This Shattered World
Page 5
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For a moment our eyes meet in the dim light. Her gaze is furious as she struggles to stay conscious, trying to push up on one elbow. Then she’s gone, her head falling back to thunk against the plastene hull. I lean in carefully to peel back her eyelids, but she’s out. She’ll have a screaming headache when she wakes, but it’s better than hitting her over the head. Too easy to misjudge the blow and end up killing her instead.
Without wasting another second, I flick on the safety, stick my gun into my waistband, and shove off with my foot. The currach glides swift and silent through the water. I can’t risk a light, not when I can see the lights of the base security forces dancing behind me, still searching for the intruder. I navigate by feel, unclipping the pole from the gunwale and using soft, quick touches ahead and around me to make sure I’m keeping to the channel that will lead me away from danger.
By the time they get searchlights sweeping the stretch of swamp beyond the fences, I’m too far away for the light to reach. I keep expecting to feel a hand on my ankle, or the captain’s fist meeting my gut, but she doesn’t stir.
As soon as the sounds of shouts carrying across the water begin to fade and I can no longer see the distant lights of the base, I stop long enough to find my lantern and light it. We use algae to coat the glass, giving the light an eerie green-brown wash; occasionally the soldiers spot our boats or our signal lights, and the camouflage can make them dismiss what they’ve seen as the will-o’-the-wisps so feared in this swamp.
What they don’t know is that anyone who’d seen a real wisp could never confuse it with one of our lanterns.
I hang the lantern on its spur rising from the bow and turn back to the unconscious trodaire in the bottom of the currach. There’s no way out of this now. Whether or not she can shed light on what’s happening in the stretch of no-man’s-land east of the base, she knows my face. She may not know my name yet, but if she manages to connect me with my sister, she’ll personally lead the hunt until she has my head on a platter—she won’t need their so-called Fury as an excuse for taking me apart piece by piece.
Taking out Captain Chase would be a huge blow for the trodairí, and a triumph for us. I know at least two dozen Fianna who would shoot her without hesitation and sleep just fine tonight. If I came back with her body, my people would love me for it.
I let my breath out slowly, and my thumb hovers over the safety on my grandfather’s pistol tucked in my waistband. But that way is a pit, one my sister couldn’t escape once she fell into it.
I’ve heard more stories about this girl than any ten other trodairí put together. They claim she’s the only one unaffected by what the soldiers call Avon’s Fury. Probably because she doesn’t need to fall back on that thin excuse to commit violence against my people—according to the stories, she practically embraces it. They talk about how she single-handedly cleared out the resistance cell on the southern edge of TerraDyn territory. How the soldiers under her command are the fastest to respond, the first on the scene, the fiercest fighters. How she skins rebels alive just for fun.
I wasn’t so sure about that last one until I saw how she looked at me after I pulled my gun on her. But at least one of the stories is true. My cousin Sean nearly got his head blown off by her platoon a week after she took command, and when I asked him what she was like, he said she was mind-twistingly hot. He had that part right. If only she weren’t a murderer-for-hire.
My best hope is to force her to tell me what she knows about the facility—maybe even get me inside for a look around—then split. At least I’ll have a head start when the hunt begins.
I tear my eyes away and concentrate once more on the pole. The currach glides true through the water, my path lit only a few meters ahead by my dim green lamp. I ought to feel better, lighter, with every minute I put between us and the bright lights of the base, but I know this is not a victory. The soldier in the bottom of my boat will stop at nothing to kill me and escape when she wakes; and if the rest of the Fianna discover I have her, they’ll stop at nothing to kill her. Our ceasefire will be over, my people forced once more into a war they cannot hope to win.
I have to work fast.
This time the dream is fragmented, arriving in razor-edged shards that don’t fit together and slice at her memory. The girl is on Paradisa, and she’s trying to climb a wall. Time’s up, yells the sergeant, making her arms shiver with exhaustion as her toes scrabble for purchase against the plastene.
She wants to let go and drop to the ground. But when she looks down, her mother is there, with that always-tired sigh, that soft-eyed hint of disappointment. Her father is there, hands grimy in grav-engine grease, a bullet hole in his head.
The sergeant shouts at her again to give up and this time she screams back, using a word that will later earn her a week digging trenches.
There are too many ghosts down there to let go.
I’VE GOT THE HANGOVER FROM HELL. My head’s pounding; how much did I have to drink at Molly’s last night? Except that’s impossible. I haven’t had a hangover since the morning after I was finally accepted into basic training. It was technically three weeks shy of my sixteenth birthday, and therefore illegal for me to drink. But after I tried to get into the military for three years running by lying about my age, they finally caved and bent the rules. What was three weeks? Odds were I’d be dead within the year anyway. Might as well let the cannon fodder have a few beers first.
But once was enough. It wasn’t the drinking or even really the hangover that got me—it was being less than capable on my first day of training. There, all it meant was that I didn’t make the best first impression on my instructors, and let my sparring partner pin me in less than a minute. No big deal.
But out here, being at less than one hundred percent could mean death. And I’ve never had more than a few drinks at a time since then.
So why do I feel like tossing the contents of my stomach all over the floor?
The ground sways under me, and I force my eyes open, ignoring the way my eyelids feel like they’re lined with sandpaper. The first thing I see is the blank, slate-gray expanse of Avon’s unchanging night sky. I try to sit up and fall over sideways, making the floor shudder and sway; my hands are bound and tied to something. A flash of agony rips up my side, carrying with it the memory of a bullet splitting my skin.
