Duty, Honor, Planet

fine to him; as a matter of fact, she seemed to be teetering on the brink of a complete breakdown. But he wasn’t a psychologist, and they didn’t have the luxury of therapy standing in a house full of dead bodies.

“Why don’t you go pull the rover around next to their vehicle,” he suggested. “We can decide which one we’re going to take and take the fuel from the one we leave behind.”

She stepped over Huerta’s body like it wasn’t there, and headed for the door.

“Wait a second,” he said, holding up a hand. Bending down, he retrieved his pistol and handed it to her. “Just in case,” he explained.

She nodded, hefting the weight of the weapon in her hand for a moment before she stepped out the open door into the night. Jason watched her go, shaking his head slightly, then went to work scavenging weapons and ammunition from the bodies. He hoped that Huerta had been correct about the Invaders pulling out—he had to pray he was, because there was no way they could stay in the Wastes now. Carmella had been right about that: Huerta had been the leader of the revolutionary movement, and he wasn’t without friends.

There was only one place they could go now, if he was right. And God help them if he was wrong.

* * *

Shannon Stark cried out sharply, snapping a punch into the face of an imaginary foe, then sweeping the motion into a downward block and following through with a spinning kick. The spin brought her around to face the gym’s mirrored wall, and her face darkened at the reflected image. She was, appropriately enough, fighting herself.

She’d tried to avoid the others in the days since the attack on the spaceport, keeping to her room and taking her meals alone. Thankfully, there wasn’t really anything for her to do: they didn’t have the forces left to permit even a basic recon, much less any kind of attack. But she’d grown claustrophobic and restless, so she’d waited till everyone else had gone to bed and ventured out to the small workout room constructed near the back of the shelter.

Maybe, she had thought, running through a few katas would help her to break out of the depression she’d sunk into since the raid. Taking a breath, she fell into a deep stance, judging her style critically in the mirror. Dressed in a halter top and loose shorts, she could see the muscles playing in her long legs as she settled into her stance, but she felt a slight tightness in her hamstrings—she hadn’t been able to work out enough the last few months.

Depending on how long it took for a rescue ship to reach them, though, she might have plenty of time to get back into shape. Or, she thought soberly, if the Invaders found them before the Fleet did, it might not make a difference.

Shaking her head clear of such speculation, she tried to empty her mind and let the flow of the kata carry her motions. Launching into the next form, she tried to snap the kicks and punches cleanly, hoping to connect with her ki and purge herself of the negative emotions that burdened her. But with every punch, she saw the faces of Gunny Lambert and Bobby Comstock and the rest of the Marines; with every kick, she experienced anew the spear of despair as the orbital missiles intercepted their vehicles. And with every labored breath, she could hear her inner voice screaming the accusation at her: “You killed them, Shannon! It was your fault!”

Rage and futility crowded the focus and concentration from her mind, and her strikes became more desperate and uncontrolled. The sequence of the kata fled her thoughts, the punches and kicks running into each other with no order or design. She lashed out sloppily at her memories and her own image, her crisp “kia”s devolving into mindless screams, the out-of-control moves throwing her dangerously off balance. Finally, in the middle of a spinning crescent kick, she lost it: her plant foot flew out from under her and she landed hard on her back. The wind went out of her with a pained grunt, and she stayed where she lay, not able to move.

When her breath came back to her, it was in quiet sobs that shook her shoulders; and the tears she’d held back for days finally poured down her cheeks. The tears racked her body, coursing through her spasmodically like electric shocks, almost painful with their violence. Eyes squeezed shut, senses deadened, she was only vaguely aware that strong arms were enfolding her, cradling her gently, hands stroking her hair.

It was minutes later before she regained enough control to pry open her tear-sealed eyes and realize that the one holding her was Nathan Tanaka. Seeing that she had stopped crying, the Japanese bodyguard produced a handkerchief from his hip pocket and offered it to her. She took the rag without comment, pulling away from him with a little embarrassment as she wiped her face.

“Thank you,” she finally said, not meeting his eyes.

“There is nothing to be ashamed of,” he told her frankly. “It is a natural thing to grieve for fallen comrades, Lieutenant Stark.”

“I’m not ashamed of my grief,” she corrected him. “I’m ashamed at my failure.”

“Why was the failure yours to bear?” Tanaka wanted to know. “Your plan was sound, and its objectives were achieved admirably. Your troops knew the risk, and they accepted it as their sworn duty. As should you.”

“And what if I can’t accept it?” she snapped, throwing down the handkerchief and springing angrily to her feet. “What if I can’t accept throwing good people—Goddamned teenagers—into a furnace like they were disposable, replaceable pieces of machinery? What would the perfect, all-knowing ninja have to say about that?”

“I am no ninja,” Tanaka replied, coming to his feet and facing her. “I am just a man, and far from perfect.”

“Oh, sure,” she sneered cynically. “You don’t seem to be too hesitant about giving me advice. You’re the one that always knows the right thing to do, the right place to be.”

“These lessons are harshly and painfully learned.” Tanaka ran a finger unconsciously along the scar along his jawline. “Yet learned they must be for those who choose the path of the warrior, Shannon. I knew a young man once—not even a man so much as a youth, though one trained from childhood in the ways of the warrior. He was of a clan that could trace their history to feudal Japan. They had survived by evolving with the times, first marketing their skills to the Emperor, then to the yakuza, and more recently as personal bodyguards to government officials and corporate executives.

“This young man had finished his training and received his first assignment: guarding a Republic senator and his family during a trip to visit the wife’s family in Czechoslovakia. It was considered a fairly safe assignment. Yet no one had foreseen the ill feelings toward the Republic among the neo-Marxist factions in Prague. A home-made bomb was thrown from the crowd. Our young bodyguard saw it, but the Senator and his young daughter were separated by several meters from the wife, and he only had time to pull one or the other to safety.

“The young man did the right thing, what was his duty: he threw the Senator and his daughter to the ground and shielded them with his body. They survived. The wife was killed instantly.” Tanaka took a deep breath, the impassive expression on his face twisting into something darker for just a moment before the mask fell again.

“And what happened to the bodyguard?” Shannon asked, knowing the answer yet needing to hear the words from him.

“He lived, though badly injured. He pledged his life to guarding the Senator’s daughter in hopes of redeeming himself for his failure to save the little girl’s mother. And he kept one scar out of the many wounds as a constant reminder of that commitment.” His hand dropped away from the white keloid along his jaw to hang limply at his side. “And as a constant reminder of the price of failure.”

“That sounds like a lonely life for a young man,” Shannon commented softly, moving a step closer to him. All the anger and pain were gone now, replaced by something softer and warmer… something not entirely surprising or unwelcome.

“You would be surprised what a man can adjust to over time,” he replied evenly.

“Just what kind of a name is Nathan Tanaka?” Shannon wondered. “For the son of such a traditional Japanese clan, ‘Nathan’ seems awfully untraditional.”

“My father, Heideko Tanaka,” Nathan explained, a nostalgic smile playing across his face, “met and married an American girl while he was on assignment guarding a senator from Georgia. She was a staunch Southerner, and insisted that if I was to be raised in the ways of the clan, that she at least have a say in my name. So, my birth certificate reads: ‘Nathan Bedford Forrest Tanaka,’ if you can believe it.”

“I love it.” She laughed, a sound filled with more joie de vivre than she’d felt in a week. “She sounds like a strong-willed woman.”