part0226

Night and silence had fallen over the hall, interrupted only by the occasional moan from the injured and the murmurs of their guardians. A fan whirred somewhere in an attempt to stir the stifling and fetid air. Things had improved a little today with the arrival of another scanner and a handful of decon wands. More disinfectant was not to be found but they had received enough soap and fresh water to improve sanitation.

“I am,” Djari said. “I’ll be your lookout.”

She retied the scarf around her head and then nudged Reko’s legs to retrieve some of their concussion bullets. She transferred them to the pockets of the baggy trousers that now hid her own combat armor beneath it. Reko stirred with a groan but did not wake. She murmured soothingly and stroked his stubbled cheek. His fever had grown alarmingly and his wound was hot and swollen. They had tried to cool him down but there was little more than water for that. Nova thought of all the wonderful medical equipment available even out here, at the garrison near the other end of town, that would have him up on his feet and firing off his lame jokes within hours. Right now, it might as well be on the next planet.

“What are you going to do with those?” Djari asked.

“Just in case.” She showed him the modifications Reko had made to the capsules. “Too noisy to use around here, but better than nothing if we find ourselves in a tight spot.”

He untied a braided leather string he had been wearing around his neck, looped several times. He held it up to reveal a leather cup sewn into the middle, hidden under his hair. “We use these for hunting. I bet I can throw one of those things a long distance.”

“Nice!” She examined the sling with appreciation. “And much safer, frankly. I throw like a little girl.”

He laughed, a pleasant sound in the dark.

They looked up when Coria came with a bowl of water for Reko. She said nothing while she wiped his face and picked up some discarded bandages. Before she left, she looked from Djari to Nova, her gaze clearly conveying what her silence did not.

Nova watched her go. “She really doesn’t like me.”

“No, I don’t suppose so.”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t like Humans. You seem to bother her especially.”

Nova hesitated. “Is she your… I mean are you two…”

His teeth flashed in the dark when he smiled. “No. But she thinks I’m sweet on you.”

Nova blinked. She had expected him to repeat Coria’s fears that she was a risk to them, or perhaps even reveal that the woman was a rebel; something Nova had begun to suspect. “Um, what?”

Nova tilted her head. “Is she right?”

“Subtlety is not your greatest gift, I think,” he replied. “But I like that about you.”

They waited for one of the rebel guards to wander past them, his gun dangling lazily at his side. She nodded to Djari and they crept into a narrow hallway to the crude toilets that served the clinic. A service door leading to the septic area was only rarely inspected and quickly unlocked with a tool Nova had fashioned earlier. Clearly, their guards relied on the Rhuwacs patrolling outside to discourage escape attempts.

“Do the Rhuwacs have any weak spots?” Djari asked.

“Not really. They don’t even feel pain. They don’t see very well, but they can smell things going on in the next valley. Not much we can do about that.”

Once through the exit, Nova paused and breathed deeply of the sweet, hot air outside the building. The sky was overcast but their eyes were already accustomed to the dark. She stopped Djari from slipping away and put a finger to her lips. Gradually, the night sounds around them became identifiable. A shuttle in the distance, possibly at the garrison. Some herd animals left behind by the fleeing population of Shon Gat. Muted voices far to the left. And, finally, the congested snuffling of Rhuwacs.

She flattened her hand high over her head before realizing that Djari would not know that to mean Rhuwac. But he nodded and held two fingers up for her to see. She agreed with his guess that there were two of them. She pointed away from the source of their sounds. Circling around them meant a delay in finding the shed their young scout had discovered. It also seemed a whole lot safer.

They moved silently. Djari’s hunting experience served him well and she grew more confident in crossing the shadowed spaces in this warren of alleys and passageways. She counted the twists and turns until they reached the ancient wall that used to encircle the town before it had sprawled beyond its fortification. As reported, a metal shelter huddled among the whitewashed buildings, looking as out of place as any of the off-world constructions here. Light spilled from the open door and a lone Bellac sat on the stoop, busy with a pan of food.

Nova’s eyes followed a rusted tower upward to see a net of wires spread out from it, anchored to the nearby wall. A primitive array used by the Shri-Lan in remote areas, it provided excellent reception but was less effective for transmission. A lamp swung from the same mast, casting a bleak pool of light over the building.

She turned to Djari with a few gestures, cautioning him to remain here and hidden. He moved as if to object but she shook her head firmly. He scowled, obviously not convinced, but then nodded. She watched him fit one of the explosive charges into the sling and then turned her attention to the Bellac rebel.

