Stick With Me
Before the mountain cracked, it was quiet in the convoy. On two sides, sheer cliff walls towered over them, driving their ATV through a narrow valley under the omnipotent glare of the ferocious sun. Jaya’s visor tinted in response, relieving her eyes from their squinting, but still the glitter of sun-soaked sand and the deep, dark shadows of the rocks in every direction was wearying. Even the marines had ceased their banter, falling silent as the sun rose high in the sky.
The deluge had come abruptly, shattering the stifling, dazed quiet. A ripple, like the mountain shrugging. Sand poured from the cliff like smoke, and then the peak began to shudder. Their ATV had squealed as the dump of sand in the valley turned their flat road into violent, heaving waves.
And then everything went black.
She became aware, suddenly, of her limbs constricted, pressure on all sides. Her mouth was full of grit. She blew a breath out of her nose, the sand stinging her nostrils. Her chest screamed, but sand was everywhere, threatening to pour in if she opened her mouth.
She clawed in the direction that felt like up. The sand gave easily against her palms, but her body moved with difficulty. With every handful she pushed aside, it felt like she slipped back down another inch.
When her hand broke through, she flailed, dragging herself to the surface. Her chest heaved, every breath of the dry, hot air an agony of relief in her lungs. Her left ankle protested every movement, and a long cut in her arm seared as the sand dragged across the wound. Jaya set her jaw and forced herself up anyway, until her limbs were free and she could draw in more gasping breaths. She curled her legs up under her, her heart pounding in her chest.
She was alive.
She was alone.
Around her, the dunes shimmered with heat. The wind blew insistently across the valley, clearing the sand away from something warped and metallic. The ATV.
Jaya crawled across the shifting ground toward the vehicle. Only one twisted strut of its frame poked out of the drifts, creating a small wind shelter where the sand was already accumulating. Her ankle throbbed terribly with every movement of her leg, and she paused halfway to the vehicle, collapsing on her stomach. The sand collected against her body, reclaiming her slowly as her chest heaved.
This was her first mission as an elite Intelligence, Reconnaissance, and Counterterrorism agent with the Union Navy. Less than a month out of the academy, she was stranded on a remote border colony barely out of the clutches of the Nareian Empire, felled not by enemy fire, but by a natural disaster.
She had known this path would be filled with danger, but she couldn’t let the very first job be the one that killed her.
That thought cut through the muddy swirl of her thoughts, dispersing a rising panic that had swarmed her without her awareness. She lifted her head. Her mind cleared, and she pulled herself back up. She had survived, had woken buried beneath the sand. Maybe the others were still alive.
Her palm drive. The implanted computer had been upgraded with military software when she was commissioned aboard the Avalon last month. She opened the main menu, and it appeared as a holographic projection above her wrist. There was a scan she could run to identify each member of the team with their military ID. Jaya watched as the scan results appeared hazy over her forearm. It showed two IDs with vitals in this vast desert. The other six, buried beneath the sand, had gone dark.
Jaya looked up, searching for the location of the other survivor. His name and rank blinked on her map: Salman Azima, Lieutenant Junior Grade.
Beyond the ATV, hazy in the blowing sand, she saw a shape that wasn’t smooth dune. A groan came faint on the breeze. It was Sal.
Ignoring the pain in her ankle, Jaya pulled herself up and staggered toward his mostly-buried form. His tan face was painted with dust, making him appear the same color as the sand. Only his hair was differentiated from the flat golden backdrop, the dark curls fluttering in the breeze and letting off little puffs of sandsmoke.
“Lieutenant,” she said. “Are you injured?”
He groaned again, his eyes bloodshot in the stinging wind. “My leg. I don’t know how bad. I can’t get out.”
“I’ve got you,” Jaya said. She dug around him, freeing his arms so he could help pull himself out.
They fought the wind as it deposited more debris from the landslide around them. Jaya’s knees sank lower into the sand, but she managed to get Sal out. The sun was dropping behind the cliffs. The air turned chilly.
Sal lay on his side, spitting grit from his mouth, saliva cutting a dark line through the layer of dirt on his face. One leg of his light armor was sheared open, the tattered edges stained with blood and clinging sand.
Jaya opened a connection on her palm drive to the Avalon. It failed with an apologetic chirp. She tried again. Another failure.
Sal glared at the ruins of their ATV. “Quantum comms are toast,” he said. “We’ll never get through to the Avalon with our personal devices.”
Jaya swore as she recalled the briefing they had received from their commanding officer. This planet’s magnetosphere interfered with their palm drive’s signal, blocking their communications to orbit. Only a quantum communicator could reach the Avalon, something their ATV had been equipped with.
“Can you fix the communicator?”
Sal turned his narrowed eyes on her, but the expression was more skepticism than anger. “You gonna dig it out?”
Jaya bit her lip. He had a point. Their vehicle was buried below the sand, in who knew what condition. She had managed to get Sal out, but how much time would they waste trying to uncover a communication device that might not even be salvageable?
She watched as he wiped his face, only worsening the smears, turning his skin into a mottled brown-gold swirl. She couldn’t help the little nauseating flip of resentment in her stomach, accompanied by a petulant wish: Why couldn’t it have been Campo I dug out of the sand? Instead of their experienced team leader, whose steady voice and clear eyes had calmed Jaya before her first mission, she was stranded with the vain, spoiled, second-most-junior officer who had spent the weeklong journey to this planet poking at her every insecurity. The resentment was flushed away no sooner than she’d registered it by an even more nauseating shame at wishing death on her only remaining companion.
Sal met her eyes. “What?”
“Nothing.” She swallowed her question before she could ask it. What are we supposed to do now?
Jaya turned her eyes back to the horizon. The sun moved quickly through the sky on this remote border colony. The planet’s rotation brought a sunrise every ten hours, and night was coming on fast.
“They’ll send a rescue,” she said, her voice wavering.
“Jesus, you are green.”
Jaya bit her lip, swallowing her angry retort.
“I bet you think we’re going to complete the mission, too.”
“Won’t we be in trouble?” she asked.
She could feel his eyes on her, a sardonic curve to his lips. In the few weeks she had been aboard the UNS Avalon, she had yet to see Sal respond to anything without a thick layer of sarcasm and a flash of his sharp eyes and bright grin.
Just before they’d boarded the transport that brought them down to the surface, Sal had come up behind her.
You ever fired that thing outside of training? he’d asked, nodding at her particle beam rifle.
Jaya had met his eyes with all the bravado she could muster. Gotta start sometime.
Sal had snorted a laugh, and she’d glared at him, which only seemed to entertain him more.
He was enraging, and she could tell he was looking for a reaction from her now, so she turned away. Sal shook his head and continued.
“They’ll be more pissed if we get ourselves killed, which we will if we try to do a recon mission in this state. No, we need to get somewhere we can access a quantum communicator. There’s a naval outpost on the other side of the nearest ridge,” Sal said. “They’ll have a quantum-capable device. We can get our exfil there.”
Jaya stood. The pain in her ankle was diminishing fast, and she dug in the sand near the ATV in search of weapons or supplies. Her rifle had been snatched from her by the deluge, and her pistol was nowhere to be found. Sal was similarly disarmed, and even his heavy pack had been ripped from his back. They had only the emergency rations in Jaya’s bag and the water supplies built into their light armor.
Sal ran a medical diagnostic scan on his palm drive. Jaya’s ankle had some swelling but appeared undamaged otherwise, and the cut on her arm was much milder than it had felt when it was scraping against abrasive sand. She bandaged it up as Sal confirmed his own injuries. A fracture in his right tibia, beneath the nasty abrasion that had stained his armor, and a handful of cracked ribs on his right. His light armor vest should be enough to protect and stabilize his ribs on their journey, but they would have to be careful.
They mapped out a long, circuitous route to the outpost that would keep them in the craggy mountains the entire way, to ease the strain on Sal’s leg and ribs. She gave him a dose of painkillers from the medical kit in her pack, then distributed what supplies she could find between the two of them. She supported Sal as he stood, his weight on his good leg. He continued to lean on her as they slogged across the sand to the base of the mountains and started to ascend.
The deluge had come abruptly, shattering the stifling, dazed quiet. A ripple, like the mountain shrugging. Sand poured from the cliff like smoke, and then the peak began to shudder. Their ATV had squealed as the dump of sand in the valley turned their flat road into violent, heaving waves.
And then everything went black.
She became aware, suddenly, of her limbs constricted, pressure on all sides. Her mouth was full of grit. She blew a breath out of her nose, the sand stinging her nostrils. Her chest screamed, but sand was everywhere, threatening to pour in if she opened her mouth.
She clawed in the direction that felt like up. The sand gave easily against her palms, but her body moved with difficulty. With every handful she pushed aside, it felt like she slipped back down another inch.
