Special Forces 01 (13 page)

“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Doc concurred.

Rys didn’t look away from her, his eyes searching her face. “If it wasn’t defeat, why are we homeless?”

“Common sense, I think. Rys, think about this. If you had remained on Fourth, if you had kept everyone there and continued to fight to keep that place, what would have been the eventual outcome?”

He took a few seconds to really think about that. “Nova would have kept coming.”

“And then?”

“The colony wouldn’t have survived,” he finally conceded, with a defeated nod. “The place was crumbling around our heads at the end.”

“The whole population would have been sacrificed trying to hang on to some real estate. Rys, you didn’t
fail
. None of 01 failed. You evacuated all of Fourth Colony off that moon and brought them to a place of safety. The only things that you left behind were damaged and destroyed buildings. There wasn’t one thing there that would make it worth Nova’s expense. That pile of rubble cost them dearly. Things can be replaced, people can’t.”

“Listen to her, son,” Bloch encouraged him in a soft voice. “She’s speaking the absolute truth.”

Rys rested his head in both of his hands, obscuring his face from sight. “It’s just hard to think about it that way, after so many years. When the whole focus of your life is victory, anything less than that feels like a failure.”

Anne decided he needed a new set of guidelines to work off of. The ones he had been issued were definitely keeping him from moving forward, and that wasn’t productive. “Rys, my father owns four houses, one in each major quadrant of Bijordan. We never seem stay in one house for more than a few months at a time, because of the demands of my Father’s position. Would you consider me homeless?”

His hands tightened in response, and he gave her the most appraising frown. “No, of course not.”

“Why would that be?” she asked patiently, carefully allowing time for her point to be driven home.

“Well, you are still living with your family…”

“Oh, so I should consider whatever house that my family happens to be living in as home?” She looked at him expectantly.

For a long moment he just stared at her. Then his eyes crinkled at the corners, and the faintest smile stole over his face. “Okay, Anne. I get it. Home is a location in your heart, not your address.”

“Good,” she returned softly. “If you understand that, then maybe there’s hope for you yet.”

Rys shook his head, still smiling, and went back to the serious business of the fruit remaining on his plate.

“Perhaps we should dispatch
her
to the rest of 01 for their debriefing and cultural assimilation,” Bloch noted to his wife. “Their psychiatrist isn’t making any head way, and he has been trying for nearly three weeks. She’s far more effective.”

“I can vouch for that, sir. Her logic is as tough as a granite wall.” Rys shot her an approving look that made her cheeks flush.

“Well, Rys,” Doc said with a slight clearing of his throat. “Tell me about Snails and Gremlin and Erksome. How are those three miscreants faring in an unsuspecting society?”

As Anne listened to Rys rattle off answers to Doc’s questions, in rapid fire succession, it took her a minute to make the connection that they must be the members of Rys’s team. Sara caught Anne’s eye, while she was piecing it together, and mouthed a heartfelt
Thank you.

Anne nodded back in acknowledgement.
Rys might feel lost in this world, and grappling with some pretty intense guilt, but I won’t allow him to get comfortable and wallow in it. Between all of us, I believe that we can help him see that he’s not incompetent or a failure by anyone’s yard stick. He did everything humanly possible, no, check that, superhumanly possible, to save his colony. He and all of Special Forces stood between the colonists and death, winning that terrible tug of war.

He has nothing to be ashamed of, and I won’t let his unrealistic expectations grind him down.

It just might take a while for that to really sink in.

Chapter Seven

It took three days for Rys to really get comfortable with the new eye. He did remain home during those three days, partly to protect his cover story as “civilian” and partly because his eye kept doing weird things when he least expected it. At one point everything translated into shades of blue. And while that was attractive, it wasn’t exactly
normal.
Rys had to call up Doc and troubleshoot over the phone until they could figure out the right command to correct the problem.

During those three days, he did what he could to help Sara around the house. She had been surprised to learn that he possessed the skills to thoroughly clean a house. If she had ever met Sergeant Barrett, she would not have been surprised. Rys had lost count of how many bathrooms he had cleaned with a toothbrush because the Sergeant felt Rys needed “some time for introspection and self-reflection.”

