Marked (5 page)

Once, I pushed Bear away for wanting this. But things are different now.
We
are different.

“Stay,” he says, kissing me again. “Stay in the Strand.”

I feel my resolve slipping away. But when we come up for air, I force the words out. “I can't. At least, not yet. I have to figure things out and find out what James left for me.”

“We'd be the best fighters the rebellion's got,” he whispers against my cheek. “Fly with me. Be my partner.”

It'd be easy to appease Bear. I could forget about Manjor and send Miyu back alone. I could throw my arms around this new life and never look back. It's not hard to picture him and me, taking down IP vacs. Even more easily, I imagine us together. His body, warm and close. But then I think of Cash, and of other kisses; another embrace, not so long ago.

Somehow, I know deep down inside that I'm not ready to forget him. And trying to ignore the pain by losing myself in Bear . . . that isn't healing. It's hiding.

Maybe Bear is the one for me. Maybe we are meant to fly, side by side. But I won't know for sure until I can stand on my own. Slowly, I pull back, staring into his eyes. “I think I want this,” I say. “But Benroyal murdered my
father and my uncle, and he still has my mother. I can't just turn my back on that and keep hiding out here.”

“How can you say that, when we're gearing up for war? There's more than one way to fight him,” Bear protests.

“I know. And I've got to find my own way to fight. I need this, Bear. I have to go to Manjor.”

Bear doesn't answer. Instead, he sighs, reaching for me. This time, he lingers, as though he's memorizing the shape of us. Ours is the sweetest kiss, the bitterest kiss, the one that tastes most like good-bye.

“I can't follow you this time, Phee.”

“I know.”

I shatter as he pulls away.

IN THREE DAYS, MIYU AND I LEAVE FOR MANJOR. IT'S DARK,
and I lie on my bed. I close my eyes, but I can't rest. I long to get lost in the white-noise gutter of the wee hours, but sleep won't come. So I sit up, then head outside.

I walk around the camp to outpace the thought loop in my head. Every half-lit, terrifying thing I've ever seen or imagined unspools in my brain. Sometimes, a flash of light—a good memory—claws its way through the cold sweat and I can stop to take a breath. But it takes so much energy to sustain that patch of warmth. Sometimes, it's just easier to surrender and keep moving. One more lap around the armory, and I'll be tired enough. I won't imagine the rebel corpses. I won't see Cash bleeding where we left him. My brain will shut off. I'll collapse.

I pass the infirmary. Soft light spills around the doorway. I hear the low buzz of a sterilizer panel, an air purifier's churn and puff. If I close my eyes, I could be at home, in the Larssens' clinic. In the night, the soft blue hum's an invitation.

I step inside.

In the patient area, Hal sits in a high-backed chair with his head lolled to the side. I suspect he's on call, uncomfortably catching a moment of shut-eye. Hal's patient is either asleep or unconscious on the cot beside him. One of the Biseran rebels. The young man's face is beaded with sweat; a spiderweb of wired sensors are attached to his temples, arms, and chest. The flex monitor clipped to the cot supplies a steady beep . . . beep . . . beep. But there's no sign of blood or bandages. I wonder what he's doing here.

Across the room, there's an empty, white-sheeted gurney. Quietly, I climb onto it and lie down. Curled on my side, I watch Hal. Even now, asleep, his forehead's pinched with worry. This is where Bear gets it. He is a guardian, through and through.

“Phee?” a voice whispers.

I look up. Mary is sleepy-eyed, dressed in her favorite raggedy scrubs. “Awake as ever,” I say.

She sits on the edge of the gurney. Brushes a few flyaway strands from my face, then rests her scrubbed-rough hand on my arm. I let the warmth of it sink in. I memorize
it and file it away, because neither of us are tender creatures. “Who's the patient?” I ask her.

“You know Zaide?” she answers. “The lieutenant in communications?”

I nod again.

“The boy's her brother. We're trying out stim therapy, to see if it helps him.”

When I squint in confusion, she elaborates. “Aram's a recovering sap addict. Stim's a new approach, something we've learned from the Cyanese, but from what I've seen, it's pretty effective.”

“How's it work?” I ask her, shifting to give her more room on the gurney.

“We hook him up, and give him a programmable serum that zeroes in on certain areas of his brain while he's unconscious.” She frowns, struggling to explain. “Stim therapy allows us to stimulate, or in this case, de-stimulate his nervous system. It's like turning the volume down, or turning part of it off. Short intervals, so that the mind has a better chance to recover. Sometimes we can reverse the damage. And even when we can't, patients have an easier time building new neural pathways. It's a real second chance for addicts.”

I think of my mother, locked away in the Spire, imprisoned by the crumbling walls of her own mind. A pang of
remorse needles me. I should've taken her with me when I had the chance, and I can't let it go. “So he'll be okay?” I ask Mary.

