This Shattered World

She misinterprets my expression and reaches out to lay her hand on mine. Her skin is cool and dry, and I know she’s going to feel the flush of betrayal and lies the moment she touches me. But instead she just gazes at me. “You did good, Lee. I don’t think most soldiers would’ve made it back. Take some time off, get yourself together—and then get back to work.”

When she’s gone, I let myself melt back against the cot, trying to find a comfortable position, listening to the fibers creak as if in answer to my creaky ribs. I can’t remember the last time I disobeyed orders, much less outright lied to my commanding officer. And yet, I’m not the only one. It can’t be a coincidence Commander Towers shut down my debrief when I mentioned the sector to the east.

But believing that would mean believing Cormac’s insane conspiracy theories. Might mean believing I actually saw more than a hallucination in the moments before passing out.

My thoughts turn in frantic circles, the room spinning away around me as though all laws of gravity and physics have abandoned me along with my principles.

I can’t afford to lie here, letting uncertainty overpower me. Captain Lee Chase doesn’t get confused. She doesn’t hesitate, she doesn’t think twice.

I force myself upright again, swinging my legs over the edge of the cot and swallowing down the nausea pushing bile up in my throat and making it burn.

A light breeze wafts in through the window, carrying with it the earthy, peat-sulfur smell of the swamp. One nice thing about Avon: it’s too young to have a thriving insect population. No screens on the windows. The hospital is more centrally located, but I’m in a halfway house, one of the temporary buildings erected to deal with the greater numbers of minor illnesses and collapses that afflict newcomers to this environment. On this side of the building, the small, square windows overlook the swamp, only the perimeter fence between it and the wilderness.

I find myself straining to pick up the scent of rock and damp that pervaded the rebels’ underground cave system. All I want is for everything to get back to normal. Hopefully I’ll never see Flynn Cormac again—because if I do, it’ll probably be on the other end of the barrel of my Gleidel.

It’s a few days before the medics clear me to leave the base, and though my ribs still ache a little, that’s not enough for me to stay cooped up. I’m not quite ready to go back to Molly’s yet, so instead I’m walking down this town’s sorry excuse for a main drag with a few of my platoon.

There’s not much to do on the base; our comms aren’t much better than the ones the rebels have cobbled together out in the swamps. The HV signals are so bad, it’s not worth watching unless you’re truly desperate and willing to watch shows that are ninety percent static. We have retransmission satellites for official business, but unless Towers is in an uncommonly good mood, we never get to use them for anything as basic as entertainment.

But it’s a nice night for a walk. As nice as any on Avon ever is. The air is still close and cold, clammy with damp. There’s no fog, so the meager lights along the packed-dirt road disperse most of the shadows.

It’s always sobering to go into town, though. Caught between the military enforcing TerraDyn’s claim to the land here and the rebels protesting the conditions, the townspeople bear the brunt of the strict rules and curfews. Most of them work in the algae swamps or as surveyors of the surrounding ecosystems—necessary work if Avon’s ever going to stabilize and support life on its own. But as many rebels as there are living out in the swamp, there are plenty of sympathizers living quietly here in town. And all it takes for a sympathizer to become a rebel is one irresistible opportunity.

Things have been quieter since the ceasefire started a few months ago, but even though we’re off duty, we can’t relax, not completely. We have to watch every passerby and monitor every shift in the air. And, knowing how close the Fianna are to open rebellion, I’m more jumpy than anyone.

I’m sure the walk was Alexi’s idea. He and Mori showed up at my door after I left the mess hall. Of everyone, I think he suspects most that I’m not being honest about what happened to me out in the swamp. But he can’t know the truth. He’s being careful, keeping me close. My ribs are healing well, and thanks to the boosters the medics gave me, the bruising’s almost completely gone. But it’s not the visible wounds and symptoms that Alexi’s worried about. And he doesn’t know what to do about it.

I try my best to show him I’m okay. Mori’s telling some wildly inappropriate joke that’s so offensive to everyone involved—officers, terra-trash, and more racial groups than I can count—that it goes straight through offensive and out the other side. I laugh and threaten to make her clean latrines for a week, then climb up and walk along a fence post for a few yards. I jump down again as soon as I can, though. Still too dizzy for that. Still too unsettled.

Most of the buildings in town are residences, some of which have had their front rooms converted into shops or trade rooms of varying kinds. We’re headed for this one house where the husband will take folks’ grain allotments and give them baked goods back in return. We’ll trade some of the military ration bars for some of the locals’ homemade bread. The bread tastes a little like the swamp, but eat enough decade-old shelf-stable meals at the mess and you’re willing to put up with some swamp in your bread.

We round the corner of the house and Alexi collides headlong with someone. They both go stumbling back, but the other guy recovers first, rocking forward on the balls of his feet.