by Huff, Tanya
“Torin . . .”
“You wondered why the Firebreather put up a fight, so you knew they were armed.”
He stared at her for a long moment then he smiled. “I keep forgetting you’re no drongo. Smarter than you look.”
“You keep forgetting,” she told him levelly, not responding to the smile, “that we’re in this together now.”
“I’m sorry.” Craig drew in a deep breath and exhaled quickly. “We’re big on minding our own bizzo, us.”
She thought back to crossing the station’s market, the clear division between us and them. Between us and her. “I’m part of that we now.”
“I know. Old habits.”
“Get over them.”
This was an entirely different smile. “Yes, Gunnery Sergeant.”
What the hell. She could stay mad, or she could recognize she’d be sharing a small space with this person—that she wanted to share a small space with this person—for the foreseeable future. “What did I tell you about calling me that out of bed?”
He laughed then, a little relieved, a little turned on, and got the mugs out of storage. “So I guess the question is, what the fuk did they find that was worth dying for?”
Torin stretched out on the bunk and ran possible scenarios in her head.
“Torin?”
She glanced up at him. “What the fuk did they find that was worth keeping away from pirates?”
Craig poured both mugs of coffee before asking, “Isn’t that the same question?”
“Not quite.”
TWO
TORIN HAD ASSUMED THEY’D STAY to honor the dead. She’d seen enough death over the years to know the importance of celebrating lives lived. She’d seen enough death recently—her entire company, most of her GCT, and a prison planet of Marines she’d all but promised to free—that the Corps psychologists had come to the conclusion she had to be repressing at extreme levels in order to even function. In turn, she’d come to a few conclusions about the Corps psychologists, and they’d parted on terms of mutual dislike.
Holding onto the living rather than the dead was not repressing. Binti Mashona and Ressk were all that had survived of Sh’quo Company, Miransha Kichar and Werst all that had survived of their recon unit. Kichar had stayed in, the other three had left the Corps around the same time Torin had. Kyster, di’Hern Darlys and di’Ameliten Wataru—the other Krai and the two di’Taykan who’d escaped the prison planet with them—had taken medical discharges and disappeared into the population of their respective home planets. Torin kept an eye out for Kyster, but, as Darlys had been the instigator of Torin as a progenitor, she’d let the di’Taykan go.
Torin’d served with Staff Sergeant Daniel Johnston, Kichar’s senior NCO, and he’d already sent one detailed message about the young Marine’s progress. And how crazy she was driving him. And how far she’d likely go if she could just dial it back a little. Torin found it comforting to know Kichar hadn’t been changed by knowledge of the plastic aliens. Torin hadn’t spent any civilian time with Mashona, Ressk, and Werst, but she knew where they were and they knew where she was and that fell somewhere between comforting and necessary.
Torin hadn’t known Jan and Sirin, hadn’t even met them; they were additions to Craig’s dead, not hers.
Craig had Pedro help him set up training exercises, teaching Torin to deploy the Promise’s pen, load various types of “salvage,” and then check that the correct variable had been entered into the computer’s Susumi equation. When that paled, she spent time running pilot simulation programs—maneuvering around debris fields, finding the best position for most efficient grappling of salvageable pieces. It was necessary training, and Torin gave it the same attention she’d given the training that had allowed her to stay alive while doing her old job but, at the same time, it was clear that they were actually waiting.
Jan and Sirin hadn’t been wearing HE suits when attacked, so it took Brian four days to find them, sweeping the area around the remains of the Firebreather with his scanners tuned to pick up DNA. It was a function the CSOs used to scan battle debris for residual tissue and many a military family owed them for whatever closure they’d been able to achieve.
When he had both bodies finally on board, Brian’s message to the station was short and to the point. “Got them. Coming home.”
With people free to mourn, the mood around the station changed. Now, they knew what they were waiting for.
“What do you mean, the attack hasn’t been reported to the Wardens?”
