As a gray-purple dusk rolls over the landscape, David and Soltznin sort through the weapons at our disposal and lay out a base of operations inside the e-craft while I take Drew on a walk to set up an outdoor perimeter.
I explain as we go: “Our ship is only lightly armored, mostly to protect against minor debris while in flight, but it will repel any small-arms fire, even a direct hit by the type of projectile you used. Deploying these telemetry robot sensors will let us know if anyone is sneaking up by broadcasting movement or changes in environmental ambience to the receivers inside.”
I drop a pile of self-propelled autonomous sensors in the dust, each about the size of my fist. Another prize we’d found aboard the evacuation craft. The Corps is nothing if not prepared. Using a central remote operator for all five units, I turn them on and let the operator box run through its autochecks to ensure they’re all at optimal functioning and get a baseline read of the area. I won’t deploy their movement alert system until we’re tucked in for the evening.
To his credit the kid pays close attention, and I continue, “But what to do in case anyone unwelcome shows up is our biggest problem. They might not be able to get us inside the ship, but that doesn’t do us any good if we can’t get out. One advantage is David’s sniper post.” I turn and point out the emplacement. “We’ll just rotate shifts up there. Three hours each.” Trying not to be obvious, I glance back at the kid. “Except you.”
“I’m a good shot,” he says defensively.
“You may be. But I have a rule. I don’t trust my life to strangers.” Holding his coffee-colored brown eyes with mine, I wait to make sure he understands.
After a second, he nods and looks away. “So you want me to stay inside the ship?”
“How many rounds does your quad have left?”
He thinks for a second. “Four.”
“Outstanding. You volunteered to help us, so you can help us by doing what you already know how to. Wank patrol.” He gives me a look of complete confusion. “Perimeter watch,” I explain. “You can spend the night in the quad, and be ready to use it if we tell you to. Whoever’s in the perch will cover you—if needed.” I don’t add how much I hope it isn’t.
“Uh, why do you call it ‘wank patrol’?”
“Because if you’re lucky, it’ll be boring enough that jerking off is the only way to fill the time.” I doubt, however, he’ll still be awake after an hour or two of the mind-numbing monotony that defines battlefield circulation control.
Still, he seems to accept the role with a hint of enthusiasm. After a second, he surprises me by asking, “The guy, David, he’s your brother?”
“Yeah.”
“And you were in the Corps together, huh. What was that like? Why did you desert?”
It’s a guess, but I think the kid is fishing for an out, encouragement to pursue a path that might reasonably offer him and his younger brother a chance at a life once their father dies. I’m torn about what to tell him. On one hand it’s true, the Corps, for all its soul-crushing requirement of blind obedience, will keep him and his brother from starving to death or worse on some backwater rock. On the other hand, as non-citizens their chances for even passing the physical requirements to get in are as slim as their chances for making it out here on their own, and their futures would be no less violent, and likely just as limited. My own loathing for everything the Corps has become probably clouds my reasoning, sure, but I’m not going to lie to the kid.
“We deserted because being in the Corps is slavery. You might think it’s rough out here in the Spectras”—I’m not about to sugarcoat anything—“but just try to imagine what it’s like when your commander tells you that wiping out a mining colony full of non-cits for insurrection is your
duty
. I wanted to be a soldier of justice, but that’s not what the Corps does anymore.”
His expression doesn’t change, but the confusion lurking behind his eyes is clear. He probably isn’t used to being preached to, but I continue. “You don’t want to find out what that does to you, kid. And my advice is, don’t try.”
“So you deserted because you don’t like taking orders. Sounds chickenshit to me.”
He’s doing his best to sound tough, but it makes me chuckle. “Sure, chickenshit, whatever you think. You’ve been around long enough to have it all figured out, right? C’mon, let me go over your quad. I want to see what exactly it’s capable of.”
He follows me to the vehicle without another word. It’s as stripped down and basic as a retrofitted all-terrain vehicle could be, but its simplicity makes it effective. Steel plates have been welded to its frame to give it weight, and the undercarriage hosts tracks instead of tires, adding to its heaviness and balance, but also making it slower than it would be otherwise. It’s not made to engage an enemy, only to stop them. The mortar tubes ride along the tracks’ skirts, and a steel shell topping it serves as a solid barrier to any small-arms fire. Essentially, this little beauty is a boy-sized tank, but with real, lethal weaponry.
“You load it from inside?” I ask.
He nods, his expression thoughtful and faraway.
“Kid. You think you can handle a night in here?”
This brings his attention back to the present. “Why couldn’t I?”
Because being inside that tiny cabin would feel a little like being inside a corpse locker
. I don’t voice this thought. It’s my own, private little phobia. “Because you’re only sixteen years old,” I comment instead, getting tired of his overblown “I’m a badass motherfucker” act. “This isn’t a game, Drew.”
