A Peace Divided

by Tanya Huff

  The Polint tended to remain close to Martin because of the translation program on his slate, but she doubted that’s what Ganes meant by integration. When he moved closer, she saw the darker blotches of bruising on his arms and a scab at the corner of his mouth. “Martin?”

  For a moment she thought he’d pretend to misunderstand the question, and in all honesty it had been a bit anomalous, then he shook his head. “No, the Polint.”

  “Why?”

  “Multiple Niln, multiple Katrien, and I’m alone. They were emphasizing that.”

  “And Martin was encouraging them.” It was exactly what she’d expected of the yerspit.

  “No, surprisingly he wasn’t. They ignore me when he’s around.”

  Martin had a big hand cupped around the back of Trembley’s neck and seemed to be shaking him gently. Like an elder with a hatchling. Arniz felt a bit ill thinking of Martin performing any kind of a parental function, but she couldn’t deny what she’d seen.

  From the way Ganes stared, he’d seen it, too.

  The Polint quarters had been the largest packet added onto Promise, a five-by-six-meter rectangle with food storage and preparation along one long bulkhead and sleeping mats laid out along the other. With the mats rolled up, it was the only cabin large enough to hold all thirteen of them.

  With a single exception, Torin noted, the two teams maintained a careful separation. Alamber, having already decidedly lost a game of you show me yours, I’ll show you mine, had draped himself over Bertecnic’s back, and the big Polint seemed pleased by the contact. Other than that, the Primacy had gathered to the left and the Confederation to the right, nearer the hatch. Presit and Dalan stood by the far wall, opposite Torin, camera ready but not on, clearly waiting for something notable to happen.

  Torin was impressed. Five years ago, Presit wouldn’t have waited.

  The low buzz of conversation barely rose above the hum of the Susumi engines, the agreement holding that Federate and Prime alone would be used and that every word spoken would be translated.

  Expression carefully neutral, Torin watched Vertic speaking to Dutavar. Her expanded briefing packet had compared Polint social structure to that of bees. A female chose a pod of three to five males, the most favored male eventually becoming fertile, the others remaining in close support. Torin wondered if Vertic was assessing Dutavar under biological parameters, recognized it was none of her business, and let it go.

  “We’re ready, Dur . . . Vertic.” Freenim’s inner eyelids flickered. Torin appreciated the problem he had dropping the rank. Before Vertic could respond, had she intended to respond, 33X73 appeared in the center of the room.

  “It are being a hard light mapping feature!” Presit gestured and Dalan, who looked bored even considering fur and mirrored glasses, raised the camera, the recording light on.

  “We took into account that this would be our gathering place, and asked to have it installed rather than use a flat image.” Freenim reached up, touched the control panel set into the bulkhead, and adjusted both size and brightness. “Although we weren’t permitted to sync our slates to your ship.”

  “Fukking right you weren’t,” Craig muttered. “Need more slates slaved to my ship like I need a third armpit. My slate’s plenty.”

  “So we were informed.”

  Freenim shot her a side-eye. The Taykan had no whites either and Torin was used to interpreting expression around the absence. Damned right her slate had full access to Promise’s systems. Craig knew; he chose to ignore it.

  She walked to the planetary image, then around it, then indicated the half-dozen red dots in orbit. “The satellites belong to the Ministry for the Preservation of Pre-Confederation Civilizations and are entirely useless for defense. Or offense. Or early warning. I’m sure they have a function, but it has nothing to do with us. There’s one communication satellite used by all the scientific teams. It has Susumi access, but minimal bandwidth because the Ministry cheaped out and has nothing to do with us either. We’ll run communications through the Promise. The only ship in orbit belongs to the mercenaries as the universities dropped their teams off at the beginning of the season and won’t return until the season ends. That’s a little over eight tendays from now, planetary day at 29 and a half hours give or take a minute or two we’re not going to worry about.” For the moment, she ignored the planet itself. “Were I one of the mercenaries in this situation, I’d have set up an orbital alert.”

  “If you were a merc, Boss, known space would be fukked.”

  “You’d have set up a perimeter alert?” Ressk asked over the laughter.

  “Valid point,” Torin acknowledged. “I’d have an orbital alert set.”

  “You are having given this some thought, Warden Kerr.” Presit’s teeth showed. “Should we be being grateful you are being on our side?”

  Torin raised a brow toward the camera, then turned her attention back to the room as a whole. “We’ll look for an alert when we’re close enough. For now, let’s discuss how much we’ll be able to see on the ground. Craig.”

  “Through that much atmosphere . . .”

  The map table showed it at six hundred and twenty-two kilometers with a high concentration of both moisture and particulates over the site in question.

  “. . . our scanners’ll light up where the warm bodies are, but that’s it.”

  “Wait!” Presit held up a hand, fur ruffling around her wrist. “You are saying the military are not having scanners that are being able to find the Primacy on the ground through any atmosphere our military can breathe?”

  “No idea. This ship doesn’t have military scanners.”

  “And are that not being just a little bit shortsighted?”

  “This isn’t a military operation.” Torin answered before Craig could.

