Dust: Chapter 22 (Patreon)

With the two voted-for options completed already, I chose something a little different for the third update this month, a new chapter of Dust. With a truce arranged between the Alliance squad and the surviving Conglomerate troops setting up shop in their base, there's some downtime before they try to break in to the comm center. And hey, who knows? Maybe that welcome party that Kawalsky was expecting really will be waiting for them! Cakes and streamers, the whole nine yards!

Anyways, thank you all for your support and I hope you enjoy this latest piece of my writing.

~

Chapter 22: Preparations

“So what do you think?” Rashid asked Andrea as the woman inspected the storage room that the Connies had graciously set aside as a barracks for the Alliance troops. Before anyone dragged cots and gear in, Khatri had assigned the specialist to do a sweep of the room, just to make sure there wasn’t anything here that shouldn’t be. He didn’t expect that there was, but better to be safe than sorry. It also gave them a chance to talk privately.

“About what?” Colmec answered as she passed a hand-scanner over cargo crates, discarded furniture, walls and vents, looking for listening devices, IEDs, hidden SVs or any other nasty surprises that the Connies had overlooked, placed or forgotten.

“About anything. This place, our situation, life and the mysteries of the universe.” Khatri knew better than to get in the specialist’s way when she was working. “About our new friend.”

A couple minutes of silence passed as the woman swept the area. Andrea shut the scanner off. “Room’s clean.” She looked over the lieutenant. “Which one? The one that helped himself to our base, or the one that follows the captain around like a puppy?”

“Either. Both.”

The woman pursed her lips, turning to fully face Rashid. Her tan had darkened during their hike across the province and under the fluorescent illumination cast by the buzzing overhead light panels, he could see in starker relief the pale lines that criss-crossed her face. Normally you couldn’t see them unless the light hit them a certain way, but they were always there, the remains of the scars left by a Connie’s knife.

Cole had been disarming demo charges when the sabotage team that set them had found her. She’d gotten away... eventually. “You know what I think of them,” she said softly, the mixture of emotions making her voice shake.

“Yeah,” Rashid said, lifting his cap and scratching his head awkwardly. “Guess I do.” His unit had been the one to find Colmec. She’d been so out of it that she’d thought the Alliance soldiers were the Connies tracking her down. Even half-dead, she’d fought like a wild thing until they could get her sedated. “I just want to make sure you’re holding up.”

“Thinking I might do something stupid, LT?” she said with a half-smile.

“Little worried about it,” he admitted with a matching grin. “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t.”

“The captain asked you to check in, didn’t he?”

“He didn’t have to.” He paused, then bit the bullet. “These aren’t those guys.” Everyone in the unit had lost someone to the Conglomerate’s Asset Protection Force here on Alcatar. If not in combat then when the nukes fell. Everyone here had reason to hate them, but Colmec’s went deeper than the normal petty vendettas like, oh, killing your friends and family and turning whole cities to burnt-out ruins.

“I know that. They’re probably dead, like everyone says. Probably ripped up by some SVs.” The smile turned colder. “Maybe they found themselves a new playmate. Someone named Darya, Yuki or Anna.”

“Yeah, let’s hope.” Rashid sat down on a crate filled with office supplies. “Damned if it doesn’t sound paternalistic, but I just want to look out for you, speccy.”

“Isn’t that what a good officer should be doing with their troops?”

“My personnel file would argue that I’m not a good officer.”

“Bullshit. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have come to talk to me and you wouldn’t have worried about being paternalistic or whatever. The captain would have had to order you, and you’d have given me a lecture. Fuck’s sake, LT. You think the captain would have let you come on this mission if he couldn’t trust you? You think he’d have let you in on his secret?”

Khatri didn’t answer that beyond a shrug. He’d never been the model officer, and he knew that. It hadn’t been his first career choice, but as Rashid the elder had said more than once, a man wasn’t a man until he took a stand, and as his father had been a brigadier general in Mercator-Opal’s ground forces, there’d been only one interpretation of taking a stand. Rashid sometimes wondered if his father regretted how hard he’d pushed his son. The conflict on Alcatar was supposed to make him a proper officer. He didn’t think the old man had ever considered the possibility that his son might actually die, and Rashid hadn’t – he’d just seen most everyone around him die instead.

