Trooaris’s estate covers the entire opposite bank of the oxbow lake and much farther beyond. I do not know my way around it well enough, and neither does Dirk. We have to make a pit stop on the way there to collect some necessary equipment.

It isn’t hard for him to reach Mercutioodon on a little dumb radio. If they had been using anything more sophisiticated their communications would have been intercepted and recorded long before now. As it stands, they escaped notice by having only very short range communication possible.

Mercutioodon agrees to bring me the headset for my drone flock. I cannot use it in this state, but I know that it is one of my only assets and I should not leave it with my mother.

It surprises me that the field that opens onto the grounds of the family estate is on the way to our destination. But we do not wait for him. The car does not handle the dirt roads in the woods well, so we transition to paved roads as quickly as possible. These land routes created by humans ages ago are in need of maintenance, but likely will not receive it.

Driving around the long, narrow lake takes longer than I wish it did. My head throbs in time with the expansion joints on the pavement. I solemnly wish that we had acquired an air route instead of taking this stolen vehicle. Surely the enemy will recognize it as soon as we encounter any of their member.

Arriving within the territory of my superior should result in a formal welcome with an invitation to a formal reception. This, predictably, does not happen when arriving in a vehicle most frequently identified with an enemy. Dirk digs around in the center console of the vehicle and finds a white napkin. I’m not sure of its significance, but he waves it desperately out of the window while driving very slowly toward a checkpoint fence.

“Purple,” I remind him, “purple will get you in.”

“I’m trying to surrender.”

I don’t understand, so I close my good eye and just wait. Either we’re going to be burned into a crisp when my superior’s forces open fire or we’re going to be allowed into his territory. It barely matters to me which happens anymore. I hurt too much.

Luck or providence, either one could be responsible, gives us entry via a well-placed collaborator who interprets the white napkin correctly.

I’m handled gently by soldiers of my own kind who man the gate. They gently remove me from the car, careful when peeling my leaking face from the fake leather seat that has become thoroughly stuck to the drying blood.

They get me onto a stretcher, which I do not protest. Certainly, I can walk, but I do not want to because every movement brings me closer to fainting again. They transfer the stretcher onto a copter that had already been waiting there at the fence. I choose not to be curious.

The lifting copter again causes me to black completely out. I do not wake again until I am in a makeshift hospital bed awaiting treatment. The field hospital that was treating patients who did not fit on mother’s estate was being disassembled for lack of patients when we arrived. The weeks that passed since the disaster have seen most of the injured moved on - either to their final reward or to a more comfortable place to recover.

The physician that attends me has cold hands, her claws covered by rubber points to keep them from piercing her protective gloves. The needle she wields to numb my broken face barely registers among the other hurts and pains. The swelling is bad enough that I cannot see out of it at all.

“Any harder, and you’d have lost the eye immediately,” she tells me. I can’t see much of her from this angle, but her clothing is medical red. There is no deference in her voice.

“Will I be able to see again?”

“When it heals.” The numbing sensation spreads across my face. I can’t feel my tongue anymore. It’s uncomfortable, but significantly less torturous than the alternative. “If it heals correctly. When the swelling goes down we’ll be able to attempt surgery to put the bones back where they belong. You are a very lucky Troo.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I catch that. I probably would not have caught that if I hadn’t only recently started thinking of myself with that term. This is not an unaffiliated person. Who is this physician?

“For now, I need you to wear this eye patch. I’m giving you medication for the pain and swelling through your IV. You should not move.” I feel the cold sensation of medication being added to the tube I had not even noticed connected to my arm. “I mean it. Do not move.”

“Can I have my kit?” If I can’t move, then I can at least be a silent observer on the world outside.

“Only if you use a tablet instead of the headset.” She pats my arm with one gloved claw. “Your friend delivered it while you were unavailable. I know it’s boring to be stuck in the hospital, but do try not to over exert yourself.”

I would nod. Instead I resign to just giving a generally accepted gesture of assent.

When she places the kit on my bedside and passes me a tablet I finally see the rest of her. Her feathers are nominally brown, with a wide black stripe down her crown and across her arms. More of her is black than her base color. She may be the oldest woman I’ve seen.

The physician’s age and expertise make up for what her caste lacks. I have a sense that her loyalties may be as complicated as my own, and that she is not hiding them at all.

The tablet isn’t as effective of a means of observing through the drones as the headset. But I do understand that the set would put pressure on the bandages and likely do me more harm than I can survive right now. It limits me to using only one camera at a time, and with clumsy controls at that. But I can manage.

I did learn on a tablet controlled walking drone after all. Those skills can come back without too much difficulty.

The only problem with the drones is that they’re deaf. I really need two to get appropriate sensor readings to pick up sounds from surfaces at these ranges.

And the drones are all far afield right now. Specifically, they’re all in the field where I left them. I pick a favorite and get it into the air. It’s still close to home, so it will not look out of place for it to be buzzing about the estate.

I perch that one on the checkpoint gate that the humans used when the place was a prison. It is now in use as a guard station for the little airfield where the other copters are parked. Several are in varying stages of prep for flight, and one is currently winding down.

It is unusual for mother to meet anyone out here, so I am surprised to see her deep blue feathers register on the tablet screen. I wish that I could hear through the drone, but that is still not to be.

Mother hands a vial of something that glows a bright and threatening green to one of the people disembarked from a copter. They appear to argue with her momentarily and then the courier bows in deference. I cannot tell if the movement of his gray feathers is from the breeze of the spinning copter blades or if he is instead trembling in fear before my mother’s tightly controlled poise.

I am starting to wonder if my mother doesn’t actually glue her feathers in place.

The resolution of the drone’s eye is not sharp enough to catch any more detail on the strange vial except that it is most definitely emitting light.

Certain that I will not gain any additional information from this location, I switch control to a different drone. The sun has fully set now, and I have to use landmarks to fly the drones on routes that are not the automatically chosen paths that would lead directly to my current location. This makes it very difficult to bring a drone to anywhere unfamiliar in the dark.

Thankfully, the place I have in mind for this one is not at all unfamiliar.

It isn’t difficult to follow the familiar landmarks to get the little drone to town, even in the inky dark night. But something has turned my one good eyelid into lead. I park the little drone at the top of a tree where its solar panels can collect power when the sun rises again. And then I drift off to sleep. I only hope that I do manage to wake up in the morning again. The lack of pain is one of the most blissful experiences I have yet had in this life, and that almost includes the confusing and complicated time spent with July.

I don’t dream. It’s rare that I remember even when I do. But in this utter void that is my drugged state there is nothing at all.

Waking from this state is unlike waking from any other night of slumber I can remember. I come into being slowly, with sunlight filtered through the fabric walls of the improvised shelter. My face aches with dull imprecision. I am unable to open the injured eye, which confuses me only briefly.

Lifting my head from the bed, I startle a gray-feathered man in a pristine white uniform.

“Apologies master,” he bows deeply to me, deferentially fanning his tail feathers. “I will not disturb you.” He turns to leave, and I see that he is carrying a tray with some medication vials sitting on it with a cup of water and a syringe.

“You can leave the tray,” I tell him, sitting up very slowly. “I’d like the water please.”

He places the tray on a cart beside my bed and hands me the water. His motions are robotic, and his feathers tremble very gently. I cannot deduce his motivations.

The vial next to the syringe glows a very faint green. I drink the water and feign unconcern.