  “I are just saying, it are being strange to me that the military are having better equipment to be killing people than you are having to be saving them.”

  “The Justice Department and the military are continuing to define their levels of cooperation,” Vertic said smoothly, having moved to Torin’s side. “Just as the Primacy and the Confederation continue to work on theirs. Every new operation takes time to reach full efficiency.”

  Presit combed her claws through her whiskers. “I are assuming Primacy officers are having training in dealing with the press?”

  “Of course.” Her tone was so neutral, it was almost a threat. “If you’d continue, Gunny.”

  “Sir.” She couldn’t prevent the involuntary response. Craig glanced over and frowned. “It’ll be boots on dirt, people. Unfortunately, this . . .” She expanded the map. “. . . is all the dirt there is. That’s the anchor, that’s an occupied landing pad, that’s a cliff, and that’s a lot of jungle.”

  “They’ll have eyes on every square centimeter of open ground,” Craig added. “I’ll have to put us down in the trees.”

  Freenim leaned in, shifted the perspective, and touched the map where it showed a break in the vegetation. “Here?”

  “There,” Craig acknowledged. “Tight, but doable.”

  “Eight point six klicks out.” Torin pulled up the relevant data. “On the way in, you could drop a recon team here, at five point three.”

  “Would it be worth the extra burn for just over three kilometers?”

  “It’s a jungle,” Torin told him. “Triple the time, minimum, to cover any distance.”

  “Uh, Gunny . . .”

  “Unless you’re Krai.”

  “Your shuttle is Taykan built, and their stealth tech was adopted by your military.” Freenim expanded a side bar showing average temperature and humidity. “Under these conditions, five point three is sufficiently distant for horizontal flight to remain unheard on the plateau.”

  Craig frowned. “And you know this how, mate?”

  “It was part of my job.” He
nodded at Torin. “As the opposing knowledge was part of hers. Infantry are vulnerable to air attacks.”

  Bertecnic stood, tumbling Alamber to the deck. “What if we burned out a base camp closer . . . will they see the smoke?”

  “We aren’t burning out a base camp,” Ressk snarled, nostril ridges closing.

  By his side, Werst had begun to growl, the sound rising from deep in his chest. He’d been raised by the space port, on concrete and wire catwalks, while Ressk’d had a more traditional Krai upbringing, but trees were a part of their species identity.

  Both male Polint scraped the deck with their front claws. Muscle quivered under golden fur as Vertic held herself still.

  Alamber retreated to a safer position behind Binti.

  Firiv’vrak chittered out a string of consonants the translator ignored while she and Keeleeki’ka—who’d been avoiding each other—tucked their legs in close and settled to the floor smelling of wet dog and cinnamon.

  Dalan no longer looked bored.

  No one in the cabin was armed. Even knives had been surrendered.

  Not that it would matter.

  “Enough!” Torin snapped, voice filling the empty spaces, impossible to ignore. “Relevant emotional context aside, we aren’t burning out a landing site because that would attract the attention of the Ministry satellites and if we want to get all hostages out of this situation alive, the last thing we need is a swarm of bureaucrats descending to complain about interference with biodiversity on a Class 2 Designate.”

  In the long moment of silence that followed, everyone in the cabin considered the possibility.

  Krai nostril ridges slowly opened. The sound of claws against metal stopped.

  “Bureaucrats,” Werst grunted, like the word was profanity. “We’d have to rescue them, too.”

  Bertecnic’s tail flicked from side to side. “No matter how little we’d want to.”

  “Common enemy?” Freenim said quietly beside her.

  Torin set 33X73 spinning. “Whatever works.”

  FIVE

  THERE WERE STORIES OF SHIPS emerging from Susumi space, the crew dead of old age having traveled for a lifetime yet still arriving moments after they left. There were stories of ships jumping in and out, traveling no distance at all, their crews unchanged, centuries having passed since their departure. Susumi engineers declared both stories false. An error in the jump equation would lead only to an error in destination.

  Light-years off course, unable to jump home.

  A few thousand kilometers off course, attempting to share space with another solid object.

  Torin disliked the engineers’ qualifier.

  The jump to 33X73 would take four days. They’d arrive twelve seconds after they left. She had no idea how it worked, but she trusted the math. It was that or stay home.

  Strike Team Alpha had never needed the simulators the Corps used in Susumi space. With full knowledge of individual skills and the way six individuals fit together into a whole, they could plan over pouches of beer in the galley and train in the area opened up when Torin and Werst surrendered their personal quarters. But all three Polint wouldn’t fit into the galley, and the “gym”—even at double the minimum—had never been able to hold more than four bipeds. Fortunately, the Polint quarters were large enough to knock off a few of the rough edges.

  Torin watched Bertecnic take six running strides and stop abruptly a meter from the bulkhead. Werst used the momentum to launch himself off Bertecnic’s back, hit the bulkhead, flip around, grab the first of a dozen hanging ropes, and start back the way they’d come, avoiding Dutavar, who’d risen up on his hind legs and braced his palms flat against the ceiling. The Polint were too top-heavy for him to hold the position, but Dutavar was flexible enough to twist and land facing his one ninety, making him harder to escape than Bertecnic. Ressk still hadn’t managed it. Werst was trying for best two out of three.