“But that topic brings us back to our other new friend...” They hadn’t talked much about the skinjob during the hike. There hadn’t been much of a chance to do so, especially with many more imminent problems they’d had to deal with. The elements, other SVs and even some of the other humans they’d run into (and run from) had all colluded to take time and attention away from the pretty blonde killing machine in their midst.

The major had made it clear that no one behind them and the captain was to know about Kawalsky’s partner, so they’d kept the chatter close until now, but it had been something on both of their minds. “What do you think?”

Andrea sighed. “I don’t fucking know,” she admitted. “It doesn’t act like the others. They’re straight-line. See human, kill human. See human, can human take me to other humans? If yes, wait and kill other humans. If no, kill human. I don’t know what the fuck is up with this one. By every metric we have, it should have gutted us the instant it knew we knew what it was.”

“Captain seems to think some bits in her code got flipped and that script isn’t running. Vishnu knows if that’s true-”

“Is that an appropriate epithet to make?”

“Fuck if I know, speccy. Point is, she should have killed the captain or us a long time ago. Should have killed a lot of people in New Berlin, but she didn’t. I can almost buy that she’s trying to get into the hive to paint it red, but I know the captain wouldn’t let her in. Even if he did, the major knows about her. We know about her. We’d never let her in, so she should have cut all our throats in our sleep. She’s had weeks to wipe us all out and find some other idiots to try and con. Christ – and don’t ask – the captain’s said she’s never even asked him to take her back. It’s like she doesn’t even care.”

“Maybe it figures that by not asking it seems safer, so it gets better odds of getting in?”

“Now you’re talking 4-D chess bullshit, speccy.” Rashid ran his hand through his hair. It was thick and greasy. He was looking forward to a shower. “Not that I haven’t thought that way myself.” So had the captain. Rashid had served under Kawalsky long enough to have a handle on his captain’s thought processes. Most of the time. Keeping an SV around like a housecat was something he’d never expected from the man. “But I just keep coming back to square one. What the fuck is going on with her?”

“The captain’s been trying to figure that out for months,” Andrea answered. “That’s the most fucked-up thing. It saved his life – it saved all our lives – and there’s no good reason for it.” In unconscious imitation of Rashid’s gesture, she also ran her hands through her half-inch hair. “Captain did the numbers, LT. So did I. The supplies it handed over to us have made a difference at the hive. That’s the most fucked-up thing of all. They lie. I know they lie, you know they lie, we all fucking know they can lie. Their entire function is to lie until they can kill us. It didn’t have to find anything, could have just tossed a few cans at the captain here and there, said everything else was spoiled or stolen, but it actually helped us.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I don’t get it.”

“I’m right there with you, speccy.” During the hike, he’d asked the captain the same question. I’ve asked her the exact same thing, was the answer he’d gotten. She asked me a question in return. ‘Why wouldn’t I help?’

The lieutenant let out a heavy sigh. “Room’s clean?”

“Room’s clean.”

“Good. I’ll get Mallory and some of the unit to start moving in. My next stop’s the Connie quartermaster, see what all we have to work with here at HQ, then I’ll check in on the captain.” He paused at the doorway. “What do you think our odds are?”

“Of getting off this planet or just surviving the next few days stuck in a hole with Connies and the most advanced killing machine humanity has ever seen?”

“Either. Both – and factoring in my charm and your optimism.”

That small, tight smile wormed its way back onto the woman’s face. “We’re fucked.”

“Yeah,” Khatri agreed. “Seems like.”

~

“And here’s our commissary,” Richard Dekin, Private, Conglomerate Asset Protection Force, said to Lorelai. As the rest of the Mercs settled in and the captain worked up a plan with the Merc leader, he’d been showing the duster around the base. There were worse details to be put on, and it beat glowering at the Mercs from across a room. “It was a mess when we found it.” He chuckled at the lame joke, looking over at her. She just stared at him.

