“Wakhan Tanka,” she murmurs, breath a freshet fogging the air before her, “guide these souls and keep them. Ina Maka, give them comfort, hold them close. Honor them as they have honored us. Keep them safe. Give them peace.”
A shadow falls across the last body, and Dakota looks up to see her brother standing at the entrance to the morgue, posture ramrod stiff, medals, buttons and boots polished to a high-gloss shine. His face is a granite mountain, but his eyes…to Koda, who knows him well, they are grief writ large and black. A scuff of rubber on cement, and a small squad of litter bearers form rank behind him, faces and bearings so identical that they look as if they’ve rolled fresh from an assembly line.
Dakota crosses the floor, narrowing the distance between then until there is none. His hand is warm and dry as it engulfs her own, and it bears a minute, internal tremor signaling the grief his face tries to mask. They share a look of complete understanding. Their troops. Their responsibility. Their blood on hands that will never be clean.
“Hoka hey,” she whispers, eyes bright and shining with unshed tears.
The granite splits for just a moment, letting the tiniest of smiles curve the corner of his mouth. Joined hands lift and he briefly strokes her cheek with the back of his knuckles, thanking her, loving her. “Hoka hey.”
The sound of a payloader’s engine coming choppily to life breaks the moment.
Somewhere in the distance, a lone bugler plays Taps.
*
This time, Dakota accepts the sun’s welcoming warmth as she steps out of the hangar and into the brightness of the day. Her soul, if not at peace, is at rest for the moment, and she leaves the task of burial to the others as she allows her feet to take her where they will.
Her stride is long, easy, and unhurried as it takes her out of the base proper, past rows of abandoned military vehicles standing in formation like the army toys of a giant child who’s gone to bed. It’s a melancholy sight, bringing to mind things taken for granted in a past that will never be again. Pushing those thoughts from her mind, she strolls back into the residential area, purposefully steering clear of Maggie’s home, not ready to return there just yet.
She watches idly as several families, and parts of families, take over abandoned military housing, moving in their meager belongings while casting furtive glances over their shoulders, as if expecting such a windfall to be snatched from their grasps without so much as a “how d’ye do”.
She shakes her head as she passes a ramshackle, half-bombed out house on a prime corner lot, looking on through narrowed eyes as two families nearly come to blows over its possession. This time, the MPs are quick to step in and separate the feuding families, though not without receiving the sharp side of several tongues in rapid succession.
“We need a census taker,” she mutters, watching as a group of strangers, attracted by the impending brawl, gather on the corner like rubberneckers at a highway accident. She doesn’t recognize one face, and that puts her hackles up again.
There is a bad feel to this crowd, a nameless, pointless, directionless anger simmering just under the surface, lacking only the spark needed to burst into full flame.
That spark comes in the form of a well armed squad of uniformed men and women marching toward the disturbance in lock-step. The crowd scatters and reforms—oil sitting on the surface of a storm-tossed pond. Several men, and some women too, heft fist sized rocks and stare at the oncoming soldiers from beneath lowered brows.
A young Sergeant moves forward with confident steps, hand on her gunbutt. “Come on, folks, go back to your homes. Break it up.”
“Make us!” shouts an anonymous voice in the milling throng.
The young woman squares her shoulders, eyeing the crowd with a level stare. “I’m asking you again. Please clear the area and return to your homes.”
“Who died and made you God?” Another anonymous voice, stirring the crowd.
“Clear the area!”
Dakota is running before the first rock clears the crowd. It deals the sergeant a glancing blow on the shoulder, causing her squad to draw their weapons and advance on the group. A few more rocks fly; furtive, like the first raindrops preceding a torrential summer squall.
Koda is able to grab onto a beefy man just about to launch a good-sized rock. Her palm screams its displeasure as she clamps down on his wide wrist and squeezes hard.
“What the fuck?!?” The man rounds on her, fully intending to use his free hand, now cocked into a ham-sized fist, to turn her face into pop-art sculpture. Suddenly, his eyes widen and his arm drops back to his side, unnoticed, as he stares over Dakota’s right shoulder.
Taken aback by the abrupt change, Dakota turns even as she keeps her grip on the man’s wrist. Before her, the crowd parts like the Red Sea before Moses, admitting five-feet-five-inches of pure attitude.
“Excuse me,” Kirsten growls, hands on hips, green eyes flashing fury. “Would someone like to tell me what the hell is going on here??” Asi, ever Kirsten’s shadow, adds his opinion to the mix, growling low in his throat as he sits at Kirsten’s side, ruff standing up in spiky threads.
A hive-drone murmur sweeps its way through the crowd. Snippets of conversation stand out here and there, and Koda listens with half an ear, an ever-widening smirk on her face.
“…King…”
“…robotics lady….”
“…saw her on TV just last month!”
“…great….”
“…can’t believe….”
“...shorter than she is on television!”
Dakota bites back a smile at that remark, watching as one of the MPs moves stiffly forward, as if drawn to Kirsten simply by the strength of her aura. Kirsten’s cool voice carries easily through the still air. “Mind telling me what’s going on, Corporal Hill?”
“Yes, Ma’am. Both sets of subjects were attempting to forcibly procure this family dwelling when….”
“English please, Corporal. I left my military law dictionary in my other coat.”
Snickering is heard from the crowd, and a slow flush creeps up the young Corporal’s neck and dusts his cheeks with clown spots of crimson. “Ma’am. Corporal Smythson and myself were patrolling this sector when we came upon these two families,” a crisply uniformed arm gestures in the direction of the families in question, “fighting over this house. As we attempted to intervene, a crowd began to gather. Sergeant Li and her squad then approached from the south and asked the crowd to disperse. They refused.”
“Damn right we refused!” a middle aged man yells. “We’re not a bunch of jarheads you can get just bully around! We’ve got rights, you know!”
Kirsten turns to Li. “Is that when you pulled your gun, Sergeant?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“And when did you pull your gun, Sergeant?”
“When the rock hit me, Ma’am.”
Kirsten is taken aback. “Rock?”
“Yes, Ma’am. That rock.”
Following the direction of Li’s pointing finger, Kirsten spies the crumbling chunk of gravel at the Sergeant’s feet. She looks up slowly, lancing her gaze out over the crowd.
A dozen rocks leave a dozen suddenly limp hands, hitting the ground in sodden thumps.
Kirsten bares her teeth in a parody of a smile. “So,” she begins, voice soft, lethal, “these are your ‘rights’, hmm? I wasn’t aware that the right to assault someone was in our Constitution. Would anyone like to point it out to me?”
“They’ve got guns,” one man mutters, gesturing toward the soldiers.
Kirsten turns her full attention on the speaker. He pales appreciably.
“Did they pull them? Threaten you in any way?” She holds up on hand. “Before that rock was thrown?”