The Drift Wars Read Online Free

are,” she said. Peter couldn’t place her accent. She wore a
white smock with short sleeves that jutted off her shoulders like
little wings, leaving her arms bare. The uniform was cut slim, but
not as slim as she was. It dangled loosely over her body. Her dark
brown hair was pulled tight, and a ponytail hung in a net behind her
head. Gunmetal eyes inspected him from over the mask, faint wrinkles
radiating from their corners.
    The
nurse settled onto a stool and raised a long finger, its nail
trimmed short, with a dark stain under the tip that looked like
dried blood. “Can you see this?” she asked. Peter nodded.
“Follow it, please.”
    Peter
followed the finger up and down, left and right. The woman ignored
him, watching the video monitor that hung over his head.
    “How
many letters in the alphabet?” she asked.
    “Twenty-six,”
Peter said.
    “Recite
them, please.”
    Peter
did, feeling silly.
    “What’s
the last thing you remember?” she asked.
    “What?”
Peter asked, confused.
    “What’s
the last thing you remember?” the woman repeated impatiently.
    Peter
thought back. First he was crawling through the mud on his elbows.
Then he was being thrown from a ship into the black nothing of
space. And then he was free-falling through a white cloud, his
stomach tight and sore. And finally, he stood at attention with the
rest of his platoon. They wore full dress, and a general spoke on a
distant stage.
    “Basic
Training,” Peter said. “Graduation.”
    “Good,”
the woman said. She tapped around her monitor. “Anything else?”
    There
was something else, the memory of a memory. It felt important, but
his efforts to remember it only pushed it farther away. His head
ached from the effort, and he felt a sharp pain, like a hundred
needles pricking his skull.
    “No,”
he said. He tried to rub his head but found he was strapped to the
bed.
    “Easy,
kid,” the woman said, taking his wrist. “Don’t rush.” Her
hand was searing hot; it burned his skin.
    She
flicked a finger at the crook of his arm, then dug her thumb in. A
vein swelled with blood. The woman smiled warmly, raising a long
syringe of oily liquid.
    She
slipped it in with practiced ease.

[19.17.3.17::1845.9671.402.7D]
    The
ship was so minimal that it didn’t even rate a pilot, much less a
name. It was designed to be cheap and disposable, and it served but
one purpose: to transport marines to and from extra-planetary
combat.
    It
had no hull, just an open frame made from thick bars that curved
like a down-facing rib cage. Where there should have been a bridge,
there was only a small metal box for the remote control. Marines
were packed to the frame on all sides, crowded ass-to-knee. It was a
full regiment: twenty-four hundred men, plus their colonel. Far in
the back, at the tip of one rib, Peter craned his neck and watched
the tapered flame of a relay module. It fired its rocket as it left
the ship, then flipped around and fired again to fix its position.
Next it fell still, disappearing against the black background. Space
was unnaturally dark inside the Drift, which had a scant few
thousand stars.
    The
relays had been dropped at regular intervals, leaving a trail
between them and the commandship far behind. They allowed the
transport to be guided by tight beam, thereby protecting the
location of both ships. The transport was fed its route one
coordinate at a time to keep its destination from falling into Riel
hands.
    “Is
that sixteen?” Saul asked over a closed channel. He was seated
opposite Peter, his face hidden behind his mirrored visor. But you
didn’t need to see Saul’s face to recognize him; his suit was
twice as wide as—and a full head higher than—any other in the
regiment.
    One
small benefit of Saul’s size was that he was seated at the very
tip of a rib, since he would otherwise fill two seats. And Peter, by
virtue of being his best friend, got the next seat in.
    “Nineteen,”
Peter said.
    “I
thought it was sixteen?”