Valor's Trial

by Tanya Huff

  “Until at least two of the Artek agree, or we find the exit, we keep looking for a way up.”

  “Yes, Durlin.”

  As Torin moved past, she glanced down at the Artek and found herself staring at her reflection multiplied in the cluster of six black eyes. Both antennae whipped around, sweeping forward over the eyes, down past the mandibles, and back to lie with the tufted tips about four centimeters above the thorax. It looked so much like an eye roll that Torin wondered just how much the Artek understood of the common tongue. Not being able to speak it only meant their mouth parts weren’t capable of the shapes; it said nothing about comprehension.

  “You know what I miss,” Ressk sighed around a mouthful of biscuit. “I miss my gran’s gringern. She’d get the outside all nice and crispy, but the inside stayed runny and warm. Now that’s chrick. What about you, Sarge? What do you miss?”

  Curious, Torin paused long enough to hear Mike’s answer.

  “Sarge!”

  He glanced up from the slate. “What do I what?”

  “What food do you miss?”

  “Pizza. Thin crust pie, a minimum meter diameter, sliced pie fashion so it’s slightly floppy triangles with about a four-centimeter base, and can be folded over properly. Hot sausage, pepperoni, salami, beef, smooth sauce, with just a hint of sweetness to match up with the spice from the sausage, and a thick gooey cover of mixed cheese.” He sighed and stared into the middle distance. “With a big glass of milk on the side.”

  “You’ve been thinking about it, Sarge?”

  He snorted. “We’ve been eating fukking biscuits for days. Damned right I’ve been thinking about it. I’d trade my mama for a slice of pizza right about now.”

  “Trade mine, too,” Ressk acknowledged. The Krai had no trouble digesting the favorite foods of the species they served with. Hardly surprising, Torin admitted, since they could also digest both species. “Got anything else up yet?”

  “Think so. Still code to untangle.”

  “Want me to take a crack at it?”

  “Not yet.” He dropped his attention back to the screen.

  Ressk caught Torin’s gaze as she passed and definitely rolled his eyes. Hip-deep in the recovery, Mike didn’t want to share. Since he was senior to Ressk by a considerable margin, it was his call.

  “How are the rest of your people dealing with the death?” Freenim asked as she drew even with him.

  Torin nodded toward Darlys walking ahead as gracelessly as it was possible for a di’Taykan to walk. “I’m about to find out. Yours?”

  “There are always those happy to deal with one less enemy.”

  “Can’t say as I blame them,” Torin admitted; she lengthened her stride and fell into step beside Darlys and Mashona, a gesture sending the corporal forward to walk with Watura and Kyster.

  “Hey, kid, did I ever tell you about the time that the gunny took on three Silsviss in a bar fight?”

  Kyster looked up at the taller Marine like she’d just passed over a bowl of Ressk’s gran’s gringern, and that was more than enough encouragement for Mashona to start talking.

  She’d almost finished the story, only slightly exaggerated and remarkably accurate considering she’d been in a bar fight of her own in a different part of the same establishment while Torin had been taking on the three Silsviss in question, by the time Darlys finally spoke.

  “Gunnery Sergeant Kerr?”

  “Darlys.”

  “It was my fault.” Her hair lay flat against her head, and her eyes were so light that Torin wondered how she could see. “My fault that Jiyuu died.”

  As much as Torin didn’t like Darlys, both for what she’d done under Harnett and for the asinine way she’d reacted to the whole progenitor nonsense, she couldn’t let that stand. “You didn’t push him.”

  An assumption, but a reasonable one—she wouldn’t have done anything to have pissed Torin off to that extent. It would’ve been much more likely had Watura or Jiyuu pushed her.

  “I was the first to fall.” Her hair rippled once, front to back “He lost his balance because I lost mine.”

  “You purposely lost your balance?”

  “No.” Another ripple. “When Werst stepped off onto the ledge, I shifted too far out of position.”

  “Intending that Private Jiyuu fall?”

