The Heart of Valor

by Tanya Huff

  “The data storage?” With no challenge to respond to, Piroj’s ridges snapped closed with one final puff of water vapor. “That where the command codes for the drones stay when they’re home?”

  “Yeah. No. Sort of.”

  “If the drones don’t have commands, what happens to them?”

  “I dunno. I guess they fall out of the sky.”

  The words hung between them for a moment, then Piroj shrugged. “So, I’m not raised in a can, techie-type, but wouldn’t that be a good thing? Least while we’re up this node’s tree?”

  . . . in this node’s territory, McGuinty translated, and then the implications smacked him in the chops. “Crap. Crap. Crap!” Whirling around, he stared at the screen. Stopping the core dump had been instinct. Station kids learned early on that hard vacuum was unforgiving of mistakes and that hacking any system on station meant small, careful, specific changes. Control maintained at all times. That control had nearly given him Ventris. “But we’re not in a fukking vacuum now,” he muttered. His intervention had knocked him right back to the beginning, tossed him out through the layers of encryption he’d already broken. The Corps’ crest, the only thing currently on the screen, seemed to be mocking him.

  “Problems, Marine?”

  He snapped to attention at the sound of the major’s voice, heard Piroj doing the same.

  “Sir! No, sir!”

  “Glad to hear it. As you were.”

  Backing up until he was beside his teammate, McGuinty wished Major Svensson had stopped about two meters farther away. Probably intentionally looming. Officers probably do that. He wasn’t quite as short as the Krai—Not quite as good looking either, Piroj had pointed out toothily—but the major was tall enough, and close enough so that distinction became moot.

  “So . . .” Major Svensson frowned down at the node. “This is as far as you’ve gotten?”

  He actually felt his ears heat up. “No, sir! I got tossed trying to prevent a critical error.”

  Beside him, Piroj shifted his weight from boot to boot.

  “Well, why don’t you two relax for a moment while we see if I can get us in a little further.” The major paused, right hand raised, bare fingers nearly touching the screen. “I assume I need to disable the security codes?”

  “Yes, sir, but only because I . . .” Marines don’t make excuses, Recruit! He could all but hear Staff Sergeant Beyhn’s voice. “Yes, sir.”

  Major Svensson moved one-handed through the first few layers of security. He seemed to know what he was doing.

  But then, my eight-year-old niece could get this far in.

  After a few more minutes, the major made a speculative sound, pulled off his other mitten, and began to work two-handed. If he could work the screen two-handed, he definitely knew what he was doing. Speed mattered when breaking systems. McGuinty wondered if the major was station-born.

  And then he just wondered what the major was doing since his chance of seeing the screen through the broad shoulders now blocking it was zero to zilch. He’d have moved in on another guy in the platoon, but one twenty days of training suggested officers got shitty about being crowded.

  When he glanced over at Piroj, the Krai gave a been-there-done-that kind of shrug.

  Major Svensson worked in silence while McGuinty wondered how long they were going to have to stand there. It had been a long, hard hump, and if the major thought he was going to break the node, then maybe other people could go get some sleep. Not that the major was going to break the node or anything because McGuinty was into his second night of tearing through the both the Corps’ encryptions and that weird alien shit and he hadn’t even found the drones’ programming yet, and he knew how good he was.

  He was just working up a good head of resentment for officers who showed up and showed off and kept people who knew what they were doing from their jobs when the major jerked, muttered, “What the hell?” and stepped away from the screen. When he turned, rubbing his head with the heel of his right hand, he looked as frustrated as McGuinty felt.

  “It was . . . There was . . .” He turned just enough to glare at the node. “Well, at least I . . .” The pause was almost too long then he shook his head. “It’s all yours, McGuinty, and good luck.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He stumbled as he walked away, catching his boots on the deep footprints others had left in the snow banked against the side of the gully, and McGuinty remembered how recently he’d been detanked.

  “Major’s not doing too bad considering he was a floater not so many tendays ago.”

