Warrior Chronicles 2: Warrior's Blood (26 page)

“Wait, Gramps. Go in order; Kim, your state of mind, skip to Grandfather, then finish up with Clare. That’s going to be the worst for both of us.”

“Kim moved into my quarters. I can’t even say when it happened for sure. It started the day I arrived back here after the battle at Oxia Palus. She understands me though.” Cort’s sad features touched Rand deeply. “She gets me too well. You went through enough to understand me too, Rand. I guess that’s why I can tell you this. There’s something healing about her for me. I can’t tell you much more than that. Especially after today.”

“You have to fix it, Cort. You are kindred souls. Did you know she put Keen’s spies into atmosphere herself? She is like you in that. She doesn’t want others to have to carry a burden she can carry herself. That makes you good for each other. I think you need each other. And for the record, I thought that long ago. Before...everything else.”

“Well, as for my state of mind, I’m out of my element. That’s not any place I like to be. I want a defined target, like the crystal. I don’t like playing nursemaid to you idiots and telling you how to run a government.”

“Did they have training wheels in your time, Gramps?”

“You mean like for a bicycle? Yeah, why?”

“When a kid learns to ride a bicycle, at some point you have to just let him go and hope for the best. I broke my leg when Dad first took mine off. Clare got a black eye for an hour when she hit a tree. My point is, you have to let us stumble. Stop trying to guide us. Does that make sense?”

“What happens if you guys fail on a galactic scale?”

“Then we call our Marine, Cort.” Rand let his words sink before he said, “What will Grandfather do?”

Cort welcomed the change of subject. Rand was right, though. He had complained his entire life that nobody wanted him around except when they needed to be rescued. It was the role he was made for, though.
Fuck. Why didn’t I stay in my own time?
But even as he thought it, Cort knew he had made the right choice.

“He will stay on Earth,” Cort stated matter-of-factly. “He can make a difference there. But I think maybe some of his people will want to come here, unless he can convince them that a better adventure awaits them with him. If I’m right, you will need to get him a dome quickly. You haven’t been in the cavern. It’s not as romantic as it sounds. And with three thousand people in a cave that size, it’s almost as crowded as it is here.”

Rand looked down at his lap and said, “What happened with Clare?”

“Clare was blinded by the family legend,” Cort said. “It’s easy to read a romantic story about an old battle or see a video of a module exploding. Reality is different though. I mean, those are real, but actually seeing the death with your own eye, or in this case through my eyes, is different.”

Cort looked at the picture of Angela and Diane again. A wife and child that died three centuries before, because of the same thing that killed Clare. “You’ve been through bad things Rand, and I acknowledge that, so don’t take what I am about to say wrong. You sister lived and saw life through a clouded veil. When I wasn’t a warrior, she thought she loved me. When I was more worried about Sköll living than I was about myself dying, she thought I was only compassionate. She never understood what Speral’s people gathered only from my name; I am death incarnate, Rand. I don’t know how to be a man of peace. So if I am not fighting a war, I need to be kept away from society. In many ways, I am a monster. I can accept that. Kim accepts it I think. But your sister didn’t. She thought fighting was my job, but it’s not. It’s who I am.”

Rand said, “So she died trying to save you from who she thought you were becoming. In reality, it was who you are. She just couldn’t see it.”

Cort looked up at Rand who seemed suddenly wise beyond his years. “That’s exactly it. She was afraid of who she thought I was becoming.”

“I guess we can take comfort that she turned at the last minute. Something changed for her.”

“Yes. Something changed for her. For the rest of my life that moment will haunt me, Rand. Why did she turn? Was it because she didn’t want to become me, or was it because she realized too late who I am?”

“We won’t ever know. That is between her and the Gods.”

“I wish I had that comfort, but being able to turn my burdens over to an imaginary friend just isn’t who I am.”

“Clearly you can turn them over to Kim.”

“She’s not imaginary.” Cort ran through back over the last few minutes with Rand. “Why did you comm me, Rand?”

“I don’t know, Gramps. Maybe I wanted to help put your head on straight. Kim can’t get all the credit for fixing you.” Rand smiled sadly and asked, “Did you love Clare?”

“Not the way she wanted me to.”

“I guess that pretty much sums it up. Goodnight, Gramps.” Rand disconnected before Cort could respond.

“Let’s go home, Zandra.”

When Cort walked into his quarters, there was a blanket and pillows on the couch in the front room. Zandra sniffed them and looked up at her Alpha. Just then, the door to the bedroom opened and Kim said, “Zandra. Come.”

The wolf looked at Cort with just hint of confusion before walking into the bedroom. Kim closed the door and left Cort alone.

Scorpion Station, Ares Federation

“It’s beautiful.” Kim Point was amazed at the open space. She felt almost like she was back on Earth. The first geodesic dome was finished and filled with air. At five kilometers in diameter and two and a half kilometers high, it was the largest structure ever built by humanity, and Kim was the first person to stand inside it. Coke and Zandra had cycled through the airlock with her, and when she told them to run, they covered themselves in fine red dust within minutes. Rand and Chief cycled through next, followed by Doctors Black and Verne, with Verne’s wolf. The small group had arranged for an hour alone in the dome before the engineers came in to run their final tests on the struts and nodes of the massive structure. 

