BEHIND THE WHEEL
Rejected Shorts, #2
I wrote this piece for an anthology and it didn’t make the cut—competition was stiff and many of the other writers were veterans, which helped with the theme (non-combat roles in the military.)
For this story I created a fictional military branch called the Logistics Corps, and we drop in on a faithful Loggie who’s about to retire. But right before the Corps is done with him, he meets with an unlikely ghost from his past, and old grudges bubble up to the surface…
Credit to Zhiyuan Li on ArtStation
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Graham Bradley
Planet: Acragas, Alpha Centauri System
Local Date: 23.4.86 AC (After Colonization)
Earth Date: March 2189
“Final run, Cap’n?” Sergeant Skarn asked, taking a swig from a steel canteen.
Captain Jake McClane nodded. “That’s what they tell me. Twenty years in the Logistics Corps and I finally get to buy a piece of this rock.” He stood straight, hands behind his back as he watched the lumpers loading heavy cargo containers in the third and fourth trailers of his land train. He’d already had to correct them once about the order; agricultural goods were lighter than hydro-cells and had to go in the caboose for stability. These idiots never learned.
“Wish I’d started as young as you did,” Skarn went on. “Seven years left.”
Jake didn’t have anything to say to that. Skarn was a good Loggie, competent with his duties and mostly attentive to detail. Bit of a talker though. He hadn’t run a route with Skarn for a while, but Skarn was taking over after Jake’s retirement. Today’s route would take them all the way to Henderson Colony, on a road Skarn had never driven before. If he stuck to it like Jake had, he’d retire at fifty-two with a good pension.
Jake was thirty-eight, having enlisted right out of high school back on Earth, when the LogistiCorps was still a new branch. His first tour was in Africa, navigating the dangerous trails between precious ore mines. Second tour, he ended up on Mars, which wasn’t bad, but the terraforming was fragile and most places were still domed. Then Acragas opened up, far away between two stars, and Jake’s record earned him an early slot. Anything that got him farther from Earth was fine with him.
Twelve years of living in one-point-three Earth gravities had hardened him, and two million kilometers of unpaved driving had made him a skilled operator. Now he could retire to some quiet colony with plenty of eligible bachelorettes, and finally put his feet up.
“Hey, Cap’n? Any reason why the second car is only half-full?” Skarn asked.
“Passengers today, Marines. Squadron Tango Four-Five, their armors, foot lockers, and two compact ATVs. Orders just came in last night. Apparently Admiral Cain requested them for Hendo Colony. Been in transit for six months but dispatch never told us ‘til now.” Jake handed his tablet to Skarn.
“Dispatchers,” Skarn muttered, scanning the manifest. “Never changes. Why’s Hendo getting Marines?”
“Because the Chinese keep putting men in the No-Man’s-Land outside the colony. Cain wants ‘em to stop.”
“That’ll do us for weight,” Skarn said. “Hopefully they aren’t too rowdy. Jeez, remember the flight out here?”
“I try not to,” Jake grunted. To get used to Acragas’ gravity, incoming ships would boost theirs by another half-G every month. Even after six months it still hurt to walk on Acragas. Whenever new arrivals came—like the skyscraper-sized Pottawottamie on the landing pad two clicks away—passengers always deboarded with their backs hunched.
“I think that’s them.” Skarn pointed through the crowd on the docks. Jake followed, sighting a squad of armored Marines with their helmets off, and suddenly a hot lance of fire shot through his chest.
No…no…
Marines always stood out in a crowd, especially when wrapped in steel and hydro-cell suits. Their leader was an especial sight though, a man whose face had been plastered on posters and recruitment propaganda for close to two decades. The hero of the Corps, and the bane of Jake’s existence: Alec “Capone” Cortini.
What the hell was he doing on Acragas?
Instinct took over and Jake stood ramrod straight, his whole body frozen. Skarn signaled for the Marines to come over; during transit, they’d report to the LogistiCorps, and as Sergeant, Skarn would handle them.
“Tango Four-Five?”
The Marines fell into what was not exactly a smart line, standing more or less at attention, looking bored.
“Oo-rah,” said Cortini. “Four-Five reporting, Corporal Cortini of Earth. Heard you guys had some trouble out this way and we were in the neighborhood!”
“That’ll do Cortini. I’m Sergeant Skarn, this is Captain McClane. Pack down your armor and—”
“It’s ‘Capone,’ Sarge, if you please.”
