The Heart of Valor

by Huff, Tanya

  “7s! Covering fire! Keep their heads down! Hisht! Go!”

  Wearing only his bodyliner, Hisht surged up onto his feet a little west of the tank, the angle allowing for the wind. There were a lot of rounds in the air and while ninety percent of the firing was at the drones, ten percent wasn’t, and a few of the rounds buzzed by uncomfortably close. He thought about home, wondered for a moment why he’d ever left it, gratefully stretched out his toes, and imagined throwing his jerkeen’s heavy hunting net over a passing flock of vertak.

  The shelter half opened up, then the weighted corners began to drop as Hisht toppled forward off the edge of the roof. No branches to grab, nothing but a straight drop . . .

  Then the rope around his waist jerked him back.

  By the time he untangled himself from Sakur’s grip and smacked the di’Taykan’s hands away from his crotch, the shelter half had landed, covering about two thirds of the tank.

  “I don’t know, Gunny . . .”

  He could hear Sergeant Annatahwee talking.

  “. . . between the snow and the dark and the camo function, it’s damned hard to see. We may have enough coverage or . . .”

  The explosion was everything the vids said a tank exploding at close range should be. Only louder. Ears ringing, Hisht shoved Sakur off him and crawled to the edge of the roof.

  The top third of the tank had split open like a fungus throwing spores.

  The bottom third, damaged servos howling loud enough to be heard even by the half deafened, continued grinding toward the double doors.

  “Oh, fuk.” He felt Sakur’s hand close over his shoulder. “It’s going to crash straight through the door. You think it’s got enough left?”

  Hisht pointed toward the drones massed in and between the buildings. “They think so.”

  Plastic casing of the major’s slate creaking in her grip, Torin would have rather charged through the air lock and tossed a bag of grenades under the tank than allow an alien program to bounce into orbit by way of her skull. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an either/or scenario.

  She took a deep breath, tapped transmit into her implant with the tip of her tongue, and started the program.

  “Number three squad, down to the barricade. Everyone else—stop as many drones as you can before they get to the building.”

  An uncomfortable vibration in her teeth, a buzz in her jaw, told Torin the interface was working. She almost thought she could feel bits of the code going by, but that was ludicrous. All she could feel was . . .

  Pain.

  The buzz had become a buzz saw.

  Since she hadn’t noticed the major screaming at any time in the last five days, it had to be the corrupted files. Corrupted files fukking hurt. Who knew?

  It took her a moment to realize that the shriek of metal separating and the crash of the air lock doors slamming back into the anchor was not actually happening inside her head.

  Although, at the moment, putting her head under the tank seemed like a wonderful idea.

  The sound of KC-7s firing at close quarters got her attention. When had she fallen to her knees? Both knees. And, holy fukking hell, that hurt!

  And then it didn’t because there was only enough wetware space available to handle the pain in her jaw.

  “Ablin gon savit, Gunny! Your face!”

  Heat. Burning.

  “Iful! Turn it off!”

  Torin curled her body around the slate. They’d have to go through her to get it. She’d see this out.

  She noticed the quiet first. Well, the relative quiet— there were boots and voices and the slamming about of metal and plastic. Probably the drones being mistreated. She tried to say something about misuse of Corps property, but her mouth didn’t seem to work. It didn’t seem to hurt either, so she wasn’t exactly complaining.

  At some point during the upload, she’d fallen onto her side. Her face was in a puddle. Not slush. Too warm to be slush.

  Oh.

  Blood.

  There seemed to be a lot of it pouring out of her mouth.

  “Gunny? Gunny, can you hear me? Fuk! How do I seal this without blocking her throat?”

  She wondered who Flint was asking, Dr. Sloan being dead and all and the rest of the platoon having no more idea than a litter of kittens. She liked kittens. Well, she liked cats, but there needed to be kittens first.

  Then it wasn’t so quiet; something roared past the anchor and someone yelled it was more fliers.