Craig pushed a hand back through his hair and sighed. “What’s the point, Torin? The Wardens can’t bring Jan and Sirin back to life.”
“No, but they can catch the bastards who killed them.”
“How?”
“How?” Torin repeated. She paced the length of the cabin, seven strides and back again. “Isn’t it what they do?”
“Do they?” Craig dropped his feet off the edge of the control panel. The chair protested as he spun it to face her. “They haven’t hauled ass to send in the Navy, have they?”
No, they hadn’t. And Presit hadn’t gotten back to her. Torin spread her arms. “It isn’t right that the people who killed Jan and Sirin will get away with it.”
“You lost Marines all the time. How often did you get to take out the people responsible?”
Oh, he did not just go there. “We were fighting a war,” Torin snarled. “And don’t tell me that you’re in a war with the pirates because war means fighting back. And you’re not.” The Promise was suddenly too small. “You’re doing sweet fuk all for the people you lost!” she said, stepping into the air lock.
“We’re remembering them!” he shouted as the outer door closed.
No one spoke to her as she wandered around the station. A few people moved out of her way.
Someone had set up an exercise wheel in an old ore carrier and since no one was around, and the surface of the inner curve was both smooth and solid, Torin stripped off her boots and ran. When her implant chimed *fifteen kilometers*, she started to slow; although it took another kilometer before the rotations had dropped to the point where it was safe to use the brakes.
Breathing deeply, the taste of the recycled air almost comforting, she stared down past her toes at the curve of plastic—resolutely remaining plastic—and thought, Fuk it.
When Torin got back to the ship, the only light in the cabin was the spill from the control panel. Craig was in the bunk, not asleep but not talking either. She stripped down, and settled in beside him.
“I thought when I left the Corps, that I’d stop losing people.”
“I know.” He shifted to wrap an arm around her. “And I know you want to fix things, but, Torin, we take care of our own.”
Maybe. But their definition of “take care of” wasn’t one she understood.
In Torin’s experience, memorial services included a chaplain droning on about duty while the listeners thought about the part of the ceremony that would have been most relevant to the dead Marines—getting out of their Class As and to the beer. Salvage Station 24 had skipped the memorial and gone straight to the party, complete with musicians on a stage set up by the old shuttle bay doors. At the other end of the market, the pub entrance had been blocked by a pair of tables and two kegs. Craig had warned her that the beer was watered, but that didn’t seem to matter to the constant stream of people stuffing mugs under the spouts. Overheard conversations reminded Torin of conversations heard in every Mess where they honored the dead at the end of a deployment. Subtle differences, sure—no one seemed especially relieved or guilty that they were still alive when the dead were dead, and it was strange not to hear the words “Goddamn fukking brass has no goddamn fukking idea of what we do out there!” repeated at a volume that rose in direct proportion to the amount of alcohol consumed.
The biggest difference between the way the Corps and the salvage operators did things was that Jan and Sirin’s bodies had been set up on a raised platform in the
center of the market, the kiosks cleared off the floor for the duration. In the field, the Corps bagged and reduced their dead into a few grams of ash that fit into cylinders that fit in turn into measured spaces in the senior NCO’s combat vest. One way or another, the Corps left no one behind. Even Marines who died while serving in less chaotic theaters were bagged and reduced before being sent home unless their religious beliefs required a different treatment.
Bodies lying around were bodies that needed to be tended to.
“Is this sanitary?” Torin murmured against Craig’s ear as they worked their way through the crowds to Pedro and his family. “Decomposing bodies in a closed environment?”
Craig stiffened, turned toward her and visibly relaxed, shaking his head. It took Torin a moment to analyze his reaction. Then she realized that her right hand rested against the place her dead would have been had she still been wearing a vest. “They won’t be here long,” he told her quietly. “And the station’s scrubbers are up to the job. Jan built them.”
