by Kacey Ezell
Ozendi let her go and smiled down at her as she stepped back.
“I did not feel like you would welcome this before, but I feel that I should tell you: you are quite arousing when you take command.”
Mara snorted. “Well, I hope you’ve got some extra room in your shorts, buddy, because this is who I am.”
“Oh, I am very aware,” Ozendi said with a satisfied smirk. Which made Mara laugh again.
They started out in high spirits. The day itself seemed to echo Mara’s sunny mood back to her. The sunlight streamed golden and green through the trees, and though Ozendi set a brisk pace, it wasn’t nearly as punishing as it had been last night. Mara’s knee and ankle continued to improve as they walked, too.
“Damn,” she said as they stopped near another one of the innumerable mountain streams to refill their water. “Whatever that herb cocktail is, I need to get some. My ankle doesn’t hurt at all, and my knee only twinges when we’re going up the steepest grades.”
“Naliryiz may make some for you,” he said. “It works very well and is very safe. Only—well, you will have to ask her about it. I do not know if she will want to share it with all of your people.”
“Why not? A secret recipe or something like that?”
“Something like that,” he said. She let the matter drop.
The journey took them the rest of the day. They took a short break around midday, stopping to eat and rest for a little bit. They made love again under the spreading limbs of the blue-green forest, while the dual suns heated the air around them in a soundless promise of the Searing to come. By the time the suns dipped below the western horizon, they were nearing the top of another great ridge.
“The settlement is just on the other side,” Ozendi said. “Though it will take another hour or so to reach it. Will you walk in with me?”
Mara looked up sharply at the sudden vulnerability in his voice.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean, I know that you said there could be some trouble for you…”
She shook her head. “Let’s worry about that later. We don’t have to say anything when we first get there, we’ve got other priorities. But yes, I will walk in beside you, and if people draw conclusions, they can draw conclusions. Hell, they probably would have anyway.”
He smiled, though his eyes seemed troubled, but he said no more. He simply resumed hiking up the slope toward the top of the ridge.
Once they got to the top, Mara smelled smoke.
“Cookfires,” Ozendi said when she asked. “Nothing to worry about.” But he picked up the pace just a little bit anyway. Once again, Mara mentally thanked the absent Naliryiz for her concoction as she hitched up her pack and followed Ozendi down the slope, into the night-dark valley.
* * *
Darkness blanketed the settlement. Mara tasted the acrid tang of smoke in the back of her throat as they threaded through the trees along the river toward the stockade. No firelight—or any kind of light, for that matter—penetrated the smoky gloom.
“Ozendi,” Mara said, pitching her voice low. “Something’s wrong. There are no fires.”
Ozendi nodded but didn’t say anything. Mara pushed aside a wistful thought that they should have armed up before setting out yesterday and followed close on his heels. She was right at his shoulder as they broke through the screen of forest and looked at what remained of the settlement where he’d been born.
The stockade was mostly left standing, though it smoldered in quite a few spots. Thick smoke billowed up from the center of the town, blotting out the star-encrusted sky as it rose.
“Dio,” Ozendi whispered, and broke into a run. A tiny corner of Mara’s mind wondered who had taught him Spanish, but she ignored that and took off after him as he pelted through the stockade’s gates. They looked as if they’d been hit by something heavy, for they swung, splintered, on battered, warped hinges.
The town inside was dark, too, and seemed deserted. Fear opened up in a pit in Mara’s stomach. Where were her people? Where were any of the people?
Ozendi ran all the way past the center of town toward a place near the rear wall of the stockade. He stopped dead in front of a smoking pile of wood and rubble and stared, his face pale in the darkness, his eyes open holes of pain and denial.
“Ozendi.”
Mara whirled at the sound of the woman’s voice, her hand going for the small knife she held. Fire flared in the darkness, and relief flooded through Mara as the newly lit torch revealed Naliryiz’s symmetrical features marred by grief.
