Spectrum

by Samantha Mina

  So, instead of doing math, I began scribbling down random battle plans and crazy solutions to nonexistent problems. Sometimes, I drew up ideas I knew would never work simply because they were too wild and stupid. Often, my diagrams were more like artwork—sketches of divers tumbling from vitreous silicas into the raging sea, surface-riders streamlining between crystallines, and foot-soldiers leaping over vast, icy fjords, weapons in hand. I never spent more than half an hour on a sketch before yanking it out and starting another. I was dreaming up a thought process on paper. I was so caught up, I didn’t even realize when class was coming to a close. I was in the middle of a realistic depiction of Lechatelierite and me, performing the spin-toss with my helmet flying off, when a shadow fell across the page.

  “What are you doing?”

  For the second time that day, I almost jumped out of my seat. Lechatelierite loomed over my desk. I quickly covered up my drawings with my knapsack.

  “Nothing.” My voice shook. Now, he’d know I hadn’t been paying attention. It was yet another mark against me in his mental dossier. I was furious with myself. He always, always caught me doing something stupid!

  “Let me see those.” He held out his hand. I couldn’t defy a direct order. Reluctantly, I removed my bag from the desk, revealing the stack.

  He leafed through them, an indiscernible expression on his angular face. “You did all of these today, in class?” His voice sounded far-off.

  My stomach twisted. “Yes, sir.”

  He looked closely at a crazy battle-plan that involved deploying from the Fervor Gulf of Nuria. The map was drawn to scale, individual ships and units labeled.

  “I’d like to hold onto these for a while,” he said, eyes still on the same image.

  My stomach knotted. “Of course, sir.”

  He nodded and drifted toward the door, my drawings in his pale right hand.

  Cease Lechatelierite

  I looked at each of Scarlet’s drawings. At first, I didn’t know how to react. Never before had I seen sketches whose primary purpose was to entertain. The Childhood Program made sure of that. Until the Nurians came along, I always thought art had to have a distinct, functional purpose. A battle diagram, for example. So, when I caught Scarlet doodling in class, I was torn between reprimanding her for not paying attention and praising her for her astounding gift.

  The piece at the top of the stack was an unfinished depiction of us performing the spin-toss, her helmet flying away. The body positions were accurate and proportionate. The surface of the water was realistically rippled. Subtle lines and shadows conveyed the surprise on her face as her hair flew in all directions. I noticed, with an odd feeling in my chest, how accurately she depicted the scowl on mine.

  The next few images were meant to be battle diagrams, but they were too beautiful. All of her ideas were unrealistic but thought-provoking. One involved deploying from the southeastern coast of Nuria and fighting in a body of water other than the Septentrion Sea or the Briny Ocean, which would risk exposing Nuria’s involvement in the war to the System. Some of her plans even involved invading Conflagria itself, which would reveal to the mage population their state was at war. As ridiculous as her concepts were, I couldn’t force myself to cast them off. Wasn’t her wild creativity the foremost reason I promoted her?

  I put the stack in my desk drawer and headed out to practice.

  Scarlet July

  I tightened my white-gloved hands around the joystick of crystalline one. Today, I was piloting while my comrades surface-rode. Instead of launching from a shuttle’s hull at exactly the right moment and snagging onto the handlebars of another racing by, I was maneuvering a crystalline alongside the ten other unit leaders, catching streamlining divers and giving orders. I was no longer responsible for just my own survival, but that of dozens. If I was late or early, or a few degrees off, or inaccurate with my calculations or commands, my men could wind up hurling aimlessly through the sea.

  So, yes, I was feeling the pressure.

  “Units two and three,” I addressed those clinging to my right and left sides. “Twenty-five degree descent in eighty-seven seconds.”

  I bit down on my mouthpiece, changing my intercom’s transmission so I could speak privately with Lechatelierite. “Commander, permission to revise your launch orders to a jackknife? I’ll be rendezvousing with shuttle two and four in a minute.”

  “Permission granted,” his voice sounded in my helmet.