“I know that.”
“No, I’m not talking about standing sentry out here in the middle of nowhere while a bunch of deserters relax inside a stolen e-craft, as if it’s a fucking holiday. I’m talking about your
life
. You aren’t going anywhere but underground in lots of little pieces if you think you really have it all figured out. I’m not trying to bash you, kid. I’m trying to do you a favor. But playtime is over. Stop pretending you’re a grown-up and start learning how to be one.”
His glare could incinerate stone. He’ll have to work on his poker face.
“Aly, how’s it going out there?” David’s voice coming through my VDU takes a front seat to the tension.
I hold Drew’s eyes as I answer, waiting to see a spark of either understanding or further rebelliousness. I need to know what exactly I’m dealing with. “We’re just sorting out the kid’s quad. Sentries are online and ready to be released.”
“Good. See you in a few.”
The kid seethes for another few seconds as I pretend to double-check the quad’s interior. Not that I’m actually going in there myself. Uh-uh.
His voice has lost most of its edge—a good sign—when he says, “I have a plan.”
I bite. “Yeah?”
“I’m going to work for a smuggler.”
Hiding my doubt, I comment, “And your brother?”
“He’ll come too. He can be useful, he’s smart, and he can already shoot pretty well. Not as well as me, but he’s good enough.”
“Sounds like a plan. Now you just have to live through the night.” Crawling off the quad and activating the sentries, I ask offhandedly, “Is it the same runner your pops knows?”
He nods. “Besides, when I tell him what I, uh, did today, it’ll give him more confidence in me.”
Is that pride in his voice? I decide it’s my civic duty to set him straight. “Kid, this smuggler is nothing but a bullet bouncer, a gunrunner. The only thing they ever care about is how big their take is. It’s not about confidence, it’s about how many other scavs they have to go through to get what they want.”
Drew says nothing.
“You want to be a smuggler? Then I’ll make you a deal. I’ll give you one percent of my split for the e-craft if you give me your word you and your dad aren’t planning some kind of cheat or backstab on this sale. If you make sure to keep things on the level with this smuggler, I’ll make sure you get your own share of the take. And if you don’t…” My eyebrows arch in promise, making the “if you don’t” part as clear as if I’d spoken the stakes aloud. “Deal?”
“Fuck yeah!” he says instantly. This time, I’m glad for his piss-poor poker face. This kid doesn’t have the spirit of a criminal, even if he has the goal to be one. Not yet anyway. But in a few years, after life out here on the border of civility, who knows?
I reach out and he shakes my hand.
“Does this runner we’re going to meet have a name?”
“János Rajcik.”
“Drew’s tucked in. I put him and his midget mortar chucker on sentry duty outside for the night. That’s a solid piece of equipment.”
Soltznin sits at the pilot bench monitoring our visual feeds, and David is stretched out on one of the bunks. For the first time since landing on this rock, the tension in my muscles releases briefly, like a flag going limp after hours of being buffeted by a hurricane. Then I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the nav seat console. The grit and gore I accumulated in our surprise firefight have dried to a hard shell. Instead of doing what I want to—grab something to eat, then get horizontal for a few hours—I head immediately for the ship’s onboard wash station.
“So much for new civvies,” I mutter, disgusted at the state of my recently acquired clothing.
After I peel off the stained duds and wedge myself into the tiny shower stall, the overpressurized recycled water blasts into me with exuberance, but the sting against my crusty skin feels a thousand times better than the tacky blood spatter I’d been wearing. Once I’m done scraping it all off, I feel almost renewed, almost ready for the next surprise.
And I don’t have long to wait.
David slouches casually on the bunk when I come out, his long legs splayed out in front of him, looking laid back and relaxed. Except for his face.
“What?” I ask, running my hands through my damp hair to pull out the tangles.
His glance toward Soltznin sets me back on edge, a feeling that’s becoming default. She stands rigidly with her back to the controls, nearly at parade rest, waiting for him to broach whatever topic it is he wants to broach. I think I already know what it is.
“Soltznin and I have been talking. We think we”—he rubs his hand across the forty-eight hours of stubble sprouting from his jaw—“need to discuss other options.”
“We need to get back to work,” Soltznin puts in more firmly.
Forcing myself to take a long, deep breath before responding takes an order of magnitude more self-control than I’m used to. Despite this, my throat still constricts around my words. “What do you mean by ‘back to work’?”
“We’re Corps,” Soltznin says. “That’s where we belong.”
“Tech Sergeant, you need to burp your brain and let some of the crazy out.”
“Aly…” David starts, but he doesn’t seem to know where to go with it.