  Piroj seemed to be reading his mind, and that was just fukking scary. “He got five screens in, that’s not too bad. At least there’s a bunch of really basic crap I don’t have to redo.”

  “Oooo, bite!” The Krai snapped his teeth together and McGuinty grinned.

  * * *

  “Gunnery Sergeant Kerr? Can I speak with you?”

  “No one’s stopping you, Kichar.” Torin took another pull on her pouch of coffee. Under her earnest expression, the young Marine looked even more tightly wound than usual. Given the events of the day, it wasn’t hard to figure out why.

  “It’s my helmet, Gunnery Sergeant.” In the reflected light of moon and stars, the helmet in question was a rounded blur—built-in camouflage darkening with the setting of the sun. “Damaged equipment is to be reported to the senior NCO.”

  In previous, albeit limited conversations, Kichar had tended to sound like a vid Marine—all clichéd gung ho. Right now, she sounded like a twenty-year-old whose fireteam had detonated a mine that had thrown up a rock that had nearly killed her. Easier to process Private di’Lammin Oshyo’s death—it had happened to someone else. Torin held out her free hand. “Let’s see it.”

  Kichar glanced around the camp, pulled the helmet off her head, and reluctantly passed it over.

  Given the light levels, the damage wasn’t a lot easier to see up close and personal but a rough, palm-sized patch on the right side indicated where the photovoltaic covering had been destroyed. Although she knew very well what had happened, Kichar needed to talk about it with someone who wasn’t all Oh, my God, you nearly died! “Let’s hear the report, then.”

  “Gunnery Sergeant, the helmet was damaged at 10:13 this morning when one/one detonated an antipersonnel mine, probably a L08 on the trail. During the subsequent explosion, a piece of rock about six centimeters in diameter slammed into this Marine’s helmet.”

  “More of a glancing blow than a slam.” Torin turned the helmet upside down on her knee and checked the inside. She couldn’t feel any damage and assumed one of the sergeants had checked it while they still had the light. “Good thing these weren’t built by the lowest bidder.” Dark brows drew in over a raptor’s nose as Kichar responded to her quip. “Are you all right?”

  The brows were reluctantly lifted. “Yes, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  “Did you have the doc check you out just in case?”

  “Yes, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  “What do you think I should do about your helmet?”

  “It’s damaged, Gunnery Sergeant. I had the suggested diagnostic chip in my pack, but I can’t repair the photovoltaic cover.”

  “Uh-huh.” A little more coffee seemed called for. Torin took a long swallow. “Kichar, in a combat situation, which this is, there’s really only one response I, as senior NCO, can make to this kind of damage.” She saw Kichar square her shoulders, waiting for the reprimand, and had to remind herself that Platoon 71 was technically still in training where rules were rules and sergeants were vengeful gods. She’d probably find a little yelling comforting, but Torin was neither her mother nor her DI. “This kind of damage . . .” Torin tapped the rough spot. “. . . seems a fair exchange for a functioning brain.”

  “Gunnery Sergeant?” Kichar seemed more confused than relieved.

  “Equipment gets damaged in battle, Private, no way around it. However,” she added dryly passing the helmet back, “if you see a rock comin
g at your head, it’s still best to duck. Easier on your headgear.”

  “Duck, Gunnery Sergeant?”

  “If you see it coming—where it applies to anything damaging coming at you. Sometimes, it’s rocks. Did you see this rock coming?”

  “No, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  “Then ducking couldn’t have helped you.” Torin shoved the empty pouch in her pocket. “R&D comes up with new weapons all the time,” she said as she stood and stretched. “And yet, in spite of new tech, in spite of all that time and money they spend teaching Marines how to be Marines, we can still be taken out by something as simple as a rock.”

  “A rock!” Kichar spat the word at the night, reaction breaking through her tightly wrapped control as anger. “I could have been killed by a rock!”

  “And you wouldn’t be the first.”

  “We can be killed by rocks, Gunny!”

  “Yeah, it’s insulting.”

