Jade legacy, p.49
Jade Legacy, page 49
To take his mind off the discomfort, he imagined what Janloon would be like today. A pleasant day in autumn, the sun warm over bustling streets, the slightly sweet, spicy smell of the city wafting on the cool breeze coming off the harbor. With the nice weather, his grandmother would be outside cleaning up the flower beds. His mother would be redecorating. The Pillar would be holding meetings on the patio or overseeing the training of Fists on the lawn. Ru would be walking across Jan Royal campus to his next class. Jaya would’ve graduated from the Academy—was she a Finger in the clan now?
You chose this, Niko reminded himself. Most of the time, when he wasn’t freezing and homesick, he was pleased with his life-changing decision. He still had to go where he was sent and do what he was told, same as when he’d been a Finger, but no one treated him differently because of his name. No one asked for his family’s favor, or expected any greater performance from him than usual. He had the same clothes, the same weapons, the same shitty food as the next guy. Anonymity was something he’d never had before, and it was a glorious freedom that suited him. He was finally his own man.
He’d also seen for himself how much more there was to the world outside of Kekon and the clans. All of Niko’s life, the blood feud between the Mountain and No Peak had permeated Kekonese society and every aspect of his existence. Beyond the island, however, few people knew about it or cared. Most foreigners who wore jade never questioned where it came from, just as they never wondered where their food was grown or their clothes were made. The Green Bone clans seemed as irrelevant as Jim Sunto said they were—an isolated cultural anomaly. This was a revelation to Niko, the sort he’d been hoping for when he left Janloon. It confirmed suspicions he’d nursed for some time that the clan had given him only a narrow view of reality.
Next to him, Teije Inno shifted, trying to find a less uncomfortable position. Niko had met Teije and a dozen other Kekonese recruits at GSI’s orientation week at the beginning of last year. He’d recognized the man’s name, if not his face. Even though the Teijes were relatives of the Kauls and part of the No Peak clan, the families rarely socialized. In Kekon, the status difference between Niko and Teije Inno would’ve precluded much of a friendship, but out here they were two Kekonese away from home and surrounded by foreigners, and Niko was grateful for Teije’s presence.
Teije nudged him and made a small gesture, tapping his head. Perceive that? He jerked his chin toward the left. Niko could not see anything coming down the road. The sky still glowed an indigo blue, but under the cover of the pine trees it was already dark. Niko let his vision slide out of focus and stretched out his Perception, wishing it was stronger. All he could pick out at first were nearby energies—Teije’s aura right next to him, tiny flickers of rodent life under the snow and birds in the branches, the other two GSI soldiers across the road. After another two seconds of concentration, however, he made out the faint impression of several people, crammed too close together to distinguish their individual energies, but rapidly approaching his position. A single vehicle.
Niko pushed up on his elbows just enough to flash a hand signal toward where Falston and Hicks were concealed. He hoped the Espenians saw it through the gloom, or at least sensed the alertness in the jade auras of their Kekonese colleagues. Niko wouldn’t say he was friends with the two other men, but after three months together in the desolate countryside of Udain, he’d grown accustomed to them. Falston was gruff and cynical, and Hicks was bad-tempered, but they were generally decent and less condescending than other foreigners that Niko had interacted with. Ex-military Espenians were by far the most numerous group in GSI. Although they wore the least jade, they were the most annoyingly dogmatic about their way of doing things. They often lumped the Kekonese, the Keko-Espenians, and the Keko-Shotarians together even though the three groups didn’t speak the same language and avoided each other.
The vehicle came into sight: a muddy brown four-door pickup truck with a black tarp over the back, rolling slowly down the single-lane road, its snow tires crunching on the packed ice as it made its way toward the town of Hansill—a nondescript settlement of two hundred thousand people that Espenian intelligence had pinpointed as harboring members of an Ygutanian-supported Deliverantist rebellion against the autocratic Udaini government.
Niko squinted down the barrel of his R5. He remembered that Vin Solunu, one of the most senior Fists in No Peak, had such a precise long-range sense of Perception and extraordinary aim that he could shoot a living creature with his eyes closed from two hundred meters away. Niko had once seen him take out a squirrel in a tree while blindfolded. Niko had no such confidence in his own marksmanship, even with a night scope. Changing his mind, he slung the R5 over his shoulder and brought his knees and feet up into a crouch, motioning his intentions to Teije.
