Depths of Blue Page 29

  Torrin smiled as she read. Of course it had been the merchants who had precipitated the fraternization between the two groups. Only a merchant would decide to try overcoming decades of hurt and division to make a profit.

  Apparently, by the time the two societies started mingling again the divisions were so extreme that they never truly merged. The Devonites lived in their own enclaves near Orthodoxan cities. Aside from the merchants, Orthodoxans rarely set foot in Devonite cities. Many generations passed, though, before percolating tensions boiled over into the civil war that now plagued Haefen.

  Torrin yawned and stretched. Her research had taken her into the wee hours of the morning. She scrubbed hands over eyes bleary with fatigue. There was still no sound from next door. Jak hadn’t returned. She must still be heavily involved in the interrogation of those prisoners. Torrin decided she wouldn’t inquire too closely after Jak’s activities; there were some things she was happier not knowing.

  It was funny. She’d always thought of herself as being quite worldly. There wasn’t much that could shake her, but her time on Haefen had opened her eyes. It was amazing how much people could hurt each other. There was no greater falling out than that between families. She’d seen it happen before, but never on the scale in which it was happening in this conflict. The level of dehumanization was incredible. A whole society descended into madness on one side and on the other… Jak was a warm, caring woman, but she’d trained herself to be a dispassionate killer. Torrin shook her head. She despised the flip side of Jak’s psyche. When Jak’s eyes hardened, Torrin hardly recognized the amazing, passionate woman that she’d come to know.

  Her jaw cracked on another giant yawn, and she returned her attention to the screen in front of her.

  Torrin opened her eyes and stared muzzily at the blinking screen in front of her. She must have fallen asleep. A quick glance at the clock showed 0600 hours. Jak hadn’t woken her like she’d said she would when she returned. That little… If Jak had come back without waking her, she was going to be peeved. Maybe she hadn’t gotten back yet. For her sake Torrin hoped that was so.

  She felt more than a little disgusting after falling asleep fully clothed. Running her tongue over her teeth, she grimaced. They felt fuzzy, and her mouth tasted terrible. She stopped to run a sonic toothbrush over her teeth in a hurry, then quietly let herself out of her room. The doorknob to Jak’s room turned easily in her hand and she licked suddenly dry lips. It was good that she’d be able to get in there, but Jak was usually fanatical about making sure the door was locked whenever she slept. Something was very wrong.

  Jak lay fully clothed on the bed. Her back was to the door and she lay on top of the blankets, curled toward the wall. She hadn’t even bothered to take off her boots. Torrin stared at her back for a few moments and sighed. There was no use being angry at her. If she’d been too tired to even take off her boots, then Jak hadn’t been in any kind of shape for the other entertainment that Torrin had planned. It would have been nice to laze around in bed with her and fall asleep together for the first time in days. She understood Jak’s reluctance; the sniper didn’t want anyone to discover them together.

  Torrin sat on the edge of the bed, grasped Jak’s shoulder and pulled back her hand with a sharp hiss. Jak was on fire; she was noticeably hot even through her jacket. Torrin laid the back of her hand on Jak’s cheek.

  “Jak, baby.” Torrin shook her shoulder gently. “Wake up, babe.” When Jak didn’t respond, she shook her harder. Torrin’s heart pounded out her anxiety. This was not good. The longer Jak failed to respond, the more worried Torrin got. She was about to get up for a glass of water when Jak’s eyes opened a crack.

  “T—” The dry husk of Jak’s voice cut off. She swallowed with obvious effort and licked her lips. They were dry and cracked. “Torrin, I don’t feel so good.”

  “I know, hon. You’re burning up. You need to see a doctor.”

  Jak shook her head feebly but emphatically. “No. No doctors. I can’t let them find out who—what I am.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. This can’t be the first time you’ve gotten sick since you joined the army. How did you handle it in the past?”

  “Bron would go to the doctors and fake the symptoms so I could get the right medication.” Jak coughed weakly. “That won’t work now. You have the same problem I do.”

