He said it with such matter-of-fact arrogance that she gaped at him. Soldiers were permanently “retired” for speaking such things.
“Tyron, you’re a soldier now,” he continued. “But certainly you must long for a different Path than the one the Regime has forced upon you. Surely, if you so truly believed in Decca, you would have reported their error in assigning your offspring under your command. Yet, you chose to keep that secret.”
She refused to grant him the satisfaction of knowing he was right.
“No one forced me to be a soldier. It is the duty for which I was born.”
“Straight from the hallowed tome of Decca. The mantra of the Volunteer.” He drew the word out, full of ridicule. “Your Kindred masters call you Volunteer, because to think of you differently would be uncivilized. It would acknowledge slavery—an outlaw act that they pretend to find repugnant. Yet they enslave entire worlds and breed soldiers to do it.”
“No. I shouldn’t be talking to you about this.” Sela turned away, looking toward the door.
She should find Valen, see if the others had rested. See that the munitions check was completed. But it was so hard. Lineao had tapped into the desperation that grew with each passing hour. His words seemed to hover on the same wavelength as that quiet voice that kept saying: you have been abandoned… left to die… help is not coming.
“Don’t tell me you fear words.” Lineao chuckled.
“I don’t. But this is lunacy!” She leaned down, hissing the words against his ear. “Do you know what I think? I think you came here and one of their priests whispered this same insanity into your ears and it burrowed in. It infected you. That is why there is Decca.”
“It was difficult for me too… at first.”
“Don’t compare yourself to me.” She prodded his shoulder with her knee.
In that moment, she hated his quiet patient tone, hated the stench of the incense, and hated the beauteous pity painted on the faces of the women on the walls. Their expressions contained serene understanding; their eyes seemed able to peer into her soul. She found their forgiveness suffocating. And above all, she hated the tiny niggling thing in her that wanted to know more. Sela took angry strides to the outer sanctum, but pivoted back.
“I am a soldier of the Regime. It is my Path,” she said as loud as she dared. “I serve with honor for as long as I breathe.”
“Then what? One day they’ll reward you by making you a Citizen?” Lineao sneered. “Have you ever met a Citizen that was once a breeder, Tyron? Will your masters one day call you their equal? Perhaps your Kindred captain that I hear you praise so much?”
Sela froze. The priest had felt around in the dark unknown of her heart and pulled at the loosened threads there. Was it that plain to everyone, her feelings for Veradin? So that even an observant stranger would notice?
“It happens. Everyone knows it.” She could have winced at how childlike it sounded.
“Believing that lie—that’s lunacy, Tyron.”
“Enough.”
“There is more to you than a simple foot soldier. These others you command, perhaps that is the only life they envision, but in you I can see a deeper intelligence. There’s hunger in you. It is never satisfied by the hollow lies of the Regime and their rules, their commandments of Decca. You have consumed their lies for years, but you are always starving, while their own adherence to Decca is a matter of convenience.”
Her hands shook. A tightness invaded her throat. “Stop.”
“You wonder about the great hidden wheels that turn the Known Worlds. You wonder about the Kindred masters that command you. All the while you go where you’re told, fight where they tell you to fight. You do these things, but there’s that hunger in your clever brain. It’s a simple question but powerful enough to guide your Path, if you are brave enough. It’s a simple thing: why?”
It was muscle memory, instinct that made Sela draw her sidearm. A threat evoked her response. The priming trigger’s high pitched whine was the only sound as she pressed the muzzle against the priest’s temple.
“No more words, Lineao. That’s it.”
But he did not cower. He bowed his head and returned to more muttered prayers.
This did not satisfy her. She wanted him to fight back or pelt her with curses. The anger commanded her to rip and tear. She could fight what she could see and touch, not his stupid words. Yet, they stung and invaded her ears, burrowing into her brain, tunneling to where they could never be retrieved.
This must be what it was like to be infected.
