“I’ve seen some monster chinch bugs.” Raul Ruiz.

Sam stood by the braced rock and listened, holding up a hand for silence. Everyone strained to hear. Then, it came; the low whine of motors. Ships passed slowly over the bluff. Their noise faded. Sam returned to the huddle and warmed himself.

“They’ll move to the mainland,” he quietly said, “and work the coastline.”

“Speaking of the mainland,” said Besh, “is it close?”

Sam replied, “I know a place we can swim across.”

Beasley looked up and asked, “What about fins in the water?”

“Swim fast,” answered Sam, ending the matter. “To be safe, we’ll sleep here tonight.”

Raul said, “So, like, we get all warm and stuff, and then, jump back in the cold water tomorrow.”

Sam smiled mischievously and responded, “Works like a cup of coffee.”

Beasley grimaced and bit a corner from one of the flat gray biscuits, worked past the stale flavor, and asked, “Are there bugs in this cave? I hate bugs.”

Raul added, “Yeah. Chinch bugs are the worse. Back on Merlin, my dorm was crawling with the little white bastards. I used to watch them walk down the walls at night. They were so fat they waddled. I hate those blood-suckers.”

“Blood-suckers?” Beasley’s voice registered fear.

Besh turned the conversation back to the mainland. “Where will we be when we reach the mainland?”

Sam scratched in his beard thoughtfully. “Let’s see. As I recall, we should come out east of Addle. Open prairie, flat, and easy to walk. We’ll find the road and follow it into town.”

Raul said, “There better not be any canyons. Getting stuck in one was enough.”

Beasley added, “And no burning grass. We almost went up in flames.”

Raul jibed with a friendly nudge, “Crispin got crispy.”

Besh turned from the youths to the Captain. “Yes,” he said. “Won’t we be exposed on a prairie?”

Sam answered, “We’ll walk fast and head for the trees. Listen. It’s flat. It’s open. There’re more rocks and sand than weeds. We’ll reach some trees when we get to the road. That’s all I can tell you.”

“Oh wait,” said Raul, snapping his fingers. “We’re coming up on the Tidal Train.”

Beasley nodded, “Tomorrow, to be exact.”

Raul’s voice rose in consternation. “So, we’ll be walking right into it? Man!”

“Wait,” said Besh. “What’s a Tidal Train.”

“Planetary alignment,” said Sam.

Beasley sat straight and informed Besh in his official voice, “That’s when all the planets and moons line up with Pendragon. Merlin below us, the Twins above us, and Oberon just beyond them. The tidal pull marches across our current latitude from Web City to Jara.”

Raul continued, “The gravity gets all messed up. Sand and small rocks float off the ground. It’s like walking in a soup. If you don’t like fleas, you better wear your socks over your pants.”

Beasley closed the tin and pushed it away. “I hate fleas,” he said flatly.

As Sam sat forward and ate biscuits from a tin, Beasley noted with evident consternation that the Captain devoured them as if they were a plate of beans in a fine dining establishment. He recalled the fiasco in Port Arthur. Raul opened Beasley’s discarded tin, and Besh opened the third.

“How can you eat that?” asked Beasley. “It’s got to be a hundred years old.”

Sam drank from a water bottle and answered, “More like twenty.”

“Well, excuse me,” Beasley countered, “but that’s still really old.”

Sam replied, “The heater is the same age, and it’s good.”

Beasley could not drop the point. “That’s different,” he argued, looking around for support.

Raul, looking closely, reported, “I see weevils,” drawing a look of horror from Beasley.

Sam closed his tin, took a sip of water, and said with a straight face, “A fine source of protein.”

Beasley’s face screwed up even more. He said to himself, “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Besh closed his tin and returned it to the central crate, saying, “I have a weevil allergy.”

“Eat or don’t eat,” said Sam. “It’s all we got.”

A bubble of silence swelled between the four men. Raul stuck a pin in it when he slapped his legs and said, “Well, we have some time to kill. Who wants to talk?”

“Not me,” said Sam.

With a broad smile, Raul pressed, “Come on, man. Tell us a war story.”

“They’re not for children,” said Sam.

Besh spoke up. “I would be interested to know your exploits. They can cover their ears when you tell the gory parts.”

“I like the gory parts,” countered Raul.

Sam looked among them and saw an eagerness in their eyes. He looked away and shook his head. He was not especially proud of his commendations. The children he had killed still haunted him.

Beasley asked, “How did you become a hero, Captain?”