  Dutavar grabbed an ankle as Werst slapped the target.

  “Tie,” Torin called, and the developing argument became a loud replay of the run.

  “More civilized than the first time,” Vertic observed.

  The first run had very clear delineations between us and them. As well as a clear imprint of Werst’s teeth in Dutavar’s foreleg after having been pinned under a hundred and fifty kilograms of angry Polint. Krai bone being one of the hardest substances in known space, Werst’s ribs hadn’t broken—which was why Torin had begun with this foursome. She trusted training and experience to stop Werst and Ressk before biting became biting and chewing, even when the Polint used their size against them. The Corps had strict policies against eating allies.

  Turned out the Primacy held a similar position against disemboweling. Claws remained sheathed.

  “They should be able to work together by the time we arrive,” Torin allowed. Shared military backgrounds allowed for shortcuts—even if those backgrounds had involved shooting at each other.

  “You don’t sound happy about it.”

  “I’d be happier if we could get a look at each other’s weapons.”

  The weapons had been stowed behind a time lock; inaccessible until they came out of Susumi. Torin didn’t like it, but she understood. After four days, misunderstandings likely to lead to violence would have been dealt with nonfatally.

  “At least we know how much damage each other’s weapons can do.”

  “That’s very comforting.”

  Vertic made a noncommittal noise and said, “How did your interview with the reporter go?”

  Torin assumed Vertic had already debriefed Freenim. “Presit seems to think we should be angry.”

  “All of us? Or specifically you and the durlave kan?”

  “Specifically.”

  “Because the two of you were essentially the same rank?”

  “That’s what I assume. Werst! Don’t make me into your goddamned playground monitor; it’s Ressk’s turn.”

  “And are you? Angry,” she added when Torin turned toward her.

  Torin curled her right hand into a fist to keep from touching the weight of cylinders in a vest she wasn’t wearing. “Not at Freenim.”

  • • •

  “You’re not stupidly patriotic,” Torin said, stepping off the treadmill after ten kilometers and reaching for a towel. She’d been watching Dutavar use the resistance bands, waiting until exertion had worn off some of his prickly defensiveness—he’d share the gym, but he wouldn’t talk. “I can spot that kind of jingoistic crap a kilometer away. It’s not species specific.”

  He grunted and leaned into the maximum resistance, patches of his fur dark with sweat. He smelled better than a Dornagain. Probably better than she did right now, Torin admitted.

  “I understand why your military wants one of their own here.” She tossed her wrist weights in the bin. “You’ll be reporting back on our preparedness. They’ll want information on weaknesses that can be exploited should war begin again. The things a civilian wouldn’t notice.”

  He thought he was giving nothing away, but she’d learned his tells watching him train. He’d have lied to her had they had this conversation back on the station. Physical honesty was a lot harder to fake.

  “If a weapon to destroy the plastic exists, the more realistic among your superiors want you to get as much information on it as possible—pictures, scans, schematics. I guarantee someone highly placed and political suggested you grab it and run.”

  His tail flicked once. Dismissively.

  “They likely pointed out that there’ll be six Polint on 33X73 and six Polint can easily overcome the minimal opposition present because, of course, the other three, the three currently working for Robert Martin, will, in the end, choose to fight on the side that benefits their own species.”

  His shoulders rose and his rhythm faltered.

  Torin crossed to the coole
r and pulled out a pouch of water. “We have those types on our side as well. Some day, if you’re very good, I may tell you about General Morris.” She preferred room temperature water, but she’d forgotten to get a pouch out before she started her run, so she drank it cold. Ex-Gunnery Sergeants didn’t make mistakes. “What I don’t understand,” she continued, leaning against the wall, “is why you volunteered for this shit job. You can’t fully integrate into the team because you’re serving military. You have to remain an objective observer. When you get back, no matter how much information you give them, your superiors are going to want more, and you won’t be able to fully reintegrate into your old unit because you’ve been behind enemy lines on your own. What were you up to? Not to mention . . .” She took another swallow of water. “. . . no one entirely trusts volunteers.”

  The muscles in his back were so tense, he was going to hurt himself if he kept working the bands.

  “If you’re trying to impress Vertic . . .”

  “No!” Dutavar jerked toward her, breathing heavily, bands at full extension. “Our ship was in Susumi before I met her. My presence here has nothing to do with Vertic!”

  Alien gender politics; Torin knew better than to get involved. “But it’s personal, isn’t it? Tehaven, down on 33X73, he shares your markings.”

  Dutavar’s lip curled and, arms trembling, he slowly let the bands slide back into the bulkhead. “We’re the same color, so we must be connected? Is every human with brown hair and eyes personally connected to you, Warden Kerr? Is your universe so small?”

  She shrugged. “Brown on brown’s the default in my part of the universe. Your particular pattern—the orange in the black, white, and gray variegation—Vertic tells me that’s rare. She says it only occurs in one family line. Rare enough that a variegated Polint there with Martin and a variegated Polint here with me is unlikely to be coincidence. Do not,” she snapped, “claw the deck padding.”