by Tanya Huff
“He does,” Binti agreed. “We used his spray to stop the bleeding. And you seem to have broken Private Marie Neems’ leg.”
The woman who’d ripped the eyestalk off her captive sat with her right leg immobilized, her left ankle zip-tied to the inflated sleeve, her expression the slack muscled, not-quite-there that came with the good drugs.
“Fuk you,” Neems slurred. “Fuk both of you. I’m nobody’s private.”
“The happy drugs have not made her happy,” Binti added, grinning.
“My bet, anger’s the biggest part of her core programming.” Ressk moved closer and lowered his voice. “We couldn’t retrieve the eyestalk. I don’t suppose you grabbed it during your exit?”
The emphasis on exit made it sound as though she’d been skiving off. Because none of them were the type to overreact to explosive decompression. “I did not.”
“Pity.” He frowned. “Do they regrow? Eyestalks?”
“No idea. You and Mashona go get out of your suits. Werst and I will stay here. You go when they get back,” she added as Werst began a protest. “No one stays alone with the prisoners. We’re doing this by the book. Go.” She layered a few silent consequences for delay onto the command.
Werst and Ressk exchanged a speaking glance that Torin chose to ignore, then Ressk followed Binti out the hatch.
“By the book.” Folded hands resting on his weapon, Werst stared up at her. “How pissed is Ryder about your unplanned exit?”
As a Civilian Salvage Operator, Craig had spent years in and out of vacuum, enough time his HE suit had left permanent divots in his skin. A good fifty percent of the battle debris CSOs dealt in couldn’t be tagged from the ship and, working alone, Craig had done all the up close and personal inspections himself. He understood what it took to survive in vacuum and, although he trusted Torin’s ability to keep herself alive, he hadn’t been happy when she’d been flung from the station.
“Too many variables,” he’d growled, slotting her suit into the charge station. “And nothing you could do about half of them.”
“Don’t let that get out. I have a reputation to uphold.”
“A reputation won’t keep you alive.”
She’d sealed her uniform tunic, leaned forward, and kissed him. He was right.
Werst couldn’t react to her being flung out into space, but Craig could. The job couldn’t acknowledge how many ways there were to die while dealing with the lingering violence of a centuries-old war, but the relationship could. Craig could say, “You scared the crap out of me, don’t do that again.” Werst said it by asking about Craig.
It was emotionally constipated, but it worked for them.
“Didn’t answer my question, Gunny.”
“No, I didn’t,” she acknowledged.
“All right, then.” Gloves retracted into his sleeves, Werst scratched under the edge of the suit’s collar. “What happened to their pilot?”
“He’s locked on their ship. He’s armed himself and set up to take us out as we come through the airlock, but I expect he’ll get bored eventually. Oh, and Alamber’s running Taykan opera through the sound system.”
Werst snickered. “Kid’s got a mean streak.”
Humans found Taykan music half a tone sharp. “How are the Mictok?”
He shrugged. The Krai had never quite gotten the hang of the Human gesture, but had enthusiastically adopted it regardless. “Told us not to bother them, that they were keeping the station from exploding.”
Torin glanced over at the corner where the injured Mictok sat, damaged eyestalk covered in webbing, the other Mictok, the one who’d been left in the control room, had webbed her into place with several thick strands. Pulled out of her ass. Or close enough to make little difference. Get it off me. Get it off me. “Seems like we’re out of danger. Go get out of your suit as soon as one of the others returns.” She headed toward the corner. “Keep an eye on the prisoners.”
Werst acknowledged the order, then added, lip curled, “They’re being stoically silent.”
“Our lucky day.” The background clatter of two pairs of mandibles beating out one of the Mictok languages stopped as Torin drew close enough for conversation. “If you need medical,” she said, meeting two of the injured Mictok’s remaining eyes, “we can secure the control room.”
“And who are you?”
It was almost refreshing to run into someone unfamiliar with the vid of Torin confronting the plastic aliens. “Warden Torin Kerr. I’m the leader of this Justice Department Strike Team.”
“Oh, you are, are you? The leader?” A slender arm waved dismissively. “You’re Human. They’re Human. And yet you needed Krai to help you take out your trash.”
The Mictok spoke Federate. Torin couldn’t blame the staccato sentences on a bad translation. “I beg your pardon?”
“We should never have allowed such an inferior species into the Confederation! You have no respect for life. You brought nothing with you but violence!”
“We were invited into the Confederation to fight a war the Elder Races were losing,” Torin pointed out.
“You don’t know that! You’re barely sentient! You’re repeating what you were told!”
“How do we know you didn’t bring the war with you?” All eight of the uninjured Mictok’s eyestalks turned to Torin. “How do we know you didn’t start the war? You wanted Confederation technology, so you lied to make us think we needed you!”
“We never saw a war!” the injured Mictok snapped.
Torin raised her hand and touched the place where, had she been wearing her combat vest, the cylinders holding the remains of dead Marines would rest, ready to be carried home. No Marine left behind.
“Humans attacked the station and took our harvest, too violent to work for what they want!” The uninjured Mictok jabbed a digit at Torin. “Humans, Taykan, Krai; the Younger Races should go back where they came from. You should all go back where you came from. We are lesser because of you!”