Grateful for the long, drab vest that helped her blend into their surroundings, Nova sidled closer to the metal shed. There, she tested a plastic crate before stepping on it to peer into the dimly-lit interior. She made out some field equipment along the far wall where a woman slouched in her chair, feet on the cluttered bench. She was idly bending a length of wire into shapes while she monitored incoming messages that didn’t appear to hold her interest. A rifle was placed just within reach on a cot beside her. The rest of the interior was crammed with crates and barrels, some of it arranged to form crude table and seats. Nova lowered herself back down and approached the front of the building.

The other rebel was still working on his dinner. Nova realized how hungry she was when the greasy chunk of bone and meat on his plate actually made her mouth water. She wrapped a long, thin string, made from a braid of sutures and medical tape, around her palms to form a garrote. With another quick glance around the alley, she stepped forward and used the choke to pull the rebel into the dust where his flailing legs made little noise. She felt the garrote cut deep into his throat, cutting off his shouts of fear and pain and, soon thereafter, his life.

Nova waited another minute, breathing harshly, alert to any sounds from the shed. She did not look at the rebel’s face. As a pilot, she rarely faced her victims and she doubted that she could ever get conditioned to defeating them in close combat. It was best not to look, not to think about who these people were. Quickly, she searched him for weapons and came up with a sidearm laser, a decent knife and, oddly, a dart gun.

She raised her hand to prevent Djari from approaching. He was invisible in the but no doubt had been watching. She raised one finger and pointed toward the shack. The stoop creaked when she stepped on it.

“Hey, Jast,” the woman inside called out. “Check this out. I should be an artist.”

Nova stepped into the room and fired her new pistol at the back of the rebel’s head. The stench of burned hair filled the room and she quickly went outside again to wave to Djari. She waited while he hurried to the hut. “Hide that body behind the shed,” she said to him, pointing to the first rebel she had dropped. “Then sit here. Look like a rebel.”

“What is all this?” he said, looking over the boxes behind her.

“Hopefully something useful. Oh, look!” She picked up a canvas bag that had caught her eye and handed it to him. “Med supplies.”

Nova walked over to the console and pushed the rebel’s chair out of the way before looking over the displays to tap into the com system. Random conversation dribbled from the speakers in sporadic bursts, none of it the sound of battle. Some expletive-laden exchanges among patrols, a more cerebral conversation regarding the hill villages, a lot of static.

She smiled when she spotted a portable perimeter scanner dangling in its case from a hook. “You know,” she said to the lifeless rebel as she pulled the woman’s data sleeve from her arm and a pistol from her belt. “If you’d watched your scanners instead of your art project you would have seen us coming.” Grunting, Nova shifted the body to the floor and pushed it under the cot. It meant a small delay if someone came by here, but desertion was common among rebels and would be assumed before they’d start looking for bodies.

Nova connected her neural interface to the com system and entered a coded signal, barely a blip among the traffic. She waited. After a few seconds of peering out of the shack’s grime-smeared windows, she sent another.

Finally, an answering signal came back to her from the base. She closed her eyes, concentrating on chatting in a bored, Feydan-accented voice about the miserable conditions out here and what she thought of Air Command. She carefully embedded, through code words and timed signals, the information about a possible prison break on the ridge and the name she had gleaned from the Caspian rebel. Whoever this Pe Khoja was, he was surely important enough to stage an assault against a guarded Air Command installation.

A hissing noise from the door caught her attention.

“Thought I heard something,” Djari whispered when she came to stand behind him.

“Rhuwac, guessing by the size,” she said after adjusting the scanner she had found. “Just one. Over that way. Let’s get back to the clinic.”

“Huh? Just shoot it.”

“Ever try to lift a Rhuwac? We’ll never get him hidden away. Besides, they smell, alive or dead. Those boxes are locked. Let’s get out of here.”

“Could be supplies in there.”

She aimed her gun at a lock without using the tracer. It hit the spot, anyway, and the lock melted. “What’s all this?” she said when the container revealed stacks of tightly packed tubes, coiled like some weird green sausage. She pried another box open and found the same.

“Mince ,” he said.

“What?” She turned her head to survey the stack of similar crates along the wall. “All this is dope?”

“Looks like it.”

She sighed. At least this made some sort of sense. The demand for mince , a paste made from one of Bellac’s succulent plants, was boundless in other parts of Trans-Targon. The local, sturdy desert population enjoyed a chew of it as much as she might enjoy a glass of wine. Certain other species, notably Centauri and Feydans, achieved far more significant results with the drug, none of them healthy. Mince was extremely addictive. It was frowned upon in some places, illegal in others, and a very significant source of income for the Shri-Lan rebels.

