A Peace Divided

by Tanya Huff

  A low growl cut Craig off before he could respond. “Alamber di’Crikeys is not yours.”

  Torin pressed harder, thigh to thigh, this time to keep Craig in his seat. Ex-Petty Officer Gamar di’Tagawa was a mean drunk, heavier built than most Taykan, and had the close combat training to win most of the fights he started. If it ever came to it, Torin wasn’t certain she could beat him. “Your point?”

  He leaned forward, knuckles braced on the table, still smart enough not to get right into Torin’s face. “Alamber di’Crikeys is not yours.”

  “So you said.” Torin glanced over to where Alamber stood in front of the vid screen, wrapped around three other young di’Taykan, cheering a . . . a Taykan sport of some kind, she assumed. “He’s his own.”

  “Release him!”

  She took a long swallow of beer before answering. “From what?”

  Gamar’s deep green hair flicked out around his head. “You don’t even have sex with him!”

  “He likes you best,” Craig translated, leaning back, muscular arms spread wide, narrowed eyes suggesting he wasn’t as relaxed as he appeared. “Buddy’s jealous.”

  “Yeah, I’m getting that.” Torin took a drink and kept her hand loosely wrapped around the glass, a potential weapon against the di’Taykan’s longer reach. “Alamber makes his own choices, Gamar.” For the most part, he slept communally on station, but still occasionally climbed into team beds. If the Confederation had a lock Alamber couldn’t get through, he hadn’t found it yet.

  Gamar slammed both fists down, hard enough the empty glasses rattled together. “You’re why he won’t choose me!”

  Torin smiled. “You’re why he won’t choose you.”

  Gamar’s eyes darkened, the green disappearing as light receptors opened, his shoulders flexed against straining fabric.

  “Seriously?”

  As he lunged forward, the two di’Taykan who’d been lingering behind him grabbed his upper arms.

  “Gam! Stand down!” Lemon-yellow hair flattened against her head, Sirin di’Hajak, Ch’ore’s pilot, used her weight to swing Gamar away from the table. “You said you were going to talk to her!”

  “I talked,” he snarled. “Let me go!”

  “No. She’ll kick your ass, and I don’t want to deal with the resulting embarrassment.”

  “I fought deck to deck on the Straightaway!”

  “Good for you. She’ll still kick your ass.” Sirin nodded at the pink-haired di’Taykan on Gamar’s other arm, and adjusted her grip. He sucked in a startled breath. “Come on. Sorry about that, Gunny. I honestly thought he was just going to talk.”

  Torin raised a single brow.

  Sirin grinned. “Yeah, well, booze makes me optimistic.” She tugged Gamar into step beside her and then across the bar to the exit. The pink-haired di’Taykan—Bartua? Bartun?—muttered an additional apology and followed behind.

  “I don’t remember the Corps achieving these levels of soap opera,” Torin murmured into her glass.

  Craig’s arm slipped around her waist. “Selective memory.”

  “Probably.”

  THREE

  IT HAD TAKEN HIM YEARS to appreciate why the government restricted the robotics industry, why research into Artificial Intelligence was so obsessively overseen and invariably buried. It wasn’t that the Elder Races feared a machine uprising, ancient civilizations falling to the rule of mechanical overlords; it was that wetware was easier to manipulate than hardware. A conclusion so obvious, he was embarrassed it had taken him so long to realize it.

  Aren’t we wonderful, said the Elder Races to the Younger. Look what we’ve done for you. Here’s what you can do for us in return.

  The list of what the Younger Races couldn’t do was significantly longer than what they could.

  Pausing in front of his favorite piece of ancient plastic, he gently touched a pale pink curve. Now only slightly darker than his fingertip, analysis indicated the small, misshapen horse had once been much brighter, the missing mane and tail made up of thin, plastic strands. Although this piece had retained all four stubby limbs and its head through the centuries—replacing a headless purple horse in pride of place—he had people watching for one in even better condition.

