Fires of Man Read online

  Nyne found Finn reclining on his cot, arms folded behind his head. At first Nyne thought the young man was asleep, but as he drew closer, Finn raised his head. When the boy saw Nyne, he jumped to his feet and rushed to the bars. “You’re . . .”

  “Captain Allen,” Nyne said.

  “No one’s telling me anything,” said Finn.

  Nyne tried to smile reassuringly. It came out as a grimace. “I’ll get to that.” He ignored the rings beneath the private’s eyes and asked, “How’re you holding up?”

  Finn seemed not to hear. “What happened to Merry, er, Private Hosteen? Sir.”

  “I don’t know that telling you is a good idea, Private,” said Nyne.

  “Please, sir. I have to know. Is he going to be okay?” Finn’s eyes were desperate.

  Nyne sighed. He didn’t know whether the reality would be better or worse than the private’s imagination. He started with the good news. “Private Hosteen is being kept under anesthesia until he recovers from surgery, but the doctors are confident there’s been no brain injury. He’ll wake up fine.”

  “Thank God,” Finn said.

  “But he’ll need further reconstructive work,” Nyne said. Maybe hearing the truth would mean Private Finn would never make this sort of mistake again. “He’ll have permanent scarring, most likely. And he might lose the eye.”

  “His . . . eye? No, I never meant . . .” A sob choked off the rest of the sentence. Private Finn sank to his knees and bawled.

  I’m sorry, Nyne thought. He wanted to say it aloud, but he made himself watch impassively until Finn’s weeping turned to whimpers, then ragged breaths. When all was quiet, Nyne delivered the last piece of news. “You’re going to be turned over to Special Operations. Probably as early as tomorrow.”

  Finn wiped his face with his shirtsleeve. “I don’t understand.”

  “SO will determine if you’re still a danger to yourself or your fellow soldiers.”

  “What?” Private Finn rose and pushed his face against the bars. “I’m not dangerous. I’m not, I promise. It was an accident. It’ll never happen again, sir. I swear it won’t.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Nyne asked him.

  Finn hesitated, his confusion apparent. He couldn’t be sure. Still, he said, “I promise, sir. I promise.”

  “It’s not up to me,” Nyne said. “The decision’s been made.” He grasped for something he could say to make the kid feel better, but came up blank.

  “What are they going to do with me?”

  “I don’t know,” Nyne said. The answer was a half-truth. Nyne understood quite well what would happen if SO decided Finn was neither trustworthy nor useful, but there was no need to scare the young man unnecessarily. Nyne wished he could have offered some advice. “Do you have any other questions for me, Private?”

  Finn swallowed hard. “Sir, if it was up to you . . . would you say I’m dangerous?”

  Nyne chose his words carefully. “I believe it was an accident, Private,” he said. “I think if you could go back and do it again, you would handle the situation differently.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Finn said, but his words sounded hollow.

  “Counselor Crowley from the Attorney’s Department will be stopping by later to interview you.”

  “Why?” The private’s countenance grew fearful. “Am I going to be prosecuted?”

  “It’s a formality,” Nyne reassured him. Mostly a formality, at this point. “Tell her the truth and you’ll be fine.” He hoped that last part didn’t sound like a lie.

  “Okay,” Finn said, “I will.”

  “Take care of yourself, Private Finn.” Nyne turned to go.

  “Wait,” Finn said. “Will I see you again?”

  Nyne paused, unsure how to respond. “I don’t know, Private,” he said at last. “I hope so. I really do.”

  “I’m scared,” Finn said.

  “You’re going to be okay, Private.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Finn saluted him.

  It was unnecessary under the circumstances, but when Nyne returned the gesture it seemed to bolster the boy’s confidence. He was about to turn and walk back to the elevators when something else occurred to him. “One more thing, Private,” he said.

  “Sir?”

  “You’re a good kid, Private Finn. I can see you regret what you did, that the guilt’s tearing you up inside.”

  Finn nodded.