Jake wanted to smack the man right there, but not for that. Fortunately Skarn was no slacker.
“I don’t please, Corporal. Until you report to your Marine CO at Hendo Colony, you’re a subordinate passenger under LogistiCorps officers. You’ll get few reminders and that’s one.”
Cortini looked genuinely surprised. He glanced at his men who mirrored him, as if to ask whether Skarn knew who he was addressing.
“Hang on—”
“And that’s two. Don’t take me to three, Marine. Pack down that armor and get in the second car. We roll out in five minutes. Now!”
“Alright, fine. We…hey wait, McClane? Jakey? No way, man!”
Jake didn’t trust himself to say anything. He turned his back, feigning boredom, and headed for the cab of the train. Skarn could deal with that idiot. Jake was about to have a nervous attack. His hand trembled as he struggled with himself not to reach for his sidearm, hanging smartly from his mag-holster.
***
Nobody in the service would describe Jake McClane as a violent man. The LogistiCorps was the laughingstock of the interstellar military, the spacefaring version of the old Coast Guard on Earth. They trained for combat if needed but their primary responsibility was shuttling “goods and grunts” from place to place.
Jake was proud of how swiftly he’d made captain. His superiors wanted him in the upper brass and Jake had intentionally failed each promotion exam so he could stay on the ground. He would remain a captain and retire after five enlistments. He was happy behind the wheel, being the best at a something.
Contrast that with his once-childhood friend, Alec Cortini, the eternal golden boy. Five-star athlete in any program he ever touched, with a half-smile that had broken a thousand hearts. Despite his flaws and failings, the man had a smooth road through life, wasting opportunities that others would have killed for. When those vices caught up to Cortini and his athletic career stalled, he moved laterally into the military as a hybrid combatant and influencer.
Posters, digital regalia, advertisements, even short films were produced on the regular, starring “Capone” Cortini. Jake had not seen any of them, would not if he could avoid it. Even now, across the dock, there was a bill on the wall by the driver’s lounge for Orbital Wrath, a forty-minute feature wherein Capone’s Boys dropped onto Mars to stop terrorists from destroying a hydroponic farm.
Everyone loved Capone. Everyone except Jake, who knew what he was really like, what he did to people. Jake had crossed an ocean of stars to get out of Alec’s orbit. Now he was here.
On Jake’s final route.
How could this happen?
***
Five minutes later, Skarn climbed into the cab.
“All set?” Jake asked.
“Um…well, except for the last walkaround—”
“All set?” Jake repeated. He knew this rig. It was ready.
“All set, Cap’n.”
“Wear earplugs if you want.” Jake switched on the stereo, tapping a playlist for a Martian genre called “mechatastrophe.” Lots of cranking and screaming and percussion, mixed with engine noises. The heavy land train lurched into motion and he shifted up through the gears with purpose, not moving his head, not taking his eyes off the spot directly in front him.
He’d made it through twenty minutes of mecha at full volume before he killed the music. His pulse had come back down to normal and he was about to hit the outskirts of the Crossroads—a dark brown scar on the continent’s surface where the jungle had been cut up and plowed back to build the network of landing ports. The spiderweb of roads led away to the various colonies that had taken root in the last eighty years. The road was wide, enough for four rigs of his size, though it would soon narrow to two.
“Better, Cap’n?” Skarn stowed his earplugs and sat up straight in the co-driver’s chair.
“Less bad,” Jake muttered.
“So you know Cortini, huh? Must have seen his face on a thousand posters between here and Earth.”
“I’m one of the few who doesn’t call him by his stupid nickname.”
“Old friends?”
“Old neighbors, back in Brooklyn.”
“But you guys fell out.”
“Yeah.”
“Must have been pretty bad.”
“He’s a Marine, I’m a Loggie, how much worse does it need to be,” Jake said, rhetorically.
“Sorry. I’ll stop prying.”
Jake was about to say more when up ahead, two dark shapes crested a hill, driving side-by-side in violation of neutral highway laws. Land trains, like his, but a different make and flying a different flag.
“Tally two, Indian, twelve o’clock,” said Skarn.
“Seen.”
“Room on the right shoulder.”
“Hell with the shoulder. This is my lane.” Jake reached over to the dash and tapped the screen. “Daphne, yellow alert.”
