“You know,” she said with a small smile, “on Earth, they aren’t as rigid with greetings. You don’t have to refer to the Amach civilians as ‘soldier’. When on mission, you may refer to the team leader as captain, or commander, depending on their status, and to Atlas as commander-general. Otherwise, just call everyone by their first name.”
The group exchanged confused glances. The sheer thought of calling anyone by their first name was an act riddled with rebellion.
“You can call me Romy,” she pressed.
A cadet glanced at her shyly. “Romy.”
“Lovely to meet you. What do you like to be called?”
The group in front of her announced their names in an orderly line. All the names stemmed from Roman and Greek mythology as per Orbito custom. Afterward, they fell quiet again and watched her expectantly. More had gathered. As much as Romy didn’t want to put stock in Tina’s chicken comment. . . .
“Tell me what you’ve gone through since the Amach freed you from the Orbitos,” she said, taking a seat on the edge of the padded fighting area.
The same cadet spoke up. By this time the whole crowd of them were there. “It took us a long time to believe humankind had been here the whole time.”
Sympathy broke inside of her. “Yes, I remember that very clearly myself.”
“And Knot 27 crash-landed here, by yourselves,” the girl stressed.
Romy redirected the topic back to the space soldiers, pulling the details out of what they’d been through, and the conversation began to flow steadily, the soldiers dropping down to sit on the floor in front of her.
She glanced at her watch and blinked at the time. A whole hour had passed.
The soldiers were peering over her head when Romy looked up. She twisted to see Gwenyth bearing down on her.
“Atlas wants you,” Gwenyth said in a clipped voice.
“Then of course I will come,” Romy said, standing. Smiling at the group, she said, “We will talk again soon.” Romy had plans for them. Damn Tina.
“You know,” Gwenyth said with a sniff as they walked out of the gym, “there are more important things to do than talk all day—”
“More to do than ensure over three thousand people learn they are safe here, give us their loyalty, and fight for us?” Romy asked her.
Gwenyth ignored her as they walked to the meeting.
Romy stopped just outside of the debriefing room, moving to the right so others could enter the room before her. “Gwenyth, I may be in a relationship with your son, but don’t mistake that to mean I am your child. I understand in times gone by I haven’t always treated you with the respect your position warranted, but I was rarely in my right mind back then. I would appreciate you giving me the courtesy of starting afresh, and in return, I will do the same for you.”
“You call your behaviour disrespectful?”
“I call it rude.” Romy gave her a flat look. “Yet you were just as bad and I’m sure you were quite sane at the time. Let’s start again, Gwenyth. For Atlas’s sake.”
She stared at Romy’s outstretched hand and gave another sniff, shifting past her to move inside the debriefing room. Romy’s cheeks flushed, but she wouldn’t attack Atlas’s mother. That would be a bad thing . . . wouldn’t it?
“That seemed like it went well,” Charlee whispered in Romy’s ear.
Romy plastered on a smile for Atlas’s sake as she walked into the room, and didn’t drop it as she replied in a falsely happy voice. “About what I expected. Is there any option to date Atlas and not his mother?”
“That is a mother who will be in your life. She missed out on too much of his life, and now wants to be in every part of it, but I wouldn’t worry.” Charlee took the seat next to her. “You have the trump card.”
“What’s that?”
“Grandchildren.”
Romy glanced at her stomach.
“Grandparents go nuts for them. Anyway, someone has a crush on her. Might distract her for a bit.” The doctor jerked her head to where Cronus had pulled out Gwenyth’s chair for her.
Romy laughed loudly and clamped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” she said to the people across the table, then bent her head to Charlee’s. “Oh my god.”
“I know.”
Romy grinned at her and then set her eyes around the room. There weren’t many people here. Her gaze swung to the door and she tensed as Phobos and Deimos entered. Her fists curled on her lap.
“Easy, Ro,” Char said. “This is a meeting to decide how to facilitate the space soldiers’ transition here. Apparently, Deimos demanded to be here.”
“Great,” Romy said. She stared to the front of the room, ignoring the person who had walked in.
Elara and Thrym entered five minutes later and Atlas started. “Just a quick meeting to set a plan in motion for our new arrivals. I want them settled in as quickly as possible.”
“We are currently working on getting them all in uniform,” Gwenyth said. “About half have coveralls so far. Three shipments from international bases are expected later today.”
Romy leaned forward, drumming her fingers on the table. “Earth lessons would help. I spoke to them today and they still have very little idea of how to behave here.”
“You have someone in mind?” Atlas said, giving a nod to a young man up front, another assistant. He bent his head over his device and began to type furiously.
She’d had about five minutes to think about it. “Yes, I do. Phobos, obviously, to handle their physical training, but I believe Nancy would be great at the job. She helped me a lot when I first landed here.”
Romy gave Thrym a questioning look and he beamed at her, flashing white teeth. She truly did think Nancy would be perfect for the job, and Thrym’s relationship with Nancy was also looking serious. Romy had to mend bridges with Nancy for her knotmate to be happy in the long run.
“Captain?” Atlas asked Thrym.