Torin had never asked how well he’d known the two dead women. He hadn’t spoken of them since their fight and barely spoke of them before, although he’d exchanged a couple of memories with Pedro during the wait. That suggested they were his in the broader sense rather than the specific. She hadn’t acknowledged that and she needed to, but to say she was sorry for his loss would imply this wasn’t her loss as well. Closing her hand around his forearm, she stuck with a basic truth. “The death of any of us diminishes us all.”
He looked a little surprised.
Jan Garrett-Wong was Human. Standing, the top of her head might have reached Torin’s shoulder. All things considered, she didn’t look that bad, but then she’d lived a significant percentage of her life surrounded by vacuum and had no doubt known enough to close her eyes tightly and empty her lungs when her ship had been breached. Most of the damage caused by prolonged exposure to vacuum would be internal—pulmonary embolisms were tidy killers. Both her cheeks were stippled with burst capillaries, but nothing said they hadn’t been there before the attack.
The lilac hair of di’Akusi Sirin lay limp and unmoving. The color reminded Torin of Lieutenant di’Ka Jarret, and her hand moved back to touch nonexistent cylinders. They’d never found his body, or even any evidence of where it was in the melted surface of ST7/45T2. If his family had held a memorial service, nothing of the lieutenant would have attended.
Given the differences in respiratory systems, Sirin had probably lived a little longer after the Firebreather was destroyed. Long enough to see Jan die. All di’Taykan eyes collapsed in vacuum; given the concave curve of her lids, Torin suspected that someone, at some point before the bodies had been laid out for viewing, had sealed the lids shut over the empty sockets.
It was unusual for a di’Taykan to choose a single Human as a vantru, a primary sexual partner. Not only were the Taykan a communal species, but any relationships formed while in the di’ phase ended when they switched to quo and became breeders. Plus, a single Human would be hard pressed to keep up with a di’Taykan’s sexual appetite. From what Torin could overhear, more than one person in the crowd had been as impressed by Jan’s ability in that regard as by her skill as a mechanic. Easier when both parties were females, granted, but still.
Tables of food had been set up around the biers; platters of the ubiquitous processed protein patties in a wide variety of flavors as well as a surprising amount of fresh vegetables and small fruits—the station’s greenhouses seemed to be producing bumper crops. Bowls filled with the paste sat next to sun-dried potato, sweet potato, and hujin chips clearly intended for dipping. Torin stayed well away from the hujin chips. Humans tended to consider them further proof that the Krai could and would eat anything organic.
The edge of Jan’s shroud had a smear of paste on it, as though the corpse had stretched out her right hand and done some snacking while waiting for things to start. That was definitely unsanitary, no matter what Craig said.
Torin touched the edge of a plastic bowl—which remained a plastic bowl—then picked up a handful of sweet potato chips.
Warm bodies packed the market elbow to elbow and, while the dominant language was Federate, Torin could hear Taykan, Krai, at least two oldEarth languages, and the distinctive screaming cat fight sound of a conversation in Katrien. Every one of the many air locks accessing the station was in use and, according to Alia coming off a shift in ops, they’d extended mooring tethers from the last three free—crews of late arrivals suiting up rather than locking in. It seemed as though every salvage operator who could get there, had.
“Torin!”
She looked down to see Jeremy, the youngest of Pedro’s children, holding tightly to the edge of her tunic, none of his parents in sight. “What can I do for you, Jer?”
“Mama made mushroom caps.”
“Did she?”
“Yes. I want some.”
Craig leaned in close enough to be heard, his breath warm against her cheek. “I can take charge of the ankle biter if you like.”
“I can get an entire platoon moving in the same direction while under artillery fire, I expect I can handle a four year old.” When his smile softened, she shook her head and sighed. “Don’t get broody on me.”