“You know,” he tried to explain. “Because it was dirty and it’s a mess...”

“I got it,” she answered, then smiled a little. “Sorry. Just tired. We’ve been on the move for a long time.”

Dekin nodded once. The woman looked exhausted. Her hair, what should have been a vibrant shade of yellow, was stringy, strands slipping out of the hasty ponytail she’d tied most of it into to hang down her temples. Her pale skin, otherwise unblemished, was tanned by the sun. Her eyes, once doubtless a shining blue, were now heavy with the strain of the Merc squad’s march across the planet.

“I get that,” he said, gesturing for her to head to counter. “Jacques,” he said with a nod towards the man with a lean face and a pencil moustache, “is the closest thing the unit has to a chef. He’s even decent at it, which no one really believed until now. With the food stores we’ve found, we’re eating like we haven’t in months.”

“And still all I hear is complaints,” the other Conglomerate soldier answered. He had a corporal’s badge over his left breast. “Ah, but who is this lovely creature?” He offered his hand in greeting. Lorelei took it, but instead of shaking her hand, the soldier turned hers ninety degrees and genteelly kissed the back of her palm. He smiled coyly at her, then glanced over to Dekin. “Ricky, have you actually made a friend? Where did you find such a lovely creature?”

“Knock it off, ‘Jackie’. You were at the meet and greet with the rest of us.”

“Yes, but a gentleman never misses an opportunity to make the formal acquaintance of such a lovely and clearly resourceful survivor, nor to offer heartfelt compliments to her.” His gaze, full of impish amusement and sharp interest, turned back to Lorelai. “Corporal Jacques Renard, wholly at your service.”

“Lorelai.”

“A very lovely name. Does it have a second part?”

“Just Lorelai, please.”

“Of course. So what can I do for you, Lorelai?”

“We’re looking for something to eat,” Dekin answered, stepping between the woman and the corporal. “Lorelai hasn’t had a good meal in months, so I thought-”

“You thought you might try to sneak in outside of scheduled meal times, assuming that I’d be so charmed by a pretty face I’d forget how to run this kitchen?” Jacques snorted, then glanced back at Lorelai. “Well, your friend was right. Let me see what I can whip up for you.”

Dekin pulled a chair out for Lorelai at one of the tables. “We’ve tried to clean it up,” he apologized, glancing around the room. “But there’s only so much we could do.” This particular mess hall had been ransacked by fleeing troops, but it was still usable. There was another mess in a nearby section that had been the site of one of many last stands. The APF troops had taken what supplies they could from the blood-soaked dining hall and sealed it up behind them.

“I’m not picky,” the young woman answered. “Besides, compared to a lot of places I’ve seen over the last few months, it’s practically the ritz.”

“I bet. Its been hard enough out there for us. I can’t imagine what you’ve had to go through, but you’ve at least had a hive to fall back on, right?”

Lorelai shook her head. “No. I’ve been living on my own in New Berlin, or what’s left of it since A-Day.”

Richard blinked. Their earlier conversation had been about her role as a guide for the Merc troops. The woman had been guarded in what she’d said, so he’d hoped getting her away from the Mercs would encourage her to speak a little more freely. Plus, he’d never turn down spending time with a pretty girl. “You’ve never been to their hive?”

“Too many people there already,” she replied. “And Nicholas trusts that I’ll be around when he needs me.” She grinned shyly, tucking a lock of hair back over one ear. “I’m good at surviving.”

“That I don’t doubt,” Richard agreed. “But you’ve helped them a lot and they can’t find even one spare bunk for you?”

“You’d be surprised how much one more or less life can change things,” the young woman told him. “Nicholas’s hive is already running beyond capacity.”

