his breath.
It came barely. Raggedly. Loudly, in the sudden silence in my mind.
“Medic, damn you! Somebody!” I started to loosen his armor. The dim lights and green glow on everything made nothing clear. Yet Kris’s warmth spread across my vision in false color, leaking out so the eye shield sensors zeroed on it as it encroached upon the darkness of the floor. I edged my hand around his side to his lower back. Thick, sticky liquid. The symp had stabbed up under his armor, like we were trained to do.
“Kris. Kris, look at me.” I fumbled in my thigh cargo pocket for the standard field medkit.
“Symp,” he murmured.
I ripped open the stim packet and pressed the patch to his neck. I started to roll him onto his chest so I could spray and clamp the wound. The door opened. My rifle snapped up but it was Aki and Dorr and Madi. I hadn’t been paying attention to the voices on my pickup. I realized now the corporal had been yelling in my ear that they were tracking my tags sig and to stay put.
Aki ran up and shoved away my hands, opening her kit. Dorr waved Madi to assist her, then hauled me up by the scruff of my neck.
“Sir—!” I still fixed on Kris but Dorr turned me around and hit me one blow with the back of his fist.
“He’s your fault, you little shit! Running off—the area wasn’t clear, you bastard!” His anger blasted against me. He shoved me into a chair and hit me again.
My head reeled from the blows. I gripped the hard edge of the table beside me so I wouldn’t topple over. The voices in my pickup slowly began to make sense. The jets were locking down the station, corralling pirates, calling all-clears. My gaze started to focus on the dead symps. Somebody got the main lights up again, blinding me.
I yanked off my helmet and eye shield, blinking fire spots from my sight. A pool of blood lay around Kris like a red eye.
“Is he gonna live?” My mouth felt dry, the words hard-pressed.
“Let’s get him on the Charger,” Aki said, ignoring me and nodding to Madison.
“Aki—”
“Shut up and let her do her job,” Dorr snapped As Madison and Aki lifted Kris onto the unfolded stretcher, Dorr wandered over to one of the symps and toed the body. “Well, well.”
I remembered Kris’s eyes, asking how I understood the alien language.
I levered up unsteadily and went to the stretcher, took Aki’s end unasked. Dorr didn’t stop me but I felt his gaze on the back of my head, drilling.
* * *
XXXIX.
The hangar bay was filled by medics, flight crews, equipment-toting techs, and jets staggering in from the mission. Commander Hunsou stood in the center of it, barking orders, her small dark form almost lost among the traffic. Vented air from the Chargers and hunters misted my sight. The launch arms hung from the high ceiling like huge steel dragons, ready to clamp the small ships in their jaws until another opportunity arose to spit them into space. Fuel lines snaked along the sealed deck. Parts of the deck doubled as two of the four bay doors. I watched where I stepped so I wouldn’t pitch Kris’s stretcher to the floor. Madi and I followed Aki’s brisk strides toward the exit. The noise made it difficult to hear any one thing. Nathan had to grab my shoulder to get my attention.
“Kris?” he yelled to me, walking along.
“Knife wound.”
His face was steady and blank, but pale. He held it in, slapped my shoulder, and squeezed, then got called away by his copilot.
Evan met us at the inner bay doors. Maybe it was his way of confirming I was still alive. I supposed I should’ve been thankful for that kind of concern. He broke away just far enough from his jet guard to intercept me.
“What happened?”
“What does it look like?”
He trailed me. “Ah, Jos, I’m sorry.”
My head buzzed from Dorr’s punches and my own skittering thoughts. The stretcher was stained in places by Kris’s blood, despite the hasty sealant and clamp Aki had ministered. Dorr had taken the blade the symp had used; it was serrated and mor
e than a hand-length.
I stared hard at Madi’s back as we marched swiftly to medbay. Kris was unconscious, despite the stim and blood transing Aki had managed to hook up to him on the Charger. Anything done in the field was always just enough to keep them alive until we got back to ship. We were lucky we had a ship to come back to. On our return ride Nathan reported that Mac had taken a beating. But the striv assault runner was history.
