by Maura Milan
Her eyes narrowed, and her voice evened. “You can’t use the word ‘slaughter’ in war, sir.”
The classroom erupted in protest. Professor Jolinsky raised his hands, trying to calm everyone down, but no one noticed.
Three rows away, a cadet stood, his face now so red it hid his freckles.
“My uncle died in that battle!” he screamed, charging at her. Reid, who Ia recognized from the teamwork test, rose to hold him back, but nothing could stop the growing outrage. It was like a fire had been lit.
“Murderer!”
“You deserve to die!”
Their shouts collided into a deafening wave, thudding heavy against Ia’s eardrums.
Her voice broke through the cacophony, loud and true and filled with clarity. “You talk about the Uranium War like it’s ancient history.” Ia jumped on her desk and gazed down at them. “This war is not over. Every day Tawnies, LiteSpars, Makolions…millions of people and families die in the Fringe because of you and your greed.”
A flurry of papers, pens, anything the cadets could get their hands on, flew all at once, like bullets at Ia’s face. She was fighting a losing battle, but she didn’t cower. She remained standing, and she would never step down.
Then her brother’s voice whispered in her head, rising above her anger. Play nice, Einn had told her. Play nice. She was so close to being rescued; she couldn’t start anything now.
Pounding an angry fist into her thigh, she jumped down and stormed out of the room.
Ia headed to the nearest empty room to cool off. Fortunately for her, it was the training gym. Aaron and Geoff insisted on accompanying her inside, but they changed their minds once she screamed curse after curse at them while hurling all the weights she could find in their direction. They retreated, standing watch outside the entrance. So for now, she was alone, punching the air, wishing it was Jolinsky’s face.
She swiped at the space to her right, her three fingers pulled together, activating a holoscreen to pop up.
Run Fight Program. Y/N?
She tapped at the Y icon and cracked her knuckles. The fight dummy positioned itself into a blocking stance, then shifted into different positions.
A left jab came at her. She dodged, then aimed a counterpunch into an opening in the dummy’s right side. Her field gloves activated, creating a small-radius force field at the point of contact. It was meant to cushion any blows to a living opponent, but since she was fighting a dummy, it was somewhat unnecessary.
A voice called to her from outside the ring.
“Hey, murderer.”
Ia angled her head, trying to pick out the scuzz’s face. It was Sinoblancas. No matter how much she threatened him, that mung never learned. But at least she was his target now, not Brinn.
“This is the flyers’ ring.”
She groaned. She was so angry, she hadn’t noticed the flyers enter from the adjacent weight rooms at the far end of the gym. They must have been weight training when she first barged in there. Her eyes flicked toward the entrance doors, and she briefly contemplated calling out to Geoff and Aaron. With Knives gone, there was no one to keep the flyers in check.
No. This was nothing she couldn’t handle. Rolling her eyes, she turned her back on them to resume her fight simulation.
Footsteps entered the ring.
In an instant, Ia twisted, facing Nero down. She grabbed him by the arm. Angling her body, she flipped him out of the ring.
Nero landed on the concrete floor and whimpered. The rest of the flyers gathered around, trying to help him up. All of them but Liam Vyking, whose eyes never left hers. His jaw was tight, and his brown eyes flashed with a glimpse of darkness.
He unzipped his hoodie and stepped toward the ring. Cammo grabbed his shoulder, trying to stop him. Vyking shrugged out of his friend’s grip. He tapped at the top of a perimeter post, deactivating the barrier. He stepped inside the fight corner.
Within moments, the Vyking kid was standing in her periphery.
“I’ll spar with you.” His voice bit through the air, now thick with heat and sweat.
“Do you even know how?”
Ia didn’t wait for an answer, continuing to throw punches at the HG dummy. She hoped her technique and power would scare him off. Instead, Liam Vyking circled around her and dodged into her fight sequence.
The sensors recognized this new body standing before her, and a hollow computerized voice echoed from above. “Exiting simulation.”
