by Tanya Huff
She tightened her grip on the vines when Magyr picked up one of the guns. Dropped them when the ancillary turned, holding the weapon in both hands. She heard a shout; it sounded Human, and she froze, unable to move either toward Magyr or away. Her mouth formed the words put it down, but she couldn’t draw in enough of the heavy, humid air to make a sound.
The shunk, shunk of edged steel cutting through organics stopped. Dragging her gaze from Magyr, Arniz saw Martin beckon Cameradiz over and ask for his blade. Cameradiz laughed, said something short in his own language, and handed it over, watching as Martin walked toward Magyr, the heavy blade, flecked green, held loosely in front of him.
In the distance, birds and insects maintained the background noise. On the road, silence.
“All of you!” Lips drawn back off her teeth, Magyr waved the weapon in a wobbly arc. “All of you who are not being us! You are going back to your shuttle and you are leaving! Now!”
“I have the shot, Commander.”
One of the di’Taykan. Arniz shuddered.
“No,” Yurrisk said as Martin drew closer. “Let the sergeant handle this. He’s here to keep us safe.”
Barrel of the weapon visibly shaking, Magyr pointed it at Martin as he stepped into a beam of sunlight.
One step. Two.
Kept it pointed at him as he left the sunlight behind.
Three steps. Four.
Arniz closed her eyes. But she still saw Martin swing, Magyr fall. She could smell the blood. Hear the screaming.
When she opened her eyes, one frantic heartbeat later, none of that had happened.
Standing close enough Magyr could lean forward and poke him, Martin put down the blade.
“You are leaving!” She held her ground, her ears flat against her head. “You are all of you to be leaving! Now!”
He said nothing, merely took another step. Over the wet snap of crushed flora, Arniz could hear Magyr’s breathing grow faster, shallower. In a parody of gentleness, Martin cupped one hand around the back of her head and cradled her jaw with the other, his dirty fingers pale against the dark fur.
At first, Arniz thought a branch had broken. Then Magyr fell, staring back over her own shoulder, her glasses resting skewed on her muzzle.
Martin caught the gun and glared up into the canopy. “Next, I’ll deal with the idiot who left a weapon . . .” His voice rose, growing louder and angrier. “. . . lying around like it didn’t fukking matter.”
Someone whimpered. Arniz didn’t know who. She was pretty sure it wasn’t her. Soon the whimper would become a wail. Then, if not stopped, a chorus of wailing.
A Niln cried out as they hit the ground. Arniz didn’t . . . couldn’t turn to see who it had been, but the whimpering stopped.
“I don’t appreciate arbitrary killing of our civilian workforce, Sergeant.” Silence followed Yurrisk’s comment. Arniz could hear a bird in the distance and Salitwisi breathing beside her. “We won’t find the weapon if we have to search the entire jungle by ourselves.”
“And we may need the combined expertise of the entire scientific party,” Qurn pointed out.
Martin ignored her, his gaze locked on Yurrisk. “You’d rather I let it pull the trigger? They don’t do that, though, do they? Pull triggers. That’s why they have us.”
“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you killed her.”
“My job is to keep you safe.”
Arniz thought Martin sounded like he was delivering the punchline of a joke.
Apparently, Yurrisk didn’t. “I know. Thank you. But I will deal with my crew members’ carelessness. That’s not your place.” His sigh when he looked down at Magyr’s body sounded weary. Arniz fought the urge to throw a rock at the back of his head. “Leave her here until we finish for the day.”
Tyven pulled himself out of the weeping ball of fur he’d curled into with his bonded. “Sivern contra! You can’t . . .”
“I can.” Yurrisk turned, nostril ridges closed, lips off his teeth. “It’s not the dead you have to worry about. Never the dead. The dead are beyond pain, theirs and yours. The dead can be left where they lie because your fight is with the living, and the living never stop. Everyone, get back to work!”
