The Reprisal Read online

  A heaviness weighed in her chest as she took a break and peered about the windowless room.

  The monotony of tasks like this made dwelling on the despair of their situation too easy. There was too much time to tally the number of enemies the Amach faced in this war and wonder how they could possibly get out of this fight without losing countless lives. The Amach had around six thousand spread throughout their bases—six thousand against tens of thousands.

  “That everything?” the pilot, Deanna, called as they brought the last cache of rifles to the craft.

  They heaved it into place and Thrym moved to speak with the other pilots.

  “As much as we’ll get in,” Romy replied. This craft was jam-packed, and the rest were filled with refugees. “Any problems?”

  Deanna chuckled. “One of the elderly ladies tried to bring her bed. Said it was the only one that didn’t make her back hurt.”

  A hand closed around Romy’s upper arm.

  “Thrym?” she asked at his drawn face.

  “A message just came in from Atlas,” he said.

  She searched his face, heart giving a strong thud. “What happened?”

  Thrym shook his head. “Nancy and Phobos are back.”

  Romy gasped. “That’s great.”

  Why didn’t he look happy?

  He gave her a veiled look. “They’re not alone.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Ro, it will be okay,” Thrym said, taking her clenched fist in his warm hand.

  The slight jolt as their craft landed in the Amach hangar barely registered. Neither did Thrym’s whispers until he ducked to get her attention.

  She narrowed her eyes at his expression. “Spit it out.”

  His blue eyes darkened and his jaw set. “I’m worried about your temper.”

  “I don’t have a temper,” she protested.

  “Every poker game,” he retorted.

  Okay. Maybe she had a bit of a temper after everything. “Do you blame me? Deimos has the nerve to show his face here. After what he did?”

  He wormed his fingers between hers and squeezed her hand as he pondered the situation. “No, I don’t blame you. You felt the betrayal most out of all of us. The rest of us have heard your story, and seen him on the screen a few times—”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  Thrym shook his head. “Of course we believe you, but we weren’t there, Ro. That’s the difference. You looked into his eyes as he did that stuff. For the rest of us, there’s an emotional distance. Anyway, it’s not Deimos I’m worried about.”

  Romy met his gaze.

  “Phobos,” he finished. “Phobos felt strongly enough to leave Elara and try to convince him to come back. If we go in there and lose our tempers—” He grinned at Romy’s wry smile. “Fine. If you go in there and lose your temper, you risk alienating Phobos too, and through him, Elara.”

  “And if I don’t, we’ll all stay the same as we’ve been?” she asked, untangling their fingers to take off her harness belt. “We’ll be a big happy knot again?”

  “No,” he said, doing the same. “But you won’t be the bad guy. He’ll still be the bad guy, and it won’t confuse the issue. No one expects you to be okay with this. Phobos knows that as surely as the rest of us, and hopefully has been smart enough to keep Deimos away, but if you see him, don’t shoot him in the kneecap, okay?”

  “You’re good at this . . . Dad.”

  Thrym winced. “I really wish Dr Charlee never told you that mother-father stuff.”

  “I dunno.” Romy gave him a speculative glance. “I think you’re pretty good at it.”

  The cargo door lowered with a groan and Romy mimicked Thrym as he took a deep breath. His chat had achieved its intended purpose. It distracted her from the simmering anger she’d sat in on the flight back from Rome. Enough for her to see the merit of his argument. She didn’t want to upset the newfound stability between her knotmates. That stability had been hard won and was more precious than her own life. A tiny part of her acknowledged that shooting Deimos in the kneecap would make her the bad guy. She wanted Deimos to suffer for what he’d done and remain the person who made the mistake. Damn Thrym for making sense.

  As the cargo door thudded to the ground, Romy kept her eyes on concrete, unsure how she’d respond if she saw his face.

  That was her intention.

  What she saw undid that.

  The hangar was full of people. They milled between the crafts and the stacked rows of crates around the outer piped wall. “Holy crap,” Thrym said in awe. “How did they do it?”