DF-N3 was the train’s AI assistant. A smooth female voice came back over the speakers. “Confirmed, Captain McClane. Sergeant Skarn, you have the trigger.”
“Sir…” Skarn protested.
“Not today, Kevin.” Jake might have brushed off these highway pranks were he in any other mood, but that all went out the window the second Alec touched the docks of Hyperborea. These Punjabi trains liked to race each other and they also liked to play chicken. Today, Captain Jacob McClane of the Logistics Corps was not playing.
The intercom chimed from the second car. “Hey Jakey! Need us to shoot something? Me and the gang can give ‘em the ol’ kind-word-and-a-gun routine!”
“Daphne, sever intercom and open a channel to the oncoming train,” Jake snarled.
“Twelve hundred meters and closing,” Skarn said quietly.
“Channel open, Captain,” said Daphne.
Jake cleared his throat and hoped his accent wasn’t too rough. “Āpaṇī lēna vica vāpasa jā'ō.”
The Indian trains barreled onward, heedless.
“One kilometer,” Skarn said, arching an eyebrow at Jake. “Since when do you know Punjabi?”
“Been takin’ audio lessons.”
“Daphne has a translator.”
“Don’t care, I prefer analog. Give them a warning shot in three seconds, Sergeant. Tuhāḍē kōla tina sakiṭa hana.” Jake said this last bit into the radio.
“Copy,” Skarn said nervously.
“Āpaṇī lēna vica vāpasa jā'ō!!! Quick burst, now.”
Skarn caressed the trigger. The roof-mounted 25mm cannon ripped off six rounds, quick as a snakebite, tearing chunks out of the road just a few yards ahead of the oncoming train, close enough to rattle them. No change.
“Five seconds and do two more just like that.”
“Sir…”
“Trust me, Sergeant.”
The seconds ticked, the kilometers disappeared, and Skarn fired again. More of the road spat into the air and a chunk of soil splashed against the driver’s windshield, caking onto the glass and blocking his view. Jake was rewarded with a satisfying cloud of dust as the driver smashed the brakes, causing his three-car train to bunch up slightly.
The train on the left surged ahead and the one in Jake’s lane swerved behind him, mere seconds before they were due to collide. The radio blared with angry Punjabi curses, but Jake just flipped the bird as they drove by.
“Jeez,” Skarn breathed.
“Damn kids,” said Jake.
“Do we need to…fill out an incident report?”
“Daphne, how many unanswered reports have I sent to ADOL about this sort of behavior?” Jake asked.
“Eighty-six, Captain McClane.”
“Make it eighty-seven.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Do me a favor and don’t tell Cortini about Daphne,” Jake said, a little giddy now that his nerves had loosened up. “He’ll try to nail her.”
Skarn barked out a laugh. “You fell out over a girl, then?”
“Couple of ‘em.”
***
Two hours and seventeen minutes after leaving the spaceport, Jake pulled the land train into the through-docks at an agricultural colony called New Park City. He’d calmed down some, not enough to read an audiobook but enough to chill about Cortini a little. Now that he had to get out, his nerves lit up again.
Jake resented that feeling more than he would admit. For over a decade he’d tricked himself into thinking he was past all of this. Now the bandage was off and it took a pound of flesh with it, stirring up memories that deserved to stay behind him.
One more route. Just one route and it won’t matter. I’m out of the Corps. Might even go back to Earth, or retire to Mars. He’d be an unmatched athlete there; Mars gravity was less than a fifth of Acragas. Just go somewhere else! Like he always did…
“I don’t think we’ve ever delivered here,” Skarn said, looking out the window.
“New facility, it wasn’t open last time you came. There’s a food court and bathrooms across the dock. Take the Marines and keep them in line, we won’t be more than thirty minutes. Read them the Hierarchy Decree if you must and report any insubordination.”
“Copy,” said Skarn. Jake was grateful for the man not asking more questions. He’d be a good captain. Jake loaded the manifest on his tablet and strode to the inbound office where the manager eagerly awaited him, rubbing his hands together.
“McClane! You got my chocolate?”
“Seems like it, Regis. Some assembly required.” He handed the tablet to the receiving manager for Regis Incorporated, which ran most of New Park City. Jake had read the manifest while the lumpers loaded his train, curious at the combination of fertilizers, soil enzymes, seeds, and even young plants in hydroponic bulbs. There were sacks of actual cocoa beans too, but the real treasure was in the trees and dirt. Nobody else on Acragas had successfully launched a greenhouse for chocolate yet.