  I bit my mouthpiece again. “Alright units, jackknife in seven seconds. Catch onto shuttles two and four. Hitch hold. Three...two..one… go!”

  I accelerated as soon as units two and three kicked off, diving sharply to catch one and four. I saw a flash of their white-suited bodies then heard the loud smacks of their landings. Tincture, you’d think I were hauling elephants, not people. Sometimes, I wondered if the shuttles could really take the beating, day after day. I could just picture my hull caving, water rushing in, carrying my comrades’ limp bodies—

  I shoved the unpleasant images from my mind. I was being dumb. These shuttles were shielded. They were designed for surface-riding. The only thing I should be worrying about now was the well-being of the men I was carrying.

  WHAM!

  The louder-than-usual thump was followed by a sharp screech; it resonated from the right side, where my unit just landed. Oh, Tincture. Someone was sliding across. The texture and volume of the scratches and kicks helped me imagine what position he was in and how far he was from the handlebars and the others. In a flash, I sketched the scene in my mind.

  “Lie on your back and straddle the fin with your legs,” I broadcasted to the entire unit since I wasn’t sure which man was in trouble. “Hold it with both hands, too. I’m ascending as quickly as possible.” I bit my mouthpiece. “Attention!” I called to the entire fleet. “Abort spin seven. We have an unbounded unit-one soldier on the right dorsal of crystalline one. I’m resurfacing, now.” But, the surface was still quite a distance away. My heart thudded. “Unbounded, report,” I said to my unit. “Have you followed my instructions? Are you holding on?” Silence. A shiver of fear ran through me. Did he fall off? Why wasn’t he answering? “Anyone who can see, report the status of unbounded!”

  With a crackle and a hiss, I saw a red light flash at the corner of my visor. Outgoing unit one communications were down. Of all times to have a malfunction!

  There was one diver I still could hear, though.

  “SHE SAID LIE BACK AND STRADDLE! DON’T SIT UP!” Lechatelierite’s voice exploded in my helmet.

  I heard a scrape and a swish, and it was all over. My world stood still. I turned and looked out the rear window, watching a white suit twist out of sight, into the cobalt-blue oblivion of the sea.

  I finally reached the surface, but it was too late. My hands were numb. I lost a soldier. We were yet to enter the war, and a man from my unit was already dead. I was his commanding officer. He was my responsibility. A life was lost because of me.

  I docked, crying and gasping, on the brink of hysteria. Sure, the academy taught us the concept of ‘acceptable losses of battle.’ But, we weren’t in battle, yet. It wasn’t an enemy who killed this man.

  Maybe he wasn’t dead? I scrambled out of the cockpit. Lechatelierite didn’t die immediately after falling off his crystalline, during that infamous battle last summer. Inexor was able to find and rescue him. I checked the watch on my suit’s left wrist. Only a few minutes had passed since the surface-rider fell. He could still be alive!

  I had to find Lechatelierite and tell him what needed to be done. I scanned the crowded platform. Everyone was clambering on it, a note of chaos in the air. I ran, slammed very hard into something and fell backward.

  Lechatelierite loomed over me, face contorted. The look in his silver-grey eyes could extinguish the entire Fire Pit in a split second.

  “Commander!” I gasped, jumping to my feet. “We need to send out scouts and find him!”

  “It’s too late to save Ed
enta,” Lechatelierite spoke with a tone that could freeze Conflagria. So, that’s who I may’ve killed. The same man I rescued during our very first practice. Apha Edenta.

  My Nurian comrades, frightened and confused, almost all turned in unison at the sound of the Commander’s voice.

  Blood pounded in my ears. “No,” I breathed. “No, it’s not! How is this any different than when you fell off a crystalline, last summer? Inexor Buird was able to find you, without a scout,” I babbled. “And, look, you’re fine, now! You didn’t even need a full age to recover from being almost paralyzed—” At that moment, I realized just what was escaping my lips, in front of the entire fleet.

  Lechatelierite didn’t blink. “How do you know all that?”