  No one person had enough information to lead anyone else to a hidden treasure. But a great many people gathering piece after piece—a rumor, a drunken confession, a conversation overheard, a communication diverted. Small plastic horse collecting was cutthroat in its competitiveness, and he would not allow any more pieces of Human history to be lost to alien hands.

  When they’d accepted the Confederation’s terms and flung themselves from the close confines of Terra into a wider universe, Humans had lost culture, they’d lost languages, they’d even lost technology, throwing aside their own creations for the bright and shiny and new. Myths and stories began to change, their historical narrative edited to fit the new reality. And if that wasn’t enough, more and more of what made Humans unique wore off in close contact with the Krai and the di’Taykan—their pride, their ambition, their awareness of their intended place in the universe. Too many Humans were happy to see themselves as equal to degenerates of lust and gluttony. Happy to be cannon fodder for the Elder Races, second-class citizens to the fur- and scale-bearing. To the multilimbed. To insects.

  Insects, for fuksake.

  He had thousands of people seeded through the Confederation; each using unique search parameters to sift through the masses of public information that resulted from an official policy of transparency.

  Thousands of people. Among the pieces of information they sent him, a familiar discontent.

  Men and women who’d bled for specialized training they could no longer use.

  Men and women who needed something to believe in now they knew they’d fought and died for nothing.

  An out-of-work actor who felt he’d never received the recognition he deserved.

  He’d had Richard Varga nudged toward Human’s First, and watched discontent become action.

  Nothing more would be lost.

  A shove against the small horse’s flank, rocked it on its disproportionate, flat feet. Too old to be one of the enemy, to be part of the organic plastic hive mind that had manipulated the Elder Races with such ease and been responsible for how Humans had entered the Confederation.

  The plastic aliens had precipitated the loss of Human identity and would be dealt with.

  As the Elder Races would be dealt with.

  Humans would reclaim their place.

  Neither the plastic nor the Elder Races had any idea of what they’d unleashed.

  He’d had to martyr Varga sooner than he’d wanted to, but the rise to leadership of a true believer from out of the ranks of the renamed Humans First had happened gratifyingly quickly.

  He’d barely had to tweak the algorithms to include searches in obscure libraries and articles in fringe publications, to find a discredited scholar of ancient H’san.

  To find a despairing Marine officer who’d been filling the data stream with increasingly desperate pleas to preserve her family name.

  To send the scholar and the Marine to gather weapons unconstrained by false moralities and gelded technology.

  “Gelded.” He poked the small plastic horse on its genderless back end. “You’d know about that.”

  Unfortunately, retrieval of the H’san weapons hadn’t gone according to plan. There hadn’t been enough pieces of data retrieved to tell him exactly what had happened, and the names of citizens entering rehabilitation were shielded from the public. The visit of a high-ranking H’san to Berbar Station within the interval projected for the expedition’s return, however, had resulted in an eighty percent probability of the Wardens being involved. Given that the Wardens’ new Strike Teams had originated at Berbar Station, and given the personnel involved in the first of t
hose Strike Teams—their serious faces above their brand-new uniforms having made at least a brief appearance on every news feed he followed—there was a ninety-two-percent probability that Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr had been involved.

  As she’d been involved in identifying the sentient, polynumerous molecular polyhydroxide alcoholydes.

  And ending the war.

  And capturing Richard Varga.

  What accounted for the missing eight percent, he had no idea.

  New algorithms were in place should Joesph Dion, Major Sujuno di’Kail, or any of her team resurface, but he’d directed minimal resources toward it, cutting his losses. Willing to share only the technology they considered suitable, the H’san wouldn’t permit a second attempt.

  Hands curled into fists, he walked to the only piece of ceramic in the room. Older even than the plastic, pre-Confederation rather than pre-diaspora, it looked harmless, yet it could generate enough directed heat to melt through stone. He knew weapons, there was no one better, but he had no idea of how it worked and the possibility he still wouldn’t understand—even if it were in pieces—kept him from demolishing it. The H’san had once had weapons powerful enough to dominate or destroy all of known space, to shift the borders into the configuration they desired. But they’d given them up. Buried them. Depended instead on the good nature and cooperation of the community they’d established.