Teije’s eyes widened, but he nodded and stowed his own rifle, readying himself beside Niko. They breathed in together, gathering their jade energy. Falston and Hicks would not do it this way, but Niko and Teije were Kekonese Green Bones, and they did things the Kekonese way—close and personal.
Niko burst out of his place of concealment. His stiff muscles screamed in protest at the sudden change from stillness to explosive motion as Strength poured into his limbs, turning him into a blur of speed as he launched himself toward the road, clearing the snow and underbrush in two Light bounds.
His timing was perfect. As the truck clattered past, Niko rammed himself shoulder-first into the passenger side door at full Strength, like a stampeding bull shoving aside an obstacle. No one except a Green Bone with the highest level of Steel would try anything so dangerous. The impact threw Niko clear of the road. He flew several meters and tumbled into the trees. As the world upended in his vision, he glimpsed the truck swerving wildly as the driver hit the brakes—perhaps thinking he’d hit a deer.
Teije landed in the road in front of the truck and unleashed a powerful low Deflection that struck the vehicle’s wobbling front wheels, sending it into a dramatic 360-degree spin before it lurched into the nearest snowbank and came to a halt like a stuck cow.
Niko clambered to his feet, his head ringing. His legs went wobbly as he let the massive surge of Steel drop from his body, but nothing was broken. His rifle had been tossed into the snow a short distance away upon his landing. He snatched it and ran toward the truck, grasping for Lightness to keep from sinking into the powder, but sprinting low and hunched over. Alarm from the people inside spiked in his Perception, a sudden eruption of jagged red in his mind. Niko glimpsed the man in the driver’s seat raising a shotgun.
Bullets punched through the windshield, flinging the driver’s body backward. Falston and Hicks had reached the pickup and were releasing concentrated bursts of automatic fire that sparked in Niko’s vision like New Year’s firecrackers. The rear door of the truck’s cab opened and a man tumbled out, holding a pistol. He took a step and collapsed in the middle of the road, an unmoving lump on the ice.
By the time Niko reached them seconds later, the sharp report of rifle fire was fading through the forest. Spent shell casings littered the ground. “Seer’s balls!” Hicks whooped, smacking Niko on the back. “You crazy fucking keck, you ran into a truck!”
Niko gasped for breath, his heart still thudding with adrenaline and the elation of his own successful daring. A voice in the back of his brain exclaimed: If only the Horn had seen that! When he opened his mouth to speak, a noise emerged from inside the truck: a high-pitched cry of pain.
The men froze at the chilling sound. Niko moved first, pushing past Hicks and approaching the open cab. He saw the middle-aged driver and another, younger man, both dead, sprawled in their winter coats in the front seat. In the back seat was a boy—perhaps twelve, flopped over into the lap of a smaller child, a girl, maybe his sister. Nine or ten years old, covered in blood, but alive and wailing feebly.
“Fuck the gods,” Teije breathed behind him.
GSI’s intelligence sources in the Udaini government had told them that their target was an insurgent scouting party, that the men in the truck were the leaders of a radical Deliverantist cell. The dead men did not look like trained and hardened soldiers. They looked like ordinary townspeople.
Teije yanked the tarp off the back of the truck. “There’s nothing here.” No weapons, no explosives—just bundles of firewood, a coil of rope, and a red plastic sled.
Niko could not stop looking at the girl. Her hair was pale beneath a pink wool cap and she had dark freckles. Her mouth opened and closed as she stared back at him in confusion and terror. He reached into the truck and tried to unbuckle her seatbelt, to lift her out.
Falston seized Niko’s arm. For a second, the man’s Espenian words didn’t register with Niko. “We have to get out of here,” he said. “Before reinforcements arrive.”
Niko jerked his arm out of the man’s grip. “There aren’t any reinforcements. We fucked up.” Then realizing that in his shock and anger, he’d spoken in Kekonese, he said, in rough Espenian, “The girl. We have to help her.”