“Fantastic. Should have our own supply in a year or two,” said Regis. He thumbprinted the manifest and handed the tablet back. “Say, my kid heard a rumor that—holy crap, there he is!” Regis’ face lit up just as Jake’s modest smile withered, knowing before looking over his shoulder that Alec was on the dock. A small crowd rushed out of the food court to swarm him. The place went nuts.
“Well, I’m on a tight schedule, and…” Jake trailed off as Regis walked away. He didn’t want to resent the man—Acragas didn’t get celebrities, after all—but it was hard not to. Jake had been delivering to NPC regularly and had even had a few holiday dinners there at one of Regis’ family restaurants. Yet Jake was just a Loggie, and Alec was a star.
Muttering under his breath, Jake walked to the rear of his train to oversee the dockhands as they rushed to unload the cargo. Before he could make it past Alec’s crowd of admirers he felt a strong hand grip his shoulder and pull him into a half-hug.
“And I just found out my driver is an old pal from Brooklyn! Couldn’t get him into the Marines, he decided to join the LC. How’s about you give him a hand, eh?”
“I never tried out for the Marines.” Jake shrugged off Alec’s arm, reminded of the height difference between them; Jake was five-four, while Alec towered at six-three.
“I want to be a Marine!” one teen said. “I’m gonna enlist next month on my birthday!”
Jake had an idea. “You sure you don’t want to be a Loggie? You look about the same age as my nephew and he’s a great driver on Mars.”
He could almost feel Alec’s energy change, just slightly. There and gone in an instant, but it was there, and now his smile and bravado were just a little tainted, a little forced.
Nephew. That got his attention.
“Booooo!” the teen said. “Loggies suck! Oo-rah!”
Now Jake was bristling. “A Marine is only as useful as the shuttle that gets him in range, kid. Remember that.”
“BOOOOO!” The other kids joined in now, and Alec was laughing. Making a weak excuse, Jake pulled out of the crowd and let Alec have his fans. This day couldn’t end soon enough.
***
Alec had dawdled with his fans at NPC until Skarn ordered him onto the train. That costed them time. Jake did his best to make up for it on route to his next stop. They were lighter without the agriculture in the caboose but the second delivery sat atop Yuki Yama—literally “snowy mountain” in Japanese. The snows had already melted for the season, leaving the roads a muddy mess in certain sections.
“We have two suns, how the hell do they have snow? There’s no winter here,” Skarn said, staring out the window in awe.
“Only a few spots can support it depending on the altitude, and it’s artificial from there. Acragas has an axial tilt like Earth and the lesser star doesn’t give as much heat in the leaning months. Put some fake clouds in the sky, spray the mist into the air, and boom,” Jake said.
“Man. How do you know all this stuff?”
Jake tapped the screen on the dash like he always did. “Books, Sergeant. You’ll spend fifty or sixty hours a week in this box, by yourself, staring at the windshield. Wasted time is a choice.” He shifted down into a curve as the grade steepened, maintaining speed. Jake felt Skarn’s eyes on him as he managed the shifter, picking just the right moment when the needle hit the tach at twenty-one hundred RPM to back off the accelerator. As the engine immediately spun down under its load, Jake palmed the stick forward and floated into the next gear, then stepped on the pedal again. The rig accelerated again, smooth as butter.
“Nice,” Skarn said. “Took me forever to learn how to float and it still barks at me.”
“Comes with practice,” Jake said. “They’ll never make Orbital Wrath 2 about some Loggie saving the world, but we can still be the best.”
“Permission to be brutally honest, Cap’n?”
“Granted.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever care enough to be the best.”
“Yeah. Well. Gotta have the right motivation.”
***
Jake’s motivation for his entire childhood, through his teens and into his twenties, was named Carinna. Her dad nicknamed her the Scotch Bonnet and it fit. She wasn’t a full Mick like Jake but close, coming from a long line of Campbells that had been in New York for centuries, and she had a fiery streak in her that’d leave your lips burning. Or at least he had always dreamed it would; he never got to find out. Alec did, though. He tasted that sweet forbidden fruit and then he threw it away.