When her hand broke through, she flailed, dragging herself to the surface. Her chest heaved, every breath of the dry, hot air an agony of relief in her lungs. Her left ankle protested every movement, and a long cut in her arm seared as the sand dragged across the wound. Jaya set her jaw and forced herself up anyway, until her limbs were free and she could draw in more gasping breaths. She curled her legs up under her, her heart pounding in her chest.
She was alive.
She was alone.
Around her, the dunes shimmered with heat. The wind blew insistently across the valley, clearing the sand away from something warped and metallic. The ATV.
Jaya crawled across the shifting ground toward the vehicle. Only one twisted strut of its frame poked out of the drifts, creating a small wind shelter where the sand was already accumulating. Her ankle throbbed terribly with every movement of her leg, and she paused halfway to the vehicle, collapsing on her stomach. The sand collected against her body, reclaiming her slowly as her chest heaved.
This was her first mission as an elite Intelligence, Reconnaissance, and Counterterrorism agent with the Union Navy. Less than a month out of the academy, she was stranded on a remote border colony barely out of the clutches of the Nareian Empire, felled not by enemy fire, but by a natural disaster.
She had known this path would be filled with danger, but she couldn’t let the very first job be the one that killed her.
That thought cut through the muddy swirl of her thoughts, dispersing a rising panic that had swarmed her without her awareness. She lifted her head. Her mind cleared, and she pulled herself back up. She had survived, had woken buried beneath the sand. Maybe the others were still alive.
Her palm drive. The implanted computer had been upgraded with military software when she was commissioned aboard the Avalon last month. She opened the main menu, and it appeared as a holographic projection above her wrist. There was a scan she could run to identify each member of the team with their military ID. Jaya watched as the scan results appeared hazy over her forearm. It showed two IDs with vitals in this vast desert. The other six, buried beneath the sand, had gone dark.
Jaya looked up, searching for the location of the other survivor. His name and rank blinked on her map: Salman Azima, Lieutenant Junior Grade.
Beyond the ATV, hazy in the blowing sand, she saw a shape that wasn’t smooth dune. A groan came faint on the breeze. It was Sal.
Ignoring the pain in her ankle, Jaya pulled herself up and staggered toward his mostly-buried form. His tan face was painted with dust, making him appear the same color as the sand. Only his hair was differentiated from the flat golden backdrop, the dark curls fluttering in the breeze and letting off little puffs of sandsmoke.
“Lieutenant,” she said. “Are you injured?”
He groaned again, his eyes bloodshot in the stinging wind. “My leg. I don’t know how bad. I can’t get out.”
“I’ve got you,” Jaya said. She dug around him, freeing his arms so he could help pull himself out.
They fought the wind as it deposited more debris from the landslide around them. Jaya’s knees sank lower into the sand, but she managed to get Sal out. The sun was dropping behind the cliffs. The air turned chilly.
Sal lay on his side, spitting grit from his mouth, saliva cutting a dark line through the layer of dirt on his face. One leg of his light armor was sheared open, the tattered edges stained with blood and clinging sand.
Jaya opened a connection on her palm drive to the Avalon. It failed with an apologetic chirp. She tried again. Another failure.
Sal glared at the ruins of their ATV. “Quantum comms are toast,” he said. “We’ll never get through to the Avalon with our personal devices.”
Jaya swore as she recalled the briefing they had received from their commanding officer. This planet’s magnetosphere interfered with their palm drive’s signal, blocking their communications to orbit. Only a quantum communicator could reach the Avalon, something their ATV had been equipped with.
“Can you fix the communicator?”
Sal turned his narrowed eyes on her, but the expression was more skepticism than anger. “You gonna dig it out?”
Jaya bit her lip. He had a point. Their vehicle was buried below the sand, in who knew what condition. She had managed to get Sal out, but how much time would they waste trying to uncover a communication device that might not even be salvageable?
She watched as he wiped his face, only worsening the smears, turning his skin into a mottled brown-gold swirl. She couldn’t help the little nauseating flip of resentment in her stomach, accompanied by a petulant wish: Why couldn’t it have been Campo I dug out of the sand? Instead of their experienced team leader, whose steady voice and clear eyes had calmed Jaya before her first mission, she was stranded with the vain, spoiled, second-most-junior officer who had spent the weeklong journey to this planet poking at her every insecurity. The resentment was flushed away no sooner than she’d registered it by an even more nauseating shame at wishing death on her only remaining companion.
Sal met her eyes. “What?”
“Nothing.” She swallowed her question before she could ask it. What are we supposed to do now?
Jaya turned her eyes back to the horizon. The sun moved quickly through the sky on this remote border colony. The planet’s rotation brought a sunrise every ten hours, and night was coming on fast.
“They’ll send a rescue,” she said, her voice wavering.
“Jesus, you are green.”
Jaya bit her lip, swallowing her angry retort.
“I bet you think we’re going to complete the mission, too.”
“Won’t we be in trouble?” she asked.
She could feel his eyes on her, a sardonic curve to his lips. In the few weeks she had been aboard the UNS Avalon, she had yet to see Sal respond to anything without a thick layer of sarcasm and a flash of his sharp eyes and bright grin.
Just before they’d boarded the transport that brought them down to the surface, Sal had come up behind her.
You ever fired that thing outside of training? he’d asked, nodding at her particle beam rifle.
Jaya had met his eyes with all the bravado she could muster. Gotta start sometime.
Sal had snorted a laugh, and she’d glared at him, which only seemed to entertain him more.
He was enraging, and she could tell he was looking for a reaction from her now, so she turned away. Sal shook his head and continued.
“They’ll be more pissed if we get ourselves killed, which we will if we try to do a recon mission in this state. No, we need to get somewhere we can access a quantum communicator. There’s a naval outpost on the other side of the nearest ridge,” Sal said. “They’ll have a quantum-capable device. We can get our exfil there.”
Jaya stood. The pain in her ankle was diminishing fast, and she dug in the sand near the ATV in search of weapons or supplies. Her rifle had been snatched from her by the deluge, and her pistol was nowhere to be found. Sal was similarly disarmed, and even his heavy pack had been ripped from his back. They had only the emergency rations in Jaya’s bag and the water supplies built into their light armor.
Sal ran a medical diagnostic scan on his palm drive. Jaya’s ankle had some swelling but appeared undamaged otherwise, and the cut on her arm was much milder than it had felt when it was scraping against abrasive sand. She bandaged it up as Sal confirmed his own injuries. A fracture in his right tibia, beneath the nasty abrasion that had stained his armor, and a handful of cracked ribs on his right. His light armor vest should be enough to protect and stabilize his ribs on their journey, but they would have to be careful.
They mapped out a long, circuitous route to the outpost that would keep them in the craggy mountains the entire way, to ease the strain on Sal’s leg and ribs. She gave him a dose of painkillers from the medical kit in her pack, then distributed what supplies she could find between the two of them. She supported Sal as he stood, his weight on his good leg. He continued to lean on her as they slogged across the sand to the base of the mountains and started to ascend.
Night fell quickly, and they sheltered low on the mountain. Their bodies were used to the twenty-four-hour circadian cycle humans had brought from Earth. Even centuries after the last human had left their homeworld, they still abided by its rules. The first night on this border colony they napped briefly in turns, then fumbled in the pitch black for their packaged meals.
The colony had no moons, nothing but the stretch of stars to lighten the dark of night. Jaya was surprised how quickly her eyes adjusted, until the faint starlight was enough to see the outline of their legs stretched out in front of them as they ate. When the opposite horizon faded from deep black to a midnight blue, they continued along their route.
“Why’d we never cross paths at the academy?” Sal asked as they crested a ridge in the wan morning light. She still supported most of his weight as they walked, but she found surprising strength in herself as they drove forward through the mountains.
“I didn’t really socialize,” she said.
Sal gave another of his snorting laughs. “You? I’d never believe it.”
Jaya frowned at the ground rising in front of them, using the rocky terrain as an excuse to ignore him. She could never tell if Sal was looking for a friend or a fight, but it didn’t matter either way. Jaya was looking for neither. There was no room in her life for distractions.
“Still,” he continued. “Strange that we never encountered each other. What was your concentration?”
“Operations research.”
Sal made an exasperated noise. “Oh you’re one of those.”
“One of what?” she scowled.
“By the book Navy brat. I’m guessing your parents served too? You grew up moving from base to base, made all the kids at the local schools call you Admiral.”
Sal stumbled, and Jaya steadied him. She halted, and helped him sit down to rest. She handed Sal his water hose and took a drink from her own.
“I picked the concentration because my advisor said I’d be good at it.” She didn’t answer the question. Her father had served, years ago. But she hadn’t grown up in a military family. Not really.
“How pragmatic.”
Jaya frowned at him. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“No,” Sal replied. “I’m a pragmatist, too. You just take it to another level.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Wait,” he said suddenly, and she sensed him squinting at her with a focused intensity. “I do remember you. You were selected for that sparring demonstration when the top brass visited. My last year—would have been your second.”
