Solfleet: The Call of Duty (56 page)

He checked
himself. He was doing it again—dwelling on his unfortunate circumstances and making
himself angry. It was a pointless exercise, not to mention a self-defeating
one, and would only serve to worsen an already bad headache. Hell, he’d been wounded
just three and a half weeks ago. And besides, no matter how bad things might
be, there was always somebody somewhere for whom things were a lot worse. His
mother, God bless her insight, had told him that many times when he was a small
child, and he had never forgotten it.

He should
call her. He usually tried to contact her at least once a month, but he hadn’t
spoken to her since before the last FTX six weeks ago. She might be worried.

He lay still
for a few more minutes, listening for the rain that had been falling steadily
for the last few days, but hearing nothing. Then he rolled his throbbing head
across the sweat-soaked pillow, squinting hard against blinding shafts of
sunlight that shone down through the quad-pane skylight like four proton beams
aimed directly into his eyes. But squinting alone proved not to be enough and
the painful brightness still forced him to turn back to the wall. At least the
sun was shining for a change. And thankfully, for the first time in days he
didn’t have any appointments with that team of doctors who’d been assigned to
his case, medical or otherwise.

He forced
himself to open his eyes again, blinking repeatedly until they finally grew
used to the sunlight. Then he drew a deep breath and held it, steeled himself,
and exhaled sharply with a grunt as he rolled over onto his side, grimacing
against the anticipated pain that shot through his shoulder like the energy
pulse that had blown it apart. He dropped his feet to the thickly carpeted
floor and sat up quickly to take the pressure off, but that only amplified his
discomfort as daggers of sharp pain stabbed through his torso.

Hesitantly
at first, he drew several more deep, labored breaths, exhaling more slowly with
each successive one until his ribs finally started to regain some of their
flexibility. He closed his eyes and continued the exercise for several minutes,
just as Marissa had taught him, until his heart rate decreased and the
throbbing between his temples eased. But the moment he opened his eyes again that
throbbing resumed once more.

He sighed.
Why did he even bother to try? He’d told himself at least a hundred times that
without the formal training that only a live Tor’Kana Priest Adept could provide—training
that Marissa had been fortunate enough to have received before she entered the
service and had tried to pass on to him—he’d never master even their most basic
mental healing disciplines.

“Thanks for
trying, Marissa,” he said aloud to the empty room.

Marissa. He
wished she could be there with him now to share his bed and wondered if he’d
blown his chances with her for good. Despite the fact that he routinely slept
alone for weeks at a time in the field, he’d come to realize over the last ten
nights that he didn’t particularly like doing the same thing at home. He was
used to sleeping with Carolyn, and the bed felt empty and very lonely without
her.

He didn’t
love Marissa—not that way. He never had. That much he knew for sure. But he did
care about her and he already missed her terribly. If only he’d given in to her
advances and divorced Carolyn a long time ago. Maybe things would have turned
out differently for them. Maybe, given time, he could have fallen in love with
her and built a life with her. Now it was probably too late. She was gone. She
was out of the fleet, back home with her family somewhere in L.A. He’d called
her once, but their conversation had felt strangely awkward and forced.

At any rate,
as far as the Cirran mental disciplines were concerned, she’d been a patient
teacher, and a pretty good one, too, considering that she’d been little more
than a novice herself. Despite his lingering feelings of discouragement he’d grown
noticeably better at employing the first discipline over the last several days.
Nevertheless, his mind having finally conceded this round of the battle of
wills to his body, he reached for the pill bottle on the nightstand to his
right—he tried not to over-extend but inflicted more pain upon himself just the
same—and dispensed a Liferin tablet into his hand. But rather than just toss it
into his mouth he hesitated, stared down at it, until it gradually faded from view.

* * *

“Thank
you, Corporal,” he said as he watched the little white tablet already beginning
to dissolve in his sweaty palm. “You’re a life saver. My head is really killing
me.”

