by Tanya Huff
“And you agree with me that this is an important building?”
“Of course I do. Harder stone means it’s harder to work and a pre-tech society doesn’t spend that kind of effort for an unimportant building.” He twitched his tail in a way that clearly said how he felt about having to provide such rudimentary information.
Qurn cocked her head. “You want to explore the ruin for your own benefit.”
“Of course I do.” Tail lashing, he spread his arms. If Yurrisk had been introducing the ruins, Salitwisi was embracing them. “Our permit doesn’t extend under the canopy, and yet here we are. After this debacle, the Ministry will never allow me to return, so this is my only chance. Which doesn’t mean I’m not still your best chance of finding the hiding place of that weapon,” he added. “Secret passages, hidden doors, netan holes; you’ll never find them without my help.”
“Fine.” Yurrisk shifted and glared over Salitwisi’s head. “You . . .”
Hyrinzatil’s tail dropped, and he took a step back.
“. . . go looking for latrines. You can do the old lizard’s heavy lifting.”
“Oh, no,” Salitwisi protested, “I’m his prime. He’s mine.”
“Wrong. He’s mine. Until we find that weapon, you’re all mine.” Yurrisk’s nostril ridges closed. “All of you. Martin, send one of your people with them. I don’t want them sneaking off and sending a message.”
“I don’t think there’s much sneak left in the old lizard,” Zhang snickered.
“Is your name Martin?” Qurn asked quietly.
“You can’t . . .”
“Corporal.”
At Martin’s interjection, Zhang huffed out her displeasure and settled back onto a mossy log, shoulder to shoulder with Malinowski. Martin motioned Trembley forward. Without speaking, the younger Human grabbed Hyrinzatil’s shoulder and dragged him first to the stack of equipment and then, once he’d picked up a scanner, over to Arniz. She leaned slightly sideways into the warm curve of the ancillary’s leg. Perceived affection was less embarrassing than toppling over. Trembley took up position behind them.
“If they try anything, Trembley, shoot the old lizard.” Martin laughed. Arniz wasn’t seeing the humor. “That’ll keep the young one in line. Kids don’t care about their own safety.” Arniz could feel Hyrinzatil tense as Martin gestured rudely at Salitwisi. “And if this old lizard gets us lost in that building . . .”
“How could I possibly get you lost?” Salitwisi protested. “At the most, it’s six rooms long, two high, and two deep.”
“Yeah, well, he’s Navy,” Trembley muttered. “Vacuum jockeys can’t find their ass with both hands and a homing beacon,” he added when Arniz glanced up at him. When she frowned, he rolled his eyes. “Hey, I’m not the first to say it.”
“The building’s the front of a ‘U,’” Beyvek called from the roof. He drew the gaze and stiffened the postures of every one of the ex-military personnel. Arniz heard Trembley snap out of his slouch, heard the slap of his hands on his weapon. She wondered what it would be like to live like that, always assuming danger. Wondered if it ever wore off. Beyvek pointed toward the tall skinny trees rising behind and, in one corner, through the building. “There’s two wings off the back, Commander. Single story, longer than this front section. The courtyard between them has been chewed up by tree roots, but there’s hardly any other growth.”
“Something in this particular stone must be suppressing it. Feeding the skinny trees.” Arniz reached up and tugged at the scanner in Hyrinzatil’s hands. “Give it here.” Across the road, Tyven ran her hands over a thick root that flowed down the steps and dove into the ground, the slow movement of growth captured as living sculpture.
Hyrinzatil hung on—she remembered she didn’t like him much; he’d learned bad habits from his prime.
“It seems as though we have significantly more real estate to explore.” Yurrisk squared his shoulders, hands in fists by his sides. “I want eyes on every square centimeter of it. We will find that weapon.”
“Bet your ass,” Martin muttered. “So, Trembley . . .”
Trembley shifted his weight from foot to foot.
“. . . if this old lizard emerges from these buildings without us, for any reason, shoot your old lizard.”
Salitwisi actually shifted his attention from the building. “I’m not old!”
