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Also by Adalyn Ramsey
Copyright
Before you begin…
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-Adalyn Ramsey
1
Darius holstered his sidearm and shouldered his way out of the armory, pushing past his brothers in uniform. Their mission was to subdue an insurgent stronghold on the planet Faylir. That was always the mission, more or less. Tromping across some foreign planet and forcing the locals to submit to the Administration’s authority.
When Darius had first enlisted, these missions excited him. Like all new recruits, he was filled with a sense of duty and righteousness, spurred on by the promise that he was helping to save the Galaxy. Now, the excitement had run dry, and he felt weighed down by the overpowered weapons strapped to his body. He hadn’t needed them for a long time. None of their targets put up much of a fight these days, anyway, which only made him that much more uneasy about the reasons behind their raids. Still, it was not his place to question.
“Lookin’ good, Darius,” Tyler shouted, clapping him on the back and then bouncing off to greet the rest of their team.
Darius watched him go with a mild look of disinterest, not bothering to call after the young soldier. He missed being young, thrilled by every new adventure, but the realities of age were settling over him with each passing day, and he didn’t know if he would ever feel that alive again.
Darius went through the motions, marching and standing and saluting in perfect time, like always, but his mind was elsewhere. The pre-mission briefing happened all around him while he daydreamed about home and the lover he once had. They were only kids back then, hopelessly in love and confident that they could make the distance work if only they tried hard enough. He smiled to himself as he remembered coming home from training that first summer, sweeping her up into his arms and planting a kiss on her soft lips. That was all before. Before the Administration’s war kicked into high gear. Before his lover grew weary of waiting and moved on. Before he knew that love wasn’t always enough.
Now he was here, staring down the barrel of another mission and wondering whether this war would ever come to an end. He felt his body temperature rising and his skin growing itchy as he waited for the go ahead to move out. He tapped his foot impatiently, his fingers drumming an erratic rhythm on his thigh.
“All right, let’s do this! Everyone in position!”
A bay door screeched open and the sound of perfectly measured footsteps filled the yard as all the men marched forward. Two aircraft buzzed low overhead. Darius barely spared a look toward the sky before turning back to scan the empty street ahead.
The city had once been a center of commerce and art, but now it was merely a shadow of its past. Empty storefronts faced the cracked concrete of the sidewalks, undeterred weeds poking their heads triumphantly toward the sky.
Darius’s foot hit the gravel with a crunch and he looked around doubtfully. He had a hard time believe this place could be resurrected, even if they drove out the insurgents. Up ahead, a smattering of explosions interrupted the drone of the aircraft. Darius glanced up just in time to see the last few bombs making their descent, silently falling through the air the way a bird of prey dives for a meal, wings tucked back and body slender.
Carefully, he scanned the street back and forth, waiting for something to disrupt the eery quiet. He knew the system by now. Empty streets were never quite empty. Somewhere behind those busted storefronts were fighters, armed to the teeth and waiting for an opportune moment to run out and ambush his team. He held back a step, keeping a weary eye on the darkest shadows in anticipation. Nothing.
The explosions up ahead had ended, and the echoes had faded away. Now there was nothing but the jarring sound of his own teams’ voices bouncing off the broken walls. Where were the insurgents?
They reached the end of the street and rounded a corner. Up ahead he could see that the crowded roadway opened up into some kind of square, replacing the tiny shop windows with larger, more official-looking buildings. As he drew closer, he realized that these, too, were shells of their former selves. What looked like a government building of some kind was clinging to a skeletal frame, bricks and debris tumbling out into the square in an arced spray.
His team was already moving in, branching out left and right to clear the square. They could never be too cautious, even if they hadn’t detected a single movement yet. The mission was to find the enemy and drive them out, and they wouldn’t be here if the enemy wasn’t real. They had to be in there, somewhere.
Darius skirted the edge of the square, proceeding past narrow alleys and side roads where his companions were already poking around. A strange noise caught his attention, and he paused only briefly to look over his shoulder before jogging a few steps, trying to discern the source of the sound. Nervous, he put a hand on his sidearm, but he hurried ahead, pulled forward by the keening.
A sudden movement from a doorway made him freeze. He almost shouted to his team, but something made him pause. He narrowed his eyes and watched as a slight form stumbled out of a burned out building, falling on all fours in the street a little way ahead. Instinctively, Darius pulled back, flattening himself against the side of a wall and crouching behind some rubble to watch. He could still hear his men moving down the roads and alleys behind him, but for now he was on his own.
The frail shape lifted its head barely, and Darius watched as it turned to stare back into the building on shaky arms and legs before collapsing into the dust. Pausing, Darius monitored the building for a few more seconds, expecting someone else to emerge at any moment, but no one came. Only the continuous wailing escaped through the open door.
