Chapter 248 - After

"You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget."

— Cormac McCarthy, The Road

The rain didn't stop. It hadn't stopped since he'd pushed through the tent flap, and it wasn't going to stop now. Luca sat on an overturned crate inside the storage tent with his helmet off and his hands on his knees, letting the sound of it fill the space where his thoughts should have been.

He could hear them through the canvas wall, low voices and crying, and someone coughing. Zoe was in there with them, steady in a way that told people the worst part was already over. She'd held it together on New Dawn, held it together on Midnight Veil. Luca had never figured out how she did it.

Looking down, he studied his gloves. The tomahawk sat beside him, plasma edge cold now, the blade clean from the rain. He hadn't taken the gloves off yet, and he wasn't sure why.

There were no flies. In Cartagena, the flies had been everywhere, crawling on everything, refusing to leave no matter how many times you waved them off. Here, there was nothing. The rain and the smell of death had chased off anything that small. Even the bugs had better places to be.

The Specter was parked in the storage tent thirty meters away. He'd moved it in after the fighting. After. That was the word he kept using. After.

He opened the comms channel.

"Emily."

Three seconds. Then her voice, and the tightness in it told him she'd been waiting. "Hey."

"It's done," he said.

"I know. Ryan told me," she replied. "Are you okay?"

He leaned back against the tent wall. The canvas was wet and cold. Through the gap in the tent flap he could see the camp. The fires were out. The bodies were where they'd fallen or where the rain had moved them, and the mud was darker in places where the blood hadn't washed away yet.

"It worked, Em. Zoe and I got them out."

He could hear activity on the other side, people loading equipment into the Triumph.

"How many hostages?"

"Twenty-three. Some hurt, a few pretty bad. Most are scared. We found Sabrina. She's banged up, but she's tough."

"God, okay." She exhaled. "And you?"

"Yeah, I'm good." He said it and meant it. "It was messy. Necessary, but messy. Karen wanted a scout. I went further than that." He paused. "I'd do it the same way."

"There was no other way," she said.

The rain on the canvas was a solid, endless drumroll. Someone in the prisoner tent was crying again and Zoe was talking them down. Behind Emily's voice he could hear the hum of the Triumph's systems. She was parked in New Hampshire while he was sitting in a dead camp in the Amazon. That gap didn't feel real.

"UER trucks are inbound," he said. "Two hours, maybe less. We'll bring Sabrina home."

"Good. Don't do anything stupid before I get there."

He sat with that for a moment. The channel was still open and neither of them said anything for a moment.

"Emily."

"I'm here."

"The lighting in the crew lounge. Did she get it right?"

She laughed. "It's perfect. You're going to love it."

"Good. I'll see you soon."

He closed the channel, left the helmet on the crate, and stepped out of the tent.

Warm rain hit him immediately. It ran down his face, through his hair, into the collar of his armor, and he stood there and let it. The heat had been building in his skull since the first sentry platform, a low pressure that sat right behind his eyes and pulsed when he blinked. Thirty-five degrees, falling hard enough to blur the camp into shapes and shadows, and it was still the best thing that had happened to him in the last two hours.

He tilted his face up and let the rain hammer his closed eyes. He didn't need to see the camp right now. He knew what was there.

After a minute, he wiped his face with both hands, walked back into the tent, picked up his helmet, and went back to work.

The sound of engines broke through the downpour. Low and grinding, diesel, old military trucks coughing exhaust into the rain. But the vehicle up front was powered by energy. An LCV-Strategos, painted in jungle greens, rolled into the clearing on oversized tires and ground to a halt. Side panels with large "UER" letters folded out in sections until the thing looked like a small building had grown out of the mud. Then a comm tower punched up through the canopy, fifty meters of antenna.

Behind it, three trucks lumbered in with their wheels sinking four inches into the mud, headlights cutting through the mist.

Arms crossed and visor down, Luca stood by the prisoner's tent. Zoe flanked him, her dagger sheathed and rifle slung behind her back. The rain had soaked everything.

From the Strategos hatch, a UER major dropped into the mud, boots disappearing up to the ankles. He was in his forties. Probably looked exactly like this at twenty-five and would look exactly like this at sixty. He scanned the camp and his jaw tightened. Luca had seen that look before.

"Major Reyes," Luca said.

Reyes looked at him. Then at the camp. Then back at him. "Luca Rossi."

"Yes, sir."

Reyes opened his mouth, closed it, and looked at the camp again. Luca watched him take it in. The supply tents, the guard towers, the blackened generator still leaking fuel into the rain. Bodies everywhere. None of it looked real.

"We were told to expect resistance," Reyes said.

"You could say that." Luca gestured at the camp.

Reyes stared at him for a long moment. Luca had no idea what he was thinking. His face gave nothing. "How many hostages?"

"Twenty-three. Two of yours are alive. One didn't make it."

