Lief had a window room and was lying in bed when Gammon knocked on the door. His eyes opened, and he sat up quickly when he saw who it was. He had a lot more color in his cheeks than when Thorn had last seen him.
“I see someone finally decided to show up,” Lief said. “Did you get lost on the way back into town? Or cold feet on finagling your way into this august establishment?”
Before Thorn could reply, Korakis flapped over from his perch next to the window and landed on Thorn’s shoulder, giving him a soft peck on the head. He had a small, silver badge, similar to Thorn’s but in the shape of a talon, affixed to his leg.
“Crrkk, hzrrk.”
“Czzrkrk, crkkkk.”
Thorn chuckled and gave the raven a soft pet on the head. He felt around the raven’s body; the horrible wound Smithson had given him was already closed up, small, wicked scars formed on his chest and back. The speed at which he had healed was supernatural; Thorn assumed one of Lief’s Skills had helped him recover so quickly.
“I’m going to run a quick errand and be back in five. I need to leave before the two of you say something I’ll need to court martial you for.” Gammon shook her head. “Recruits.”
“Chief.” Lief nodded his head.
“You’re looking better now,” Thorn said after Gammon left. “Still hard to believe we got out of there alive.”
“Our triumphant return was never in doubt.” Lief shook his head dismissively. “And please… I always look good.”
“True.” Thorn grinned. Seeing his friend and hearing him joke around eased a tightness in his chest. He’d been worried about Lief.
A nurse bustled into the room. “You are supposed to be resting, not receiving visitors,” the nurse said. She cast a disapproving glance at Thorn, then fixed her glare on Korakis. “And that pet still needs to go.”
“Tok, tok,” Korakis cawed softly, shifting on Thorn’s shoulder.
“Relax. It’s fine, it’s fine, this guy saved my life,” Lief said. “The bird too.”
Korakis eyed the nurse like he’d eyed the beasts down in the cavern.
“Tok, crrkr?”
Korakis pecked the side of Thorn’s head in disagreement.
“And how are you feeling, dearie?” she asked Lief, taking the opportunity to lean down and fluff the pillows behind his back, the nametag on her breast reading “Shelly” swinging centimeters from Lief’s face.
“Even better now that you’re here,” Lief said.
“Oh, stop it,” Shelly said with a giggle, before turning to Thorn and giving him a frown. “I suppose he can stay for a few minutes. So long as he takes the bird with him when he leaves.”
Thorn struggled mightily and succeeded in not rolling his eyes until after the nurse left the room. “Seriously?” Thorn asked. “Do you even have standards? How long have you been here? Hours?”
“Don’t hate the user, hate the System.” Lief sniffed.
“Do you even know what her name is?”
“I… think it starts with an ‘s’,” Lief said. “Maybe. C’mon, I’m injured and out of sorts. I was distracted.”
“And to think that I was worried about how you were doing,” Thorn said.
“I am doing great,” Lief said. “This sergeant came by, trying to recruit me out of the medical bay, but stopped when she saw I only had one leg. I put in a good word for you.”
“I appreciate that. Any words of advice?”
“Hmmm, maybe,” Lief said, then gestured at Korakis. “Korakis, what is it we want?”
“Corrrrrs,” the raven croaked.
“And when do we want them?”
“Nowww,” Korakis replied.
Thorn laughed. “I’m impressed. With Korakis, of course, not with the advice.”
“Korakis is smart,” Lief said. “Really smart. You should learn how to communicate with him, teach him the stuff you know, and learn from him too.”
Thorn nodded along. “Was that sergeant that came by named Meridian Lee?”
“Sounds right. How’d you know?”
“Gammon signed me up for that mission she was trying to recruit you for, I guess.” Thorn sighed. “Some sort of escort mission. I don’t really know what I’m getting into, and it feels too fast.”
“Yeah, it is fast. But when you get a chance, you gotta take it. You don’t know when the next one will come, if ever.”
“You’re right,” Thorn said. He’d thought the same, but it was good to hear Lief feel the same way.
“I don’t really do well with… bosses,” Thorn said. That was an understatement. He’d gotten along well with Cook, because, quite frankly, the man was strange and basically left Thorn to his own devices. He didn’t expect the same type of environment within the Crows Guild. “Any tips?”
“Hmmm,” Lief said. “Try and think from the sergeant’s perspective what an ideal Thorn Farmer would do to help her, and then do that.”
“Sage dating advice, as always,” Thorn said. “Anything more specific? My problem is I don’t know her perspective.”
“Ah, yes, well then… do what you’re asked to do before you are asked to do it… Yeah, that oughta cover it.”
“Do you think my System has mind-reading abilities or something?” Thorn laughed.
“Maybe. But I’m under orders not to talk about how cracked your System is.”
“Hah. I have the same orders too,” Thorn said. “Anyways, thanks for the advice. We’ll see how it goes.”
