This Shattered World (Starbound #2)(31)

Alexi requested a transfer, and then I moved on to Avon with my old captain and the rest of my platoon. No one here knows we ever did more than serve together once—now, he’s simply one of my oldest friends. He’s mine, but only in the way all my guys are.

Still. Knowing he’s there—my throat tightens. I wish I could talk to him. I wish I could talk to him, to anyone, about the Fianna boy and his talk of peace, so unlike what we’ve always known to be true of the rebels. But not even Alexi would understand why I didn’t take him prisoner to face justice for his crimes.

Hell, I don’t even understand it myself.

There’s a hospital gown draped over the back of the chair, but I’m not quite willing to face Commander Towers in a dress that doesn’t close in the back. Still, I push myself up into a seated position with a groan and reach for the laces on my boots. It’s not until I’ve tossed one into the corner and am reaching for the other that something loose shifts inside the lining, and I remember the thing I found half-hidden in the mud on Cormac’s island. With everything that happened—the rebel hideout, McBride, my escape—I’d forgotten it.

I tug the boot free and upend it. A small rectangular bit of plastic drops out onto the blanket. It’s definitely man-made, covered in foil circuitry on one side. My fingers reach for it and turn it over. The other side’s got a scan bar on it.

It’s an ident chip. Low-tech, compared to the flashy things we get nowadays, with holovid images of our faces and DNA samples and fingerprints built in. This is one of the models from ten, twenty years ago. Outdated, but simple. Doesn’t require much technology to produce—but the advantage is that it can’t be read without the right scanner. And I’ll bet anything that if I tried to scan it, the identity of its owner would come up encrypted. There’s no telling who this chip belongs to.

Except it wasn’t a soldier, because we’ve got different chips. And it wasn’t a townie or a rebel, because their genetag IDs are all tattooed on their forearms and verified via DNA scans, so they can’t be forged or lost. This isn’t the tech TerraDyn uses—they have all their own in-house systems.

It’s someone else. Someone who isn’t supposed to be in TerraDyn’s territory. Another player on Avon.

Before I have much time to process, there’s a knock at the door. I shove the ident chip deep into my pocket and lift my head. The door swings open, and Commander Towers appears.

She’s the only other female officer on the base above a lieutenant, but we couldn’t look more different. She’s willowy and lean, with sharply defined features and blond hair she wears in a bun at the nape of her neck. Less experienced than the base commander she replaced four or five months ago, but far more competent. She’s a lifer, like me. We’re the ones who progress quickly through the ranks, who devote our lives to these fights. Most recruits who show up are only passing through, enlisting for a few years to earn enough to start their real careers or go to school, or to see a bit of the galaxy before they settle down somewhere. But with Towers and me, one look is all you need to know we’ll be soldiers until we’re done.

“Chase,” she greets me, stepping through the doorway. “How are you feeling?”

I pause, as though considering my answer. “A bit hungry, sir.”

Her lips twitch into a small smile, and then she sinks down onto the same chair Alexi occupied a few moments before. Though instead of dropping into it heavily, she alights on the edge, hands folded over her knees.

“You know why I’m here. We need to know what happened out there, Captain. Are you up to talking about it?” Her tone makes it clear she isn’t really asking me. This debrief is happening now, whether I want it to or not.

Truthfully, I still feel as though I’m being squeezed through flat rollers, stretched out and held to a hot iron. My ribs itch and throb as the fractures knit in response to the medics’ treatment. Every movement makes my head ache with exhaustion, and all I want to do is go to sleep.

“I’m fine, sir,” I say instead of the truth. This, at least, is a lie I can deal with. “Truly. No long-lasting trauma.” Except, you know, going mad in the swamp and seeing a secret facility that’s no longer there.

The commander nods, her posture relaxing a fraction. “In that case, we can handle the official debrief process now.” She reaches into her pocket, pulling out a recorder about the size of her index finger and snapping the top open so the green recording light flashes at me. She sets it down on the medicine cabinet beside my bed. “Debrief interview, post-incident with Captain Jubilee Chase, recording for transcript by TD-Alpha Base senior officer, Commander Antje Towers. Galactic date code 080449. Let’s begin, Captain. Can you tell me what you remember, starting from the beginning?”

I take a slow breath, testing the point at which my healing ribs twinge. A boy named Flynn Cormac abducted me and then saved my life and let me go again. I think of the first moment I saw him in Molly’s, nursing his beer and watching me in the mirror over the bar. My mouth opens—but nothing comes out.

Commander Towers is studying me expectantly, her fair eyebrows slightly raised, hands still folded over her knees. The clinic is quiet, the silence roaring in my ears.

Then, a strange voice says, “I don’t remember much.”

I clear my throat, pressing my palms down flat against the blankets. I’m committed now. I’ve lied.