The men and women in the barracks next door are starting to pour out, confused and wide-eyed. No purpose, no order. Damn it. Fresh meat. They think they’re sending us trained fighters, but spending a few months on nice, safe obstacle courses and drills doesn’t prepare a soul for life on Avon.
“Over here, soldiers,” I scream at them over the sound of the flames, and hopefully over the ringing in their ears. Only a few hear me, and I go jogging toward them until I’ve got the attention of the rest.
“Six groups.” I shove through the slack-jawed crowd, dividing soldiers up as I go. “You and you—yes, you, you can put your pants on later. Get the retardant canisters. You’ve drilled for this. Listen to me, look at me. Run back into your barracks and grab the canisters and get back here. Now.”
In their shock, the newbies are more afraid of me than of what’s happening behind me. They go sprinting back toward their bunks as if a pack of wild dogs is on their heels.
I’m busy dividing the rest of the survivors into rescue parties, and as the rain and the fire extinguishers start opening a path, we head into the parts of the building farthest from the explosion site and not burning quite so hotly.
The moments that follow are lost in a sea of smoke and heat. We pull bodies from the building, some stirring and coughing, others silent and slick with blood. Every ten minutes or so a few of us duck outside for a few lungfuls of less contaminated air, but every time it’s harder to catch our breaths. Firefighting teams have assembled, working with high-pressure hoses and chemicals that burn our eyes almost as much as the smoke.
After the fourth or fifth time I emerge, a hand grabs my arm and jerks me back when I turn to go back inside.
“Enough, Captain!” It’s Major Jameson, shouting in my ear. “You’re done.”
I nod, unable to speak through the smoke in my lungs. I’m too relieved to have an officer outranking me, an actual leader, taking charge. Give me a few minutes to recover my balance and I can rejoin simply as one of the rescue squad.
But when I get back to my feet, Jameson drags me back through the churned up mud and bodily pushes me into the hands of a waiting medic before vanishing back into the haze of smoke. “You’re benched,” the medic shouts at me. I hear the words, but they don’t process. The medic frowns and shoves an oxygen mask into my hands, then disappears to attend to patients in more dire straits. It’s only then that I realize the soldiers from the neighboring barracks, the crews I organized, have all been replaced by fresher rescue workers. I catch sight of a few of the original crews huddled with oxygen masks and blankets on the edge of the chaos.
I tear the dirty strip of T-shirt from my face and suck a lungful of clean air from the mask. It’s a while before I can stand again, dizzy with the rush of oxygen and with my sudden stillness. But I force myself to my feet, taking one last long breath through the mask before I make my way out of the medic’s area.
There are stretchers everywhere. Some with survivors, being moved to intensive care at the hospital, others with casualties being transferred to a temporary morgue, which right now is no more than bodies laid side by side in the mud with sheets draped over them. I step back to let a team pass carrying a badly wounded man. He’s burned so badly that it’s impossible to tell where his clothes stop and scorched flesh begins. He’s silent, though, when I would’ve expected him to be screaming. His eyes are open, staring at the empty night sky. As they pass, his eyes meet mine for a moment. I don’t know him. My sudden relief at that makes me sick to my stomach. Someone, somewhere, knows him. It shouldn’t matter that he’s not one of mine.
I pick my way through the hordes of the wounded, examining faces. A few are mine. So far, none are wounded badly enough to be placed in critical condition. Sweat pours down my temples and my back, and the ash in the air sticks to my face. The flames are dying down, but someone’s put up big floodlights around the site, so even as the flames subside, the night is held at bay. My feet itch to turn back for the building, which is starting to creak with the added weight of the water and the fire suppression chemicals. It won’t be standing much longer, and they need all the help they can get evacuating the wounded before it collapses.
The medic who removed me from duty is nowhere in sight. But before I can head back toward the flames, I’m forced to step aside for another stretcher. I glance down—and the world stops for an infinite second.
“Captain, we need to get—”
“Where’d you find him?” I bark, gazing down at Cormac’s face, what can be seen of it behind the oxygen mask strapped there.
“On the other side of the blast site.”
“Your best guess?”
“Concussion, minor smoke inhalation. He’ll live.”
And then they’re gone, and Cormac with them, headed for the hospital.
He was here. He was at the blast site. Could he have known what was about to happen?
But I don’t have time to take the thought any further, because something else catches my eye. The floodlights are erasing the monochromatic orange glow turning everything to ember-red. I can see colors now.
And at the edge of the field of bodies underneath the sheets, I catch a glimpse of neon pink.
I’m moving before conscious thought has time to prompt me. I ignore the burning in my abused lungs, the shaking of my legs. I’m sprinting, the world narrowing to that tiny flash of color. It’s a mistake. He’s alive. They’ve put him with the bodies by accident in the chaos. It happens all the time, they’re sitting there identifying a field of dead men and some of them just get up and walk away.