Staring down at the back of his shaven head, she thumbed the priming chamber closed and holstered her weapon. With a tremulous breath, she pressed her fists against the sides of her head.
Count to a hundred, a thousand. Breathe.
On unsure feet she went to the doorway and sagged against the rough stone of the archway.
---
“Commander?” It was Valen’s voice.
Sela jerked upright. Her sergeant had been standing there unannounced for some time. How much had he heard? Where there had always been fierce worship in his gaze, she imagined there was doubt.
“Sergeant.” She had to clear her throat and try again. “Valen.”
“Nominal, Commander?” His wary expression fell on Lineao.
“Yes. Report.”
“Signal hit on vox. Old code, but valid. We have an extraction. Got coordinates. Two click hump from here.” The relief in his voice was apparent.
The tight grip on her lungs slackened. There was a flood of relief knowing that she would soon never see this room again.
Valen studied her. Then she realized why. Sela felt for her vox-com’s earwig, realizing that she had actually removed it with her chest armor. Her throat mic was missing too. She felt exposed, as if caught in a guilty act.
“Excellent, Valen. Time?”
He glanced at his chronometer: “Eighty-six minutes.”
“Send an advance—”
“Already done, boss.” Valen’s eyes moved over to the altar. “How’s Atilio, sir?”
She turned to regard her son’s form and slowly shook her head.
“Glory all,” he responded.
They regarded each other in uncomfortable silence. Then Valen spoke: “This one gonna be a problem, boss?” He tilted his head toward Lineao.
“I’ll deal with him.”
---
As the dawn became a fresh bruise on the horizon, Sela remained at Atilio’s side. She watched as he stopped fighting to breathe. Fitting, she realized. The one to see him draw his first breath was there to see him expel his last.
My strength is the soldier beside me; I shall not abandon him.
For all of Lineao’s admonishment of Decca, the words still rang true. She would not permit her son’s body to remain here to rot under alien suns. He would go back to the ’King for burial in space.
Sela felt them watching her. Valen and Rheg. Simirya. Even Lineao. They were waiting for her to speak, to move. Time was not an ally. The rest of the team was a blur of activity, prepping for the extraction. This time, Sela was the impediment.
She leaned over Atilio and etched his face into her faultless memory. Even now, she was astonished by how much he resembled his father, a man she reviled. But Atilio was also part of her.
I have failed you. She removed the ident tag from his neck.
“Boss.” Valen was at her elbow. He did not have to say more. Time was up.
She nodded, not trusting her voice. It would not do to have them hear it break.
Valen and Rheg moved with quiet efficiency. They bundled Atilio’s body into the large, heavy bag.
After they trundled her son away, Sela remained with Lineao in the silent, ruined room. Her numb fingers toyed with Atilio’s ident tags before she strung them next to her own.
How very much like his birth. Swept away by strangers.
“I am sorry for your loss, Commander. No mother should see her child die,” Linea
o said.
“He is not mine. Not anymore,” she corrected, turning to face him.
This is why there is Decca. This is why it is dangerous for a mother to know her children. We are soldiers, not families. I was foolish to think this would end any differently.
This grief, this pain she felt was self-indulgent. She could not afford the luxury of it. Her team needed her.
“And what of me, Commander?” Lineao folded his hands against his waist.
“What about you?” She felt drained and raw.
Only one other man in the world made her feel as if her thoughts were being broadcast: Jonvenlish Veradin. In her captain, a man she trusted, it was comfort. In Lineao, it evoked a poisonous unease.
She regarded him, measuring. The priest had more reasons to stay behind than lighting candles or burning incense. But whoever or whatever he was hiding in the compound had not threatened her team and she was willing to overlook it.
Her own words surprised her when she said: “We’re leaving. My team still has active kill orders. Stay out of sight. Do you understand, Lineao?”
He nodded slightly. “Understanding is the quest that drives us all, Commander.”
His patient tone made her want to throw a rock at his shaven head.
