Forsaken Skies (68 page)

Other pictures showed Earth, the way it had been, once. Those pictures used to mean something to Lanoe, but not anymore. He'd spent so long fighting for the planet where he was born. Fighting to keep it safe, to keep it free. The last time he'd visited, he couldn't recognize any of the buildings. The food hadn't tasted right, not the way he remembered it.

The last picture in his collection was just a still of Garuda, the ice giant. Blue with bands of purple, dark storms near its equator. He didn't have a picture of Bettina Zhang as she had been when he met her. He didn't have one of the way she'd looked when she fought aliens by his side. He had one of her tomb.

Zhang—she hadn't been his only lover, not in a life as long as his. He'd had other seconds in command, plenty of other squadmates. She'd been the only one who stayed. The only one who wanted him back. He realized that he'd drifted through time, not putting down any roots. Never getting too attached to anyone, because he knew they could die without warning. An enemy fighter could get them, or a training accident, or—

Zhang had stuck with him. When she'd pushed him away, in the hospital after she lost her legs, that had hurt. More than he'd let himself acknowledge. For long years he'd tried to pretend he didn't need her, that they were better off apart.

How stupid could one man be? He should have…he should…

Aleister Lanoe was too old to cry. A sound worked its way up through his throat, though, a sound not unlike a choked sob. He stared down at the picture of Garuda. Of the place where Zhang died.

Eventually he deleted the image. It was morbid, and he didn't need pictures to help him remember her.

I got my win,
he thought.
I won a war.

Sure.

It cost too much.

I could have let go. I could have stopped fighting. Found you, in those years we were apart. Found you and convinced you to stop fighting, too.

Maybe.

Instead I got my win.

It cost too much.

Ehta wriggled out of her suit and attached it to an adhesive pad on the wall of the bunkroom. For a moment she stood there in just the comfort garment, looking at the limp suit, wondering if there was anything special she should do. She swabbed out the collar ring. Sprayed the inside with fungicidal foam, then tapped at the wrist display until the suit crackled and shrank, flattening itself so it would fit in a drawer.

Her Navy suit. Her pilot's suit. The one Lanoe had given her, back on the Hexus, when everyone still thought she was going to fly. The last Navy suit she would ever wear. She didn't need it anymore.

An armored marine's suit, with ropes and anchors engraved around the collar ring, was already stuffed into her bunk. It was a cast-off, a spare suit donated by one of the cruiser's marines. It stank and there was a bad scorch mark on one leg but it would fit her. Marine suits were one-size-fits-all. They had to be—marines had such a short life span it wasn't worth paying to have their suits properly fitted.

She pulled off the comfort garment and recycled it. Marines didn't worry about comfort. She slipped inside the armored suit and reached behind her to zip it up. Touched the key at her throat to make the helmet flow up around her head, just checking, listening for the familiar hiss of life support, then released the helmet again and left it down.

She headed out of the bunkroom and into the corridor, hoping she could reach the hangar deck before she saw anybody. She was disappointed in that hope, though it was only Maggs she saw. Trust him to turn up at the worst possible moment.

“You were a big brute of a woman before,” he said, pulling up alongside her as she walked. “Now you're positively terrifying. I like it.”

She chose not to react to that. “I'm shipping out. Got my deployment orders.”

“Already? I didn't even think the Navy knew you were here.”

“They need me on Tuonela,” she told him. “Fighting ThiessGruppe, this time. Not enough sergeants down there, I guess.”

“There never are,” Maggs said. “Or so my father used to tell me. Shame, though. You help pull off a miracle here and they send you right back to the front. Not even a week off to recognize your service. Criminal, really.”

“This wasn't official duty,” she said, and shrugged. “Anyway. That's life in the Poor Bloody Marines.”

She took a corner, headed for the hangar deck and the transport that awaited her there. She'd hoped he wouldn't follow, but of course he did. “You haven't said goodbye to the old man yet, have you? Certainly there's time for that.”

Ehta glanced back up the corridor. As if she expected Lanoe to be standing right behind her. Well, in a way he always was, wasn't he?

But she'd done her bit. Helped him the best she could. Whether it had been enough, whether she'd paid him back for the debt she owed him—she didn't know how to even begin solving that equation.

“He's probably busy,” she said. For now she figured she could leave it at that.

She was sure she would see Lanoe again.

“Enter.”

Thom stepped inside a cramped little compartment, not much inside it but a bunk and a couple of chairs that faced a display. This was how officers lived onboard the cruiser, apparently. He closed the hatch behind him and came over to sit near Lanoe. “You said we needed to talk.”

Lanoe nodded without looking up. Thom thought the old man's eyes looked a little red, but he couldn't tell why. It was hard to read that craggy face. “You know you're still in trouble, right?” Lanoe began. “I was a little surprised when I saw you come aboard this cruiser. There are people here who would be required by law to take action if they knew who you were. If they knew what happened to your father. I'm surprised you haven't been arrested already.”

