22
YOUR SOLDIERS, YOUR COMRADES, YOUR FRIENDS
And so the general’s daughter sat down with the Information Unit, and together they lied to their country. Tannov flipped back to the beginning of his little book and went through the written account, line by line. “No one’s going to believe that Revna single-handedly got the Serpent flying. We’ve been working on Elda mechanisms for years.”
“Single-handedly? I guess I was there for my glittering wit.” Linné rubbed the place where the Serpent had sucked out her spark.
“No one’s going to believe you could put in that much power, either,” Tannov pointed out. “The other girls on your mission died, didn’t they? There’s no one to say you didn’t fly your issued Strekoza until it became too damaged to continue. The others shot the Serpent down.”
And Linné got to watch her achievements be diminished and given away. Again. It’s for Revna, she reminded herself. “And the lost days?” The night in the taiga and the walk to the mountain?
All the things she wished she hadn’t said?
“Blown off course,” he said. “You made an emergency landing in Union territory. You rested, recuperated, and later crashed on the slope of the mountain attempting to get back to Intelgard without being spotted by the enemy. I can verify that pieces of your plane were found in the snow.”
“And your underlings happened upon the Serpent?”
“I see no reason you wouldn’t have remembered where you shot it down.”
“You have a convenient lie for everything,” Linné said bitterly.
“Think of it as a different way of getting the truth back to Mistelgard.” Tannov’s mouth turned down as he crossed out half a page. “Not the truth of how it happened. The truth of your convictions. The truth of your loyalty.”
Linné didn’t need her loyalty publicly verified. “What about Revna’s loyalty?”
Tannov looked up. His eyes were so different, and it wasn’t just the color. They were cold, uncaring. Foreign to her. “Can Revna handle this story?”
Her heart tapped out a quick double rhythm. “She can handle anything.”
Tannov smiled as though he couldn’t quite believe that. “As long as she doesn’t contradict the official report, she’ll be safe for now. But I can’t step in for her every time. One day, you’ll have to choose who you believe.”
Linné didn’t answer. She already knew who she’d choose. Not long ago she’d believed in the perfect Union.
Now she believed in her pilot.
So she focused on the notebook and thought, This is what happened. This is the truth. She would memorize the story and repeat it to Revna until she’d memorized it, too. And by the time they were flying again, there would be no other truth to tell.
Tannov closed the notebook. “I’ll take the report to Mistelgard myself. Dostorov has a prisoner transport to make, so he can drop me off on the way up north. You should be cleared to fly again in three days or so. A week at the most.”
“A week?” After all this, she still had to wait on bureaucrats who wanted to see her fail?
“Standard procedure,” he said firmly. “You can’t fly, and you can’t leave the base until your status has been cleared.”
“Send it by radio,” Linné pleaded.
Tannov laughed outright at that. “You know that’s not possible. I’ll do what I can. In the meantime, do remember that flying will get you a prison sentence.”
“Screw you,” she said indignantly.
He didn’t smile. For a moment she thought she’d gone too far again. Sadness was etched in the lines of his face, the turn of his mouth. “I’ll do what I can, Linné.”
A knock sounded on the door. Tannov whipped it open. “What?”
Dostorov poked his head in. “What crawled up your ass?” He nodded to Linné. “Heard you were back.”
“I think I like his greeting better than yours,” she told Tannov.
Tannov shrugged, but she knew it bothered him. “Everything ready to go?” he said. He turned back to the table, scooped the black case into the bag, and extinguished the lantern.
Dostorov nodded. “Need a drink first, though. It’s a twenty-hour ride before I can get rid of you.”
“So sweet.” Tannov held out a hand to Linné. She stood without taking it. “Come get a drink with us.”
“I beg your pardon?” She folded her arms.
“Call it an apology drink. Or whatever you want, Linné. You can spend five minutes enjoying yourself.”
“Come on,” Dostorov said. He smiled, one of the rare times. It made him look so much younger. “We want to welcome you home.”