“So?”
“You were amazing. I mean, I know they picked the best, but you were just a little second year and I couldn’t believe how fast you moved. Like you’d been training your whole life.”
She pulled the hose of her water between her teeth and sucked on it as she squinted into the sun. When Sal continued to watch her, she shot him an exasperated look.
“It was just a demo.”
“It was impressive,” Sal replied. “Seriously, you were exceptional.”
“I’m not exceptional,” she snapped.
“What, you have a problem with being exceptional?
“It means you stand out.”
“Well, yeah. That’s kind of the point,” Sal leaned back against the rocks like they were a plush chaise in one of the expensive bars on Argos Station, then winced and straightened again.
Jaya didn’t want to be noticed, but she wasn’t sure she could explain something like that to someone like Sal.
The wind howled over the mountainside, and Jaya turned her face into the gust.
When she was eight years old, her childhood had ended abruptly when armed strangers burst into her home. Her older brother had hidden her in a secret room and gone to face the strangers alongside their mother. Their father had been at work in his lab that day, and when Jaya finally ventured out of her hiding place to a bloodied and empty home, the lab was burning wildly on the horizon.
She had survived that day because she had hidden. Even now, twelve years later, she didn’t know who those mysterious attackers had been, or if they might still be out there, searching for her. She had lived with that fear for over a decade.
She wondered sometimes if that was what had made her such a promising candidate for IRC. Something inside her switched off that day, lying dormant deep in her heart, leaving the rest of her cold and unfeeling.
“So why did you choose the Navy?” Sal asked.
“It wasn’t really much of a choice. I was lucky to pass the entrance exam for the Academy, but I would have enlisted if I hadn’t.” She gave a bitter laugh. “It’s not like I had a lot of career choices.”
Sal made a thoughtful noise in his throat.
“So what is your thing?” he pressed. ”If the military wasn’t your first choice, what was? You don’t seem like the science type.”
“Not remotely.”
“Yeah, didn’t think so,” he said. “Your eyes glaze over any time the tech specialists start talking.” He squinted, examining her. She turned her eyes away, self-conscious under his scrutiny.
“So what was it? Art? Literature? Oh don’t tell me you write poetry.”
She made a face at him, and he laughed. They sat in silence for a moment, Jaya staring over the next ridge and Sal fiddling with his palm drive, before he picked up the conversation again.
“C’mon, I want to know. You can’t just be a simple farmer.”
She didn’t respond right away, measuring her tone carefully before she did. ”What’s wrong with simple farmers?” Sal’s silence suggested he could hear the danger in her voice, and she continued on. “My uncles are farmers. I don’t think my uncle Simon would ever want to do anything more with his life. He likes being close to the land. I just wish…”
She shook her head. Her uncle Aman had been injured the year before she enrolled at the academy. The heavy equipment they used was dangerous, and they didn’t always have the money to ensure their maintenance was up to date. Jaya recalled too many nights sitting at the top of the stairs, listening to her uncles worry in hushed voices about their finances when the harvest failed to yield what they’d hoped or when Union regulations or harsh trade wars slashed their profits.
It was why she’d joined up. To ease their burden.
“You wouldn’t understand” she said.
“That’s not what I meant…” Sal said, his tone conciliatory.
He looked like he was going to say something else, but his eyes were drawn away. He had brought up a display on his palm drive, a 3D tactical layout of the area displayed in a shimmering holographic projection. His eyebrows drew together in concentration, distracted by something on the map.
“What is it?” Jaya asked.
“I’m picking something up over that ridge,” he said, pointing toward one of the cliffs to their right.
Jaya frowned. “I thought intel didn’t have any settlements over here. Just desert.”
“Well, the machines say there’s something,” Sal said. “I’ve even got water readings. Big ones, spread out.”
Jaya stood, squinting off in the direction he pointed.
“The landslide,” she said. “It could have been caused by an agricultural settlement. Land like this isn’t meant to be disturbed by irrigation systems. It can loosen the earth.”
Sal sighed. “These border colonies attract the dumbest of humanity. It’s a wonder any of them survive.”
Jaya’s hands tightened around the straps of her pack. Most officers came from wealth, like Sal. He had been raised on Argos, the capital city-station of the United Human Nations, his parents well-to-do and his life charmed. Jaya had more in common with the marines, who hailed from poor outer colonies like Jaya’s, than she did with her own peers. She might be an officer fresh from the Naval Academy, but she had grown up in the kind of place Sal no doubt thought populated by more idiots like these.
“We should keep moving,” she said coldly.
To Sal’s credit, he didn’t complain, just re-positioned the hose of his water pack and reached out a hand. Jaya helped him up, and they continued on into the setting sun.
The colony had no moons, nothing but the stretch of stars to lighten the dark of night. Jaya was surprised how quickly her eyes adjusted, until the faint starlight was enough to see the outline of their legs stretched out in front of them as they ate. When the opposite horizon faded from deep black to a midnight blue, they continued along their route.
“Why’d we never cross paths at the academy?” Sal asked as they crested a ridge in the wan morning light. She still supported most of his weight as they walked, but she found surprising strength in herself as they drove forward through the mountains.
“I didn’t really socialize,” she said.
Sal gave another of his snorting laughs. “You? I’d never believe it.”
Jaya frowned at the ground rising in front of them, using the rocky terrain as an excuse to ignore him. She could never tell if Sal was looking for a friend or a fight, but it didn’t matter either way. Jaya was looking for neither. There was no room in her life for distractions.
“Still,” he continued. “Strange that we never encountered each other. What was your concentration?”
“Operations research.”
Sal made an exasperated noise. “Oh you’re one of those.”
“One of what?” she scowled.
“By the book Navy brat. I’m guessing your parents served too? You grew up moving from base to base, made all the kids at the local schools call you Admiral.”
Sal stumbled, and Jaya steadied him. She halted, and helped him sit down to rest. She handed Sal his water hose and took a drink from her own.
“I picked the concentration because my advisor said I’d be good at it.” She didn’t answer the question. Her father had served, years ago. But she hadn’t grown up in a military family. Not really.
“How pragmatic.”
Jaya frowned at him. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“No,” Sal replied. “I’m a pragmatist, too. You just take it to another level.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Wait,” he said suddenly, and she sensed him squinting at her with a focused intensity. “I do remember you. You were selected for that sparring demonstration when the top brass visited. My last year—would have been your second.”
“So?”
“You were amazing. I mean, I know they picked the best, but you were just a little second year and I couldn’t believe how fast you moved. Like you’d been training your whole life.”
She pulled the hose of her water between her teeth and sucked on it as she squinted into the sun. When Sal continued to watch her, she shot him an exasperated look.
“It was just a demo.”
“It was impressive,” Sal replied. “Seriously, you were exceptional.”
“I’m not exceptional,” she snapped.
“What, you have a problem with being exceptional?
“It means you stand out.”
“Well, yeah. That’s kind of the point,” Sal leaned back against the rocks like they were a plush chaise in one of the expensive bars on Argos Station, then winced and straightened again.
Jaya didn’t want to be noticed, but she wasn’t sure she could explain something like that to someone like Sal.
The wind howled over the mountainside, and Jaya turned her face into the gust.
When she was eight years old, her childhood had ended abruptly when armed strangers burst into her home. Her older brother had hidden her in a secret room and gone to face the strangers alongside their mother. Their father had been at work in his lab that day, and when Jaya finally ventured out of her hiding place to a bloodied and empty home, the lab was burning wildly on the horizon.
She had survived that day because she had hidden. Even now, twelve years later, she didn’t know who those mysterious attackers had been, or if they might still be out there, searching for her. She had lived with that fear for over a decade.
She wondered sometimes if that was what had made her such a promising candidate for IRC. Something inside her switched off that day, lying dormant deep in her heart, leaving the rest of her cold and unfeeling.
“So why did you choose the Navy?” Sal asked.
“It wasn’t really much of a choice. I was lucky to pass the entrance exam for the Academy, but I would have enlisted if I hadn’t.” She gave a bitter laugh. “It’s not like I had a lot of career choices.”
Sal made a thoughtful noise in his throat.
“So what is your thing?” he pressed. ”If the military wasn’t your first choice, what was? You don’t seem like the science type.”
“Not remotely.”
“Yeah, didn’t think so,” he said. “Your eyes glaze over any time the tech specialists start talking.” He squinted, examining her. She turned her eyes away, self-conscious under his scrutiny.
“So what was it? Art? Literature? Oh don’t tell me you write poetry.”
She made a face at him, and he laughed. They sat in silence for a moment, Jaya staring over the next ridge and Sal fiddling with his palm drive, before he picked up the conversation again.
“C’mon, I want to know. You can’t just be a simple farmer.”