The HG dummy vanished, and in its place stood Liam, adjusting the field gloves on his fingers before making quick but sure fists.
Ia swung at his face, giving him no time to react. He leaned out of the way, just barely getting out of her reach, her fist clipping his right shoulder instead of popping him hard on the nose.
She set her eyes on him, her nostrils flaring with anger.
“Don’t waste my time, Vyking,” she growled. She couldn’t spar with him, not now. If this day ended in a bloodbath, they would throw her into a deep, dark hole where not even Einn could swoop in to save her.
Yet it was all so tempting.
“You think I’m that easy to beat?” he asked.
Yes.
Ia closed in, feinting with a right jab. Liam dodged left but straight into Ia’s left uppercut. Her field gloves activated, creating a small force field before her knuckles could make contact. But the weight of the force field created a light impact, causing Liam to stumble backward. He dug his back leg into the ground, steadying himself, and then rose to his full height, looking down at her in defiance.
They were face-to-face, lips snarling, eyes darting to see who would make the first move.
“I can take it down a notch,” she said, her voice steady and confident.
“No.” He eased back up into a boxing stance. “Never.”
He charged forward. His eyes were vicious as he swung a left jab to Ia’s face. She raised her right arm, blocking his attack, but Liam circled around, striking her in the ribs.
Even with the field gloves, the hit was hard, and she keeled forward, her bones screaming. She fought off the discomfort, biting her tongue, not wanting him to see the pain racing through her body.
Ia rested her arm on her thigh, easing the side that had gotten hit. “You say you want to spar, but it feels like you want to fight.”
“My father was stationed at K-5 Neptune,” Liam said between breaths.
Ia knew she had gained more enemies by her outburst earlier that day. Now, there were people who didn’t just want her dead; they wanted her to suffer, wanted nothing more than to rip her fingernails off one by one just to hear her scream. And Liam Vyking, she realized, was one of them.
“Is he dead?” she asked Vyking. Surviving that battle would not have been easy.
“Paralyzed. From the neck down.” His voice sounded like a boy’s.
Liam’s father was paralyzed because of her orders, but she’d had no choice. The decisions she had made were for the good of the Fringe and any other planet fighting against Commonwealth control. She killed for everyone’s right to their own independence. Those Bugs had to die for the sake of what she was fighting for.
She couldn’t even look at the broken expression on Liam’s face. It had been so easy for her back then, to be there on the battlefield, watching as all the Commonwealth ships burned. They’d always been the bad guys to her. But now that the smoke and dust of battle was gone, she was starting to see that they had suffered too.
Fine, she decided. She would allow Vyking this moment.
“Let’s settle this.” Ia ripped her field gloves off and threw them onto the floor.
Liam followed her lead. With both of their gloves thrown off to the side, Ia grew more alert as tension filled the empty space between them. She could sense the rage fuming off him, almost equal to her own. Even the bystanders outside the ring had quieted.
The two of them circled each other, like the opposing winds of a hurricane.
Ia knew she had
to watch out for a left uppercut; she could tell by his stance that he favored his left side. He was tall and had enough muscle to knock her unconscious. No matter. She had gone up against larger, more dangerous men before.
But there was something in the look on his face that she didn’t expect. An intensity that made him unpredictable. And by the way he squared his shoulders at her, she knew he had something to prove. People like that never knew when to quit.
Just like her.
Beyond the ring, Liam’s fellow flyers cheered him on and called taunts at her to throw her off her guard.
Ia realized this was more than just a fight to Liam. He wasn’t searching for vengeance; he wanted closure. He needed Ia. And in her own way, she needed him. His grief, his anger, his emptiness.
War was an awful thing. It left an impression on her cells, soured the blood flowing through her veins, leaving a rotten stench inside her that only she could smell. She didn’t want to admit it was guilt, but it was, festering forever in her core.
Liam hit her in the stomach. She grunted in agony as she pitched forward. Coughing and gasping, she tried to reclaim the air that had been knocked out of her lungs.
