She shook her head. “You don’t know Inix.”

  “I don’t need to know him. These tin-pot dictators are all the same. You give them an inch and they take a mile. Don’t tell me you would have starved those people out to pay some warlord his racket money.”

  “I don’t make the rules. I do what Inix tells me to.”

  “That’s the lamest bullshit excuse I’ve ever heard,” he snapped, “and I don’t believe you. I saw you back at the village. You didn’t like it any better than I did. You would have let those people off the hook if it was up to you.”

  She squirmed in her seat. “I don’t know about that. Not everyone can be a white knight like you, Colonel.”

  “If you’re really the kind of person that would leave those people to die or take their women in payment just to keep the rest of the village alive, then you aren’t the person I thought you were—but what the hell could I expect from a two-bit outlaw like you? I’ll tell Inix the same thing to his face. The only reason I’m traveling with you is to get medical treatment for Ludlow. The minute we get that, I’m out. You’re despicable—all of you.”

  Her gaze darted around the circle of faces. The rest of the Centurion crew listened to Michael reading Gnara the riot act. None of them interrupted or offered any contradiction. Of course not.

  Michael read that look. He would have to be blind to miss it. Gnara and Kalistrea were all alone with the Centurion crew now. Did she really think he would threaten or mistreat her to get her to comply with his way of doing things?

  The thought made him sick to his stomach. “Whatever pitstops you had planned to make on your back to Inix’s fortress, we’re going to skip them and go straight there. We’ll get Ludlow fixed up, and I’ll explain all this to Inix and take the consequences. You can blame it all on me, and once we’re gone, you can go back to killing defenseless people or whatever it is you do for your business.”

  He heard how cutting his tone had become, but he didn’t try to soften it. He waited, but she didn’t answer.

  He finally opened his pack, took out some rations, ate in silence, and then pulled out his sleeping roll to stretch out on the ground.

  The others softened up much sooner. They talked and joked, and later, Webb started talking to Kalistrea. The conversation flowed around the circle easily and lightly, considering how Michael had just been talking to Gnara.

  Neither he nor she broke that silence. He didn’t care. He wanted nothing more to do with her—or any of them. He really hoped he found a way to ditch these people, but he still needed to take care of Ludlow.

  The others started pulling out their rolls, wrapping up, and stretching out on the ground. They dropped off one after the other. Michael should have done the same thing. He didn’t know why he was still up.

  He finally pulled his roll around him, but before he could lie down, Gnara murmured under her breath, “Herek will try to kill you.”

  Michael spun around. He didn’t expect her to say anything, and she surprised him.

  She looked up and the same soft, kind expression came into her eyes that she’d used when she tried to explain to him about the universal translator. “He’ll make good on his threat. He doesn’t make threats like that unless he plans to carry them out.”

  Michael slumped. “Thank you for telling me, but I think I can handle him.”

  She studied him more closely. “I’ve never met anyone who did what you did today.”

  He snorted. “I find that impossible to believe.”

  “It’s true. No one around here does anything like that. No one around here would ever dream of putting themselves in front of a gun for a total stranger.”

  “That’s a shame. It’s a tragic way to run a society, if you ask me.”

  She cocked her head and scrutinized him. “You really think that, don’t you? Do people do stuff like that all the time where you come from?”

  “Not all the time, because we have a society where people don’t go around extorting the lifeblood out of innocent civilians and stealing other people’s women under the threat of violence. Plenty of my people would do it if it was called for.” He nodded around the circle. “Any of these men would have done it.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Absolutely. You saw the way they acted when Herek threatened me. Any soldier in our army would do it. My son would have done it. I can name you a hundred guys I’ve served with who would do it in a heartbeat—more than a hundred—so yeah. I guess it’s pretty common. The attitude is, at least.”

  She remained silent for a while and stared into the flames. Her behavior confounded him. He couldn’t figure her out. One minute, she worked with Baga and Herek to threaten those villagers. She’d shot Unqrad in cold blood, and now she acted like she might actually regret her actions.

