35. THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-FIVE
CALVEROUS
Location: Jiradesh Desert
The walk from the command sector’s infirmary tent passed quickly and without unwanted eyes.
Only the sky remained awake, glaring purple and blue against the sands.
Calver marveled at the way his back felt as he stepped.
No burns. No pulling, no tearing, no itching—no barbs.
Stranger still, there was a bubble stuck in his chest and nothing seemed to dislodge it.
He was a sapping fool. Raimee’s exact words had been “I don’t have anything to lose.
” Not exactly a declaration that he was anything to her beyond the best survival tool at her disposal.
And yet, every second with her seemed worth all that had happened to him.
Like each moment of his life had happened in order to bring him there, so he could warm her up for five minutes while they conspired for a future that might keep them together.
All he had to do was uphold his end of the plan. This time, he would carry it through. This time, he would redeem himself. This time, he wasn’t alone.
Calver wound through pitched tents towards the mess wagon.
A mellow golden light outlined its wooden door, lifting his spirits ever higher.
Niklaus was still awake. He could tell Calver everything that had transpired after his collapse.
He might have even turned Mastico to their cause.
The Major General could be their greatest proponent in fighting back.
If he knew they were headed for an ambush, he could plan his own defenses, right under Thyatira’s nose.
Calver didn’t knock on the door, but slammed it open. Niklaus was there, fresh bottle in hand.
Calver started.
“Unless it involves me sitting here on my ass, enjoying a nice quaff, keep me out of it.”
The bubble of exuberance that had carried Calver here popped.
Niklaus’s compliance might have been a thin thread to hold his hopes on, but he was sure there was still a man behind the addict who would help him.
He snatched the bottle and smashed it against the wagon’s metal frame.
Amber liquid pooled on the floorboards, draining through the cracks.
Niklaus stared at Calver like he was an aethersprite.
“That was a thirty-year.”
“And the scrap cook needs a cheer up, a rub down, and a pension.” Niklaus shook his head. “Cal, I like you, but the situation has escalated. I want out.”
Niklaus looked away. “I can’t do anything for you.”
“And you can tell me what you haven’t.” Niklaus huffed, words slurring, face drooping. “What are you? Are you a Tera’thian? Have you been manipulating me all along? You’re here on restrictions. I shouldn’t have expected anything different. And certainly not from a Curtaim.”
Fourteen years since Calver had been judged by his father’s name. Fourteen years, and those words still stung. Luckily for him, letting them slide from him was still muscle memory.
Niklaus’s eyes rolled like a petulant child’s.
“Of course, who gives a Shrokan shrat what I think. It’s what command thinks that’s important.
They’re the ones you’re after. Manipulating them.
Manipulating me. Manipulating the Ruxian.
” He let out the laugh of a man who knows he’s not funny.
“For weeks, I’ve stuck my neck out for you.
No more. Tell me how you know what you know about distortion technology and who you’re working for, or you’ll not hear me sing another note. ”
Sharing details about himself was one thing, but he wouldn’t disclose anything about Fankalo. Niklaus sniffed at Calver’s silence and turned to rummage behind the dull trays on the shelves for another bottle—black ceramic. Calver snatched that one too.
Niklaus gave him a pleading look. “Now hear me out—”
Calver smashed it. A waste of pottery really—tinkering across the floor, dark fluid sloshing in every direction—but Creation’s fire, did it feel good to break something.
Niklaus threw up his arms. “Bad! No! Brooding, bloody mongrel!”
That was exactly what he was. When Calver left, Niklaus was the only one who could keep trying to turn Mastico and the rest of the Red Wing against Thyatira. The only one he could trust to keep Raimee safe.
“No. You’ll tell me because we’re shratten friends and you owe that to me!”
Calver regretted the words before he’d finished signaling them. They sat between them, stinking like piss in the sun.
Niklaus’s nose twitched. “Well. That’s that.”