“So that is what this is about? The reason why there are so many rebels in Shon Gat?”

“Been going on for years. Long before the Union even started to build the elevator. The stuff gets smuggled across the hills through Shon Gat and by caravan to the coast. Once it’s on ships to Panyan they’re in the clear. It’s not illegal there. There are caches like this all over town. Some of the locals process it into other forms, too. Of course a lot of this gets smuggled off-planet as well. Your new garrison is complicating things.”

“I had no idea. I suppose that’s why everyone got so upset when Air Command started knocking on doors.”

“Keeping you in the dark like a proper grunt, are they?”

She shrugged. “Just one more reason to rid this place of Shri-Lan. I don’t care.” She gave him a sheepish look. “Well, I do. Are they using the elevator for this?”

“Doubtful. Not with the kind of security you have. I mean, the elevator is standing right in the middle of your base. The caravans are a safer way to move this stuff. The governors are touchy about Air Command harassing the nomads.” He lifted a length of mince from its box. “We’ll take some of this. If we run out of pain meds for the Centauri at least we have this to get them through.”

Both of them ducked for cover when the sharp rapport of a ballistic weapon cut through the night silence. Nova leaped from the doorway and pulled Djari into the shadows between two buildings, expecting rebels to return to this station. More gunfire racket reached them.

“Is that from the hospital?” Djari said. “Is that Air Command?”

Nova shook her head. “They wouldn’t just blast in here at night. I’m not that important or they’d have done that already. Let’s get closer.”

A terrible roar rose up behind them, like something huge and angry and possibly in pain.

“Rhuwac,” Nova said just as the creature ran at them from the alley. He was wielding a massive club in massive hands and Nova suddenly felt very very small. The brute shouted something about Humans and they saw spittle fly from between the slabs of teeth he bared. “Ugh,” she said and aimed her weapon. It took a few passes from her gun before he fell, silenced.

Shouts reached their ears, closer than the gunfire still sounding in the distance. The Rhuwac’s noise had alerted someone.

Djari stepped away from Nova and readied his sling. He let it swing a few times before it rotated around his wrist. At the correct moment he heaved back and let the projectile fly high into the sky. They heard it detonate in the distance, surely drawing attention for a while. As one, they turned and fled in the opposite direction, along the wall and into the slums.

They were breathless by the time they had put a safe distance between themselves and whatever was going on back there.

The door to one of the deserted homes did not yield to her pick but Djari forced it open with a few well-placed kicks below the lock. The single-room dwelling looked like whoever had lived here left in a hurry. Pieces of clothing and household items cluttered the floor and storage boxes stood open and empty. The corner used for cooking was cold. Djari poked around the looted shelves and found nothing edible.

Nova placed the scanner stolen from the rebel station onto a windowsill and found it in working order. There was no one nearby. “Safe here for a bit.” Although there was still much interference from the rebels’ jamming systems, she detected moving bodies throughout the quarter, many more than she had assumed to be here. Shots still rang out at intervals but the sound of voices and the ugly growl of Rhuwacs had faded away.

“What do you think happened?” Djari looked over her shoulder at the screen. “Are you sure those aren’t soldiers?”

“Those guns are not military issue. I know the sound. Those are rebels. Maybe they noticed us gone.” She winced. “Maybe they took that out on the others. Coria was right, perhaps.”

“Don’t think that way,” he said. “There’s nothing to be done about that now. That might not even have come from the hospital. We probably got turned around back here.”

“Wish I could do that,” she said dully.

“Look at things the way you do. Don’t you get scared?”

“Are you scared?”

She adjusted the display screen on the sill. “Of course I am. We’re surrounded by rebels. Completely outnumbered.”

“You do very well for someone who’s scared. Not too scared to kill a man with your bare hands and a piece of string. Not too scared to shoot a Rhuwac like you’re swatting a bug.”

She lifted her shoulders slowly in a shrug. “That’s just training. It kicks in. You must think that’s all pretty awful.”

“I do and it is. I could not do this… work. But being scared doesn’t help things.”

She turned to face him, suddenly aware that he was standing very close to her. His gray eyes were fixed on her own and there was a half smile on his dark face.

“You’re scared right now?” he asked again.

“Wait a moment.”