  “No!” The ends of her hair flipped up. “But then I was falling, and I pushed off on Jiyuu’s shoulders to save myself!”

  “Survival is a species imperative, Private. I allowed you to make the climb. Was it my fault that Jiyuu fell?”

  “You couldn’t have known . . .”

  “Neither could you. It wasn’t your fault. It was a tragic accident. Nothing more.”

  “Then you forgive me?” Her eyes had darkened slightly.

  “There’s nothing for me to forgive, Private. At least not in this particular instance.” She might not have killed Jiyuu, but Torin wasn’t letting her off for earlier deaths.

  They walked half a dozen steps in silence.

  “We’ve left him behind. What will we tell his thytrin, Gunnery Sergeant?” Despair made the question less than rhetorical.

  “We tell his thytrin that we got help and went back for him because that’s exactly what we’re going to do.” She didn’t add that she’d given her word to Watura.

  “Help?” Darlys waved her hand at yet another length of gray, nondescript tunnels, her hair in constant movement now. “We’re never going to get out of here. We’re going to die, one by one in stupid accidents like Jiyuu or murdered in our sleep by them!”

  Fortunately, Mike and the slate were far enough away and Mashona was still making enough noise that the two closest Druin weren’t privy to a translation. Just as well, Torin allowed, no matter how well things seemed to be going, there was no point in giving anyone ideas.

  “We should just go back.” Her voice dropped to a near murmur, as much talking to herself as to Torin. “Go back where it’s safe.”

  “We’re not going back.” Although even thinking about it made her long for the area around the pipes and the comfort of being surrounded by Marines. She pinched the flesh between her thumb and forefinger, the pain helping her shake off the longing. “There’s a way in here, Private, we’re all evidence of that, so I’ll tell you a secret that all NCOs learn—if there’s a way in, there’s a way out.”

  “Gunnery Sergeant Kerr!” Kichar’s voice cut through the ambient noise, so excited, she sounded about twelve. “We’ve found a door!”

  Darlys’ light receptors opened the rest of the way so quickly she blinked away tears and her expression suggested that her belief in Torin’s godlike powers had been firmly cemented into place.

  Torin sighed. “It’s all in the timing, Private.” She twisted in place. “Technical Sergeant Gucciard! Let the durlin know we’ve found a door!”

  Standing beside what looked like a standard, internal compression hatch set flush with the wall of the tunnel, Kichar looked as though she’d invented the concept of egress. “There’s no keypad, Gunny! I think it’s just mechanical.”

  “Good job, Private.” A nod to Werst who had, after all, been on point with Kichar. “Corporal.”

  Werst snorted. “Wasn’t exactly hidden, Gunny.”

  One after another, the Artek pressed their torsos against the hatch, antenna tips brushing over the surface.

  “They agree that whatever it is on the other side, it’s not vacuum,” Sanati said after Firiv’vrak clattered at her for a few moments.

  “They can tell that through a compression hatch?” Torin was impressed.

  Sanati shrugged. “I’m sure your people have useful skills.”

  One of her people had died getting them up to this level, up to this door. Torin felt her hands curl into fists, but before she could step forward, she felt Mike’s fingers close around her wrist. “Let it go, Gunny.” His voice a deep rumble by her ear. “I don’t think she meant it like that.”

  He shouldn’t have had to
tell her. When she nodded, he released her. It was just the damned sameness of the tunnels and the despondency lurking around every corner, the urge to just say the hell with it and give up. She needed a fight to clear her head. She needed to find whoever was keeping them imprisoned and complacent and kick their collective asses up around what served them for ears.

  Breathing a little heavily through her nose, she turned her attention back to the hatch. If the Artek believed that there was no chance of them being sucked out into space, then the next logical course was to get the damned thing open.

  The handle was round, old-fashioned looking, about half a meter outside edge to outside edge, and jammed tight. Torin couldn’t budge it.

  “We’re going to need a lever of some kind.” Mike wrapped a big hand around the arc of metal and gave it an experimental tug.

