The Island (The Madion War Trilogy #1)

Chapter One, Part I - Theo

"Oi, Kallistrate."

Zlatan could have been referring to any one of ten of the air force pilots in the crowded locker room. Kallistrate was the Raven word for orphan and in this war-torn country, there were more of us without parents than with. But the disrespectful tone was proof enough that Zlatan was talking to me. After all, I was the only person in the vicinity who outranked him.

My lieutenants watched us, sea of dark faces and white eyes wide in nervous excitement. Zlatan was a brute, thickset and entitled, an older addition to our ranks who liked to throw his weight around to the younger pilots. He'd never directly tussled with me before, and I was interested to see how far he would go.

"I heard you bragging to Lanis about that skirmish last week." Zlatan sneered at me with his round face and eyes crowded a little too close together.

"You mean my debrief?" I said casually. "As a captain, part of my duties are to report the outcome of a mission to leadership."

The emphasis of my rank did not go unnoticed. The other pilots snickered as his already dark face grew more so.

"You think you're pretty good, huh? Surviving a couple dogfights don't make you no better than the rest of us," he snarled.

I'd never had much of an ego, especially when it came to idiots, so I turned to my locker and began stripping out of my jumpsuit.

Zlatan had a different idea. He grabbed my shoulder and spun me around, his putrid breath in my space. "Captain or not, you don't turn your back on me, bitch."

In response, I kneed him hard in the groin, and he fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face, red with pain. The other pilots let out a cheer—every one of them was hoping Zlatan wouldn't return one day. But he had a nasty habit of faking illness whenever the sirens wailed and called us to defend our country.

As Zlatan howled and cried, I finished changing out of my jumpsuit and left the crowded locker room before I attracted any more trouble.

I wasn't in the mood to celebrate a fellow Raven's beating, even one who so tantalizingly deserved it. My captain's training course had made it clear that I was to be a leader, to keep morale high. Ever since declaring our independence from the nation of Kylae some fifty years ago, we'd been under constant attack as the bastards kept trying to bring us back into the fold. We pilots were the first line of defense against Kylae's aerial attacks, but we were woefully understaffed and undertrained. I had a squadron of twenty pilots, most of whom were teenagers, conscripted at the age of twelve and barely trained before showing up to fly for me.

However, only nineteen had returned from this morning's mission, I noted with a grimace. I tried not to think about who I hadn't seen in the locker room.

After the morning's surveillance and the skirmish with Zlatan, I was eager to find quiet. I hadn't really known any other home but metal bunk beds and gruel, so the large dormitory was welcoming to me. I'd long ago learned how to create a privacy bubble for myself, even in the presence of two hundred other pilots jammed in there.

But before I could climb into bed, there was commotion at the end of the giant hall where we slept. A group of still-uniformed young girls huddled around a bed, crying and wailing. I didn't know them, but I knew the sound. They'd known the pilot who hadn't returned. Although we hadn't encountered any enemies, our equipment was old and failed regularly when not maintained. Those who didn't learn how to change oil or check for breakages didn't make it very long.

My sanctuary was calling, but my humanity was louder. With a deep breath, I approached the miserable circle and forced a grim smile onto my face. When they noticed me, one of them had the state of mind to stand, but I waved her off with a small shake of my head.

"What was her name?" I should've been used to these conversations, but I couldn't keep the crack of emotion out of my voice.

"Marij." The girls couldn't have been older than thirteen or fourteen, and this seemed to be their first loss of a friend. I wished I could tell them it would be their last.

I struggled to push out the words that I'd been trained to say since I'd been promoted. "Marij died in the cause of Raven independence. There is no greater honor."

The sentiment fell flat on the girls, but one of them half-smiled at me. "Thank you, 'neechai."

I bristled at the Raven word for "sister"—it wasn't so much a translation, but a sentiment. The old Raven language had long since faded away into the common tongue, but we'd retained some words that just didn't translate. Oneechai meant more than just a blood sister; it was a familiar woman who tended to others, who felt like a warm embrace. Someone who was always there. It wasn't a term Ravens threw around lightly.

Although I never corrected them, I hated it when my subordinates used it to describe me. I could never protect them as well as an oneechai should, not when I lost two or three of my pilots every week. And yet, every week, more kids showed up, looking to me to save them from almost certain death as they got into their planes and headed off to battle.

And to save my own heart, I'd stopped learning their stories, stopped learning their names—I even stopped looking at their faces. It didn't matter though; the pain was the same.

With a grim smile and a pat on the shoulder, I turned to leave the girls, and I couldn't help but wonder which one of them would be the next to be mourned.