Valor's Trial

by Tanya Huff

  Made out of what looked like a strip of leather and it wasn’t the only one. Now Torin knew what to look for, all the bipeds were carrying. The leather looked identical to the strips that held the rock heads on the clubs, braided to increase the surface area.

  The quadruped gestured, vertical pupils in golden eyes narrowed to barely visible lines, and seemed to ask a question.

  The biped at her withers swept a flat, emotionless gaze over the Marines and answered.

  The quadruped seemed to disagree.

  Torin didn’t know much about the Others rank structure, but if she had to guess, the two silver lines curving along the front of the quadruped’s shoulder signified officer. The pattern the biped wore, however, very nearly matched her collar tabs for complication. Senior NCO.

  The biped, dark eyes locked on Torin’s face, answered again. At length.

  “These aren’t our jailers,” Torin said, slowly straightening up out of fighting stance. “They’re prisoners as well. Stripped-down uniforms. No tech. Weapons created from available resources.”

  In the silence that followed, she could hear the three Krai breathing in sync.

  “You think they know that? That we’re not their jailers?” Mike asked at last.

  “I think the senior noncom there just explained it to his officer.”

  “If they’re not our jailers, then who are?” Kichar wondered.

  A snort. Werst probably. Definitely when he started talking. “Not the time, kid. And they’re still the enemy.”

  Torin would have bet her pension that the officer, currently scraping the claws on one foreleg against the floor, had just said the same damned thing. She nearly smiled at the expression on the NCO’s face. Nearly because it was never a good idea to show teeth across species lines until all parties were clear on the meaning. Smiled because given the reaction of the NCO, the odds were good the officer was a lieutenant at best. Or the alien military equivalent.

  “Darlys, got a gender on the NCO?” It didn’t really matter since sex was unlikely, at least as far as she was concerned, but she liked to have the pronouns straight in her head.

  “Male, Gunnery Sergeant.” The di’Taykan always knew. They didn’t usually care, but they always knew.

  One of the other bipeds said something aggressive. The NCO responded calmly.

  And the slate clipped to Torin’s vest repeated the last few words injecting two ands and a the in Federate.

  Everyone froze. Torin could only see the ten facing her, but she could feel the reaction of her own people, and the silence had never shouted, “What the fuk?” quite so loudly.

  “Gunny . . .” Mike, moved up behind her left shoulder. “. . . hand me the slate.”

  Still holding the NCO’s gaze, she dropped her left hand, one millimeter at a time, until her fingers were touching the plastic but not obscuring the screen. If he’d spent any time in combat—and experience told her he clearly had—he’d have seen a slate before. The belief that the Others didn’t take prisoners might be back on the table, but no one had ever suggested that meant they didn’t examine captured tech. When he nodded, she unclipped it. “The translation program?”

  “Don’t know why it’s analyzing,” Mike grunted, “but yeah.”

  “I could have brushed against the screen while I was grappling with the bug. Accidentally activated it.”

  “Could have.” He tugged it out of her hand. “But it’s unlikely.”

  Another terse question from the officer. Another long reply from the NCO. Torin got the impression it was longer than it needed to be. Long enough for the translation program to work out a few more patternsand compare them to languages it had stored. Hell, for all she knew, the officer who’d owned the slate had been working on cracking the Others’ common language in his or her spare time and had all relevant recordings loaded. That explained why it had come up with a conjunction and an article so quickly.

  “It’s running three levels of analysis. Minimum.” Mike sounded impressed. “Keep them talking, Gunny.”

  She wanted to ask just what exactly she was supposed to keep them talking about given the lack of a common language, but they seemed to have plenty of other points of congruence, so what the hell. Touching her collar tabs, she nodded to the other NCO, then shifted her gaze to the officer and came to attention saying, “Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr.” Her tone made it quite clear that gesture merely acknowledged rank and was not, intrinsically one of respect.

  Because she was watching for it, Torin saw an expression that looked very much like amusement flash for a moment across the NCO’s face. He, at least, understood the subtext.