“Fight back!” He rotated to the side and kicked her in the ribs. Ia tumbled down to the ground, her face red from the adrenaline of the fight. The pain was suffocating. But she needed to feel the guilt inside her, she needed to understand the hurt she’d caused. As she rolled to her side, she sputtered, her blood-flecked saliva glistening on the light-gray floor.
The small crowd around the ring cheered at Liam’s near victory.
“Finish her off, Vyking,” Nero shouted.
Liam’s boots came into view, treading closer.
Instinctively, her knees came up to her chest, curling up into a ball to protect her stomach from any more injury.
He was going to kick her. She knew it. All the men she had fought were like this. They liked to kick people when they were down. She flexed her core, readying herself for the impact, but instead, Liam grabbed her by her collar and pulled her up to face him.
“You may be at Aphelion, but you’re not one of us.”
A moment of clarity settled upon her. She wasn’t one of them. She understood his pain, but would they ever understand hers?
“You’re right, Vyking,” she said, her voice low. “Thanks for reminding me.”
It was time to end this. She had momentarily faced the guilt inside her. For that she was grateful, but now it was time to put everything back in its place.
With the surety and force of the catlike Maguan from the Verdu Forests, she twisted her body, sweeping a leg at Liam Vyking’s feet. His body crashed to the floor. There was confusion. Panic. But not from Ia. She jumped on top of him, bringing the weight of her knees down hard onto his lungs.
She watched his face for the exact moment of realization.
He was never in control.
In a panic, Liam’s arms flew out, into her face, into her chest, anywhere just to push her off him. With each attempt, she pushed him back down.
The flyers were no longer standing by. They rushed the ring in a flurry, calling for the guards. Before they could reach them, she leaned in, breathing in the scent of his blood, sharp like iron.
She needed to teach him a lesson. If these Bugs went into the All Black, they would face the darkness. They would face the monsters. They would face her, and they all needed to know one thing.
“It’s brutal up there, Vyking. The sooner you learn that, the less you’ll feel.”
Ia raised her fist and, with finality, punched Liam Vyking right in the throat.
CHAPTER 36
BRINN
BRINN GRIPPED TWO CUPS of caffeine. Her steps neared the entrance to the comms lab, triggering the motion sensor. The door whooshed open, revealing the cramped quarters of the communications department.
Angie sat by the wall in her own audio cubicle. The whole room was packed with them, each equipped with noise-blocking and frequency-enhancing audio orbs arching over the workstation. Instead of paying attention to the scanning sequences being run on the equipment before her, Angie hovered over her hands, delicately laser etching intricate pink patterns onto each of her nails.
Brinn ducked into Angie’s cubicle. Static hissed all around her.
Angie pointed at an orb speaker and then pressed her ear up against it. “Can you hear that?”
Brinn angled her head, trying to pick something out from the enveloping hiss. Nothing.
“It’s just white noise.”
“Are you sure?” Angie twisted the knobs in front of her to continue scanning frequencies. “I’ve been hearing this weird frequency fluctuation for a couple days now.”
Brinn held out a bottle filled with orange liquid. “Here’s your caffeine.”
“Thanks. You didn’t have to.” Angie didn’t even look up, her attention now turned back to her nail art.
Brinn set the cups down and pulled up dialogue screens from her holowatch. “Twenty-seven messages, all from you. Bring me caffeine. Caffeine please. Caffeine would be so crucial right now. If I didn’t bring these, you wouldn’t have stopped.”
Just then, a man’s gravelly voice rose through the radio static. “RSF408 go for JAG33.”
“What are they talking about?” Brinn asked.
Angie waved her hand. “Sometimes a military vehicle will cruise close enough for us to get quick snippets of news. It happens all the time.”
Angie leaned forward, turning a knob to boost the volume.
Another voice transmitted onto the stream. “JAG33, we are tracking a large freighter ship, arrival at Gemini Star System at 1700 Universal Time. We ran the ship through our database. It was licensed in the Mainas System but appears to be under new ownership. The Armada.”