  “Let it go,” Nyne said, “and forgive yourself. That’s the best thing you can do right now. It counts. Trust me, it does. I know.” He met Finn’s eyes. “Otherwise it’s going to keep eating away at you. Maybe it’ll keep you up at night. Or maybe it’ll make you hesitate, out there in combat. And that’s something you just can’t afford, because if you hold on too tight to this . . . someone else could get hurt. Maybe even you. Okay?”

  “Yeah,” Finn said. His face had grown pale. “Okay. Sir.”

  “Good,” Nyne said. “Take care of yourself, Private.”

  “Um, you too . . . that is, I mean, thank you, sir.”

  Nyne nodded, gave Finn one last smile, and then headed toward the elevators. He felt like a liar; for all his talk, he’d never been able to follow that advice himself. Still, he hoped it was enough to do . . . something. Anything.

  He felt helpless again. He rubbed the back of his head, the short bristly hair comforting against his fingertips. All he wanted was to fix things for someone.

  He thought of Kay.

  Nyne returned to the officer’s quarters, and went to one of the public phones in the hall. So far underground, cell phone reception was abysmal at best. He dialed a restaurant called “Hearth.” It was neutral ground; where they’d gone on their first date. Since then, it had become a place where they put aside differences and hashed things out. An invitation was a white flag, and could not be refused.

  Someone picked up the line.

  And he hung up.

  Dammit.

  What did he hope to gain here? He still didn’t know what he would say. That he wanted her back? He didn’t think that would go over well. Should he ask for a return to the status quo? Friendly smiles and awkward hallway conversations? No, “just friends” wasn’t working for him.

  When their relationship had ended, Kay had told him he wanted more than she was offering. And he still did. He wanted her; couldn’t stop wanting her. She’d taken his heart, and by the time she’d tried to give it back, it had been too late. She was in his blood. He wanted her taste, her smell; the feel of her body against his; her whispers in his ear, her breath against his skin.

  And more than that . . . he wanted to know her. Really know her.

  He’d never met a woman like her.

  His hometown in Dorning had been a simple place with simple people. Nyne was good-looking; sensitive; smart; creative; talented. Girls had fallen in love with him in droves. But when those girls told him their simple dreams of simple lives, he’d invariably found himself drifting off, wanting to be somewhere else.

  But Kay fascinated him. She was all that he wanted.

  And she didn’t feel the same.

  She had told him she loved him once. Only once. And then, against all logic, she had started shutting herself off from him. He still didn’t know why. But he had to find out, or else he’d never be able to let this lie.

  Nyne gritted his teeth and tucked the phone between his shoulder and ear. One way or another, this had to be put to rest. Briefly, he massaged the wrist she’d twisted, still aching. Then he punched in the number for Hearth one more time.

  “Hello, you’ve reached Hearth. This is Jenny speaking. How can I help you?”

  “Hey, Jenny,” Nyne said, “I was wondering if you had anything available for tonight, for two.”

  “We’re all booked up for today, sir,” she said, “but we just had a cancellation for six o’clock tomorrow. How does that sound?”

  “Perfect,” Nyne said.

  “Name?”

  “Allen,
” he said.

  Afterward, he returned to his room and scribbled “Hearth, tomorrow, 1800. —N” on a slip of paper. He went back into the hall, walked to her room, and taped the note to the door.

  There, he thought. It was crude in the day of text messages and email, but at least he could be sure she would see it. Now he could put her out of mind.

  At least . . . for a little while.

  He rode the elevator up to the offices, and walked to his little hole-in-the-wall, even more sparsely decorated than his quarters. He spent the rest of the day on paperwork. So much of being an officer amounted to paperwork. He went over reports on recruits under his purview, cross-checked inventory lists for squads, approved or denied equipment orders, designated training rooms and facilities as needed, laid out work shifts and other assignments, and more.

  When he finished, he returned to his quarters and spent a half-hour in meditation. Meditation was one of the first skills psions learned, but most didn’t employ it as much as they were supposed to. It was a great tool for even regular combat soldiers, but a psion had to be in control of his mind. It was his last line of defense.

