by Eileen Sharp
His commanding officer looked at him as he boarded the black transport with the rest of the squadron. A line of red-eyed Cyphers entered the transport cargo hold and strapped in.
Joshua did the same, and bent his head to stare at the blade in his hand. It had almost become a part of his body now. He slipped it into the sheath on his leg. He needed a miracle or he was going to have to do something he didn’t believe in. Would he kill someone to save Cris? He was afraid he might.
∆∆∆
Caina stepped out of the boxy, slightly battered transport onto Hades. There wasn’t much to see. A compound of bleached-white hangars sat on a faded black tarmac. The white buildings had been constructed in a hurry, using materials shipped from across the planet. The custom of using materials indigenous to the area had been suspended for the war. Huge cargo ships lumbered between planets, carrying pre-fab military buildings wherever a new station was needed.
Like the other military stations, the one on Hades lacked architectural sophistication. Square blocks with hardly any windows, the buildings were placed close to each other on an unimaginative grid.
Beyond that, as far as her eye could see, there was only pale brown desert. Scrubby little bushes dotted the baked ground, their brittle branches trembling in the wind. Dusty green patches of some kind of desert groundcover crept under the few bushes. A chain of mountains hovered on the horizon, their cool blue silhouettes far from the barren, scorched bowl.
“What a god-forsaken hellhole,” Brian muttered in her ear, his dark blue eyes squinting in the sun.
She licked her lips. They already felt dry. Lifting her eyes from the muted colors of the ground, she was surprised by the clear sky. The brilliant blue stared back her, pure and untainted by clouds.
“It’s kind of pretty, actually,” she said, though not loud enough to be heard by the other recruits now staring around at their new home.
“Yep.”
Startled, she glanced at Geoff. His hard, unsmiling face seemed right at home in this savage place. The quiet loneliness of the land matched his solitary ways.
“We’ll see how pretty it is in a week,” Brian said, obviously not agreeing with his brother. “We’re going to shrivel up and die here.”
A voice barked at them from the transport. “Listen up!”
The fifty recruits shuffling around in the dust stopped murmuring to each other. The gray-haired Commander Lenoir stepped down the ramp of the transport. His khaki camouflage uniform was crisp, his skin as brown as the desert around them, and his calm gray eyes mirrored the sky.
“Everything we’ve learned about the Nostekoi we’ve applied here. If you pass through the initial training, you’ll be evaluated for a higher level, and briefed on the requirements. For now, let’s move to the main barracks. Welcome to Hades.”
Caina fell in line behind Brian, Jeff following her. He whispered to her, “A higher level with requirements? That’s new.”
Pleased, she wondered if there was a specialized unit. She’d be in it, she knew that much. No one could be more motivated than she was. She couldn’t wait to meet the Nostekoi again, and when she did, she wouldn’t be some scared little teenage girl. She’d be a soldier. Of course, she’d have to survive Hades, first.
The most consistent thing about Hades was the lack of humidity in the air. She woke up with nosebleeds the first few weeks, and everyone smelled like minty lip balm.
One cold morning during another exercise, she decided it all felt more like school gym class than war. She and Brian were huddled in the shadow of the stark mountain range, shivering in the cold desert morning before sunrise.
They were supposed to be evading the green team. No one could be sure who the exercise was for—the team hiding or the team searching for them. Maybe both.
A rock skittered nearby, and they both froze. It had been close. Brian grinned in the darkness, his eyes glittering.
She scowled at him. She didn’t know how many others the greenies had found, but she didn’t want to be the first. She’d never get to the still-unnamed specialized unit they were all gunning for if she got caught this easily.
She moved to the balls of her feet, crouching like a cat, one hand on the ground. She pulled the thermal goggles over her eyes and silently turned them on. Brian raised an eyebrow at her, probably thinking she should lay low. She ignored him. She wanted to know the location of the rock skitterer.
She cocked her head, listening, hoping for another clue. A coyote yipped in the distance, and Brian widened his eyes in mock terror. She needed to stop looking at him. He didn’t care about the war. He just wanted to make sure she made it out alive. He’d probably get a Medal of Honor throwing himself on top a plasma bomb to save her life.
When there was no other noise, she rose above the outcropping where they were hiding. Her thermal vision showed a sinewy shape coiled right in front of her. In the darkness the snake’s diamond-back pattern wasn’t visible, but she knew it had to be a rattlesnake.
She couldn’t move, watching it rise to meet the threat. The snake began rattling, obviously startled to find such a large predator so close.
She didn’t see Brian stand up beside her, though she felt him. He put a warning hand on her arm and she heard the distinct hum of a plasma gun charging up. If he shot it up on the ledge, the light of the plasma shot would immediately alert the green team that someone was hiding here.
Before he could take aim, her hand whipped out to the snake and she grabbed it by the neck. It writhed around, hissing at her, but her grip remained firm. She turned triumphantly in the dark to Brian, the thrill of grabbing the snake rushing in her veins.
He responded by smacking her head.
Now that she had the snake, she wasn’t sure what to do with it. If she just threw it out blindly into the night, it might land on one of her teammates. That wouldn’t win her any friends.