As she crossed the threshold, she heard him say, “The Path before you is a new one this day, Sela Tyron, if only you can see it. May the Fates guide you until we meet again.”
She paused and inhaled a stilling breath.
May the Fates guide me off this ball of dust and back to my rack.
A strange hollow feeling had invaded her. There was no word to truly describe it. Not in Regimental. Not in Commonspeak. It was a sensation that told her nothing was going to be the same again. The thought filled her with dread.
4
The runner was a welcome sight, abused-looking though it was. It graced the field in the riot of rust-colored dust kicked up by its engines. Nearby, a single stryker flitted down like a fragile insect. It had also seen better days.
Sela helped Valen carry Atilio up the ramp, the bag sagging into a boneless crescent under his lifeless weight.
He had been such a tiny infant. She ground her molars.
The runner’s interior was jammed. The craft was meant to hold far fewer personnel and their gear. Gaining altitude would prove interesting.
Why just one runner for a nearly complete team? It didn’t add up, but exhaustion told her to be grateful.
Sela turned to Valen and shouted over the roar of the engines. “Over full. I’ll take the jump seat on the stryker.”
“Stay, sir.” Her sergeant nudged her back up the ramp of the runner. “I’ll go. You need to be with them.”
He was right, of course. The team still needed her, as impossible as that felt at the moment.
She nodded. And he disappeared into a swirl of dust.
Feeling suddenly exhausted, she slogged back up the ramp into the belly of the runner. It felt as if the gravity of this hot, dusty world had increased ten-fold and would not permit her to leave. The ramp whined closed behind her. She rounded the corner past the ops station and gave the pilot a quick nod. All set.
Turning, she collided with Captain Jonvenlish Veradin. As the deck lurched with the runner’s burdened ascent, he grabbed her by the upper arms to steady them both. Sela looked up into his lopsided smirk.
“Captain,” her voice pulled into a low warning. He shouldn’t be there. It was not protocol. Having him personally oversee an extraction was too dangerous. She would never have allowed it, and he knew it.
“Sorry I’m late,” he replied. “Got distracted.” It was his attempt at a joke.
Sela’s scowl was half-hearted. “You’re here just the same, sir.”
Another jolt shook the runner. He reached for the frame of an equipment bin to steady himself as she collided with his chest.
Sela quickly righted herself and grabbed a handful of cargo webbing for support. He extended his hand and she clasped his forearm, holding on perhaps a little too tightly.
“The casualty…” he began.
“Atilio, our meditech,” she said, barely audible over the protest of the engines.
“I’m sorry, Ty.” He squeezed her forearm once and let his hand drop. Of course Veradin did not know. To Sela’s captain, the young meditech was one of many under his command.
“It’s worse than we know. Isn’t it, sir?”
There was a final lurch as the runner escaped the grip of Tasemar’s grav.
“That’s the unofficial motto, right?” Veradin allowed his lopsided smirk to re-emerge. He had a way of looking proud of himself and guilty at once.
Valen had said the vox code was an old one. The Storm King had sent only one troop runner and one stryker for air support. Things had gone wrong, vastly, if Veradin were chancing his own life in this overloaded runner.
“What did you do, sir?” Sela pressed.
“I did what I had to, Ty.”
---
The moment the runner alit on the Storm King’s hangar floor, the ramp unfolded to reveal two waiting officers: a lieutenant colonel and some Fleet skew. Sela had never seen either of them before. As they led Veradin away to the XO’s office he gave Sela a glance over his shoulder. She sighed and shook her head.
She had gotten the story from Veradin on the brief flight back on the runner. He had told her that the Hester, the Storm King’s sister ship, had been delayed for an engagement in the Denor system. The Storm King’s captain, a crester skew named Silva, had decided to abandon his post at Tasemar in favor of glory-seeking at Denor. After all, delivering breeders to take care of half-assed rebellions among the primitives of a fringe world was not going to carve his name in victory and raise his station. Silva had gauged, incorrectly, that the ground detachment he had essentially abandoned there could hold its own while the ‘King attended to this new, more interesting call.
