A Peace Divided

by Tanya Huff

  Ganes stared down at Werst. Over at the window where an insect flared against the force field. Down at Werst again. “They’ve blocked the anchor to keep me from contacting a theoretical rescue party?”

  “Why not? You got a message out. That’s why we’re here.”

  “Yes, but through my slate. Before they confiscated it.”

  Werst shrugged and regretted it. “Or it’s to keep you from creating a weaponized signal you could send from your implant to theirs.”

  Ganes frowned. “That’s not . . .”

  “Not theoretical. We used a weaponized signal on some gunrunners. Okay, we sent it from the VTA, but same principle.”

  “Not quite.” He shook his head. “And it wouldn’t work; they’re not using implants.”

  “Then the block has to be there to stop you. Bad luck the fukker’s also blocking me.”

  “All right. Why not. You can’t get word out, so we’ll assume Martin blocked the anchor.” The commander squared his shoulders, confidence rising as the engineer emerged. “The emitter needs to be central, but it doesn’t need to be very large. A slate with a decent processor could do it. You need to find out which slate, and disable it.”

  “I need to? No. Ressk does the tech stuff, not me.”

  “They think you’re Ressk.”

  Werst sat up, carefully. “I can fake it. I can’t actually do it. It’s got to be you.”

  Ganes held up his right hand. “I can’t leave the infirmary.”

  The band around his wrist looked to be about two centimeters wide, half that thick, the surface matte black against the rich brown of Ganes’ skin. Could’ve been decorative. Humans wore those kinds of things.

  “It’s an adaptation of a precision mining tool. Quite a clever bit of work, really.” His fingers curled into a fist. “I input the wrong code, I try to cut it off, I tug on it too vigorously, I go out the infirmary door, and the cutters activate.”

  “Cutters?” Werst frowned. Put the pieces together and snarled, “You lose your hand?”

  “He’s the only science type who might be dangerous. Navy, and an officer, but still.” Martin leaned on the side of the open door. “Can’t let him wander around, he gets into trouble. But he’s useful. And he might remember where his loyalties lie.”

  How much had Martin overheard? They’d kept their voices low until that last reaction. Werst readied himself to jump. No chance of bleeding out, thanks to the commander. He could take Martin down.

  “Is he fixed? Hard to tell with his lot.” Hands on his weapon, his chest pushed aggressively out, Martin crossed the room and sneered down at Werst. “We have a use for you, Warden Ressk.”

  “Fuk you.” From his angle on the stretcher, Werst could see Ganes removing his identification from the data on the screen.

  “That’s fuk you, Sergeant.” He gripped Werst’s elbow, digging his fingers into the joint. “You do what I tell you, and the hostages live. You don’t, they die.”

  “Gre ta ejough geyko,” Werst growled, hand spasming. If he killed Martin, would Martin’s people kill the hostages? He couldn’t risk it.

  Without breaking eye contact, Martin reached out and closed the fingers of his other hand around Ganes’ shoulder, dragging the commander around to face him. “Where’s the di’Taykan?”

  “In the stasis unit.”

  Werst was impressed by the way Ganes made a statement of fact sound like, fuk you. More impressive, given he’d been a staff officer.

  “Why?”

  “He’s too badly hurt for me to risk an amateur medical intervention.”

  “I said you could let him die.”

  “I didn’t care to.”

  “You didn’t care to,” Martin mocked. “Did you fuk him before you fridged him? He’d have apprecia . . .”

  The crack of Werst’s teeth coming together rang out like a gun shot.

  Martin jumped back, KC in his hands. No one who’d served with the Krai ignored that sound. The butt of the weapon swung around and hit Ganes in the forehead. He dropped.

  The serley chrika was fast, Werst reluctantly gave him that, the weapon now aimed at Werst’s chest before Werst’s feet were on the floor.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be the smart one on Strike Team Alpha?” Martin sneered. “What part about your behavior having a direct effect on the hostages didn’t you understand?”

  “The part where you . . .”

  Commander Ganes grunted as Martin’s foot came down on his ankle.