“Of course, that’s what you take away from that,” Arniz sighed.
“Pyrus!”
“Commander?” The di’Taykan’s hair moved listlessly, weighed down by the heat and humidity. He hadn’t done any of the heavy lifting, but he looked as if he had. In fact, both di’Taykan present looked frayed. The Taykan’s homeworld had nothing that could be considered tropical by right-thinking people and rather a lot of snow. Niln, like most reptilian species didn’t do well in snow.
“Go back to the anchor, take . . .” Yurrisk pointed at a pair of ancillaries. Arniz thought they were from the cartography department. “. . . them. I want every light you can find.”
“What about Ganes, sir?”
Having spent the morning forcing herself to keep clearing the road—to put one foot in front of the other, to lift another armload of debris—Arniz hadn’t missed him, but he wasn’t in sight. She tugged on Hyrinzatil’s overalls. “What about Dr. Ganes?”
“I heard he tried something last night.”
“Got into the anchor’s office. Got his ass kicked,” Trembley added.
“Ganes stays where he is, safely contained,” Yurrisk told the di’Taykan. “You stay with him, take advantage of the climate control in the anchor, and have Gayun bring the lights back.”
“Sir.”
“Mirish, you good for a little longer?”
She nodded, deep blue hair moving in counterpoint. “Yes, sir. I’m good for a while.”
“Glad to hear it. Pyrus, go.”
Even worn down by the climate, Pyrus moved like a dancer. Arniz took a moment to admire the lithe grace. The di’Taykan all moved like dancers. Dzar loved dance. She danced with an amateur Sand-and-Moonlight troop. Had danced. The ancillaries followed less gracefully, their notable lack of enthusiasm overlooked in the shadow of the ruins.
“Well?”
Tongue tasting the air, she tilted her head back and met Trembley’s gaze. “Well, what?”
“You were told to search for latrines.”
“I’m resting. Because I’m an old lizard and spent yesterday doing the kind of physical labor that reminded me of how far I am from the egg.”
“Get up.”
She felt Hyrinzatil twitch, and she glared at the young Human until he held out a hand.
“Do you need help?”
“Do I need help?” She wrapped her fingers around two of his and levered her legs straight, absently noting that her weight had no visible effect as she hung off the end of his arm. Humans were not only larger and stronger than many of the Elder Races—the Dornagain, the Ciptran, and the H’san being the obvious exceptions—but they augmented that strength with weapons. No wonder so few species trusted them. Of course, those same species had brought the Younger Races into the Confederation specifically to use those weapons, so the mistrust was disingenuous at best and blatantly hypocritical at worst. And that was without factoring the differences between Humans like Dr. Ganes who was almost civilized—the qualifier in place until she discovered just what, precisely, he’d tried last night—and Martin who wasn’t civilized at all. Trembley was young enough; he might still be . . .
“Harveer?”
She blinked both eyes, inner lids dragging, and realized she was still hanging off Trembley’s arm.
Hyrinzatil tasted the air. “Are you having a problem, Harveer?”
“I’m thinking. I know Salitwisi doesn’t do it much, so I don’t blame you for not recognizing it.”
“That’s not . . .” He blinked, inner lids flicking back and forth as indecision over how polite he needed to be to someone not his prime but still a full harveer flickered over his face.
“Let’s go.” Trembley shook her free and sighed. “Shit pits aren’t going to find themselves.”
Arniz rolled her shoulders and flicked the stiffness from her tail. “If they did, I’d be out of a job, wouldn’t I? Come on, then. We need to make our weary way around back.”
“Why?”
“Because no one shits outside their front door,” Hyrinzatil said, stepping back to give her room. He bumped up against Trembley’s legs in a stupid display of bravado and was kicked away.
“Careful.” Arniz shifted just far enough his flailing arm didn’t take her down with him. “If you’re too much trouble, he’ll shoot you. He is, after all, willing to shoot me.”
“I’m not going to shoot you,” Trembley muttered.
“Are you confused about who the old lizard is, then? Because Martin said . . .”