“Hopefully.” She sighs. “These things take time. Some things heal more slowly than others.”

I look away when her hand touches my forehead. Gently, she tries to smooth the furrow in my brow. “There are other therapies we've learned from the Cyanese.” She pauses. “There's one I'd like you to consider. I've been working on it.”

My throat dries up even though I'm burning to answer.

“It's not weakness to care for yourself,” she prods. “If you can't, how can you care for anyone else?”

I swallow hard. “I don't know where to start.”

“You can start by admitting you're wounded.”

Instinctively, my body wants to curl into itself. Instead, I roll onto my back. I stare at the ceiling, where the yellowed tent's most discolored, stained by a hundred storms. Slowly, I force the words out. “Sometimes I can't sleep. I see things. Every time I think about . . .”

I start to shut down again, but Mary takes my hand. The gentle squeeze in her grip wrings out an answer.

I struggle to meet her eyes. Asking for help seems the hardest thing of all. “Tell me how . . .” I say at last. “Tell me how to make it stop.”

Mary has lots of ideas about my recovery, but none of them look so good in daylight.

I stand in the doorway of a small, concrete-walled room. It's just an attached storage hold behind the prep area of the mess hall. I suppose it makes sense to meet in the middle of the day, when hardly anyone else is around. Better to come here, where there's privacy. We can have our own safe space, beyond the dishwashers and bubbling pots.

The sliding metal door is cracked, and I linger behind it, rooted in a cloud of filmy steam. Looks plenty cool and dry in the hold, but I'm not prepared to walk in.

Inside, there's quiet talk. By the sound of it, they've already started. There's a ring of flimsy chairs, and most are occupied. I recognize a few of these guys: Belach, our quartermaster. One of the guys who works here in the mess, and one of Nandan's lieutenants. And then there's Mary, sitting next to another officer, an elderly Biseran woman, who I've heard used to serve in a far-flung monastery.

My hand hovers at the door, but I can't bring myself to push it wide open. To sit there and talk about what I've been through in front of them is not going to help. Just standing here, on the edge, is already pushing my
brain into that blinding space where my pulse wakes up.

I take a step back, but I'm not quiet enough. Mary's eyes shift to the doorway, and it's too late.

“Phee,” she says. Her eyes command me to come in and sit.

I slip into the empty chair.

Mary nods, and gestures for the session to resume.

We're asked to give our names, and share what brings us here. Deni, the cook, goes first. His village was bombed four years ago. He lost his wife and two sons, but these days, he's actually sleeping at night. The grief never goes, he insists, but the nightmares don't come as often. Then it's Belach's turn.

I know Belach well enough. He is older than Hal and Nandan, maybe older than dirt. Grew up in the shadow of the fuel mines in the Gap, then lived through war with Cyan and the aftermath. Here's a man who's seen it firsthand: Benroyal's brand of jack-booted peace, with IP troops sweeping in to take what they wanted. But thirty seconds into his confession, my stomach begins to drop.

IP Attack. Heavy Casualties. Capture. Interrogation.

The room is so still. It's as if there's no more air, just the stench of vinegar and leftover stew and bleach, and all I can do is clench my teeth against it.

“They picked me off in Barbouros, east of the Gap,”
Belach says. “We weren't well organized then. We weren't rebels or even guerillas yet, just kids jumping into a firefight.”

His eyes are sunken, and his voice is hoarse and burred by hard memory. “The IP pushed back. We were on the retreat, but I couldn't keep up.”

Suddenly, I look down and my hands are digging into my lap. My breath's shallowing up, and I'm squeezing the sides of my legs.

Belach keeps going, though each word seems to cost more than the last. He points to the scars on his temples, his wrists, and his neck. “They . . . they used stim wire to torture us. Live current. One hour of sleep, then they'd wake us. Seven months they had me, and I still remember . . .”

I look down at my hands. What Belach endured . . . I've got no business being here. To sit in this chair and say I'm afraid. I don't have the right to be this broken.

When he is finished, they all look at me.

“Excuse me,” I whisper, standing up. “Excuse me. I'm sorry.” I can't stop saying it, even walking out the door.

I hear the scrape of Mary's chair as I hustle through the kitchen. I'm past the cooks and halfway through the empty dining hall when she catches up.

“Phee . . .” she soothes. “Don't.”

My pulse jumps as her hand catches my wrist. It takes
everything I have not to pull away from her. To give in to the irrational scream crouched in my throat.

“You said you'd give me something.” I say. “A treatment.”

“I know,” she says calmly. “But if we don't get to the root—”

“I don't have anything to share. It's not like that. I wasn't tortured. I wasn't left for dead.”

“But you
were
hurt, Phee. As surely as anyone else in that room. Just because we can't see the scars, it doesn't mean they're not there.”