  Romy stared. The last time she’d seen these people, some were in crates, and the rest had been freshly saved from the orbitos. Even though they wore mismatched civilian clothing now, the straight set of their backs and the slight bewildered innocence of their faces made it crystal clear just who they were.

  “They brought the space soldiers back.” She blinked and began to walk down the ramp off the craft. “How?”

  The hangar was a frenzy of activity, with the arrival of their refugees and the onslaught of space soldiers, plus the usual bustle of the place. Romy spotted Gwenyth squeezing through the crowd and it occurred to her to hide too late. Grey eyes found her. “Poacher poop,” she muttered.

  “The commander-general would like to see the both of you, immediately,” she said tersely.

  “Hi, Gwenyth. How are you?” Romy asked.

  The thin lines on the woman’s face deepened and with a glance around the hangar that said, ‘Are you still crazy?’, Gwenyth wound back between the horde without a word.

  Still tense in case Deimos was around somewhere and could see her, Romy followed Atlas’s mother back through the crowd, feeling Thrym close behind. One of the space soldiers on her left elbowed another, and muttered something in a hushed tone. She ignored it.

  . . . The second time, too.

  By the fourth time, it was getting hard to pretend the soldiers weren’t gawking at her. “What’s happening?” she mumbled to Thrym out the corner of her mouth.

  “Uh, not too sure,” he said with false calm that made her grin because he was obviously still worried about her shooting Deimos. “Hold on, they’re saying something,” he said.

  She strained to hear and caught two words. . . . That can’t be right.

  One of the soldiers, dressed in flip-flops and a Hawaiian shirt, shuffled closer to her. “Mother hen,” he said in a reverent voice.

  Thrym choked behind her.

  “Hell no.” Romy picked up her pace, borderline rude as she wove through the crowd. “Excuse me. Nope, no hen here. Can you move, please? Not a mother hen.”

  The passages were just as packed. All the way to the Mess, which was also packed. There were several thousand space soldiers here. The repercussions of so many new soldiers would have a massive impact on the Amach.

  “Mother hen.”

  “Mother hen.”

  “Mother hen.”

  A strangled sound came from Thrym again, and heat began to rise up Romy’s neck. “Cut it out. It’s not funny.”

  A deep laugh escaped him. “Are you serious? You were just calling me Dad. This is karma at its finest.”

  He continued laughing and she spoke over him. “Why are they doing it?” Romy asked.

  The mother hen thing was a personal joke amongst their knot and close friends, but how the heck had these space soldiers heard about it?

  “Deimos’s idea of a joke, you think?” Thrym asked.

  Deimos. Of course. Romy clenched her jaw. Hard.

  “I hope they never stop,” Thrym said.

  An evil thread wormed to the surface. “I wonder where Nancy is. The message said she returned as well,” Romy said.

  That shut him up.

  “This crowd is seriously pissing me off,” Romy snarled. The Mess was packed, and she had to get to the other side to reach Atlas.

  Of course, that was when he decided to appear.

  Romy glanced up and stumbled o
ver her feet.

  She heard Phobos hiss, “Don’t.”

  Deimos clearly had no mind to listen. He stopped three metres in front of her, like they were in a standoff. Or perhaps because he, despite who he was now, knew her well, and knew physical proximity to the object of her anger heightened her fury. It had before, and certainly would with her new temper.

  Three metres didn’t seem far enough at the moment.

  Deimos possessed the same green eyes as Phobos, but where Pho was blond and golden-skinned, Deimos’s skin was olive and his hair a wavy black. He was the standard six foot height of most space soldiers and stood in a long-sleeved grey T-shirt and black cargo pants, watching her, lips pressed together.

  Romy let her eyes glaze over him as though no one stood there, and forced her feet to move again, hopefully in the direction she’d been heading before. She did her utmost to ignore his existence. Her temper wouldn’t allow more right now. To talk to him would snap the fragile hold she had.

  Phobos hovered nervously by Deimos’s side.