They’d been inseparable from the moment the Campbells moved into Jake’s building. Carinna, Jake, and Alec grew up playing video games, playing at the park, playing anything that would put them in the same room. Class clowns in school, though Alec got the most laughs, then he got the most attention from girls, then he got attention from Carinna, who in her teens started confiding to Jake that she wanted Alec to look at her the way he looked at every other pretty girl.
Jake harbored some hurt over that. He looked at Carinna that way and she never noticed. She wanted Alec and Jake wanted her. Alec could give her everything she wanted but Jake would have given her everything he had.
High school played out and Alec’s gravitational pull only increased, and somewhere along the way he got a reputation for using-and-losing girlfriends. The reputation, like Alec’s popularity and good looks, only increased as he went to college, then went pro. Jake, who never had a prayer of matching Alec’s prowess, tested well in trade-based aptitudes, and found that not only was he good at operating heavy machinery, he really enjoyed it too. He certified on twenty-three different types of equipment, at or near the top of his guild. A steady, lucrative future awaited him in the LogistiCorps as humanity pushed farther out into the stars.
He had a future to offer Carinna. All the while Carinna held that torch for Alec. And unlike the spicy pepper for which she was nicknamed, that torch eventually burned her for real.
And the worst part was, Alec never seemed to care.
***
“Twenty minutes this time, Sarge,” Jake said, climbing out onto Yuki Yama’s dock. “No distractions.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
“Don’t do your best, be the best.”
The admonition earned an unexpected salute from his junior officer. Jake headed for the inbound office. Mister Ishimoto, the dock boss, called out his name.
“McClane! You late!”
“Gomen’nasai, Ishimoto-san,” Jake said. He knew he’d botched the grammar on his apology. His Japanese was still rough, but somewhere on par with Ishimoto’s English. The old man was very strict about his schedules, something Jake normally appreciated, though today was different.
“You have my hydro-cells?” Ishimoto asked as Jake handed him the tablet with the manifest.
“Hai, Ishimoto. Sixteen dense-cores from Toro Energy in Okinawa, direct from the factory. Tested and still under seal, delivered courtesy of the UniCan LogistiCorps.”
Ishimoto grunted a noise that was not quite satisfaction. Coming from him, that was praise. “Why you bring Marines?”
“Ah. They are not for Yuki Yama.” Jake wouldn’t tell him where they were going. Yuki Yama was an independent Japanese colony, and while they did business with UniCan, they didn’t have any protection contracts with them. OpSec rules still applied.
“That one thinks we are for him,” Ishimoto said harshly. Frowning, Jake looked where the old man was pointing; Skarn had led the Marines to the reception facility, but before Alec could get there he’d been mobbed by a group of ten or more girls, some of whom couldn’t have been eighteen. They giggled and shrieked something that sounded like “Capo-na-san!” Alec smiled that turd-eating smile and posed for pictures.
Jake swore under his breath. “I apologize, Ishimoto. This one is a celebrity, it is hard to move him quietly.”
“They play Orbital Wrath at the theater,” Ishimoto huffed, as though describing dog crap on his shoe.
“I’ll take care of this. The lumpers can proceed with the offloading right away.” Before Jake could move, Ishimoto grabbed his sleeve.
“They say you quitting.”
“Not quitting; retirement. Soon.”
Ishimoto looked him up and down. “You too young. Need to work longer.”
“I’ll still work, just not here. Excuse me.” Jake hurried over to Alec, rehearsing a phrase in his mind two or three times before he reached the crowd of simpering admirers. “Kono dansei ni wa kodomo ga imasu.” Hopefully that came out right.
Each beautiful young face gasped in unison, some impressed, some heartbroken, and a chorus of surprised squeals hit Jake’s ears. A couple of the girls broke into tears and skittered away together while others pawed at Alec’s sleeves, impressed.
“Hey…what’d you tell ‘em?” Alec asked.
“That you’re unavailable. Get with Sergeant Skarn, Corporal. That’s an order. Sā, tomodachi yo, mō osoku natte kita yo.” Jake shooed the girls away. The girls waved Alec goodbye and with calls of sayonara, they left, giggling and chirping as they hurried off to the food court.
“Jakey! Where’d you learn Korean?” Alec clapped him on the shoulder.
“Cortini, you really are something else. GO.”
***
Once the lumpers had finished and the Marines were aboard, Jake took the land train down the mountain and confided a concern to Skarn.
“I think Cortini is violating OpSec.”
