“I went over there once,” he admitted. “Over to the property line near where the shuttles were coming down. I just wanted to see what was going on, you know? And I saw those guys.” He nodded back toward the strangers. “I mean, I don’t know if it was those guys right there, but it was guys like that. Dressed like them, carrying guns. Rifles, carbines, pistols, loaded up like it was back in the war, you know?”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” I asked him. I mean, not that there was much we could have done about it, but news was news, especially here.
“Because they saw me. They saw me and one of them, this big motherfucker with a big, honking gun came up to the fenceline and he told me if I didn’t get the hell out of there and not come back, no one would ever find my body.”
“Shit, Dave! We could have helped you…,” I trailed off, wondering just what the hell we would have done if he’d come to us. Charge in, guns blazing?
“There was nothing you could have done,” he said, waving it away. “And I didn’t want you getting caught in that. Whatever that shitheel Hellnick is mixed up with, it’s nothing good. I wouldn’t be surprised if these guys are pirates.”
“Pirates?” I repeated. “Come on, there’re no real pirates anymore, not since the Pirate Wars.”
“Maybe they don’t raid Commonwealth colonies anymore,” Clines insisted, “but there are still criminal cartels in the Pirate Worlds. And that’s not just bullshit from action movies.”
We turned onto a side street, stepping out of the way of a chugging cargo truck hauling a load of ore from the warehouse down to a fabrication shop. And then I stopped in the middle of the road, frozen in place like a statue, unable to breathe, my eyes fixed on the group of strangers walking down the road in a tight cluster. No leathers and tattoos for these. They wore odd clothing fashioned from multicolored strips crisscrossed in tunics long enough to be called dusters, trousers extending down from them into knee-length boots. They were males, all of them, broad-shouldered and thick-necked, their hair shaven into a mohawk running down to a long queue that would have hung to the center of their back if it hadn’t been wrapped around their neck.
“It’s okay, Cam,” Vicky whispered to me urgently. “You’re okay.”
“Oh, yeah,” Clines said as if he hadn’t noticed my reaction. “Those fuckers are all over the place in the colonies now, I hear. Got all fucked up in the head because their Emperor turned out to be a false god and a bunch of the veterans who’d fought in the war just dropped out of their society and volunteered for work on cargo ships or whatever, just to get off planet.”
I heard the words, but they didn’t register. Both of them might as well have been speaking a different language, the same sing-song gabble barely audible over the engine of the truck. All I could see were the faces, so close to human, yet so obviously not, the ridged brows, the black, piggish eyes, the pancake ears and flattened noses, the steam-shovel jaws.
“Cam,” Vicky said, her hand grabbing at my arm. It wasn’t until I tugged against it that I realized I was surging forward, heading towards them, hands balled into fists. “Stop. It’s okay, you’re safe here.”
But I wasn’t safe. None of us were safe.
They were Tahni.
3
My hand shook as I poured, splashing droplets of amber liquid around the rim of the shot glass, tequila beading on the polished wood surface of the bar like raindrops, glinting in the glow of the small lamp. I set the bottle down before I dropped it, then grabbed a rag and wiped up the mess with sharp, angry swipes. Grabbing the glass, I downed the shot, barely tasting it as it burned its way along my esophagus.
The burning spread to my chest and then my head, a crackling haze over my thoughts, like static electricity hanging in the air before a spring thunderstorm. I smacked the shot glass against the bar, annoyed it wasn’t wiping away the images. The Tahni faces were old and young, staring at us with a stoic acceptance of their own, inevitable death, and we’d thought it was because they believed we’d kill them. But it was really because they’d already decided to give up their lives, their children’s lives, to kill us. They’d ignited the truck bomb close enough to wipe out a whole squad of Drop Troopers—not mine, but still Marines.
I hadn’t been so close to the Tahni before, not outside their armor. Inside their battlesuits or even just their normal combat armor, it was easy to just pretend they were faceless automatons, or even just other humans. We’d always done pretty well fighting other humans. It wasn’t until I had to look them in the face that the differences became clear. I tried to remember the faces I’d seen in Gamma Junction, but all I could picture were those fathers and sons who’d blown themselves up in a cargo truck filled with explosives just to kill us.
“That’s not the answer.”
Vicky’s words were soft, gently spoken, and yet they were a scourge across my back. I winced, not turning but withdrawing my fingers from the shot glass as if it was red-hot.
“I know that. But it’s what I’ve got.” I closed my eyes, leaning against the bar. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up again.”
“You’re eligible for veteran’s benefits,” she reminded me, moving into the living room without switching on the lights. She didn’t touch me, maybe because she was upset or maybe because she sensed how prickly and intense I was feeling. “That includes psychological counseling.”
Now I did turn and face her, though her eyes were swallowed up in shadow.
“That would mean leaving here long-term,” I said. “The closest veterans’ health facilities are back at Tahn-Skyyiah, and they aren’t going to let us stay there long-term, not unless we re-up in the military. We’d have to go all the way to Aphrodite, use our separation bonuses to live on while I’m being treated.”
“All that’s true,” she admitted. “But I’d do it if you want to. You’re more important to me than this place.” She shrugged. “If we had to, we could go back to Brigantia, stay with your friend, Dak.”
“I thought we were coming here because Brigantia had too many bad memories,” I murmured. I stared at the bottle. I wanted another drink. I needed another drink. The numbness had worn off quick, as if the effect was lessening with time. “But the memories are in my head, no matter where we go.”
Dak would help us if I asked, but stubborn resistance dragged at my heels. I’d turned down his offer to settle on Brigantia, and coming back to him now with my tail between my legs would chafe at my soul.
“Why do they let them come here?” I asked, spinning around to throw the question at her like an accusation, trying to drown out the despair in anger. “We just fought a war with the bastards. They’re violent fanatics, from the old women right down to the teenagers. Why are they letting them leave their own God-forsaken planet at all?”
“Because the war’s over and no one wants to go on fighting it. Because keeping their disaffected warrior class penned up on their homeworld is just asking for someone to build it back up into an army fighting for some other cause, a secular leader.”