“You
should have asked me for one a lot sooner.”

With a
little more effort than it usually required, Dylan filled his hot, pasty mouth
with warm saliva and tossed the pill to the back of his throat and swallowed.
Then he said, “I thought you didn’t carry these things anymore.”

“Never
hurts to have a backup plan.”

“Good
point.”

“Anyway,
that’ll fix you right up.”

“I hope
so.”

“Did you
at least try the discipline?”

Dylan
nodded...slightly. “Only about half a dozen times since we left. It worked a
little bit, but this one’s a major skullquake.”

“Aw, come
on, Sarge. You oughtta know by now size doesn’t matter.”

* * *

He was
smiling, he realized. He was sitting on the edge of his bed and staring down at
the tablet in his hand, smiling. God he missed her. He tossed the tablet into his
mouth, swallowed, and waited a few moments for it to take effect. Then, feeling
almost like a new man, he tossed the warm blankets aside and stood up, creating
a breeze that chilled his bare, sweat-coated skin. He raised his arms gingerly
toward the ceiling—he could smell the sweat in his armpits—and carefully
stretched every muscle from head to toe, then limped into the bathroom to shave
and take a sorely needed shower.

* * *

He set
the shower for medium-warm, heavy flow, then stepped into the stall and stood
still as a statue under the pulsating stream.

He cupped
his rough, dry hands under the soap dispenser and held them there until the
creamy white fluid overflowed and oozed down the length of his forearms.

He
lathered up.

“Finally,
to be clean again,” he mumbled. “Hey, Kenny!” he called out. “You in here?”

“Yeah!”
the answer came.

“I told
you I was still a white man under all this dirt!”

“I’ll
call my great-grandfather for you! Maybe he can help!”

He
laughed.

He heard
the door to the next stall slam closed with a sharp crack. Was maintenance ever
going to adjust the tension on that thing? He heard Marissa humming a soft
melody that he didn’t recognize. When she turned the water on the sound drowned
her out, but then her haunting melody exploded into a reverberating moan of
such ecstasy that everyone in the showers, and probably in the locker room as
well, had to have heard it.

“Oh!” she
cried out, sounding as though she were on the very brink of orgasm, eliciting
assorted snickers and various comments. “Oh yes! Yes! Oh, it feels so good!”

The
snickering graduated into open laughter.

Comments
followed. Jokes. Profanities. Someone over-stepped their bounds. He said
something to stop that in its tracks.

He
dropped his arms to his sides and just stood there shaking his head. “I think I’ll
just stay in here forever,” he mumbled.

“Great! I’ll
stay with you.”

* * *

He wished
she were with him now. But of course, he couldn’t really stay in the shower
forever. His medical leave would end in a few more weeks and he’d have to
report back for duty, provided the medical doctors and doubletalkers alike all
cleared him as he’d been told to expect they probably would. When that time
came he’d return to duty gladly and without regret. What’s more, he’d return
with renewed enthusiasm. He missed being there. He was proud of his service and
had every intention of continuing to serve, despite what had happened to him.
It was the only thing in his entire adult life that he’d ever done right.

But for now
he was still on medical leave and it would probably be a good idea to go
outside and enjoy the nice weather while it lasted.

He rinsed
himself off, turned off the water, and stood under the warm air dryer until his
pale skin was dry and his dark brown hair barely felt damp. Then he stepped out
and wiped the bottoms of his feet on the mat, and as he walked back into the
bedroom he realized that he wasn’t limping very much anymore and that the pain
in his ribs was all but gone. True, he had taken the Liferin a little while
ago, but despite its strength to cure headaches it had never quite deadened his
other aches and pains so completely before. Perhaps those long, painful hours
of physical therapy he’d been putting in were finally doing some good after
all.