  Dammit, but Jak was right. What the hell were they going to do? Torrin stood up, grasping at the stubble of her hair with both hands.

  “Maybe this’ll pass on its own,” Jak offered in an attempt to be soothing. The effect was somewhat marred by the ghastly pallor of her face.

  “Not bloody likely. You’re sicker than hell and you’re immune-compromised from those fucking drugs you insisted on taking.” Torrin’s anger was out of all proportion to the circumstances. Part of her knew that it wasn’t really Jak’s fault she’d gotten sick. Torrin was frustrated and couldn’t see a way clear of the situation. Her fingers grazed the subdermal transmitter she used to talk to Tien.

  “That’s it!” She leaned down and started tugging Jak upright. The sniper tried to fend her off but was too weak.

  “What’s it? Leave me alone. Just let me lie here.”

  “My ship! It has a fully functional medical bay and autodoc. If I can get you there, I can get you treated. We’ll find somewhere quiet to fix you up where we won’t be interrupted.” Jak wasn’t sitting up in bed so much as she was leaning against Torrin. She was too weak even to sit up straight. With her this close it was evident exactly how high Jak’s fever had gotten. Heat rolled off her in waves.

  “That’s fine,” Jak replied with weak sarcasm. “We’ll just walk up to the fence and ask to be let through, then take a nice little hike to wherever your ship is parked. Oh, wait, I don’t think I can walk and the Orthodoxans will shoot us on sight. Do you even know how to get to your ship?”

  Torrin blew out an aggrieved sigh. “It’s better than your idea. Oh, wait, did you have one beside lying here and dying of fever?”

  “Well, no,” Jak admitted. She coughed dryly. “Still, there are things we need to do to get to your ship. We need to sneak out of here, sneak past the fence, then get to your ship.”

  “The last part is the easiest. Once I’m within range of her transmitter, she’ll guide us in.”

  “Her? And what transmitter?”

  Torrin tapped the bone hehind her right ear. “I can communicate with my ship using an implanted transmitter. The ship is controlled by an Artificial Intelligence construct named Tien. I let her know when I was heading out of range after we left Hutchinson’s compound. She’ll be getting worried that she hasn’t heard from me in so long.”

  “So that’s one problem solved. All that’s left is to get out of here and past the fence.” Jak disengaged herself from Torrin’s shoulder and slid back down to the bed. “First thing we have to do is bring my fever down.”

  “Sponge baths?” Torrin waggled her eyebrows lasciviously.

  Jak tiredly flapped a hand toward her. “Ha, ha. There’s an herb, we call it ligbane. It reduces fevers. You can find it growing along cracks in the pavement and along buildings. Get me some of that and I’ll be fine. Then we can start tackling the other problems.”

  “Got it. I’ll go pick some flowers so you feel better.”

  “Thanks.” Jak started coughing again. Her cough was weak, but she shook like a ship with a loose engine. She struggled against the pillow behind her, rearranging it so she was propped up. “It has trefoil leaves and is topped by little flowers. Those are…”

  “Blue?” Torrin knew she was being a pain but couldn’t help it. Serious situations made her nervous, and she dealt better with them when she could make them into a joke.

  “Yellow actually, but the leaves are blue. Pick as much as you can. We’ll need it again later.”

  “Can I get you anything before I go?”

  “No. I’ll be fine. You don’t have to get anything for me.”

  �
�I’m offering and you can barely move. If you need anything, let me know. It’s not an imposition. The sponge bath offer is still open.”

  “Just some water then.” Jak smiled up at her wanly. She really did look like hell. Sweat plastered what little hair she had to her forehead. The pounds seemed to be melting off her as Torrin watched. Jak had always been slender, but Torrin thought she could see her growing gaunter by the minute. She was trying to put on a lighthearted facade because she didn’t want Jak to know how worried she was, but it was hard. Jak had only been sick for a few hours but already she looked like she was beating on death’s door.