Satisfied that the only identified living being in this town was no longer a threat, he moved in. He never took his hand off his gun, and his eyes bounced back to the doorway every few steps, but soon he stood over the mangled body of a woman who could be no older than him, judging by her looks.
She wore a tattered uniform that had once been pristine white, and when he knelt down to check her pulse, he discovered an identification badge clipped to her breast pocket.
Xerces Ithaku, nurse. In her picture she wore the uncomfortable smile of someone who was not prepared to have her picture taken, memorialized forever on a badge. Her hair was tied back neatly, her shoulders were pulled back resolutely, and her eyes stared down the barrel of the camera.
Darius looked down at the body in front of him, comparing the faces. There was almost nothing left of the woman in the picture. Xerces’ hair stuck out in every direction, frazzled and singed, and worry lines replaced her rigid smile. The smooth clarity of her youthful skin was now a patchwork of cuts and burns, scars and scrapes.
Darius tucked the identification badge into his pocket and placed a hand on the woman’s neck. Her pulse was weak and her skin was growing paler beneath the dirt. She wouldn’t have a chance if he left her here. Then again, he wasn’t sure she had a chance anywhere else either. The sound of crying coming from the building had withered with exhaustion and he considered whether he should investigate the sound before
moving the woman, but a sound at the end of the alley cut him off.
“You all right down there, Darius?” It was Tyler, and from the sound of things, he was spoiling for a fight. That’s what happened when you were promised insurgents and you didn’t find any.
Darius stood abruptly, turning away from the body and hoping that Tyler could not identify the bundle of rags as a woman. That was the last thing he needed.
“Yep, all good down here. I thought I heard something, but it was just a rodent digging around.”
He shrugged and started walking back toward his companion without looking back. Now Tyler wouldn’t have any reason to investigate further.
“This has been a real shit show, hasn’t it? No insurgents, no damsels in distress, and no riches. The Administration better get their act together before the men get restless, if you know what I mean.”
He gave Darius a rough cuff on the shoulder and winked deviously. Darius offered an uneasy smile, not wanting to urge the young soldier on. He knew exactly what it meant when soldiers grew restless. They turned into barbarians, no better than the insurgents they fought. He had seen it before, and he knew he never wanted to see it again.
As the two men walked out of the alley together, Darius’s mind was racing. He needed an excuse to go back and check on Xerces, without Tyler. He needed to make sure she was still breathing and get her somewhere safe before one of the other guys stumbled upon her. He searched for a plausible excuse.
There was a bang and a shout from across the square.
“Well, well. Look what we have here, boys!”
With no further hesitation, Tyler took off to investigate the discovery with his friends. It was the chance Darius needed. As Tyler whooped and cheered at whatever was hiding behind the door the team had just kicked down, Darius pivoted and started walking back the way he had come. He didn’t want to run lest he attract too much attention, but he knew he couldn’t delay. As he walked, he sent up a silent prayer that whatever was in that building was shiny and valuable enough to keep them distracted for a while, and that there were no living people amid the bounty.
Stealing away back toward Xerces’s body, it relieved him to see that her eyes were now open, and she was blinking slowly up at the sky. Deep breaths rattled from her chest, and her hands clutched at her pant legs, leaving fresh bloody streaks across the already dingy fabric. Her hands were trembling and too weak to hang on for more than a moment or two. The closer he got, the more agitated she grew, tossing her head back and forth and rasping words that he couldn’t make sense of. Her eyes were wide with fright and she opened her mouth to scream as he dropped to his knees beside her.
Trying to quell her hoarse scream before it escaped her throat, Darius quickly placed his hand over her mouth and nose firmly. She tossed violently, scratching and biting at him with the last of her energy, but he needed her to understand.
“Shh. Listen. I’m trying to help,” he whispered insistently.
She shook her head once more in disbelief, but her vigor was fading fast, and she finally laid her head back on the ground and huffed desperately into his palm. He eyed her suspiciously and then lifted his hand briefly, wondering if she would cry out, but when she kept quiet, he pulled his hand back.
“Who are you?” her voice cracked just above a whisper.
“What happened here?” he asked, brushing off her question.
She gave him an unmistakable glare and a low growl boiled in her throat, but she took a deep breath and spoke. “Don’t you know? The bombs? They were… yours?”
Darius frowned, not understanding. The bombs weren’t his. They were the Administration’s bombs meant for insurgent targets.
“Who do you work for?” he demanded, suddenly afraid of her answer.
“Orphans…” she trailed off hopelessly.
“What?” he demanded, lifting her shoulders a little further so he could catch the wisps of her voice before they floated away.
“Orphans. The orphanage,” she repeated, exasperation on her tongue. She barely lifted a hand and waved vaguely toward the damaged building that she had stumbled from.