“Keep me updated,” Lief said. He shifted on his bed, sitting up more. “Hey, I got a favor to ask, actually.”
“I’m not going on a double date with you, that nurse, and someone I haven’t met before,” Thorn said. “No.”
“Great idea,” Lief said, brightening up. “But it will have to wait until I’m out of the infirmary. Actually, I was hoping you could head down to the Wayfarers Guild and pull the contents of my lockbox. I could use the cores I’ve stored up. If this doesn’t constitute a rainy day, I don’t know what does.”
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“Of course,” Thorn said. He took the ring that Lief offered him, placing it on the finger next to his other lockbox ring. He could drive down into Aba that afternoon and take care of Lief’s request, while also looking into the contents of Marta’s.
“Anyways, you and Korakis should get out of here before Shelly comes back,” Lief said, grinning. “I need my rest.”
So he did know her name. Of course he did.
“Right, of course. Your ‘rest’ is very important.” Thorn waggled his eyebrows. “I’ll check in on you later.”
“Later.”
“Hrkkk, tok, tok.”
On his way out of the infirmary, Thorn traded dirty looks with Shelly. He was doubtful as to how much “rest” Lief would get staying at the infirmary, but as always, the man was free to make his own ill-advised choices.
Thorn stood outside in the courtyard in a patch of sun, waiting for Gammon to return from her errand. Korakis preened his feathers. He closed his eyes and let the sunlight warm him. He tried not to think of anything at all and just enjoyed the brief moment of peace.
“Ready to go?” Gammon’s voice called out. Thorn opened his eyes, nodded, and followed after her.
Their next stop was the Armory, which was deep underground. To reach it, they took an enormous freight elevator, at least twenty meters wide. Thorn recalled the mechanized armor that Beatrice had been wearing when he’d negotiated with Smithson, and figured the elevator was tall enough it would fit.
The elevator cage opened up into a large cavern set up as a firing range. The sounds of random fire echoed off the walls and Thorn felt immediately uncomfortable. It reminded him too much of the underground cavern where he’d been trapped in the dead zone for the past week. He tried shaking it off, but the feelings of claustrophobia didn’t leave him as he followed Gammon to the corner of the cavern where a familiar face waited behind a heavily secured counter.
“Why, hello there young man,” Beatrice said, beaming at him. Thorn gave her a brief wave. He wondered if she had known about the glitter farm before sending him south; the first time he’d met her, she had been working on the giant set of armor she had been wearing when she’d been accompanying Colonel Smithson.
“Long time, no see.” Beatrice continued smiling, clearly amused. “And with a pet… raven, I see.”
The last time she had seen Korakis, he’d been close to death, a hole burned into his chest.
“We’re here to get Thorn outfitted, not sit around and chat.” Gammon was not amused. “Especially about ravens.”
“Tok, tok.” Korakis appeared to recognize the woman. He ruffled his feathers and fixed his blue-tinged eye on the woman.
“Let’s see that badge then,” Beatrice said, rolling her eyes. “What’s your role? Looking for anything in particular?”
“Not sure yet,” Thorn said, handing her his badge. He was still distracted by the feeling that the walls were closing in on him, and that he was back inside the dead zone. “Escort mission of some kind.”
“Well now. A mission already?” Beatrice said. “Shouldn’t you be resting up instead of gallivanting off at the first opportunity?”
“I need him range-tested this morning,” Gammon said. “I’m escorting the recruit around the base precisely to prevent socialites with an overgrown sense of their own importance from slowing down his onboarding.”
Beatrice and Gammon stared daggers at each other.
“He doesn’t know the first thing about us or our missions, his role or required loadout,” Beatrice said.
Thorn forgot about the walls of the cavern pressing down on him and focused all of his attention on Beatrice. She was beginning to annoy him, and it wasn’t lost on him that, just like Gammon, she might have known more about Lief’s whereabouts and mission than she’d let on.
“I don’t know the details, or what my role might be,” Thorn said. “But I know what I’m comfortable with. Linear motor rifle. I prefer the Hau to the SG models, but I can be flexible. Optical sight, no required System integrations.”
“Well then,” Beatrice sniffed and rose to her feet. She returned a few moments later with two rifles and set them on the counter.
Thorn picked up the first, a shorter SG-11 with an open sight. It was designed for military use and would fire a larger slug than he was used to. Its accurate range would be shorter, though, and that was not something that Thorn was hoping for.
He set it down and picked up the second. It was a Hau-37, locally made on this planet, and similar to Thorn’s old rifle. He proceeded to break it down, piece by piece, to Beatrice’s and Gammon’s growing frustration. Thorn ignored both of them as he inspected each piece, just like he had done with Lief numerous times before their hunts.