She didn’t respond right away, measuring her tone carefully before she did. ”What’s wrong with simple farmers?” Sal’s silence suggested he could hear the danger in her voice, and she continued on. “My uncles are farmers. I don’t think my uncle Simon would ever want to do anything more with his life. He likes being close to the land. I just wish…”
She shook her head. Her uncle Aman had been injured the year before she enrolled at the academy. The heavy equipment they used was dangerous, and they didn’t always have the money to ensure their maintenance was up to date. Jaya recalled too many nights sitting at the top of the stairs, listening to her uncles worry in hushed voices about their finances when the harvest failed to yield what they’d hoped or when Union regulations or harsh trade wars slashed their profits.
It was why she’d joined up. To ease their burden.
“You wouldn’t understand” she said.
“That’s not what I meant…” Sal said, his tone conciliatory.
He looked like he was going to say something else, but his eyes were drawn away. He had brought up a display on his palm drive, a 3D tactical layout of the area displayed in a shimmering holographic projection. His eyebrows drew together in concentration, distracted by something on the map.
“What is it?” Jaya asked.
“I’m picking something up over that ridge,” he said, pointing toward one of the cliffs to their right.
Jaya frowned. “I thought intel didn’t have any settlements over here. Just desert.”
“Well, the machines say there’s something,” Sal said. “I’ve even got water readings. Big ones, spread out.”
Jaya stood, squinting off in the direction he pointed.
“The landslide,” she said. “It could have been caused by an agricultural settlement. Land like this isn’t meant to be disturbed by irrigation systems. It can loosen the earth.”
Sal sighed. “These border colonies attract the dumbest of humanity. It’s a wonder any of them survive.”
Jaya’s hands tightened around the straps of her pack. Most officers came from wealth, like Sal. He had been raised on Argos, the capital city-station of the United Human Nations, his parents well-to-do and his life charmed. Jaya had more in common with the marines, who hailed from poor outer colonies like Jaya’s, than she did with her own peers. She might be an officer fresh from the Naval Academy, but she had grown up in the kind of place Sal no doubt thought populated by more idiots like these.
“We should keep moving,” she said coldly.
To Sal’s credit, he didn’t complain, just re-positioned the hose of his water pack and reached out a hand. Jaya helped him up, and they continued on into the setting sun.
Jaya took the first watch that night, after a meal of nutrition bars eaten in exhausted silence. Sal’s face was haggard in the shadows, his forehead damp even long after they’d stopped to rest, and his relentless chatter had dwindled throughout the day. They’d already used all the antibiotics in the emergency kit from Jaya’s pack, and Sal had insisted on rationing the painkillers. He accepted a dose now, rolling up his dirty sleeve so Jaya could inject it into his arm, and curled up awkwardly on the bedroll to sleep.
She took a seat on a flat stretch of rock nearby. The wind whistled along the nearby cliff face, an icy counterpoint to the day’s vanishing heat.
Their trip to the outpost would take another two days at least, assuming they could keep up this pace. She worried about Sal’s pallor and the strain he tried to hide from his face, which manifested instead in a tight cording in his neck, his pulse visible at his throat. The lack of medical supplies was a problem, but it wasn’t even her biggest concern. Their food supply was low, as was their water.
She glanced over at Sal, his back turned to her, the night so dark she shouldn’t have expected to see him. But her eyes had adjusted, and his form cast inky black shadows in the weak starlight. His shoulders shook, and as the wind shifted, she heard the muffled sound of sniffles.
She turned her eyes away, back to the long, craggy stretch of dark sky and darker rock. Sal had been with the team longer than she had. This was her first mission with the Avalon, but he had two years of history with them. Something softened in her—he might joke like he had no cares in the world, but she had watched his cares grow by six, and still he pressed on.
It was a short night, and Jaya switched with Sal at dawn, dragging the bedroll under the shade of a jutting rock to protect herself from the growing heat. It was midday when Sal woke her, handing her a nutrition bar with a lopsided half-smile after she had packed up the rest of their things.
As the sun reached its apex and began to sink down to the opposite horizon, they picked their way across rust-colored ridge trails. Alongside them, scrubby and pale shrubs wended their way through cracks and crevasses where the rare rains would collect.
Jaya wiped grit from her mouth and took a drink of water from her pack. The hose spluttered, more air than water.
“We need to resupply,” Sal said.
Jaya nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.”
They both looked up, over the ridge to the right, where the settlement lay.
“It’s an illegal settlement,” Sal said.
“They won’t want Union Navy stumbling in,” Jaya agreed.
They both stared out a moment longer, before Jaya sighed and shook her head.
“We need water,” she said. “We’ll just have to be careful.”
She took a seat on a flat stretch of rock nearby. The wind whistled along the nearby cliff face, an icy counterpoint to the day’s vanishing heat.
Their trip to the outpost would take another two days at least, assuming they could keep up this pace. She worried about Sal’s pallor and the strain he tried to hide from his face, which manifested instead in a tight cording in his neck, his pulse visible at his throat. The lack of medical supplies was a problem, but it wasn’t even her biggest concern. Their food supply was low, as was their water.
She glanced over at Sal, his back turned to her, the night so dark she shouldn’t have expected to see him. But her eyes had adjusted, and his form cast inky black shadows in the weak starlight. His shoulders shook, and as the wind shifted, she heard the muffled sound of sniffles.
She turned her eyes away, back to the long, craggy stretch of dark sky and darker rock. Sal had been with the team longer than she had. This was her first mission with the Avalon, but he had two years of history with them. Something softened in her—he might joke like he had no cares in the world, but she had watched his cares grow by six, and still he pressed on.
It was a short night, and Jaya switched with Sal at dawn, dragging the bedroll under the shade of a jutting rock to protect herself from the growing heat. It was midday when Sal woke her, handing her a nutrition bar with a lopsided half-smile after she had packed up the rest of their things.
As the sun reached its apex and began to sink down to the opposite horizon, they picked their way across rust-colored ridge trails. Alongside them, scrubby and pale shrubs wended their way through cracks and crevasses where the rare rains would collect.
Jaya wiped grit from her mouth and took a drink of water from her pack. The hose spluttered, more air than water.
“We need to resupply,” Sal said.
Jaya nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.”
They both looked up, over the ridge to the right, where the settlement lay.
“It’s an illegal settlement,” Sal said.
“They won’t want Union Navy stumbling in,” Jaya agreed.
They both stared out a moment longer, before Jaya sighed and shook her head.
“We need water,” she said. “We’ll just have to be careful.”
They reached the mountaintop settlement as night was falling again, a short three hours later. They paused a few hundred meters from the closest building, and Jaya eased Sal down onto the rocks.
The settlement was illegal, as Sal had noted. This colony had been disputed territory between the United Human Nations and the Nareian Empire during the war, but had officially become a Union colony in the armistice deal. They had passed the ruins of other structures early in their journey, a mixture of settlements clustered low to the ground in the shadows of cliffs where the only green things grew. Old nareian towns had once dotted the landscape. Now, this planet was mostly empty space—a buffer zone, with a few regions of Union-approved population density. The nareians had been pushed out, forced back within the borders of their own Empire.
Jaya had only seen pictures of nareians as a child, the imagery of the fierce, catlike aliens clashing with the stories that so many of them had been pushed off Union lands and resettled in refugee camps. Jaya had encountered her first nareians in the flesh as soon as she stepped off the ship into the bustling port of Argos Station four years ago. They were roughly humanoid, and while they could switch seamlessly between bipedal and quadrupedal stances, the ones Jaya had seen on Argos were all diplomats or businesspeople or even tourists, their clothing and stance and behavior familiar enough to take the edge off the ingrained fear. The war had been over for nearly half a century, but the resentment was not entirely gone, and Jaya had been surprised to see so many of the broad-shouldered aliens roaming the capital city of the United Human Nations.
She looked out over the settlement. It was a few dozen prefab buildings—the kind sold on remote stations where prospectors of all the galactic races tended to congregate. They were scattered over a wide plateau, casting long shadows over the rocks. As the sun disappeared below the ridge, Jaya crouched and brought up her palm drive’s heat scan. The sun had been scorching, and the sand-strewn rocks still glowed with latent heat, blurring the forms on her scan. She could see movement, but it was indistinct. She couldn’t make out individual forms, just clumps of hazy orange. Most of it was concentrated in a central building. Maybe some sort of town hall.
The landslide would have been devastating to the settlers as well, likely taking a large portion of their next harvest down the mountain. People would be restless, agitated. Jaya and Sal would have to be cautious, to ensure they didn’t run into anyone returning home from the central gathering.
“Our best chance for food is one of those outbuildings,” Jaya said, looking up from her scan. While the kind of farm she had been raised on was nestled in soft foothills, not perched precariously on the edge of a cliff, she recognized much of the structure of this site.
“And water?” Sal asked.
Jaya pointed. “There’s a cistern over there. Likely what they’re using to support the settlement, but it might also be feeding their irrigation system.”