“You should shut the fuk up, bug!”
For a moment, just a moment, Torin thought the words had been hers. Then she realized Neems had taken an interest in the conversation.
“We died for you, you creepy crawly bigot!” Voice slurred by the painkiller, she still achieved impressive volume.
“Yeah? Says who? You? Why should we believe you? Why should we take your word for it?”
Neems squirmed into a more upright position, lips curled back from her teeth. “You don’t have to take my fukking word for it, there’s vids . . .”
“Fake.”
Torin, who’d faced down generals and giant lizards in her time, maintained a neutral reaction to the Mictok’s declaration.
Neems did not. “Fuk you, bug!”
“So easy for you to fake,” the uninjured Mictok mocked. “None of the Elder Races were there to prevent the lie.”
“Gunny . . .”
Torin’s hands had curled into fists. She straightened her fingers and returned to Werst’s side.
“Are all Mictok assholes?” he muttered under the sound of Neems listing increasingly creative ways the present Mictok could messily die.
“Statistically unlikely.” But the only Mictok she’d known had been diplomats, and diplomats were by trade opaque. On Silsviss, they’d painted red crosses on their backs and carried the injured off the battlefield—that had been truth. But could she believe anything they’d said?
The other prisoners had begun egging Neems on.
“Stoically silent?” Torin asked.
“Provoked.” Werst turned toward the corner as the injured Mictok shouted something about Krai chewing up the other races and spitting them out. “We swallow,” he growled. “We don’t waste food.” He turned back to face Torin as the prisoners cheered and said, “Can we shut them up, Gunny?”
“The prison
ers, probably. But since we can’t quiet the Mictok, might as well let them respond.”
“We should lock you in the bottom of your gravity wells and let you kill each other!” Consonants had devolved to a snap of mandibles.
“Think you can keep us there?” A fine spray of spit from Neems’ mouth glistened under the artificial light.
“We’ll take you back to mud and sticks where you savages belong!”
Werst’s nostril ridges half closed. “On the other hand, we have gas grenades left. Mixing them together might take the Mictok out.”
“The Younger Races are all too stupid to know how close to nonsentient you are!”
“Tempting.” Torin acknowledged. “Very tempting.”
She could understand the Mictok who’d been taken hostage harboring some resentment. A Human had ripped her eyestalk off. From where she stood, all Humans were violent, unpredictable, dangerous animals. Extending that opinion to the Krai and Taykan indicated more deeply held beliefs, likely influenced by the current political discussions of what to do with the Younger Races now the war was over, the least of which was patronizing, the worse bordering on genocidal. Not that the Elder Races would ever do anything so violent, but an angry Mictok gas tech wasn’t the first to suggest confining the Younger Races to specific planets for the safety of the rest.
It wouldn’t happen, but the political rhetoric had clearly found adherents who bought in.
None of the planets where the Younger Races would be quarantined had a single species population and every so-called solution ended in massive population displacement. Even on oldEarth, the needs of the embassies had created multispecies communities, some of the residents there for generations with more right to stay than Torin who’d never been closer to her species’ home planet than a four-day Susumi jump.
“You want to see violence?” Neems spat. “The people you want to lock away have all the weapons! And know how to use them!”
She wasn’t wrong.
TWO
“DEFO HUMANS FIRST,” Craig muttered as the pressure equalized and the airlock opened at Berbar Station. “We get in a bingle with a Human crew these days and they’re always Humans First. Can’t just be violent criminals, can they? They’ve got to be deranged revolutionaries.”
“They’ve been busy little bipeds,” Torin agreed and counted the demo charges before handing Werst the case. She had no problem with him building an emergency pack—she had one of her own—but he could do it on his time and with gear she wasn’t ultimately responsible for. “SOP, people: armory, debriefing . . .”
“Armory, medical,” Craig amended as the Strike Team headed down the docking arm. “You went through thirty meters of dirty radiation,” he added before Torin could object. “You need to be checked by something more comprehensive than our autodoc.”
“I’m . . .”
“You wouldn’t let one of us skive off,” Ressk said from behind them.
“Fine. Armory, medical, team debrief. I’ll let Commander Ng know . . .”
“Told him when we came out of Susumi, Boss.”
Torin sighed. “You want to chime in on this, Werst?”
Werst snorted. “Can’t see the need.”
“Binti?”
“Planned on escorting you, Gunny.”
Alamber gave an interested hum and, without turning, Torin knew his pale blue hair had flicked up. “Doc Collins covering this shift?”
“That’s what the schedule says.” Torin could hear the broad grin in Binti’s voice. “And Doc Collins is one fine piece of . . .” Binti paused. “. . . medical practitioner.”
“Thank you for not objectifying the support staff,” Torin said dryly. There’d been memos. With the number of di’Taykan now on station and the growing number of civilians who’d never previously worked with the di’Taykan, they needed to pay more attention to interspecies compatibility. Military culture had accepted that the Taykan in their di’ phase were the most sexually indiscriminating species in known space, tried to keep up, and finally surrendered in exhaustion, cheering from the sidelines. Civilians were . . . complicated.
