“I liked it better before you pointed it at my unit like a sniper rifle.”
My laugh is bitter. “Cute. You all play the same game. ‘It’s just war, it’s just orders.’ But you know what I see when I play back the interviews? People who arethisclose to breaking. People who’ve seen things they’re not allowed to talk about because it would make the posters peel off the walls.”
He doesn’t flinch. But he doesn’t argue either.
“You’re defending him,” I say. “Kanapa. After everything.”
“I’m defendingorder.” His voice sharpens. “You weren’t there at Marn Sector. You didn’t see what happened when the command pulled out and left us in a crater for six goddamn days. Kanapa held that line. Hekept us alive.”
“And now he’s using that credit to burn people alive and call it strategy.”
Darun looks at the floor. For the first time… he doesn’t have a comeback.
“Loyalty matters out here,” he says, softer.
“Even when it kills the wrong people?” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer.
And that silence? It says more than anything he’s ever grunted at me.
He turns to go. Doesn’t speak.
But his steps drag. Just a little.
The first crack is always the quietest.
And I make damn sure to remember it.
File it away like the weapon it is.
CHAPTER 6
DARUN
We move out at dawn. Sky’s bruised with that ugly prelight gray that never quite brightens this far out. My visor’s fogged from the humidity. Boots caked already, not even a klick into the march. Everything stinks of iron and burnt plastic—old blood and old war.
Kanapa leads from the front like he always does, cyberarm twitching with every third step. It hums low, like it’s hungry.
“Recon drone picked up heat signatures,” he grunts over comms. “Suspected insurgent camp. Soft walls, no external turrets, but we take nothing for granted. Sweep. Clear. Minimal chatter. You find an Ataxian with a pulse, you drop it.”
No one asks questions.
I fall into formation, second column, flanked by Tev and Brask. Amy’s behind us, strapped into the back of the crawler, her gear tight to her chest and her recorder already active. She hasn’t said a word to me since last night. I don’t blame her.
I don’t want to talk, either.
The outpost isn’t a camp. It’s not even a hideout. It’s a cluster of prefab shelters barely held together by hope and adhesive foam. Laundry lines between sun-bleached panels.Solar batteries half-buried in red dust. A plastic trike overturned near a cistern.
Not a single gun or a soldier in sight.
I clock a woman at the door of the far hut. Gray hair braided tight down her back, arms spread wide, mouth open in what I can only guess is pleading. Her language is thick with Ataxian dialect. The translator in my earpiece glitches, spits static.
Three kids behind her. One clutches a rag doll with a singed ear.
“They’re civilians,” I say into comms.
Kanapa doesn’t pause. Doesn’t blink. “They’re enemy nationals. Harboring insurgents. Standard procedure.”