“Nancy is passionate about the wrong that has befallen those on the orbitos. One of her newly returned friends, Freya, may be of help too.”
“Did Nancy find all of her friends?” Romy asked Charlee quietly. Only one had been killed before capture.
“Yes, I believe so.”
“Eddie?”
“He’s already been put to work with our other engineers.”
Relief swept through her, and a fair amount of guilt she’d carried since learning of their capture eased. She’d been absorbed in her own problems lately. She bumped going to visit the Jimboomba crew to the top of her list.
“This Nancy is one of the females who deserted to retrieve her friends?” Cronus interrupted.
Thrym began to stand, face murderous.
“She is,” Atlas confirmed. “She is also a Tait.”
“The Taits?” Cronus said. Atlas nodded.
Thrym slowly lowered, glaring around the table.
“They had a lot to do with anti-global warming back in the day,” Charlee whispered in Romy’s ear.
The room fell quiet, and a few things Romy had heard others say in reference to Nancy suddenly made sense.
A voice spoke up. “The space soldiers want Romy at the moment.”
Romy didn’t look. She was the only one.
“Tina has plans for Rosemary,” Atlas said. “She wants to take her into the cities once it’s deemed safe.”
“Let me put it another way,” Deimos said. “They no longer believe anyone. They will only believe her.”
Elara scrunched her small nose. “Why?”
The people in the room waited for Deimos’s explanation.
He hesitated, and Romy finally gave in to look at him up the table.
His green eyes were on her, cheeks a dark pink. “Well, I told them stories of her from the start, when they were scared. I told them about what she’d done for them. That she was the mother of our knot, and kind of their mother, too.”
“You did start the mother hen thing!” Romy exploded.
He rubbed the back of
his head. “By accident. That story kind of caught their fancy.”
Romy scraped her chair back and everyone jumped.
Phobos began to rise. “Romy—”
“I’m outta here,” she muttered, blinking furiously. She turned to address Atlas. “I’ll do whatever I can to help them around Tina’s plans.”
He gave her curt dip, his grey eyes speaking volumes as they searched her face. She gave him as much of a smile as she could muster.
Making sure not to run, Romy made for the door.
Elara lurched to her feet and joined her.
“Here to tell me I’m a horrible person?” Romy asked bitterly once they were in the piped passageway.
Deimos had told them stories about her? Bet he didn’t tell them the one about trying to subdue her and force her onto Houston’s craft.
“I wanted to say that I’m sorry for the other night,” Elara said.
Romy stayed quiet. She didn’t feel like having this talk right now. Her anger wasn’t directed at Elara, it was directed at Deimos, but she was worried about lashing out.
“I was out of line. The situation is completely different. You didn’t have a choice about what you did.”
“That’s not true,” Romy replied. “I did. I knew what would happen if Feral Romy took control. And I made the choice to use my final time to help my knot, and to help free the space soldiers. What I didn’t expect was to come back after and have to live with what I’d done.”
“You never knew she’d do that, Ro. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
Romy lifted a shoulder, eyes burning.
Elara’s face tightened into fierceness. “If you hadn’t done that, all of us would be dead. Atlas, Deimos, me, and Phobos. All of us. You killed those people, yes, but I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. I’m not even sure how you did it. The way you moved, your precision, your ruthlessness. . . .”
“Is this meant to make me feel better?”
Elara whacked her and Romy shut up. “You were what you needed to be that day, Ro. You fought to protect your family, and I know what scars it must’ve left you with, but don’t forget what was able to happen because you did those things.”
They wound through the passageways for a few minutes before Romy answered. “I’ll try.” She paused. “And there’s nothing to forgive. You made your point the other night. I heard you.”
“Will you hear what Deimos has to say?”
Romy shook her head. “I’m not there yet. Not even close.”
CHAPTER NINE
“Why don’t the settlements always behave like this?” Thrym said, resting between Romy and Nancy against a bungalow.
Romy had practically jumped at the chance to go on mission, and get away from the Amach and her Deimos headache. That was before she remembered how monotonous these missions were getting. In comparison to picking up space junk for twelve years, this was a party, but with the sun beating down and making her body all kinds of sweaty under her bulletproof vest, remembering she’d carried out far more tedious tasks during a different war was hard. At times like these, she wished Houston would just make a damn move. Then they could just be done, one way or another.
Nancy rested her head on Thrym’s shoulder. “It’d be nice if we could skip the ‘we’ve come to save you, no really’ chat every time.”
Thrym rested his head atop hers. “At least you’re here.”
Romy made a face, but smoothed out her expression before Nancy could see. That wouldn’t help mend any bridges.
The refugees from Pisa filed in an orderly line into a row of crafts. Elara was back on mission, adamant she wasn’t staying behind because she was ‘knocked up’. Romy had asked Tina about pregnancy last night and wasn’t so sure the juddering of the craft wouldn’t hurt her nephew, but wisely remained silent on the matter—Elara scratched when she got mad.
“Thrym said you recommended me for looking after the space soldiers,” Nancy said, straightening, and squinting into the distance.
Romy folded her arms. “Yeah, thought you’d be good at it.” She inspected her nails. “Heard you got Eddie and the others back okay.”