Jeremy seemed like a solid kid, but when she settled him on her hip, he weighed less than she expected and he was small enough not to affect her ability to maneuver through the crowd to the food. The mushroom caps he wanted were about four centimeters across and filled with yeast paste wrapped around something chewy. It wasn’t unpleasant tasting and, over the years, Torin had learned that within species parameters it was usually safer not to ask for specifics.
Both hands holding his food, trusting Torin to hold him, Jeremy chewed and stared at the bodies. Torin had no idea if children were usually exposed to bodies this young. Her idea of young started at around nineteen for Humans.
“Dead means not coming back.”
Jeremy wasn’t asking, but Torin answered him anyway. “Yes, it does.”
“Where did they go?” he wondered.
Torin chewed and thought about it for a moment. Each of the Younger Races seemed to have at least half a dozen belief systems dealing primarily with death. Even the Elder Races held a few although for the most part they were wise enough to keep them to themselves. Torin believed in keeping people alive. “I honestly don’t know,” she said at last.
Jeremy made a noncommittal noise and went to wipe his hand on her tunic. Unable to spot anything set out for that purpose, Torin redirected him to his own clothing.
“I know you.”
The speaker was Human, male, close to 200 centimeters tall, compensating for the lack of hair on his head with the ugliest ginger mustache Torin had ever seen.
“I know you,” he said again. “You’re that Marine who says plastic aliens are the enemy, not those murdering, fukking Others. It wasn’t fukking plastic aliens who killed my sister, now was it?”
Most of the people packed in around them had abandoned personal conversations and were waiting, with him, for Torin to answer.
“Where did your sister die?” she asked.
He blinked pale eyes. “What?”
Torin repeated the question. “Where did your sister die?”
“On Barnin Four. Those bastards wiped out the whole colony.”
“Then she was likely killed by the low orbit bombardment.” The colony had been small, agrarian, with no offensive capabilities. There’d been no reason for the Primacy to attack as the entire Barnin system had been well within the Confederation’s borders, but since discovering the war had been designed as a laboratory to study the species involved, Torin had come to realize that many decisions on both sides had been less than rational all along. “There’s no way of knowing what species was directly responsible.”
He folded his arms. “Well, it wasn’t fukking plastic aliens, I know that.”
“How?”
“What?”
“
How do you know it wasn’t the plastic aliens?”
Ginger brows drew in to nearly touch over his nose. “Fuk you!”
He aimed a shove at her unoccupied shoulder and, without moving her feet, she twisted just far enough around for it to miss.
Reaching out, Jeremy wiped greasy fingers on the sleeve of his jacket.
When he snarled and tried a second shove, Torin caught his hand, folded his thumb back, and dropped him to his knees. Face screwed up in pain, he shifted his weight back, the fingers of his free hand curling into a fist. Torin locked her eyes on his and growled, “Don’t.” Against all odds, he turned out to be smart enough to listen. “You want to take out your grief on me,” she told him quietly, “I’m willing to beat the shit out of you any time I’m not holding a four year old. Jeremy, are you related to this man?”
Jeremy took a long look. “No.”
“Then you don’t get to wipe your hands on him. Apologize.”
“But ...” When Torin raised a brow, he sighed dramatically and leaned forward far enough to peer down at the kneeling man. “Sorry I wiped my hands on you, okay?”
Torin waited a moment then applied a little more pressure to the man’s thumb until he choked out a reasonably sincere, “Okay.”
“The plastic aliens started the war that killed your sister,” she said, releasing him. Plastic alien was simplistic, but it was a lot easier to say than polynumerous molecular species or polyhydroxide hive mind. “Don’t forget that because they’ll be back.”
Then she turned to get Jeremy another mushroom, keeping most of her attention on the man rising to his feet. Muttering under his breath, he pushed his way through the crowd who, in spite of having been avidly watching the confrontation, were all maintaining a strict none of my business air about them. She wondered what would have happened had there actually been a fight. Would the crowd’s individuality at all costs have held or would it have turned into a mob as she became an outsider beating one of their own?