“You can’t,” Falston said, his voice deadened with certainty. “She’s not going to make it.” The man was right. Niko could Perceive the life escaping the child like white smoke spilling into darkness. He pushed the girl’s dead brother aside and began to Channel into her, but it was like trying to keep water inside a colander. The energy was pouring out in multiple directions and he didn’t have the level of Perception and medical training to know where to focus.
If only Uncle Anden were here. He’d know what to do. He could save her. He even brought my ma back from the dead.
The girl’s chest stopped moving. Niko knew the moment he was Channeling into a corpse—it felt like trying to push his own energy into a dry sponge. Her eyes were still open, gazing unblinking at nothing.
Niko turned around. Teije was standing behind him, staring over his shoulder. The man’s fingers were moving agitatedly over the jade he wore around his neck. He backed away from the expression on Niko’s face. “We couldn’t have done anything,” he said weakly.
Niko launched himself at Falston. “Why did you fire?” he shouted, grabbing the man by his tactical vest. “I stopped the truck. You should’ve looked inside. You should’ve—” He could not string the right Espenian words together to express himself coherently, to scream that any moron could fire an assault rifle, but Green Bones trained their jade abilities for a reason. Any Finger careless enough to spray gunfire into innocent people would be jade-stripped by his own clan before being exiled or executed for breaking aisho.
Falston was a large, strong man. He shoved Niko away, hard, sending him stumbling back. Hicks got in between them, and Teije grabbed Niko. Jade auras flared, sharp and white with aggression and panic.
“Get a fucking grip!” Hicks shouted at Niko. “It’s no one’s fault, we were doing our jobs. There must’ve been a mix-up, we obviously got some shitty intel, all right?”
Teije glanced back at the truck and blanched. “Should we report this?” According to GSI’s policies, all noncombatant casualties were supposed to be escalated to an ethics review committee.
“Fuck, no,” Hicks exclaimed, aghast at Teije’s question. “We’re not soldiers in the ROE military! We’re contractors; we don’t get any government protection. If they decide we used inappropriate force, we’re liable.”
“There are… rules,” Niko choked out. “We have jade and these people don’t.”
“We also have armored tanks and rocket launchers and satellite imagery,” Hicks retorted. “What’s your point?”
Falston said with brusque reasonableness, “Listen, if the bad guys didn’t hide among civilians, this wouldn’t happen, but sometimes it does. It happened when I was in Oortoko too, more often than I like to think about. You can’t let it eat you up, crumb. This is war. The company has to have written policies and shit, for legal reasons, but trust me, no one higher up wants us to report this.”
Hicks said, “We eliminated the target, that’s what we report. The three men in the truck probably were Deliverantist rebels.” When Niko opened his mouth again, Hicks put his face right up to him, so close Niko could smell the man’s breath and see the hairs in his thin nostrils as they flared. “Enough, you thick-headed keck. Some crazy shit happened and we’re all rattled, but I’m the team leader here, and we’re going to do what I say. You got a problem with that?”
No one had ever spoken to Niko with such aggressive disrespect before and for several seconds, his brain was as blank as his face must’ve appeared. Then a number of replies sprang to mind—but he didn’t possess a profane enough vocabulary in the Espenian language to express any of them. His inarticulate shame felt as hot as a sudden fever. If it were possible to offer a clean blade, he would’ve done so on the spot.
He could defy his Espenian teammates and go up the chain of command, all the way to Jim Sunto, or to GSI’s parent company, Anorco Global Resources. And then what? His mind veered in helpless directions. Would their superiors believe his word over that of Falston and Hicks? Would the men be disciplined, or would the blame fall harder on him and Teije? Was Falston correct, that any report would be unwelcome and met with recrimination, and in the end, the incident would be deemed unavoidable collateral damage?
Either way, the girl in the truck would not come back to life.
Hicks’s eyes were still drilling into his. The jade auras of the other men were blaring shrill in his mind. He glimpsed Falston’s grip tightening on his R5 as Teije’s head swung between Niko and Hicks with skyrocketing anxiety. “Niko-jen…”
Niko stepped back and dropped his gaze. He hated himself for doing it, for deferring to a man he’d just seen unload an assault rifle into a truck with children, a man who would be dead if he’d spoken to Niko in such a way in Kekon.