“Yeah, but-”

“What’s the matter, Ricky?” Jacques said as he arrived with a plate of toast, scrambled eggs poured from a box and a couple strips of bacon. Lorelai got the plate. Dekin was handed a ‘sunny morning’ MRE bar that purported to combine all those flavours along with orange juice in a manner that seemed more threatening than flavourful. “You’ve never heard of the straw that breaks the camel’s back? How many times we were so low on rations or water that even one more person would’ve tipped everything over?”

“I guess,” Dekin finally conceded. “It’s just hard to picture that after all they’ve been doing for you, they couldn’t show a little more gratitude.”

“I appreciate the concern,” Lorelai told him as she ate, barely pausing to take a breath as she all but inhaled the entire plate with the kind of speed Richard and Jacques found all too familiar. They’d all gone through it when they’d first gotten here. The Alliance HQ still had power. Its freezers were still stocked with food, its shelves still loaded with nonperishable goods. They hadn’t eaten like this for a long, long time, so it was easy to recognize the same reaction in the duster.

“Careful,” the younger private cautioned the duster. “Don’t make yourself sick.”

She nodded around a forkful of eggs. “I never asked Nicholas to take me back,” she told the Conglomerate troops after swallowing. “I knew he couldn’t, and I didn’t want to put him in the position of saying no. I’ve been fine on my own so far, and they have been grateful. It’s probably why I’m still here. I just don’t need to take a bunk from someone that needs it a lot more than I do.”

“What did you do?” Dekin asked, shooting a glare at the corporal who’d pulled up a seat next to their table. “Before all this, I mean.”

“I was a student,” Lorelai answered. “I was going to Treadwell Technical for engineering. I was sleeping at a friend’s house off campus when the bombs fell, woke up to the blast. Next morning, my university’s a crater and most of my friends are dead. After that, I had to work in a diner just to have enough food to get by.”

Richard winced. Much as he hated to say it, the Mercs had as much reason to hate the Conglomerate for the nukes and carpet-bombing as his people did them for unleashing the fucking buzzers. “I’m surprised you’re not as angry with us as your friends are,” he admitted.

Lorelai paused, meeting Richard’s eyes for a moment before glancing over at Jacques, then back to him. “Were you flying the planes?”

“No.”

“Did you launch the missiles?”

“No.”

“Did you make the decision to do it?”

“No.”

“If you were, then we’d have a problem,” she told him. “But you weren’t, so we don’t. Nicholas and his people feel their way about you, but I have to worry more about survival than hate. If I didn’t, I’d probably hate them just as much as you. Everyone I didn’t lose to the bombs, I lost to the buzzers. There’s plenty of blame to go around for what’s happened to Alcatar, but like I said – surviving is more important than worrying about who did what.”

“Then maybe we’ll hold off on seconds,” Renard teased, “just to be safe.”

“Probably for the best,” Lorelai agreed with the same joking edge in her voice. “Wouldn’t want me to get too full and start thinking beyond the next five minutes.” Then she sobered, her mood quieting. “Some of my friends used to say I can be too rational for my own good,” she admitted. “I guess I’ve always just been goal-oriented.”

“That’s a surprisingly level-headed,” Richard answered. From the moment he’d first set eyes on the woman, he’d known she was different. “What’s your goal these days?” the young soldier pressed. “Getting off the planet, sure. But do you have friends off-world? Family to want to see?”

She shook her head, looking down at the empty plate. “I was born here. Everyone I know is here. Everything I know is here.”

“All the more reason to get you off Alcatar,” Richard said. “There’s a whole galaxy of people and experiences out there just waiting for you. Trust me. Once we get off-world, everything will be different.”

“Yeah,” the blonde agreed after a moment, running her fingers through her stringy hair. “I guess it will.”

~

Kawalsky was studying the facility layout when Khatri knocked on the door. He’d spent more than his fair share of time at Alliance HQ, but things had changed since the last time he’d been here. As the facility was being overrun, sections had been locked down, barricades had been put up, security doors had been broken or cut through. Straight-shot tunnels became dead ends, intersections had turned into one-way corridors. The place was a mess, and he was familiarizing himself with the Connies’ maps and modifications to the base.

“How’s it going, sir?”