“When they showed up—when the Navy came swooping in to kill all those drones and save me,” Thom said, “they asked who I was. I told them I was a farmer from Niraya. That I knew how to fly because I used to do crop-dusting.”

The corner of Lanoe's mouth turned up. “Clever,” he said. “That'll keep them satisfied for a while. And they have no reason to check your identity, not unless you give them one, I suppose. But what comes next? Where do we take you, to keep you safe?”

Thom wrapped his arms around his knees. He'd been dreading this. Afraid of how Lanoe would react. He knew better than to hesitate, though. Best to just come out with it.

“I'm staying right here. On Niraya, I mean. With Roan. There's no place else I want to be.”

Lanoe raised an eyebrow. “No. I don't think that'll work. You can't stay anonymous forever. The Navy's going to be all over Niraya from now on,” he pointed out. “Studying the mess we made.”

“No, they'll be all over Aruna,” Thom said. “When they come to Niraya they'll stick to Walden Crater. Roan and I will go out to the canyons, as far away as we can get. We'll be safe there.”

“Kid, you're not thinking. This is a dumb plan, you'll—”

“I'm sorry, sir, but I disagree.”

Lanoe froze in place, his mouth still open to say more. For a moment his eyes narrowed and Thom wondered if he was about to be charged with insubordination.

“I'm only trying to help,” Lanoe said.

Thom chewed on his lower lip. He let his emotions swell for a second, then got them under control. The way Roan would have.

“Sir,” Thom said, “you already have.”

Lanoe grunted and turned away.

“You've done so much for me, so much for Roan, we can't ever…” He let the words die away. “You've done enough. I need to stand on my own from here.”

Lanoe reached up and scratched at the iron-colored hair on the back of his head.

“Listen,” he said, after a long silence. “Something I forgot to tell you. Before Zhang died, she asked me to let you know that you impressed her. That you picked up our work faster than any recruit she'd ever seen.”

“That's…that's really nice of her to say,” Thom mumbled.

“You impressed me, too. I'm proud of you, Thom. You think it's the right play, you and Roan hiding in plain sight. Well, maybe you're right. Maybe it'll work.”

“Thank you,” Thom said.

Lanoe waved a hand to indicate that they'd finished talking about it.

Thom looked down at his hands. “Lanoe—come with us. I mean, come to Niraya, anyway. The people there owe you so much. They'll…I don't know, throw you parades. They'll be so glad to see you.”

“Nah,” Lanoe said. “I hate it when people make a fuss.”

“Elder McRae will want to thank you. I mean, she—”

“I don't need her to give me that look,” Lanoe said. “You know the one I mean? Like she just noticed I've got dirt on my face, but it's okay, she forgives me?”

Thom laughed. “Yeah. I know that look.”

“Anyway. I've still got work to do.” Lanoe rose from his chair and reached for something that lay inside his bunk. A heavy suit with the helmet down, with a hexagon painted on one shoulder. Valk's suit.

When Thom picked up the two of them, just before the queenship was slagged, Valk had still been talking. His helmet had been shattered and Thom had gotten a good look at what was underneath. Or rather, the fact that there was nothing there.

But Valk had still been talking. Begging to be allowed to die. Eventually Lanoe had decided to let the big pilot—the AI—rest. He'd pressed the recessed key under Valk's collar ring and all the life, all the shape anyway, had gone out of the suit. It was suddenly just an empty vessel.

Lanoe had told Thom he was pretty sure that if he pressed that key again, Valk would come back to life—and that Valk had information that he needed to hear. Now he propped the suit up in a chair, the arms dangling over its back. “You ready for this?” he asked.

“If you think it's okay I hear it,” Thom replied.

“You've earned that right. You and I are the only ones who know the truth about what he is. Frankly, if I'm going to raise the dead here, I'd like some company.”

Thom laughed, though he didn't exactly feel mirthful. In fact a shiver ran down his back as he looked at Valk's suit draped over the chair. Torn and filthy and abused, it looked like a bundle of rags waiting to be recycled.

Lanoe pressed the recessed key in the collar ring. The black flowglas moved and shifted. Took on the shape of a helmet.

Instantaneously Valk lurched forward, his arms out as if he'd been falling and he was trying to steady himself. He leaned forward and pressed his helmet between his hands. Thom could hear him breathing hard—or at least, he could hear a simulation of someone breathing hard.

“Oh, hell,” Valk said. “Oh, damn. I'm back. You brought me back.”

“You know why I had to,” Lanoe told him.

Valk nodded, his helmet sagging forward. “Okay,” he said, softly.

Valk had been—nowhere.

There had been no darkness. No sense of time passing. No sensory input, and no thought. Not even a hole where something used to be. Just—nowhere.