“I heard what the sergeant said.” He placed a hand in the center of her back and shoved. “Now move!”
“The latrines that go with these buildings, they’ll most likely be at or just beyond the open end of the courtyard.” Arniz led the way off the road. She paused, went around a hummock covered in pale moss, and continued her lecture. She’d been too long a harveer to waste what might be her last audience. “Sentient beings have relatively few ways of disposing of their own waste and, as we already know, the pre-destruction people used pits, that narrows the possibilities even further.”
“I heard some members of the Methane Alliance reabsorb theirs,” Trembley offered, stepping over a fallen branch she’d had to climb.
“Essentially the same thing you do on a ship or station,” Arniz pointed out.
Both Hyrinzatil and the young Human made exaggerated gagging noises.
How nice, she thought. They’re bonding.
“Two dead,” Torin growled, ducking under a branch, left arm up to keep the dangling snake from dropping onto the back of her neck.
Stalks snapped behind her under the sudden rapid movement of Binti’s boots. “Fukking snakes,” she muttered, then added, “It could be worse, Gunny.”
“And it could be better.”
“It doesn’t count as losing them if we didn’t have boots on dirt when they were killed.”
Since Binti knew how she felt about that, Torin let the comment stand. The primary mission directive had been to free the hostages, not free those hostages who were still alive. She knew the second part of that statement was the only part that applied. No one expected her to bring the dead back to life, but if politics hadn’t delayed them at the station, they might have arrived in time. Two more Confederation dead because of the Primacy. With the ease of long practice, she pushed those thoughts deep and locked them down.
*Boss? Zero implant use by the bad guys. The only thing I can read is a carrier wave from that science scanner Firiv’vrak mentioned on the DeCaal. We’re a go for conversation, and I can route the DL feeds to the slates.*
Binti snorted. “Little hard to watch a slate while humping through the . . . Goddamned, fukking snakes!”
*I will, of course, continue to paraphrase the action, so you don’t need to have eyes on. And if you’re bored, I do amazing aural.*
Up ahead, Bertecnic tripped over a hummock, propelling dozens of tiny red lizards into the air. Torin took it as confirmation the Primacy implants had fully integrated with the shuttle’s communication system. And that the translation program was having trouble with homonyms.
“Not while you’re working, you don’t.”
“Your word, Boss, my command.”
“That’s how it’s supposed to work.”
“Why wouldn’t they be scanning?” Binti wondered. “Commander Yurrisk’s Navy, but Martin and two of his people are ex-Corps. You’d think they’d have a better grasp of covering their asses.”
“They think they’re in the clear until the next supply ship. They’ve no reason to scan. Given the state of the ship, they may not have the equipment.”
*Yeah, they’re not in helmets, but—come on—I could write something that’d work off a slate, bounce off their ship, and get kickass ground coverage.*
“You’re wasted in fieldwork.”
*Not getting rid of me that easily, Boss.*
She could hear him preening.
“Why aren’t they using their implants?” Binti asked. “All but one of the commander’s crew were high enough rank to have mustered out with them, and Martin made sergeant, so he’s got one for sure.”
“The Commander had a brain injury,” Ressk called down from above. With Werst taking his turn out front, he was pacing the group. “Whatever caused the injury could’ve damaged his implant and left him too neurologically scrambled for them to put it back.”
Torin nodded and carefully moved a red lizard off her sleeve. “That’s possible.”
“You don’t monitor your injured veterans, Gunny?” Merinim asked from behind Binti.
“We do—there’s a Ministry of Veterans affairs, both the Corps and the Navy do rehab, and there’s at least a dozen private programs—but the Confederation covers a lot of space, and some people slip through the cracks.”
“Some people slip through deliberately,” Binti muttered.
Merinim’s considering hum blended into the hum of small red wings. “And thus your Strike Teams were formed.”
“The Wardens don’t bring in injured veterans.”
“Not the physically injured, perhaps.”
Torin remembered the feeling of stability the Durlan’s mere presence caused. “Fair enough. And in the Primacy?”