Eyes locked on Yurrisk, Martin slowly leaned the weapon back against the tree and just as slowly picked up Camaderiz’s blade. “You heard the Commander,” he said. “Back to work. Now!”
One by one, in fits and starts, grief and shock in control of their movements, they went back to work.
Arniz bent to pick up another armload of chopped vegetation, heard Qurn’s quiet voice, and shuffled closer, bent over, old and harmless.
“. . . sell the weapon, can also repair the head on deck two. Or, unless you’re very attached to that field kitchen, we could rebuild the galley.”
Even allowing for species differences, her tone spoke of more than friendship. Primacy she may be, but Qurn was a part of Yurrisk’s crew. She hadn’t arrived with Martin. Arniz dropped her armload off the path and huffed in annoyance as she bent for another. If not for the two dead, an ache in her heart to accompany the ache in her back and arms, the whole experience—mercenaries, ship captains, ancient weapons, destroyed plastic aliens, inter-species romance—had all the plot points of a bad vid.
All they needed now was a daring rescue.
SIX
THE SCANNERS HAD GIVEN THEM the exact size of the clearing, even accounting for the shifting foliage around the edges, but it looked a lot smaller approaching at the VTA’s slowest atmospheric speed. Which was slow only in comparison to the speed used escaping a gravity well.
“Drop team, sound off.”
“Ready, Gunny.”
“Ready, Gunny.”
“I are wanting to be having a better visual than two Wardens disappearing.”
“I want people to stop being assholes; we’re both doomed to disappointment. Stay away from the hatch.” Boots magged against the lateral movements of the shuttle fighting gravity, Torin touched the controls. “Hatch opening in three, two, one.” As each layer of the deck slid back, she felt the individual vibrations, vibrations distinct from the steady churn of the engines. All military VTA had an atmospheric hatch, no air lock, just a hole in the hull for dropping supplies or personnel. Its existence had freaked the hell out of every vacuum jockey Torin had ever known. Firiv’vrak included.
“I are needing to be . . .”
“I don’t care.” Torin had allowed Presit into the drop compartment only after having extracted a promise that she’d stay secured against the rear bulkhead, well out of the way. Then she’d explained Confederation transparency laws to the astounded Primacy contingent. “Drop team advance to drop position.”
Werst and Ressk shuffled forward, toes of their drop sleeves out over the rush of green.
They had better gear than usual this mission. Whether it was because the budgetary committee had finally surrendered to the Strike Teams’ constant demands for military grade equipment or they were showing off for the Primacy, Torin neither knew nor cared.
“Drop in three, two, one.”
With seconds to react if something went wrong—and seconds was a generous estimate—Torin’s perception slowed as Ressk followed Werst with barely a centimeter between them. When they cleared the underside of the ship, both drop sleeves engaged. The moment Torin got the orange—di’Taykan shuttle—her fingers moved to the hatch controls.
Silver-tipped fur appeared at the edge of her peripheral vision.
She flexed her knees as the ship bucked.
Reached for Presit’s hand.
Missed.
A claw painted copper dug a line through the end of her finger.
She unmagged her boots and dove out the hatch following Presit’s scream.
Presit was fluff and attitude. Torin, plus the emergency gear and
weapons worn by the hatch controller—the Corps believed in redundancies and Torin continued to believe in the Corps—weighed significantly more. “Craig!” Teeth clenched to keep a face full of wind from interfering with her jaw mic. “Secure the hatch!”
*Hatch secure . . . The fuk are you doing outside the ship?*
“Presit.” Her tone filled in the details.
The skills involved in dropping from a moving shuttle, attempting to prevent the messy death of a fellow Marine, weren’t easily forgotten. She hoped.
*Son of a . . .*
She hooked two fingers around Presit’s ankle, adjusted her grip, and flipped the reporter over her shoulder. Presit’s fingers and toes wrapped around the straps crossing Torin’s back as she slapped her other hand against her chest to activate the drop sleeve controls. “Continue to landing site.”
