Fate Breakers

Chapter 15

Gannon

A week later, the rest of our sector has more or less forgotten what happened to Unit 66. Our unit got assigned prep work in the kitchens for this week. The rule is: anyone caught near the mess before it's time to eat, you must be eager enough to help. Everyone avoids the mess hall like the plague for at least two hours before that bell rings. It's the bliss we need in order to talk about it.

"I don't know about Aviva's line of thinking," Isla says, hardly looking at the chives while chopping them, her hands just moving on their own. "While I understand it can be a little suspicious this happened to Liam twice, sometimes the Fates really just like to fuck with people like that. I mean, remember Miss Kathy?"

Vince shivers. "How could we not remember Miss Kathy? Getting struck by lightning five times in your life doesn't leave a pretty picture behind."

Calvel throws the stems from the zucchinis at Vince. "Don't be mean! It was just the scars that were irking. Miss Kathy was nice to us."

Vince cleans up the mess, squinting. "Doesn't mean her scar wasn't freaky as all hell." Vince gets up to toss out the ends, continuing on with his own tasks. "But, I guess I see both points. Miss Kathy's case is a really shitty coincidence, and maybe that's the same with Liam."

Isla dumps the chives into the pot they belong, continuing on. "All I'm saying is that I think Aviva may be looking for something that's just not there. Liam's suffered just as much as the rest of us. Maybe it's not something he has done, but instead something that other people are trying to do to him."

Calvel stops chopping for a moment, looking around at all of us. "Maybe this is a little rash, but can I ask why the fuck any of this matters to us? Everyone else in this sector has already moved on, so why haven't we? I hadn't known about any of this shit before we started talking about it. From what it seemed like, Calnin was solely after Crestmont and the rest of his team. It didn't even seem like she—"

"They—" Vince interrupted.

"Right, fuck. My bad. It didn't even seem like they knew Liam or Ceno well enough to account for either of them being there." Calvel throws up his arms. "I mean, I didn't even know who they were or how to address them until a week ago. Really, what is stressing over this mess gonna do for us?" Calvel looks right at me, shifting to a kinder tone. "I mean, come on G. Even if this somehow circles back to our charge from the unit test, what could we really do aside from log the info and wait?"

The room falls heavy with silence, and all of us go back to working. Calvel's right, I have been obsessing over this since it happened. The worst thing is, I don't even have a good reason as to why. Though she hasn't told me much, Aviva at least confided in me that the reason she's so concerned is because she's been hunted before, and she wants to get the jump before someone gets the jump on her. That I can understand. It hits fairly close to her, so she feels a need to be on edge. I don't have anything like that pulling my attention towards it.

"So," Isla sighs, breaking the tension and silence, "has anything else come from that claim against us?"

"No," Calvel answers, shaking his head. "It was dropped quicker than the damn charge was filed."

Vince looks at all of us, and I see a spark of fear in his eyes, the same kind he had when we were face to face with Tallan. "This isn't the end of it," Vince says, his tone a little grim. "This is gonna hang over our heads until the end of time. Master Sergeant Tallan will do his best to ensure it stays that way, and even if people think that these charges were fake, they're sure as hell gonna use it against us if we ever actually fuck up."