Reyes nodded once and turned to the soldiers already forming up behind him. "Get them loaded. Thirty minutes."

The tailgate on the second truck dropped and Danny stepped out in his power armor, his boots cratering the mud. Joey followed, already pulling his Triage Shell* from the rack on his back. Behind them, Ryan dropped from the cab in his medium armor, his plates catching the headlights as he landed.

Three steps from the truck, Danny stopped. His head turned slowly, scanning the camp.

"Luca." Danny's voice came in from his comms unit.

"Yeah." Luca didn't have more than that.

Danny's head moved from point to point. The nearest body, the command tent, the guard towers. He was counting.

"Every one of them?" Danny asked.

"Every one."

Danny turned toward the prisoner tent without another word, and Luca watched him go, grateful for the silence.

Joey was already moving. He crossed the clearing at a pace that said he had work to do and the rest of it could wait, his Triage Shell* already cracking open before he reached the tent flap. He ducked and went inside, his power armor keeping him from sliding around in the mud. "Okay, I'm here. If you can walk, move to the left side for me. Anyone injured, stay where you are. I'll come to you, I promise."

From the supply crate in the second truck, Ryan pulled a stack of emergency blankets, tucked them under one arm, and started toward the prisoner tent with his boots squelching in the mud. At the entrance he stopped, looked inside, and started handing them out. One at a time. From the doorway Luca could see them going in. A blanket for the woman with the wrapped leg. One for the old man who hadn't stopped shaking.

Luca leaned against the tent frame and watched through the open flap. Inside, Zoe helped Joey sort the injured. He could hear Danny's power armor somewhere deeper in the tent, heavy footsteps and a low voice.

Sabrina was sitting against the back wall. She'd moved from the corner where Luca had found her, closer to the group now, but still apart from them. She had her arms wrapped around herself and her jaw set and she was shivering. The air hadn't dropped below thirty-five celsius all day.

Reaching her first, Ryan gave her a blanket. She looked up at his face, at the armor, at the blanket, and for a second she didn't take it. Then her jaw unclenched, barely, and she took it.

She took the blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. "Gracias."

"De nada," Ryan said. His Spanish was terrible. He'd never pretended otherwise. But he said it anyway, and Luca almost saw her grin, her eyes fixated on Ryan's. Poor bastard was already done.

Ryan crouched beside her. "So. Rough night?"

"I've had worse days. Not many, but some." Her voice was hoarse, but the Colombian accent cut through it anyway, high and melodic, completely wrong for a camp full of bodies and mud. Luca hadn't expected that. The bruising on her neck had gone to yellow and green at the edges, days old. Someone had put their hands there.

"Yeah," Ryan said. He sat down next to her, back against the canvas, shoulder plates pressing into it.

Luca turned away. He had work to do.

Loading took twenty minutes. Reyes made fast work of it, and the UER soldiers moved without being told. Zoe had planted herself at the perimeter, her rifle up and eyes on the tree line.

The dead UER soldier got loaded first. Two soldiers carried him wrapped in a tarp, and every person in the clearing stopped what they were doing until it was done.

"Trucks go to Leticia," Reyes said, standing beside the lead vehicle. "Medical's waiting." Someone had already called the governor's office.

Ryan was at the second truck, helping Joey lift a stretcher onto the tailgate. He'd left Sabrina at some point during loading and Luca hadn't seen when.

A UER soldier had her by the elbow, guiding her toward the tailgate of the second truck. She had her jaw set and her arms crossed and she was walking, but Luca watched the soldier's hand on her arm and the line of prisoners ahead of her.

"Hey." He crossed the clearing. "She's not getting on that truck."

The soldier looked at him. So did Sabrina.

"You're coming with us," Luca said to her. "On the Specter."

Sabrina looked at Luca. Her eyes were black, deep black, and when they locked onto his he forgot what he'd been about to say. She was twenty, bruised, shivering, and still looking at him like she was deciding whether he was worth trusting. He finally pulled his eyes away. She pulled her arm free from the soldier and stepped toward him. The soldier didn't argue.

Reyes did. "Negative. My orders are to secure all hostages and transport them back to Leticia. She's a VIP, Captain."

"No, that's not going to work." Luca met his eyes. Zoe stepped up beside him. "She's coming with me."

Reyes looked at him, then at the camp. Bodies in the mud, burned-out generator, empty guard towers, all of it done before his convoy had cleared the tree line. Something in his face settled.

"Copy that," Reyes cleared his throat. He got in the truck.

Luca turned to Danny, Zoe, and Joey. "You three stay. Armor on, visors down. Search the camp. Every tent, every crate. If it has a lid, open it. I want to know where their gear came from and if there are more camps like this one."

Zoe's visor was already sliding down. "Good. I needed something to do."

He walked to the Specter. Sabrina walked in beside Ryan without being asked.