  Werst closed his mouth.

  *One of the Krai who isn’t Yurrisk has left the anchor and is heading into the shuttle.*

  “Which Krai?” Torin asked. “The engineer or the bosun?”

  Firiv’vrak paused for a moment and Torin knew her antennae would be sweeping the air for clues. *Sorry, Gunny. No idea.*

  Alamber sighed loudly, clearly intending to be overheard. *Up to me to magnify the image and match the mottling, then.*

  “Why does it matter?” Bertecnic wondered, hacking a vine in half.

  “Different skill sets, different possibilities,” Freenim told him.

  *And it are important to be getting the names right in the credits.*

  “Why would we have a linguist?” Arniz asked, staring at Yurrisk. “We were here to do preliminary studies, to map the plateau.”

  Yurrisk waved at the plastic sheet, hanging from the ceiling of the common room. “To find the weapon, we need to decipher this language.”

  “It’s an alien technology!” Salitwisi pushed between Yurrisk and Arniz. “It might not be language. Which is what linguists deal in. What we need, is to go back to those ru . . .”

  When she saw Yurrisk’s lips pull back off his teeth, Arniz poked Salitwisi hard at the base of his tail.

  He whirled around to face her, fists clenched. “What was that for?”

  She sighed. “Don’t provoke the people with the guns.”

  “I wasn’t provoking anyone.” He turned back to Yurrisk, and Arniz threw up her hands. “Was I provoking you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re very provoking.” But he seemed almost amused, so Arniz started breathing again. “Sit down. Be quiet. It’s safer when you’re quiet.”

  Salitwisi’s tongue tasted the air. “I’m not feeling very safe.”

  “You’re not being very quiet. Sit!”

  Arniz had begun to reach out for Salitwisi’s tail when he snorted and headed for the designated hostage area. She hadn’t been told to leave, so she stayed.

  “We need Beyvek here for this. I saw Beyvek by the door.” He twisted around, gaze searching the common room. “Where is he now?”

  “Martin sent Beyvek to the shuttle.” Qurn leaned closer to the plastic, the highlights on her eyes, orange. It was the first time Arniz could remember that the Druin’s focus wasn’t locked on Yurrisk.

  “Sergeant Martin doesn’t give orders to my crew.” Yurrisk’s nostril ridges closed. Arniz stepped back. Suddenly, sitting with Salitwisi seemed like the smarter option. “You!” He pointed at Malinowski. “Where is the sergeant now?”

  For a moment, Arniz wasn’t certain Malinowski would answer the question. She wasn’t familiar with Human body language, but a Niln holding Malinowski’s position could only be called insolent.

  “He’s up with the Warden. In the infirmary.”

  “Go and get him.”

  Malinowski shrugged. “He told me to stay put.”

  Yurrisk’s chest rose and fell. His fingers twitched below Qurn’s loose grip on his wrist. “Staying put is safer.”

  “Yeah.” Malinowski’s pale lip curled. “That’s what he said.”

  Taking another step back—because this was one of those times when staying put was definitely not safer—Salitwisi’s muttered complaints w
rapping her in a familiar background buzz—Arniz realized that Martin wasn’t working for Yurrisk, regardless of what Yurrisk thought.

  NINE

  “WARDEN KERR, you’ll want to see this.” Dutavar stepped aside as Torin came forward. He pointed to three pale lines on an exposed arc of root, deep enough that under the layer of feeding insects, sap still seeped from the wood.

  Torin’s first thought was predator. Her second that Vertic had gouged similar lines in the dirt at every stop. “Polint.” Her first thought hadn’t been wrong. She moved ahead, noting the broken foliage. “They had a rope around the tree here.” Bark had splintered off the far side of the tree just over a meter up. Insects fed on that wound as well. Following the line the rope had taken, she stepped up on a fallen block, over a half wall, and froze.

  “Dutavar, hold.” She swung her KC around to the front of her body. “I’ve already lost one team member to gravity. Let’s not make it two.” The hole was centered in one of the areas with no sizable trees, or she’d have sent Ressk above it. Her helmet scanner read solid ground right up to the edge of the hole although that seemed unlikely. “Merinim, you’re lightest; get up here and take a look.”