  The officer snarled a reply, a stiffer crest of hair running along the center of her skull and down the back of her neck, flaring up. She had a set of impressive teeth to go with the claws.

  Torin heard teeth snap behind her. One of the other quadrupeds reared. Definitely male given the lack of uniform covering his lower body. Impressively male, actually. His crest was larger, too. Suddenly, there was a snap of leather and a rock flying toward her head. She swung the club without thinking.

  The sharp crack of the impact rang out over the shouting—and the pervasive smell of lemon furniture polish—slapping the rock up to shatter against the ceiling between the two groups. For a moment, the only sound came from pieces of rock pattering down onto the polished floor, then Torin and the other NCO filled in the silence.

  “No one moves, or you’ll have me to deal with before that lot gets over here! Private Kyster!”

  “Gunnery Sergeant!”

  He was younger by a considerable margin and still not entirely stable.

  “Do not let that happen again.”

  “Yes, Gunnery Sergeant! I mean . . .”

  “Teeth together and lips over them!”

  “Yes, Gunnery Sergeant!”

  The opposing NCO had also frozen his people in place and was speaking quietly to his officer, explaining, calming. She was scared shitless, Torin realized, impressed that she’d managed to keep her natural aggressive instincts in check. The quadrupeds she’d faced had been fierce fighters and damned near impossible for a biped to defeat in hand to hand given that it was more hand to hand to two sets of viciously clawed feet and a spine as flexible as a cat’s. Given the chance, they weren’t averse to using their teeth. If the young officer had chosen to fight, Torin’s small group wouldn’t have stood a chance, particularly considering that the other two quadrupeds were half again the officer’s size.

  She finally, reluctantly, turned her attention back to Torin, and her NCO lightly touched her arm, saying, “Durlin Vertic.”

  The officer inclined her head at the introduction.

  “Marines! Attention!”

  Torin could feel their surprise even over their trained response as six boots and three pairs of bare feet hit the floor in unison.

  The NCO snapped something quickly to the two male quadrupeds who’d shifted their weight back onto their haunches. Durlin Vertic studied Torin’s face for a long moment, not old enough to completely hide her embarrassment. She didn’t take respect as her due; that was a good sign. After a long moment, she shifted position subtly, bringing all four legs into alignment, the claws still prominent but somehow less obvious. Then she relaxed, and her NCO looked remarkably as though he wanted to pet her flank.

  “Marines! As you were.”

  “Gunny?”

  “She held her people in check, Sergeant, in spite of a clear personal preference to attack. That deserves our acknowledgment.”

  “And now?”

  Before she could answer, the NCO stepped into the space between them. He touched the insignia on his shoulder much as Torin had touched her tabs and said, “Durlave Kan Freenim.” Then he beckonedone of his own species forward. “Durlave Kir Sanati.” The second biped’s insigna was similar although less ornate, and it seemed clear that Durlave Kan and Durlave Kir were rank designations. He held up his hand, palm flat and ran a finger over it as
though he were writing on a screen and then he waited.

  “Front and center, Sergeant,” Torin murmured. When Mike drew even with her, they stepped forward together. “Technical Sergeant Gucciard,” she said, nodding toward the other Human.

  Durlave Kir Sanati looked pointedly at the slate and began to speak, slowly and distinctly.

  “Seems like they want to work on the language issue.” Mike frowned at the code scrolling across the screen, held up a hand to cut off the flow of words, changed something although Torin had no idea what, and indicated Sanati should continue.

  As Durlave Kan Freenim stepped back, so did Torin.

  “Let’s move things down the tunnel a bit, people,” she said quietly, “give these two a chance to work without input from the masses screwing things up.”

  Durlin Vertic had to smack one of the male quadrupeds to get him moving, but her people seemed to be doing the same thing. Retreat. Regroup. Wait.

  “What happens after we can talk to them, Gunny?”

  “That depends on what they have to say, Kichar.”

  “But they’re the enemy!”

  Torin poked at the cut just above her hairline, examined the blood on her fingertip, and decided it was nothing to worry about. “Might be time to redefine terms.”

  “You can’t just redefine enemy!”