She rocked back on her heels, looking at Sal. Unarmed and injured, he wouldn’t be safe alone. But together, they would make more noise and be more likely to draw attention.
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Trying to determine how much of a liability I am?”
She flushed.
“I should stay here,” he said. “You’ll be faster and quieter without me.”
He reached back to unfasten his water pack and grimaced. Jaya moved to kneel beside him and released the catches of his light armor to remove the internal water supply. She helped him sit back against a boulder when she was done. He was fairly well-hidden, and in the deep shadows of the night, she doubted any settler would find him here. But still, she didn’t like leaving him alone.
“How’s your arm?” she asked.
He frowned at her. “You losing it? I hurt my leg, not my arm.”
Jaya got up and searched around the area, collecting a few fist-sized rocks and depositing them at Sal’s side. He looked from the rocks up to her.
“Ah,” he said. “Pretty sure my aim’s better with a rifle, but let’s hope we don’t have to test it out.”
“It’s all we’ve got,” she said.
She slung his water pack over one shoulder and her bag over the other and left him in the dark with his collection of projectiles. She stayed low to the ground as she approached the cistern, trusting the shadows to keep her hidden. There was no way to know what kind of tech this settlement had. Her armor was shielded to hide her from most basic scans available to civilians. Still, she planned to be in and out as quickly as possible. No point in risking discovery.
Once she had filled both packs of water, she snuck to the outbuilding she had pointed out to Sal. The lock was old—the kind of cheap tech her palm drive could hack even without Sal’s help. Inside, she found storage crates filled with tubers and root vegetables and shelves stacked with flats of grain. The root vegetables would serve them best, so Jaya opened her bag and began to fill it.
Footsteps outside caught her attention, and she froze. Whispered voices carried to her ears.
“I think they went in here.” The voice was overlaid in her ear with the tinny echo that meant her translator had filtered it. They weren’t speaking the Union Standard that Jaya and most human colonists had been raised on. She swallowed.
“What do we do?” Another responded. There was that tinny echo again, curdling her stomach.
“We can’t risk it.”
Jaya closed her pack and considered her options. The only way in or out was blocked, and her location was known. And Sal was still alone, with just a few rocks and his wits to protect him from what Jaya was starting to suspect were not human settlers.
Jaya had no weapon. She was outnumbered. And they knew she was here, which meant she didn’t even have the element of surprise. If it were humans, she would try to outrun them, but she knew she couldn’t try that with nareians. Nareians were swift and strong, relative to humans. In their quadrupedal stance, they easily doubled an average human’s speed. They would overrun her in moments.
She pressed herself back against the wall, inching closer, but keeping the containers of vegetables between her and the door. She looked around the room.
“What if there are more?” A third voice asked.
“Do a perimeter check.” The first voice instructed.
Sal. They would find him. Jaya flexed her hands, tension trembling in her fingers. She bent her knees, ready to move.
The door’s lock chirped. Faint light glinted off the barrel of a plasma pistol as the door opened a crack.
A nareian stepped inside. She was tall, standing on two legs, gray eyes glittering on either side of her broad, flat nose. Her mane was cropped short—unusual for nareians in polite society. She led with her weapon, clasped in both hands.
Jaya lunged, throwing herself into the stacks of crates. They toppled over onto the nareian.
The weapon fired, the beam sizzling against the wall as the nareian disappeared beneath the crashing crates. Jaya ducked low as the second nareian fired toward her. She hurtled forward, colliding with the second nareian’s stomach. They fell to the ground together.
Jaya scrambled up the nareian’s body, pinning him as he squirmed beneath her. She grappled with him for his weapon, hands scrabbling, desperate. His grip was loosening. She was close, she almost had it.
Adrenaline sharpened her perception. Time stretched, long and slow. Every gasp of the nareian fell on her ears with perfect clarity. Jaya’s own chest expanded, oxygen like fire flooding her mind. Her fingers pried, his hand resisted. And then…
It was hers. Jaya grabbed the weapon and wrenched it from the nareain.
She flew to her feet, gun raised. The nareian held his hands up.
Jaya leveled her stolen weapon at his head. His companion hadn’t stirred, but Jaya wasn’t going to wait for her to wake up. She kept her gun trained on its former owner and knelt down, picking up the other, fallen gun and tucking it into her holster. She stood again.
“Inside,” Jaya said, stepping out and jerking her head toward the door. “With your friend. Move slowly.”
He obeyed, picking himself slowly from the ground and walking with hands raised. He turned to face her once he was in the storage building. She met his eyes, expecting a snarl. But she saw only resignation, maybe even fear. Her hands tightened on the weapon.
She closed the door, hearing it lock with a chirp of acknowledgment.
Then, she ran.
The settlement was illegal, as Sal had noted. This colony had been disputed territory between the United Human Nations and the Nareian Empire during the war, but had officially become a Union colony in the armistice deal. They had passed the ruins of other structures early in their journey, a mixture of settlements clustered low to the ground in the shadows of cliffs where the only green things grew. Old nareian towns had once dotted the landscape. Now, this planet was mostly empty space—a buffer zone, with a few regions of Union-approved population density. The nareians had been pushed out, forced back within the borders of their own Empire.
Jaya had only seen pictures of nareians as a child, the imagery of the fierce, catlike aliens clashing with the stories that so many of them had been pushed off Union lands and resettled in refugee camps. Jaya had encountered her first nareians in the flesh as soon as she stepped off the ship into the bustling port of Argos Station four years ago. They were roughly humanoid, and while they could switch seamlessly between bipedal and quadrupedal stances, the ones Jaya had seen on Argos were all diplomats or businesspeople or even tourists, their clothing and stance and behavior familiar enough to take the edge off the ingrained fear. The war had been over for nearly half a century, but the resentment was not entirely gone, and Jaya had been surprised to see so many of the broad-shouldered aliens roaming the capital city of the United Human Nations.
She looked out over the settlement. It was a few dozen prefab buildings—the kind sold on remote stations where prospectors of all the galactic races tended to congregate. They were scattered over a wide plateau, casting long shadows over the rocks. As the sun disappeared below the ridge, Jaya crouched and brought up her palm drive’s heat scan. The sun had been scorching, and the sand-strewn rocks still glowed with latent heat, blurring the forms on her scan. She could see movement, but it was indistinct. She couldn’t make out individual forms, just clumps of hazy orange. Most of it was concentrated in a central building. Maybe some sort of town hall.
The landslide would have been devastating to the settlers as well, likely taking a large portion of their next harvest down the mountain. People would be restless, agitated. Jaya and Sal would have to be cautious, to ensure they didn’t run into anyone returning home from the central gathering.
“Our best chance for food is one of those outbuildings,” Jaya said, looking up from her scan. While the kind of farm she had been raised on was nestled in soft foothills, not perched precariously on the edge of a cliff, she recognized much of the structure of this site.
“And water?” Sal asked.
Jaya pointed. “There’s a cistern over there. Likely what they’re using to support the settlement, but it might also be feeding their irrigation system.”
She rocked back on her heels, looking at Sal. Unarmed and injured, he wouldn’t be safe alone. But together, they would make more noise and be more likely to draw attention.
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Trying to determine how much of a liability I am?”
She flushed.
“I should stay here,” he said. “You’ll be faster and quieter without me.”
He reached back to unfasten his water pack and grimaced. Jaya moved to kneel beside him and released the catches of his light armor to remove the internal water supply. She helped him sit back against a boulder when she was done. He was fairly well-hidden, and in the deep shadows of the night, she doubted any settler would find him here. But still, she didn’t like leaving him alone.
“How’s your arm?” she asked.
He frowned at her. “You losing it? I hurt my leg, not my arm.”
Jaya got up and searched around the area, collecting a few fist-sized rocks and depositing them at Sal’s side. He looked from the rocks up to her.
“Ah,” he said. “Pretty sure my aim’s better with a rifle, but let’s hope we don’t have to test it out.”
“It’s all we’ve got,” she said.
She slung his water pack over one shoulder and her bag over the other and left him in the dark with his collection of projectiles. She stayed low to the ground as she approached the cistern, trusting the shadows to keep her hidden. There was no way to know what kind of tech this settlement had. Her armor was shielded to hide her from most basic scans available to civilians. Still, she planned to be in and out as quickly as possible. No point in risking discovery.
Once she had filled both packs of water, she snuck to the outbuilding she had pointed out to Sal. The lock was old—the kind of cheap tech her palm drive could hack even without Sal’s help. Inside, she found storage crates filled with tubers and root vegetables and shelves stacked with flats of grain. The root vegetables would serve them best, so Jaya opened her bag and began to fill it.
Footsteps outside caught her attention, and she froze. Whispered voices carried to her ears.
“I think they went in here.” The voice was overlaid in her ear with the tinny echo that meant her translator had filtered it. They weren’t speaking the Union Standard that Jaya and most human colonists had been raised on. She swallowed.