Sam sighed and began his tale. “Tier’on was a tropical moon with a large population, but the Consortium didn’t care about the people. They wanted the ore. Tier’on was rich in nickel and copper, and the Consortium needed copper for wiring. Long story short, the Judges started a war and it got really nasty. I was a Lieutenant in the Consortium Armed Forces. With so many casualties, the soldiers got younger and younger. I led a platoon of snot-nosed kids with no experience. We were sent in to die.”

“Damn!” said Raul.

As Sam recollected, he took a shaky breath and continued. “Just outside of Darhn Merro, we got pinned down at the bottom of a hill. There was a bunker right over us. We were hiding in holes blown out of the earth. Trees around us were on fire, And all we had for cover was a low stony ridge, but even that was being chipped away. They threw everything at us, bullets, mortar. One kid got lit up.”

“Did he make it?” Beasley asked.

“Yeah,” said Sam. “I got the fire out. I knew they were shooting wild. Probably just as scared as we were. We were screwed if I didn’t do something, so I had the Zits passed to me.”

“Zits?” asked Besh.

Sam explained. “Small grenades. Once the pin is pulled, you can keep your finger in the ring until you’re ready to throw. I had four Zits on a piece of iron rod I’d found. All I had to do was push them all off. The problem was the bunker kept us pinned down. After the mortars, all I had to worry with was the bullets, so when the bunker stopped to reload, I charged up the ridge on the right.”

“Damn,” said Raul, “I wanna be the Captain.”

“No, you don’t,” replied Sam. “Believe me.”

“What happened?” asked Besh.

Sam studied Besh momentarily, and answered, “The bunker was low. A long concrete structure open at the ends. I ran straight up and pushed the Zits off the rod and took cover as they rolled through the enemy. Then the blast hit. The corner where I was hiding cracked, and a piece of the wall gave me this.” Sam put a finger to his face, indicating a deep scar across his cheek.

Sam looked from face to face. Besh, silent, hung his head. Beasley and Raul sat with gaping mouths. No one said a word. What could they say? Sam did not relish the recollection. It was a painful memory, a wound that never healed. He took a deep breath and concluded.

“Anyway, when I looked inside, I saw ten dead kids. Not one was older than seventeen. I took my medal, but I hated it, and I kept my mouth shut for a long time, but the kids just kept getting younger. I had to tell someone, to shout in someone’s face, anyone, Hey, we're killing kids! When I finally spoke out, they had my ass behind bars so fast I didn’t know what hit me. I had no family and no friends, so I just sat there. Months turned into years.”

Raul asked after a moment, “Is that where you learned to fight?”

The question seemed off-color. When faces turned away from him, he realized his gaffe and lowered his eyes in a moment of burning embarrassment. Sam laughed, breaking the silence with a snort that signaled mild amusement.

Besh said, “Wherever you learned to fight, all of us owe you our lives.”

Raul looked up and said, “I want to fight like you. Can you teach us?”

Beasley extended the thought, adding, “Without throwing us around?”

Sam sat stone-still, a brooding scowl shadowing his eyes. Another awkward bubble of silence threatened to engulf them until Besh spoke.

“Or, at least, some pointers.”

“How do you do it, Captain?” Beasley asked emphatically.

“Do what?” Sam returned.

“Bullets flying all over the place,” said Beasley. “You just walk through it all without a care. You hurt them, they don’t hurt you. You have single-handedly fought off four attacks, and have come back without a scratch. You seem almost indestructible.”

Sam stood and spread his pea coat near the wall of the cave. He reclined on the coat and placed clasped hands beneath his head. “You just got to watch the other guy. Which foot he steps out on. Which arm he swings with. Follow their eyes.”

Raul asked, “What about when it’s dark?”

Sam answered, “Even in the dark, a body will only lead out in one direction, forward, backward, or to the side. Whether they are on their left leg or right leg, they are off-balance. If they raise their hands, their center is open. It’s all in the details. Everybody takes a moment to make a decision. That moment is yours.”

Raul pressed, “Yeah, but you take them on four at a time.”

Sam yawned, then said, “In those cases, your first mark is either your shield or weapon. I’m gonna sleep now.”

At a loss, Besh, Beasley, and Raul looked among themselves. The Captain’s final statement seemed like a warning. No one dared to speak. Besh took the heater and placed it on the sandy floor near Sam. He spread his coat close by and retired without a word.

Raul Rolled his denim jacket into a pillow and chose a spot near the heater. Beasley struggled out of the bra and tossed it aside. He balled his linen jacket and put it under his head as he lay close to Raul. The cave was silent.

Raul turned and whispered to Beasley, “You gas me, I shoot you. Comprender?”