Soldier of Fortune: Gideon Quinn Adventures Book One

Chapter 11

Before Morton Barrens, before Nasa, before the Corps, Gideon had been just another dodger on the streets of Tesla, on Ford's southeast frontier.

But then the Adidans stormed the city, overcame and occupied it within two days, in the Coalition's first move against United Colonies' defenses.

The occupation of Tesla lasted for four years, and for Gideon, it changed everything.

* * *

"And where do you think you are going, young man?"

Gideon, with one foot on the ladder which descended from the abandoned teleph station they used for shelter, felt his shoulders hunch up to his ears at the sound of Fagin Martine's voice.

It didn't seem to matter he was going on fifteen, or maybe sixteen (dodgers seldom having an accurate idea of their birthdates), or that he'd been part of Martine's hive for going on eight of those years. The merest hint of disapproval in the fagin's voice had him flushing and hunching like a raw drone, fresh from the streets.

"I was going out to cadge some supplies, seeing as we're running low on most everything." He faced the small, tough Dole Islander who'd fed, clothed, educated, and trained him into dodging since the age of seven, and whom he suspected of being a sensitive.

"Supplies my behind." Her eyes narrowed. "You think I don't know what you're really doing down there? I may not be on the streets so much as you young ones, but even this old nose can smell phosphorous on your clothes."

Okay, he thought, maybe not a sensitive, just observant.

"You been marking targets for the allies," she continued, "and likely adding a little sabotage of your own into the bargain."

Busted, he thought. "It's important work," he said.

"It's soldier's work, and you may be the best cannon I got, but you are no soldier."

"Not yet." And damned if he couldn't taste the bitterness in his own words. "But someday."

"Someday is not this day. This day you are still my dodger."

"Yes, but since there's no one but the enemy to steal from, anyway, why not paint a few targets, or free some horses, or spike some Coal-fart tires—"

"You know I do not like that kind of language." Martine poked a finger into his chest.

"Even for—"

"Even for the enemy, yes." She gave him the full-on Martine de Loire glare. "Do you know why?"

He looked at his too-tight boots, which were wearing thin as the occupation dragged on. "Because it's verbally lazy," he said, parroting one of Martine's many, many views on the use of language.

"That and because if you belittle something dangerous often enough, maybe you start thinking it is not so dangerous." Her eyes, a shocking hazel in the dark, wrinkled face, were hard. "You start thinking that, you maybe stop being so careful on the dip, never mind what other trouble you're getting up to out there, and then..." She brought her hands together in a sharp clap that had Gideon jumping in spite of himself. "No more Gideon here to give me sass."

He flushed, and hated that even in the dim light of their shielded solar lamp, she'd be able to see it.

"If I promise not to call them Coal-farts, can I go?"

She stared.

He rolled his eyes. "If I promise not to call them Coal-farts, and stick to stealing food, can I go?"