“What do we do?” Another responded. There was that tinny echo again, curdling her stomach.
“We can’t risk it.”
Jaya closed her pack and considered her options. The only way in or out was blocked, and her location was known. And Sal was still alone, with just a few rocks and his wits to protect him from what Jaya was starting to suspect were not human settlers.
Jaya had no weapon. She was outnumbered. And they knew she was here, which meant she didn’t even have the element of surprise. If it were humans, she would try to outrun them, but she knew she couldn’t try that with nareians. Nareians were swift and strong, relative to humans. In their quadrupedal stance, they easily doubled an average human’s speed. They would overrun her in moments.
She pressed herself back against the wall, inching closer, but keeping the containers of vegetables between her and the door. She looked around the room.
“What if there are more?” A third voice asked.
“Do a perimeter check.” The first voice instructed.
Sal. They would find him. Jaya flexed her hands, tension trembling in her fingers. She bent her knees, ready to move.
The door’s lock chirped. Faint light glinted off the barrel of a plasma pistol as the door opened a crack.
A nareian stepped inside. She was tall, standing on two legs, gray eyes glittering on either side of her broad, flat nose. Her mane was cropped short—unusual for nareians in polite society. She led with her weapon, clasped in both hands.
Jaya lunged, throwing herself into the stacks of crates. They toppled over onto the nareian.
The weapon fired, the beam sizzling against the wall as the nareian disappeared beneath the crashing crates. Jaya ducked low as the second nareian fired toward her. She hurtled forward, colliding with the second nareian’s stomach. They fell to the ground together.
Jaya scrambled up the nareian’s body, pinning him as he squirmed beneath her. She grappled with him for his weapon, hands scrabbling, desperate. His grip was loosening. She was close, she almost had it.
Adrenaline sharpened her perception. Time stretched, long and slow. Every gasp of the nareian fell on her ears with perfect clarity. Jaya’s own chest expanded, oxygen like fire flooding her mind. Her fingers pried, his hand resisted. And then…
It was hers. Jaya grabbed the weapon and wrenched it from the nareain.
She flew to her feet, gun raised. The nareian held his hands up.
Jaya leveled her stolen weapon at his head. His companion hadn’t stirred, but Jaya wasn’t going to wait for her to wake up. She kept her gun trained on its former owner and knelt down, picking up the other, fallen gun and tucking it into her holster. She stood again.
“Inside,” Jaya said, stepping out and jerking her head toward the door. “With your friend. Move slowly.”
He obeyed, picking himself slowly from the ground and walking with hands raised. He turned to face her once he was in the storage building. She met his eyes, expecting a snarl. But she saw only resignation, maybe even fear. Her hands tightened on the weapon.
She closed the door, hearing it lock with a chirp of acknowledgment.
Then, she ran.
She saw the nareian as she came over the rise that hid Sal from the settlement. A woman, standing just a few meters from where Sal was covered by shadow. Her searching path was leading her toward him. Another step, maybe two, and she’d be able to see him.
Jaya raised her gun.
“Stop!” she shouted.
The nareian reeled, turning back toward Jaya. She assessed Jaya with eyes that flashed amber in her face, her short-cropped mane flattened by light armor that protected her neck and head. This one must be assigned to patrol, wearing precious, costly armor. Likely one of only a few suits the settlement could afford. Her mouth curled up in a slow smile when she saw Jaya was alone. Her weapon was still holstered, but she made no move to grab for it.
Instead, she took a step forward, the movement confident.
“Stop,” Jaya repeated. “Don’t move.”
But the nareian was down on all fours faster than Jaya had ever seen anything move. Fear lanced through her and she raised her weapon, firing on the approaching figure. Her hands shook, and the particle beam grazed the nareian’s back, repelled by the smooth light armor.
The nareian lunged, and Jaya dodged, rolling out of the way into the dust.
She looked up. The nareian was turning back around. She started to circle as Jaya pulled herself up. She was taller than Jaya, though not by much, the defined muscle of her body evident beneath the form-fitting light armor. Sharp blades protruded from that armor at the wrist, glinting in the starlight.
Jaya holstered her weapon and rocked up onto her feet. The nareian crouched, about to charge. A rock flew out of the darkness, connecting with the nareian’s head. She staggered, swinging her head around toward where Sal was hidden. Jaya registered the moment the nareian saw him, her eyes lighting, then narrowing. Jaya took advantage of the distraction, throwing herself at the nareian, arms locking around her opponent’s waist. They crashed hard into the ground.
The nareian freed an arm and flipped her. Jaya’s head smashed into the rocks and her vision exploded in bright lights. The blades on the nareian’s armor slipped along the tactical plating of her chest, then pain seared as the sharp edges drew across her bicep.
The nareian raised her arm, blades poised over Jaya’s head. Before she could bring her arm down and slice the vulnerable gap between Jaya’s armor and helmet, Jaya pulled her weapon and shot.
Those amber eyes widened. Thick, purple blood spilled from a singed hole where her particle beam had driven through the nareian’s unprotected forehead.
She crashed down on top of Jaya, heavy and lifeless.
Jaya pulled a deep breath into the vacuum fear had left in her lungs. The lights disturbing her vision diminished, but when she closed her eyes, she could still see them painted on her eyelids.
She pushed the body off of her and reached for her upper arm. The wound bled, but she had full range of motion. Jaya pulled herself up, still panting. The nareian lay on the ground, slumped awkwardly to the side, eyes blank, blood dripping down her forehead to pool on the ground.
Jaya pulled her eyes away from the body to look at Sal. He was still sitting in the little nook where she had left him, a rock in his hand and a grimace on his face.
“You okay?” she asked him.
“Sure glad you got back when you did.”
“We have to move,” she said.
“No shit. Did you get water?”
She nodded. “Food, too.” She handed him one of the three pistols she had liberated, and he released the stone. It clattered to the ground.
“Turns out my aim’s okay even with just my arm,” he grinned.
They loped along together in the dark, Sal’s arm thrown over Jaya’s shoulder. Against his protests, she kept his water in her pack, leaving him with less weight to burden his leg. She had grown up working with heavy machinery from a young age—a pack full of water was not any more unusual a burden for her than normal.
And it helped, to bear more weight. It helped that she had to focus more on her steps and her balance. It helped to keep her mind on the task.
They got back on their planned route, the path weaving closer to the low ground below. It would be another day before they reached the outpost, but they found a cave to shelter in. They would take the rest of the night and the next short day to rest, and then they would continue on.
The winds whistled in the cave mouth, and inside it was chilly. The rocks here never felt the warmth of the sun. But they moved deep into the cave and wrapped themselves in emergency blankets, huddling close for warmth. Jaya built a fire, and they cooked some of the tubers and ate them with bare hands, washing them down with the fresh water stolen from the cistern.
Jaya forced herself to eat, every swallow an effort. Now that they had stopped, her mind spooled up, churning her stomach. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the blood, the hole seared in the nareian’s forehead, the shocked eyes. She shivered, her hands trembling.
Sal threw her a sharp look. A little color had returned to his tan face as he ate, and he had wiped the streaks of bloodied mud away. Without his helmet, his curls sprang to life again, raucous at his temples.
“You okay?” he asked
She nodded. “It’s cold.”
“Yeah,” he said, “it is.” But the matter was clearly not settled.
Jaya took another strained bite of the flavorless, starchy vegetable.
“I remember mine,” Sal said.
Jaya looked at him. He was staring at his slender hands, clasped together in his lap. Jaya turned her eyes down to her meal, still unappetizing.
“You did the right thing,” Sal said. “She would have killed you. Or me.” He shook his head. “But it doesn’t matter how much they train you,” he said. “The first one is hard. It doesn’t get easier, but you learn how to deal with it.”
She looked up again, and he was watching her with a smile that was mostly grimace. She swallowed.
“Mine was some fucked up cultist on an outer colony” Sal said. “I was a sniper, supposed to take out the leader if things went bad.” He gave a humorless laugh. “Well, they did go bad. They started shooting hostages. I was green as hell and almost didn’t manage it. But I did my job. I watched him die.”
He fell silent for a moment, his eyes drifting away from her, to somewhere over her shoulder.
“I knew how much blood was in a human body,” he said. “It shouldn’t have been a shock. But to see it all on the ground like that? There was so much of it.” He shook his head. “I knew his death kept other people from dying. I knew it was for the better, but it still felt like I lost a piece of myself.”
Jaya put her food down, her throat thick. She looked back into the fire, words rising up in her chest that she didn’t dare voice.
She sensed his eyes on her for a while longer, but eventually he returned to his dinner. She took the first watch, and he limped over to the bedroll and lay down to sleep without another word.
Jaya raised her gun.
“Stop!” she shouted.