She frowned, mystified, but waited quietly for a long interval where only the sound of their breathing broke the silence.

“Now,” he said at last. “Are you still scared?”

“So what good did it do you to be scared the first time I asked you? We’re still in the same spot, with the same problem.” He tipped his chin toward the town. “Be scared when you need to be. When it’s actually useful.”

“And when is it useful?”

He tapped a finger against her forehead. “When it keeps you from doing stupid things that’ll get you killed. Good thing you have the training to keep up with your willingness to take risks, Lieutenant.” His hand, roughened by work but gentle, moved to cup her chin.

Nova recoiled from his touch, her mind suddenly filled with a grim reminder of the last time a man had touched her that way. She stared at Djari’s astonished face, momentarily and utterly disoriented, heart pounding.

She shook her head to banish the memory, unable to recall what the head doctors at the base had told her to do with it. At the time it hadn’t seemed so important to listen to their advice. “We have to keep moving,” she said. “If we can scan them, they can see us, too.” She snatched up the scanner and slung it over her shoulder. “If we keep moving they might think we’re a rebel patrol. We need to get back there.”

“Are you all right? I’m sorry if I… startled you.”

She shook her head, wishing for nothing more than to go back a few seconds to feel his touch again. “No. You… you didn’t. I’m sorry. Being silly. Jittery and tired.”

“We should try to leave the town. Find a place to get some rest and then make our way around the foothills to your base. You can’t go on like this. I’m barely able to stand on my feet, either.”

“I have to see what’s happened at the hospital. I won’t leave Reko to them. Or the others. Coria doesn’t much like me, but she’s your friend. We have to try to help them now that we have some weapons.” She pulled her gun from her belt and headed for the door.

She turned back again.

Djari took her arm to draw her close and this time she did not flinch when he bent to kiss her softly. He touched only her arms but Nova returned the kiss, letting the moment spin out deliciously to banish the hate-filled night from their minds, if only for a little while. More than that, she felt herself respond to the closeness of their bodies, of wanting him to touch her. The sudden and happy realization that this need had not been extinguished by Captain Beryl, after all, allowed her to reach up to wrap her arms around his neck.

But when she felt his hands on her waist to draw her closer to this powerful body she pulled away at once, the fear and memory a dash of cold water in her face. They stared at each other for uncounted moments, neither sure of the other.

He finally cocked his head and gave her a gentle smile. “Should I apologize?”

“Huh? No! I mean…”

He raised a single finger to point toward her. “Not going to shoot me, are you?”

She looked down to see that she now gripped her pistol close to her chest, one hand around the barrel, the other ready to engage the trigger. She exhaled forcefully and lowered the gun.

“This is what you look like scared,” he observed. “But why?”

She looked away and then up into his face again, seeing only concern and curiosity. “I’m sorry. I… I got hurt, not so long ago. It’s made me jumpy, I guess.”

“Boyfriend trouble in the military? Is that allowed?”

She shook her head. “Not that. Not a boyfriend. I mean really hurt. On the base.”

The soft smile faded from his lips. “On the base?”

He took a step closer, slowly as if worried that she might run away. He brushed her cheek with the tips of his fingers. “You have nothing to fear from me,” he said. “You know that, don’t you?”

She nodded again and reached up to cover his hand with her own but then pulled away to open the door behind her. Perhaps there was time for this later, when she could allow herself to find out what his touch just now had meant. When she could admit to herself how much she needed it. She ground her teeth and shoved aside an overwhelming desire to hide in his embrace and, if even for just a little while, forget that she ever set foot on this planet. No time for any of this now.

“Let’s walk slow so we don’t look like we’ve got something to hide on the scanners,” she said. “If we move fairly at random we could get close to the hospital without being noticed.” She paused to reconsider. “Actually, let’s not be seen by anyone. Ours or theirs. If they did send Union patrols they’ll think we’re rebels, too.”

They made their way back to the edge of the slum along a meandering route until things finally began to look familiar to Djari who had spent far more time in these quarters than she had. But the Rhuwacs no longer loitered in the alley and no one else was moving nearby, according to her scanner. The hospital showed only a handful of life signs.

“No!” Djari exclaimed and she had to grasp his arm with both hands to keep him from rushing back into the building.

“Stop,” she hissed. “We don’t know who’s in there.”

He scowled at her but after a moment relaxed enough for her to let him go. She pulled him into the shelter of a courtyard wall and studied the dim glow of the scanner. This model only showed life signs but no specifics about species or state of health. At least they were alive. “Not moving. Could be our patients. Or people hiding.” She pointed at the screen. “Is that the back area where we left Reko?”