“Bad idea, Captain,” says an infuriatingly cheerful voice somewhere above and behind me. “If you capsize us, I don’t really fancy your chances of swimming to solid ground while tied to a sinking boat.”
Without wasting another second, I flick on the safety, stick my gun into my waistband, and shove off with my foot. The currach glides swift and silent through the water. I can’t risk a light, not when I can see the lights of the base security forces dancing behind me, still searching for the intruder. I navigate by feel, unclipping the pole from the gunwale and using soft, quick touches ahead and around me to make sure I’m keeping to the channel that will lead me away from danger.
By the time they get searchlights sweeping the stretch of swamp beyond the fences, I’m too far away for the light to reach. I keep expecting to feel a hand on my ankle, or the captain’s fist meeting my gut, but she doesn’t stir.
As soon as the sounds of shouts carrying across the water begin to fade and I can no longer see the distant lights of the base, I stop long enough to find my lantern and light it. We use algae to coat the glass, giving the light an eerie green-brown wash; occasionally the soldiers spot our boats or our signal lights, and the camouflage can make them dismiss what they’ve seen as the will-o’-the-wisps so feared in this swamp.
What they don’t know is that anyone who’d seen a real wisp could never confuse it with one of our lanterns.
I hang the lantern on its spur rising from the bow and turn back to the unconscious trodaire in the bottom of the currach. There’s no way out of this now. Whether or not she can shed light on what’s happening in the stretch of no-man’s-land east of the base, she knows my face. She may not know my name yet, but if she manages to connect me with my sister, she’ll personally lead the hunt until she has my head on a platter—she won’t need their so-called Fury as an excuse for taking me apart piece by piece.
Taking out Captain Chase would be a huge blow for the trodairí, and a triumph for us. I know at least two dozen Fianna who would shoot her without hesitation and sleep just fine tonight. If I came back with her body, my people would love me for it.
I let my breath out slowly, and my thumb hovers over the safety on my grandfather’s pistol tucked in my waistband. But that way is a pit, one my sister couldn’t escape once she fell into it.
I’ve heard more stories about this girl than any ten other trodairí put together. They claim she’s the only one unaffected by what the soldiers call Avon’s Fury. Probably because she doesn’t need to fall back on that thin excuse to commit violence against my people—according to the stories, she practically embraces it. They talk about how she single-handedly cleared out the resistance cell on the southern edge of TerraDyn territory. How the soldiers under her command are the fastest to respond, the first on the scene, the fiercest fighters. How she skins rebels alive just for fun.
I wasn’t so sure about that last one until I saw how she looked at me after I pulled my gun on her. But at least one of the stories is true. My cousin Sean nearly got his head blown off by her platoon a week after she took command, and when I asked him what she was like, he said she was mind-twistingly hot. He had that part right. If only she weren’t a murderer-for-hire.
My best hope is to force her to tell me what she knows about the facility—maybe even get me inside for a look around—then split. At least I’ll have a head start when the hunt begins.
I tear my eyes away and concentrate once more on the pole. The currach glides true through the water, my path lit only a few meters ahead by my dim green lamp. I ought to feel better, lighter, with every minute I put between us and the bright lights of the base, but I know this is not a victory. The soldier in the bottom of my boat will stop at nothing to kill me and escape when she wakes; and if the rest of the Fianna discover I have her, they’ll stop at nothing to kill her. Our ceasefire will be over, my people forced once more into a war they cannot hope to win.
I have to work fast.
This time the dream is fragmented, arriving in razor-edged shards that don’t fit together and slice at her memory. The girl is on Paradisa, and she’s trying to climb a wall. Time’s up, yells the sergeant, making her arms shiver with exhaustion as her toes scrabble for purchase against the plastene.
She wants to let go and drop to the ground. But when she looks down, her mother is there, with that always-tired sigh, that soft-eyed hint of disappointment. Her father is there, hands grimy in grav-engine grease, a bullet hole in his head.
The sergeant shouts at her again to give up and this time she screams back, using a word that will later earn her a week digging trenches.
There are too many ghosts down there to let go.
I’VE GOT THE HANGOVER FROM HELL. My head’s pounding; how much did I have to drink at Molly’s last night? Except that’s impossible. I haven’t had a hangover since the morning after I was finally accepted into basic training. It was technically three weeks shy of my sixteenth birthday, and therefore illegal for me to drink. But after I tried to get into the military for three years running by lying about my age, they finally caved and bent the rules. What was three weeks? Odds were I’d be dead within the year anyway. Might as well let the cannon fodder have a few beers first.
But once was enough. It wasn’t the drinking or even really the hangover that got me—it was being less than capable on my first day of training. There, all it meant was that I didn’t make the best first impression on my instructors, and let my sparring partner pin me in less than a minute. No big deal.
But out here, being at less than one hundred percent could mean death. And I’ve never had more than a few drinks at a time since then.
So why do I feel like tossing the contents of my stomach all over the floor?
The ground sways under me, and I force my eyes open, ignoring the way my eyelids feel like they’re lined with sandpaper. The first thing I see is the blank, slate-gray expanse of Avon’s unchanging night sky. I try to sit up and fall over sideways, making the floor shudder and sway; my hands are bound and tied to something. A flash of agony rips up my side, carrying with it the memory of a bullet splitting my skin.
“Bad idea, Captain,” says an infuriatingly cheerful voice somewhere above and behind me. “If you capsize us, I don’t really fancy your chances of swimming to solid ground while tied to a sinking boat.”