He should have signaled sorry. He should have signaled let me explain, but somehow his fingers wrote out instead.
“You really think that’s appealing to me?” Niklaus sucked at his teeth. “Listen, you don’t want me to have any part of this. Any time I try to help anyone, it makes things worse.”
Fates help them: a couple of suicidal pariahs convincing each other of their worth.
“I do.”
Maybe Niklaus would respond to reason.
“You can’t speak,” Niklaus snapped. “Can you not hear either?”
Calver wasn’t sure what was happening to his throat.
He tried to swallow. It hurt him. The Survivor shifted somewhere in the Void, and Calver vanquished it before it could pull him under.
He couldn’t look Niklaus in the eye. He couldn’t do anything, really, worthless idiot that he was.
He stepped out of the wagon and nearly stumbled into the sand. He had hoped…
He shouldn’t have hoped for anything. Not from Niklaus. He had no time to focus on the things he couldn’t save. Finally, for the first time in a very long time, there were other things he could.
Calver returned to Dex’s tent, pitched late in the afternoon after the day’s march. He pulled off his sliced shirt and exchanged it for his spare. He packed up his supplies: what was left of his canteen, the bedroll. Then Dex’s hushed voice rasped outside the tent.
“Nameless.”
Calver poked his head into the open air, glanced around, grabbed the boy at the nape of his neck, and pulled him into the confined space.
“I got everything you asked.” Dex rubbed at his neck. “Loaded into wagon horses at the western rim.”
Calver couldn’t help but notice the plural.
“Quick. We won’t have a better chance to go than now.”
Though Calver paused for a moment. Dex’s ability to read signals had improved… impressively so. But considering their destination, the boy would be more of a liability than an asset.
Dex didn’t move. “You need me.”
“Because I have a plan.”
“What is it then? Statistically speaking, it can’t be worse than your last one. The one that nearly blew up half the encampment and your discretion along with it.”
Calver blinked hard enough to stamp iron. It felt like half the military was in on his life, now, and meddling with its outcome.
Simple. That was simple, right?
“Listen, we need to go now, before we lose our shot, and I’m not taking you to the supplies until you agree we’re getting out of here together.”
Chaos, did Calver ever have a headache. he asked, shaking his hand for emphasis.
“Because I just loosed about fifty wagon horses off the eastern rim, and the night watchguards have all been rounded up to retrieve them. And because if you don’t, Thyatira will know I’m complicit faster than it takes to scrape two stones together.
” Calver would never again doubt the capabilities of a scrawny person.
“And because I know how to shut down a distortion circuit. And because I have a copy of the same universal activator that Thyatira holds.”
Any lingering doubt about Dex’s trustworthiness evaporated. That was a dangerous revelation.
Calver shook his head. It had been completed on another. One made by a perversion of his blood.
“Regardless of whether my universal activator will work, I need to go with you to keep my sister informed.”
“That’s a given.”
“That’s not fair.”
There were times when victory could not be inclusive.
Calver left the tent and made for the western rim. Dex dashed around him, sand flying out from beneath his boots, and barred his path.
“This recruitment will see me properly tended beneath the dunes before I let my sister get framed for malintent. Understand me? Going with you is my best bet at keeping her head attached to her obstinate shoulders. Which means you’re going to have to knock me senseless to stop me.”
Fates, did Calver ever understand. Seconds ticked by. He glared at the diminutive boy, whose iris-less eyes widened into obsidian pits.
“Everything doubled.”
“No. I’ve always wanted to.”
“I’ve been sore for two months.”
Calver scrunched his eyes shut, trying to make sense of the overwhelming sensation in his chest that didn’t draw the Survivor from the Void. Because it wasn’t anger. It wasn’t anxiety.
It was gratitude.
Calver and Dex moved to the western rim. Behind dozens of deserted wagons, Dex had saddled four desert horses: carob in color, stocky in build, suspicious in temperament. One each for riding, one each to hold rations and water.