“Doc!” Mara called out. “Ozendi, look! It’s your sister! She’s all right!”
Ozendi turned and lunged toward Naliryiz. He wrapped her up in a tight embrace, heedless of the torch she held. As quickly as he’d grabbed her, though, he let go, and stepped back, holding her by the shoulders and peering into her face, his own ravaged by grief and worry and…rage?
“Iope and Dio were alive, the last I saw,” Naliryiz said quickly, her voice quiet and even. “They were taken, along with several others.”
“Who?” Ozendi asked, though Mara was pretty sure they already knew the answer.
“Raiders,” Naliryiz said. “Early and too far north, but they looked and acted like the advance parties we’ve seen before.”
“Were my people taken?” Mara asked.
Naliryiz shook her head. “No,” she said. “They joined with our resistance and fought the raiders off. They were most helpful. But Kelrevis was taken, as well.”
“I know where they took them.” Ozendi said, his voice icy cold but still throbbing with urgency. “We can get them back.”
“Wait,” Mara said. “Hold on. We’ll get them back, Ozendi, but you can’t just go barreling in there. Let’s take a breath; make a plan!”
“You don’t understand!” he snapped at her. Then he shook his head abruptly and let go of his sister’s shoulders and stalked away, his chest heaving as he fought to breathe.
Naliryiz looked after him, and then offered Mara a small, half-smile.
“Forgive him,” she said. “You are right, of course, and he knows it. Iope is his mate, Dio is Diozera, his daughter, and Kelrevis is one of our matriarchs. This is a terrible blow. His agony is understandable just now.”
Mara blinked at Naliryiz as the healer’s words registered.
Iope is his mate. Diozera his daughter.
His mate.
His daughter.
An image rose up in her mind’s eye, unbidden. Ozendi laughing, his eyes dark with passion as he spoke to her of love. Mara closed her eyes and shoved the image away, pushed it into the box where she’d sworn it would never go and locked it down behind every mental barrier she held.
“Where are my people?” Mara asked, forcing her eyes open, her voice to be calm.
“We have set up a field hospital in your landing area. Many were hurt. Everyone has gathered there.”
She should have gone to him. Mara knew that. But in that moment, she just couldn’t.
“Bring him when he’s ready. Tell him we’ll get them back.” As she spoke those clipped words, Mara saw Naliryiz’s eyebrows furrow. Doubtless, she wondered why Mara was being so cold. But Mara couldn’t do anything about that, any more than she could stop the anguished, tearing feeling inside of her.
One problem at a time.
She nodded sharply to Naliryiz and turned away. Let the healer see to her brother. Mara would find Elroy, find her people, and find a way to get her lover’s family back.
Even as it broke her heart.
* * *
“I understand your position, Captain, but the rest of the task force isn’t ready to deploy planetside yet. And if it was, it is far too early for us to show our hand.”
Mara glared at the static-blurred shape of Murphy’s face and fought the urge to spew profanity. She inhaled slowly through her nose, and then exhaled before nodding her head once.
“Fine,” she said. “Then given the strategic imperative o
f our mission here, I request permission to take command and do it my damn self!”
Murphy glared right back at her, and Mara could feel his icy fury radiating down the lines of the comm link. She didn’t care. Let him freeze her out. The rage boiling inside her was hot enough to melt any ice he threw her way.
“Agreed,” he said more readily than she expected, but his words were still clipped. “We must provide assistance, but you should send your student instead, Bruce. Your abilities are far more strategically important than—”
“Ending the call. Enemy could triangulate and locate.” She cut the connection before he could complete the order for her to sit this one out. Like hell she was sending Ozendi in to rescue his family and the rest of the villagers without her. He was too distraught. He’d never make it out alive. Truth be told, she would have preferred to leave him out of it altogether, but she needed his local knowledge to get back to the Huey and find the raiders’ camp.
She sighed and stepped back, then turned to find Elroy watching her from just inside the flap of the tent where they’d set up the comm set.
