The Expendable Few: A Spinward Fringe Novel Read Online Free Page A

your best time from Academy training,” he tells me.
    I look back down at the table balanced across my knees and realise that the simple puzzle I was doing is gone. Maybe it never existed. Instead I’m looking at a VX-77, or Vex, as we used to call them. It’s the nastiest handgun anyone in the Freeground Fleet is allowed to carry. My hands remember what I was actually doing: disassembling and reassembling the deadly double barrelled death dealer.
    A pair of hands takes it and the padded lap table away. I look up and the Doctor is leading the way out of the cell. “You have a visitor,” he says.
    I’m still stunned, feeling as though I have been asleep for days. The ache that sat in my belly like a stone doesn’t seem as important or overwhelming as it once did. My sister was a traitor, and now she’s a dead traitor. Images of her appearing in my cell, or of our past together, don’t come up at the recollection of recent events this time. It’s as if the connective tissue between the fact of her death and those memories has been weakened.
    Mary Reed enters. Her eyes nearly boggle at the sight of me. Still, she doesn’t rush over. Instead she pretends there’s nothing wrong and sits down beside me. “They’ve got you pretty heavily medicated,” she says as she wipes the corner of my mouth with her long sleeve. She’s in loose red and black striped prisoner’s clothing. For the first time I realize I’m dressed the same way. “I’m probably pretty heavily medicated,” I admit slowly.
    She laughs and puts her arm around my shoulders. I didn’t mean to say that last bit aloud, but hearing her laugh feels good. I always enjoyed that, making her laugh. I lean towards her and my head lands in her lap. I close my eyes and see myself picking up that Vex hand cannon, raising it to my temple and pulling the trigger. I don’t know where that ultra-clear image comes from, it’s just there until I feel her hand stroke my face. Life gets easier, everything feels softer.
    “They’re running you through accelerated rehabilitation,” she explains. “A lot like Minh-Chu Buu started when he got back, only with a real kick.”
    “Got you, too,” I tell her.
    “Yup. I thought I’d come in here and break your nose since you got me locked up. I was holding your contraband when they took me in for questioning,” she tells me. “But I’m not one for preying on the defenceless.”
    “Sorry,” I say. “So sorry.”
    “It’ll be okay,” she replies. I’ve never seen her take care of anyone before, but she’s doing a pretty good job. “A little time in the stockade never did me any harm, especially in isolation. Besides, no point in pretending I’m anything other than who I am anymore.”
    “Wonder where you’ll get stationed?” I ask. My speech is still slow.
    “Well, I’m not getting busted down to private, but there are a lot of new restrictions on my file, so it’ll be interesting.”
    “Wonder when they’ll fire me,” I ask, picturing a military policeman entering my cell and announcing my discharge. It’s so clear in my mind’s eye that I’m sure he’ll be standing right there if I open my eyes.
    “They don’t work this hard on commanders who are about to get drummed out of the service,” she chuckles.
    That leads me to a far darker thought. “Will I be me?” I ask.
    “What’s that?” she asks as though prompting a child.
    I don’t mind. A little soft condescension goes a long way in my soft-headed state. “Will I still be me at the end of therapy?” I ask, chortling at the ring of the rhyme.
    “I’ll make sure,” she promises. “I’ll tell you all about yourself.” They let us stay together for a long time, even though I can’t think of anything to talk about while she’s cradling my head in her lap.

  Part 3 – Prudence
       
    “Open your eyes, Clark,” says the big voice from above.
    I’m struggling to stay on my feet in the middle of an arid plain. The sand swirls