  “Insulting?” Torin admired the way her voice had begun to rise on the second syllable and got dragged back down to a lower volume on the third. The dark brows dipped in again. “You don’t think that after all this tech and all this training, it would be humbling?”

  “Not likely.” The snort conveyed Torin’s feelings perfectly in a situation where facial expressions couldn’t be seen. “Nothing humbles a Marine, Kichar, or we’d have packed this shit in long ago. You’re not on watch, so you should get some sleep. It’s another long, fast hump tomor . . .”

  “Stop him!”

  “What the hell?” Naked di’Taykan weren’t unexpected in the Corps, or anywhere else in known space, but Torin had never seen one bounding up the side of a snow-covered gully before. Out of uniform, uncamouflaged, Staff Sergeant Beyhn was easier to spot than the rest of the Marines—there wasn’t enough light to see hair color but as Dr. Sloan was doing the shouting, Torin went out on a limb and made the identification. Half a dozen clothed and helmetless Marines were right behind him but unwilling to reach out and grab the closest body part.

  And that’s a hesitation I never thought would apply to a di’Taykan.

  Given how protective they’d all gotten, she assumed they didn’t want to hurt him.

  Unfortunately, the staff sergeant didn’t share their warm and fuzzy feelings. He turned at the top of the gully and kicked out, catching his closest pursuer in the chest, sending her plummeting along with the di’Taykan directly behind her.

  It was a hard enough shove that they only bounced once before they hit the packed snow at the bottom.

  Torin, Kichar hard on her heels, was there before the impact blizzard settled. “Lirit?”

  “I’m okay,” she gasped, struggling to her knees, arms sinking past her elbows into the snow. “We have to catch him, Gunny!”

  Torin met the major’s eyes over Ashlan’s still body. “No argument here.”

  * * *

  It took nearly three hours, and they might not have found him until dawn had the wind not shifted, blowing the staff sergeant’s scent back over the searching di’Taykan and sending them into a fresh frenzy.

  He was unconscious when Sakur and Jonin carried him back to his shelter.

  So was McGuinty, lying crumpled to one side of the smoldering node, bits of hot metal having melted a pattern into the snow around him.

  NINE

  “I WAS WORKING THROUGH ONE of the new encryptions, not the Corps stuff but one the Others added that was kind of wound through the Corps stuff, and the pattern just kept sliding away. See, everyone’s got a pattern, Gunny. Krai, di’Taykan, Human; if you’re even a little plugged in, you can look at Corps code and figure out what race laid it down. Mictok, they’re base eight, so I can’t crack their shit but I can finger it, you know?”

  “No, I didn’t.” It made sense, the Mictok having eight legs and all, but the giant spiders weren’t in the Corps, so their math wasn’t Torin’s concern. “Focus, McGuinty.”

  “Sorry, Gunnery Sergeant. I . . .” He blinked bloodshot eyes and stared over Torin’s left shoulder like he was looking for answers on the inside of shelter. “Is Piroj in trouble? I convinced him to go join the search for Staff Sergeant Beyhn.”

  “McGuinty!” Her voice pulled his gaze back to her face. “I will deal with Private Piroj. You will tell me what happened at the node.”

  “I don’t know, Gunnery Sergeant.” His shoulders rose and fell within the confines of the bedroll, and he sounded both miserable and guilty. “I was concentrating on what I was doing and then I was opening my eyes, only the light was too bright, and Dr. Sloan was asking me to pull her finger.”

  Years of practice kept Torin’s reaction dialed back to a single blink. “I think she was asking you to follow her finger.” She waved her index finger in front of his face, stopping as belated understanding dawned.

  “That makes more sense,” he admitted. “Is the CPN destroyed?”

  “You remember that?”

  When she raised a brow, thin cheeks darkened and he said, “No, Gunnery Sergeant. I heard you and Sergeant Jiir talking after the doc brought me round. It wasn’t me. I never triggered something that would cause it to explode.”

  “I know.”

  He blinked and swallowed. “You know?”