  “What is it with you, anyway?” he demanded. “Why are you doing all this?”

  She glanced over at him, but only for an instant. “How did you get like this, Colonel? How did you get to believe this about people—and your comrades and everything?”

  He had to think about it before he answered. “I don’t know. I guess it’s the way I’ve always been. My father was an officer in the Corps, and I grew up with a code of honor to defend the defenseless and protect the innocent. Every officer and soldier I ever served with felt the same way. I passed the same thing on to my son and all the soldiers under me. It’s just the way I’m made, I guess. I’ve never been on the wrong side of the law before.”

  She let the silence linger again, so he decided to go for broke and say what he’d been holding back on saying all evening. He couldn’t imagine why he’d held back on this when he’d said so many other insulting things to her.

  “Did you ever think maybe the lawmen are right to come after these people and try to stop them? Did you ever think maybe the lawmen are like me and my men? They’re trying to protect the colonists—from you. You’re the ones who are wrong and ought to be stopped.”

  “I never thought about it before, but I’ve definitely been thinking it since I met you.”

  Those words stunned him into silence. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t intend to have that big an impact on her. Sure, he’d hoped to get through to her. He didn’t expect her to say something like that.

  “You don’t understand how it is on this side of the law, Colonel,” she murmured. “Kalistrea and I spent our whole lives on the streets of Breon. We ate out of garbage dumps until we got the idea to steal for our survival. I’ve never had anyone but my sister—until we came to join the Company. Inix found us on the streets of Breon and brought us to his fortress. Maybe things would have been different if I could have grown up in your Corps, but this is all I’ve ever known. It’s all most of us have ever known.”

  He listened and waited for her to say something else, but she didn’t. The fire crackled, and he became aware that he and Gnara were the only people still awake. Maybe that was the reason she chose this moment to tell her story.

  He chose his next words with care and breathed, “Maybe it isn’t too late.”

  17

  Michael woke up in the middle of the night. He didn’t hear or sense anything that might have woken him up, except that he’d primed himself when he went to sleep to expect something like this.

  Three of the four planets gleamed in the night sky above him. Teladus had set, but the other three still floated up there and shone as brightly as ever. He could see enough of the surrounding forest to realize there was no one here.

  Gnara, Kalistrea, and the rest of the Centurion crew lay asleep nearby. The Centurion crew lay wrapped in their sleeping rolls. Gnara and Kalistrea slept on the bare ground with no cover at all.

  Michael gazed up at the sky, but under his blankets, he shifted his hand closer to his rifle. He’d left it lying on the ground next to his body outside his blankets. He wanted to be able to use it in case something like this happened.

  He also wore a hunting knife in a sheath on his belt. He had no way of knowing which one he would need to or be able to use when the fur started to fly.

  He listened, but he didn’t hear anything. Gnara’s words kept repeating in his mind. Herek will try to kill you.

  She’d made it sound like Baga and Herek had already high-tailed it back to Inix’s fortress, but Michael heard what she didn’t say. She wouldn’t have warned him tonight of all nights if the threat wasn’t immediate.

  Why on God’s green Earth would Herek wait to carry out his threat when he could accomplish it so much more easily here?

  Michael glanced around the clearing. Donahoe snored not too far away, and Webb coughed in his sleep. The sound disturbed Gnara, and she rolled over before she settled down again.

  She’d been facing away from Michael before. Now he could see her clearly. She posed such a contradiction for him. She represented everything he hated, but he found it impossible to hate her.

  He couldn’t help but respect her. At least she realized how bad her life had been. She didn’t argue or get offended when he called her despicable or when he suggested that the lawmen were right in trying to annihilate these outlaws.

  He was still gazing down at her sleeping face when a shadow caught his eye. It made no sound. A black shape moved ever so slightly in his peripheral vision, and in a split second, Herek burst into view, launched himself across the clearing, and pounced on top of Michael.