“Fine. Just getting reacquainted with our HQ.” Kawalsky lifted his head. “How is everyone getting settled?”

“Fine so far, sir. No real worries. I spoke with Cole. She’ll be good. All of us will, as long as they don’t push.”

“If they do, you let me know. Even if tomorrow goes off without a hitch, we’re likely to be bedfellows until rescue gets here. The last thing we need is to kill each other before those ships arrive.”

“Yes, sir.”

Kawalsky canted his head towards the younger man. “Thank you for checking in on Cole. I would have done it, but you two go farther back.”

“That’s what a good lieutenant does, sir. Besides, unless I miss my guess, you’ve been speaking to our other potential problem, so fair is fair.”

It seemed like that kick to the shins had reminded Khatri of the need to be discrete about Lorelai’s ‘condition’. “I have,” he confirmed. “She’s not used to being around this many people, but I can trust her not to cause problems – unless they push.”

Rashid stroked his short, wirey beard. “You really do have faith in her, don’t you?” He knew the answer, of course. He’d asked this question of Kawalsky more than once, but he wasn’t really asking it here. He’d seen it from the moment his captain had nonchalantly turned his back on a blood-soaked skinjob, trusting her to cut his bindings and nothing else, but it was different putting it into words.

“I do.” Kawalsky chuckled a little. “That never stops being odd to hear myself say, but I suppose I do. She’s never given me any reason to think otherwise.”

“Other than the obvious, sir?”

“Other than the obvious.” Nicholas agreed. He looked more intently at the other man. “What about you? After weeks of being around our guide, have you changed your opinion on her?”

“I don’t deny she’s been helpful, sir. More than helpful, even. We wouldn’t have all made it here without her. That business with the Red Family nearly cost us a lot of people. Maybe even all of us, and she did more than I expected from her. Nonetheless, sir... at the end of the day, she’s not one of us and I don’t just mean Alliance.” Khatri sighed. “But...”

“But?”

“I might still be reserving judgment, but I have faith in you, sir. The major trusts you, the hive trusts you. We trust you. If you say she can walk with us, she’ll walk with us. If you say otherwise... well, we’ll follow your lead there, too.”

“I appreciate that, Rashid. I know this situation hasn’t usual or easy to deal with, but she’s given us more of a chance than we had before.”

“She has, sir.” There was a pause from the other man as if he was about to say something, but thought better of it. For a man whose vocal chords didn’t seem to have an off switch, that was extremely telling. Something was on his mind and he wasn’t sure if he should bring it up to his captain.

“Say it, lieutenant,” Kawalsky ordered.

Just as Rashid knew how his captain thought, Kawalsky could read him in turn, so the younger officer didn’t try to dissemble or play dumb. “Yes, sir. Have you thought about what happens after we get in touch with command and they send relief ships?” He stepped next to the captain, lowering his voice. “She can’t come with us.”

Kawalsky was silent for a very long time before he answered. “I know.” Since the day a very confused Nicholas had headed back to Hive 004 with his broken leg carefully set and a jeep’s bed loaded with boxes of supplies that he’d never have been able to get by himself, he’d been asking himself one question over and over. Once this was all over – provided it there was an ‘over – would happen to Lorelai? At best, she’d vanish into the population if Alliance HQ decided to keep throwing lives at this accursed planet. More likely, Alcatar would be evacuated and she’d be left behind with her machine brethren to wander aimlessly through its silent cities and radioactive wastelands.

On the darker end of possibilities, she’d be found out and destroyed or taken back to Earth for examination and disassembly. Procuring her for the latter could be considered his duty. If the SVs had changed this much in so short a span of time, Mercator-Opal – hell, the whole of humanity – needed to know more about them. Even though Lorelai didn’t have emotions and could never feel anger or pain at that kind of betrayal, Nicholas felt it enough for them both.

At first, he’d tried to compartmentalize. Lorelai was just a machine. A better simulation of life than the other skinjobs, but at the end of the day no more a person than an autonomous vacuum or the sex doll Private Gerome had blasted to wreckage. That became harder and harder to tell himself and even harder to think of as true when he did.

