Dead and Buryd: A Dystopian Action Adventure Novel (Out of Orbit Book 1) (6 page)

Beck Casey, the leader and marshall of the Belsa, had found Lacie, fourteen at the time, beaten half to death and starving in a back alley of the Oprust district. It had taken quite a bit of coercion, Georgianna had heard, getting Lacie to trust him enough to carry her down to the Way for treatment. Since that day he’d treated the girl like she was his own, and from what Georgianna saw between them, Lacie loved him as a father in return.

While the going had been tough in the beginning, earning the trust of a skittish young woman, she could not have asked for a more attentive student. Then again, it wasn’t as if she had taken a student before. She didn’t know exactly how well Lacie should be doing at this point. She’d been only sixteen when the Adveni invaded, only recently accepted as an adult within the Kahle herself, not in the position to take on a new trainee. Now, at twenty-six, Georgianna had yet to take on a new medic. She didn’t feel safe bringing a young student down to the Belsa territory with her, and she couldn’t have expected the student’s parents to be okay with her affiliations: not until Beck had asked her to help Lacie in exchange for a few coins a week.

They managed about twenty minutes before Lacie broke down and begged that they dress Jacob’s wound. Georgianna, unable to watch the forlorn look on the girl’s innocent face any longer, nodded and allowed Lacie to redress the nsiloq mark. She didn’t know what dressing or keeping it open would do, it wasn’t often that she treated nsiloq marks. The Adveni had their own medics, their own systems, not to mention that they’d been dealing with the marks for decades, maybe even longer.

When the Adveni had arrived on Os-Veruh, in their big, impressive ships and with their fancy technology, it had been like something out of the stories her father used to tell her as a child. Almost everyone knew the story of the meteor and the floating ships, how they left before Os-Veruh’s seasons changed. As her father also told stories about talking coyotes and bears, however, she had begun to wonder about the truth in the history as it had been described to her. Her father said that the story had been passed from one generation to the next for over five hundred years, but even as a child Georgianna had known far too much about how a story changed with each telling.

It had been just after her sixteenth birthday when they arrived. Scouts from within the Kahle tribe had travelled ahead to check the trail as they did every season, and returned with news that there were large shining clouds above Adlai. The tribe had travelled onward, wanting to see the phenomenon. When they arrived, it had seemed like all of her father’s stories had come true. The Adveni, as they called themselves, used to call Os-Veruh home. Having found another planet to inhabit after leaving in one of the ships, they had flourished, but the desire to return to their home planet had always been great. Scouts had been sent, and upon seeing that their home world remained, they had come back, and they planned to stay.

Now—looking at the injuries of the young man across from her, seeing the suffering of the people within the compound every time she visited, forced to live by the foreigners’ laws and serve their whims, living in the tattered remains of what had once been a challenging but understandable life for a Veniche—Georgianna wished they had never returned at all.

 
***

 
Sitting in front of a patient from the camps who had come in after a robbery, Georgianna had finished stitching the wound closed and smeared the yellow paste of the lutiner flower sparingly over it to speed recovery.

Unfortunately, robberies and attacks were more common now than they used to be, especially in the camps, where the Adveni presence was less pronounced. It wasn’t as easy to hunt while in one place with so many others. The trail had been much easier for hunting, and by the time the different tribes reached Adlai for the heat, they had enough stores to keep most families relatively comfortable. There had always been robberies of course, by those who moved alone instead of with a tribe, or those who had been banished for committing a crime, but these days they seemed to happen every other day—more often in fact. As times became harder, more people began only looking out for themselves.

“I hope it’s okay that I came down,” Kael said quietly.

Georgianna glanced up from the bandage as she wound it tightly around his arm.

“Of course it is.”

“I wouldn’t normally. Keep to myself, you know? Don’t like a lot of trouble, but this wouldn’t stop bleeding and…”

Tying one end of the bandage to the other, Georgianna patted him lightly on the shoulder.

“There’s no need to explain,” she smiled. “You needed help.”

Kael nodded as she turned away to note down his visit.