“Yeah.”
“Cool.”
“Cool,” Nancy echoed.
Thrym cleared his throat between them. “Well, that—”
Nancy rested a hand on his arm. “Babe, don’t stress. It’s cool.”
“It’s cool,” he repeated in a daze. Smiling, he dipped his head to kiss her, and then faced forward.
Nancy gave Romy an uncertain look and Romy did her best to seem completely accepting of their relationship, though she wasn’t 100 per cent certain how to express that with just her face.
Someone screamed in the distance.
Romy pushed off the bungalow. “Did you hear that?”
The others straightened, too, joining her a few metres into the clearing between their crafts and the other bungalows.
“Critamal!” The screamed words shot like an arrow through the settlement toward them.
Critamal? Romy gasped, her face draining of blood. Thrym barked a flurry of orders into the device on his chest and soon footsteps pounded up behind them.
Romy’s feet were stuck to the ground. She couldn’t move.
The poachers were here.
“Load up the crafts!” Tina roared. “Leroy, supervise.”
The thought echoed in her mind like it was wading through mud. Terror rooted her to the spot. Her breath came fast and the hand shaking her barely registered for a moment. Romy fixed wide eyes on Nancy’s face, right in front of her.
“You need to snap out of it, sky girl, you’re our sharpshooter.” Nancy shook her shoulder.
“Where do we shoot?” Tina roared at Thrym. “Houston has sent those alien fuckers after our refugees. We need at least five minutes to get the civilians clear.”
The soldiers behind her were setting up in a line facing out from the official buildings. The Critamal were coming up through the bungalows. Had they landed somewhere on the other side of the settlement?
Romy ignored Nancy’s shaking and turned to look, head spinning.
The sun glinted off the liquid black shells of the Critamal. They were huge—two heads taller than a space soldier, and twice the width. Their pincers snapped, the threatening clicks loud even from where Romy stood by the bungalow. The enemy’s yellow eyes glowed, locked on their targets with single-minded focus as they covered the ground at a furious pace.
Thrym tapped her cheek. “Romy? I’m thinking we need to aim for the head, or between the armour. What do you think?”
He’d clearly asked the question a few times.
Romy forced her lips to work. “Not the head; their skulls are . . . are s-stronger than steel.”
“Any shot to the torso should serve to slow them,” Thrym said. “If we can aim between their plates of armour, that may kill them. Rifles only. I don’t think anything less will puncture.”
The Critamal would be on them before the crafts full of refugees could take off. She knew what the aliens did to their prisoners. Guts strewn across space. Their victims always took on their yellow eyes afterward. A crushing pressure weighed on Romy’s chest. They were so fast.
“You heard him,” Tina called, repeating Thrym’s advice.
“You in control?” Nancy asked her.
No. Romy couldn’t answer. She didn’t know what was happening to her. She was frozen.
The first of the Critamal burst from behind the bungalows. Nancy leaped into action, dropping to one knee in the front row and bringing her rifle up. Romy stumbled to follow, and brought her rifle up with heavy arms.
“Just like firing at the targets in Jimboomba.” Nancy’s voice reached her. “Just way frickin’ faster. Crickey, they can jump high.”
Her hands were slippery with sweat, and Romy, who very rarely missed a shot, missed the huge black-shelled poacher she aimed for by several metres. Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at the alien’s massive pin
cers.
Nancy whooped beside her.
There was a wave of the aliens darting between the bungalows. How many? Romy’s chest tightened. Houston hadn’t attacked the Amach forces until now.
“Get firing, soldier,” Thrym shouted at her. “We need every gun.”
She was meant to be protecting the people behind her. And her . . . her. . . . Romy’s vision spotted and she blinked it away, firing again. Missed.
Tina hauled her up by the back of her bulletproof vest.
“Leroy needs help getting the civilians in the crafts,” Tina said.
“I can help here,” Romy protested, limbs weak.
Tina took her spot in the front line and didn’t answer. Romy backed away from the Critamal, who were now taking shelter behind the bungalows to escape the gunfire aimed on them. The braver ones were making a break for it, and so far, Nancy was halting them in their tracks.
Romy backed away, tripping over her feet in her haste.
“What do you want me to do?” she muttered to Leroy.
“They’re all in,” he said, then jogged up to Tina.
Romy tore her eyes from the poachers, from Houston’s alien army. The engines of the refugee crafts whined either side of her, and as the row of her team members began to retreat in formation, the first of the crafts took off.
Only their craft still remained. She moved into the open cargo door and didn’t even bother raising her gun as the others filed in, four of them remaining outside to maintain fire as Elara leaped into the empty pilot seat and started the engines of their craft. Useless. Romy was useless.
“They’re closing in!” Thrym shouted.
Was she really just going to stand here? After everything she’d been through? Resolutely, Romy raised her gun and marched to the edge of the cargo door. She hadn’t come this far to be afraid of aliens. Despite this realisation, her rifle seemed to be made of stone as she lifted it. Romy locked onto the left breastplate of the closest poacher. There were gaps between the panels of their shells.
She squeezed the trigger.
The Critamal fell backward.
“You got it, Ro!” Thrym called.
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