  Merinim had already hooked a carabiner to her webbing, and she handed the other end of the rope to Dutavar as she passed. “Only the Ner are lighter,” she said to Torin’s raised brow. “Not my first crumbling edge.”

  Torin could feel the others gather behind her as Merinim carefully approached the dark oval in the earth. When the rope stretched taut, she raised a hand and leaned out. “No life signs. I have a ping on the floor at two point four five meters, adjusting for angle. There’s a debris pile point six two meters deep. Walls and floor are . . . an artificial substance.”

  *Looks like plastic.*

  Merinim’s shoulders rose and fell. “It could be. I can make the jump, Gunny,” she added over Alamber’s background sputtering about being doubted. “If you want me to take a closer look.”

  “Gunny . . .”

  Torin glanced up at Ressk. “We can’t advance on the anchor until dark. They think he’s you, and they need you to examine the artifact. We can’t leave the unknown at our backs.” His toes clenched around the branch. Torin gave him a moment and, when he didn’t reply, said, “Go, Merinim.”

  The hole was lined with plastic. A kind of plastic.

  Torin followed Merinim down and ran her hands over as much of the walls and floor as she could reach.

  No reaction.

  Walls, floor, what remained of the ceiling—all seamless. Both Confederation and Primacy scanners showed solid matter behind the walls. A scan of the ceiling pulled the same result, even though they could see jungle and a small patch of sky through the hole.

  “If we’re not getting an accurate reading through the walls . . .” Merinim tapped her helmet, and the blue glow across her face disappeared. “. . . there could be anything back there.”

  True enough, and the odds were high that anything would be dangerous. “We won’t linger.”

  “This must be where they found the data sheet.” Sweeping a light across the extruded hooks high on one wall, Merinim frowned. “Why would the plastic build with plastic? Wouldn’t it be like us building with meat?”

  “If the plastic is responsible.”

  “Molecular remains in the latrine, Gunny.”

  “This . . .” Torin waved a hand around the hole, “. . . makes better odds that those remains are building debris. We don’t, we can’t know who built this, and it’s not our job to know. There are neither hostages nor hostage takers in this hole. That’s all that’s relevant to the matter at hand.” Torin nodded toward the debris pile and the rope. “Let’s go.”

  “Any chance the mercs found the weapon down there?” Binti asked as Torin emerged. “Maybe behind Alamber’s data sheet?”

  *It’s not my data sheet.*

  “If they did, it was too small to ping when they passed the DLs at the ruins.” Torin drew the rope up, coiled it, and reached for her pack.

  “You saying size matters, Gunny?”

  “In so many things, Mashona.” The rope tucked away, she shrugged into the pack. “Get ready to move out.”

  “Why would the plastic have left a data sheet down there?” Vertic asked, stepping back as Bertecnic flexed to test his repaired strap, sending the small lizard on his withers scuttling for safety.

  “It’s blah blah blah plastic aliens, Durlan.” Binti shrugged. “They kept an intergalactic war going for centuries as a social experiment. Who knows how they think?”

  Freenim held a triangular piece of stone against a broken block, tossing it away when it didn’t fit. “If they think enough like us—like any of us—then that’s a station designed to collect data from above. Abandoned when the people of this planet were destroyed.”

  “Or abandoned after the plastic destroyed the people of this planet,” Torin said.

  *We’ve all been thinking it,* Craig muttered. *Trust you to say it.*

  “Or abandoned when a species not the plastic destroyed or didn’t destroy the people of this planet. Just some of the many possibilities we don’t need to care about.” She glanced up to find Ressk as far from the hole as he could get without explicitly disobeying orders. “All right, people, let’s go. We’ll follow the mercenaries’ path from here on. Ressk, join the Artek at the edge of the plateau.”

  He’d started moving on Artek and was out of sight by plateau.