  “Whoever just ID’d that as a flier is redoing their vehicle recognition course!” Annatahwee bellowed close by.

  VTA, Torin thought and let go.

  “We will not allow Big Yellow to win by changing our lives to suit its invasion!”

  “One escape pod,” Torin snorted at the Promise’s main vid screen. “Hardly an invasion.”

  Arm thrown over her waist, Craig gave her a quick squeeze and said, “Shut up.”

  On the screen, the Confederation Premier, a Dornagain female currently named Listens and Considers, unfolded to her full height and stared gravely at Presit, her golden fur almost red under the studio lighting. “While we do not at this point know if Big Yellow was working alone or as part of a planned act of aggression by the Others . . .”

  “Not very aggressive,” Craig muttered.

  Torin snorted. “Maybe not where you were.”

  “. . . we will continue as we have. We will be vigilant, but we will take up our lives again.”

  “Off!”

  The screen went dark before Presit could ask her next question.

  “I was watching that!” Torin protested.

  Craig stopped her before she could get an elbow back into a sensitive spot. “You’ve seen it before.”

  “Yeah, but I still had tank head.”

  “The posturing was the fun part. From here on, it devolves into politics. Presit’s in fine form, and at least twice it looks like she’s about to bite the premier on the ankle.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  Settling back against Craig’s chest, Torin snickered. “I remember that, but I thought it was the tank talking.”

  “Yeah, well, you were lucky you missed the live action version.”

  Not a lot of people would consider having the lower half of their face rebuilt as lucky, but Torin agreed with him. By the time she came out of the tank—its surface scribbled over by every surviving member of Platoon 71 before they were posted away from Ventris Station— the hysteria had essentially played itself out.

  Not to say there hadn’t been a few loose ends to tie up.

  “Do you realize, Gunnery Sergeant Kerr, the scope of the diplomatic incident you could have created between the Taykan home world and the Corps? At the time of the incident, Staff Sergeant Beyhn was qui.”

  Hands tucked behind her back, Torin’s right index finger twitched. “Yes, sir. So I was told.”

  The colonel standing to the right of High Tekamal Louden’s desk frowned, searching for insubordination, but Torin’s delivery had been letter perfect.

  “Fortunately,” the Commandant of the Corps continued, “qui’Allak Beyhn spoke for you. He said that as he was a Marine at the time of the incident that made it a Marine problem not a Taykan concern, and it therefore required a Marine solution.” She paused, waiting.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you usually consider sex to be a Marine Corps solution, Gunnery Sergeant?”

  “That would depend on the problem, sir.”

  The colonel sputtered but remained essentially silent.

  “The six Marines who were part of your solution are refusing to say which of them administered the lifesaving action, as it were. You seem to have had an influence on them.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  The colonel sputtered a bit more, but the high tekamal said only, “I’m recommending you never be allowed near a recruit platoon again.”

  Gunnery sergeants did not smile at the Commandant of the Corps, but, at th
is point, Torin thought she could probably get away with allowing honest feelings to show in her voice. “Thank you, sir.”

  “You are indeed carrying the same protein marker as Civilian Salvage Operator Craig Ryder and the reporter Presit a Tur durValintrisy.”

  Torin bit back a weary, no shit.

  Nose ridges flaring, the major/doctor stopped by the edge of the examination table and leaned in close. “I saw your interrogation of the alien. Still. Collecting. Data. What do you think that means, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  “No idea, sir. You need to ask the alien.”

  His voice dropped, and he leaned closer still. “Can’t. It’s gone. Every piece of it the Corps had in custody, including the bit you cleverly trapped in the body bag. Officially, they’ve left known space to rejoin Big Yellow. Unofficially, though?” He tapped his skull. “I’m scanning my brain at frequent intervals.”

  Torin bit down on her brand-new tongue.

  From her position on one of the upper galleries, Torin braced her forearms on the railing and studied the Humans,di’Taykan, and occasional Krai filling the public terminal from bulkhead to bulkhead. They were so young. She didn’t think she’d ever really noticed that before.

