Page 32 of Stars in Umbra
Steam rose, hot and welcome, as he scrubbed away the grit of three relentless days.
The water sluiced away the frostbite dust of Alloria’s peaks, the smoke of Tyran’s dying empire, and the copper scent of violence still clinging to his skin.
He stood under the driving deluge longer than necessary, his head bowed beneath the jets that pounded him into a human again.
Finally, the bed.
He dropped into it without ceremony, his body aching, his brain too wired to dream but too spent to fight sleep.
He relived the mission, making note of how and where he needed to improve.
Still, the mattress was softer than the rocks he had slept on in the hills, warmer than the frozen winds that had clawed at his face.
So soon, he sighed, long and deep, letting himself sink into the dark.
Only then, as his intellect slipped beneath the surface of consciousness, did the neural nucleus activate.
It worked in silence, with ruthless efficiency.
File after file was wiped; visual and aural, all aspects of the mission, the kill, the chase, all of it gone. Erased from his waking mind as if it had never happened.
All that remained was the steady, quiet pulse of the node resting under his skin, silent.
His eyes snapped open at dawn’s first light.
He exhaled, rolling onto his back and blinking at the pale glow bleeding through the curtains.
His body ached, and he marveled at a fast-healing bruise on his arm, though he had no memory of why.
He sat up, swung his feet to the floor, and crossed to the window.
Beyond the glass, Eden II stretched vast, restless, unknowable.
He stared out over its spires and shadows, his face a mask.
Free again.
Until the next mission.
7
A Deep Strike To The Heart
RINA
Rina’s ship touched down with a hiss of compressed air and the thrum of engines winding down.
The sky over Eden II’s space port was bruised with early morning haze, industrial towers stabbing upward like broken ribs against the rising twin suns of Alphetraz.
Her boots hit the metal floor of the hangar hard and fast.
She waited with some impatience for the crew to clear her path before finding her assigned flyer and swinging into it, giving it a curt directive.
She slumped into her seat, flicked open a holo news feed, and huffed at the rolling press reports of two incidents affecting her Peace Corps.
Two fires, both hers to put out.
The first concerned an audacious escape.
