Chapter 2

Horus darted between McAver's legs and limped out of sight. After today, Pitney would never hear that particular horrid click-clack of nails again.

The lieutenant hadn't moved or said a word, his cheeks hollow and his brown eyes worried under his broad, creased forehead. Those trenches were probably plowed by the trials of family at home, some obligation of flesh or choice. How unfortunate.

Even among the slim pantheon of human beings Pitney considered in his good graces, Jason McAver stood out: immediate, trustworthy, not given to romanticism or sentimentality. And loyal. At least, Pitney had put his life in the man's hands many times and been rewarded by safety and service.

Now, hoping to distract his favorite officer from whatever seemed to be worrying him, Pitney vocalized his displeasure. "Did you hear that stupid mutt? I am a respected officer of the Human Authority Government, and I'm about to receive an award for saving my race, and this is how some animal is allowed to treat me? Gods. He is the worst." Pitney ground his molars together, and Jace put a protective hand on the older man's forearm.

"Sir, I-I'll keep the daugment out of your hair. I wouldn't worry myself too much over him."

"Not for long, anyway." His breathing and heart rate were normalizing, though still heightened. "I've got to go have a ceremony dedicated to me, you know."

Jace's eyes searched Pitney's face and managed a genuine smile. "Aye. That I do, sir. Come on, I'll walk you as far as I can."

Pitney grunted and turned to get his coat. He didn't usually mind Jace tagging along; as sidekicks went, he was a good kid, eager and a little bullish. But today-Pitney wanted to savor every moment of solitude, from this moment on. Soon all his moments would be solitary.

As soon as he and Jace stepped into the hall, Pitney was glad he'd thought to grab the heavier of his military-issue coats. Someone somewhere had forgotten to close a door against Makops's violent cold, which whistled down the corridors seeking underdressed victims.

A pair of polished HAG guards, their faces obscured by solid black helmets, nodded to them as they passed. Pitney nodded back, aware of the silence that had followed him out of his room. It clung to the d‚cor, a miasma of desolation. Like this blasted planet.

He certainly wouldn't miss this hell of an outpost: no measure of eye candy, as even the attractive ones bundled up against the bitter cold; storm winds funneled between buildings, so that every walk to a meeting was equivalent to an upstream swim; views of empty, wintry wastelands out every sad porthole of a window. Sure, out here he was safe from the invaders-on a planet so unknown they had to create their own delivery service to get supplies.

One of those delivery service pilots, dressed head to toe in a bright blue jumpsuit, tipped her fur hand-pouch as she passed them in the entrance to the grand hall. She kept her eyes downcast, though they darted up to the pips on his coat. Pitney steered wide to avoid any apology she might offer for eye contact or for getting too close.

He turned his head slightly, taking advantage of his extra wide peripheral vision to watch the woman stop suddenly and then sprint through a service door. He realized the guards, too, had vanished.

Beside him, Jace slowed to a stop.

"I should probably let you go on alone," he said stiffly, standing at ease with his hands behind his back. "This is your moment, sir."

Pitney chuckled, mostly to fill the space that sound had vacated. "You make it sound like someone's died, McAver," he said, amused at first but then nervous, when Jace didn't move to laugh or counter that idea.

Five minutes ago, he wished Jace would leave. Now he was watching the younger man edge away, and dread churned in his guts.

"Good luck, sir," Jace said, then snapped a perfect salute, whirled on his heel, and stepped smartly through the nearest door. It clanged shut behind him, an eerie echo in the now-deserted hall.

Though Pitney Scolan stood alone in the largest chamber in the Makopsian base, he felt like a thousand pairs of eyes were glued to his feet as he dragged them forward. He wished he'd thought to drink a glass of water; his throat was dry and raspy, and his stomach flip-flopped. Receiving this medal suddenly seemed more daunting than the aliens he'd defeated to earn it.

He turned around a pillar to face a hall that narrowed but lost none of its height, ending in a pair of gilded doors. For a military outfit, Makops had very little that was standard issue. It had been assembled from pieces ripped off ancient relics on colony planets.

Torches fluttered in their sconces, and Pitney narrowed one eye at this clich‚ throwback to a time when a castle was more than a status symbol. Modern technologies came together to mimic something natural with such precision that they might as well have lit some damn torches.

In keeping with the illusion of age, the floors remained wood and bare. The cold moved up through Pitney's slippers. But-this sense of grandeur and ceremony was impressive, and Pitney appreciated that the hall was all alight for his benefit.

He cracked his knuckles. Rolled his shoulders and touched the cold pips there. Brushed the medals over his heart. Pressed his hand to his side where a stitch had formed. The air burned in his lungs.

"This is it, Scolan. Your fairy-tale ending," he said in a whisper, because today required narration. Today was the triumphant pre-credits scene, the final act's final act.

This was the culmination of his sacrifices. And he would face it with an army-straight face.

He stepped through the doors, heel-toe, heel-toe, heel-toe.

He crossed the distance between him and the four well-decorated generals of the Human Authority Government, his peers, the only four people in the world who could look him in the eyes and know exactly what it meant to stand under the pressure of his job. They were looking at him with something like-awe? anguish? devotion, perhaps-as he joined them for what would be the last time as a HAG officer in uniform.

He came so close to the man at the front of the group, the handsome fifty-something General Biaron Tristan, that he could smell pungent lunch-soaked breath and a faint trace of dog.

"Sir," Pitney said, jerking his hand to his forehead. Last salute for you, Tristan. Give me my medal and let me be on my way, you miserable piece of-

"Pitney Scolan," General Tristan said, his tongue very red in his dark mouth, "you are under arrest."

"Excuse me," Pitney said. He rocked backwards with the absurd force of that statement.

Under arrest!

"The charges brought against you by this tribunal of generals, ranked as you are or higher, are as follows." Tristan spoke as much with his thick black eyebrows as with his toothy maw. He began to pace up and down in front of Pitney, walking the edge of the slight dais on which the generals stood. "Deception of a fellow officer, three counts. Inciting anti-government sentiment, twenty-four counts. Embezzling government funds, two counts. Aiding and abetting the enemy, four counts. And abuse of government property, one count."

Tristan fell silent, as if waiting for Pitney to remember his lines.

Pitney's tongue knotted up, tangled around the accusations. His limbs were numb. Now he was sure he knew the emotion on the other generals' faces: disgust.

"Government property?" he managed after what felt like hours of the panel's stony silence.

"You... kicked... my... dog," Tristan said through his teeth, dropping each word like a delicate bomb.

A hysterical laugh wrenched out of Pitney. "Yes," he said, "I'll plead guilty to that one."