  She gave him a warm smile and pulled him in to a hug. “Pho, I’m glad you’re back. Have you seen Elara?”

  “Yes. It . . . didn’t go well.”

  “Romy, I—,” Deimos began.

  “She’ll be fine.” Romy spoke again to Phobos. “You just scared her, but you might want to kiss butt for the foreseeable future.”

  Phobos’s eyes slid from Romy to Deimos and back. “Yeah.”

  Going on tiptoes, she gave him another kiss. “Please don’t leave like that again, Pho. You really worried us. You know it would kill us if you were hurt.” Maybe not literally kill them anymore, but Romy didn’t know how she’d go on without Phobos.

  His green eyes softened. “I know, Ro. I’m sorry.”

  She heard the ‘but’ in his voice and gave him the ghost of a smile, which he returned.

  “Romy, can I please talk to you?” Deimos asked.

  She ignored him and continued squeezing through the thick crowd toward Atlas, knowing if she stayed a second longer and felt those green eyes on her one moment more, she’d forget Thrym’s words of advice and do something she really wanted to do.

  * * *

  “That went as well as could be expected,” Thrym said in a long exhale as they stepped into the debriefing room.

  Atlas glanced up from the table and made his way toward her.

  Romy looked back at her knotmate. “Thank you for not speaking to him either.”

  “I’m angry at Deimos, too,” he said quietly. “He shouldn’t expect any less.”

  Romy couldn’t see how that would ever change. How could you trust someone again when they’d broken it so decisively? “What are you going to say to Nancy?”

  “I thought about sulking,” he admitted with a smile. “But I guess we need to have a talk about . . . stuff.”

  “Yes, tell her you love her. Don’t waste any time.”

  “You think? I don’t want to scare her off.”

  I do,” said Romy with a smile. Nancy had adored Thrym since Jimboomba. There was no way she didn’t return his feelings. They were in the middle of a world war. If you couldn’t tell someone you loved them now, you didn’t love them enough.

  Strong arms enveloped her and the scent of eucalyptus washed over her. Romy rested her head back on Atlas’s shoulder.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I love you,” she said.

  The air stuttered in his throat. “My favourite words. I love you too,” he said, holding her tighter. “And?”

  “I’m angry. Let’s get this over with.”

  He kissed the space behind her ear. “You got it. As long as you’re okay to be here. There are a few developments that may shock you and I realise you’ve gone through—”

  Trying to protect her again. Romy’s chest tightened. “Atlas, I’m okay. I can handle it, I swear,” she said, twisting to look at him. Romy brought a hand up and pushed back a few strands of his jet-black hair. The silky locks never failed to fall over his forehead, though it appeared as though he’d been running his hands through them frequently today—a sure sign he wasn’t as calm as he wanted others to believe.

  He kissed her hand, and Romy took a seat next to Tina and Thrym and listened as Atlas closed the door and moved to the front of the room.

  “Two days ago, two of our force left this base for Florida. Their reason, in the notes they left, was to retrieve loved ones in the company of the Renegades.”

  “Why wasn’t this made known?” a captain at the front asked.

  “Because I didn’t wish you to know,” Atlas answered, giving him a flat look.

  The captain fell silent.

  “Tonight, these two members returned, and with them they brought 3,600 of the soldiers freed from the orbitos, and someone we have recently seen at Houston’s right-hand side: Deimos.”

  Angry mutterings rose within the room. Charlee gave Romy a grim glance from across the table, and Romy returned it. What was Char feeling about this? The doctor and Deimos had been close for a night or two before he left.

  “How did they get out?” Thrym asked. “Houston wouldn’t have been happy.”

  Romy shivered at the thought of Houston’s reaction.

  “The better part of four thousand soldiers with guns are hard to say no to, especially when they have a reason to leave. Which brings me to the point of most concern.” He gave Romy a cursory glance. Enough to warn her this was something that might affect her.

  She held her breath.

  “They’ve returned because the insanity cure Houston gave them wore off.”