  “It—it doesn’t matter, right now,” I stammered. “We’re wasting time we should be using to find Apha!”

  The Commander, whose secret was now in the open, turned and faced his men.

  “Leavesleft, Frappe, Tacit, Lee, Acirema, Austere Jr.!” he called the first seven officers. “You and your sub-leaders, to scouts two through seven! The rest of you are dismissed!” He sprinted to scout one. “Scarlet, come with me.”

  Half an hour later, Apha’s twisted body was found, impaled on a reef. He was confirmed dead in the hospital wing within an hour of returning to base, organs ruptured and spinal cord twisted. Practice for the rest of the afternoon was cancelled. While all the Ichthyothians had seen death before, the Nurians hadn’t. The air was thick with tension and shock, throughout Icicle.

  That day, I understood what I always saw engraved in the Commander’s eyes and etched into the lines of his young face. It was the look of someone who’d caused and embodied death—the scars of a man who carried the burden of countless lives on his shoulders, every day. I finally recognized this look, because now I could see it in the mirror.

  * * *

  I lay on my bed as night fell, the day’s events washing over me. Breaking my military discipline in the solitude of my quarters, I did a very un-soldier-like thing. I cried.

  I cried for the fleet I let down. I cried for Lechatelierite’s big mistake of promoting me, in the first place. But, most of all, I cried for the life I cost. I never knew Apha Edenta very well, but it hurt all the same. Every photon in my aura cried out for the single, precious life that was lost, even before we Nurians saw a minute of combat.

  There came a faint knock on my door. I had no desire to talk with anyone, right now. I just wanted to burrow under the covers and drown my mental image of Apha’s twisted body in tears.

  The knock came again, this time more insistent.

  “Go away.” My voice wobbled like a little girl. That’s all I really was: a little girl trying to step into the large boots of a soldier.

  The door opened. Only one man in this fleet had the authority to disobey a direct order from the Second-in-Command. It was Lechatelierite. The very last person I wanted to see at a time like this.

  “I heard you through the wall,” he spoke softly in Nurian.

  Against my will, I pulled my trembling body from bed and stood at attention. Tears streamed openly down my face.

  “No, Scarlet, it’s okay,” he said, holding his hands up. “You can sit down.”

  My knees gave way. I buried my face in my hands. “What do you want, sir?” I said through my fingers.

  “Edenta’s death wasn’t your fault.”

  Lechatelierite wasn’t known for subtlety. He was always very direct and blunt, even in sensitive situations.

  “You don’t have to try to make me feel better, Commander.” My tone cracked as I rubbed my eyes. “It’s not your job.”

  Lechatelierite ignored my rude attempt to make him go away.

  “You did your job,” he said. “You gave him directions that should’ve saved his life. Without seeing him, you knew exactly what to do. He died, Scarlet, not because of you, but because he didn’t listen to you.”

  I hiccupped and sniffed. What was I supposed to say? Come to think of it, Commander, you’re absolutely right! I guess I shouldn’t feel sad and guilty, after all!

  “Apha is dead, and not by the hand of the System,” I murmured. “Whether or not it’s my fault will never change that.”

  Cease Lechatelierite sat down beside me, mattress creaking noisily. To my great shock, he put his right arm around my shoulders and pulled me toward him, resting my head on his collarbone. That was the first time I noticed he had a scent. It was salty, like the sea. The tip of his sharp, ice-cold chin pressed against my forehead. My tears soaked into the fabric of his uniform. We sat there in silence, frozen in time for just a few moments.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” I whispered into his chest. When I glanced up for a second, I thought I saw his lips twitch. My gaze dropped.

  “You have nothing to apologize for.” His voice was thick in my ear.

  He stroked my wiry hair with his cold left hand, and I couldn’t breathe. A minute later, he gently pulled away, stood up and walked to the door. He looked back at me with an indiscernible expression on his pale, pointed face. For the first time, I didn’t want him to go. The same man I usually feared and avoided somehow managed to comfort me during the worst thing I’d experienced since the death of my family, six ages ago.

