“You mean smash your face against my Castling effort?”
She made a face. “Well, now that you put it that way, yes. But my second attack--
Thorn winced. “Yeah. That was better. And a better—illustration.”
“Good. We get one shot with you, and then we’re back to fighting with a lot of gifted people who have one trick in their bag. You have all the tricks, Thorn, and beyond that, you’re all I have left from everything that used to be good. Before this war. Can you remember that far back, even?”
“Sometimes, no. But I can now.”
“Good. Because losing the feel for what we used to be is the easiest way for us to all get killed. You don’t have the option of walking into a safe, secure gym and being attacked. When the squiddies do it, they’ll be arrayed across a half-light year, hurling rocks and trying to crack your mind like a nut. And someday, they might do it,” Kira said.
“It’s less likely now,” Thorn said quietly.
Kira gave a sharp nod. “I’m glad to hear that. Remember—the quiet places between attacks can be dangerous too.” She looked to the door, then back at him. “Let’s see how good you are at defensive magic.”
With that, she vanished.
Thorn sighed and started for the door. Before he reached it, it slid open and a squat Petty Officer bearing an ON Security badge stormed in, a pair of armed and armored guards at his back.
“Just what the hell is going on in here?” the man blurted, his expression as hard as deck-plating. “There’s a maintenance crew two compartments over reporting all kinds of weirdness. They practically shit themselves with fear for no good reason, and then I learn a Starcaster has booked this gym—”
Thorn held up a hand. “Yes, Petty Officer, I know. I had a magical effect go a little wonky, I’m sorry.” In truth, his Castling had worked to perfection. It was the magnitude that was the problem.
The Petty Officer’s unibrow wrinkled up like a frightened caterpillar. “I’m going to have to report this, sir.”
“Yes, of course you will. Just please also put in your report that I now know practicing ’casting anywhere inside the FOB isn’t going to work, and I’ll have to find somewhere more remote to do it.”
For a long moment, the PO kept his glare trained on Thorn. Finally, he spun around, muttering something about Starcaster freaks, and stormed away, his security backup in tow.
Thorn sighed. Yes, he’d undoubtedly get chewed out for letting magical effects spill over into other parts of the FOB. At least he could keep that off Kira, though. Her lesson—and that’s what it had been—was good enough that he could handle a little heat.
Thorn walked into the arboretum, eager, but also wary. He hadn’t expected Kira to call him, waking him up, and ask him to join her here. He really didn’t think she’d make another stab at some sort of telepathic ambush—not in such a well-used, public part of the FOB. Even at this early hour, there had to be a least a dozen people here.
But he couldn’t dismiss the idea entirely, either. What if, as he’d imagined during the night while lying in bed and staring into the darkness, she’d somehow been influenced by the Nyctus? Could she actually be a danger?
Thorn walked around a stand of trees rising from a low group of bright pink bushes, their color almost alarming. Kira sat just ahead, staring at a flower that looked more like a small furred mammal than a plant.
“What’s that?” he asked, easing to the ground.
“Shh. It’s hunting,” Kira said.
“It’s what?”
“Watch.”
The flower extended a thin brown tendril, which accelerated in a blur and pinched the bud from a nearby neighbor.
“Shit. Vicious little thing,” Thorn said, impressed.
“Mother Nature takes no prisoners.” Kira turned to him with an easy smile.
“Okay, so is this smiling Kira just another Joiner projection, and you’re really about to pop out of the azaleas and shank me?”
Her smile changed to something close to an apology. “No shank, and I prefer the term shiv. Much more dignified.”
“Spoken like a true vagrant. Then let me adjust my inquiry. No shiv today?”
“No, not today.” She shook her head, and the smile drained away. “I hope you took my demonstration to heart.”
“I did.”
She looked at him sharply. “That’s it?”
“Sure. You had a point to make, and you needed it to happen in person, and in real time. You did so. End of story.”
“Well then. I sort of thought there’d be more of a fight, or at least some quest for a second opinion,” Kira said.
“No reason to, unless you have one.”
Kira leaned back on her outstretched arms and sighed. “I’ve been reading reports about the Starcaster Corps. About the things Starcasters have accomplished—victory, for one thing, even in the face of us falling back across multiple fronts.” She glanced at him sidelong. “And not to be too specific, but what you’ve accomplished. Hell, I’ve been with you for a bunch of it.” She sighed again. “You’re not the kid I knew, or even the same as you were when we left Murgon with muck caking your boots. The war is changing all of us, but it’s shifting you most of all. I hope you’ll remember that when the time comes.”
“When the time comes? For what? Our collective suicide charge into the bosom of the squiddies? Hell no.” He regarded her for a long moment, but she said nothing. “We’re not going away, Kira. Not even if the Nyctus get close enough to split my skull with a meteor. We’ll fight, and we’ll win. We’re Starcasters, not the scared recruits we used to be.”
She held up a hand. “I know. And you’re right. But despite the glowing reports, ’casters are still looked at as freaks by most of the rest of the ON.”
Thorn thought about the Security PO’s muttered words the night before, damned Starcaster freaks, and just nodded. “I know. They treat it like witchcraft.”
“It is witchcraft, Thorn. For . . . hell, hundreds, maybe thousands of years, it’s been seen as something—” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Dangerous. Sinister. Evil, even.”
Thorn stretched out his legs. “Yeah. Eye of newt and all that.”
“What of what now?”
He waved her off. “An old reference, and a bit niche. But you’re right. They used to hang and even burn people for what we now know is ’casting.”
She nodded. “I know. And even though it’s helping us—well, if not actually win, then at least not lose this war, everyone’s trying to come to grips with it.” She sighed. “Anyway, if you think it’s bad for ’casters, it’s worse for Joiners. Seeing someone throw a fireball or whatever is scary, but it’s obvious, and it’s easy to see how that’s something we can use against the squids, like right here, right now. But knowing that someone can slip into your mind and screw with how you perceive reality itself is insidious and terrifying.”
Thorn had to nod at that. “Fair point. I’d never really looked at it that way before.”
“Neither had I, until it became known through the fleet I’m a Joiner. I had people I used to sit beside in the mess suddenly start moving away if I even made eye contact with them. Like I’m going to Join and screw around with people I consider—considered—friends.” Kira’s voice had gone hard, and she glared at a spot in the grass just beyond her feet. But she stopped and took a breath. “But I really didn’t ask to meet you just to vent, or even to confirm that you’ve seen the wisdom in my lesson.”