“Hello, Mr. Lucas. You planning on trouble?” The pilot wears a smile on his face, but his eyes are wary. He holds his right hand back by his side, gestures with his left at the rifle in Lucas’s hand.
“Just scaring off critters,” Lucas says. I start to relax. Things are going just fine...
Con runs out of the house, his face filled with defiance. “There’s a deserter in the barn. He killed a cabby and threatened my pa.”
Lucas is startled. I can see the anger in his face from here. The confusion. I lean hard against the rough wood planks, feel a splinter slide deep in my palm.
The pilot’s face isn’t friendly anymore. “That’s a serious accusation, son.”
“There’s no one in the barn but an old friend.” Lucas lifts the rifle across his chest. He takes hold of Con’s arm and pulls him tight to his side. “He’s been helping us out, ain’t that right, boy?”
The pilot stares into Con’s eyes, but the boy doesn’t answer. I can practically feel his hatred from here. His anger burns like mine used to burn and I know it’s only a matter of time. I tuck my blade up into my right sleeve, step out into the sunlight.
“Heard a commotion...” I fake surprise at the sight of the ’Mech. “Whoa. That’s some machine.”
The pilot glances up, surprise and suspicion written on his face. His right hand swings free and his eyes narrow as he studies the cabby’s uniform. He glances at the barn. At Lucas. At Con. Back at me.
And I know that he knows.
“This your deserter?” the pilot asks Con. He brings up his right hand, points the weapon he’s been concealing in my direction.
“That’s not necessary. Like I said, this here’s an old friend.” Lucas’s big hand holds Con close. The pilot scans the yard and his eyes come back to me.
“You got some identification to go with that uniform?”
I nod. Reach in my pocket. Swallow and try to wet the dryness in my mouth. I am more than what the military made me, I remind myself. More than a killing machine.
That’s why I came home. Not to kill, but to keep from killing. To find the truth behind my daddy’s words. To find out why the man behind the machine died.
And maybe to bring him back to life.
But sometimes things don’t always go the way we plan.
I pull out the cabby’s ID and walk over to the ’Mech pilot.
“He’s got a knife!” Con ducks out from beneath Lucas’s arm and charges me from the side.
The pilot spins, weapon flashing in his hand. Lucas raises his rifle as the pilot fires a shot that creases my leg. The leg stings with pain, but I block it so swiftly it might not have happened. I dodge behind the laundry, feel the years of training, the years of battle struggle to take over. Death is what identifies me. Killing’s all I know. All I have known since I was little more than Con’s age.
“No!” Con’s voice slices through the air just as the rifle cracks. The boy crumples to the ground, Lucas reaching for him like a drowning man grabs for rope.
I dive into a forward roll, come up beside the pilot. He stares at the boy on the ground, at Lucas kneeling by Con’s side. Red coats my vision, painting pictures of MechWarriors falling, burning...
The instant kill zone between the fourth and fifth intercostal spaces is where I’ve been trained to strike, but that would be too merciful. I shove my knife deep into the man’s gut.
“You didn’t have to hurt them,” I hiss as warm blood spills out over my hand, a dark flow that matches the darkness inside me.
His eyes turn to mine, his glare filled with disdain, and he spits in my face.
I shove the knife deeper, give it a twist, watch the light fade from his eyes before pulling my knife free.
“Lucas?” The woman’s panic-tinged voice shrills across the yard as the porch door slams. I whip around, ready once again to defend myself. It takes a moment for reality to sink in. For the battle haze to clear from my mind.
Lucas sits crumpled on the ground beside Con. His eyes are red, tears streak his cheeks.
“I was trying to distract him,” Lucas whispers. “But Con got in the way.”
Red seeps from Con’s side. I kneel down, pull aside his shirt. Glance at the wound.
“It’s a clean shot,” I tell Lucas. “Through and through. He’ll be okay as long as you get him to a doctor.”
Con’s mother shoves me aside and pulls her son to her breast. I give the woman room. Breathe deep the dust-laden air.
MechWarrior blood sticks the cabby’s shirt to my ribs. I clean my blade on the shirttails—the blade I should have used to end my own life rather than bring the shame of a deserter upon the House of Kurita—and slip it back into its sheath.
“You’re nothing but a yellow-bellied coward,” Con says. He pushes his mother away, but his gaze—filled with hatred and pain—stays fixed on me.
Lucas stands. Grabs my arm.
“You can’t stay now.” His voice is raspy, his eyes filled with an apology I know he’ll never make.
“I know.” I try to keep the desperation from my face, but I know he’s seen it. “It’s just that...”
“Coming home’s not always the answer,” Lucas says.
Con’s face grows hard as a ’Mech’s armor. He struggles to his feet, leans briefly on his mother, then straightens. “He’s a damn deserter. He don’t have no home.”
The bitter statement slices at my heart in a way I’d thought I’d never feel again. I draw a deep breath, let the feeling run through me. Someday the boy will understand.
I look deep in Con’s eyes, at the determination, the desire.
Then again, maybe he won’t.
I