And they wanted to keep her home. She knew Tannov could have sent her to Eponar. He could have interrogated Revna first, and he could have ruined her. He hadn’t, because of Linné.
“To be clear,” she said, “I’m doing this for Dostorov, not for you.”
Tannov shrugged, smiling, the carefree, easy smile of a soldier who loved victory no matter the cost.
The night had passed while they were inside, and dawn was right around the corner. Cold bit at her nose every time she inhaled. She tucked her hands into her armpits to keep them from freezing and followed close behind the flapping silver coats of her friends until Magdalena’s voice drifted over to her.
Magdalena ran across the compound, sliding on the slushy ground in her too-large boots. She skidded to a halt in front of Linné and managed a half-hearted salute to the Skarov men before she burst out, “She’s awake.”
Linné turned toward the infirmary. She’d promised Revna she wouldn’t abandon her. She had to make good on that promise.
Magdalena grabbed her arm. “We can’t go in. I heard her talking but the nurse sent me away.” Her smile nearly split her face and her voice came out in short huffs, as though she was trying not to laugh. “She needs rest. Tamara isn’t even allowed to visit. But she’s awake.”
Linné could feel heat under her eyes. She thought the relief would spill over her cheeks and freeze to her face. “Thank you.”
Magdalena dug her toe into the ground. Her cheeks flushed. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You stayed with her when I could not.” Linné didn’t look at Tannov.
“I could say the same to you.” Magdalena’s foot stilled. Silence grew between them. But it wasn’t the usual stony silence. It was an embarrassed silence. Like things had been said that they both regretted.
Magdalena rubbed the back of her neck. “I should go.”
“No.” Linné was half-surprised to hear herself say it, and all surprised to hear that she meant it. “You should come have a drink.”
Magdalena raised her eyebrows. “With… you?”
“With us. The gentlemen have agreed to buy.”
Distrust flicked across Magdalena’s face, though she did her best to hide it. She glanced at the Skarov, then back.
“I only agreed to—” Tannov caught Linné’s well-practiced glare. “To do whatever you like. Of course we’d be honored to have your company, miss.”
He offered an arm. Magdalena didn’t look as if she believed him, but she allowed Tannov to lead her toward the bar.
That left Linné with Dostorov. They walked in the companionable silence at which Dostorov was so accomplished. But his steps were purposefully slow, and when Tannov and Magdalena were sufficiently ahead, he spoke.
“We’ll still have to talk to Roshena.”
“Why?” she asked, even though she knew why.
“He’s postponing it till he gets back. To give her a bit of time to prepare.”
Prepare her story? Prepare for the cold room and colder welcome? “Quite generous of you.”
“You know he didn’t want to do this.”
Not you, too. “I know,” she said, and she didn’t try to hide the bitterness. “He didn’t want to leave me in the dark and cold for hours, or to interrogate me, or call me a liar, or threaten my friend, or any of it. He made sure to tell me i
t was all standard procedure.”
“He already showed you favoritism. He could lose his job if he showed you more,” Dostorov replied. “And you don’t really lose your job in our line of work, do you?”
Everyone knew what the Skarov did, the power they had, the price of their failure. But Tannov had become one anyway.
Tannov and Magdalena waited outside the bar. Dostorov waved for them to go in. Then he stopped. “He asked to come to Intelgard because of you.”
Her blood turned to ice. “He—you didn’t even know I was here.” She thought of Tannov stalking over the ground, shouting, Excuse me, miss. Grabbing her hand in sheer delight. Look who I found.
Dostorov shook his head. “We know everything, Linné,” he said, and took her inside.
The tiny bar had more men than chairs, and all of them were staring at Magdalena and Tannov. Tannov didn’t seem concerned. Magdalena’s face was the color of the Union flag, and she fixed her gaze on the floor, scratching her leg with the side of her boot.
The barman grimaced when he saw Linné. “You can’t keep coming in here. I told you before.”