Rys field tested out his new eye by taking his whole team out to a large empty meadow and playing a cut throat game of paintball. It had been an unqualified success. Besides dialing in his eye, he hadn’t had that much fun with his friends in ages. The first game had lasted almost an hour, just enough to fit into his eye’s remote taping capabilities. Rys saved that file, downloaded it, and then forwarded a copy to the other captains in his Command. The subject line read:
Paintball. Bet we could beat you like a dead blade of grass, no problem.

He expected an answer to that challenge before the day was out—probably by being ambushed when he least expected it.

But even with all of that, he still had too much time on his hands. Rys wasn’t used to being idle like this. He was restless and itching for something constructive to do.

Everything was squared away inside the house, so he ventured outside, on the prowl for anything interesting to catch his attention.

And he found it.

The woman who lived next door was an elderly widow, Martha Blevins. He’d run into her a few times since he had moved in, and thought she was a pretty nice lady. At that moment, she was balanced precariously on a ladder, hanging onto a can of paint with one hand, with a brush in her other hand. In that awkward position, she was attempting to paint the side of her house.

As Rys watched her, with his mouth wide open, foreboding began piling up in the pit of his stomach like cannon balls. Martha was probably in her late seventies, and not exactly steady on her feet. What in the name of all of the Guardian’s was she doing up on that ladder?

He easily hopped the low boarder of the shrubs dividing the two yards, and quickly reached out to steady the ladder. “Mrs. Blevins, what are you doing?”

Martha twisted slightly to look down at him. “Why, hello there, Arystair. Where did you come from, shouldn’t you be in school?”

“I have a couple of days off. Ma’am,” he continued seriously, “I really don’t think that it’s safe for you to be doing this.”

“Well, I don’t seem to be able to convince anyone else to do it,” she replied indignantly, “and the house needs painting. It is starting to look like nobody lives here.”

Rys had been searching for something to do. Looks like I found it. “Ma’am, if you’ll step down off of the ladder, I’ll take over the brush.”

“Why, what a sweet thing to do!” She beamed at him. “Are you sure, young man? This isn’t exactly the most glamorous job in the world!”

He’d rather paint the house than have her in the hospital with a broken hip or a fractured skull. “Yes ma’am, I’m sure.”

“Well, I’d be stupid to turn down some free help, and my Mother didn’t raise any dummies.” She started easing her way back down, and Rys stood by to catch her until feet were safely back on terra firma. “Do you have any experience with painting a house, Arystair?”

“No ma’am, I am sorry I don’t, but I am known as a fast study.”

“Well, then you’ll do! It’s a good skill for a man to know, there will probably be a house in your future someday.” She nodded wisely, as if this had been her plan from the beginning. “Let me show you how to do it.”

It wasn’t difficult, just time consuming and required an eye for detail. Rys fell into the rhythm of it quickly, almost like one of his martial arts exercises. Martha insisted on helping, so he let her do the lower section while he climbed the ladder and painted the top.

They had a good deal of the front done when there was a honk from the front street.

“Hey, Rys!”

Rys turned around cautiously, balancing the can of paint. He had no intentions of taking a header off of the ladder. What he saw caused him to smile like the first guy to hit the shower after a long day. “Hey Aaron! What are you doing here?”

“I came to discuss a certain video that was long on brag, and short on reality,” Aaron answered, walking toward him. “Since when did you become a painter?”

“My neighbor needed some help,” Rys responded with a shrug. “And I didn’t have anything better to do, so I am adding a new skill to my resume.”

“Ah, I see Sergeant Barrett has trained you well.”

Rys laughed. “Trained or terrorized, take your pick. You want in on the action?”

Aaron gave the house an appraising good look, and nodded. “I think I better. You’ll be here until next year at this rate.”

Rys stepped down from the ladder, setting the can of paint on the ground. “Excellent. Here, let me make the introductions. Ma’am, this is a good friend of mine, Aaron Jeconiah. Aaron, this is my neighbor, Martha Blevins. It seems he has some spare time too.”