This time, however, his new skill Assess was making itself known. Subtle imperfections that he would have missed before were glaringly obvious. Spots that would have looked clean to the old Thorn were as dirty as mud.
Thorn smoothly put the rifle back together and set it down on the counter. “What else do you have?” he asked.
“Those are what you asked for,” Beatrice said.
“Respectfully, ma’am, I didn’t ask for a poorly maintained weapon. Even I have standards,” Thorn replied with a bite to his tone. Her overly friendly and polite demeanor grated at him, and he didn’t trust her, either.
“I lost my last rifle saving my best friend’s life, and if these are the best replacements the Crows have to offer, then I wonder if I made a mistake by coming here.”
Silence stretched between them. Thorn stared Beatrice in the eye until she blinked.
“Oh honey,” Beatrice said. “With that kind of attitude? You are definitely in the right place.”
For the next hour, Beatrice brought out weapons for Thorn to inspect while she helped other Crows at the counter. He broke each of them down, inspecting them in detail.
By the end, Thorn felt well-equipped with what he chose. The KLX-32P was not a make he was familiar with, but he had learned it was the standard infantry rifle for the Koran Empire, based on the planet Kora and a distant member of the constellation of planets Agrotis was loosely aligned with.
It was basically a heavier, semi-automatic version of his old hunting rifle. It also had a longer barrel, reaching as high as Thorn’s chest when he placed the stock on the floor, and an increased effective accuracy.
Gammon spent most of the time Thorn spent picking out weapons staring into the middle distance, sending comms and concentrating on her System HUD. In addition to the KLX-32P, he also chose a chemically-propelled sidearm. It was an odd choice, and got a few raised eyebrows, but if Thorn ever had the misfortune of falling into another dead zone, he was going to be prepared.
When they moved to the range, Gammon put aside her work to focus entirely on Thorn. She let him sight in his new weapons, then gave him several tests to qualify him on the weapons he’d picked out.
For his part, Thorn was pumped. He shot the best he’d ever shot in his life, tight clusters at six hundred meters with his new rifle. The drills and simulations that Gammon had made him run with his sidearm had been unfamiliar, but he felt he had the hang of them by the end.
“What do you say to upping the ante a bit?” Gammon asked him. “We’re done with all the official parts.”
“Sure, but how’d I do?”
Gammon sighed. “Well, you have to understand that while there are a number of different roles within the Crows, everyone is expected to be minimally competent with a rifle and a sidearm, and by those standards, you passed. Barely.”
“I didn’t realize I was that bad,” Thorn said, taken aback.
“Comparatively,” Gammon said. “To be more specific though, you are actually a good shot with the long rifle; more levels and maybe a dedicated Skill or two, and you’ll be better than adequate for your rank. But it’s clear you’ve done little in the way of movement drills, and with the sidearm, you are scraping by solely on the strength of your System enhancements.”
That made more sense to Thorn.
“I’ll practice,” he said.
“Good. But how about a bit more motivation?” Gammon grinned. “Via a little friendly competition.”
“With you?” Thorn raised an eyebrow.
“Now that wouldn’t be friendly, nor would it be a competition.” Gammon shook her head. “Another new member is practicing on the range right now, and I sent her a comm. She should be walking over.”
They didn’t have to wait long.
A woman approached them dressed in a tight-fitting jumpsuit with her surname of “Mejer” and the Crows’ emblem embroidered on her chest. She was of average height, slightly shorter than Thorn, with a stocky, muscular build.
“Chief,” she said, nodding at Gammon, then turned to Thorn. “Hey, I’m Kels,” she said, holding out her hand.
“I’m Thorn. This is Korakis.” Thorn grasped her hand in a firm shake.
“Hi there, Korakis.”
“Crkkk.”
Thorn hadn’t noticed her blue eyes, but they were indeed a dark blue, just like Korakis’s. Not much missed the raven’s gaze.
He had noticed the assault rifle with a single-shot under-barrel grenade launcher cradled in her other arm.
“Have you run the hostage rescue simulation before?” Gammon asked Kels.
“No, Chief, not at this outpost.”
“Great, it will be new for the both of you.” Gammon led them a short distance to an isolated section of the range. “Let’s do timed runs, three each, and see how you do.”
The three currently stood above a large, recessed area, walled-off from the rest of the range. Within the walled-off area were a series of concrete rooms, hallways, and openings. While the rooms had walls, none of them had ceilings, so that the action could be viewed from where they were standing on the observation platform.
“The goal is to eliminate or incapacitate the enemy without any damage to the hostages, or any projected damage to yourself,” Gammon said. “The enemies and hostages will be holographic projections. The munitions directed at you will be low-powered quintessence fields, so they’ll sting, but won’t actually hurt you.
“You’ll use live weapons and Skills.”
Thorn whistled. Running this simulation couldn’t be cheap.
“Any questions? No? Then as the greenest recruit, you’re up first Thorn.”