Evan shadowed me, with his own jet shadow, all the way to medbay and inside. The trauma section was packed and hectic. Aki called to the other staff on duty. Most of them were busy with other casualties brought in. The wide room was a swarm of bodies, the cool air filled by the thick scent of blood and the vague rubbery smell of med sealant. Once Madi and I got Kris settled on a table I went to one of the medics and grabbed his arm, shoving him to Kris’s side.
“Go help him.”
“Musey!” Aki shot me a look and elbowed me back. Madi tugged me away so they could work. I jerked from his hold, bumping into someone behind me.
I pivoted, expecting to find Evan, but saw Corporal Dorr. He stood close enough I felt his breath.
“Get to quarters,” he said. “And don’t damn well move from it.”
“Sir, I’d like to stay.”
“I don’t give a shit what you’d like, Musey. Get out!”
I backed up and turned. My eyes stung. I would have crashed into a medic if Evan hadn’t hauled on my arm to get me out of the way.
“Stop following me! Dammit!”
His mouth tightened. “Come on. You’re all over blood.”
“Are you deaf? I said leave me the hell alone!” I unslung my rifle and waved it at him. He stepped away, arms folding protectively. His jet guard watched, eyes trying to capture my own for some sympathy or warning or something, but I shoved past both of them and hurried through the crowded corridors. They were occupied by zombie bodies moving in a steady line from the hangar deck to maindeck. Jets dragged in from the mission, went to see comrades in med-bay, or headed to the lev to go down to jetdeck. I got all the way to quarters and inside, threw my weapons on the bunk, then realized the hatch hadn’t shut behind me when I’d pushed it.
Evan stood in the way.
“Get out!” I shoved at his shoulder.
With surprising force he pushed me back. “Quit it, Jos!”
“What’re you doing here? Why’re you still around me?”
Something flickered in his eyes. An expression I remembered from long ago. “You look like you need it, dumbass.”
“Get the hell out of my quarters!”
“You’re crying.”
That stopped me. I brushed roughly at my face; it was true. I stank of smoke and blood and sweat. No getting rid of it. No getting rid of the image of those dead symps. Or the fact I’d shot them in the heads. Or the voice speaking that language I understood, even months removed.
No getting rid of what he’d said. Kia’redan bae. Niko had issued the orders to get those weapons.
I struggled to get out of my armor but the clasps at my ribs were cracked and they stuck. I wrenched at one to no avail.
“Fuck!”
Evan stepped in farther, glancing over his shoulder at the jet outside the hatch. The jet shut it. Evan came toward me and grabbed my arm to hold me still.
I yanked back. “What’re you doing?”
“You’re being stupid. That’ll never come off in a tantrum.” The cold clarity on his face said well enough how he hadn’t suicided all those years on Shiva.
He’d settled all right into his new life on this ship, the pirate turned informer. He talked to his escorts now, bummed cigrets off them, played cards and sims in the rec lounge. Everybody knew he’d been the Shiva captain’s whore, but that didn’t bother him as much as I’d thought it would, now that he had his place. Some of the crew eyed him openly. They played the games people played before they bedded each other. Maybe he thought it made him tighter on this ship because he was the latest fascination. Maybe it didn’t occur to him they were using him just like Shiva had, except in a nicer way. They gave him food and protection and clothing—he was a cheap date. They didn’t need to give much back. They didn’t whisper secrets in his ear that he could use later if he decided to turn traitor here. With his new status, with the privilege of remaining on board when the rest of the pirates had been dumped into the system for trial on station, Evan no longer talked of blackmail. He didn’t ask me about aliens. He spoke to me as if we were equal. As if Mukudori tied us together. As if anybody from our dead homeship would recognize either of us now.
“Stay still and I’ll work it loose,” he said, reaching for the clasps on my chest armor.
I stared right into his face. “Get out, Evan.”
A week ago he would’ve immediately dodged my eyes. Now he looked at me for a long minute before glancing down.
“Why d’you hate me so much?”
“I’m tired. While you’re here baring ass for everything in uniform, we go out there and bring in your old friends!”
He jumped at me. I sidestepped quickly and shoved him to the bunk. He landed on my weapons and tossed over fast, pushing himself to sit up. We looked at each other as his hand touched the rifle.
Stupid, stupid.