  Of the species they’d subjugated.

  Of the behaviors they’d manipulated.

  Cheese-loving sociopaths.

  He raced against time now. Raced to be ready when the Elder Races realized what they’d unleashed and tried to restrain it.

  The Wardens, the Strike Teams, were better than he’d anticipated. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. Should his new operation be discovered, the Wardens’ attention would be directed where he wanted it and Strike Team Lead Torin Kerr would dance to the tune he played.

  He had no patience with those who failed to plan for every contingency, including failure.

  Checking that the ceramic bowl remained cool—his major domo continued to be annoyed about the loss of the pre-diaspora oak table and a square meter of marble flooring—he walked away.

  He had places to be.

  Potential allies to recruit.

  He’d recently received confirmation that the future was in plastics.

  Vimtan Is In the Details huffed out a sigh deep enough to ruffle the deep brown fur on his chest, exposing the paler undercoat. “Yes,” he said, “you are performing essentially the same job as you did in the military, answering force with force. But in upholding the law, force has become the last response, no longer the first.”

  “Not for us,” Werst pointed out, lifting his cup of sah in salute. “We’ve always been the last response.”

  The Dornagain shook his head, and Torin felt a little sorry for him. Her people had embraced the new skills required by the job, but Justice had trouble believing they’d internalize new ideology as easily. Once every tenday they were required to attend guided discussions to reinforce the philosophical differences between being a Warden and being in the military. Vimtan Is In the Details was the latest discussion leader. Named after an ancient Dornagain god known for a sense of humor, there was a chance Vimtan might last long enough to beat the two-discussion average.

  “Ah, but remember, Werst, you’re the last response of the full unit, of the Wardens Who Guard the Peace and Integrity of the Confederation. The Strike Teams aren’t deployed until it’s been determined by the Justice Department that force against force is the only remaining answer.”

  Binti waved a hand to catch his attention—unnecessary, but it made the Dornagain jumpy and that amused her. “So, you walk softly; we carry a big stick?”

  “We are the big stick,” Cap pointed out.

  “Well, some of us are.”

  Torin wasn’t sure which di’Taykan had beat the rush to make the smug announcement since every one of them then expanded on the response. The noise level in the room rose, and Vimtan began to shift from side to side on his haunches, claws rattling against the floor.

  Torin could have stopped it. She didn’t.

  One of the differences between being a Warden and being in the military was that they could take the piss during the weekly “discussion” if they wanted to.

  • • •

  “Sirin thinks he’s insane.”

  Torin shrugged, watching Craig in the center of a group of pilots, sketching flight paths through a holographic display. “He flew for years alone, formulating his own Susumi equations.”

  “I suspect that’s what she’s basing it on,” Captain Kaur said thoughtfully.

  All pilots who flew boats with a Susumi engine theoretically knew how to formulate their own equations, but there were parsecs between theory and actually trusting a pilot’s knowledge of both high-level mathematics and his ship. Military pilots relied on Susumi engineers.

  “He survived a Susumi miscalculation,” Captain Kaur continued.

  “He’s also lucky.”

  “He has the best spatial relationship to the immediate area around his ship I’ve ever seen.”

  “Years of flying alone through debris fields. Developed his peripheral vision.” Torin could feel the weight of the captain’s gaze on the side of her face, but she kept her eyes locked on Craig, enjoying the way he held the attention of his audience.

  “Seriously?”

  “That’s what he told me. As far as I know, he’s never lied to me.”

  “The qualifier kills the romance, Gunny.”

  “It’ll take more than a qualifier, Cap.”

  They stood in silence for a moment as Porrtir, the Beta Team pilot, traced a line slightly to the right of Craig’s. As the simulation ran, Porrtir’s line turned red and then exploded, scattering debris. It was a good-looking bit of programming.