  “Step aside, Sergeant. Gunnery Sergeant.” The durlin sounded slightly amused. “Samtan Helic’tin. Samtan Bertecnic.”

  The pair of Polina stepped forward as the human NCOs stepped away. Bracing all four feet—All eight feet, Torin corrected silently— they each took hold of one side of the circle and on the count of three— ”Onin, tyn, jhord!”—forced it to turn. Even under masking fabric, muscles knotted impressively in arms, shoulders, and backs. Metal screamed as rust released, both Polina snarling in counterpoint.

  “They’re very strong,” Torin observed quietly.

  “They are,” Freenim admitted.

  Torin glanced down. She’d actually been making the observation to Mike, hadn’t heard the durlave move up beside her, and that was just a little more trusting than she was willing to be.

  “It is their best feature,” he added wearily and she hid a smile at the tone. “The young males join up to prove themselves so they can get a . . .”

  The translation program sputtered through herd/pack/family group, then hurried to catch up.

  “. . . back home. They never re-up. Most of them do not survive to finish their first contract. The females, though . . .” He shook his head. “They are used to always making the final word. Have to be officers. Fortunately, they are good at it.”

  With the latch disengaged, the Polina turned their attention to shoving the door open, claws scoring the tunnel floor.

  The Polina social structure sounded a lot like the Silsviss. Not the first time she’d noticed that evolution had a limited number of tricks up its sleeve.

  “Should you be telling me this?” Torin wondered, her voice pitched to the same quiet, not-intended-to-be-overheard tone.

  “You do not know us. We do not know you. Makes me wonder why we fight.”

  “We’re not,” she pointed out.

  “Because no one has told us to.”

  She acknowledged the point. “I’ll do what I have to in order to get my people out alive. If I have to ally with the enemy to do it, I’m good with that.”

  “And if it comes down to it, at the end, to yours or mine?”

  Torin turned to look at him. “Don’t ask questions you know the answer to, Durlave. It’s annoying.”

  He grinned then. Omnivore teeth. But then, so were hers.

  There was a soft pop as the seal finally broke, a finger-width of space open at the edge of the hatch by the time Durlin Vertic gave the order to stop.

  “Smells stale,” Helic’tin growled, broad nostrils flared. “And burned.” He slapped his uniform cuff with his left hand. “Still dead.”

  “Gunnery Sergeant.”

  “Durlin!” Some requests were so obvious they didn’t actually require words. “Technical Sergeant.”

  “On it, Gunny.”

  The male Polina moved reluctantly out of the way as Mike moved his uniform sensors closer to the gap. According to his internal diagnostics, the shock back in the crevice had cleared up whatever problems they’d been having. “Station norm. Atmosphere’s identical, at least right inside the hatch.” He leaned in. “I can smell the stale but not the burned.”

  “Not much nose, Sergeant,” Helic’tin snorted.

  Vertic reared slightly, claws out. “Open it!”

  Mike dove out of the way as the two males surged forward and threw their combined strength against the door. Torin thought she heard a Druin snicker and wasn’t entirely certain that Vertic, still annoyed about the tech imbalance hadn’t given the order in such a way as to purposely embarrass the technical sergeant.

  With everyone standing well clear, the Artek went through the hatch first. Considering how hard they were to kill—and Torin could personally vouch for that—they were the logical choice. She didn’t like taking Sanati’s word for it that a crackle of mandibles and the smell of rotting vegetation meant “All clear!”—but since she suspected the durlin liked having to use a subjective translator a lot less, she let it ride.

  It seemed they’d found a deserted control room; deserted for some time given the layer of dust. A control panel made up of three individual stations ran along the full width of the opposite wall, the matte-green surfaces presumably screens. A two-station central unit sat in the middle of the room. The wall to the right held three large lockers and the wall to the left was curiously blank. After the constant gray of the tunnels, the various shades of reddish brown—from the sandstone pale on the walls and floor to the dried-blood color of the five stools to the actual panels made up of every shade in between— almost hurt the eye.