*Torin!*
“That’s an order.” The drop sleeve, stripped down antigravity tech, pushed against her ribs as it slowed their descent. Werst and Ressk had been set to make a feet-first landing, sleeves over their boots, but emergency gear had to take a second body into account. Three Marines had come out of Torin’s training group with cracked ribs. Another had secured his sleeve incorrectly and ended up with a broken larynx when it had shifted suddenly up his chest. No one had died, so the Corps had counted it a win.
Arms and legs spread, Torin ignored Presit’s shrieking, and looked down.
They’d gone past the clearing and were about to make contact with the top of the canopy.
“Shit.”
Arms tight against her sides, legs folded back at the knee, eyes squinted nearly shut, Torin made herself as small a target as possible.
The drop sleeve had been designed to slow descent; on long drops with plenty of time to counter gravity, the sleeve brought everything to a stop half a meter above the ground. On shorter drops, when momentum remained too high for a safe stop, the sleeve added a vertical bounce to bleed energy off. Designed for open ground, even if the opening was a single Marine wide, trees made the experience significantly more . . .
The flexible end of a branch slapped against her cheek.
. . . painful.
The world turned green.
Orange and yellow exploded past her, shrieking.
A new line of pressure across her pelvis. Suddenly gone.
Her shoulder scraped against . . . something harder than her shoulder was all Torin knew.
Half a meter above the ground, they were two meters deep in bracken.
*Torin!*
The charge burned out and she dropped, the crushed vegetation almost comfortable. Under the unblinking gaze of a glossy brown beetle as big as her fist, she checked the medical readout on her cuff while carefully working muscles and joints.
“Bruises. Small lacerations. I’m fine. Presit?” She shifted left, the straps digging in as Presit hung on. “Presit, let go. We’re down.”
Just as Torin had begun to think she might be stuck with the Katrien permanently attached, she felt the pressure shift, heard a soft grunt and the wet crunch of broken vegetation as Presit hit the ground beside her.
Her eyes wide, she panted, tongue protruding from her open mouth.
“Are you hurt?” Torin rose to one knee, working the drop sleeve release. “Presit! Are you hurt?”
“I are not having . . .” She shook her head. Waved both hands. Sat up. “You are . . . You were jumping . . . You are being crazy!”
“You’re welcome. Are you hurt?”
Clouds of fur danced briefly in the damp air as she stroked herself. “No. I are not hurt.”
*Gunny!*
“Werst, you and Ressk continue to the plateau. No change in plans. Craig, we’ll get a ping off the shuttle and join you.”
*Understood, Gunny. No change in plans.*
*Torin . . .*
She waited.
The beetle buzzed, then closed its wings against its back and lumbered away.
*Understood, Torin. No change in plans.* Craig didn’t sound happy, but right now she didn’t need him to be happy. She needed him to follow orders. *We’re going to talk about this when you fossick in.*
The cut on her cheek dribbled fresh blood into the corner of her mouth. She licked it clean. “Roger, that.” Of course, they were going to talk about it. She’d jumped out of a moving shuttle; a little above and beyond what Craig had begun to see as SOP. Heartbeat beginning to slow, she took a deep breath. “Going silent in case mercs are monitoring.” The Confederation mercenaries, sergeant and above, had implants. Vertic had been certain the three Polint did not. The Druin was a wild card. It was unlikely they’d pick up the signal, but not impossible. “Kerr out.”
*Do not get eaten by snakes. Ryder out.*
She tongued the mic off as she unfastened the drop sleeve, hit the self-destruct, and tossed it aside. Her helmet scanner showed a multitude of life signs in the immediate area, but most were small and all were invisible.
“Your kind are being all about destroying things,” Presit muttered, poking at the rectangle of ash on the bracken.
“Sleeves are single use. We don’t leave gear behind for the enemy.”
She picked a piece of bruised vegetation out of her fur. “It are a good thing I are not having a button that are doing the same.”