  “Don’t see why not.” Stretching out her legs, she got as comfortable as a polished rock floor allowed. “History does it all the time.”

  “As near as I can figure, we’re in for two and a half, maybe three and a half days. All I know for sure is I’m getting fractions.”

  Presit shrugged under the movement of the brush. “It are not counting, so it are making no difference.”

  “It’ll make one fuk of a difference if I don’t get enough warning to get us out cleanly. Or are you forgetting that the last time you tried this, your ship damned near went to pieces on reentry to normal space?”

  A wave of one small hand dismissed that as unimportant. “I are not forgetting, but that are no reason for you to be stopping brushing.”

  Craig rolled his eyes but continued moving the brush through the fur on the reporter’s back. God help him, he was starting to find the repetitive motion and the feel of the long silky hair under his fingers comforting. Grooming was a communal activity for the Katrien, but Presit clearly considered him an acceptable substitute. The last time circumstances had forced her into it, but this time she’d chosen to go to Estee in search of a story without any others of her species. He had no intention of examining her motivation too closely and every intention of believing it had to do with the way she preferred to receive attention without having to return it. Nothing to do with him. Them. Because the last thing they were, was a them.

  If everything went well, they’d exit Susumi space in the wake of the Others’ ship essentially the same time they’d entered it.

  If something went wrong, if even one of the adaptations were off by a single integer, they were screwed. If the Others spotted them before he could get Promise’s engines back on-line, they were screwed. If he couldn’t work out the equations to get them home, they were screwed.

  Why was he doing this again?

  For a chance to end the war?

  What bloody difference did it make? Torin was already dead.

  “Your rhythm are faltering.”

  “Presit . . .”

  She twisted around until he was on the receiving end of a narrow-eyed glare. He regretted dimming the light levels so she could remove her dark glasses. “You are having something better to do?”

  As it happened, no.

  “At least you’ve stopped bleeding, Gunny.”

  “Head wounds bleed, Mashona.” They couldn’t spare the water to wash the blood out of her hair, but once it was completely dry, she could crumble it out of the clumps. It wasn’t her first head wound, not by a decade and a half at least. She’d added a few new bruises to the yellow-and-green remnants of her confrontation with Harnett’s goons, but except for a purple-and-black lump rising up on her right elbow that pushed against her sleeve every time she bent her arm, they could be ignored. Having decided that, she refused to acknowledge the ache in her right hip as she stood and stretched before wandering a short distance down the tunnel, stopping just short of where she’d have to acknowledge Jiyuu on watch. She couldn’t go to Kyster, it didn’t work like that, not in a group this small, but, given a chance, he could come to her.

  She’d almost begun to wonder if he would when she heard the distinct step/shuffle of his approach.

  “Gunnery Sergeant Kerr.”

  “Private.”

  He stood close enough that he could have spoken without being overheard, but he remained silent, shifting in place as if he wasn’t certain of what he was going to stay. Torin glanced down at the top of his head, noted that the few bristles were pale against his mottled skin, wondered if he was from the most northern of the Krai’s three massive continents, and waited.

  Finally, he drew in a deep breath, nose ridges open wide, released it slowly, and said, “I didn’t mean . . .”

  When she was certain that was all he’d intended to say, Torin nodded. “You reacted.”

  He frowned. “If we fought?”

  “We’d have lost.”

  “But you . . .” He stared up at her, eyes wide and made a gesture that, given the context, probably meant could have kicked ass.

  “Not this time. Learn to pick your battles, Private. You know now what’ll make at least some of that lot charge forward. Remember it. You may be able to use it some day.”

  “Yes, Gunny!” He shifted his weight on, and then quickly off, his bad foot. “I’m sorry.”

  “Good.”

  Torin tucked her half-finished biscuit into a pocket on her vest and stood as Mike approached, meeting him halfway between the bit of tunnel they’d claimed and the neutral zone where he and Durlave Kir Sanati had been working on their communication problem.

  “Keep it simple,” he said without preamble, “and we’re good to go. Talk slow, no abstract concepts, and forget the Artek . . .”

  “The Artek?”

  “The bugs. They don’t speak Primacy.”