Georgianna had left Lacie in the end car with a collection of hyliha leaves while she treated him. While the leaves weren’t useful for much more than easing a heat rash, Georgianna had given them to the young girl to practise making paste out of the herbs that could be collected. Hyliha trees grew everywhere, having adapted to the planet’s altered seasons, so the leaves were ideal for practising on before moving on to some of the rarer, more useful substances.

“I don’t have much,” he mumbled shyly as Georgianna scribbled her notes.

Looking up, Georgianna glanced over her shoulder at the man and finally turned around to face him:

“Kael, don’t…”

“I will make good!” he interjected before Georgianna could speak further. “I have some pelts drying. I’ll bring one down!”

“That is far too much for a simple cut, especially when you already lost so much in gaining the wound.”

Kael stared down at his knees, dragging his teeth over his lip worriedly. She sighed. She hated taking from people who couldn’t afford it. However, it wasn’t her supplies that she was using up down here. While she was happy to do the work for a bowl of stew or some other kindness that families could afford, the Belsa needed things they could use.

“Look,” she blurted quickly. “I’m going to have to see you in a couple days anyway, to make sure that’s healing the way it should, and take out the stitches. So, how about we trade then?”

Kael looked up, finally meeting her gaze. He nodded gratefully.

Georgianna returned to the last car once Kael had said his goodbyes and set off along the tunnel. She looked in to find Lacie keeping watch over Jacob, making her own notes in a small book. Either Lacie hadn’t realised, or the two were keeping an easy silence, but Jacob was awake.

“How’re you feeling?” Georgianna asked, moving further inside.

Lacie lifted her head, her gaze shifting to Georgianna before she looked at Jacob. He was curled in the corner of his bed, looking far younger than he was. The moment Georgianna had spoken, however, his expression contorted in panic. His wide brown eyes darted around the car, and he quickly pushed himself up. Pressing his back against the end of the bed, he hunched over his knees, pulling them tight to his chest.

She took a step back, chewing on her bottom lip. Even Lacie, who had been the closest to Jacob since his arrival, moved away from him, giving the terrified young man as much space as she could.

“I’m sorry, Jacob. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Jacob shook his head violently, but didn’t say a word.

With a single glance from Lacie, she took another step back.

“I’ll… I’ll be in the other car if you need me.”

Lacie placed her notes next to her knee, but she didn’t even look at Jacob or Georgianna again. She stared at her feet, hands clasped in her lap, perfectly still.

Georgianna climbed down from the car, wishing that every injury was as easily cured as Kael’s.

 
5
Freed-Up Time

 
Jaid took over on Medics’ Way again in the late evening, having had no luck in locating her husband, Si. Georgianna could see the worry on her face and had offered to cover the next shift, but Jaid would have none of it. She claimed working on the Way would keep her mind busy, but Georgianna was sure that the moment Jaid was alone she would be imagining all the worst things that could possibly have happened to him. Then again, Keinah, the only other regular medic, wasn’t in any state to go very far, with her pregnancy so far along. No doubt, if Jaid needed, she would be able to call on the mother-to-be.

Once all the notes had been handed over and the current states of patients explained, Georgianna walked with Lacie back into Belsa territory, leaving the girl a couple of hundred yards from the car she shared with Marshall Casey. She didn’t need to walk the girl back; enough Belsa knew exactly who Lacie was that she would get help if she ever needed it, but she enjoyed the walk. The young girl was sweet and quiet, but always had interesting opinions on things when you got her talking.

Turning away from the tunnel leading to the marshall’s car, Georgianna headed west through a smaller tunnel off the main encampment, away from the main bustle of people coming and going. It wasn’t a long walk, which, after being out and about all day, was a relief. Georgianna had always been active, but some days it became a bit much, running all over the place.

Despite her work as a medic, helping people didn’t pay much more than trade and favours. Most nights, once she’d finished whatever she happened to have on that day, she headed over to the Rion, an Adveni district filled with bars and restaurants. The Adveni were more accustomed to having purpose-built places to eat and drink, so they allowed a few Veniche to work in their establishments, pouring drinks and delivering food. Today, however, Georgianna wasn’t expected to be at Crisco so she headed through the Belsa tunnels to one of the other places where she spent some of her evenings.