  “I can do that.” Torrin reached over and caressed the sniper’s cheek tenderly. Jak reached up and captured her hand, cradling her head on their two hands.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  After Torrin left, Jak lay in bed and confronted her fears. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this sick before. The fever had come on suddenly, so quickly that she almost hadn’t made it back to her room. There was no way she would admit this to anyone, but she was scared. Not of dying exactly, but of dying without having fulfilled her promise to take out her brother’s killer. She couldn’t die now.

  She pushed down her blanket. The shivers were gone, and she was so hot that the covers felt like they were going to suffocate her. Even the sheet was too much to bear; she shoved it to the side. Her body ached, every joint was a dull mass of pain and moving the covers had exhausted her. She lay back and stared at the ceiling.

  Much as it galled her, Torrin’s suggestion was the only way out that she could see. Torrin was right. Her immune system was nearly nonexistent right now and she’d seen how bad the various trench-diseases could get. This one had come up on her so quickly and drained her so fast that she wasn’t even certain they could make it to wherever Torrin’s ship was.

  And if they did… Would that mean leaving Haefen? If so, how did she feel about that? She wasn’t sure. She’d never lived anywhere else and while the Devonites weren’t perfect, they were the only people she’d ever known. They weren’t exactly hers, but they were all she had. Torrin hadn’t talked a whole lot about where she was from, though from what little she’d said, her planet sounded as different from Haefen as it was possible to get and still be in the same galaxy.

  On the one hand, if she left now it would be a long time, if ever, before she would be able to take out Bron’s killer. On the other hand, staying now would inevitably mean discovery or death.

  Maybe they could go off and live in the woods until Torrin could nurse her back to health. Jak snorted. The idea of Torrin playing the nursemaid was ludicrous. Unless there was profit to be made the woman got twitchy when she had to stand still for too long. Jak had no profit for her.

  And besides, Jak would be AWOL. At the very least, when she came back she would be reprimanded. Who knew what a court-martial might uncover?

  Not to mention what would happen if Torrin ended up being stuck here. She’d made her opinion of Jak’s planet well-known and in front of a great many witnesses. Torrin had no place on this world. Better that she be able to leave.

  Getting Torrin off the planet was as important as her promise to Bron, Jak decided. As sick as she was, she still trusted herself to be the one most able to get her through Orthodoxan territory. She’d spent more time behind enemy lines than most of the other snipers combined. And if Jak had to go off world with her, well, maybe it would only be for a little while, just long enough to get healthy again. Better to survive for now, then come back later and do what needed to be done.

  With all that sorted out, she felt better. Not physically better by any means, but mentally settled enough to work on how to get them past the fence and into Orthodoxan territory. If she hadn’t felt like death warmed over she would have laughed. She wasn’t sure she could make it to the door right now, much less make it three days across rugged terrain back to Hutchinson’s compound and however much further it was from there to Torrin’s ship.

  With a fever this high and as much as she was sweating, Jak knew she had to get as much liquid into her system as possible. Pushing herself up on one elbow, she snagged the glass of water from the table by her head. Her hand shook so badly that she had to use the other one and brace her arms against her chest to take a drink. The water tasted really, really good. The cool liquid was a sip from heaven as it slid down her parched throat. She settled back on the bed and began considering their options.

  First things first. They needed to get past the fence and the Orthodoxan border guards. She could see their way through once the fence was down, but how would they get the fence down?

  * * *

  A gentle hand shaking her elbow woke her. Jak shook her head; the move sent a spike of pain between her eyes. She must have fallen asleep while planning. Torrin sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at her with concerned eyes.

  “I got you flowers,” Torrin said lightly, holding up a bunch of blue and yellow blooms in a crude bouquet. Jak wished she had the energy to laugh, but the best she could manage was a meager smile.

  “I need them chewed on a bit to work faster.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I need you to chew them a bit to break them down,” Jak explained patiently. Torrin looked slightly dubious when Jak confirmed what she’d said. “You’re not going to yak them up in my mouth like a mama bird. Just break them down a little. They’ll start working faster.” Torrin still stared at her doubtfully. “Don’t tell me you’re not feeling good about swapping spit now,” Jak chided her. Her head felt really heavy. Their exchange was taking a lot out of her. She rested her head back on the pillow.