She tossed it into the darkened alcove where they had been crouching and gestured magnanimously to Brian. He shook his head at her and shot it. It writhed in the glow of green plasma, and then lay still, stunned for at least a few hours, or maybe dead. Its low body mass might not survive the shock.
They sank back down to their hiding place, Brian kicking the snake aside. She could tell he wanted to rant and rave at her for being reckless. The fact that he couldn’t say a word was a delicious satisfaction.
In the distance, she heard feet scrambling. Someone on her team was being pursued, and making that much noise, capture would be inevitable. After a few moments, they heard a triumphant, “Gotcha.”
Not good. The next sound was far more subtle, but it still made her blood jump.
Sand compressed under the weight of a careful foot, just above their outcropping. She and Brian moved backwards. He slid his thermal goggles over his eyes and switched them on, looking upward.
She lifted the goggles from her neck and did the same. She couldn’t make out the figure very well, but someone was definitely right above them. Brian knelt down and picked something up from the ground. Her thermal vision showed the faint lines of the warm coil of snake wrapped around his arm. What was he doing?
With the precision of a tight-walking acrobat, Brian crept up the rocks. His toes found the niches of the rocky hill in perfect silence until he was near the edge of the top. He slid the snake off his arm and placed it on the edge, then crept back.
Brilliant. The two of them waited behind a boulder, listening.
The footsteps came closer, and then there was a cry of alarm. The green glow of a plasma gun lit up the darkness.
Brian burst out laughing, his laughter ringing around the cold canyon, giving away their position. So much for winning the exercise.
“You idiot!” Caina cried, and jumped on him, knocking him to the ground.
They were the last ones to be found after all, but Caina was still annoyed at Brian. He kept snickering about the whole thing, especially in the mess hall at breakfast when she retold the story to a crowded table of
their teammates.
“And then he laughed! We could have stayed hidden until he did that. It was brilliant right up until then,” she finished, waving a forkful of dehydrated egg.
Geoff shook his head. His usual response to Brian’s goofiness.
“Well, you were the last ones, so it didn’t really matter,” Kasey pointed out. The well-built son of a mine owner, he was deceptively good-natured, hiding a sharp intellect behind his easy smile.
“Still,” she grumbled. “We could have made it to sunrise.”
“Yeah, but why?” Brian asked.
“Exactly, my friend,” Kasey agreed, raising his cup.
Brian bumped the rim of the proffered cup and took a manly swig of orange juice. “That’s what I keep trying to tell her.”
An officer meandered over to their noisy table and they quieted. Sergeant Terrent nodded to them all, unsmiling. The big-boned woman never smiled. Her small, dark eyes flickered over to Brian and Caina. “The captain wants to see you. Now.”
Caina stood up, catching Brian’s gaze.
“And you,” the sergeant added, nodding to Geoff.
Caina walked behind the two brothers across the mess hall towards the command center situated at the back of the hangar. Oh, please let this be good, she thought to herself. The long walk did not help her anxiety. She knew everyone was watching them.
They reached the office, and Geoff rapped on the door. A voice asked them to enter, and Geoff opened the door.
Caina hadn’t been in the office before, but she’d caught glimpses. The walls flashed maps and data. An antiquated metal desk sat in the center of the room, the edges peeling gray paint. Some bit of Old World furniture made valuable because the piece was impossible to get anywhere else. Rather unattractive.
There were no windows, and the lights that shone from the ceiling had a cold, utilitarian glow. Commander Lenoir sat at the desk, his eyes down on a screen in front of him. When they entered, he lifted his gaze.
“We have an offer for you.”
Caina’s heart jumped, but she kept her face impassive, holding her breath. This could be the assignment to the specialized unit she’d been waiting for.
“We’ve had several engagements with the Nostekoi on two of the outer colonies. They have well-trained troops, but there’s an excellent probability we can handle them. However, they have an elite section that far surpasses our training. We don’t know how they are doing it—genetic manipulation; we don’t know. We do know that every member on this particular unit has one common characteristic. Curiously, they all have red eyes. Much like Joshua.”
Caina stopped breathing for a moment. She thought about her brother every day, but she didn’t talk about him, not even with her cousins. It felt like he’d entered the room, and all the pain of the memories resurfaced.
“In fact, we’ve seen Joshua.”
Brian and Geoff were looking at her, she could sense it, but she did not turn her head or take her gaze away from the commander. He leaned towards her, his cool blue eyes unavoidable.
“I need you to help us capture your brother. We need to find out more information about the Nostekoi.”
“Are we planning to rescue him?” she asked, the lump in her throat growing.
“Caina, he isn’t a prisoner. He’s fighting with them. Do you understand? This is capture, not rescue.”
She looked away from him, her eyes fixing on a flickering map on the wall. “No. My brother wouldn’t fight with the Nostekoi.”
“But he is.” The commander turned and touched one of the screens, his finger running down a side menu of files displayed next to the screen.