But they were not not in Kekon. Niko had none of the clan’s Fingers behind him, none of his family’s power, no one else but Teije watching.
“No problem,” he muttered.
Hicks grunted an acknowledgment. “Good,” he snapped. Then he added, with less force, “I didn’t mean to call you a keck. We all got too worked up, is all.”
“We should get out of here,” Falston urged. He turned around and began to trek purposefully through the woods toward the rendezvous point two kilometers away, where a GSI armored vehicle would pick them up. Hicks followed. After a moment, Teije did as well. Niko brought up the rear. He did not look back at the road.
Once, when he was a child, Niko had asked his aunt Shae why she believed in the gods. She’d given him a strange but clear-eyed look. “Because I’ve felt them watching me.”
Niko had been disappointed. He’d expected a more rational explanation from the Weather Man. Now, at last, he understood her answer. With each step he took in the snow, Niko sank beneath the feeling of some terrible attention turning toward him, reaching from the other side of the world like a curse.
CHAPTER
44
This Is Not Kekon
the twenty-second year, fourth month
Ten months after the clan established its branch office in Shotar, Wen accompanied her sister-in-law on a business trip to Leyolo City. She’d never been there before and was keen to see some of the sights, but more importantly, she had business of her own she wished to deal with in person.
Shae’s husband and daughter saw them off at the airport on the morning of their departure. “Will you bring something back for me?” Tia asked her mother.
“What would you like?” Shae asked.
The seven-year-old considered her options. “A pretty dress!”
“I’ll get you one,” Shae promised. “Aunt Wen will help me to pick it out.”
“I will.” Wen agreed with a smile. She was happy to buy nice clothes for her niece. Her efforts to dress up Jaya had always been rejected, resulting in wasted money or ruined outfits. Tia, in contrast, was a considerate, artistic child who adored animals, sparkly things, dancing, and making up stories. It amused Wen to see that as much as Shae loved her daughter, she also seemed bewildered by her, unsure of how such a dreamy and gentle child had been born into the Kaul family.
Shae hugged Tia and kissed Woon goodbye, issuing half a dozen reminders that her husband accepted with the same discerning patience with which he’d once handled the Weather Man’s affairs on Ship Street and in Wisdom Hall. Watching them, Wen was struck with nostalgia and sadness. Her own children were grown; even Jaya had left home. Hilo had reluctantly agreed to send their daughter to Toshon, in the far south of the country, where she could get out from under the spotlight of being the Pillar’s daughter and be given room to prove her prowess as a Green Bone. A long time ago, Wen had secretly hoped to one day have the kind of idyllic mother-daughter relationship that included womanly pastimes such as going to brunch and the spa, shopping, talking on the phone every day. Jaya only called when she needed something, usually her father’s advice on dealing with some issue. Wen was begrudgingly proud of her daughter, but she regretted not being able to relate to Jaya any more than Shae could fully comprehend Tia.
Although she didn’t say it as much as she ought to, Wen was proud of Ru as well, who by all accounts was doing well in college. She’d worried so much about her son when he was young, fearing he would be dismissed and disrespected, saddled by stigma, left with no meaningful prospects—the destiny she surely would’ve faced were it not for marrying Hilo. But Ru had grown up far differently than she had. He was full of big ideas and confidence, perhaps too much of both. “He talks enough to become the chancellor of the country. Then we’ll have gold and jade together in one family,” Hilo said jokingly, though sometimes Wen thought he might believe it.
As for Niko… Wen’s heart ached every time she thought of him. With her eldest, she felt she’d failed as a mother. She’d convinced Hilo to bring him back to Janloon as a baby, she’d raised and loved him as her own son, believing with utmost certainty that he was a fated gift, the gods’ compensation for Ru inheriting her deficiency. Yet he’d hated the weight of that expectation, had run away from it and taken the family’s hopes with him. Now Wen didn’t even know where he was. Perhaps Hilo did. She knew her husband had people watching Niko, reporting on his whereabouts, but out of consideration, he didn’t volunteer the information to her unless she asked. She did not ask.