“You okay?” he asked, his voice a soft rumble.
“I’m fine,” she said, and made to step around him and out of the tent. He moved to the side, and she came up hard against the iron muscle of his chest.
“Don’t lie to me, Bruce,” he said, using her callsign as he only did in private. “Something happened between you two out in the woods. You won’t even look at the guy. Did he hurt you?”
Mara surprised herself with a hacking, joyless laugh.
“No, El,” she said. “He didn’t try to rape me. I swear, you fucking men think that’s the end-all, be-all of ‘bad things that can happen to a woman!’ Besides, do you think he’d still be breathing if he had?”
“No,” Elroy admitted. “Okay, fine. So, what did happen?”
She wasn’t going to tell him. She had absolutely no intention of telling her 6’5”, Vietnam-era badass of a crew chief about her broken heart. But when she drew in a breath, the words tumbled out all over themselves anyway.
“He said he loved me,” she whispered. “He told me I deserved to be loved and that he wanted me always, and then I come back here to find he has a family. God! I’m so fucking stupid! Listen to me, I sound like a teenage girl!”
“You sound like a woman who’s been hurt,” Elroy said, and he reached out and gently pulled her into an embrace. Mara drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and tears of rage and agony started to fall. Elroy held her close, the rock to her storm, and supported her while she let all of her whirling, tangling, distracting emotions out.
“Fucker is right about one thing, though,” Elroy said once her maelstrom quieted. She sniffled mightily and swiped at her eyes, then leaned back to look up into his ebony face.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“You do deserve to be loved, Bruce. You hold people too much at a distance. This group we’re with…well, we’re all we’ve got, now. It’s like being in the bush in ’Nam. You can’t push people away because you’re gonna need them. Eventually.”
An uncomfortable thought wormed its way through Mara’s mind.
“El?” she asked softly. “Do you—I mean, have I—”
Elroy laughed and dropped his arms from around her. “Nah,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’m not much into white women. Too dangerous for a young black man where I grew up. We’re a crew, though. And I love you like my sister.”
Relief washed over her, and she hugged him briefly before letting go again. “I love you, too, El,” she said. “And I’m proud to call you my brother.”
“See?” he said, white teeth flashing in a grin. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? Do you want me to kill him?”
“Who? Ozendi??”
She felt him nod and knew his offer was 100% serious.
“No.”
“All right. If you change your mind, just say the word.”
She sniffled hard again and wiped her eyes, then her nose with her sleeve. “When this is over,” she said softly, stopping him as he turned toward the tent flap. He looked back at her and she forced her shoulders to relax. “When this is over, if you’re willing, I’d love to tell you about my son. Donnie.”
Elroy smiled a slow smile, sympathy dark in his eyes. “I’d be honored, sis,” he said. “When this is over.”
“Right,” she said. “When it’s over. Right now, let’s go kick the shit out of some raiders.”
“Amen and hallelujah.”
* * *
By the time Mara had her maintenance team assembled and briefed, Ozendi had rounded up a sizeable crew of fighters and vehicles willing to take part in this crazy mission to get their loved ones back. Mara told herself she shouldn’t be surprised. The man was obviously capable of compartmentalizing things in his head.
Just as she was.
At one point, while they were planning and gathering resources, he ran to join her as she walked briskly from the field hospital to the vehicle staging point.
“Mara,” he said as he caught up to her. He reached out to catch her fingers. His voice was rough. “Mara, please. I must talk to you.”
Mara stopped and pulled her hand back as if his touch had burned her. On some level, it had.
“No,” she said, her voice cool iron. “I don’t think you must. In fact, it’s best if you don’t.”
“But—”
“One problem at a time.” She cut him off, turning the corners of her mouth up in a humorless mockery of a smile. “You want your mate and kid back safely, right? Then stay out of my way and let me concentrate on the mission, Copilot.”