“Those slavers are getting ballsier by the minute. Were our suspicions correct?”
“Affirmative. They’re building what appears to be an unregistered gate.”
Brinn rubbed her forehead. An unregistered gate? That was impossible. Only the Commonwealth had the resources to build and maintain interstellar gates. An interstellar gate in the wrong hands could mean a number of things. Black market trading, illegal deals, or worse—the start of another war.
Angie glanced up from her nails. “Pretend you didn’t hear that.”
Brinn looked around at a group of holodisplays arranged in one corner of Angie’s orb. Each one depicted security footage of people marching in the streets, holding signs in protest. “Where is that?” Brinn asked.
Angie looked up. “That’s on Nova Grae. Citizens are marching to get rid of the Sanctuary Act and eradicating the refugee blocks.”
Brinn leaned forward, examining the signs they carried. Kick them out. Refs don’t belong. Ours, not yours. “This is really happening?”
She thought back to what Faren had said about how things have gotten worse back on Nova Grae, but she didn’t think it had gotten to the point where people might lose their homes. Thankfully, her family was safe. Since their father was a natural-born Citizen, their house was located in the Citizens sector of their town, but there were hundreds of families who lived in the refugee block near their home. If the protests succeed and the Sanctuary Act is repealed, all of those people were going to be homeless.
Brinn rubbed her fingers on her temples, shocked that she hadn’t even known this was happening.
“That’s awful,” she said.
Angie stared at her, as if she was turning around the words Brinn had just said. Brinn was sure that Angie was going to attack her for siding with the refugees, but then Angie sighed. “I know someone who lives in that block. My mom and dad weren’t home a lot. I was pretty much raised by my nanny, Fiotée. She’s Dvvinn.”
All at once, everything she knew about Angie unraveled like a cut ribbon. “But you always picked on the refugees in our school.”
“And I’m ashamed of all of it. After Ia’s capture, everything changed. The rioting on the streets, th
e hate crimes reported on the media. I realized that words have power. They have points and edges that can cut deep, and up until then, I wasn’t very careful with them. I was part of the problem,” she admitted. “So when I found out my dad was going to run for Council and fight for the Sanctuary Act, I told him I would do whatever he needed to give him the best shot at the election. That’s why I’m here. No one can accuse him of being anti-nationalist if his daughter is in the Star Force.”
Brinn sat in silence. All this time, Brinn thought she understood Angie Everett. But she was wrong. There was more to Angie’s story. There was always more to people’s stories.
Brinn focused on the display screens, watching the images of people rioting in the street.
“It feels like everything is falling apart,” Brinn said.
Angie’s hand touched her elbow, her eyes widening as if she sensed Brinn’s thoughts. “Whatever’s broken can be fixed.”
Brinn looked up at Angie. This was what she’d always wanted. She had felt it after the Provenance Day parade, that feeling of brotherhood and connection with all the Citizens who watched that broadcast. And she felt it again, but now it was more complex. It had a direction, a point to the arrow. The system was broken, and it didn’t require a mere patch to set it right. It required real change. “You’re right,” she said. “We’ll fix everything. From the ground up.”
Angie smiled at her. It was a promise between them, the beginning of a movement.
Just then, a chorus of shouts swelled in from the hallway. They were screaming something, a phrase, but she couldn’t tell what it was. As the chant grew louder, Brinn finally picked out the words.
“Kill her,” they shrieked outside. “Jettison her!”
Brinn rushed out of the comms lab, turning the corner only to be stopped behind a crowd of people. Rising up on her tiptoes, she caught a quick glimpse of two med borgs marching through the sea of cadets.
She caught whispers of a name. Vyking, they said. Liam. Vyking.
Brinn’s heart sunk to her stomach. She pushed through the crowd, expecting to see Liam with a bloody nose or some other minor injury. But a different face stared back at her, completely mangled. His nose was smashed, and clotted blood gurgled from his split lips. Deus, no. Was that really him?