“I think so. That’s the hallway there, I think, given the exit.”

She nodded. “Let’s use the back door again. Just move very quietly. We’re not helping anybody by walking in on rebels.”

They stole around the side of the clinic and pried the door into the washroom. The floor was slippery with things she refused to examine more closely. No sound came from the main hall and power to the building seemed to have been cut. Feeling their way in the dark with an eye on the scanner, they crept forward to the nearest person.

It was, indeed, someone hiding. A Centauri woman, wrapped in a sheet from her bed, cowered in a corner.

“Shh,” Nova whispered and touched her gently as she crouched beside her. “Are you hurt?”

The woman raised her tear-streaked face and looked from Nova to Djari, taking a moment to recognize them. “They shot them,” she said. “All of them.”

“Who?” Djari said. “What happened?”

“I don’t know! They just came in here and started yelling and shooting. I ran and hid. They were shouting about the Union but no soldiers came. They just left.” She stared blindly into the dark. “They just left.”

“Stay here,” Nova said. “Stay quiet.”

Djari moved ahead of her around the corner and to the front entrance. They found another survivor, this one a Bellac worker, and then one of the locals that had supplied them with food these past few days. Nova pressed her hands over her face to stifle her cry when she saw a tall Centauri sprawled face down near the door.

“Gods, Reko,” she moaned, although her scanner had already told them that none of the bodies strewn through the hall were alive. “Please, not this.” She dropped to her knees beside him and heaved him onto his back. “Oh, damn!” She squeezed her eyes shut and dug her hands into his borrowed tunic as if to tear it.

“Come on!” Djari gripped her arm to pull her up. “We have to get out of here.”

She shook him off. “I can’t leave him here, in the dirt.” The half-closed eyes in the dusty face seemed to accuse her of something. Why had she left him here, unable to defend himself? Now who would teach her to curse in Centauri? “I can’t…”

“We have to. Let’s go!”

“Djari,” they heard a whisper. Coria came out of the shadows, uninjured but her eyes were wide with fear. “You’re alive! Thank the Gods!” Djari held her tightly, his voice a soothing murmur, until she had collected herself. She seemed less excited to see Nova near him.

The three of them shifted Reko onto a pallet and covered him with a blanket. Their next priority was to collect the survivors and leave the hospital, more to escape the gruesome carnage than with any hope of finding a better hiding place. The alley outside was silent although they stopped and listened anxiously when some shouts reached them from afar. Another escapee huddled in a doorway of a looted and burned home and they convinced him to join them.

Coria led them to a small stable, smelling cleanly of hay and wood, where Nova arranged them along a rickety stairway to hide their true number on the sensors. She took stock. None of them were too injured to move on their own. The shell-shocked Centauri woman would have to be minded carefully. One of the Bellacs was little more than a child. The others just looked stunned and exhausted.

“What happened?” Nova asked Coria. She glanced guiltily at Djari. “Did they notice we left?”

“Then it’s our blood on your hands, Human,” Coria snapped.

“They did not,” the Bellac medic said. “There is some sort of mutiny going on. Some of the rebels are trading captives to save their hides. Taking them out in the dark to bargain with. Thank the Gods they took the young ones out, first. Arter’s people came and shot whoever’s left, just to make a point. They shot their own, too.”

“The rest are trying to get back into the hills,” Coria said. “The ones who aren’t turncoats.”

Nova tapped her lips with a forefinger, considering this. “Air Command is going to be all over those hills. Snipers are just going to pick them off. Surrendering is probably much healthier right now.” She looked to Coria. “Do you know where and to whom they’re delivering the hostages?”

The woman shook her head. “Guessing along the east side where it’s more open.”

“Going to be light soon,” Nova said to Djari. “We need to get out of here. No guarantee we’ll be found by the right sort of rebel.”

“No, I suppose not. What do you have in mind?”

She looked up at the people on the stairs. “We’re going to play Shri-Lan. I’ll be your prisoner, and so will they.” Nova pointed at the Centauri and a Bellac with a long gash across his cheek and a bandage around his head. “The rest of you look well enough to be rebels. We have a few guns.” She turned away from them and pulled the data sleeve she had taken from the dead rebel from her pocket.

“Calling home?” Djari said and looked over her shoulder.

“Sort of.” Nova frowned when the unsophisticated device balked at her manipulations. She managed to recode the access scan and then briefly touched the device to her neural implant.