He just looked at her, pain in his eyes. She felt her internal self yearning toward him, so she did the only thing she could. She turned on her heel and walked back the way she’d come. She would check on the vehicles later.
In the end, they pulled together eight of them. They were the same rugged tracked vehicles Elroy had lovingly dubbed “trucks.” Mara’s maintenance team had two pairs of M60D machine guns that were intended to be mounted in the Huey’s doors. Some genius had figured out how to rig a pintle mount for two of the trucks, and so one of the pairs of weapons was re-purposed for ground use.
Mara had debriefed Elroy extensively on the damage to the Huey, and he and the maintenance team had packed accordingly. Thanks to the extra engine parts they were bringing along, it would be a tight fit in the vehicles, so most of the fighters elected to ride on top, like Mara had seen old soldiers do in WWII films.
By the end of the second day, they were ready to go, furnished with the bare bones of a plan. Basically, they would convoy through the forest to the plateau where they’d left the Huey. This time, rather than going up and down all the ridges, they would take the woodcutter’s road and trust to their firepower and speed to get them there safely.
So that was the plan. Mount up and haul ass under cover of darkness. Fix the Huey during the light of day, then assault the raider camp with the bird providing overhead cover. As plans went, it wasn’t the most detailed. Or the most survivable. But it was what they had. The twin suns set behind the western ridge, one large disk and one very small, as she and the maintenance team loaded up with Ozendi and his fighters and moved out down the tiny woodcutter’s road into the forest.
She rode with Elroy in the center vehicle, the one carrying the majority of the Huey parts they’d need. Ozendi was somewhere else in the convoy. She didn’t know where and wouldn’t allow herself to think about it.
“Did you talk to the Doc?” she asked Elroy as they crested the first ridge and headed down the other side. They were about an hour into their journey, and Mara was fighting to keep from letting the steady vibration of the vehicle’s motor lull her to sleep.
“Yeah,” Elroy said with a little smile. “She’s gonna take the survivors back to where we set up our school. It’s the best option around here for a population that size, and we can easily fortify it with our equipment when we get back.”
“If we get back,” she groused.
“When, sis. Knock it off with them negative waves.”
Mara snorted and let the corner of her mouth lift in a smile. Her father had been a big Kelly’s Heroes fan when she was growing up, so she recognized what would have been a contemporary pop culture reference for Elroy. Instead of replying, she sat back against the crate carrying her new compression section and pulled out the wrapped bowl of debem Naliryiz had pushed into her hands before they left.
“You dig that stuff, huh?” Elroy asked.
“Mmmhmm,” Mara said. “It’s delicious. Better than anything else I’ve tasted here.”
“Yeah, it ain’t bad,” he agreed. “I’d kill for a pepperoni pizza, though.”
Mara nodded in agreement. “We should try to make one, after this. Pizza’s basically just flatbread with cheese and stuff on it.”
“Where’re you gonna get tomato sauce?”
“Dunno. Ask the Doc most likely. Some of the native stuff might be close. They’ve got good shit here, El. Ozendi gave me this…tea, I guess you’d call it. I twisted my ankle and knee when we were hiking out; it healed it right up. No swelling at all. And no side effects.”
“That you can tell.”
Mara shrugged to concede the point. “That I can tell. Still though, it’s good stuff. Our medics should take a look at it. They could learn a lot from the Doc.”
Elroy shook his head. “She won’t teach them. I already asked. She’ll treat us, but she won’t teach our guys and won’t say why.”
“Huh. Weird. Maybe some superstition? Like how they don’t like AI?”
“Maybe. Who knows, maybe your flight school will soften things up and make them more inclined to share.”
“That’s what Murphy wants,” Mara said. “That’s our whole mission here. It’s less about teaching them to fly as it is about forming relationships.” She couldn’t entirely keep the bitterness out of her tone.
“Well, we’re doing our best,” Elroy said, and reached over to squeeze her shoulder gently. She nodded and focused on eating. She’d need the strength for the night and day to come.