As he had
done every morning since coming home from the base hospital, he stood naked in
front of the full-length mirror to examine his battered body. His left thigh
was still slightly discolored, but at least it had finally shrunk down to
near-normal size. His lower chest and sides, though still pretty tender, weren’t
covered in bruises anymore. His shoulder still hurt when he flexed or stressed
it—or rolled onto it in bed—but it, too, was healing nicely. In fact, except
for some slight redness, it looked as if it hadn’t even been injured, let alone
blown to dust.

He leaned
closer to the mirror and scrutinized his left eye, comparing it to his right. Except
for a hint of redness and swelling along the outer edges of the socket where
the shattered bone had been replaced, the bruising there had faded as well. His
doctors had assured him that it was only temporary, and in fact he almost couldn’t
see it now. That pleased him, because at the rate he was healing he’d be as
good as new by the time he returned to duty. Physically at least.

But what
about psychologically? He stared deeply into his reflection’s eyes. He thought
again of that mysterious demonic creature that came to him in his nightmares
intent on bringing about his ultimate destruction. Dealing with the heavy losses
that his squad had suffered in that battle was difficult enough, but the
stubborn persistence of that demon haunting his subconscious mind? What could it
possibly mean?

He blinked,
repeatedly, snapping himself out of it. Why the hell was he still so fixated on
that creature? It was fast becoming less of a fixation and more of an obsession.
The damn thing already lurked about at will in his subconscious, and that was
enough. He wasn’t about to let it intrude on his conscious mind as well.

He reached
for the comb on top of his bureau and ran it through his hair, which had grown
quite a bit longer since he was wounded than the regulations of his particular
branch of Solfleet allowed. Of course it was longer. He hadn’t had a haircut in
over a month and a half. Much longer and it might actually lay right, he
thought with a grin.

He tossed his
comb back down on his bureau, but as he started turning away from the mirror he
noticed something that, when he was just a few years younger, he’d thought he’d
never have to worry about, and he quickly turned back. Growing quickly disappointed
with the out-of-shape figure who stood before him, he reached up and gently pinched
the beginnings of a most unwelcome pair of love handles. Never in his adult
life had he ever let himself go, and yet there it was, a fatty belt of unwanted
flesh. The beginnings of the proverbial spare tire. He sighed, knowing that any
Marine Corps NCO worth his training, especially one who served in Special Operations,
should never allow such a thing to happen.

* * *

He stood
naked in front of the full-length mirror on the wall to look himself over. As usual,
he felt generally pleased with what he saw. His muscles weren’t particularly
large like Sergeant Running Horse’s—certainly nothing like a bodybuilder’s—but
they were well defined, hard and strong, more like those of an accomplished
martial artist.

* * *

The sooner
he could get back to his strict workout regimen—the sooner he could look into
the mirror and see that perfectly conditioned Ranger looking back at him again—the
better.

With one
final glance into his reflection’s eyes, a hard glance that served to tell him
just how disgusted he really felt about his appearance now as compared to then,
he stepped over to his bureau and opened the top two drawers. He pulled on a
comfortable pair of black hiking shorts and his favorite lounging around shirt—an
old black, white, and orange hockey jersey that had been worn by #21, Steve
Smith, first line centerman and captain of the once again two-time Stanley Cup
Champion Philadelphia Flyers.

Though he’d
been born in Maine, Dylan had grown up in Philadelphia’s western suburbs, so he
was a life-long Flyers fan. He’d followed them for as long as he could
remember. Unlike baseball, which was only still played for nostalgia sake in a
few small cities, professional hockey had withstood the test of time with
relatively little change. Beyond Earth, of course, its popularity couldn’t hold
a candle to that of the Coalition’s Professional Treece League or the Galactic
Games, but it was still a great sport, his favorite by far, and he tried never
to miss a game when the local Earth affiliated network happened to fit one into
its programming schedule.

He grabbed his
watch and strapped it around his left wrist as he padded through the dimly lit
living room and into the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Compared to the soft
aquamarine carpet that warmed the rest of his apartment, the kitchen’s bare
white floor felt cold and hard beneath his feet.