Djari raised an eyebrow. “You can interface with that?”

“Not exactly, but I can create a recognizable signal. They’ll know it’s me.”

She shook her head. “You’d have to hold a gun to my head to find that out.”

He frowned. “You don’t trust me?”

She looked up, startled. “Of course I do. It’s just not the sort of thing we talk about.”

“Of course. I’m sorry.”

“No need.” She touched his hand and felt his fingers close around hers like the briefest of hugs. She turned back to the others. “Coria, you and… what’s your name? Selvan? You two go back to the hospital and grab some clothes that look like something rebels would wear.” She met the woman’s eyes. “I’m sure you can figure that part out.”

Coria looked as if some retort burned to be flung at Nova but then said nothing. She tugged on the medic’s arm and they slipped back into the street.

There were nine of them now, making their way slowly along the outside of the old city wall toward the north end where Union patrols were sure to pick them up. The sun had risen not long ago, but a hot, dry wind already flapped their loose clothing and frayed their nerves.

Nova turned to walk backward for a moment, counting heads, before returning her eyes to the uneven terrain around them. She now wore her Air Command uniform and her hands were loosely tied behind her to appear as a hostage. It made walking on the uneven ground awkward and tiring.

A young man with a crutch hobbled beside her, slowing them all down, but he was a great story teller and managed to keep them distracted with his commentary. The Centauri woman had stopped talking long ago and continued moving only because Coria had tied a scarf around her wrist. Djari and the medic walked in the back, armed with the guns. The others surrounding them tried their best to look armed and menacing, a difficult feat for any of them as they stumbled along in the heat, not having eaten since the day before and with only a small bag of gritty water to sustain them. They stopped often to rest in what shade they found and each time they started out again it seemed more difficult to put one foot in front of the other.

They had met a small group of retreating rebels earlier. Their questionable disguise had worked or perhaps the rebels were too intent on fleeing into the hills to bother with challenging them. Feeling a little more confident, they continued their journey without having seen anyone else. The arid ground now sported considerably more scrub and the occasional tree, blocking the view from town and offering a little more shade.

She turned again, briefly, to look back at Djari. He looked up as if she had called to him and his tired face lit up with a smile. She remembered their moment together those few hours ago and the thought of another one like it, as his smile seemed to promise, gave her hope and renewed strength.

Nova glanced at Ulos, the young Centauri beside her. “Didn’t anybody notice that he wasn’t from around there?” she asked, referring to his latest, somewhat convoluted tale. Her head ached and she had trouble following the plot but it kept her from thinking about other things.

“That’s the fun part. The difference between his markings and his lover’s people are some loops across the left chest. So he used her paints to change his markings.”

“He must have been truly in love,” Nova said. Caspians prized few things as much as the intricate patterns on their short hide, a system that proclaimed their birthplace as precisely as a regional accent. Some females colored their hair to better display the patterns but males spurned the practice as effeminate. Neither men nor women would readily change the markings with which they were born. “So did they get found out?”

“Yeah,” he said dryly. “He painted himself in front of a mirror.”

They found an ancient wash-out and moved into the shade provided by the striated rock face of the gully. The ground sloped gently toward the north. “Let’s hope it doesn’t start raining,” Ulos said. “A man could drown in here.”

“Do not mention water.”

He shrugged. “Would be salty, anyway.”

“Someone coming,” Coria said. She was holding the scanner. Interference was again reducing its range to just a short distance around them. “Four of them, that way.”

Only a few moments later an armed rebel group traveling in the opposite direction came into view, hurrying to escape into the hills. Their guns were loosely pointed in their direction but they seemed to have no clear intent.

Nova’s ragged column came to a halt when their way was blocked by the newcomers.

“Where would you be going?” A Centauri in a desert robe walked toward them. He stopped in front of Nova who kept her eyes on the ground and tried to look like a captive. It didn’t take much pretension. “And where did you get the soldier?”

“Taking her back to them , what do you think?” Coria said.

The rebel shifted his eyes to her. “Arter broke off those useless talks. He said to scatter into the canyons. You’re heading the wrong direction.”

“To hell with Arter. We’ll be scraped off the hills one by one as target practice. I’m getting out of here.”

“You might want to rethink that, Bellac,” he said. Nova groaned inwardly at their sad luck of having run into a rebel actually loyal to this lost cause. The man stabbed his gun into Nova’s midriff. “I think we’ll be taking her off your hands.”