Linné went up and leaned in his face. She didn’t know what exactly made him step back, but she liked it. She gestured to the boys around the bar. “If they get a drink, I get a drink. And pour one for my engineer.”
The next pilot grinned as he seated himself across from Magdalena. He downed the rest of his beer in one gulp, then set his elbow on the table, hand out. Magdalena mimicked him, right down to the belch she let out as their hands clasped. Linné had worried about her at first, but she fit in better than Linné did.
The pilot looked over at the referees. “First one to touch the table is out?”
“Like the others,” Linné said. “On three.”
Tannov raised his glass from the bar. “One,” he called. “Two.”
Magdalena’s opponent forced her hand back. Months of hauling bomb crates and heavy equipment had made her stronger than he’d bargained for. The muscles in her arm rippled, and her descent slowed.
“Three,” Tannov called, saluting them both.
Magdalena was locked at the three-quarters position. Linné almost heard the bones of their hands grinding together.
“What sort of winning present do you give to the men who beat you?” said the pilot, waggling both eyebrows. Linné could hear the strain in his voice.
Magdalena was more than a match for him. “Don’t know,” she said, smiling. “Haven’t met any men.” The soldiers around them crowed. Slowly, her arm moved upward, forcing him back to the starting position. He bared his teeth.
Linné couldn’t help her self-satisfied grin. It was Magdalena’s victory, not hers; all the same, the looks on the faces of the first five men had been priceless when their hands had slammed on the table. And this one would be no exception.
The man flexed to no avail. Sweat glistened on his forehead. Magdalena squared her shoulders, preparing to end it all.
The soldier leaned back. Too late Linné saw his friend, right behind Magdalena. He reached enormous hands around and grabbed a breast in each, squeezing generously.
Magdalena’s eyes became the size of dinner plates. Her opponent jerked his arm, trying to press his advantage. The crowd screamed. Even Tannov laughed incredulously, sliding off his stool to come help her.
But it wasn’t enough, and it wasn’t funny. Linné took in everything: the laughing crowd, Magdalena desperately uncomfortable, twisting away from the man’s hands and trying to hold on to the one thing, the competition, that might keep their respect.
Rage had always been Linné’s friend. And now she reveled in it. Heat poured through her arms, gathering at her fingers, sharpening to a point at the end of her hand. Her smile was of bitter victory. Her spark had returned to her.
She whipped the blade up the offending man’s back, slicing through his jacket and singeing his skin. He arched with a yell, releasing Magdalena. Linné used his overbalanced weight to flip him over her knee. She kicked a chair at him for good measure.
Then she turned and kicked his friend in the face.
She couldn’t keep track of what happened after that. She kicked a lot of people, and punched a few more, and threw the contents of an entire table in a blast of the spark. At some point Magdalena joined in the fray, shoving the soldiers with arms used to carrying bombs and lifting planes. Someone cracked Linné on the jaw, and someone else got a good jab at her stomach, but by the time Tannov pried her away from the crowd and jerked her arms behind her back, she figured they’d caused more damage than they’d gotten in return.
She kicked behind her, aiming for Tannov’s knees, but she missed. “Calm down,” he shouted in her ear.
“Get off me,” she spat. She tried to spark heat through her arms, but as soon as it reached her hands, it was replaced with a cooling sensation, like flowing water. He was counteracting her.
She saw Dostorov wading into a fight between Magdalena and one of the men she’d trounced. Dostorov shoved Magdalena away. The man Linné had burned came at him, murder in his eyes. Dostorov faced him, and the man backed up. He knew enough to let the Skarov officers have their way.
Linné tried to twist out of Tannov’s grip again, but it was futile. He held her tight and she couldn’t surprise him with her spark.
He shouted at the crowd. “Contest is over. Fix this mess or get a write-up.”
His news was not well received. As Tannov steered her toward the exit, someone said, “They started it.”
Tannov didn’t bother replying. He shoved Linné through the door and into the cold night, Magdalena and Dostorov close behind. His hands tightened on her wrists. “Are you calm?”
