Chapter 9
AMY
Iwake before dawn, the base’s lights bleeding faintly through the slit window. My fingers tingle, restless. The words “The Enemy Has Eyes” draft itself across my mind even before I open my holopad. I roll out of the cot, boots cold on metal plating, and head for the comms chamber.
He was a boy, no more than seven cycles. Dust clung to his face like a second skin. His eyes—too big and glassy—watched the rubble shift. He held a broken windmill toy, one blade missing. When I raised my camera, he didn’t flinch. The war had already made him invisible.
I pause, taste acrid bile. My fingers hover over keys. I can’t mention Kanapa directly. But I’ll direct every blade in this piece at whose orders the rubble falls.
I weave in quotes—snippets from the medic’s testimony, the soldier’s faces, the toy I retrieved in that strike zone. I dress my words in grief, in anger, in sorrow. I let the earth’s tremors shake the sentence structure.
Halfway through, Rex’s face pulses onto my screen. His hairs are disheveled; his eyes are red. He didn’t expect me to still be up.
“You’re not sleeping again, are you?” he says, voice dry.
“Too much work,” I reply. I don’t mention that I’m writing the piece he’ll refuse.
He rubs his forehead. “Amy… I saw your draft title. Enemy Has Eyes? That’s dangerous ground.”
I lean forward. “Danger is why we do this.”
He sighs hard. “You won’t run it. You can fridge it, bury it, hell, I’ll veto it.”
I swallow the retort that it’s not my show to veto. Instead I say, “Then I’ll publish it somewhere else.”
He stares at me. “You’ll be blacklisted. They’ll tie your name to mutiny before dawn.”
I shut the feed.
Later, I find Darun in the courtyard, leaning against a turret wall. His arms are folded. The morning light washes him half in shadow, half blaze. The smell of gun oil hangs around his sleeves.
I approach him, the holopad tucked under my arm.
“Darun,” I say gently. He doesn’t move.
“What will you do when the war ends?” I ask.
“Wars don’t end. They pause.”
“Stop right there,” I retort. “That’s coward’s logic. It must end. People have to choose differently.”
He laughs, but it’s bitter. “Na?ve—maybe. But I’ve seen wars “end” in bodies buried and flags changed. They don’t end.”
I push closer. The heat between us is brutal. “You used to believe, Darun. I saw it. Somewhere behind your armor, you believed this could be better.”
He looks away. The moment quivers. We stand too close. I can feel his breath, smell the grit on his scales. My heart drums.
A distant shout cracks the tension. Soldiers’ voices. Orders barked. The moment fractures.
I turn away first, shoulders stiff. The weight of his gaze presses me. I don’t look back as I walk off.
He watches me go, jaw pressed, heart tighter than steel.
The war resumes its roar. And so do we.