  A knife flashed in Herek’s hand. He would have killed Michael then and there if Michael hadn’t been waiting for this exact attack.

  Michael shot his hand out from under his blankets, but he couldn’t get a grip on his rifle in time. Herek outweighed him, and Michael wouldn’t have been able to use a rifle at this close range anyway.

  The blankets worked more in Herek’s favor than anything, and Herek played them to the limit. He grappled Michael to the ground and tried to wrap the blankets around his arms. Michael had to fight tooth and nail, and even then, he didn’t get his arms free in time.

  Both men roared in fury and roused the whole camp. The Centurion crew all jumped up. Gnara and Kalistrea sat up, and when they saw Michael and Herek rolling over and over on the ground, both women reclined back and barely watched the fight.

  Webb darted forward. “Colonel!” He started to raise his rifle, but Kalistrea stopped him.

  “Let them finish it.”

  “Hell no!” Webb shrugged her off. “I gotta help the colonel.”

  She held him back. “If he doesn’t kill Herek now, Herek will only come back and try again later. If you interfere and kill Herek to protect the colonel, Baga will seek revenge for his brother’s death. The only way to settle this is for one of them to kill the other right now.”

  He spun around and gaped at her. “Are you serious? That’s barbaric!”

  She shrugged and sat back in her place. “That’s the way we do things.”

  “Come on, Colonel!” Ludlow yelled. “Kill this sucker! Put him in the ground!”

  The other guys yelled and called encouragement and suggestions, but Michael barely heard them. Herek snarled in his face and kept trying to raise the knife to stab him.

  Michael struggled harder, and Herek had to use all his strength to hold Michael’s arms pinned down. Herek couldn’t use the knife like this, but the position disfavored Michael more.

  He actually dreaded the moment he broke Herek’s grip. Once Herek no longer had to restrain Michael, he would be free to use his knife all he wanted. Michael had to find a way to counter Herek’s strength.

  Their struggle bowled them over and over each other. Michael managed to force Herek onto his back, and then Herek regained the upper hand.

  Herek yanked Michael sideways and, in that moment, Michael felt the knife at his side. He just needed to reach it, but Herek held his arms down no matter what.

  Michael exploded in a fresh burst of struggling. He and Herek jerked all over the place, and they rolled dangerously close to the fire.

  It had burned down to embers, and that gave Michael an idea. He still had the blanket wrapped around him. Herek had been using the blanket against him all this time.

  Herek snarled at him again. Michael jerked Herek away from the fire, and Herek threw all his weight against Michael’s arms to hold him down.

  Michael reacted in a flash and used that momentum to carry Herek all the way over. Michael rolled him onto his back in the embers.

  Smoke and the acrid fumes of burning flesh sizzled from Herek’s back as the embers ate through his shirt. He roared in pain and his arms came loose.

  Michael sprang away and seized his own knife. He expected Herek to jump clear just as fast, but the sudden turn of events surprised Herek more than Michael expected.

  Herek lay there for a second and screamed himself hoarse before he realized that Michael wasn’t holding him down any longer.

  Michael lunged for him, flung all his weight on top of Herek to force him down even harder on the embers, and stabbed again and again with his knife. He pounded it up to the hilt a dozen times in Herek’s chest and leapt clear before Herek could even move.

  The rest of the Centurion crew stared down at his body in stunned shock for a minute. Herek’s back kept sizzling in the embers while he writhed and gasped. He kept twisting one way and then the other like he wanted to sit up or roll off the fire, only to collapse back into place, where he gulped like a fish trying to inhale.

  His eyes raced around the circle, trying to see everything. His expression went from fury to terror to pleading to indignation and back to fury that no one would come and help him.