Just then a row of armed Union soldiers rose up on the embankment above them, appearing out of nowhere. No one had noticed their silent approach, too worried about the rebels coming their way. Confused, all of them looked around to face a wall of muscle in battle gear.

“Away from her,” one of them ordered.

Nova gasped when she recognized Captain Beryl, not monitoring his squad, but himself behind the barrel of his gun.

The leader of the newcomers whipped around, gun ready, and was immediately met by a storm of laser fire. Others, too, fell to their aim and Nova saw Coria collapse and then Ulos also dropped before she managed to tear herself out of her shock. She pulled apart the loose knot that tied her hands and waved frantically.

“Stop! Cease fire!” she shouted, not daring to move into the crossfire. “Stop! Civilians!”

They stopped, but her companions lay dead or dying on the ground. She turned to find Djari still on his feet but with an arm scorched from wrist to elbow. Another burn had blistered the side of his handsome face. He stared at the bodies on the ground and stumbled back, shaking his head in disbelief. She took a few steps toward him but someone gripped her arm.

“Djari!” she cried, but the look he gave her felt like an accusation. He lurched away to flee into the scrubby hillside. When one of the soldiers aimed to fire after him, Nova pushed the gun aside to let the shot go wild. “That’s not a rebel!”

She turned and launched herself at Beryl, gaining speed over the short distance to hit his chest with outstretched arms. “You fucking bastard!” He stumbled back, utterly surprised by her attack, and fell over a rock beside the path. She landed on top of him and smashed her fists into his face, cursing, unaware of the tears that poured over her face, unable to stop even when blood gushed from his nose and lips. “You. Fucking. Bastard!” she yelled again and finally someone pulled her away, needing another soldier’s help to keep her from returning to cause more damage.

Nova struggled with the men, too enraged to give up her insane desire to murder the captain, a man more than twice her size. He struggled to his feet, wiping at his streaming face.

“Look what you did, you stupid bitch,” one of his men said. “What the hell was that about?”

Beryl explored a gash across his eyebrow and then looked at his blood-covered hands. “Let her go,” he said.

“You fucking heard me.”

Nova nearly fell when the soldier released her with an angry shove. She breathed in sobbing gasps, her hands on her knees, furious and exhausted. “Those are civilians trying to get me out of this place. Why did you open fire? Look at this!”

“He raised his weapon,” Beryl said and then seemed to realize that he sounded defensive. “As far as we saw, they were rebels. Our orders are to retrieve you. Now get your ass in motion and back to base.”

“I’m done taking orders from you,” she said and paid no attention to the looks of astonishment among his men. She knelt beside the unconscious Coria. “We’re taking her with us. And anyone else who’s still alive.” She glared at Beryl. “Do you get that?”

He grasped the back of her suit and hauled her to her feet. “You are pushing your luck,” he said. “We’ll just assume you’ve lost your fucking mind.” He turned to his men. “Grell. Silas. Double-time to the gate and bring an evac back here.”

The hours that followed passed like a feverish dream. Too weak to continue the trek to the base, Nova was made to sit in the shade while the soldiers stood guard. She did not recall talking to any of them or seeing Beryl after this. Someone eventually pulled up with a skimmer and the few survivors of this latest massacre were taken away.

The medics at the base received her, someone propped her up while she took a long shower and then she was tucked into a cot in the garrison’s well-equipped hospital compound. Coria was also there, asleep or unconscious, and an armed guard stood by the tent entrance. Nova was treated for dehydration and finally allowed to sleep before she remembered to ask why they had posted the guard.

The following day brought a bedside debrief. And another, conducted by someone else. She talked about Sergeant Reko and Arter and the conditions at the crude med station near the slums. She tried to recall the location of the anti-aircraft guns they had seen in the hills and that still hadn’t been found. She asked about Coria, who was no longer in the hospital tent, and was not given an answer. Then she was left alone again, feeling restless and ready to leave this place.

At the end of that day several officers entered the tent. She sat up and put her feet on the floor as did two of the more able patients that shared her space.

“At ease,” they were told as the general approached.

“Yessir,” Nova said, not at all at ease to be sitting here in a hospital gown while General Patrina Ausan stood before her. The Centauri, who once spoke at the flight academy on Magra while Nova was still a greenie, had been an inspiration for her since her image first appeared on the massive overhead screen of the lecture hall. Now she was leading Air Command’s primary base on the other side of Bellac Tau, making the new skyranch her responsibility. Nova had to remind herself to stop gawking at the woman.

“I heard you were still lazing around, Lieutenant.”