  “See you tomorrow,” he said, voice regaining its usual, stern edge. I sniffled and nodded, cheeks streaked with mucus and tears. And, he was gone.

  Part II

  Fire vs. Ice

  That iron man was born like me

  And he was once an ardent boy:

  He must have felt in infancy

  The glory of a summer sky.

  —Emily Brontë

  Scarlet July

  I entered the mess hall to the sound of tense silence. After spending another insomniac night listening to Lechatelierite’s furious typing, I welcomed the dull peace. My mind was dampened by yesterday’s events; every sight and sound seemed distant, as though received by a badly-tuned, First-Earth television set. My face was a rictus of death, eyes sore and half-closed. I was drained, emotionally and physically.

  But, it was back to work, as usual. The war had to go on. I had to sacrifice a bit of my humanity for the sake of the Nurro-Ichthyothian Alliance. It was my duty, my privilege, my honor, my condemnation.

  Breaching my usual mealtime protocol, I sat with my unit. With both Apha and I missing, the table would’ve looked too deserted. My men were careful not to even glance at me as I sat down and mechanically bit into a styrofoam-like rice cake.

  Breaking the mundane atmosphere, Lechatelierite bounded into the mess hall with such ferocity, every head in the room turned. His skin was even paler than usual and his sharp face was fixed in a tight contortion.

  “Attention!” he called, as though he didn’t have it already. “Another Conflagrian scout ship was discovered in the vicinity and has probably called for reinforcements, by now. We’re expecting an attack within the hour. We’re on the defensive. Everyone report to the hangar, immediately. Practice is over, divers. From now on, we’re at war.”

  The Commander’s intense eyes fixed on mine, all comfort from last night forgotten. Adrenaline and spectrum coursed through my veins, forcefully pulling me from my stupor. I leapt to my feet. I couldn’t believe it. We only had a single day to adapt to our new unit assignments, and we were already going to face the System. Lechatelierite was right to move up the promotions. If he didn’t, we would’ve been horribly unprepared.

  We’re at war. His words rang in my head. I’d dreamt of this moment since discovering war existed on Second Earth. But, somehow, I always imagined myself going in strong and invigorated, not drained and doubtful. Losing Apha took the novelty out of combat. Toying with death just didn’t appeal to me as much anymore.

  But, it was my duty. It was what I was born for. To destroy my people today, to liberate them tomorrow.

  Units one and two lined up on the hull of my crystalline. Units three through nine would dive from an overhead vitreous silica,
piloted by Nurtic Leavesleft. Units ten and eleven were surface-riding on a crystalline piloted by Illia Frappe. The rest of the unit leaders were taking their crystallines in empty, so those deploying from above would have a place to surface-ride after entering the water.

  “Hitch-hold on the rungs while we’re riding out,” I reminded units one and two. “Keep your bodies flat and erect against the surface of my shuttle until spin-off. Jackknife and streamline, on my mark.”

  And, so, we rocketed into the turbulent depths of the Septentrion Sea.

  And, we patrolled for three hours without spotting a single Conflagrian vessel.

  “Lookout clear, Second,” Nurtic reported. He and sixty soldiers were aboard the manta ray, soaring half a mile above the sea.

  “Roger, Leavesleft.”

  “July, do you think the scout retreated without summoning backup?” piped Arrhyth Link, the Nurro-Orion sub-leader of unit eleven. I sighed to myself. Of all Lechatelierite’s appointments, Arrhyth’s was the one I didn’t understand. In my opinion, he was naïve and quick to jump to conclusions. He was an outstanding pilot, thanks in large part to Nurtic’s off-hours instruction, but that didn’t mean he had the capacity to lead.

  “No, I think that’s just what they want us to think.”

  “Ma’am, we’re not picking up a single ship or soldier on our radars or spectrometers,” Illia reported from shuttle two.

  “The Commander said we’re on the defensive,” Arrhyth bellowed. “If there’s no one attacking us, we should go home, especially since we aren’t really through with training. If we don’t have to fight, we shouldn’t.”