Read Online Soldier of Fortune: A Gideon Quinn Adventure (Fortune Chronicles Book 1) by Kathleen McClure - Free Book Online Page B

if they were dodging during the occupation."
     
     
     

C HAPTER E LEVEN
     
    BEFORE MORTON BARRENS , before Nasa, before the Corps, Gideon had been just another dodger on the streets of Tesla.
    Then the Adidans attacked, their forces overcoming the Fordian frontier city in less than a day as part of the Coalition’s first move against the United Colonies.
    The occupation of Tesla lasted for four years, and for Gideon, it changed everything.
     
    * * *
     
    “And where do you think you are going, young man?”
    Gideon, one foot on the teleph station’s ladder, felt his shoulders hunch up to his ears at the sound of Fagin Martine’s voice.
    It didn’t seem to matter he was going on fifteen, or that he’d been part of Martine’s hive for going on eight years, the merest hint of disapproval in the fagin’s voice had him flushing and hunching like a raw drone, fresh from the streets.
    “I was going out to cadge some food.” He faced the small, nut brown woman who’d fed, clothed, educated and trained him into dodging since the age of seven, and whom he suspected of being a Sensitive.
    “Supplies my behind.” Her eyes narrowed. “You think I don’t know what you’re really doing down there? I may not be on the streets so much as you young ones, but even this old nose can smell phosphorous on your clothes.”
    Okay, maybe not a Sensitive, just observant.
    “You been marking targets for the allies,” she continued, “and likely adding a little sabotage of your own into the bargain.”
    Busted, he thought. “It’s important work,” he said.
    “It’s soldier’s work, and you may be the best cannon I got, but you are no soldier.”
    “Not yet,” and damned if he couldn’t taste the bitterness in his own words, “but someday.”
    “Someday is not this day. This day you are still my dodger.”
    “Yes, but since there’s no one but the enemy to steal from, anyway, why not paint a few targets, or free some horses, or spike some Coal fart tires —”
    “You know I do not like that kind of language,” Martine poked a finger into his chest.
    “Even for—“
    “Even for the enemy, yes.” She gave him the full-on Martine de Loire glare. “Do you know why?”
    He looked at his too-tight boots, which were wearing thin as the occupation dragged on. “Because it’s verbally lazy,” he said, parroting one of Martine’s many, many views on the use of language.
    “That and because if you belittle something dangerous often enough, maybe you start thinking it is not so dangerous.” Her eyes, a shocking hazel in the dark, wrinkled face, were hard. “You start thinking that, you maybe stop being so careful on the dip, never mind what other trouble you’re getting up to out there, and then,” she brought her hands together in a sharp clap that had Gideon jumping in spite of himself, “no more Gideon here to give me sass.”
    He flushed, and hated that even in the dim light of their shielded solar lamp, she’d be able to see it.
    “If I promise not to call them Coal-farts can I go?”
    She stared.
    He rolled his eyes. “If I promise not to call them Coal-farts and stick to stealing food can I go?”
    “Tempting, but no,” she set a gentling hand on his arm. “Lessons first, as always. I need you,” she continued as he began to formulate another protest, “to set an example for the others. They look up to you, Gideon.”
    “Only because I’m so swarming tall,” he said, though he straightened some at the praise.
    “Not so tall I can’t still box your ears,” Martine said sharply, but with a smile in her voice. “Now, come and join the rest of the hive or you will see how very high I can reach.”
     
    * * *
     
    He joined the others, but when the lesson began, Gideon wondered why, of all subjects, Martine would have chosen ancient history.
    Not only was it a lesson he’d heard many a time since coming into her care, but it wasn’t nearly as useful as a lesson in lock picking or wall climbing