Martha looked this new person over from head to toe, a smile of pure feminine appreciation lighting up her face. But then, Aaron was the type to get that reaction—with his very fit build, clear green eyes and sandy hair, he fit the female definition of ‘dreamy.’ She beamed at Aaron, extending a welcoming hand. “It’s a pleasure, Aaron.”

“Same here, ma’am,” Aaron responded while shaking her hand firmly. “Do you have an extra paintbrush?”

“Oh, I think I can scare up another one around here somewhere,” she assured him innocently.

“I didn’t doubt that for a moment, ma’am,” Aaron replied dryly.

“I’ll grab us something cool to drink while I’m at it,” she declared as she moved toward the front door.

When she was inside the house, Aaron turned back to Rys. “How were you able to take that footage, and still handle your paintball gun?”

“I actually broke another eye this week,” Rys admitted with some embarrassment. “The replacement Doc gave me had an upgrade to it, a camera function. I just set it to film automatically before we started the game. You were seeing everything that I did, as it was happening.”

Aaron let out a low whistle. “Righteous. I am not familiar with paintball, but the game looked intriguing. Where did you get the equipment for it?”

“There are actually stores that specialize in paintball, and they carry all of the latest gear. I located one on the mall here in town, while I was procuring some school clothes.”

“You’ll have to show me later.” Aaron’s impudent grin shot out at him. “There’s no
way
I can let that little challenge of yours pass unanswered. Honor demands blood!”

“I didn’t think you could.” Rys gave him a smug smile, in return.

“So how did you bust the eye this time?”

“Tennis,” Rys answered sourly. “The girl in the next court accidentally lost her grip on the racket. It hit me dead in the eye, like it was laser targeted.”

“Man, what is it with that eye of yours? You are always taking hits there. Maybe you should think about having an exorcist drive the demons out of it.” Aaron shook his head in exasperation. “So other than that, how are you doing?”

“Better than I expected. The Bloch family is really good to me, and I am starting to feel at home here.” With perhaps one outstanding exception. “And I have made friends with a girl at school.”

“Ohhhh?” Aaron waggled his eyebrows in a knowing manner. “And is she pretty? I will have the full report now, Captain! Don’t leave out any pertinent details.”

Rys just rewarded him with a cocky, self-satisfied smile, giving his request all of the consideration it was due.

“And when do I get to meet her?”

“Probably the 12
^th
of never. I respect her too much to inflict you on her poor unblemished psyche; it would give her nightmares for years.”

Aaron frowned at him, giving him that laser death stare in return. “Just for that, you will be sporting paint highlights in your hair.”

“You mean you’ll
try
to get paint in my hair,” Rys corrected with a challenging grin, relishing the possibility of a physical engagement.

Martha came back outside, sodas in one hand and a paintbrush in another, defusing the potential for some real fun. “Here you are. Aaron, do you need to use the phone to let your parents where you are?”

Aaron stared at her blankly, at a loss for words. “No, ma’am. No one will be expecting me anytime soon.”

Rys had to fight to keep his face straight. Aaron obviously wasn’t in a family that kept close tabs on him. If he had Sara or Jeremy as foster parents, he wouldn’t have been taken by surprise with Martha’s question.

Aaron ingested a quick crash course on the fine art of painting a house, and then they went back to applying white paint on wooden siding. The job was going much faster with an extra set of hands in the mix. Observing this, Rys decided that his entire team could benefit from learning how to paint a house, as well.

For their own edification, naturally!

He sent them a short email, inviting them to come if they could, and warning them to wear grubby clothes. He didn’t tell them what they were doing, he liked surprises.

Service projects were good for the soul.

Rys had just gotten back up on the ladder, narrowly avoiding a well-aimed swipe from Aaron’s paintbrush, when he heard another car pull up in front of the house. He glanced over his shoulder to see who it was, and then froze when he recognized her. “Anne?” He considered Aaron out of the corner of his eye, calculating the force necessary to land squarely on him, if he made an unfortunate move in her direction.