  *If we are speaking of the Artek and the plateau, I are having identified the Krai in the shuttle as being Lieutenant Beyvek, engineering.*

  *And I’ve identified Naval search pattern 01022. Lieutenant Beyvek is using the shuttle to scan implant frequencies. I’m reading their wave and shifting our frequencies ahead of it. That’s me off breaking the slates, Boss, and all in keeping the implants clear for the duration.*

  “Good work, both of you. Craig?”

  *Yeah, I’ll keep running the cracker on the slates.*

  *Warden Kerr?* Keeleeki’ka sounded like she was having a wonderful time, hiding at the edge of a jungle, watching the outside walls of a distant spaceworthy cube. *Should we meet you at the hole where Werst fell.*

  “No. You two keep watch on the plateau. Immediate word if anyone moves.”

  *But don’t the DLs . . .*

  “Eyes on, Keeleeki’ka.”

  *But . . .*

  Firiv’vrak cut her off. *Eyes on, Gunny.*

  “You know,” Binti said thoughtfully, falling into line, “if there’s two underground rooms, who’s to say there isn’t more? We could be running over a plastic city.”

  Torin thought about the tunnel under the ruins. She hadn’t scanned it; the smooth surface might have been plastic.

  Rummaging through clothing in the Niln nest room, Werst kept the greater part of his attention on the Human who leaned against the wall by the door. Jana Malinowski, ex-Navy gunner, had the default medium-dark beige species coloring, a right arm with skin visibly younger than the left, short brown hair slicked back, and creases at the corners of both eyes and mouth. Unlike most mercs, she wore civilian clothing rather than a repurposed combat uniform, although she’d kept her boots. No one with two brain cells to rub together gave up their boots. He’d kept his even though he hated wearing them.

  The biggest difference between the Malinowski in the Navy’s records and the flesh-and-blood Malinowski here and now was the anger that simmered under the surface. Anger held close. Held tight. Anger that was as much a part of her as the scars on her younger, regrown arm.

  Scars were a choice. No one had to keep them.

  Another casualty of the war who’d been failed by the programs intended to turn soldiers and sailors into civilians. About seven percent of the people they arrested fell into that category. Ninety-three percent were power-tripping assholes laboring under the mista
ken belief that an ability to use a weapon made them the center of the universe, but seven percent was too fukking many living broken and lost.

  Her eyes narrowed and her lip curled when she realized he was watching her.

  Werst winked. It was a Human thing.

  Her anger didn’t scare him. He worked with Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr. Malinowski’s anger was a pale imitation.

  “You’re not suiting up for a Star Cluster ceremony,” she snarled. “Find a pair of overalls, cover your ass, and let’s go.”

  “Easier to give me my uniform back.”

  “Easier to shoot you, but it’s not my call. What’s wrong with that pair?”

  He held them up. “Too short.” He tossed them aside and picked up a blue pair.

  “Put. Them. On.”

  Too long beat too short, given that anything beat being crotched twenty-seven/ten. The shoulders were tight and the ass was breezy where tail cuff gaped open.

  “Oh, for fuksake.” She beat her head against the wall. “No one wants to look at that.”

  “Then don’t.” Shrugging the overalls down around his waist, Werst picked up a strip of faux leather—no idea what it was for, didn’t want to know—and tied the tail cuff closed. “All right, let’s . . .”

  Blinked.

  He tipped forward into the nest as the room tipped and spun.

  “Get up!”

  Blinked.

  Nest was warm.

  “I said, get up, you asshole!”

  Was green-gray like the skin behind Ressk’s . . . Ressk’s . . . Ressk’s . . .

  Blinked.

  They’d put Trembley in Dr. Ganes’ room, the only one with a large enough bed. Arniz didn’t believe Humans needed specific Human furniture, but that didn’t change the fact that the nest in the Niln sleeping quarters wouldn’t have worked any better, given his injuries, than the Katrien beds half his size. The bed took up most of the space in Ganes’ small, but private quarters. As the expedition’s only Human, he hadn’t had to share space. Of course, the bed was so small it wouldn’t have fit even Ganes and a di’Taykan, had there been a di’Taykan with them, making sharing moot.