“I don't need to talk about it. Not in front of them. This isn't what you said. You said—”

“I said we'd try a new program. And I
am
working on a treatment for you, but you have to be realistic, Phee. No regimen on the planet is going to work without counseling too.”

I take a breath, tilting away.

“This is a first step,” Mary adds. “You need to do this.”

Her voice is warm and steady, but I can't give in to it. At least not yet.

“Come back with me,” Mary says.

“I will,” I tell her, but I'm already walking away. “After Manjor.”

I LEAVE WITH MIYU.

We won't be flying directly into Manjor. Instead, at her suggestion, we make for the coast, where we jump aboard a flat-decked hydrift ship, one that's nimble enough to cut through the waves, yet powerful enough to rise and hover over the shoreline. The
Andalan,
Larken swears, is the perfect smuggler's vessel. Looks like hell, he says, but runs like it too. I know sap about seacraft, but I do like the sound of that.

Now I stand on its bridge as it races toward our destination.

Mary begged me to put off this trip, but I wouldn't back down. So we talked about coping strategies. Deep-breathing techniques and ways to anchor myself
in the present. For now, practicing those routines should help to keep the flashbacks at bay. I promised to report in for therapy the second I returned, but it wasn't enough for her. She fears I'm not yet strong enough to make this journey, and that I need at least a few months to sort things out in my head. Maybe she's right, but it doesn't matter. I have to do this.

At least I'm not going alone.

Larken and his personal guard are making the voyage too. With an undercover escort watching our backs, I should feel a little less uneasy. Yet when we left, and Hank closed in for an awkward good-bye embrace, my heart jumped like a baby groat in a sack. Now I'm traveling with two people I've known for less than a week. Everyone else? Total strangers.

Unlike Hank, Bear didn't see us off. When I looked for him in our final hour at base, he was nowhere to be found. Not in the barracks, in the infirmary, or at the launch yard. When I asked Mary about it, she sighed through her teeth and wrung her hands before putting them over mine. “On patrol. Double shift. I'm sorry, Phee.”

We are all sorry. Benroyal's turned us into walking apologies. But I said nothing to Mary. Bear and I, we had our good-bye.

Aboard the
Andalan,
Miyu and I have berths alongside
the crew. Among thieves and rebels and drifters, we hug the Manjoran Gulf, slinking along an outlaw route. It's safer to put on rust-colored robes and pretend to be smugglers pretending to be monks. Even Miyu's vac wears its own disguise. On deck, I spy it near the prow of the ship. It's parked and covered in sap-stained cloth, hiding among cases of poppied hooch and a hundred other crates of bootleg export.

Now, after two days and two nights of seasick progress, we're almost there, cloaked in the kind of mist that kisses your skin but never quite turns into rain. A flight in Miyu's vac would've been so much faster, but an unmarked aircraft roaring in from the Strand? Too suspicious. Benroyal's Interstellar Patrol watches every bit of inland sky. No, with the billion-credit bounty on my head, the crooked harbor is our best bet.

From the bridge, I watch the harbor's mouth grow wider and wider. I'm pretty sure we'd make a fine meal for this sharp-toothed city. Bear tried to talk me out of this, and now his words ring like good sense. I sigh. Too late to turn back now.

Miyu approaches, her monk's hood pulled low. She sweeps it back, and I get a good look at her face, which is coated with paint. The streaks of orange and black and white are startling, and they make it seem like she's
wearing an elaborately patterned mask. Her hair's neatly braided into thin monk's ropes.

“You. Look. Ridiculous,” I say. The sight of her is so rusting absurd, I can't help but bust up. I have to brace myself against the railing to catch a breath. “For sun's sake, whoever held you down and painted you up, I hope you punched them in the face.”

Prim as ever, Miyu barely reacts. She flashes the same unreadable half smile she always does. “I look convincing. I look like a Biseran monk in proper mourning makeup, who's come to pray for the dead. You, however . . .” She pauses, giving me the once-over, as if
I'm
the one who's out of place. “. . . Look like yourself. Which at the moment is dangerous.”

“I'll keep my hood on.”

“I suspect that's not going to be enough.”

I slump, resigned.

“Are you always this impractical?” she asks, matter-of-factly.

“Well . . .”

“I take that as a yes,” she says, still unfazed. “And I suppose everyone else lets you get away with it?”

I twitch like a bluefin on a hook. There's something about Miyu that disarms me. This girl's right up there with Mary in the shut-your-exhaust department.

When I don't answer, Miyu goes on. “You
are
impractical, I think,” she says. Her half smile cracks, turning up ever so slightly. “But it suits you.”

I let Miyu brush gloppy, thick stain all over my face before we meet on the deck. At least the paint dries quickly, and it doesn't smell too bad. I suspect there's balm leaf in it; I catch the faint whiff of it every time I inhale. The scent reminds me of Cash. And it's a weird thing to look like the wrong end of a brush monkey while remembering him. If he were here, I think he'd laugh.

