Beacon 23: Part Four: Company (Kindle Single) Read Online Free PDF Page B

It’s what I muttered to myself as they walked away. I later learned that this exchange wasn’t what it seemed. You shake enough hands and meet enough people and lose them all to the war, and you get to where you don’t want to meet anyone else. Looking back, I can see how the assholes were quick to give me any advice that might keep me alive, but they didn’t say shit about who they were. Names were simply home states or cities or favorite ball teams or embarrassing nicks. The assholes didn’t hate you; they just didn’t want to get attached. I got like that. I didn’t want to ever meet another Hank. I think that’s why he remained my best friend throughout my two and a half tours. I never let anyone else get so close. Those two weeks were painful enough. Hell, after Scarlett, I never confused sex and love again. Used to think the two had something to do with one another. But then the sex and dying came so close together that it almost felt like you were doing it with a corpse. Takes the joy out of it. You die a little inside every time you have joyless sex. Neurons prune back. The good in there withers. And some things never grow back.
    This is why I spend the next two days staring at the HF, too self-protecting to pick it up, too enamored to just walk away. I don’t want to know another thing about her. I can already feel the agony of her leaving, off to another brand-new beacon, asking someone to pass her a bolt, the smell of soap and grease on her skin, bonding with some other soldier, leaving behind a dotted line of finely tuned machines and shattered hearts. Makes me feel sorry not just for myself, but for every other lonely and hapless vet who—
    “Hello . . . ?”
    Cricket lifts her head from her blanket and stares at the ladder well. What the hell? What the hell?
    Looking over at the airlock indicators, I can see that collar Bravo is energized. Who the hell stops over unannounced like this? I step toward the ladder, step back, step toward it again, my arms out and akimbo, while Cricket gets up from her blanket.
    Before I can think to stop her, the warthen bounds for the ladder.
    “Fuck,” I say. I run after her. “Stop! Wait! No!” All the useless commands come out together in a jumble. I practically jump down the ladder, landing in a roll and grabbing at Cricket before she leaps down another level. I don’t stop to put on pants or a shirt, just have my boxers on, and I’m down the next ladder to the life support module when I hear a scream just below me. A shriek. I land to find Claire on her back, Cricket standing with her paws on the tuner’s chest, holding her against the grating.
    “Off!” I shout, pushing Cricket to the side and ending up on my knees. Cricket tries to get at Claire again—I can’t tell if it’s to greet her or dominate her—and I fight to hold the alien back. Claire scoots until she’s against the air scrubber and pulls her knees up against her chest, is staring at the animal wide-eyed, her jaw hanging open.
    “Sorry,” I say, sitting down and reaching out toward Claire. “I’m so sorry.”
    Claire doesn’t say anything. I tell Cricket to back off, to go lie down, to take it easy, and finally the tension goes out of her muscles. She paces back and forth on the other side of me, her head tracking Claire. I keep pointing to the grate, telling her to lie down, thinking for her to lie down, and she finally does. But with a grunt. Like she’d rather be doing anything else.
    “God, I’m so sorry,” I say. I reach over and touch Claire’s shin, remembering the time I touched her ankle. She startles, but not as bad as the last time.
    “What the hell is that?” she asks.
    “A warthen,” I say, breathing hard from the dash down. I rub the ankle I sprained a while back. “I— She sorta adopted me.”
    “That’s—” Claire can’t take her eyes off Cricket. She aims a finger at the animal. “That’s against regs. That’s . . . You can’t have that.”
    “I