The nareian reeled, turning back toward Jaya. She assessed Jaya with eyes that flashed amber in her face, her short-cropped mane flattened by light armor that protected her neck and head. This one must be assigned to patrol, wearing precious, costly armor. Likely one of only a few suits the settlement could afford. Her mouth curled up in a slow smile when she saw Jaya was alone. Her weapon was still holstered, but she made no move to grab for it.
Instead, she took a step forward, the movement confident.
“Stop,” Jaya repeated. “Don’t move.”
But the nareian was down on all fours faster than Jaya had ever seen anything move. Fear lanced through her and she raised her weapon, firing on the approaching figure. Her hands shook, and the particle beam grazed the nareian’s back, repelled by the smooth light armor.
The nareian lunged, and Jaya dodged, rolling out of the way into the dust.
She looked up. The nareian was turning back around. She started to circle as Jaya pulled herself up. She was taller than Jaya, though not by much, the defined muscle of her body evident beneath the form-fitting light armor. Sharp blades protruded from that armor at the wrist, glinting in the starlight.
Jaya holstered her weapon and rocked up onto her feet. The nareian crouched, about to charge. A rock flew out of the darkness, connecting with the nareian’s head. She staggered, swinging her head around toward where Sal was hidden. Jaya registered the moment the nareian saw him, her eyes lighting, then narrowing. Jaya took advantage of the distraction, throwing herself at the nareian, arms locking around her opponent’s waist. They crashed hard into the ground.
The nareian freed an arm and flipped her. Jaya’s head smashed into the rocks and her vision exploded in bright lights. The blades on the nareian’s armor slipped along the tactical plating of her chest, then pain seared as the sharp edges drew across her bicep.
The nareian raised her arm, blades poised over Jaya’s head. Before she could bring her arm down and slice the vulnerable gap between Jaya’s armor and helmet, Jaya pulled her weapon and shot.
Those amber eyes widened. Thick, purple blood spilled from a singed hole where her particle beam had driven through the nareian’s unprotected forehead.
She crashed down on top of Jaya, heavy and lifeless.
Jaya pulled a deep breath into the vacuum fear had left in her lungs. The lights disturbing her vision diminished, but when she closed her eyes, she could still see them painted on her eyelids.
She pushed the body off of her and reached for her upper arm. The wound bled, but she had full range of motion. Jaya pulled herself up, still panting. The nareian lay on the ground, slumped awkwardly to the side, eyes blank, blood dripping down her forehead to pool on the ground.
Jaya pulled her eyes away from the body to look at Sal. He was still sitting in the little nook where she had left him, a rock in his hand and a grimace on his face.
“You okay?” she asked him.
“Sure glad you got back when you did.”
“We have to move,” she said.
“No shit. Did you get water?”
She nodded. “Food, too.” She handed him one of the three pistols she had liberated, and he released the stone. It clattered to the ground.
“Turns out my aim’s okay even with just my arm,” he grinned.
They loped along together in the dark, Sal’s arm thrown over Jaya’s shoulder. Against his protests, she kept his water in her pack, leaving him with less weight to burden his leg. She had grown up working with heavy machinery from a young age—a pack full of water was not any more unusual a burden for her than normal.
And it helped, to bear more weight. It helped that she had to focus more on her steps and her balance. It helped to keep her mind on the task.
They got back on their planned route, the path weaving closer to the low ground below. It would be another day before they reached the outpost, but they found a cave to shelter in. They would take the rest of the night and the next short day to rest, and then they would continue on.
The winds whistled in the cave mouth, and inside it was chilly. The rocks here never felt the warmth of the sun. But they moved deep into the cave and wrapped themselves in emergency blankets, huddling close for warmth. Jaya built a fire, and they cooked some of the tubers and ate them with bare hands, washing them down with the fresh water stolen from the cistern.
Jaya forced herself to eat, every swallow an effort. Now that they had stopped, her mind spooled up, churning her stomach. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the blood, the hole seared in the nareian’s forehead, the shocked eyes. She shivered, her hands trembling.
Sal threw her a sharp look. A little color had returned to his tan face as he ate, and he had wiped the streaks of bloodied mud away. Without his helmet, his curls sprang to life again, raucous at his temples.
“You okay?” he asked
She nodded. “It’s cold.”
“Yeah,” he said, “it is.” But the matter was clearly not settled.
Jaya took another strained bite of the flavorless, starchy vegetable.
“I remember mine,” Sal said.
Jaya looked at him. He was staring at his slender hands, clasped together in his lap. Jaya turned her eyes down to her meal, still unappetizing.
“You did the right thing,” Sal said. “She would have killed you. Or me.” He shook his head. “But it doesn’t matter how much they train you,” he said. “The first one is hard. It doesn’t get easier, but you learn how to deal with it.”
She looked up again, and he was watching her with a smile that was mostly grimace. She swallowed.
“Mine was some fucked up cultist on an outer colony” Sal said. “I was a sniper, supposed to take out the leader if things went bad.” He gave a humorless laugh. “Well, they did go bad. They started shooting hostages. I was green as hell and almost didn’t manage it. But I did my job. I watched him die.”
He fell silent for a moment, his eyes drifting away from her, to somewhere over her shoulder.
“I knew how much blood was in a human body,” he said. “It shouldn’t have been a shock. But to see it all on the ground like that? There was so much of it.” He shook his head. “I knew his death kept other people from dying. I knew it was for the better, but it still felt like I lost a piece of myself.”
Jaya put her food down, her throat thick. She looked back into the fire, words rising up in her chest that she didn’t dare voice.
She sensed his eyes on her for a while longer, but eventually he returned to his dinner. She took the first watch, and he limped over to the bedroll and lay down to sleep without another word.
Sal didn’t mention their conversation in the morning. They packed up their sparse supplies and set out for the outpost.
He still looked pale, the warm tones of his skin turned yellow and sickly. His breathing was labored, but he kept up a running conversation as they made their way down the mountain. They were closing in on the outpost, approaching their way home. Once they called in the Avalon, they could get him proper medical care.
Talking seemed to soothe him, so Jaya engaged as much as she could in his chatter, though her mind was stretched, her attention tight enough to snap. His tone was calm, but there was a strain to his voice that only pulled her nerves tighter.
Silence finally fell, ominous, as they took careful, small steps down the windswept rocks.
Sal’s breathing was heavy. Sweat beaded on his forehead even as he braced most of his weight on Jaya. They paused for a rest, and Sal sucked at his water hose between gasps of air.
Jaya crouched nearby, balancing herself with her arms on one of the rocks. The weight that had inhabited her chest since killing the nareian gave way to another one—a tightness she had spent so long suppressing that she sometimes forgot it was there. It surged up now, freshly remembered.
Finally, she spoke.
“Music.”
“What?” Sal gave her a startled look.
“You asked me what my thing was. It was music.”
Sal was quiet at that. The wind picked up, drawing nearer as the clouds boiled above. The air held the threat of rain as it whistled along the exposed side of the mountain.
“So can you play anything?” Sal asked. When she nodded, he asked: “What?”
“Piano was my favorite. But I haven’t played in years. I probably can’t even do it anymore. And violin. I still have my mother’s violin.”
He seemed to read the finality in her tone, because he didn’t ask any more. Their brief rest seemed to have restored him somewhat, and he tolerated her silence as they continued down the final slope of the ridge.
Ahead, the naval outpost waited, where they could call their commanding officer and have their injuries tended. Her first mission with IRC was nearly over, and Jaya realized that the life she had led before this felt dim and distant. She wasn’t sure how to move forward, and Sal’s questions had stirred up the depths of her old fears and regrets.
Everything was different, now. But all she knew how to do was grit her teeth and keep moving.
So that’s what she did, bearing Sal’s weight down the ridge.
He still looked pale, the warm tones of his skin turned yellow and sickly. His breathing was labored, but he kept up a running conversation as they made their way down the mountain. They were closing in on the outpost, approaching their way home. Once they called in the Avalon, they could get him proper medical care.
Talking seemed to soothe him, so Jaya engaged as much as she could in his chatter, though her mind was stretched, her attention tight enough to snap. His tone was calm, but there was a strain to his voice that only pulled her nerves tighter.
Silence finally fell, ominous, as they took careful, small steps down the windswept rocks.
Sal’s breathing was heavy. Sweat beaded on his forehead even as he braced most of his weight on Jaya. They paused for a rest, and Sal sucked at his water hose between gasps of air.
Jaya crouched nearby, balancing herself with her arms on one of the rocks. The weight that had inhabited her chest since killing the nareian gave way to another one—a tightness she had spent so long suppressing that she sometimes forgot it was there. It surged up now, freshly remembered.
Finally, she spoke.
“Music.”
“What?” Sal gave her a startled look.
“You asked me what my thing was. It was music.”
Sal was quiet at that. The wind picked up, drawing nearer as the clouds boiled above. The air held the threat of rain as it whistled along the exposed side of the mountain.
“So can you play anything?” Sal asked. When she nodded, he asked: “What?”
