Wanderlust

A chill courses through me. March tries so hard to suppress this side of his personality, the darkness where he lost his soul once before. In the shadows his face looks almost inhuman, taut and graven. I’ve never seen him wear an expression quite like this, as if he’s switched his feelings off.

“Don’t let me keep you.” I want to get dressed, but I won’t crawl out from under the blanket. His eyes sear like lasers.

He hesitates, as if there’s something more he wants to say. And then: “I’m glad you’re safe, Jax.”

I just nod. Not exactly an impassioned declaration, but this isn’t the moment for them either. As soon as he leaves, I scramble for my clothes, still scattered where we threw them earlier. I’m not sure how long I’ve been out.

Noise levels outside indicate some of the clan has retired for a few hours at least. I dress quickly and push my way out of the tent. They’ve left guards posted, which makes sense, in case Doc is wrong, and the McCulloughs do find us. The diminished crowds mean I can make my way around easier.

In the hours I slept, they’ve done more work on the encampment. Makeshift barricades now sit before the two exits to the tunnels, along with motion detectors. Well, at least nobody’s sneaking up our backsides.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next. Clearly I’m not welcome in the strategy meetings, not that I would have anything of value to offer. Of the clansmen still awake, most seem to know who I am, based on their glaring. I move away from March’s tent, feeling rather aimless.

I’m a fucking jumper, for Mary’s sake. I don’t belong down here. This isn’t even my fight. I had nothing to do with the McCulloughs deciding my visit portended Conglomerate interference in local politics. I sigh.

Maybe my basic medical training would make me somewhat useful to Doc, so I head that way. I swing around a crate of disorganized supplies and spot my favorite guardian. To be honest, I register a tiny flicker of relief.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Jael says, vaulting over the parts. “Tarn’s going to fire me if I don’t get you out of here.”

I can’t help but arch my brows. “That’s your concern? Take a look around, genius. We’re in danger of being killed by clansmen, one way or another. If Gunnar-Dahlgren doesn’t do it, the McCulloughs will.”

“Not on my watch.”

A snicker escapes me. “You’re the worst bodyguard ever.”

“Right, I admit I may not have been as vigilant as I ought. But I had no idea this was a high-risk environment. I didn’t do enough research on this fucked-up, Mary-forsaken hellhole.”

“You’re not enjoying our goodwill tour then?” It ought to be against the law to derive so much amusement from one person.

“Puzzled that out for yourself, did you?”

I realize I haven’t asked about the important stuff, so I leave off messing with him. “Is Dina all right? What about the ship?”

He sucks in a sharp breath, as if being reminded hurts him, and shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know whether she’ll make it.”

My stomach lurches. “Dina? Or the ship.”

“The ship’s a dead loss,” he answers. “I carried our girl in, but she bled out a lot before I tied the wound off. She’s lost a leg, for sure, and I don’t know if they can replace it.”

“You ass!” I can’t believe he stood there talking about getting me off planet when Dina might be dying.

I try to push past him, but he snags my shoulders. “Hey, where you going? She’s sedated, Jax. You mean to go wake her up with your wailing, inhibit the healing process, and annoy the doc?”

“I just need to see her, that’s all.”

His icy gaze searches mine for a moment before he gives a short nod. “Right. I’m not letting you out of my sight again, so I’ll come along.”

I shrug. It doesn’t matter if I have a shadow. We weave through the narrow passages leading back to medical. I don’t see Doc anywhere, but his friend Rose greets me with a cool glance.

“You’re checking on your ship’s mechanic?”

My teeth clench. Maybe the vids still show me as a spoiled little nav-star, but I don’t use people like that anymore, thinking only of what they can do for me. Dina’s my friend. But before I can start a fight—and I’m tempted— Jael says smoothly, “Yeah. Any change?”

Like I’m not even there, she gestures for him to follow her toward the back. As I slink along in their wake, I decide I must be the worst ambassador in the history of diplomacy. Well, except for Karl Fitzwilliam, who started the Axis Wars.

Now there’s a comforting thought.

The number of wounded has diminished since I dropped Doc here. I hope they recovered, not died, but I don’t put much faith in the reality of that outcome. It’s going to take a miracle to save us, and maybe the ones who have already gone through that final door are the lucky ones. I’d take a fast death over one that lingers.

She’s so pale.

At first she doesn’t even seem to be breathing. Her fair hair has been brushed back from her brow, and for the first time, I notice she has a heart-shaped face. Her gruff manner disguises the fact somewhat, but in repose, Dina is quite pretty. No wonder Jael can’t resist flirting with her, even though he knows it’s a lost cause.

“Did you manage to find a prosthetic?”

On some level, I acknowledge it makes sense for him to make the inquiries because he’s the one who saved her life. He’s the one who carried her to safety. A hot, angry sensationboils in my stomach because I wasn’t there for someone I care about, as if I could’ve changed things somehow.