  “What?” Romy said. Her exclamation was lost amongst the din of thirty voices demanding to know the same thing.

  Atlas leaned onto the table where he stood at the front. “It began wearing off two weeks ago. The first to receive the injection were engaged in a skirmish with the Mandate’s forces and shots were fired. It turned into a frenzy. Not only did the space soldiers lose their minds, they became extremely violent. Fifty of the Renegades were lost trying to fight them, and the last space soldier killed himself last week by running into a wall repeatedly.”

  “Was this change only triggered when they killed again after the cure had worn off?” Charlee asked. She was as pale as Romy had ever seen her. Charlee hadn’t created the cure, but she had administered it recently . . . to Knot 27.

  Romy swallowed, thinking of one of her knotmates running into a wall until it was over. What had Thrym said earlier about the difference between experiencing something first-hand, and not? Romy could still remember how it had felt to be standing on shattered glass. She could understand why the space soldier did that to himself—to get rid of the itch under his skin.

  “The others have not shown any sign of instability,” Atlas replied. She lifted her head in time to see his eyes move away from her. “Houston confided in Deimos five days ago that he believed the answer lay in there being too low a percentage of Rosemary’s blood in the injection to ensure a permanent hold.” His voice tightened. “Synthesising her blood proved ineffective. A further ten space soldiers were lost to these tests.”

  Thrym shifted beside her, the only sign of his anger. “That’s why Deimos brought them back? To use Romy?”

  “He maintains it was to protect the space soldiers from further testing, but he could have taken them to any of our bases and instead brought them to where Romy is, so your theory shouldn’t be discounted, Captain.”

  “Why do we always get them when they’re big, vulnerable babies?” Tina complained, then tipped her head back to look at the ceiling. “Are all of the surviving space soldiers here, then?”

  Atlas sighed. “Unfortunately not. According to Deimos, there were several hundred in the labs in deep freeze that were unreachable when their plan was set in motion.”

  Houston still had some of the soldiers? “We have to save them,” Romy said. “Who knows what he’s doing to them.”

  “We’re not in a position t
o do so,” Atlas countered. “I understand your sense of urgency, but unless a window opens to negotiate their return, a rescue attempt would harm more of our people than it would save.”

  Easy to say when they weren’t being tested on. Though Romy felt bad for the thought as soon as she had it. Atlas knew better than most what she’d gone through. “The Amach will help the other space soldiers as soon as an opportunity arises?” she asked. Atlas could be counted on to help, but the question was made to the other occupants in the room.

  She waited until everyone had nodded or murmured their assent.

  “Dr Charlee,” Atlas said. “Can we count on you to put your team to finding a lasting cure?”

  She appeared bewildered. “I’m not sure about counting on me. I only replicated the cure, remember.” Her eyes cut to Romy. “If it is a matter of taking blood from Romy and it can’t be synthesised, then it will take a long, long time to cure upwards of three and a half thousand, especially if we need to leave the tests for extended periods of time to see if it holds. It could take years.”

  “Please let Commander Gwenyth know if you require anything.” Atlas nodded. “I won’t need to remind you Romy is to be treated with respect, and if I find she has been taken advantage of, you won’t like the consequences.”

  Romy coloured. “Atlas, Char wouldn’t—”

  “If I ever take advantage of any of my patients, I hope I won’t like the consequences,” Charlee replied. Standing, she nodded to two of the other medical team and made for the door. “I’ll send one of my registrars with a daily report to your office, commander-general.”

  Atlas nodded before lifting a brow in response to Romy’s loaded look.

  “This changes the game,” mused Cronus from a seat up the front. “That is a massive blow to Houston’s numbers, and to the Renegades’ morality. The populace loves the space soldiers, even more so after the Mandate’s lies were revealed.” He grinned around the table. “We are now a player in this game.”

  Tina rolled her eyes.

  “I agree,” Atlas said. “My next point of order might make us a larger player still.”

  There’s more? Romy straightened, sharing a surprised look with Thrym.