But he got to his feet, left the weapons where they were, and just walked up to me. I stood my ground, but my hands curled tight
He said slowly, “I’m doing what I can. I ain’t crawlin’ into a hole like they had me do. This time it’s my choice.”
“Yeah, you adapt real well.”
“I had to. Didn’t you?”
I wanted to shut my eyes.
My tags beeped. I turned my shoulder and fingered them. “Musey.”
Corporal Dorr’s voice came through, emotionless. “Come to medical.”
My heart flickered, then increased beats to the edge of bursting. Somehow I ended up in medbay though I didn’t recall getting there. Aki stood by Kris’s table with her head bowed. He lay covered to his chin with a stark white sheet. Where was all the blood? Dorr stood beside her. Madison. One glance and I also saw Nathan and his copilot Gitta Hamrlik. Iratxe still in her dirty battle gear. Like I was.
Cleary, silent. Where had he come from?
I couldn’t take another step.
Dorr approached. I backed up. He was going to hit me again. He had that dead fury in his eyes, like he wanted to kill something.
“Musey,” he said in an oddly calm voice. He didn’t reach for me, not with his hands.
“No,” I said.
“There was poison on the blade,” he said. “The docs tried.”
A stone fell through me. It dragged me down to the deck. It made me rattle like a hollow thing.
* * *
XL
I still couldn’t get the armor off; it became an afterthought. Corporal Dorr escorted me to the captain’s office.
The walk was brisk, with no wait outside of the hatch. As soon as we approached it opened. Dorr had palmed his tags to let Azarcon know.
He left me in the office without a word or glance. The hatch shut with a hollow thud and clang.
The captain didn’t invite me to sit this time.
“What the hell went on out there?”
My mind jumped like a scared animal, then hid.
I was sure he knew. I was sure Dorr had filled him in right after Kris’s death and before I’d made it to medbay.
“Musey!” He got to his feet and leaned his fists on the desk.
“Sir, I saw the enemy. I went to take him out, sir.” It wasn’t my voice. It wasn’t me. I stood somewhere against the bulkhead, under a gun, watching the bolt fly. I saw my body, so rigid the muscles began to ache like the pain in my head.
“You left your team. Without warning.”
The words broke. “Yes, sir. I screwed up, sir.”
“No, Private. You didn’t screw up.”
I dared a glance into his eyes, surprised. He waited there to snare me.
/>
“You fucked up. Now Kris Rilke is dead.”
I blinked and felt the tears rise, but they didn’t fall.
Azarcon sat and looked up at me, his face pale, expressionless. Controlled. Very controlled, the way it could get when it was one second from explosion.
“Private Musey, you’re confined to quarters until dock. The reprimand will go on record, as will a month’s forfeit of pay. I want a detailed report of your actions in my comp within the hour, after which I’ll decide if you ought to be brought up on formal charges. In addition, you will assist Commander Mercurio in preparing the body for send-off. Dismissed.”
The last was the punishment. Everything else was necessity.
* * *
XLI.
Somehow I wrote that report. My fingers moved over the keypad on a will of their own, forced to because I couldn’t make my voice work enough to verbally input.
After, I went to medbay. It didn’t look any different from any other time I’d been in there after a mission. Jets lay in beds, injured and asleep or awake and griping. Just normal reactions. A normal sight. Mercurio approached from his glass-walled office.
“Private Musey, your armor—” He gestured to it. It was still stuck.
I stared at him.
After a small silence he led me to one of the rooms I’d never been in. It was bare except for a large sink and counter against the far wall. And a metal table in the center of the room with a drainage basin below. Kris’s body lay on it, covered to the chin in a white sheet.
Everything was clean. Straight. Respectful. Sound didn’t bleed through here. It was where you went when churches weren’t available.
“Put your hands here.” Mercurio motioned me to a disinfectant grille. His eyes grazed over my face.
I pressed my hands on the grille, suffered the slight sting of the blue sterility beam, then went to the table.
Mercurio removed the sheet. He instructed me on how to wash the body for storage until it was time to burn. Kris had been no particular religion that made cremation out of the question. Even in that, the bodies were always washed and stored. Then on the shift of the ceremony they arrayed the body in full dress uniform and either set it to burn or placed it in a tube for careful jettison, somewhere out of the routes of other ships.
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