The thought makes my eyes well up.

Gently, Miyu fusses. “Stop, or the colors will run.”

“It is a mourning mask,” I say. “Just striving for authenticity here.”

Larken slips beside me. No monk's robes for him, since he's staying on the ship. He could almost blend in with the crew, as scruffy as his borrowed clothes are. But as Miyu would say, it's just as well. Scruffy suits him.

He stretches his hand toward the approaching shore. Almost there now. I hear the hover engine begin to power up. “Take a good look,” Larken says.

I scan the shallows of Manjor, then the horizon. In the distance, high-rises and turreted temples pierce the skyline. Vessels of all sizes and shapes crowd the shore, some rooted
in the surf, some hovering just above the sand-silky tide line. As we get closer, the Manjorans on the docks look less like scurrying insects and more like workaday grunts.

We grab hold of the railing as the second hull siren blares. It's a warning to hold fast as our ship roars into hover mode. And roar it does. I resist the urge to cover my ears as we rise, displacing sea water in high-pressure blasts. The thrust's twice as loud as a dozen circuit rigs in a race day lineup, and that's really saying something.

Another hydrift pulls in beside us. I sneak a look at its prow and spy the name etched on the hull. And when I glance around the harbor again, I see a handful of other vessels share this same script. There are other ringers too. Three
Kukiri
Malandar
s. Two
Farkourrens
. Five . . . no, wait . . . six
Gabban
Gallas
.

“They all have the same names,” I shout over the roar.

When the hover engines soften into a stabilized hum, Larken answers, “It's a smuggler's trick. Sort of a joke, really. It's designed to frustrate local authorities. For example, say a black-market merchant's caught by a squad of IP, or the city guard. They ask him which vessel's running his bootleg goods, and he answers—”

Even I can appreciate the brilliance in this simple ploy. “‘Why, the
Andalan,
of course.'”

Larken nods.

“Six decades of Castran occupation,” Miyu adds. “And the Biseran manage to fend off the conquerors—resisting a well-armed Interstellar Patrol—with nothing more than dishonest ingenuity. Well done.”

“And the ruse doesn't end there,” Larken replies. “All these names? Like many Biseran words, they have many meanings, depending on how they're pronounced. For example, emphasize the first syllable of
An
dalan—and you speak of a precious jewel. Pause on the second—An
da
lan —and you're talking about a bottomless well. Accent the third—Anda
lan
—and you've just insulted a woman, calling her a faithless wife.”

“If you're a native of this planet, you'd catch on,” Miyu interjects. “But if you're an IP, or an occupying soldier, you'd need a lot of patience and a very sharp ear to make an arrest.”

I picture the IP—Benroyal's corporate mercenaries—running from boat to boat, chasing false leads. Miyu's right. The Manjorans are resourceful, and I'm sure Cash—Crowned Biseran Prince, Duke of Manjor—would've approved. His brother, firstborn Dak, gets to claim Bisera's capital, Belaram. But
this
city was always meant to be his, a clever seat for a second-born son.

Now I am here to find myself and carry on the work he left behind. Somehow, I have to claim whatever fortune my uncle might have saved for me. If I can, I'll use every
last credit to take down Benroyal, end the Sixers' rule, and bring Cash home.

I look up. Larken and Miyu are talking. I've drifted off, and this is no time to lose a second of focus.

“You must take care,” Larken says. “This city is built on false fronts and misdirection. It's the Manjoran way, and the city's survived for over a millennia because of it. It's still the last great stronghold of Bisera. No invading army or conqueror has ever been able to take this port and hold it. The IP might have a presence here, but they've never been able to subdue it.”

“Grace says that you don't leave your mark on Manjor; it leaves it's mark on you,” Miyu adds.

“True enough,” Larken says. “But if all goes according to plan, you won't be there long enough to find out. Are you ready?”

I take a deep breath. “I hope so.”

Larken puts a hand on my shoulder. “We'll watch IP movement and keep track of what's going on in the city. You and Miyu slip in quietly, and I'll keep an eye out. Don't worry. Miyu knows where to go and what to do.”

Miyu looks at me, straight-faced and calm underneath her mourning mask. “We can do this. The two of us; it's perfect. They won't be expecting a couple of scrawny monks.”

I nod. Pretend I'm prepared, steely-eyed and certain.

“Get in. Get what you came for. Get out.” Larken adds. “Check in often. If you run into trouble, flex or call, and I'll send an extraction team. And if you don't check in, you better believe I'm sending one.”

“You're putting a whole lot of faith into this plan.”

After a second or two, Larken laughs, then finally looks back at me. “It's not the plan I've put my faith in. I've put it in you, Phee. After all, who better than public enemy number one?”