CHAPTER TEN
Jaime watched the sudden change of expression move across Rylan’s face.
Before Jaime had spoken, Rylan been looking at him with such expectation, pupils dilating wide over the blue of his eyes. Those eyes shuttered fast as he drew back in surprise. Jaime raised a hand as Rylan opened his mouth.
“Don’t,” Jaime said. “Don’t make something up. I was trained by the Commonwealth, remember? I know what their signals feel like, especially that close. You sent a signal with the computer in your arm and then — hey, wow — conveniently, a ship shows up.”
“Why didn’t you say anything before? Tell the others?”
Jaime sat down on the lower bunk, running a hand through his hair. It was still damp from the shower; he’d spent a long time in there thinking of what to say to Rylan. “I was a little busy dealing with a bomb. Anyway, I knew you sent a message, but I couldn’t tell what it was. And that ship did save us.” Unspoken was Jaime’s hope, somehow, that Rylan was still someone worth trusting.
“Yes.” Rylan sat down heavily beside him. “It did. Because I asked for help.”
“So why would they help you?”
Rylan stared down at his hands in his lap. He prodded at the right one like it didn’t belong to him. “I was in the military.”
“I know. Everybody on the ship knows that.”
“And they know I didn’t leave on good terms — that I was kicked out, in fact. But there are still some that look out for me.”
Jaime grimaced irritably. “You have good enough friends that they’d send a ship for you when you call? Right.”
“Not a friend,” Rylan said the words pulled out of him. “My brother.” He looked up, meeting Jaime’s eyes. “My brother Jonathan is a Commonwealth agent. High up in the ranks. I was meeting him today. That’s why it had to be that stupid bar. He wanted to see me.” Rylan dropped his eyes again and clenched his hands. “He wants me to come home.”
Jaime flinched at the word home. It pulled at him despite himself. “So why don’t you?”
Rylan jerked his face back up. “It was a dishonorable discharge, Jaime. I’m dishonored. I can’t go back. No matter what Jonathan thinks, I can’t just be redeemed that easily.” He seemed raw and torn open.
“What did you do?” Jaime whispered, fearing the answer.
Rylan got up, pacing the room. It only took him a few steps, but he kept moving. “All those stories you read, about the Commonwealth forming to save humanity and fight the Singularity — I grew up on those, too. That’s why I wanted to serve. But it’s different now. The Singularity’s on the other side of the border and we never hear from them. These days we just keep watch on each other. Fight each other. Like people have always done.”
He swung around, setting his back to the wall opposite Jaime. “There are dozens of tiny colonies that cut themselves off with some idea of living off the land and giving up tech. Not like the Purists — these people just want to be left alone. Commonwealth policy is to check in every few years. Offer medical supplies, or take them off planet if they’ve had enough. You never knew what you’d find on these missions. I’ve seen people who were starving to death because their crops failed. Or a village completely wiped out by some disease we could’ve treated if they’d only used the comm system we’d left for them.”
His eyes were far away, and Jaime waited, unwilling to ask him to continue down the path he’d started. But Rylan straightened his back and set his jaw. “This one place, some muddy little world. The folks living on it got it onto their heads that we were a terrible temptation. I don’t know, maybe enough people wanted to leave with us that the local government saw us as a threat. Maybe they needed something to hate, and they knew we were coming back with our shiny ship and our nutrient bars. So they set a trap.” He focused on Jaime, face grim. “All our tech, and we never saw it coming. You’d be surprised the things people can make explosives out of. Surprised at how much damage shrapnel can do to a body.”
Jaime had a brief moment of dislocation. He smelled smoke and burning and—
“Jaime.” Rylan had crossed the room to kneel before him. “Of course you know. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He concentrated on slowing his breathing. “I’m okay.” He touched Rylan’s hand where it gripped the edge of the bunk beside him. “What happened to you?”
“I woke up, ears ringing, arm a bloody mess. My team dead all around me. There was a man — he was some skinny farmer, but he was coming at me with an axe. I still had a gun. Still had another arm. It wasn’t — I couldn’t aim well enough for a clean shot. When the medics got there, they kept working on me, didn’t help him until it was too late. I watched him die. And I couldn’t do anything. I was supposed to be there to help.”
Rylan sat down heavily on the bunk. “The remains of my unit regrouped, got the wounded out. Left that planet behind. I was in Medical for a year, learning to use the new arm, doing my training, my therapy, all of it. I was supposed to be ready to go back. I wanted to. And I was fine until we got sent to some other forgotten world.”