The shack, made of sheet metal stolen from an Adveni construction site, was held together with rope and strategically placed bricks. Despite its ramshackle appearance, it was surprisingly sturdy, something Georgianna had found out by accident when she tripped and fell into one of the walls.

Approaching the side where a thick canvas sheet covered the opening, Georgianna reached out and smacked her hand against the nearest section of metal.

“Are you decent?” she asked, shifting her weight. “Or alone?”

There was silence for a moment, in which Georgianna considered peeking inside. There was always a chance that he wasn’t there. It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d found the shack empty. Though before she had the chance to peer inside, or turn and walk away, the canvas was pulled back at an angle and a cheeky grin appeared in the opening.

“Have you ever known me to be either?” it asked.

A large hand came out through the gap and tangled itself in amongst the hair at the nape of her neck, pulling her in.

Georgianna barely had time to look around to confirm the answer to either of her questions before soft, warm lips found her own, drawing her up to meet them. She smiled against the kiss, her own hands seeking out the gentle slope of his waist before she carefully pulled herself back.

The lamp was lit, and it sent flickering light over Keiran’s stubbled jaw and smooth skin. He looked down at her, grinning that charming, cocky smirk that had first made her notice him. He was so self-assured, with such easy going charm, that it was almost impossible not to like him.

“You’re dressed, I’m disappointed,” Georgianna chuckled.

A raised eyebrow met her comment, his smirk broadening as he teased his fingers through her long hair.

“Easily solvable!” he answered.

Leaning forward, Keiran placed a kiss gently against Georgianna’s temple before he released her and turned around, retreating the couple of steps over to his bed and falling down onto it. Picking up a piece of paper from the upturned crate by his bed, he folded it a couple times and slotted it into his pocket before reaching out for her to join him. Georgianna indulged him happily, placing her bag down on the bed as she eased her boots from her feet and clambered over him to the other side of the bed. Placing herself against the wall, her legs resting over Keiran’s, Georgianna reached out and tugged her bag toward her.

“Save any lives today, Med?” Keiran asked, resting his arms over her shins, one hand sliding her trousers up a little so that his thumb could gently stroke her ankle.

Georgianna shook her head.

“I was called to the compound,” she explained. “Vtensu left it so long that by the time I got there, it was too late.”

Keiran frowned a little, but shrugged.

“Better dead than buryd!” he answered.

Lifting her head, Georgianna glanced at him. His grey-blue eyes and tanned face, worn with work and age, still held the amusement and cheer that so many Belsa had lost somewhere along the way. He looked relaxed, as if he didn’t have a care in the world, as if maybe the Adveni hadn’t invaded and they were just two people in the mid-heat of Adlai. Looking at him like this, it was hard to believe that their world had changed so much, that Keiran had once been a hunter with the Nerrin tribe, that she’d nearly finished her training. Back then, she’d not even thought about Keiran Zanetti; she’d barely known him.

Keiran, four years older than she was, was thirty. Had things been like they were before, he could have expected to have been joined by now. He didn’t talk much about the old days though, except to regale her with stories of hunting with Eli Talassi, the Belsa everyone now knew as Wrench. She was sure that Keiran didn’t like what had happened to their world any more than anybody else did. Yet he wasn’t secretive that he was glad their joining traditions had fallen by the wayside in all the turmoil.

Thinking about it, Georgianna had to admit that she wasn’t upset either at not being hounded to find a partner to continue the Kahle lines. She felt happy with the way things were between her and Keiran, something that would not have been looked on kindly if she were expected to join.

“You saying you wouldn’t come break down Lyndbury if I were caught?” she asked, smirking at him.

“Oh, I’d come to Lyndbury,” he answered, pushing himself up to lean forward and kiss her again. “I’d be first in line to purchase myself a George drysta.”