“I’m fine.” It wasn’t true, but she wasn’t about to punch Tannov. Not now, anyway.
He let her go. His tawny eyes challenged her. “Are you sure all of you came back? From the mountains?”
Linné rolled her eyes. “Give me a break.”
“It’s the biggest loss your regiment has sustained so far. You must have made sacrifices to stay alive—”
“You know exactly what we did to stay alive. We spent the whole night discussing it.” She pulled her spark back, letting the excess flash out on the Weave. She needed to keep her temper. Unless one of those assholes came out of the bar.
“It’s got to hurt,” he said gently.
Of course it hurt. But it was a different kind of hurt. She looked out to the Karavels. The sky was beginning to lighten in the east. “What hurts is that Magdalena would’ve been the biggest man in the bar tonight. Except she’s not a man. So they laughed at her, and they grabbed at her, and when it upset her, it was her problem. That’s us. It always will be.”
Magdalena stood silently next to Dostorov as he smoked a rascidine cigarette. She was crying, silently and furiously, smearing her face with grease as she wiped her eyes on her sleeve.
Tannov sighed and got a cigarette of his own. He seemed deflated. He didn’t touch Linné, and she was grateful for that. “Welcome to the world, little lion.”
She’d earned that nickname with her yell. Now it seemed that whenever she yelled, someone was there to tell her to calm down. “Don’t call me that.”
Tannov removed the cigarette from his mouth and examined its glowing tip. “Listen to me, Linné,” he said. “Not as a boy, not as an officer. As a friend. Don’t go back in that bar by yourself. Stop and think for five seconds before you go on some angry rampage, even if what you see isn’t fair.” He looked up at her, and his eyes crinkled into an almost-smile. “You can’t hospitalize every soldier on base. Some of them have to go to the front.”
Dostorov bent and stubbed out his cigarette on the snow, then put the remaining half back in its case. He sauntered over. “It’s time.”
Tannov nodded and flicked his cigarette to the ground. “Don’t even think about flying. Zima knows you’re banned.”
Linné shrugged. Tannov offered his hand, but she shrugged at that, too.
He forced a smile and shoved the offending hand into his pocket. “I’ll be seeing you, soldier.”
“Bye,” said Dostorov.
She stood next to Magdalena and watched the two men walk to the edge of the base, where another silver-coated Skarov guarded a hulking palanquin. They climbed in. The palanquin’s six living metal legs creaked as it pushed off the ground. It lurched down the road and into the dawn.
Linné and Magdalena watched until it was gone.
Magdalena spoke first. “Sorry for ruining your night.”
She deserved something better than a brush-off. “You were brilliant,” Linné said, trying to bring some warmth into her words. “A credit to the regiment and the best brawl mate I ever had.”
Magdalena turned pink.
“Come on.” Linné nodded toward the infirmary. “Let’s go see Revna.”
Revna propped herself up against the headboard and waited for the room to cease spinning. Her ribs pulsed with every breath. Her hands itched against their gauze, but they’d stopped burning.
Her prosthetic was propped against the wall, stiff and cold, covered in grime. Her broken leg lay on the floor next to it, little more than a couple of straps and half a metal sheet. Looking at it felt like poking a raw wound. She focused on the room instead—the Union flag, the empty bed next to her.
She picked up a muffled argument outside the closed door. “—can’t go in,” her nurse was saying. “I don’t know how many times I’m supposed to tell you.”
It must be Tannov. He was probably salivating at the chance to interrogate her.
Only it was Linné who slid around the door—and Magdalena trailed close behind. “We won’t be long,” Linné said over her shoulder.
“Any amount of time is too long,” the nurse said, following them into the room. She interrupted herself with an irritated sigh when she saw Revna sitting up.
“I didn’t think it would be you.” Revna leaned forward, even though it made her right side scream. Seeing Linné and Magdalena together lifted some of her weariness. She didn’t realize she was grinning until her cheeks started to hurt.
We Rule the Night Page 31