He rubbed at his face wearily. “There are some that think, because the Singularity’s been quiet so long, that maybe they’re gone. Fell apart without us or destroyed themselves. Everybody’s got a guess. There are factions that want to resettle the border planets, maybe even cross over into Singularity territory. Regain what we’ve lost. The Commonwealth’s position is to avoid waking the sleeping giant at all costs. So they sent us to stop a group that had set themselves up in an old city inside the restricted zone. These people had weapons, and they had tech, and they definitely weren’t planning on going quietly. It wasn’t an easy fight. They’d already pinned down another unit by the time we were sent in. We had orders to shoot on sight. I thought — I was supposed to be ready, but I kept seeing the farmer I’d shot. The way he’d looked when he’d stopped breathing.”
He shook his head helplessly.
“You couldn’t do it.”
“The middle of a battle’s a hell of a time for a realization like that. My commanding officer, she gave me a direct order and I disobeyed. I wish I could tell you I stood up and made some big speech about the value of human life. But the truth is I froze. I put the lives of everyone who trusted me at risk. No matter what, I can’t forgive myself for that.” He lifted a corner of his mouth. “I likely could have got out with a medical discharge, but I spent the next few weeks drunk. That’s how I found out I could still handle bar fights, but it doesn’t look too good when you’re punching out officers.”
“But your brother, he thinks you can go back?”
Rylan shifted. He gave a bitter twist of a smile. “Yes, even though I’m a smuggler and consorting with known criminals. He thinks I can be what I was.”
“Do you want to?”
“I think I’m where I’m supposed to be.” He said it with a sad certainty.
Jaime turned Rylan’s words over in his mind. “Well, I’m glad you’re here,” he said finally, because it was the truth.
“I stole you out of the jungle. You would have been better off if I’d left you alone. Then you wouldn’t be in the middle of all this mess.”
Jaime shook his head. “I was lost. So completely lost. Rylan, you — you’ve been really good at keeping me safe.”
Jaime leaned forward. For a second, he thought Rylan would pull away, but he gave Jaime a helpless look and reached out to stroke his hair with the softest of touches.
“Oh.”
It was a tremulous sound, but somehow full of hope, and Jaime took it as an invitation to bridge the gap between them.
The first touch of their lips was light, almost glancing. Jaime pressed forward, feeling stubble and the softness of Rylan’s mouth. He could feel, too, Rylan’s fingers gently twining in his hair.
Jaime ran a hand along the hard line of Rylan’s jaw, the muscles around it finally begin to relax, even as Rylan’s lips parted beneath his. There was a tiny flick of his tongue against Jaime’s, like a question he was afraid to ask.
Jaime sighed happily and smiled a little through the kiss.
“What?” Rylan murmured into his mouth.
“This isn’t what I was expecting.”
“It’s not?” Rylan pulled back a little.
“It’s just usually you’re grabbing me and slamming me into walls and stuff.”
“Oh.” He pulled back further. “Sorry about that.”
Jaime tugged at his hand. “No. I kinda liked it. I mean, um, if you like that sort of thing, too?”
Rylan stood up abruptly. Jaime took a quick intake of breath, ready to backtrack when Rylan hauled him off the bunk. He caught Jaime under the thighs, lifting him up easily so that they were face to face. A dimple appeared in Rylan’s cheek as he grinned. “I like it, too.”
Rylan’s mouth slammed into his. For a blurry moment, Jaime was only aware of lips and teeth and hands and skin. Rylan spun them and pushed Jaime up against the door.
Jaime put his head back on the door and groaned. “I won’t mind you locking me in this time.”
Rylan stilled. Jaime leaned forward to bite at his neck, but all Rylan did was turn around and set Jaime on his feet.
Jaime plucked at his shirt, wondering if Rylan had a no-biting thing. Rylan firmly pushed Jaime’s hands to his sides.
“Hold up,” Rylan said. “I need to check something.”
Jaime tried to focus. “What?”
Rylan’s jaw was at its most firm. He took a step towards the door. “It should only take a minute.”
Jaime felt an almost dizzying wave of confusion as blood shifted directions. “What?”
Rylan opened the door and stepped through it as Jaime stared. “Just wait right here,” he said and shut the door behind him.
Jaime was left alone with tingling lips and a raging erection. “What?” he yelled at the closed door.