Free Night Witches by L J Adlington Page B

supposed to be working together, not against each other. Lighten up – here’s Furey.’
    Still fastening her uniform buttons, Marina Furey walks over to Steen and whistles for him to get up.
    ‘Wearing your knees out in prayer, Crux? Anyone think to point out to you that the sun’s just a ball of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields?’
    ‘Prayer to the Light Bringer is calming,’ Steen replies, without his usual sneer.
    ‘We civilised people prefer to connect.’
    ‘Yes, perhaps that is a kind of religion to you, giving blind obedience to the hub of collected information you call Aura. How much happier you’d be if you let us convert you all to the light.’
    ‘ Conversion? Is that what you’re calling your invasion? Five more towns were bombed in West Rodina yesterday – thousands of casualties. Stray missiles landed on Sorrowdale. How can you live with all these deaths on your conscience, Crux?’
    There are rumours, just whispers here and there when Scrutiners aren’t listening, that Crux are sacrificing babies on god-altars. That they blind all captured soldiers and civilians. That we may not even win Victory before Long Night.
    Steen’s angry now and about to spout off some self-righteous lies about the war being started because of Rodina’s persecution of religious believers. I’ve heard it all before, during our tutorials in the sim. Thankfully Reef gives him a shove in the back and says, ‘Time to get to work.’
    Steen rises to his feet in one fluid movement, like a dancer, but more dangerous. I shudder as he passes me, certain I hear him say, ‘You live in lies and shadow. You should set yourself free . . .’
    ‘I don’t like this setup,’ Fenlon growls from somewhere under the fuselage of the Storm. ‘How do we know we can trust this Crux in a plane? What’s to stop him going straight over the border back to his own kind?’
    Reef’s eyes narrow. ‘There are a hundred captured Crux soldiers being kept hostage who’ll be shot if Steen fails to collaborate. Aura’s ac-reqs are clear – Rain Aranoza flies under his instruction, end of story.’
    Furey agrees. ‘There’s too much at stake to argue. If Aura’s calculated the Storms are necessary for Victory then we have to have them in combat soon. What is it now, Fenlon?’
    Fenlon crawls out from under the plane, holding something in a fuel-stained hand. ‘Found this tied to one of the landing struts. Anything to do with you, Aranoza?’
    He thrusts a strange twist of coloured threads at me, all knotted in intricate patterns. I step back from it quickly and shake my head.
    ‘Looks Lim-ish,’ says Furey. ‘Folk in Sorrowdale used to pin them on trees sometimes – can’t remember why. Actually, it’s like that braided belt the canteen cook wears, that Lim girl, Haze. Is it some sort of Old Nation good-luck charm, maybe?’
    Good luck? More like a bad -luck charm. Just looking at it makes me feel uneasy, like I’m trapped inside too-tight skin. It can’t be coincidence that Haze has a job here on the airbase, can it? I haven’t seen her face to face yet. Everyone says she’s the best cook ever, but the first time we ate in the canteen Zoya shovelled her soup in while I had to push my bowl away, because it tasted funny.
    ‘Tastes fine to me,’ Zoya said. ‘Everybody else likes it. Don’t you want yours?’
    I let her gulp it down. It was only bioveg and herbs – but the herbs were horribly bitter. I actually felt sick just from the smell. My canteen tea was the same. Mossie asked are you OK, you look pale? Petra said I should go to the medic. I just gripped the edge of the table and said I was fine, absolutely fine. When I finally let go of the table it looked as if I’d dented the bioweave, which is impossible, of course. Once bioweave is set it won’t change shape until regeneration. Since then I’ve taken to making my own tea in the crew-room and living off vending-machine snacks.
    Now, seeing the knotted