Two military police grabbed the corporal’s arms to lead him away and for the first time I saw that his ankles had been shackled. I was about to leave when I noticed my unit. Toly popped her helmet and walked closer, the rest of her friends following.
“You froze out there, Grandmother.”
“I know.”
“You could’ve killed us.” She spat on the ground and my skin went cold. Toly didn’t have to tell me what I had done. After I came to in the infirmary it only took a day to convince myself that Jennifer was my fault, that I should have seen her cowardice and alerted the corporal. From there it was an easy step, no leap at all. They were all my fault.
I started crying and she slapped me. “Cut that shit out, you wanted the Legion and now you’ve got it.”
“I killed them. It was all because of me.”
A group of girls arranged themselves between us and the camp so that others couldn’t see what was happening, and the chill became a horrifying thought: they were angry enough to murder.
“It was all because of me,” Toly repeated, mocking. Her fist slammed into my gut, knocking the crutches away so that I collapsed in the dust, the wind knocked out. “Francine is dead. Not because you froze, because you forgot to set up relays.” Her boot smashed into the side of my face then and I nearly blacked out. “That was for Francine.”
The other Russians followed. One after another they took turns beating and kicking me, their curses interlaced with spitting so that by the end of it I was covered with mud and dust, blood streaming from my mouth.
The others left and Buttons knelt by my face. “They’re wrong, it’s not your fault, but you needed this lesson.”
“What?” The tears wouldn’t stop. Being beaten didn’t bother me, if anything it helped because it felt like I had paid at least some price for what I had done. If I’d learned nothing else during my experience at the mine, I had learned one thing: I was part coward too, like Jennifer. What Toly and the others had done was how the Legion took care of cowards, and in a way the process served as a kind of absolution, a bless-me-for-I-have-sinned kind of thing where their beatings took the place of Hail Marys and Our Fathers. I was half crying from relief.
“I said it’s not your fault, none of us expected combat so soon and what happened to you could have happened to anyone. Yeah, you forgot the relays. But so did everyone else, we were exhausted, had no business being that far out. Yeah, you froze. But then you got moving and made the right calls. You screwed up, took your punishment, and now we forgive you, but this is what will happen next. When you return to the unit, you’ll have already lost control of the heavy weapons section to Toly. We have a new corporal and it’s already been arranged. Then you do as you’re told and all will be forgotten. You’re back in the family now, Grandmother, this is just another lesson. Got it?”
I nodded and Buttons helped me to my feet, handing me my crutches. When I made it to my bunk a nurse saw the new injuries and called the doctor, but luckily I passed out before they asked how I got them. In the end nothing else happened. Two weeks later we found ourselves in a transport bound for Lavigne, a kepi blanc perched atop my head. It felt awkward—as if I didn’t really deserve the cap or the title of Legionnaire. For the briefest moment I thought about those mistakes again, thought maybe I wasn’t the best, maybe I had screwed up and was more than part coward, and a glare from Toly underscored my doubt, bringing back the corporal’s first words.
They had made a terrible mistake in admitting me; I didn’t belong.
The children were loaded onto the attack ship first, then my girls, and then me. Buttons hugged me as we lifted off.
“Well done. We have a science team doing flyovers now, apparently the mantes hibernate deep underground for a hundred-year cycle, and the colonists’ first mine shaft hit one of their nests, waking them. But now they know what to look for. We’ll wipe them out and come back.”
“You’re crying.”
She brushed a tear from her cheek and then laughed. “I should have been there, I’m sorry. But you should see the lieutenant, I think he’ll need a psychiatrist he’s so upset about leaving all of you alone. If there’s anything you want or need, ask him now before he gets over it.”
“There’s a boy among them, Buttons, his name is Phillip. I was wondering…”
“The answer is no, Grandmother. You can’t have kids in the Legion.” She must have seen the look on my face because she hugged me. “And besides, his mother and father are alive. Lucy told me about him and I looked it up. He was here with his aunt and uncle because his parents thought that time on a colony would be good for him. I think they’d fight you for custody.”
I laughed at that and then noticed her staring. “What?”
“I don’t know if this is the right time.”
“Spit it out!”
Buttons looked away and punched something on her forearm computer so that a few seconds later my incoming message light blinked. She explained while I read.
“Command wants two of us to go to officers’ school. Me. The other would have been Toly but she’s gone, and after seeing your performance planet-side they thought it would be best to pass the offer to you.”
“An officer?”
“Well, remember, you’re not French. The highest you’d go is captain. Also, one more thing: regulations have changed since we joined. If you accept a commission, it’s a lifelong assignment and you wouldn’t be able to leave for twenty years. We’re at war now, Grandmother, on Koryo.”
And I thought. They all came back to me then, including my husband and children. What would they think? I’d lost Jennifer, countless others I hadn’t even known on Nimes, and even the corporal had been a loss, my failure to perform partly responsible for it. Then there was Toly. I tried to stop her but even though her own stupidity took her out, a voice told me that I should have done more, tried harder. A parade of doubt marched through my head, with a hundred phantoms telling me that I’d screw up like I always had, command wasn’t meant for someone like me and more people would die because of my incompetence.
But that was all crap.
Who other than Buttons had it wired straight? None of us belonged and we were all misfits, ex-hookers and thieves or losers to the core, and so the last bit of Legion logic settled into place and left me with the sensation of having had an epiphany: we did belong—to each other. Since my family had died, my entire life had been one long stretch of depression, an existence without any sense of being useful to anyone or for anything.
Until now.
“Sure. I’ll do it.”
Buttons hugged me one more time. “Welcome home, I’m glad you made it out.”
“Me too,” I said. “You told me on Nimes, the Legion is a family. Well, families need to stick together, and besides…” I ignored the shipboard rules and pulled a cigarette from Buttons’s pack, waiting for her to light it. The first drag felt good. “What would these girls do without their grandmother?”
Meet the Author
T.C. earned a BA from the University of Virginia, and a PhD from the University of Georgia, before embarking on a career that gave him a unique perspective as a science fiction author. From his time as a patent examiner in complex biotechnology to his tenure with the Central Intelligence Agency, T.C. has studied and analyzed foreign militaries and weapons systems. T.C. was with the CIA during the September 11 terrorist attacks, and was still there when US forces invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, which allowed him to experience warfare from the perspective of an analyst. Find out more about the author at www.tcmccarthy.com.