As I stare at Soltznin, my mind grinding into high gear trying to find the perfect words to describe exactly how wrong she is and exactly where she can cram her loyalty to the Corps, I’m hit with a sudden reality. A certainty. And I don’t need to fight about it, with either of them. It’s a truth, irrevocable, final. “I’m not Corps. And I won’t ever be Corps again.”
“Look,” David tries again, “have you thought about what comes next? What are we supposed to do out here in the Spectras with almost no currency? And fugitives from our units at that? I’ll tell you what—we wait to get arrested. And then being a soldier is going to become a whole lot less of a thrill than
not
being one.”
Deliberately, I cross the flight deck and sit at the navigator’s bench next to Soltznin to let her know she’s not taking this ship anywhere I don’t want it to go. But I keep my eyes on David. His coppery hair, a few shades lighter than mine, is growing long, almost too long to be in regulation. It would help him pass as a civilian if he planned to try it.
If.
I stuff down the panicky dread that thought brings. I haven’t been without my brother…ever. Losing him would be like losing a limb. That thought takes my mind back to the memory of the people on Ohm Lumi, their struggle to survive against the odds, against the Admin, against the Corps. They hadn’t been bad people, just desperate. And they hadn’t been the only ones in the last couple of years that had found their fates dictated by a system that puts the lives of non-citizens on the same level of importance as garbage, and just as disposable. That’s what I’ll be, what I
am
, if I don’t listen to Soltznin and David’s reasoning.
But I can’t go back to the Corps.
“You think I don’t get it, David, but I do get it. I get that it’s going to be hard to stay ahead of the sweep crews that’ll be sent out to round up deserters like me after this rebellion or whatever it is gets mopped up. I get that it will be dangerous to try to live, even just try to hide, among non-cits and smugglers out here on the fringes. I get that I’m probably going to have to fight for everything I need. But do
you
get that every time you’ve pulled a trigger for the Corps, you’ve been nothing but a puppet?”
“Jesus, you’re always so goddamn dramatic.”
“Yeah? Well, it’s pretty fucking dramatic when every single one of your friends just got shredded into so much space trash because the Corps thought it would be fun to play target practice with its own ships. What about Bostich, Vos, Wiggins? They’re dead, David! Because of the fucking Corps. And you want to go back?”
“Leave my squad out of this!”
“I guess I should, right? Because they
are
out of it; they’re out of everything now. Just like we’ll be if we turn ourselves in.” My voice has risen to the point of nearly yelling, and I know I’m making things worse. But chaos theory owns me right now, and it’s so much easier to be angry at him than to be scared I might lose him.
He jumps off the bunk and paces the short distance across the hold, turns, and paces back, his breath heaving as if he’s just run a race. Back in control, he faces me and says quietly, “Being a soldier is all I know. What else could I be?”
“How about alive?”
He looks at Soltznin for backup. The skin of her face is hard, shiny, and set, the picture of a woman whose mind is made up. He faces the stacked bunks once more and puts his forearms on the top, leaning into them with his back to me. The only answer I’m going to get.
Ignoring the implications of my words, I continue, “Tomorrow, we can meet with this smuggler the kid knows, we can sell the ship, and then split the payoff. From there, we can all go whichever direction”—my voice goes husky for a second, and I have to swallow to get it back—“we feel like we need to. For me, that’s anywhere but back to the Corps. I won’t fight for a side I don’t believe in anymore. From here on out, I fight for myself. Period.”
My glance jumps back and forth between them as I speak, and now it settles on Soltznin, mostly because I’m afraid of what I might see in David’s face if he turns around. The surface of a lake couldn’t be more blank, and I have no idea what she’s thinking.
“If that’s the call you want to make, Erikson,” she says. “We sell the ship, then we go our separate ways. Agreed.”
Speaking into the wall, David says, “Agreed.”
Swallowing once more, I stay quiet, not trusting my voice to be steady. After a moment, Soltznin adjusts the internal climate switches to keep us from cooking—even in the evening, this planet is warm—and lowers the lights.
“We need to set up our rotation. Tomorrow could have a few surprises,” David says, his voice deeper than usual.
I clear my throat. “Speaking of surprises, there’s something you should know. The kid told me who his gunrunner contact is. You’ll know the name: Rajcik.”
A fugitive for at least fifteen years, anyone in the Corps who’s ever been tasked with transport traffic security has heard his name at least once. The criminal went from thievery to smuggling to black-market arms dealing in a steady progression of worsening crimes, but no one has been able to catch him yet. He’s big time, dangerous, and by all accounts, fucking evil. Still, for what we need, there could hardly be anyone more suited.
Soltznin looks like she’s swallowed something rotten, and David says, “Looks like we came to the right place, then.”
“Yeah.” And because there’s nothing else to discuss, I finish with: “I’ll take first watch.”