“I… um what?” Nova stammered.

The general surprised her by sitting on the edge of the cot. Her glossy black hair was tightly bound and the uniform more crisp than any fabric had the right to be in this weather. Nova wondered, not for the first time, how senior officers managed this. “I’d say it’s well deserved,” Ausan said. “How are you feeling?”

Nova blinked up at an adjutant waiting by the door and then back at the general. “I’m recovered. I wasn’t injured. Just exhausted. Ready to return to duty, General.”

“We’ll let the doctors decide that, Whiteside. I want to commend you for your warning about the attack on the ridge. We got reinforcements out there just in time. And you were correct. One of the captives there turned out to be a very important Arawaj rebel, most notable for the fact that he’s working directly for Tharron himself.”

Nova whistled. Tharron’s position as the absolute leader of the Shri-Lan made him Air Command’s most desired target. “Thank you, General. I’m glad I was able to help. I’m afraid not much else went according to plan back there.”

“Yes, well, we cannot gleefully call this a victory. The militants have been routed from Shon Gat and the hill villages but the price was too steep.” The Centauri stood up again. “You’ll return to your base in the morning. When you’ve been declared fit you’ll rejoin your squad and head for the jumpsite.” She smiled. “I think we can use someone with your resourcefulness up there.”

Nova was certain that the broad grin that spread over her face made her look just a bit foolish. “Thank you, General.” She bit her lip. “May I… may I ask, um…”

The officer raised an eyebrow.

“There was someone, a Human, who helped us. At the hospital. When we went out to send the message. And later, when we escaped. He was lost. And injured. I wonder what became of him.”

“What is his name?”

“Nathon something Djari. Goes by Djari. He’s applied to work on the skyranch so we probably have a record of him here.”

Ausan’s lip twitched in amusement. “And you’d like to see him make his way there?”

“Well, yes. But mainly I’m just worried about how he’s doing.”

The Centauri nodded to her aide who got busy with his data sleeve. “We’ll see what we can find. You just get rested up, Lieutenant.”

“Yessir.” Nova watched the general leave through the tent flap held aside for her and then nearly collide with a soldier trying to enter. He stood aside and saluted as she passed him without comment.

“Gods, Rander, you idiot,” Nova said. “You almost knocked her over.”

The sergeant looked over his shoulder and shrugged. “I don’t think Lady Patrina is so easily knocked over.” He flopped onto her cot far more casually than their commander had just done. “How come you rate your own bedside general?” He gave her a bowl of pudding filched from the mess hall.

She accepted the bowl and decided not to scold him for scattering dust over her sheets. She had recently become very fond of clean bedding. “Congratulating me, I guess. No one even told me why she’s out here.”

“Mopping up this mess, of course. Plus she found out that Major Trakkas is shuffling his pilots to places they have no business being and I think that irked her plenty. I hear she almost had his stripes when she heard you were MIA. Misplacing a pilot is a bit of a problem, I guess. You people are expensive.”

“Is that why he sent that commando after me? With Beryl at the helm?”

“Yah. They caught your signal. Nothing more fun for Beryl’s bunch than tracking rebels. Must have been a party for them. They never seem to get prisoners back in one piece. Going to finish that?”

“Yes. Hands off.” Nova savored the sweet treat. “Sending Beryl must seem amusing to him.”

“To Major Trakkas? Why?”

Nova shrugged. “Long story.”

“Give me some gossip, Loot! I heard you punched him out.”

“You guys are like little old ladies. I barely touched him.” Nova stared into her pudding. No one had mentioned her attack on Captain Beryl. No one had asked about the death of those civilians. Collateral damage in shades of gray where both of them had stepped over the line. A matter best left in the dark, perhaps.

Sergeant Rander reached over to nudge her hand, bandaged where the skin of her knuckles had split on Beryl’s teeth. “He got sent out with his squad, but when I saw him his face was a shiny purple mush. An improvement, some say.”

She shook her head to push the memory aside. “I’m out of here, too. Guess I’m getting my plane back, finally. The general said we’re heading up to guard the jumpsite. I can’t wait to get off this rock and back out into space.” She set the empty bowl on a table beside her cot. “I’m sorry about Reko. Tell the others he did his job. There wasn’t any way he could have avoided getting shot.”

Rander winced. “Yeah, I know. We were briefed. He was a good soldier. We lost thirty-two troops, plus Beamer’s unit in the hills. Almost two hundred civilians. As many shipped off to hospitals. Could have been worse, I guess.”