So what then? It was a question he still hadn’t been able to answer.

“I know,” he finally replied.

“Do you have a plan for that?”

“When do I ever have a plan, lieutenant?”

“Funny, sir.” Rashid didn’t press. This wasn’t the time for it, but Andrea seemed to think he was a good officer, and a good officer always brought his concerns to his CO. “But if this plan succeeds, you’ll need to make a decision.”

“If, lieutenant. If.” Kawalsky was silent for another long moment. “You are right, though. If we get through to Earth, some hard decisions will have to be made. Until then, before I check in on the troops, I want your input on what I’ve come up with D’Antonio so far...”

~

Kawalsky gave his people twenty-four hours of downtime. They kept to them themselves; issues with the Connies were thankfully infrequent and never got physical, both sides keeping their commanders’ warnings in mind. Neither group might be keen on having the other around, but like Nicholas had told Rashid, both sides needed each other. Until that was no longer true, neither faction wanted to be the first one to break the newly-founded and fragile detente.

“Did you sleep well?” Lorelai asked. As consideration for her civilian status, she’d been given a small closet off the storage room the rest of the unit was camping in. It was barely big enough for a bed, but it was private. A machine didn’t care. A young woman surrounded by soldiers, who’d been camping on the hard ground in caves, abandoned buildings and anywhere deemed safe enough for a single night would.

Her hair was newly washed, the grime that had accumulated on her face since the last time she’d had a chance to clean up was gone. She looked like a person again and less like a ragged survivor nearing the end of her rope.

They all looked that way. It was amazing the difference that one day could make. Despite the fact that they were heading into an unknown situation, spirits were high. Soldiers checked and re-checked their gear. Cole was looking over some hand scanners, confirming calibrations alongside Mitchum. Mallory was prowling like an old tiger waiting for his pen to be opened.

“Better than in a while,” Nicholas answered honestly. The possibility of betrayal by the Connies, however great or small, was far less stressful than the fear of waking up to the sounds of cutting. “How about you?”

“It’s nice to have a full night’s sleep for once,” she agreed, stretching her arms across her chest, one after the other. “I could get used to it.”

“After this mission,” Mitchum chirped in, “you’ll be able to have a full night’s sleep every night. You can come back to the hive-”

“That’s something that the major and the facility management committee will have to sign off on,” Kawalsky said, quickly cutting the 2nd lieutenant off.

“I know, sir, but there’s no way they’ll leave Lorelai outside after all she’s done for us.”

“It may not be up to them,” the captain pointed out. “Numbers don’t feel gratitude, and resource allocation algorithms can’t be swayed by argument. If those don’t line up, they don’t line up. I’m sure the hive’s leadership will take everything into consideration when making their decision, though. Now, back to your work, lieutenant. We’ve got a busy day ahead of us and I want those scanners to notice if so much as a bumblebee passes gas near us.”

“You handled that well,” Lorelai noted as Mitchum sat back down.

“For the moment. He’s probably already planned out your first date,” Nicholas said with a shake of his head. The younger man was still smitten by Lorelai. He’d been following her around the entire march like a puppy. Not that he could really blame Mitchum for his interest. Lorelai was – or had been designed to be – very attractive.

She smiled. “That would be interesting. What do you think it would be like?”

“Probably snipping some heads off the flowers from hydroponics, grabbing a bottle of the finest moonshine from the stills, throwing a blanket on a wall and aiming a movie projector at it. We can’t really do much else for wining and dining these days.” He paused. “Think you might get a better offer from Private Dekin?”

“He likes me,” the machine announced as if Nicholas hadn’t seen that for himself. Lorelai had been spending a lot of time over the last day with the Connie, much to poor Mitchum’s chagrin. “He’s also been interrogating me and thinks I haven’t noticed.”

“What has he wanted to know?”

“He’s asked a lot of things, but keeps coming back to New Berlin. What’s left of the city, how long it takes you to get to or from the hive, which direction you come from, how many other patrols I see and how many people are in them. I think they’re trying to figure out what’s left of the Alliance military.”