  “Dr. Sloan says you were taken down by a choke hold.” This wasn’t exactly what the doctor had said but rather the translation into Marine. “That’s not something a piece of flying debris could manage. You don’t remember being grabbed?”

  “No.” One hand struggled up from the depths of the bag to touch his throat. Torin could just see the tips of pale fingers against the darkening bruise. “But they’d have grabbed me from the back, so even if I did remember—and I don’t—I wouldn’t have seen them. How did they destroy the node?”

  “I have no idea, McGuinty. Come morning, you can tell me.”

  “Yes, Gunnery Sergeant!”

  Smiling slightly, in spite of everything, at his attempt to give the trained response, Torin backed away from the bedroll. With the injured Marine alone in the shelter, there was room to turn, but the last thing he needed right now was an accidental boot in the head. Besides, discipline tended to suffer when senior NCOs waved their asses in the face of their Marines. di’Taykan excepted, she amended, watching McGuinty’s eyes close.

  As her feet pushed through the shelter’s flap, his eyes snapped open. “I’m better when I have a roof, Gunny.”

  “I hear you,” she told him, allowing her smile to show. “I’m better when I have something to shoot at. Get some sleep, McGuinty.”

  As she settled her weight back on her heels, pulling her upper body through the flap, his eyes closed and his breathing deepened. Rocking up onto her feet, Torin stroked off the light on her sleeve, then pulled on toque and helmet as she turned.

  “You were right,” she said to the waiting doctor. “He was a little loopy.”

  “Did you find out who did it?”

  “No, ma’am. He doesn’t remember.”

  “He might eventually.”

  Torin made a noncommittal noise, then asked about the staff sergeant.

  Dr. Sloan folded her arms, the puffy sleeves of her jacket making the motion awkward. “No change; although it’s a good thing the Taykan have a lower body temperature to begin with.”

  “Private Ashlan?”

  “Concussion. I’ve got him in the shelter with the staff sergeant. They both seem calmer with the physical contact, and I’ll be able to get more sleep. Speaking of sleep, Major Svensson’s out for the night. He covered a lot of ground today, more than may have been smart, and his headaches are back. I doubt tonight’s is the first on Crucible,” she continued before Torin could demand details, “but it’s the first he’s come to me about. Don’t worry, Gunnery Sergeant, he’s had worse.”

  “Worse?” Torin prodded. Her eyes had finally adjusted to the ambient light provided by starlight on snow and what she saw on the doctor’s face was not reassuring.

  “For a while, right after he came
out of the tank, he was losing almost an hour a day. Then a few minutes. Then there was a pain and pressure but nothing entirely unexpected given the extent of the damage. When I cleared him for this . . .” She waved both hands in the universal sign for I have no idea what the hell this is. “. . . he’d gone days with a clear reading. Tonight, well, like I said, I’ve seen worse, but I’m reading dilation of blood vessels, major stimulation of the trigeminal nerve and the subsequent release of sensitizing chemicals; there’s a series of neuronal clusters—in the sensory ganglions, the brainstem and the thalamus—that are . . .” She stopped, took a closer look at Torin’s face, and sighed. “You don’t really care about this, do you, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “All right, short form: he was in pain, he’s been in worse. I’ve given him a sedative and, best case scenario, he’ll be at least as mobile as Ashlan and McGuinty by morning.”

  “Worst case?”

  “He’ll wake up feeling the pressure of each single hair like a knife blade into his scalp. If that’s the case, I’ll up his serotonin levels until he’s functional.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  As Torin started to pass, Dr. Sloan reached out and grabbed her arm. “That throat grip that incapacitated Private McGuinty; could you have done it?”

  Torin shook her head. “I’m not really about precise application of pressure, Doctor. I could have killed him, but I’m not sure I could have just knocked him out.”

  “Then who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I was thinking that these recruits didn’t spring fully formed from the head of Zeus.”

  “Ma’am?” It had been a long day and a long night and Torin was four downed Marines and a body bag past having the patience for riddles.

  “These recruits had lives before they became Marines.”