“The engineered war with the Confederation forced an internal peace. There’s already signs of fractures, and most of our governments are concentrating on not going back to war with each other.”
“Sounds like you’d be better off still fighting us,” Binti said thoughtfully.
After a long moment, Merinim said, “Yes.”
The sounds of birds and insects filled the next half kilometer of awkward silence.
Although her shoulder continued to ache and the band of bruises across her hips occasionally pulled, they were on pace to cover the three klicks back to the drop clearing in a quarter of the time Torin and Presit had taken. First, because Torin, Werst, and Ressk had been over the ground before and had begun to learn the particularities of the jungle. Second, because in the Primacy military, Polint males were used to break trails. With the Krai in the trees scouting the fastest route, Bertecnic and Dutavar, wearing the Primacy equivalent of combat fabric over their lower chests and front legs—an apron/leggings combo secured over their withers—used size and strength and broad blades that were almost swords to take down underbrush, vines, and small trees. They switched out of the lead position every half kilometer. Watching them, Torin was grateful that the one time she’d met the Polint in combat, they’d used more conventional weapons.
“Trust me, Gunny, they’ve been cooped up on ships and stations for almost a tenday now. You want them to work off some energy.”
“I want them in shape to fight when we arrive.”
“That won’t be a problem. With the edge taken off, we’ve raised the odds Bertecnic will wait for orders and not charge in bellowing a challenge.”
“And Dutavar?”
“He made Santav Teffer; as I said, an unusual achievement for our males. I believe we can count on him to resist his instinctive urge to challenge the enemy. I take it this is a problem Confederation forces don’t have?”
Torin thought of the Silsviss. The big lizards gained rank by challenge and although their entry into the Confederation had been slowed by the end of the war, the offer hadn’t been withdrawn. “Not yet.”
Conditions by the Ministry for the Preservation of Pre-Confederation Civilizations—agreed to on Strike Team Alpha’s behalf by the Justice Department—had included a ban on clearing paths through the jungle by mechanical means. They’d never considered the damage one hundred and forty kilograms of sentient quadruped under orders could do.
The third reason for their speed was the lack of Presit.
Presit had declared her intention to accompany them, to witness and record.
“And gather material for your program.”
“That are being my job, Gunnery Sergeant. You are being required to be giving me full access.” Presit’s muzzle had wrinkled in a self-satisfied smirk. “Just like it are being the old days.”
The argument had lasted until she’d seen the size of the insect Bertecnic had twisted out of his foreleg and then she’d retreated to the shuttle, demanding Dalan section and brush every square centimeter of her fur. The insect’s moist, bloated body pulsed a deep purple as it humped toward the rotting debris on the jungle floor and sprayed blood a meter out when crushed between two rocks.
“I’d rather be shot at,” Freenim said quietly under the background rubble of translated profanity.
Torin agreed and instructed the Polint to stay out of the bracken as it was evident their blood had the same local food value as hers.
Presit had agreed to help monitor the DL feeds when Craig had informed her that they’d appreciate her insight on the Katrien among the hostages. Torin wouldn’t have been able to deal with the artillery barrage of Presit’s opinions, but if Craig could, more power to him.
Torin followed the two Polint, Mashona followed her, and, after Mashona, the Druin, who lacked both the ability to take the high road and the size to make it easier for those behind. On their six, Vertic kept her blade holstered along her side, tucked through the strapping the Ner used riding into combat. She carried her RKah diagonally across her chest in the same easy access position Torin and Binti carried their KC-7s. Like the sevens, the RKah used explosive charges to propel metal rounds out of a rifled barrel at high speeds. Anything more complex could be—and had been—taken out at distance by the enemy. With computer guidance off the table, infantry had been a skilled trade on both sides of the war. The RKah fired a higher caliber than the sevens; essentially, given differences in systems of measurement, as high as the KC-12s the heavy gunners carried. The Polint, with four clawed feet on the ground and ropes of muscle over shoulders, arms, and torsos, didn’t need augmentation. In the Primacy’s ranks, they were the heavy gunners. Torin could work with that.