  Torrin stuck a sprig in her mouth and chewed gingerly, grimacing at the taste. She pulled the vegetation out and hesitantly offered it to Jak. “Tastes like old boots,” she complained, taking a swig out of the canteen at her waist.

  “Yep.” Jak took the half-chewed plant and immersed it in her water glass. “Get me a few more like that and I’ll have a tincture to drink.”

  Torrin made a face at the prospect but complied, chewing her way through four more sprigs of the unimpressive flower. When she was finished, Jak had an extremely unappetizing glass of blue-green water and sludge. Her arms gave out when she tried to struggle to a sitting position. Torrin gently slid an arm around her torso and pulled her up. She picked up the glass and held it to Jak’s lips while the sniper railed inwardly at her own weakness. Her first swig of the improvised tincture sent Jak into a sputtering fit at the flavor.

  “You need to finish your drink,” Torrin admonished.

  “Now you’re the voice of reason,” Jak muttered weakly. “Nothing,” she said more loudly when Torrin shot her a questioning glance. She took the glass with hands that trembled like leaves in a high wind and downed as much as she could without breathing.

  When she had emptied most of the glass, Torrin lowered her back to the bed.

  “The herbs should take effect soon,” Jak told her. “I should eat while I’m still feeling good enough. Get us some food from the mess hall. We can’t do anything before nightfall anyway, and that’s hours away still.”

  Torrin nodded, then leaned over Jak to kiss her forehead. She grimaced at the heat that still radiated off her. “I’ll be back,” she said on her way out the door. “You should try sleeping.”

  The instruction really wasn’t necessary, Jak thought muzzily. She was so tired that she didn’t see how she could stay awake without trying. Trying sounded so hard; it was so much easier to let go and let sleep pull her under.

  * * *

  By nightfall Jak felt marginally better. The ligbane was doing its work, and while her fever wasn’t gone, it was much lower. She still felt like crap, but it was a level of crap at which she could function. She’d eaten to get her strength up and had drunk what felt like ten liters of water to combat dehydration.

  The two of them had crept out of the barracks and were now crouched outside the quartermaster’s office. Torrin kept
an eye out while Jak worked on bypassing the door’s locking mechanism. She and her brother had been known to slip in and out of rooms and buildings all over camp during basic and sniper training. Typically, it had been Bron’s idea; she’d only been along for the ride. He’d never taken anything; he’d just wanted to see what he could find. Still, it had been a while since she’d had to break through a locked door, and in her current condition she was having some problems getting back into the swing of things.

  Finally the lock popped open. Jak slipped inside, Torrin on her heels.

  “We need a couple of cloaks and enough food and water to get us there,” Jak whispered. “You look for the supplies. I’ll grab us some cloaking devices.”

  Torrin nodded and started rummaging through cabinets while Jak made a beeline for the technology lockers. It didn’t take her long to locate the cloaks. She missed her ghillie suit, which was probably still in the shelter in the woods. Maybe they could pick it up on the way through. A rack of assault rifles sat next to the cabinet, and she grabbed one for Torrin. She, of course, already had her sniper rifle on her. In fact, she had two. Her favorite rifle was good for extremely long ranges and her second favorite was better over medium distances. Since there was a good chance it would be a long time before she’d be back, if at all, she wanted both with her. She also had a few items that weren’t strictly necessary for their escape. A holopicture of her parents and her brother’s custom-made pistol with the wood grips she’d whittled for him. There really wasn’t anything else from her life that she felt absolutely had to come with her if she left the planet. It was sad, really. The fever must be making her sentimental, she thought. Now was not the time to be dwelling on such distractions. She grabbed a couple boxes of ammunition for the rifle and turned.

  On the far side of the room, Torrin had a rucksack and was shoving rations into it. She’d also picked up a few flasks for water.

  “You’ll find stims on the top shelf,” Jak whispered, coming over to stand next to her.