Grinding his teeth, he picked it up without comment and stored his purchases.
He grabbed a towel and started for the showers.
“It’s not mongrel time, Batur. There’s Vested in the latrine.”
Biting back a nasty retort, Talyn returned to his bunk to wait while he listened to the others talking about their future plans.
With nothing else to do, he pulled out his link and started running stats on his next Ring opponent.
“You okay, Pinara?” one of the captains asked.
Talyn glanced over at the major who was a year older than him. The male was a cousin to the female pilot, Syndrome, who flew in Talyn’s squad.
Fidgeting, Pinara kept shining his brass, and looking around as if waiting for something bad to happen. “Fine.”
Yeah, he was lying his ass off. But like everyone else here, Talyn knew what that word meant. Something had gone down with the higher-ups and the major wasn’t at liberty to talk about it.
Pinara looked over and caught Talyn’s gaze. “What you staring at, mongrel?”
Without a word, Talyn returned his attention to his link. As he was logging on, five provosts came in and surrounded Pinara.
“Major, you are to be remanded into custody.”
Pinara went pale. “For what?”
They didn’t say as they cuffed him and hauled him out.
Silence echoed in the barracks as everyone tried to hide how disturbed they were over this. It could have been any of them, and they knew it.
Normally, it was Talyn who was singled out for trumped-up, bullshit infractions and punishment. Made him wonder what the high-caste Pinara had done to get on Anatole’s bad side.
“WAR’s right —”
“Bite it!”
Talyn scowled at the hushed exchange between two of his bunkmates. WAR was an antigovernment organization that had sprung up against the tadara and her family. For years now, they’d been trying to overthrow her.
Anyone found with their paraphernalia or with any ties to their group was summarily seized and executed. Without trial.
“Batur!”
Talyn grimaced at the sharp bark. Rising to his feet, he saluted the OOD. “Sir?”
“Cover Pinara’s patrol. He was to fly in fifteen.”
Talyn started to remind him that he was already seventeen hours over his patrol quota for the week, but then the OOD would know that even better than Talyn did.
“Yes, sir.”
As he moved to reach for his flight suit, he heard Pinara’s wingman, Mannan Xu, curse.
“Why am I being punished? I don’t want to fly with a lack-Vest. Do you know who my parents are?”
The OOD glared at the major. “Insubordination?”
“No, sir.”
“Then head out. With Batur.”
Xu cut a glare at Talyn to let him know how much he hated being stuck with him.
No joy for me, either, punk.
As soon as he was changed, Talyn went to do preflight in their hangar. When he neared his fighter, Xu cornered him.
“You better remember your place, dog. Behind me, cleaning up after your superiors.”
A tic started in Talyn’s jaw. He wanted to punch the bastard so badly that it was all he could do to refrain. But he knew from experience that if he spoke a word, he’d lose what little free time he had, and this prick wasn’t worth it.
Think of Felicia. He had a reason now to stay out of the brig and off reports. Not one of them was worth the additional patrol time.
Eye on the goal, Batur.
And that was a beautiful female who finally made him feel like something more than the dirt underneath their feet.
It’d been over a month since Felicia had last seen Talyn at his fight. As punishment for winning, he hadn’t even been allowed to have visitors on base or to leave it for meals. His CO had kept him on total lockdown. He hadn’t even been able to call her again during his rec time.
While she’d left voice notes for him every day, all she’d received as responses were very brief text messages back.
And random gifts that had come to the condo.
One of them was the beautiful double-heart necklace that he’d sent, which was around her neck. It’d come within a few hours of her hanging up the last time they’d spoken, and she hadn’t taken it off since.
Kind of stupid, but it somehow made her feel closer to him. And she’d kept the small card that he’d sent with it.
Thank you for today, Gre Couranatara.
~T
The great lady of my heart. Every time she read that, it brought tears to her eyes.
Her link buzzed. Frowning, she picked it up and glanced at it, expecting a message from her mother.