  As soon as Michael jumped away to safety, Gnara and Kalistrea both turned away and lost all interest in Herek. Gnara settled back into her place and smacked her lips even before Herek finished twitching. “Well, that’s all done. Now we don’t have to worry about him.”

  “Aren’t you…aren’t you going to do…something?” Donahoe choked.

  “Do something? Like what?” She glanced down at Herek’s body, pushed herself up on her hands and knees, and kicked him off the fire.

  He gave a strangled cry as he rolled off the embers onto the bare dirt where the Centurion crew had just been sleeping. He sprawled there, still smoking. His expression changed a few more times, and then he collapsed and didn’t move again.

  The Centurion crew stared at him in flabbergasted silence for what seemed like hours. “What do we do with him now?” Bauer finally murmured.

  Gnara waved her hand toward the trees. “Throw him in the bushes. He can’t stay here.”

  “You really aren’t going to do anything?” Carrillo asked. “Like—not anything?”

  “Like what?” Gnara asked. “He’s dead. He made threats against another man, attacked him in his sleep, and Colonel Decosta beat him and killed him. What else is there to do?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe bury him…or at least…” Carrillo shuffled his feet. “You could say a few words over him. I don’t know. He’s your buddy, not mine.”

  Gnara snorted. “If you want to say a few words over him, go right ahead, but I won’t. Herek was a bastard. You all saw that, and we don’t have time to bury him…unless you want to. Here. I’ll do it myself. Come on, Kalistrea.”

  The two sisters got up and positioned themselves around Herek’s body. Michael couldn’t even be certain Herek was even fully dead yet.

  Gnara took hold of his jacket by both shoulders. Kalistrea grabbed his legs. They lifted him easily, even though he was so much bigger than they were. They lugged him into the bushes, pitched him into the undergrowth, came back, and settled down in their places.

  Michael realized too late that he should have helped the two women get rid of Herek’s body. He agreed with Carrillo that the crew should have done something more dignified with a man who did help to save them from the colonists during the battle.

  Herek might have been a bastard and a merciless outlaw who abused innocent, defenseless people, but he had been a member of their group until just a few hours ago. Didn’t he deserve some better end than this? Michael didn’t actually know Herek well enough to say.

  Michael didn’t seem to be able to move. He clutched his blood-stained knife in his fist. He didn’t seem to be able to relax his stance even to wipe the blood off it and put it back into its sheath.

  The two women came back, and Gnara looked up at him. “Are you okay?”

  Michael didn’t reply. He didn’t know if he was okay or not. He’d never killed anyone like this before. He’d killed people in battle, but only using guns and only in open warfare, with thousands of other soldiers doing the same thing.

  The closest he’d ever come to any of his victims was shooting them with rifles. He’d never killed anyone with his own hands. What should he think and feel about that? Did this make him a bad person?

  He understood intellectually that he was in a survival situation, and that Herek had attacked him first. Herek would have killed Michael if Michael didn’t kill him first.

  Michael’s brain didn’t seem to want to think intellectually right now. Would Herek’s death haunt him for life?

  Gnara and Kalistrea didn’t give the matter a second thought. Gnara added some sticks to the embers, built them up into a fire again, and then the two women got comfortable. They were obviously going to go straight back to sleep after this.

  The Centurion crew stayed where they were for a long, long time. The silence became excruciating, and still no one moved. Michael should have been the one to break it and tell the others to go back to sleep, but he couldn’t. He didn’t know how to move after this or even if he should move. He didn’t recognize himself.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Ludlow hobbled forward, turned backward next to the fire, and waved at his comrades. “You boys settle down and go back to sleep. It’s all over. There’s nothing to look at. Go on, Eller. Lie down.”

  Ludlow stood there confronting them all until they turned away, straightened out their sleeping rolls, and started to stretch out. Then he turned to Michael.

  Ludlow didn’t put any weight on his injured leg. He had to lurch over to Michael, took his elbow, and turned him away from the fire. “Come here, sir,” Ludlow told him.

 

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