Nicholas stroked his chin. He’d managed to get a good shave for the first time in two weeks this morning. “What have you told him?”

“Not much. You have a vehicle, so I can’t say how long it’s taken you to get to or from the hive. You’re my main contact. The other patrols operate elsewhere in the city, so I never really see them.”

The captain nodded. “Thank you.” All of that was true; he wasn’t the only forager, but he’d finagled a section of New Berlin for his own scouting trips. Unlike the other survivors clinging to existence inside the ruined metropolis, Lorelai had no fear of wandering freely. The SVs infesting New Berlin’s bones were about as much a danger to her as a run-in with violent locals, as she’d so handily proven with Katie’s boys. Nicholas had asked her to avoid contact with the other patrols, and she’d agreed, but he also knew she’d been watching them. She probably had quite a lot of intel on the comings and goings of Hive 004’s personnel, along with enough information that the Connies could make an educated guess about their strength and disposition.

He hadn’t really thought she’d give that away, but no matter how human she looked or sometimes acted, there were still things that Lorelai didn’t quite get, times when she’d say something she shouldn’t or not say something she should. It was difficult enough to make sure actual humans didn’t blab sensitive information to the wrong person; impressing the concept of operational security on a machine to whom all humans were the same squishy, fragile and easily-ruptured sacks of meat was even harder.

“I wouldn’t do anything to endanger you,” Lorelai assured him.

“I know you wouldn’t,” Nicholas answered truthfully. Whatever else was going on with the machine, he did believe she’d never intentionally put him in harm’s way. Unintentionally, however... “But when we have a chance, I’d like to go over what you two have been talking about.”

“All right,” she agreed. “I’ve gotten some information from him you might find it interesting, too.”

“Is it relevant to our current situation?”

Lorelai paused, either thinking or mimicking a moment of thoughtfulness. “I don’t think so. More about their initial deployment, numbers and forces.” Most skinjobs had rudimentary conversation capabilities; that Lorelai had not just be able to realize the infatuated Connie soldier wasn’t just flirting with her, but trying to pump her for information and turn the conversation around to gather intel from him made Kawalsky glad that she was on their side.

“Then we’ll put a pin in that.” He clapped her on the shoulder. “Are you ready?”

She nodded. “I’m ready.”

Kawalsky turned to Khatri. “Lieutenant.”

Rashid looked at Sergeant Mallory, giving him a sharp nod. Their kit was clean, ammo stocks replenished, bellies full and bodies rested. They were as ready as they were ever going to be.

“All right, fall in!” the sergeant bellowed like he was breaking in cadets. “On the line, on the line, hup hup hup!”

With a speed and discipline that no cadets could have mustered, the eight soldiers of Kawalsky’s team assembled. Mallory stalked up and down the row. “Who are we?” he demanded.

“Alliance!” they shouted back.

“Who are we?”

“Huah!”

“It’s been a shitshow,” Mallory said. “But we made it here. We’ve ducked bullets from angry dusters, dodged prowling SVs and outrun hungry cannibals. All we have to do is go down some stairs, open a door and push a button. You think you can handle all that, Alliance?”

“Huah!” the unit shouted as one.

The sergeant turned to Mitchum, Khatri and Kawalsky, giving the latter a proud, affirming nod. “We’re ready for the word, captain.”

Outside, he could hear the drum of the Connies’ feet on the floor as their own sergeant whipped them up. 0700. Time to be going. He hoped it was going to be as easy as Mallory said, but some part of him just couldn’t accept that. Nothing had been easy here.

Not for a long time, even before the war escalated. He looked at his people, then to Lorelai. Eleven lives under his command, hundreds more back at the hive and God only knew how many across the rest of the planet. No matter how good he was, he knew he’d never have gotten them all of his people here alive without the machine’s help. And how was he going to repay everything she’d done for him?

The only way my duty lets me.

Damn it all.

“Let’s move out,” he said. “We’ve got a call to make and a planet to evacuate.”