Aveyard Victoria - (RQ#0.2) Steel Scars

CONTENTS

Steel Scars

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Books by Victoria Aveyard

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THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE HAS BEEN DECODED

CONFIDENTIAL, COMMAND CLEARANCE REQUIRED

Day 61 of Operation LAKER, Stage 3.

Operative: Colonel REDACTED.

Designation: RAM.

Origin: Solmary, LL.

Destination: COMMAND at REDACTED.

-Operation LAKER completed ahead of schedule, deemed successful. Canals and lock points

of LAKES PERIUS, MISKIN, and NERON under control of the Scarlet Guard.

-Operatives WHIPPER and OPTIC will control LAKER moving forward, maintain close

contact, open channels to MOBILE BASE and COMMAND. Stand-and-report protocol,

awaiting action orders.

-Returning to TRIAL with LAMB at present.

-LAKER overview: Killed in action: D. FERRON, T. MILLS, M. PERCHER (3).

Wounded: SWIFTY, WISHBONE (2).

Silver casualty count (3): Greenwarden (1), Strongarm (1), Skin healer? (1).

Civilian casualty count: Unknown.

RISE, RED AS THE DAWN.

“Storms ahead.”

The Colonel speaks to fill the silence. His one good eye presses to a crack in the compartment

wall, fixing on the horizon. The other eye stares, though it can hardly see through a film of scarlet

blood. Nothing new. His left eye has been like that for years.

I follow his gaze, peering through slats in the rattling wood. Dark clouds gather a few miles off,

trying to hide behind the forested hills. In the distance, thunder rolls. I pay it no mind. I only hope the

storms don’t slow the train down, forcing us to spend one second longer hidden here, beneath the

false floor of a cargo car.

We don’t have time for thunderstorms or pointless conversation. I haven’t slept in two days and I

have the face to prove it. I want nothing more than quiet and a few hours of rest before we make it

back to the base in Trial. Luckily there’s not much to do here but lie down. I’m too tall to stand in

such a space, as is the Colonel. We both have to sprawl, leaning as best we can in the dim partition.

It’ll be night soon, with only darkness to keep us company.

I can’t complain about the mode of transportation. On the trip out to Solmary, we spent half the

journey on a barge shipping fruit. It stalled out on Lake Neron, and most of the cargo rotted. Spent the

first week of operations washing the stink from my clothes. And I’ll never forget the mess before we

started Laker, in Detraon. Three days in a cattle car, only to find the Lakelander capital utterly beyond

reach. Too close to the Choke and the warfront to have shoddy defenses, a truth I willingly

overlooked. But I wasn’t an officer then, and it wasn’t my decision to try to infiltrate a Silver capital

without adequate intelligence or support. That was the Colonel. Back then he was only a captain with

the code name Ram and too much to prove, too much to fight for. I only tagged along, barely more than

an oathed soldier. I had things to prove too.

He continues to squint at the landscape. Not to look outside, but to avoid looking at me. Fine. I

don’t like looking at him either.

Bad blood or not, we make a good team. Command knows it, we know it, and that’s why we keep

getting sent out together. Detraon was our only misstep in an endless march for the cause. And for

them, for the Scarlet Guard, we put aside our differences each and every time.

“Any idea where we go next?” Like the Colonel, I won’t abide the heavy silence.

He pulls back from the wall, frowning, still not looking my way. “You know that’s not how it

works.”

I’ve spent two years as an officer, two more as an oathed soldier of the Guard, and a lifetime

living in its shadow. Of course I know how it works, I want to spit.

No one knows more than they must. No one is told anything beyond their operation, their

squadron, their immediate superiors. Information is more dangerous than any weapon we possess. We

learned that early, after decades of failed uprisings, all laid low by one captured Red in the hands of a

Silver whisper. Even the best-trained soldier cannot resist an assault of the mind. They are always

unraveled, their secrets always discovered. So my operatives and my soldiers answer to me, their

captain. I answer to the Colonel, and he answers to Command, whoever they might be. We know only

what we must to move forward. It’s the only reason the Guard has lasted this long, surviving where no

other underground organization has before.

But no system is perfect.

“Just because you haven’t received new orders doesn’t mean you don’t have an idea as to what

they might be,” I say.

A muscle in his cheek twitches. To pull a frown or a smile, I don’t know. But I doubt it’s the latter.

The Colonel doesn’t smile,