“Oh, and now I take lip from traitor spawn?” Santa sneers back at me. “I won’t stand for it.”
“Then sit down.” Taylor seeps a bit of the aggression she used on Thorne into her voice. Santa does, in fact, sit down. Primly tenting her fingers on the table, she leans forward. “Captain Leka, I have heard your concerns?—”
He balks. “But you haven’t goddamn listened to them!”
“—But it is my duty, as well as yours, to follow the orders given by our leader. If you wish to object further, you are welcome to contact Theia directly. End of discussion.”
A woman across the table speaks up. “We use bombs and we let every Duster know exactly where we are.”
“We let them know where I am,” Taylor corrects. “You are correct that we cannot use planes, not until we’ve liberated the anti-aircraft stations. Myself and three other soldiers will arm and detonate the bombs. The others will be instructed to position well outside the blast radii.”
“What are the odds you’re successful?” I ask softly.
Taylor glances at me. “Seventy-five percent.”
Another woman interjects. “Any misstep could be catastrophic. The Order hasn’t got the best track record with explosions.”
“Theia is aware of that,” Taylor says.
“Is she?” Another woman leans back in her chair. “Theia’s drilled into our heads that we are not to use explosives in civilian areas—not since what happened twenty years ago.”
I look around at their grim faces. “What happened twenty years ago?”
Taylor lowers her voice. “I will tell you later.”
“No, I think we oughtta tell her now,” Captain Santa cuts in. “She almost became a region leader that day.”
“Soldiers for OrPro went against orders and tried to blow up a region leader meeting,” Taylor sums up with intentionally little fanfare. “Someone tipped off the region leaders and they escaped, but several blocks were destroyed and hundreds of lives lost, including important members of the Order.”
“Oh.”
That’s why they don’t hold those meetings anymore. I was small, but I remember my home being filled with puffy-white-suited people floating around like balloons, tethered to bomb-sniffing dogs.
“However, this is not the same,” Taylor says with a fierce stare. “These are official orders.”
An older man speaks in solemn tones. “It’s an awful lot of destruction.”
Delilah has been quiet through this, and when I look over at her, she appears grave. “I will not question your ability, but, on behalf of my city and my region, I do have to ask if you are certain this is the best way.”
Taylor, not Eos, returns when she pivots to Delilah. “It is not ideal, I admit, but it will minimize casualties. That is the best I can do.”
Delilah’s brow remains worried, but she nods. “Then you have my support.”
I lean into Delilah and gesture to the door, where a soldier does an antsy back-and-forth with serving trays. “Maybe we should give her a break.”
“Yes.” Delilah addresses the room. “Let us adjourn for lunch and the lieutenant general will take questions.”
Taylor sinks into her seat, deflating. I mosey over to a window and peer out into the vast backyard. A man jogs around a track under the watchful eye of a soldier with a gun. The soldier running the track slows to a stop, his hands on his knees, panting in exhaustion. Behind him, his supervisor shouts andshoves him in the back with a gun. If it was intended to motivate, it doesn’t, and the runner falls to his knees and throws up.
“What did that kid do?” I ask Taylor, who silently arrived at my side.
Taylor gazes into the hazy gray day. “Private Kirkman approached me about joining us in the field, but he’s too young to fight. I told him to straighten out this wayward recruit.”
“You know I meant the guy throwing his guts up.”
She leans against the window frame and crosses her arms. “Another soldier reported him for insubordination.”
“Seems excessive.” The kid throwing up gets kicked in the side.