Son of Justice by Steven L. Hawk Read Free Book Online

body—and the weight of the two packs he carried—smacked the ground in a tumbled mess of clatter and exhaustion.
    His mind screamed “Get up!” but his body refused to listen. The arms that held the pack to his chest were quivering bowls of jelly. The legs that had carried him so far, nothing more than useless slabs of dead, tired meat. He rocked side-to-side in frustrated anger but couldn’t even push himself to his knees, much less regain his feet.
    Beep.
    The worst agony—that of defeat—crashed down upon him, and he cried out in rage. The weight of his failure felt like all the dirt in the world being shoveled onto the lid of his casket.
    Beep.
    Unable to move, his chin sank into the sand-covered soil of Telgora, and he raged silently against the inevitable. His eyes closed against the tears that threatened and spent his final speck of energy to curse the Minith sergeants.
    Beep.
    He was done.
    * * *
    Dark. Heavy breathing all around. Snoring?
    If he hadn’t known better, Eli would have thought he was back in the barracks with the outer shutters closed against the perpetual Telgoran sun. The sounds he had come to know over the past few weeks surrounded him. The feel of the mattress beneath him was familiar. Even the unique smell of the place—a worn combination of body sweat, oil, and stale farts—was spot on. But that couldn’t be. He was a washout.
    Wasn’t he?
    He tried to sit up, but a hot blast of pain knocked him flat on his back again.
    “Uhhh,” he groaned and agreed with his body that lying down was preferable to sitting. He heard a rustling from above and saw a shadow appear over his head.
    “EJ, you okay, man?” The shadow was Benson’s noggin looking down at him from the top bunk. He was back in the barracks.
    “What . . . what happened? Why am I here?”
    “Private Jayson, you pulled a real-life Justice on that march,” the shadow-head offered. “Who knew you had it in you?”
    “I pulled a . . . a what?”
    “A Justice , EJ,” Benson said as if talking to a five-year old. “You know . . . something a hero would do. Where the crud are you from, anyway?”
    Eli had no intention of answering that question. At least not completely. He had been born on Earth, but had spent the last twelve years of his life on Waa. He wasn’t up to date on Earth-side slang, but he had a good idea of what “pulling a Justice” meant.
    “What am I doing here?” he asked, still confused. “I washed out.”
    “Um. No,” the other man stated. “You didn’t.”
    “I didn’t finish.”
    “Well, that’s not exactly true. You didn’t finish on your own, but you finished.”
    “What?” Despite the pain, he turned to the side and pushed up to prop himself on his right elbow. Nothing was making sense. He remembered hitting the ground, trying—and failing—to get up, the pacer’s beeping, then . . . nothing.
    “That female from Third. Tenney. She crossed the line about two minutes after I did. She pointed at me and asked if I was Second Platoon,” Benson explained. “She didn’t even wait for an answer, just yanked my arm and said ‘Let’s go.’ I’m not sure how she knew you were in trouble, but the next thing I know, we’re headed back out. Only this time, we’re heading for the pacer, not away from it.
    “Johnson from First and a couple of others saw us heading back out and they followed. Five minutes later, we come up on you lying face down in the sand. I’m not sure how she knew you were in trouble, but the pacer couldn’t have been more than twenty meters away when she tossed one pack at me and another one at Johnson. How the crud did you end up with two, anyway?”
    “Long story,” Eli replied. “So, what happened then?”
    “Well, then Tenney pulled her own Justice.” Benson sounded both awed and amazed at what he was relaying. Eli couldn’t help but feel some of that as well. “That lady picked you up, tossed you over her shoulder and started humping your body