  Nyne managed five minutes of clarity before concerns intruded. He found himself swept away by tides of thought and worry. He thought of Finn, Kay, the appearance of Kay’s brother, and . . .

  Calchis. Something big was about to happen.

  He could feel it.

  10

  Kay

  She was up at 0500, ready to put it all behind her.

  Kay had scheduled group physical training today, and when she arrived at the gym her squad was waiting. There were four of them: Corporals Sammy Jensen and Harry Zweig, and Sergeants Maxine Turner and Don Maddick, psions all. Kay ran a mobile unit proficient in vehicular combat and hit-and-run tactics. They were one among ten such groups—colloquially known as the “Sandbike Squads”—who served as scouts and specialized combatants.

  She was grateful no one pressed her about her absence yesterday; Bringham had allowed her take the day off after that horrible briefing. She hated to admit it, hated showing any kind of weakness, but she’d needed it—desperately. She had been too much of a wreck to do more than sleep and feel sorry for herself. She’d cried, punched walls, and savaged the innocent pillow from the rattan chaise lounge by her tiny reading table.

  Now the rage and hurt had passed. She could get on with her life.

  Or so she hoped.

  On seeing her, Maddick grinned. “Hanging in there, Sarge?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Too bad for you lazy assholes.”

  They laughed. Everything was normal.

  The squad began with twenty minutes of moderate cardio, followed by another twenty of high intensity interval training. Afterward came weight training, and last, Kay led her soldiers in hand-to-hand combat drills.

  Off the main two-level gym lay a series of rooms with padded walls and shock-absorbing matted floors. Inside one of these rooms, Kay took them through a period of stretching and a soft, movement-based warmup. Next she had them break up into pairs and spar. All of them had trained in the Psi Corps Martial Arts Program for close quarters combat, which combined striking, grappling, and throwing. Turner, with her tall, wiry build and long, powerful legs, was a superior strike fighter, while Zweig, stocky and muscular, excelled at grappling and submission techniques. Jensen and Maddick were both middle-of-the-road fighters, but she matched them with Turner or Zweig as often as each other to help them to improve.

  As for Kay, no one had any desire to fight her. She’d once taken on all four of them in a psionically charged bout and come out on top. Not only was she more powerful than the others, but she’d been practicing self-defense since she was a teenager, because of what had happened to her brother.

  “Hit the showers and grab some grub,” she said when they were finished. “Our shift starts at 0800.”

  The four of them headed off.

  Kay remained a few minutes and stretched, then hit the showers too. The near-scalding water eased away her tension. Afterward, she put on the fresh uniform from her gym bag and made her way to the mess hall, where she found her squad finishing up their meal. There was a part of her that wanted to join in their joking, their camaraderie, but instead she chose to be alone with her thoughts.

  She breakfasted on a heaping portion of eggs and whole wheat toast, then washed it all down with piping hot coffee from the fixed coffeemaker. All the while, she watched her subordinates. They looked so happy.

  She thought of Tibe. Of Nyne.

  Then she pushed it all away.

  It was just after 0700, nearly an hour before graveyard patrol would return and she and her group would embark on their perimeter sweep. They arrived at Staging Area Two and spent the time servicing their bikes. The vehicles were finely-tuned machines, made for rough terrain, but the desert was a harsh environment. The last thing Kay wanted was for someone’s cycle to give out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but sand and lizards for company.

  Maddick discovered his front tire was flat from his skidout during vehicle drills two days earlier.

  Kay was not pleased. “I told you to check that thing two days ago. Thoroughly. Pull your head out of your ass, Maddick,” she snapped, more acidly than she’d intended.

  “I did, Sarge,” Maddick replied. “I swear, I went over it three times.”

  “Check it better next time, Corporal.”