  Torin ran a finger through the dust on the edge of the nearest panel and exposed a bit of worn plastic that had clearly been the place where the operator had rested a body part while working. Memory provided the image of a similar spot on Promise’s panel where Craig rested his heels and she had to fight to keep her hand from dipping under her vest to close around the salvage tag.

  “Gunny?”

  Given the tilt to Mike’s brows, she didn’t want to guess what her expression must look like. “Any idea what this was used for?”

  “Not unless we get it up and running.”

  “Can you?”

  The brows changed tilt. “Can I interface a barely functional slate with unknown alien tech?”

  “Not exactly. We still need the slate for translations. Leave it on the center panel.”

  “Go in cold?” He pulled in a deep breath through his nose, and let it out slowly. Torin had the distinct impression that by the time he’d finished he’d forgotten she was standing there. “Function requires form—control panels have certain necessary similarities. We start there. Ressk! Sanati!”

  Torin left them to it, crossing over to where Durlin Vertic stood by the lockers.

  Vertic tossed her head in the general direction of the main panel, the stiff crest of hair fanning out with the motion and then settling slowly back against her neck. “They work on making it functional, Gunnery Sergeant?”

  “Yes, Durlin.”

  “More important than opening these.” A more truncated gesture toward the lockers.

  Since it didn’t seem to be a question, Torin didn’t answer.

  “Helic’tin. Bertecnic. Open them.”

  Given the opportunity to risk some cash, she wouldn’t have bet against the durlin giving that order. Or against the way the two male Polina simply ripped the doors off the lockers and tossed them aside. She appreciated the efficiency.

  The first two lockers held empty boxes. The third held a half-empty box of environmental filters.

  Torin reached down and slipped her forefinger under an adjustableplastic band, lifting the top filter out of the box. “Full-face coverage,” she said peering through the clear film. “And damned near . . .” A quick glance toward the Artek. “. . . one size fits all.”

  “There was more than one species here,” Vertic agreed. “Or no need for such adjustable gear. They used the other filters when they left. And did they abandon this control room only, or the whole facility?”

  The entire prison could have been automated. Start with an air exchange similar to that on the stations, then provide food and other provisions based
on a sensor-generated body count. Simple. Toss in a few random items now and then to keep your prisoners guessing. Integrating new prisoners merely meant gassing the areas around the pipes in order to bring them in to the small caves unobserved. Where there was one lift, there could easily be a dozen undiscovered, and the whole program could be based on an if/then statement. If new prisoners arrive, then do this.

  Torin turned to glance at Kyster. He hadn’t been near the pipes, couldn’t therefore have been gassed, and that made a simple solution much more complex.

  Gassing every square centimeter of tunnel and cave? That would take time. Still, there was nothing to say that the lights wouldn’t stay off as long as the system needed them to, and after the new prisoners were in place the tunnels could be flushed. When the lights were turned back on, time would essentially be reset.

  All right. Automated. And every now and then they—whoever the hell they were—dropped into this single control room to check on the system. Not often, given the dust. Unless there were other control rooms and the system wasn’t manual at all.

  Actually, all that was moot. How the prison was run became relevant only if the information helped them haul ass out of it. If there were other control rooms, then that would be relevant since it meant they were probably being tracked. If they were being tracked, they’d have been recaptured by now. Therefore, no other control rooms.

  And they’d abandoned this one.

  Who were they?

  “Where did they go; that is the question.” Freenim pulled another filter from the box.

  One of the questions, Torin silently agreed.

  “I can answer that, Durlave.” Having caught the attention of everyone in the room, Mike reached out and hit a pressure switch.

  Turned out, the wall over the control panels was a window. As the blast shield slid down out of sight, all six species crowded forward and stared across a forebidding landscape at what looked to be a landing site for VTAs although the amount of smoke and particulates in the air made it difficult to be completely certain.