But Veradin had refused to leave them. Her captain had “borrowed” a troop transport and a stryker to effect their retrieval. Of course, he’d had help. Quadra team, his security escort during his initial extraction, had taken control of the flight deck while Veradin and some Volunteers had commandeered the craft. It was impossible for a carrier to spool up with a hangar bay still active. So Veradin made sure it stayed that way.
Captain Silva then had no choice but to delay the departure of the Storm King. It would have been tantamount to political suicide for Silva to jeopardize a fellow crester, even a peasant Kindred like Veradin.
It explained why everyone on the flight deck seemed so enthralled with her team’s arrival. Yet even after Veradin and his escorts had disappeared into the bustle of the hangar, Sela realized they were still watching her.
She and her team had been given up for dead, after all. Yet there they stood, immortal as the Fates. She didn’t feel like one, standing stiffly at attention as Atilio’s body was rolled out of the bay.
Ignoring the obvious stares of the Fleet skews, she made sure her two other wounded personnel were herded off to medical, despite their protests. The entire time, she sensed a nearly electric charge in the air. It was as if a storm had blown through, leaving not destruction, but disorder and edginess in the carrier. She sensed Veradin had been the harbinger of that storm.
Captain, do you realize what you have done?
“Valen!” Sela bellowed, staring down the few remaining onlookers consisting of mostly Fleet techs. It worked. They went back to their duties and found less obvious means to stare.
She saw her sergeant turn away from what seemed to be an intense conversation with a female Fleet tech. He jogged around a pallet lifter laden with the ordinance crates that had never made it to Tasemar’s surface.
“Who’s the tech?” she asked.
“Cade.” Valen canted his chin. “Our stryker escort. She’s actually a deck pilot, sir.”
“Incredible,” Sela muttered in disbelief. Veradin had somehow convinced or coerced a Fleet tech with rud
imentary skills into piloting a stryker to land on Tasemar. Where it not so risky or stupid, she would have been impressed.
There was going to be fall out, she guessed. How bad and how far it reached was up to Veradin and his seemingly unparalleled ability to talk his way out of trouble.
Around them the flurry of the hangar bay was increasing. The Storm King was prepping for spool-up. Velo drive spool-ups were big maneuvers, often requiring hours of prep time. Fleet relied on mapped flex points– specific locations, invisible to the naked eye, where the fabric of space stretched thin over a conduit passage– for travel between planetary systems governed by First. At flex points, velo drives enabled ships like the Storm King to punch a hole through that thinness and propel itself along the conduit. It required a great deal of energy, but reduced travel between systems to days or hours, instead of decades. It was a tedious and dangerous business. Calculations had to be perfect, with everything in precise order. Otherwise, the vessel could end up on the other side as so much debris.
Fleet techs and other support personnel were buttoning up in the hangar and in a hurry to make up for the delay. Infantry was definitely unwelcome to linger here.
She turned back to Valen. “Make sure D company get some rack time. Once the captain is done getting yelled at, we’ll debrief with the team leaders. I’ve no doubt there’s going to be mop up on this one.”
Valen shifted, raking a hand over the back of his bare head. “Sir, about that…”
“What.”
“Captain Veradin mandated down time… for everybody. Next twenty hours. No exceptions.”
“He did what?” She glowered at Valen. The captain had said nothing to her before he was led away. Why would he subvert the chain of command? But she knew the answer. “When?”
“Just before… you know.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the XO’s office. It was plain Valen found the reaction to the captain’s stunt just as worrisome.
Her hand went to her vox: “Captain Veradin. Acknowledge.”
There was a long pause, then Veradin’s voice answered: “You need a break, Ty. Not just your team. You too.”
Allies and Enemies: Fallen Page 3