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Yal’rest’s eyes flicked to the Qeshian general before zeroing in on Patrick with unbridled hatred. “I can do whatever I want, Smith, and I will dispose of a problematic soldier, if I so choose.”
“He didn’t disobey orders.” Patrick forced his thick tongue to form the words.
Yal’rest half-open mouth froze. His eyebrows came down. “What?”
Patrick glanced at his squad and saw the same confusion. He lifted his chin and repeated the lie. “He didn’t disobey orders.”
The Qeshian general motioned his assistant forward. “If I may?” The general tilted his head at Yal’rest and when Yal’rest nodded dumbly, the assistant pulled out a large holographic tablet. He flicked his finger across the screen and a three-dimensional rendering of Fal’ran, Patrick, and the soldier from Squad L appeared above it. The three figures sprinted in place and after a few seconds, Patrick’s model banked right and shouted at Fal’ran.
“I’m telling him to continue.” Patrick clenched his fists and the muscles of his forearm pressed against the grip of the men holding him back. They thought he might haul off on someone again. They maybe weren’t wrong.
The assistant raised an eyebrow. “There’s an audio feed as well.”
“Well, the audio feed is wrong,” Patrick snapped. “I’m ordering him to advance. He almost caught the totems, and I wanted them.”
Yal’rest looked ready to explode as violently as the mine Fal’ran had stepped on. He glanced around at the whispering spectators. He knew Patrick was a goddamn liar—and by their cautious expressions, Tar, Bar’in, and Sazahk knew it, too—but the other soldiers didn’t. They saw a general threatening a young private who’d followed his captain’s orders and now fought for his life in the medical tent.
When Yal’rest’s apoplectic gaze returned to Patrick, Patrick was sure he was the one about to be dishonorably discharged. “You’re telling me you ordered your man into a trap knowingly and willingly?”
No, Patrick was telling him the fucking sapper currently slinking away from the scene of the crime had ordered his men to set a trap knowingly and willingly and against the rules and all senses of safety and decency. But Yal’rest didn’t want to hear that, so he forced himself to nod. “Yes, sir.”
Yal’rest’s hands shivered, and his face flushed with splotchy red marks. He grabbed Patrick’s upper arm, ripped him away from the privates holding him back, and spun him around.
Patrick caught Tar’s furious gaze as he stumbled. When Tar moved forward, he quickly spread his fingers in a subtle order to stand down. Bar’in stepped in front of Tar and bumped him back with his shoulder blade.
Patrick’s jacket collar cinched around his throat.
“I told you I’d have your goddamn stripes, Smith.”
The fabric bit into Patrick’s windpipe, then gave with a terrible rending noise. He felt the pop of each thread as it snapped. Yal’rest ripped the stripes from across his shoulder blades, tearing everything Patrick had worked for for so long off his back.
“You never fucking deserved them.”
Yal’rest threw the embroidered patch of white stripes into the dirt in front of Patrick’s face. Patrick stared at them and inhaled a slow, deep breath. That image seared into his brain, to be with him for the rest of his life. But he only cared about one thing.
He straightened—pulling his spine tall, nevermind his ripped jacket hanging askew—and turned back to the generals. He clenched his jaw and enunciated every word.
“I need to see my man.”
* * *
Fal’ran’s head hurt.
His cracked right ribs, too. And the outside of his thigh where a red contusion that the medic said would turn all sorts of delightful colors spread down its length.
But his head felt like the mine had exploded inside it.
He groaned and sat on the bench beside the row of lockers, dropping his pounding head into his hands. He closed his eyes, dug his fingers into his hair, and let the pain run rampant through him. The medic had told him a thousand times he’d gotten off lucky. She’d shined the light into his eyes, made him follow it back and forth, and poked various points on his skin with a needle to check that he twitched. “You’re one lucky bastard,” she’d said.
Only a broken rib and a light concussion.
The man he’d been chasing lost his leg.
But Fal’ran didn’t feel lucky.
He felt like a goddamn fuck up because he was a goddamn fuck up. Smith had seen the mines, Fal’ran realized now. That was why he’d ordered Fal’ran to stop, begged Fal’ran to stop, but in that moment Fal’ran hadn’t cared about him. He hadn’t cared about anyone but himself and his own glory.
Fuck almost killing himself. Fal’ran could have killed Smith. He heaved a shuddering sigh and curled his shoulders in as another wave of pain rolled through his skull. He hadn’t, though, killed Smith.
