few more hours without them.
"All right, Commander Shura, sir," Channa said, standing before her gathered team. "Everything checks out. Maharatha Kai and Maharatha Niwin will be sore, but normal movement will work the kinks out. Is there anything else you need of us?"
"No, Medic. Your care has been exemplary."
"You give us dreng, sir," she said with a deep bow, and her team followed suit. They left without another word or a backward glance.
"What now, sir?" Kai asked as he worked his torso side to side.
Corwin kept his eyes locked onto Kai's as Phae stretched in the background. "We all need a shower, then some food."
Corwin waved his Voidmates over to the cubbies arranged in a grid beside the shower entryway. "We need to keep an eye on our gear," he said in a low voice.
"I'll stand first watch with Kai," Chahal said.
"Fine," Corwin said. Placing his com and pistol into a cubby, he turned to tackle the showers.
Combat against a pack of angry Grunts couldn't elicit the same amount of anxiety as stepping into the showers did for Corwin. They ranked among his highest dislikes of anything within the Republic. This single shower serviced the entire military stationed in Outpost-G57, which meant that at any given time, it was occupied by upwards of a hundred men and women. The shower heads installed in the ceiling extruded a constant hiss and stream of choking water, and the din of voices leapt from the shower entrance like a war band sheltering inside a cave.
They had been the location of many of Corwin's childhood altercations, and sometimes he dreamed of the blood as it twisted its way across the floor to the drain. And the pokes and prods at his groin. The taunts and questions about his penis, if it was Human, Choxen, or Siloth, or maybe a mixture of all three, seeing as his parents had sex with aliens. And the sharp nails dug into sensitive flesh. And he couldn't get away from them because the steam seemed to slow him down, choked him and held him and strangled him.
The scared little boy that dwelled within Corwin squirmed, halfway out of his cage. With gritted teeth and sheer force of will, Corwin pushed him back inside. He hammered at the bars.
Corwin forced himself onward, jaw set, eyes bleak. He was covered in a fine mist as soon as he crossed the threshold. He fought the urge to run as the noise of people and echoes, the crush of bodies, and the oppressive steam assaulted his senses. It was claustrophobic. The walls closed in, and the edge of his vision and his mind started to go black. Corwin fought for control.
A hand grasped his through the growing darkness.
Phae's face appeared between the shoulders of two Tercio women. She drew him inward and he followed, and now that he was anchored to some tangible thing, he wrestled himself back from the edge. Phae took a gray bar of soap from the wall and led the way deeper in, a path forming as word spread that the Maharatha were present.
A group of Wei huddled under a shower head. As Phae neared, she gestured. The Wei dispersed, pushing into other groups nearby. No one took their place. Once the two Maharatha were within the safety of their own cone of water, Phae let him go, not once looking back to accuse him of the jendr of fear.
Phae stood under the falling water just outside Corwin's reach — far enough to be enticing. They shared the soap, surprised that such a banal activity could be so intimate. They didn't speak to each other while they bathed, and Phae made no advances.
Time and sleep had dulled the edge of her pointed comments and Corwin began to feel at ease with her presence. He didn't trust her yet, not so soon after he'd rebuked her, though the simple fact that she'd helped him and asked nothing in return perhaps proved that she felt more than just sexual and caste attraction. Corwin noted his feelings with the cool head of a scientist watching a chemical reaction through a safety window.
Kai and Chahal went next. Phae took up position next to
"All right, Commander Shura, sir," Channa said, standing before her gathered team. "Everything checks out. Maharatha Kai and Maharatha Niwin will be sore, but normal movement will work the kinks out. Is there anything else you need of us?"
"No, Medic. Your care has been exemplary."
"You give us dreng, sir," she said with a deep bow, and her team followed suit. They left without another word or a backward glance.
"What now, sir?" Kai asked as he worked his torso side to side.
Corwin kept his eyes locked onto Kai's as Phae stretched in the background. "We all need a shower, then some food."
Corwin waved his Voidmates over to the cubbies arranged in a grid beside the shower entryway. "We need to keep an eye on our gear," he said in a low voice.
"I'll stand first watch with Kai," Chahal said.
"Fine," Corwin said. Placing his com and pistol into a cubby, he turned to tackle the showers.
Combat against a pack of angry Grunts couldn't elicit the same amount of anxiety as stepping into the showers did for Corwin. They ranked among his highest dislikes of anything within the Republic. This single shower serviced the entire military stationed in Outpost-G57, which meant that at any given time, it was occupied by upwards of a hundred men and women. The shower heads installed in the ceiling extruded a constant hiss and stream of choking water, and the din of voices leapt from the shower entrance like a war band sheltering inside a cave.
They had been the location of many of Corwin's childhood altercations, and sometimes he dreamed of the blood as it twisted its way across the floor to the drain. And the pokes and prods at his groin. The taunts and questions about his penis, if it was Human, Choxen, or Siloth, or maybe a mixture of all three, seeing as his parents had sex with aliens. And the sharp nails dug into sensitive flesh. And he couldn't get away from them because the steam seemed to slow him down, choked him and held him and strangled him.
The scared little boy that dwelled within Corwin squirmed, halfway out of his cage. With gritted teeth and sheer force of will, Corwin pushed him back inside. He hammered at the bars.
Corwin forced himself onward, jaw set, eyes bleak. He was covered in a fine mist as soon as he crossed the threshold. He fought the urge to run as the noise of people and echoes, the crush of bodies, and the oppressive steam assaulted his senses. It was claustrophobic. The walls closed in, and the edge of his vision and his mind started to go black. Corwin fought for control.
A hand grasped his through the growing darkness.
Phae's face appeared between the shoulders of two Tercio women. She drew him inward and he followed, and now that he was anchored to some tangible thing, he wrestled himself back from the edge. Phae took a gray bar of soap from the wall and led the way deeper in, a path forming as word spread that the Maharatha were present.
A group of Wei huddled under a shower head. As Phae neared, she gestured. The Wei dispersed, pushing into other groups nearby. No one took their place. Once the two Maharatha were within the safety of their own cone of water, Phae let him go, not once looking back to accuse him of the jendr of fear.
Phae stood under the falling water just outside Corwin's reach — far enough to be enticing. They shared the soap, surprised that such a banal activity could be so intimate. They didn't speak to each other while they bathed, and Phae made no advances.
Time and sleep had dulled the edge of her pointed comments and Corwin began to feel at ease with her presence. He didn't trust her yet, not so soon after he'd rebuked her, though the simple fact that she'd helped him and asked nothing in return perhaps proved that she felt more than just sexual and caste attraction. Corwin noted his feelings with the cool head of a scientist watching a chemical reaction through a safety window.
Kai and Chahal went next. Phae took up position next to
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