She paused at the hatch and looked back down the docking arm, her team the only people in sight. Painted a soft gray and illuminated by two strips of pale pink, a color determined by the supplier of said paint to soothe the aggressive tendencies of all three Younger Races, the far end appeared impossibly farther away than Torin knew it to be. She couldn’t remember ever seeing the docking arm so empty. It wasn’t unusual to have no one between them and the exit, Strike Team Alpha had the closest berth to the station, but it was strange to see the arm empty of mechanics, engineers, or pilots on their way to, or from, the other five ships. At the very least, she’d expect to see someone from the newly formed quartermaster’s unit restocking supplies. “Craig, how many ships in?” She hadn’t bothered to check as they docked.
“Just us.”
“Just us?” Things hadn’t been that busy when they’d left.
“You want me to check where the other teams are, Boss?” Alamber had his slate in his hand.
“Please.” She could look it up herself, but part of her job involved keeping Alamber from being bored. A bored Alamber liked to prove he could crack security systems like sainit shells.
Commander Ng had pointed out to his superiors that Alamber provided an essential service, and the end result wasn’t so much official approval as an inability among the senior staff, Elder Races all, to come to a decision. As the only ranking Human Warden available when Torin had suggested armed response teams be part of the Justice Department rather than private contractors, Ng had been given command by default. He’d been a Justice lawyer when duty had called him to the tribunal examining culpability for the destruction of Vrijheid Station, his rank was a title without substance, and Torin had expected him to hand the Strike Teams over to a replacement with military training at the first opportunity.
His reason for remaining in charge had been succinct. “This is not, nor must it ever become a military operation.”
Torin had come to agree with him and, shortly thereafter, had come to respect him. She’d definitely had worse COs.
“Sent the duty list to your slate, Boss. Delta and Beta are out together, but the rest are one on one.”
“So not one hefty, all in incident,” Craig added. When Torin glanced over at him, he grinned. “Tell me that wasn’t what had your knickers in a knot.”
Torin grinned back as she unclipped her slate. “I may have wondered why we weren’t invited to the party.” Alamber’s version of the duty list included the full briefing packets each team had received before leaving, technically not something he should’ve been able to access. She quickly flipped through the files, separating out enough information to settle immediate concerns, then buried them in with the C&C report Alamber had pulled the moment Promise came in range of the station. The Strike Teams had access to C&C at the full debrief, not before, but Torin liked to be forewarned.
Finds Truth Through Inquiry had pulled confessions from the prisoners on Mictok Station Trilik with impressive speed in spite of the Dornagain’s preference for paper and their belief that slow and ancient ways of communicating helped the prisoners consider their position. Most of the Strike Teams assumed it was a form of punishment. According to the time stamp, Truth had sent the first files on their way to Justice even before Promise had reached the traffic buoy and jumped.
The Humans First manifesto had been scribbled over Marie Neems’ prisoner identification form.
“We shall take what is our due. We shall fight to take our rightful place. We have bled for the Confederation, and that makes it ours. I’m not filling this shit out!”
The first three declarations were obviously a regurgitation of the party line. Torin doubted Neems would spontaneously use shall.
The passageway outside the docking arm w
as also emptier than usual. Not surprising; fewer people to support, fewer support personnel. Torin nodded at two Niln engineers as they passed and turned her team toward the armory—situated far enough from the DA that it shouldn’t go up if the arm was destroyed, far enough from the rest of the station to be jettisoned by emergency protocols if the engineers had miscalculated. They were no longer at war, but live ordnance was as unforgiving to accident as it was to aggression.
The Strike Teams’ entire habitat could be jettisoned if needed, in whole or in part.
On the one hand, Torin wondered what the hell Justice thought was going to happen. On the other, she appreciated that level of paranoia.
Craig leaned in and bumped Torin’s shoulder with his. “There’s been a lot more of the Humans First shite in the air lately. You think they’re up to something?”
“Other than what they say they’re up to?” Ressk asked from behind them. “Can’t get away from them mouthing off about how they’re going to take over the Confederation.”
“All mouth, no action,” Werst scoffed.
“Yeah?” Ressk turned to his bondmate. “Look at what they’re stealing; it’s been eighty percent raw materials for the last ten tendays. They’re building an infrastructure, and if Anthony Marteau is with them, it’s going to be a well-armed infrastructure.”
While Marteau had hidden his illegal weapon deals less completely than he’d assumed, unable to anticipate Alamber’s familiarity with blackmarket record keeping, he’d been able to hide himself from the Wardens for over a year even though Humans First hadn’t been exactly covert of late. Had Torin been able to take the Strike Teams out to kick in a few doors, she knew she could find him. Unfortunately, she also knew that would make them part of the problem they’d been formed to solve. Or contain, at least. Generations of Humans, di’Taykan, and Krai trained to violence and then cut loose wasn’t a problem that could be solved at the Strike Team level. Using her small celebrity to speak up about the need for expanded veterans services had forced a few people to acknowledge the effects of war, but she doubted she’d accomplished much more than inspiring yet another round of Parliamentary committees.