Torin frowned. That had almost sounded like an apology. “You sure you’re all right?”
“I are just having plummeted to certain death that are suddenly not so certain.” Blinking rapidly, she combed her claws through her whiskers, right side, left side, right again. “I are as all right as I are able to be at the moment. Although I are having lost my glasses.”
“Light’s not exactly bright down here.”
Presit sniffed dismissively. “I suppose it are dim enough for me to be managing.”
“Good, because we’ve got a three-kilometer walk to the V . . . Fukking hell!” Torin flicked her hand, sent the insect feeding inside the cut on her finger flying, then quickly sealed her cuffs and collar, activating the electrostatic charge just in time for multiple insects to fry before they reached bare skin. The rest dropped off her uniform, disappeared into the bracken, then reappeared, heading for flesh.
Torin rolled up onto her feet, bit back profanity when the bruising across her pelvis complained, and hit the charge again.
“Be bending down now!” Presit commanded, rising onto her toes. Torin bent and felt claws, cool against her cheek. “This one . . .” Presit held up an insect, multiple legs wriggling, mandibles cutting the air, then, when she was sure Torin had seen it, tossed it aside. “. . . was almost reaching the cut on your face. Now we are being even.”
“Even?”
“You are stopping me from dying on impact. I are stopping you from being eaten alive.”
“That’s . . .”
“And I are willing to seal it for you.”
As a declaration, it was definitively Presit. Torin was impressed at how quickly she’d recovered her aplomb and dialed back a smile too broad for their relationship. “You can seal it after we get out of here.”
Presit shrugged. “As you are wishing.”
Using her KC to push back the two-and-a-half-meter-high fronds, Torin led the way out of the bracken along the path the VTA had taken. While she didn’t have Binti’s level of training in camouflaging her movements, she could have left the edges of the bracken undisturbed, masking their arrival from unfriendlies at ground level, but the numbers of insects flushed out by her presence made her skin crawl and she moved at her best speed. The unfriendlies were five klicks away. The insects occupied ground zero. Threat assessment 101. “Presit, move.”
“Apparently, I are not tasting good. That are being so sad. Don’t be waiting on me.”
Torin took her at her word. She’d been standing on the spongy ground a meter awa
y from the bracken long enough to seal the cut on her finger when the Katrien finally emerged.
Presit held out a hand, and Torin tossed her the sealant, bending to minimize the difference in their heights. “They are touching my feet . . .” Presit matched the angle of her head to the angle of the canister as she sprayed. “. . . but are not climbing on. Also, there are being a snake on the branch behind you.”
“It’s a vine.” Torin tapped her fingers against her cheek. The sealant held, the wound beneath it numbed.
“Then it are being a vine with a mouth.”
About as wide as her thumb, the snake was a greenish brown that perfectly matched the surrounding vines, and appeared to have no teeth. Or eyes. Torin moved a little further away and watched it settle; head, or end with the mouth at any rate, turned toward her.
“You are sinking.”
“I know.” She lifted one foot then the other as her boots broke through layers of decay on the jungle floor. Multiple insects scurried away—a huge improvement on the direction the bracken insects had taken—and the smell of rot rose around them. A row of buildings, all but one a single story high and all nearly covered in vines, were visible through the trees. If Presit had waited another few meters to fall, their landing would have been significantly rougher.
“I are not liking it here.”
“For the first time ever, we’re in complete agreement.” Helmet scanner down, Torin drummed her fingers on her weapon, tuned out Presit’s list of exactly what she didn’t like, and waited for . . . “That’s the signal. Let’s . . .” She stared at the mesh of vegetation between the trees. “. . . go.”
“If I are assuming you are not also carrying a flame thrower, then I are expecting we are to be taking the high road.”
Torin glanced up. At around the three-meter mark, she could see sizable empty spaces amid the foliage, perfectly illustrating why Werst and Ressk had gone out on recon. They could move faster through the trees than they could at ground level.