  Once Maddick’s bike was in working order and the graveyard squad returned from their rounds, Kay and her team set out into Grisham desert; her subordinates broke off into pairs, covering a different section of the desert. Each squad member had a GPS and an electromagnetic monitor affixed to his bike, the latter a scaled-down version of the satellite technology Orion used to pinpoint new psions. Any psionic activity would show up on the monitor.

  As for Kay, she spent the first half of the shift with Jensen and Maddick, and broke off at 1100 to join up with Turner and Zweig, following her GPS to their location.

  The day was hot, the wind a blast from an oven as it flowed across the dunes, kicking up sand. Kay kept her visor down. She used her power to manifest a cool air current when she needed it, but never maintained it for long. She needed to be at full strength if someone from Calchis showed up.

  If Tibe showed up.

  With the sun nearing its noontime apex, heat shimmers billowed up from the blistering desert floor. Now and then, Kay paused to suck down water from her canteen. She couldn’t wait for this shift to be over.

  Sometimes she came across lisks baking in the sun, or a desert shrub or cactus. She recalled some stupid thing Nyne had said about her being like a cactus. She couldn’t remember the exact words. Something about it being prickly at a glance, but that if you waited for it to bloom, it was the most beautiful thing in the desert.

  She felt a lump in her throat. Fuck.

  Her feelings were like a leaky faucet; every time she thought she’d turned them off, they started drip-drip-dripping again, driving her insane.

  At 1120, she stopped atop a dune. The dots representing Turner and Zweig were headed in her direction, so she decided to wait for them. She propped up her bike, and wolfed down a protein bar and some dried pineapple from the satchel hanging off the vehicle’s side.

  Beep-beep-beep.

  Her detector!

  She grabbed the device and her GPS, checking her coordinates. She was near Outpost Six.

  Where Tibe had shown up.

  Her pulse quickened. Her hands clenched. Her chest constricted, making it hard to breathe. Was he here? Could it be?

  She checked the GPS again.

  And realized she was a fucking idiot.

  The signal was coming from Outpost Six. Multiple signals, in fact; faint ones. The recruits, training. Obviously. She should have known better. She’d been doing this route for almost two years now. She knew how identify irregularities, and this wasn’t one of them. She was just so on edge after yesterday that she was jumping at sha
dows.

  Turner and Zweig’s dots continued their approach, so she waited, surveying the surrounding sands. What was she hoping to see? Did she think Tibe would just jump out from behind a ridge and say, “Hey, kid. Been a while?”

  One, two, three, four, five.

  When Turner and Zweig were close enough, she got back on the bike and drove off to meet them.

  The rest of her shift was uneventful. At 1400 she rode back to Grisham, Turner and Zweig behind her. They met up with Maddick and Jensen outside the staging area and headed inside.

  No one had anything to report.

  With their duties for the day complete, her four subordinates made plans to hit the bars topside and take advantage of happy hour. They invited Kay along. She turned them down, much to Jensen’s chagrin.

  Kay knew that Jensen had feelings for her—feelings she didn’t reciprocate. Fraternization was discouraged, even punishable in most branches of the Orion Armed Forces. In the Psi Corps, it was tacitly accepted. Things were easier when two psions shared a bed—there was no need to hide the truth about what they could do. But a superior dating a direct subordinate, or dating between squadmates, pushed the envelope too far, in Kay’s opinion. She’d often used that reasoning to deflect Jensen’s attention. Kay returned to her quarters, ready for another shower and a nap. When she arrived at her room, she found a note taped to her door: “Hearth, tomorrow, 1800. —N.”

  Dammit.

  She looked around the hall to make sure no one was watching, then snatched the note and stuffed it in her pocket. If anyone had seen it, there would be gossip. She couldn’t fathom how he could be such a good soldier, a conscientious officer, and yet so oblivious when it came to her feelings. Of course, he always meant well. That’s what had made him so goddamn endearing in the first place. But he never knew when to stop, to let things lie.

  Briefly, she considered standing him up. But the thought of him sitting forlorn and alone—at their place, no less—was too much. Frustrated as she was, she couldn’t do that to him, because . . .

  Why?

  Because . . .