  “Primacy?”

  His brows dipped in. “They don’t call themselves the Others, Gunny. Their coalition is called the Primacy. I assume that’s what their common language is also called.”

  “Common to everyone but the bugs? The Artek.”

  “They usually wear translators. Anyway, Sanati’s a bit of a linguist, and she manages, the rest just make assumptions and point.”

  “Sounds like dealing with staff officers,” Torin snorted. “Have you uploaded?” She wasn’t sure what the base specs were for implants at the technical sergeant level, but she was damned sure that everyone in tech had made upgrades. There’d been rumors of a tech sergeant running a video feed from his implant to his optic nerve—not exactly Corps approved.

  “Yeah. It’s running good.”

  “All right. Do me. Seriously,” she added when he blinked. “I tried to contact the slate earlier on my own, and it didn’t work.”

  “Wasn’t set up for it then.” Mike gave her jaw a long look as though he could see through flesh and bone, and work out the system parameters of the tech—which, except for the looking through flesh and bone was no doubt exactly what he was doing. “You know your code? Lots don’t,” he pointed out at her expression. To her surprise he passed her the slate. “You do the initial input. I don’t need to know them.”

  “You planning on inputting upgrades I won’t understand?”

  He glanced around at the tunnels and said dryly, “Not likely.”

  “Then I don’t see a problem.”

  “Security?”

  Torin snorted. “If you want to play ‘mine’s higher,’ you’ll probably win. Tech’s always higher than infantry. Besides, when my last implant burned out, it took my jaw with it; might have been nice if someone’d had the codes
to cut the power.” The Corps psychologists said the memory of the pain, the memory of smell as her jaw had cooked from within, had been neutered and could in fact be safely taken out and examined without stress. Torin said in response that the Corps psychologists had clearly had their heads shrunk below usefulness—but not where they could hear her.

  The new translation program overwrote her old, significantly less complex program and made her jaw itch. Made you think your jaw itched, the Corps psychologists corrected. Torin gave them that one.

  Durlave Kan Freenim was waiting for her in what had been the tech zone.

  “Prisoners?” He gestured past her to where her people waited.

  “Yes. You?”

  “Yes. Not yours?”

  “No.”

  “We do not take prisoners.” He answered before Torin could ask. “There is no honor.” Now was not the time to get into that. “Who, then?”

  “I don’t know.” Which was the truth as far as it went; she didn’t know, but suspicion sat like a rock in her gut.

  He gestured at her sleeve. “Your clothing is on. Ours is not.”

  “You have embedded tech?”

  “Very much the same, I think. We have some of it from you.” Creases folded into his forehead. “We believed it a good idea.”

  “How? You don’t take prisoners.”

  “We are not unseeing . . .”

  Unobservant?

  “. . . and we are not primitive. We would like our clothing to work.”

  Yeah, and Torin would like to be somewhere else, but no one was making that happen for her.

  Freenim sighed. “Will you make our clothing work?”

  “Can’t. The technical sergeant had to leave his tools behind.” And currently allies or not, they weren’t sacrificing a set of combats so the enemy could gain technical equality. Even if she’d been willing, the odds of Mike being able to link up three entirely different systems were slim to none.

  “I understand.” But he’d had to ask. Torin got that. “What do we do now?”

  The way Torin saw it, they had three choices—continue the war, continue escaping separately, continue escaping together. Spending any longer doing nothing at all was a good way to fall victim to the influence of the food and end up spending the rest of a short life doing nothing at all. Separately, there was a chance one group could get out even if the other didn’t, but even though separately they could cover twice the ground, they’d always be watching their backs, aware the enemy was in the tunnels. Together, there’d be new skills and better odds of overcoming whatever their bastard jailers decided to throw at them, but close proximity to the enemy wasn’t likely to make anyone happy. If they were betrayed, the presence of the quadrupeds, not to mention the bugs, pretty much ensured her side would lose the fight. And if they took their eyes off the Primacy and were ambushed, that pretty much pretty much disappeared, replaced by a sure thing. On the other hand, if they decided to do the ambushing . . .