Darius let the words sink in slowly. He didn’t know what to do with her answer. It was as he expected, and yet somehow so much worse. From her outfit, he assumed this was some kind of hospital, and he had already been feeling the red hot fury of knowing that the Administration had targeted civilians, but to think they had wiped out an orphanage was enough to make his stomach clench.
“Where are the insurgents?” He couldn’t believe what she was saying. She had to be lying, and if she was lying, she knew where the enemy was. “Tell me where they are.”
She only gave him a quizzical look and searched his face for some explanation, but it was enough. There were no insurgents here. There never had been. Whatever this place was, it was never a threat, and with that he knew he had to do something.
2
“I’m going to get you help,” Darius muttered more to convince himself than Xerces.
Her body had gone mostly limp and her head lolled back in his lap, her eyes fluttering open in brief moments of lucidity. He thought he saw her nod, but he couldn’t be sure. Slowly, he raised himself up onto one knee and scooped her up in his arms. Her eyes closed, and her head rolled close to his chest. He felt panic rising inside him as he stood and looked out into the open square. He only had one choice, and it would mean putting Xerces at more risk before she got to safety.
Setting his jaw, he took his first steps toward the ship. The other guys were still scouting the buildings at the far end of the square and celebrating their paltry finds, but Darius locked his eyes straight ahead and forced himself to move forward.
“Stop,” Xerces gasped.
He paused, looking down at her and meeting her steely eyes. She breathed hard and licked her chapped lips once.
“The orphans. Don’t leave them.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll get help. I just need to get you to medical first. Then I’ll come back for them.”
Xerces closed her eyes again, pressed her lips into a thin line, and nodded her understanding. Then she passed out in his arms. Darius swallowed hard, knowing that if she died now, she would have died an honorable death, using her last words to save the children. But he also knew it was a lie. He could not get help. The men on his team would not save those children. More than likely, they would just finish the job that the bomb hadn’t and pretend they never saw a thing. If Xerces woke up, she would eventually ask about those children, and Darius would have to look her in the eye and explain. His heartbeat quickened at the thought of facing her angry glare again. He knew he wouldn’t be able to tell her the truth if it came to that.
He took his first cautious step out into the square and looked around for the other members of his team. He didn’t spot them in the immediate area, so he went straight for the ship. Crossing through the square would be the fastest path, and it would save him the trouble of stumbling over the debris that lined the sidewalks around the perimeter. He picked up his pace, adjusting Xerces’s body close to him protectively.
As he approached the landing point, he grew anxious. There were lookouts and crew members on the ground, milling around. They were guarding the ship and taking care of some light maintenance while they waited for the scouts to get back. He didn’t want to answer questions if he could help it. He needed to get her to the medical bay if she would have any chance of recovering.
“Hey! What do you have there?” one lookout called as soon as Darius was in clear view.
“I need to get her to medical, right now,” he answered plainly.
“Hang on. You can’t just bring her onboard the ship like that. There’s protocol for prisoners of war.”
“Fine. Follow me down there and you can cuff her to the bed if you want, but I’m going to medical.”
The man stepped in front of Darius, blocking his path and sizing him up. “You wait out here. You can bring her in with all the other prisoners on
ce we have everybody lined up and accounted for.”
Darius glowered down at the man with intimidating fierceness in his eyes. He clutched Xerces to him like a lifeline, promising himself that he would not let them take her captive. Not until she had seen a doctor, at least.
“Move aside. She’ll die if she doesn’t get help,” he tried once more to be reasonable.
“So? You think I care if some insurgent whore dies? That’s one less prisoner to feed on the way back. One less person to clean up after-”
The soldier didn’t get to finish his thought. In one swift movement, Darius swung his right arm up and across, his elbow connecting with the man’s nose and Xerces’s legs flailing unceremoniously as he threw her around. She woke with a start, squealing in surprise, and clutching at Darius’s arm in fright.
“Sorry,” he offered.
The soldier crumpled forward, his hands going to his face to stop the flow of blood. He screamed furiously at Darius, but Darius was no longer there. He had moved on, stepping inside the bay doors and pushing past the stunned onlookers who had missed the preceding argument. Nobody else stepped in his way, and he headed straight for the onboard clinic.
Shouldering his way through the door, he called out, “Hey, Doc! Doc?!”
As soon as the door closed behind him, he locked the deadbolt and swung back around impatiently. The doctor onboard came out of a small office space adjacent to the exam room, wiping his hands busily on his white coat and looking frazzled. He looked from Darius to Xerces and back again before letting out a low whistle.
“I thought somebody was shot,” he grumbled. “Who’s this?”
“Her name is Xerces. You have to save her.”
Darius had already brought her body over to the medical bed and laid her down flat on her back. Dr. Kandre looked down at her doubtfully and shook his head. He backed away, but as he did, he bumped into Darius’s muscular chest hovering close over his shoulder. He couldn’t escape.
Forging the Alliance short Page 1