CHAPTER TWENTY
THE CARGO SHIP LANDED on the battle-torn colony of Tandaeron in the middle of a snow storm. Geoff stood next to her, swaying as the ship touched down. He glanced out at the arctic landscape. “This ain’t Hades,” he said.
Caina was in civilian clothing because they didn’t want Joshua to know she was a soldier. They needed a psychological jolt, and she had to look as much like his helpless younger sister as he remembered.
It wasn’t much of a stretch. She’d found her dumb yellow sandals with the straps that wound up her legs. To find them, she’d called her dad, and he searched until he discovered them tucked in one of the transports they’d used. The sandals were crumpled and crushed, the straps stiffened when she received them via transport delivery. That part of her life seemed a million years ago.
Brian stood on the other side of her, his white blonde hair spiked up, making his blue eyes look electric.
“Ready?” he asked her.
She nodded. Her long hair, unbound around her shoulders, blew against her face when the door opened.
Cold, frigid air and icy snow filled the plane. If the war didn’t kill the colonists, the weather would. Any other time the colonists could fortify themselves against the frequent yet predictable storms, but now they were forced to use most of their resources to defend against the Nostekoi. Their supply shipments were in danger of being disrupted by the Nostekoi almost constantly.
The Alliance force landed in the city of Andaras—a small entertainment mecca with theaters, apartments and a few colleges. The colonists were hunkered down at the college as Alliance forces tried to find all the Nostekoi occupiers and force them out. Most of the fighting was centered away from the college in the town.
Caina braced herself against the raging winter wind. She peered out through her thermal vision shield at the white maelstrom whirling around them.
“Onix on!” Frankie barked, his voice clear in her earpiece. Frankie had been a grid ball player before the war, but volunteered to serve the Alliance. His black hair was cut short like everyone else’s, a big change from his long hair. His commands were always confident, and he never showed any hesitation. The rank of captain fit him well.
Brian and Geoff disappeared in a shimmer of silver lines, as did the others. Caina alone was visible.
“Okay, Caina. You’re out first. Go,” Frankie said. “We’ll be right with you.”
She bolted out of the door and into the snow where it swirled around her, making it impossible to see.
Plasma blasts burst in the white blindness, explosive with heat. Bodies moved in and out of view, hiding behind buildings.
A red plasma blast hit close to her, and she felt a reassuring hand on her arm. “We’ve got you,” she heard Geoff’s voice.
“Just keep moving,” Brian added.
She saw a hot line of red plasma burst out from Brian’s gun, the plasma spilling over a body in the distance. “Gotcha,” he said under his breath.
“We need to get beyond this perimeter into the heart of the fighting,” Frankie’s voice said in her earpiece.
Geoff pulled her toward the cluster of plasma blasts into the wind-driven snow. Theaters and office buildings, their windows dark and unlit, had become hiding places for snipers.
“Weather report?” she heard Frankie ask.
“You’ve got a window coming up,” the voice of the navigator replied from the ship.
“How long?”
“It will be here in five minutes and it’ll last for fifteen minutes.”
“Cutting it close. We might not make it. When is the next one?”
“Uhh, there are some factors that are about to come into play…I have to wait until the next window is over to let you know.”
The planet’s blizzards moved quickly, influenced by far-ranging climate events that suddenly coalesced, often hundreds of miles away.
“What factors?” Frankie asked.
“Captain, we don’t have the time for me to explain, sir.” Jordan’s voice had turned polite.
“We’ll try to hit this one. If not, we’ll have to work out the next one.”
“Yes, sir.”
After a few short commands, Caina and her cousins were surrounded by the rest of their troop. She measured their progress by how many bodies fell. She stepped past the rapidly cooling dead, wary of moving heat signatures in the distance that would indicate Nostekoi waiting for them.
Jordan’s voice spoke. “Two minutes until the window, sir.”
“Move it!” Frankie barked.
Brian ran ahead, around a corner, disappearing from sight. Red lines of plasma shot out beyond the corner, a furious display of deadly scarlet. He’d gone right into a cluster of Nostekoi. The plasma lines dissipated, and then there was a long silence, filled only with the sound of the wind. She pulled her vision shield off and stared into the snow, holding her breath. Had he made it?
“Brian?” she asked.
“What?” he responded, his breath coming heavy and fast in her earpiece.
“Just checking,” she said, relieved.
His short laugh sounded in her ear. “All clear, Captain.”
Geoff lifted his vision shield and looked down at her, giving a quick shake of his head at his brother’s cheap-thrill recklessness.
“Back him up!” Frankie shouted.
She heard feet crunching in the snow beside her, the only indication that she was with anyone since the onix still kept them out of sight.
“One minute left, sir,” Jordan said.
Geoff grabbed her arm and pulled her into the fray, a safe distance behind the front line that surged around the corner.
She didn’t know what made her look up, maybe her training. A battlefield was 360 degrees even in a blinding snowstorm. A flash of hot red sparked above her; someone had been waiting in one of the taller buildings.
“Geoff! Eleven o’clock, UP!” Brian’s voice said in her earpiece.
He turned but he was too late. The look in Geoff’s eyes as he stepped in front of her became a haunting memory. He never hesitated. The plasma engulfed his body, the red flooding over him. His back arched and he fell down beside her, his body seizing, and then he lay still. He’d taken the hit meant for her.
She ripped off her vision shield and got to her knees. His face was bare to the driven snow, his helmet lying next to him, the onix deactivated now. There was no medical procedure for red plasma wounds, because red plasma didn’t injure; it killed. Geoff was dead.
Someone yanked her away from his body and she looked up, stunned. Frankie lifted his shield for a brief moment, his eyes vivid and intense right before he reactivated his onix. The red plasma still flickered around Geoff’s still body. If she touched him, she could be killed. She’d almost forgotten, but Frankie hadn’t.
The young commander didn’t say anything, and she couldn’t either, her whole body cold.
“Thirty seconds.” Jordan’s voice sounded far away.
The red plasma around Geoff’s body stopped flickering, turning dull. She leaned forward and gripped his jacket, pressing her face into his chest.
“Caina, I’m sorry,” Frankie’ voice said in her earpiece. “If we’re going to retrieve your brother, we have to leave now.”
She got up from her knees and numbly followed Frankie. She stood in the middle of an intersection, her dark clothes stark against the bright snow, as they had planned. The wind died and the air cleared, all the buildings and the streets becoming visible in a matter of seconds. The sun opened up above her, sending a shaft of sunlight down on her head, as if the sky knew what to do. The plasma fire stopped. She stood alone in the street, waiting.
One of the Nostekoi moved from behind a wall and lifted the shield on his helmet. He was tall, his hair a little too long for a military soldier. Joshua’s red eyes met hers, and she stood shocked, blinking in the suddenly clear daylight.
He took a step forward, and she ran to him. Frankie began shouting orders, but she wasn’t listening. Joshua’s scarlet eyes looked down into hers, his face hard, so much thinner than she remembered.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
He didn’t seem pleased to see her. Hadn’t he wondered if she was all right? Did she matter to him anymore?
“You don’t have to stay with them. We’re bringing you back,” she said in a low voice.
She could sense that the onix-clad Alliance soldiers were surrounding Joshua.
“Whoever cooked this up was dead wrong about me. You’ve got to go.” His face never changed expression, his voice cold.
Suddenly angry, her hand found the gun on her hip and she lifted it, flipping it to green. She pulled the trigger, her hand moving quicker than her thoughts, making the decision for her.