It’s not logical. I didn’t let Vel down on Emry, and I know I can’t be everywhere at once, but damn March anyway. He’s infected me with his devastating sense of moral responsibility.

“It’s far from ideal,” Rose says softly. “But we managed to salvage a limb from . . . elsewhere. So far, no signs of rejection, but we weren’t able to do extensive tissue testing. We had to graft or cauterize the nerves. Doc made the call.”

Elsewhere.

How do you gaze into a pile of dead bodies and decide what leg to harvest? My breath gusts out in a shaky sound, drawing their attention. “Is she stable?”

Rose doesn’t meet my gaze. “I’ll be honest, Ambassador. We’ve only been able to save one person, after such a mauling. I’m astonished your friend has lasted this long, between shock, blood loss, and myriad other factors. If you put any stock in any gods at all, now is the time to address yourself to them.”

I nod. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Just stay out of the way and let me do my job,” she answers.

That’s clearly a dismissal, so I turn, sensing Jael fall in step. I know what it was like out there for him amid the rush of wings, carnage at every turn. Yet he came through it, and though he doesn’t seem inclined to view himself that way, he’s a hero, too. Damn, why am I surrounded by them on all sides?

“You risked your life to save her,” I say in neutral tones. “Why?”

He gives me a faint smile. “The fact that you’d even ask proves you don’t know anything about me.”

* * *

CHAPTER 31

lf you’ve never tried living underground, l don’t recommend it.

While soldiers conduct a guerilla war in the tunnels, picking off the McCullough scout teams, the rest of us work to build a life in this primitive pit. The raw violence stuns me. I hear distant fighting, day and night, and the screams of dying men. I don’t know what they do with the corpses, can’t even imagine.

For the first few days, I perform manual labor alongside the clansmen. We make weapons, chemical stoves, and other necessities. At night I bed down with Vel, who handles my presence with inscrutable aplomb.

I don’t know whether Tarn knows anything about the mess on Lachion, but even if he does, I can’t expect rescue from that angle. This is a fair-sized planet, and locating us where we’ve gone to ground would be worse than trying to find a needle in a haystack. We’ll need to save ourselves, business as usual.

March stays busy with tactical meetings and leads the strike teams himself. This merc, this killer, I hardly know him. Each time he leaves the bunker, I feel sure he’s not coming back. I hate how he strides into danger, leaving me behind, but Jael would bodily restrain me if I tried to join the fight.

On the third day, a mission goes bad. I don’t know whether we got faulty intel, or what happened out there, but we’re drowning in wounded. Lex passes me at a run, barking out, “Doc needs you!” as he goes to work on damage control.

If the McCulloughs find this bunker, we’re done.

A chill ripples over me. Surely Doc didn’t go out with the grunts himself. That would be madness. But my heart pounds double time as I head for the big gray tent functioning as the clan hospital.

As I push through the parted flaps, I break out into a cold sweat. There are at least twenty bodies in varying stages of dismemberment, and the air feels thick and heavy in my nostrils, sweet with clotting blood. Doc looks up from his work briefly and then goes back to whatever he’s doing inside that poor kid.

I say kid because the person Doc’s working on can’t be much older than Keri, but he’s old enough to fight for his clan. Old enough to die, if the operation doesn’t go well. I haven’t seen March yet today; he could be somewhere among all these bodies. I shudder and try to force that thought away. If he were dead, surely I’d know. I’d feel something. But our connection has thinned, and he doesn’t seek me out anymore.

Rose turns then, jerking her head toward the back of the tent. “Change into some scrubs. There’s a sealed set in the cupboard. Then stand inside the san-shower on sterile setting for at least sixty seconds.”

Maybe the dry heat will do something to calm my nerves. I have a feeling that whatever they intend to ask me to do, I’m not going to like it, particularly if it requires me to dress like a doctor and scrub up like one, too. But I don’t protest.

It takes me less than two minutes to get geared up. “What now?”

Doc answers without pausing what he’s doing. “There’s a device on the table next to Rose. It’s dead simple, just point and shoot. I need you to use it to take readings on all our wounded. It will help us calculate triage.”

I’m not trained for this. I want to argue, but I don’t. If it will help, then I can’t say no. I don’t even bother asking “why me?” Approaching the wounded men lined up on drab olive blankets, I feel my hands trembling.

Like Doc said, though, it’s really basic. From a single point of contact, the gizmo registers temperature, heart rate, and scads of other medical data. All I have to do is enter the patient’s number, as present on his clan ID. I feel like I’m tagging corpses, even though some of them move or moan or beg me to make the pain stop.

The third soldier is wide-awake and, Mary help him, coherent. With a wound like the one in his side, I don’t know how. He grabs my wrist, fingers grinding against bone. “Did Jerro make it? Where is he? I promised his ma I’d take care of him.”