“Well Kim, what do you think?” Rhodes asked.

Kim wished Cort were here with her. He would feel free for once.
Maybe. But maybe he would just think it was a bigger cage.
“I am going to run for a few minutes. Then I think I will take our wolves back to Argyre she said and trotted off.

Earth

Dar and Lex were outside waiting for Cort when he stepped off Speral’s ship. “How are you, Cort? Dar asked as he shook the larger man’s hand. Directing Cort to Lex, he said, “Cort, this is Lex Sike. I owe him a lot. He’s not you, granted. But he does okay in a pinch.”

Cort reached out for Lex’s hand. “It’s good to meet you, Lex. Thank you for everything you have done for us.”

“Thank you, sir.” Lex felt a little starstruck and the pauses in his words showed it. “It is, it is an honor, sir. Uh, can I, uh, show you around?”

“I would like that very much Lex, but first I need an hour or so alone with Dar. Can you arrange that?” Cort asked.

“Yes, sir. Of course.”

“You do need to talk to everyone here though, Cort. Lex can get them together for that. But a lot of these people believe in you, and believe we are alive because of you. It’s not every day one has the chance to meet a legend.”

“I suppose.” Cort sent a message to Speral on the ship.

--

“Cort, let me start,” Dar said a few minutes later, “I do not blame you. I was scared this would happen, but I don’t blame you.”

They were sitting in Dar’s office, just inside tunnel three at the edge of the great man made cavern. Cort remembered the months he lived here with Sköll. As he took a drink of the whiskey Dar had poured them both, Cort said, “I blame me, Dar. I’ve been through it enough that I should have known. I should never have kissed her. It gave her hope.”

“You are right, you should have known. But you didn’t. That doesn’t mean you are a bad person. It just means you are human. When it comes to war, you are truly Ares himself, I believe. But when it comes to women, well, you have a penis. That makes you a moron.” Dar sipped his own whiskey before he continued. “We all are. It’s part of being a man. But it’s good too, Cort. If women and men could figure each other out, life would be very boring. Hell, to be honest I question whether man would have invented the wheel if he wasn’t trying to impress a woman. Some Neanderthal wanted to copulate, so he impressed a hairy ape woman.”

“I killed your granddaughter, Dar. Why are you making jokes?”

“I am not making jokes. I am coping. There is a difference. You did not kill her, Cort. Loving you killed her.” Dar took another drink. “You want serious? Fine. I am glad we are in the middle of a wasteland. I am glad that Beards and his minions and every damned human on this continent died. I do not blame you Cort, I blame Atlantica. I have not shed a single tear since you told me what happened up on the surface. They deserved it. You were a commodity to them, as was Sköll. All they had to do was leave us alone and Clare and Kay would still be alive. They deserved to be wiped from the face of Earth because you have had to kill again. I know you are Ares himself. But had they not forced your hand, you would have connected a few modules in the middle some Martian plain and lived out your life in peace. The way you wanted to after you left here. So to quote my tenth great grandfather, fuck them. Fuck them and everything they stood for. I’m going to relish every minute of rebuilding this continent on their shattered bones.”

“Thank you for that, Dar.” Cort didn’t look up from his drink. He couldn’t.

Argyre

“It was amazing Cort! I ran in the same direction for nearly half an hour! Coke and Zandra were so dirty it took me another thirty minutes to rinse them off. The dome is incredible, Baby.”

“I wish I had been there. Why did you name it
Scorpion Station?
”

“The top-down view of the plans reminds me of one. Rand liked it because his mother’s sign was Scorpio.” Kim paused and added, “Cort, when will you see it? You’ve been gone a while.”

“I’ll see you and the wolves before I see the dome.” 

“Really? When?” Kim asked. The way her eyes widened and contracted belied the even tone of her voice.

“How about now?” Cort peeled his balaclava back as he walked into their quarters. Kim turned away from her monitor and jumped up, spilling her coffee as she jumped into his arms.  Cort dropped his grip and wrapped his arms around Kim’s waist as she wrapped her legs around his FALCON covered torso.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming home?” she asked after momentarily breaking their kiss. The wolves were busy bumping their muzzles into Cort’s thighs and sniffing his body armor. 

“Where would the fun be in that?” He smiled.

An hour later she asked him why his was back.

“Lap’s people won’t help us develop the weapons. We are on our own about that. They also won’t give us any tech that they fear we may use to develop a weapon. So we are more or less back at square one.”

“Not really. Our people have been pretty busy. They might not help us make the actual weapons, but Speral has dumped zettabytes of data to us. Most of it is about the infected planets prior to takeover, but we have learned a lot about how the crystal grows.”

“Okay, so what have you come up with?”

“An apology.” Kim’s answer seemed sheepish.

“Wait? You’re apologizing? For what?”

“We have to go to at least one of the planets and physically retrieve crystal.”

Cort remembered waking up on the couch the day after they had this conversation before. He was not going to repeat that mistake. “Go on.”

Kim sensed his apprehension as she answered. “The planets convert to liquid crystal.”