Skarn snorted. “Which mob gave it away?”
“He’s gotta be on a social site somewhere, he must have a personal link. Admiral Cain wouldn’t request Marines for neutral zone enforcement and then let them scream ‘we’re here’ before getting there. And if the average teen girl knows he’s in town…”
“Enemy conglomerates will know too.” Skarn got up and moved toward the cabin door.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m gonna take his devices.”
“He won’t hand them over.”
“I outrank him,” Skarn said, like it was obvious.
“And he’s a Marine, with seven buddies at his back. He lives and dies by his digital imprint; whatever device he’s got he won’t give it to you.”
Hesitantly, Skarn sat back down. “Well, we’ve got one more stop before Hendo, and we’ve already shot at India today. They’re friendly with the Chinese and they know we’re out here.”
“They might hit us before we get to Hendo,” Jake agreed, checking his mirrors more than was normal. Acragas wasn’t like Earth; on the ground the technology was 20th century and the politics were 19th century. Rough combination if you had enemies. “Daphne, how are the skies looking?”
“Clear, Captain. No inbound aerial activity for eighty miles.”
“Wouldn’t take a drone too long to cover eighty miles,” Skarn noted.
“Or a manned interceptor,” Jake said. The reality settled in on them.
“We’ve got a target on our backs. And you’ve got beef with Cortini. Sir,” he added, apologetically.
“Even without the beef we still have the target. Why the hell is he on my rig?”
“I could call Dispatch and ask,” Skarn said.
“I admire your enduring belief that Dispatch is worth anything more than a pig fart in a hailstorm. No, we’ve got precious few options if someone here decides to take a swing at us. Damn it, anyone who’s ever spent five minutes as Alec’s superior had to know he’d announce his arrival before he…got…there…” Jake trailed off as more ideas came to him.
“What?” Skarn prodded.
Jake absently grabbed another gear as they reached the bottom of the mountain, getting the train up to highway speeds. “I’m cookin’ an idea. Alec has a habit of sticking his d…dumb face where it doesn’t belong. He makes enemies and he never learns. It got him in trouble in college and I think it might also have landed him here. You don’t ship off Earth’s golden boy unless…”
“He hooked up with some officer’s daughter? Is that what you mean?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time, or the hundredth.”
“You’re sure?”
Jake bit his cheek and thought of Carinna’s perfect face. “Let me tell you a story.”
***
Girls tended to have this foolish idea that they were The One who could tame Alec Cortini. Such was the folly of the heart. Carinna thought she had the inside track given their long history.
She was wrong.
No matter how many times she heard of broken hearts and shattered hopes from other women, she still wanted Alec, all the while ignoring Jake. He was shorter, not as handsome, less impressive. His flame didn’t burn as bright. One day, near the end of his first tour, Jake finally got up the courage to lay it all out for Carinna. Tell her how he felt, and that Alec would let Carinna take her shot, and he would hurt her.
In her ambition, she didn’t listen. Sure enough, they hooked up, and it lasted seven or eight months—a record for Alec. Then something shinier and newer came along and Alec destroyed Carinna, just as Jake told her he would.
In this case the shiny new thing was Jake’s cousin Lainey. The man liked to leave a trail of destruction.
In her anguish, Carinna had come to Jake, broken down and crying and distraught. He listened and didn’t tell her “I told you so” because it wasn’t his way. A few months later she hinted at returning Jake’s long-kindled affections, yet Jake, having finally learned the art of self-respect, decided not to play second-best. He told her he loved her but he couldn’t be second-best to a woman who’d always been his number one.
To his everlasting shame, he let her leave his apartment, a bigger wreck than before. She went to a bar in Brooklyn. She crawled into seven shots of whiskey and tried to drive herself home.
She never made it.
Alec didn’t even come to the funeral. He was headed for his first deployment with the Marines, having sabotaged his football career by knocking up the coach’s daughter and Jake’s cousin at the same time. Lainey had since gotten married and had a few more kids and she seemed happy. Years later, at the end of Jake’s second tour, he crossed paths with Alec on Mars and told him, angrily, that he had a son.
And that idiot Alec had played it off like he technically had a nephew, because he and Jake were like brothers.
That was the first time that Jake truly wanted to kill a man. Alec was a walking hand grenade that could go off in a girl’s life, and just walk away without feeling a damn thing.
***
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