Footage of a battle appeared on the wall, the images bouncing as the camera followed a black swarm of Nostekoi descending from a flight craft. They were landing on a beach town, the buildings crumbling and smoking in the distance. The red eyes were easy to spot, especially when the Nostekoi removed their helmets. One of them turned to the camera as if he could see it, and then shoved the butt of his plasma gun into the picture. The scene went black.
The commander replayed the scene, and paused it on the Nostekoi who’d looked into the camera.
Caina didn’t need the replay. She’d seen Joshua the moment he’d entered the camera’s field of vision. She knew the way he moved. The expression on his face during the attack betrayed no remorse. Or even interest. What had they done to him? Was that really him at all?
“He’s fighting with them. We need to bring him back,” the commander said.
“Caina doesn’t need to help in this operation. Brian and I will be sufficient bait,” Geoff spoke.
The commander glanced at him. “Yes, the idea is to provide some kind of bait. Or at least distraction. We think that seeing his family would disorient him for a moment, at least. Then we can move in to take him.”
“I want to be there,” Caina said.
“Excellent,” the commander said, giving her a small smile. “We have an idea where they will be next, but we need to move fast. We’ve got a heavy rebellion going on in one of their main colonies, and we’re pretty sure they’ll send the elite team in. Things have been going badly for them there, and that’s when the Red Crew usually shows up.”
“When do we leave, sir?” she asked.
“In an hour.”
When they left the commander’s office, none of them spoke. Caina’s mind flooded with every emotion ranging from the thrill of knowing Joshua still lived to the despair of wondering what had happened to him, and then fear. The commander hadn’t exactly offered any reassurances about what would happen to Joshua when they found him. Getting him out of Nostekoi hands had to be an improvement. She hoped. What if it wasn’t?
“They aren’t going to hurt him once we get him back, are they?” Caina asked .
“The Alliance?” Brian asked, his blonde eyebrows furrowing.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think anyone wants to hurt him,” Geoff said. “But I’m not sure he wants to be back.”
“Hey!” Brian said, his face going red. “There’s no way Joshua is doing this because he wants to. I don’t care what they did to him.”
Geoff shook his head, his long jaw set, his voice quiet. “I’m trying to be realistic. We have to be careful. If Joshua isn’t himself then this is going to be dangerous. Caina shouldn’t even be there.”
“I’ll agree with that,” Brian grumbled, looking sideways at her.
“At least he’s okay,” she said, ignoring the stinging tears in her eyes. She didn’t have time to bawl like a baby right now.
“So let’s go get him,” Geoff said. “We’ll deal with what has happened to him after that.”
Packed up and strapped into the transport, Caina bent her head to look at the floor. She was so afraid of what she would find when they found Joshua. A line of twenty soldiers sat behind her, all of them wearing onix. They’d activate it when they landed. Most of them had their guns set to red plasma; a few were set to green. Five of them. They were the ones who were supposed to retrieve Joshua. What if he killed some of them? Then what?
She could only hope the battle footage hadn’t shown everything. Maybe Joshua was still behind those blank red eyes.
Chapter Twenty
Finding Joshua
THE CARGO SHIP LANDED on the battle-torn colony of Tandaeron in the middle of a snow storm. Geoff stood next to her, swaying as the ship touched down. He glanced out at the arctic landscape. “This ain’t Hades,” he said.
Caina was in civilian clothing because they didn’t want Joshua to know she was a soldier. They needed a psychological jolt, and she had to look as much like his helpless younger sister as he remembered.
It wasn’t much of a stretch. She’d found her dumb yellow sandals with the straps that wound up her legs. To find them, she’d called her dad, and he searched until he discovered them tucked in one of the transports they’d used. The sandals were crumpled and crushed, the straps stiffened when she received them via transpor
t delivery. That part of her life seemed a million years ago.
Brian stood on the other side of her, his white blonde hair spiked up, making his blue eyes look electric.
“Ready?” he asked her.
She nodded. Her long hair, unbound around her shoulders, blew against her face when the door opened.
Cold, frigid air and icy snow filled the plane. If the war didn’t kill the colonists, the weather would. Any other time the colonists could fortify themselves against the frequent yet predictable storms, but now they were forced to use most of their resources to defend against the Nostekoi. Their supply shipments were in danger of being disrupted by the Nostekoi almost constantly.
The Alliance force landed in the city of Andaras—a small entertainment mecca with theaters, apartments and a few colleges. The colonists were hunkered down at the college as Alliance forces tried to find all the Nostekoi occupiers and force them out. Most of the fighting was centered away from the college in the town.
Caina braced herself against the raging winter wind. She peered out through her thermal vision shield at the white maelstrom whirling around them.
“Onix on!” Frankie barked, his voice clear in her earpiece. Frankie had been a grid ball player before the war, but volunteered to serve the Alliance. His black hair was cut short like everyone else’s, a big change from his long hair. His commands were always confident, and he never showed any hesitation. The rank of captain fit him well.
Brian and Geoff disappeared in a shimmer of silver lines, as did the others. Caina alone was visible.
“Okay, Caina. You’re out first. Go,” Frankie said. “We’ll be right with you.”
She bolted out of the door and into the snow where it swirled around her, making it impossible to see.