“Piano was my favorite. But I haven’t played in years. I probably can’t even do it anymore. And violin. I still have my mother’s violin.”
He seemed to read the finality in her tone, because he didn’t ask any more. Their brief rest seemed to have restored him somewhat, and he tolerated her silence as they continued down the final slope of the ridge.
Ahead, the naval outpost waited, where they could call their commanding officer and have their injuries tended. Her first mission with IRC was nearly over, and Jaya realized that the life she had led before this felt dim and distant. She wasn’t sure how to move forward, and Sal’s questions had stirred up the depths of her old fears and regrets.
Everything was different, now. But all she knew how to do was grit her teeth and keep moving.
So that’s what she did, bearing Sal’s weight down the ridge.
The ship doctor had tended to Sal when they’d finally reached their destination, and after a quick examination, Jaya had been proclaimed perfectly healthy. Even the slice on her arm was gone, fresh pink skin the only sign of the injury. It didn’t look like it would scar. She never scarred, her skin always healing itself to perfection.
But while the doctor had pronounced her well, Jaya had slept poorly since they returned. Her chest was tight, her heartbeat too strong, too rapid, overwhelming.
Her one-room base apartment on Argos Station was quiet, which was a quality Jaya had appreciated about the place when she first moved in. Shipboard life was a constant crush of people, a claustrophobic existence where sounds and smells and just the presence of others was inescapable. Her apartment was her own. A private hideaway. A solace.
She retreated to her apartment, but there the silence only wound her tighter, her every muscle coiled. It was all she could do to force her jaw to relax, her teeth to stop grinding. She sat with her knees tucked up to her chest on the bed, staring at the violin case propped atop the lone shelving unit, the silence suddenly as claustrophobic as the press of people on the Avalon.
She never spoke of the day her parents died. Even her uncles—after drawing a single explanation from her when she appeared on their doorstep with a travel pack, trembling in fear—never pressed her to reveal more. It was enough to know that when the nightmares woke her, she could sit outside their room, letting the sound of their breathing calm her racing heart. It was enough to help them with their burdens, to be a part of their home and their life. It was enough, when she joined the Navy, to know that she was giving back. Was doing something with the life that she had been allowed to keep, while her parents’ lives had been ripped away.
But now, a new chasm had opened up in her. This wasn’t just a job. It could never be just a job, not with the way it had scooped out something essential inside her. She felt she had been refilled with sawdust, dry and scratchy on the inside.
She couldn’t take it back. All she could do was move forward. This was her life, now, if she wanted her uncles to retire in even moderate comfort. They all made choices, and this had been hers.
The controls on her door gave a chirping alert. Jaya wiped the salt tracks of tears from her face and got up. She looked at the display—Sal was there, leaning on his crutches in a way that somehow looked easy and careless, already changed out of his service grays and into something obnoxiously stylish. Jaya opened the door.
“You busy tonight?” Sal asked without prelude.
“Why?”
He frowned, adjusting his posture on the crutches. He brought up a display—some sort of scan code appeared, surrounded by animated music notes that danced in circles.
“My mom’s a season ticket holder to the Argos Symphony,” he said. “She’s busy tonight, so I have free seats.” Jaya met his eyes, and he returned her surprise with a calm grin. “Music’s your thing.”
“I can’t accept this,” she said. She knew how expensive symphony tickets were. It was an absurd gesture.
“Sure you can,” Sal said. “I’ve been looking for someone to talk to about something other than encryption and data analysis, and you obviously haven’t had a musical outlet for years.”
“Obviously?” she said.
He shrugged, as if she should be aware of her own transparency. “You should be able to enjoy the things that you love.”
She swallowed, her throat tight. She wasn’t used to people following up. Most of her peers took one look at the walls she put up and left her alone, but here was Sal. Standing in front of her, with tickets to a show, heedless of her surly frown.
He remained stubbornly in her doorway, and finally she stepped aside and he hobbled in on his crutches.
“Seats open in thirty,” he said, “but if we don’t want to wade through a sea of snobby old Argosians, we should try to get there right at curtain in an hour.”
Jaya rolled her eyes, but she felt her mouth curling up in a reluctant smile. “We can leave now. I’m ready, and I’d rather be early.”
Sal shot a judgmental look over his shoulder at her training leggings and loose shirt “Are you kidding?” he said. “You can’t wear that. You’ll have every gossiping old retiree talking about you.”
She was the one to shrug now. “I’m from the colonies. I’m used to it.”
“No, no,” Sal said, folding his lanky frame into one of the chairs at her little kitchen table. “I’ll help you pick out an outfit. This will be fun.”
“I hope not just fun for you,” Jaya quipped.
“Not at all. I’m a delight. Stick with me and you’ll never be bored.”
She laughed and began to dig through her dresser. She had absolutely no doubts that he was right about the last part. The tightness in her chest made no indications of leaving, but Sal’s chatter sang through it, his eyes bright and his gestures emphatic.
For the first time in a long time, Jaya found herself looking forward.
But while the doctor had pronounced her well, Jaya had slept poorly since they returned. Her chest was tight, her heartbeat too strong, too rapid, overwhelming.
Her one-room base apartment on Argos Station was quiet, which was a quality Jaya had appreciated about the place when she first moved in. Shipboard life was a constant crush of people, a claustrophobic existence where sounds and smells and just the presence of others was inescapable. Her apartment was her own. A private hideaway. A solace.
She retreated to her apartment, but there the silence only wound her tighter, her every muscle coiled. It was all she could do to force her jaw to relax, her teeth to stop grinding. She sat with her knees tucked up to her chest on the bed, staring at the violin case propped atop the lone shelving unit, the silence suddenly as claustrophobic as the press of people on the Avalon.
She never spoke of the day her parents died. Even her uncles—after drawing a single explanation from her when she appeared on their doorstep with a travel pack, trembling in fear—never pressed her to reveal more. It was enough to know that when the nightmares woke her, she could sit outside their room, letting the sound of their breathing calm her racing heart. It was enough to help them with their burdens, to be a part of their home and their life. It was enough, when she joined the Navy, to know that she was giving back. Was doing something with the life that she had been allowed to keep, while her parents’ lives had been ripped away.
But now, a new chasm had opened up in her. This wasn’t just a job. It could never be just a job, not with the way it had scooped out something essential inside her. She felt she had been refilled with sawdust, dry and scratchy on the inside.
She couldn’t take it back. All she could do was move forward. This was her life, now, if she wanted her uncles to retire in even moderate comfort. They all made choices, and this had been hers.
The controls on her door gave a chirping alert. Jaya wiped the salt tracks of tears from her face and got up. She looked at the display—Sal was there, leaning on his crutches in a way that somehow looked easy and careless, already changed out of his service grays and into something obnoxiously stylish. Jaya opened the door.
“You busy tonight?” Sal asked without prelude.
“Why?”
He frowned, adjusting his posture on the crutches. He brought up a display—some sort of scan code appeared, surrounded by animated music notes that danced in circles.
“My mom’s a season ticket holder to the Argos Symphony,” he said. “She’s busy tonight, so I have free seats.” Jaya met his eyes, and he returned her surprise with a calm grin. “Music’s your thing.”
“I can’t accept this,” she said. She knew how expensive symphony tickets were. It was an absurd gesture.
“Sure you can,” Sal said. “I’ve been looking for someone to talk to about something other than encryption and data analysis, and you obviously haven’t had a musical outlet for years.”
“Obviously?” she said.
He shrugged, as if she should be aware of her own transparency. “You should be able to enjoy the things that you love.”
She swallowed, her throat tight. She wasn’t used to people following up. Most of her peers took one look at the walls she put up and left her alone, but here was Sal. Standing in front of her, with tickets to a show, heedless of her surly frown.
He remained stubbornly in her doorway, and finally she stepped aside and he hobbled in on his crutches.
“Seats open in thirty,” he said, “but if we don’t want to wade through a sea of snobby old Argosians, we should try to get there right at curtain in an hour.”
Jaya rolled her eyes, but she felt her mouth curling up in a reluctant smile. “We can leave now. I’m ready, and I’d rather be early.”
Sal shot a judgmental look over his shoulder at her training leggings and loose shirt “Are you kidding?” he said. “You can’t wear that. You’ll have every gossiping old retiree talking about you.”
She was the one to shrug now. “I’m from the colonies. I’m used to it.”
“No, no,” Sal said, folding his lanky frame into one of the chairs at her little kitchen table. “I’ll help you pick out an outfit. This will be fun.”
“I hope not just fun for you,” Jaya quipped.
“Not at all. I’m a delight. Stick with me and you’ll never be bored.”
She laughed and began to dig through her dresser. She had absolutely no doubts that he was right about the last part. The tightness in her chest made no indications of leaving, but Sal’s chatter sang through it, his eyes bright and his gestures emphatic.
For the first time in a long time, Jaya found herself looking forward.