  “Three ex-Navy, two ex-Marines . . .” Captain Kaur took a long swallow of coffee. “Not one of them thought they could learn anything from a CSO.” Civilian salvage operators cleared debris fields and sold the scrap back to the military. Within the military, they were considered carrion feeders.

  Torin lifted her cup in salute; across the mess, Craig grinned and winked. “Surprise.”

  “He’s never seen battle.”

  “He wasn’t in the war,” Torin allowed, turning to face the captain. “He was captured by pirates and tortured. He jumped blind after a Primacy ship. He got us safely dirtside through H’san security satellites and back up again in an unfamiliar shuttle. He gave up safety and familiarity to help clean up the shitstorm we’re in.”

  “Your point?” When Torin’s brow rose, Captain Kaur shook her head. “Don’t even try to tell me you don’t have one, Gunny. You always have one.”

  “Our definition of valor needs to change.”

  • • •

  Craig peered through the screen into the evidence locker, then over at Many Pieces Make a Whole—who was ignoring them—then up at the list of regulations printed out in a large, definitive script and hung on the wall, and then, finally, he turned his attention back to Torin. “Why would Marteau want both of us to rock up here? I didn’t see his guns dirtside, I never left the VTA.”

  “The commander didn’t say.” Torin finished her coffee, dropped the cup into the recycler, and rolled her shoulders to work the stiffness out. The Corps, and the family farm before that, had made her a morning person, but morning was relative over the vast distances of the Confederation and the CEO of Marteau Industries was arriving at 0400 station time on his way to a meeting at the Ministry of Defense. Justice had been asked to move him in and out without delay.

  Without delay; currently defined as too damned early.

  “I checked.” Craig leaned back against the wall, arms folded. “MI makes an empty bucket-load of shit I can fly.”
<
br />   The Confederation as a whole—Elder and Younger Races both—disapproved of profiting from war and Parliament, propelled by that disapproval, prevented any one company from controlling too much of the support manufacturing. Guns, but not ships. Ships, not tactical gear. Tactical gear, not field rations. Because they were the first of the Younger Races and had sent three generations of their young to fight and die before the Krai came in, a disproportionate number of military suppliers were Human. Torin personally disliked the concept of profit from death, realized that if government wouldn’t build what the military needed then private industry had to, and believed far too many people who’d never worn the uniform could be considered sanctimonious assholes.

  “Strike Team Commander Lanh Ng and Per Anthony Justin Marteau are in the link and descending.” Many Pieces Make a Whole rubbed a claw over the graying hair of her muzzle, sounding less than thrilled. Torin doubted the Evidence Lockup Administrator would normally work this shift, so she’d also been hauled out of bed. Or whatever Dornagain slept on. In.

  Craig pushed off the wall. “Tah, Pieces. You still on for the Threesday game?”

  “Unless my employer, the Justice Department, in its bureaucratic sutain-licking wisdom, decides once again they can’t trust my subordinates with a simple inspection, yes.”

  Torin adjusted less than thrilled to pissed. She leaned in toward Craig. “Pieces plays in your poker game?”

  “Why not? Ressk discards slower than a geriatric woma and we let him play. Pieces is damned near speedy in comparison. Besides . . .” He grinned, corners of his eyes crinkling. “. . . she can’t bluff for shit.”

  “I heard that, Strike Team Alpha Pilot, Warden Craig Ryder.”

  The distinctive sigh of the link arriving cut off Craig’s response. While Many Pieces Make a Whole pointedly locked her gaze on her slate, ignoring the new arrivals, Torin and Craig turned together to face the entrance hatch.

  Marteau was short, almost as short as Ng, but he exuded an impression of tallness. Torin hadn’t cared about height since her second day in basic when her platoon of raw recruits had been verbally eviscerated by a Krai DI, so she noted the effort and then ignored it. She put Marteau’s age mid first century, but he was wealthy enough that he could’ve been considerably older. He had dark hair, pale gray eyes, and skin the pale brown of the Human default overlaid with the opalescent shimmer of those who seldom saw natural sunlight. She hoped his decorative facial hair hadn’t given Craig any ideas.