  “We have to stop meeting like this, Gunnery Sergeant. People will start to talk.”

  She straightened, turned, came to attention, and snapped off a perfect salute.

  “Knock it the hell off, Gunny.”

  Her new mouth felt stiff when she smiled. “Glad to see you up and around again, Major.”

  “I’ve been up for a while.” As she rested her weight back on the railing, he took up an identical position beside her. “Arms take less time to regrow. I wouldn’t have been tanked at all except . . .” They watched a group of di’Taykan surging close then apart, looking like some kind of multicolored undersea creature from above. Eventually, he said, “Apparently, there’ve been no lasting effects. Psych just cleared me for light duties.”

  “Light?”

  “Nothing sensitive.”

  “Nothing sensitive about combat, sir.”

  “That’s what I told them, Gunny. They weren’t amused.”

  “Psych’s a tough room, sir.”

  He stared at his left wrist, the skin pale at the edge of his cuff. “I hear Intell’s been all over you.”

  “They’ve been . . . thorough. There was a rumor going around that they wanted the H’san to come in and lift the memories right out of my head.” She felt the original half of her lip curl. “Commandant shot them down.”

  “Why do you figure, Gunny?”

  “I suspect there may be things in my head she doesn’t want the Elder Races to know, sir.”

  “Major, do you ever wonder if the Elder Races are screwing us over?”

  “It’s interesting to note that not one of the diplomatic attempts to negotiate an end to this war have ever included a member of the three races actually fighting this war. Since hostilities started before we got involved, all we have is the Elder Races’ word for it that they don’t know why the Others are fighting.”

  He switched his gaze to his right wrist and made a nonspecific noise.

  Torin rubbed the inert trim along the edge of her desk and waited for the call to go through. He’d already have been contacted, of course, but this was still something she had to do.

  The desk chimed. The man on the center screen, frowning up at her in some confusion, looked tired.

  “Dr. John Sloan?” When he nodded, she took a deep breath and rolled both hands into fists down on her lap where he couldn’t see them. “My name is Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr; I was with your wife on Crucible . . .”

  Her new implant had the same old codes.

  *I’ve docked. Section 12, slip 9.*

  Craig Ryder made it back to Ventris as soon as the Corps allowed.

  The bunk on the Promise wasn’t really big enough for both of them for any length of time, not if they weren’t actively using it, but they’d stayed there to watch the recording of the premier’s speech, and it didn’t seem like they were going to move any time soon.

  Torin suspected they were stuck together, but she was comfortable so she didn’t mention it.

  “So, you’ll be rejoining Sh’quo Company.” Craig’s not-a-question was warm against the top of her head.

  “The premier said we were going to take up our lives again. That’s where my life is.”

  He shifted just enough to prove her suspicions, then pulled her in closer still. “You know, your life could be . . .”

  Time passed.

  She was tempted to ask Could be what? just to hear what he’d actually say, but looking around the cramped, worn cabin she realized that maybe it could.

  Just not quite yet.

  Tanya Huff’s

  New Confederation Novel

  VALOR’S TRIAL

  Torin Kerr’s Continuing Adventures.

  Read on for a preview.

  Now Available

  in hardcover from DAW Books

  “GUNNERY SERGEANT KERR! Good to have you back!”

  “Good to be back, Sergeant Hollice.” Torin thumbprinted the release that would send her gear straight to her quarters and fell into step beside the sergeant as they crossed the shuttle bay. “And congratulations on the promotion.” Adrian Hollice had been in her squad when she was a sergeant and then, when she made staff sergeant, her platoon. She’d fast-tracked him onto his SLC and had been pleased to see her decision justified when Command had given him his third hook. Not that she needed reassurance that she’d been right—these days, she needed reassurance that Command didn’t have its head so far up its collective ass it was cutting off all oxygen to its collective brain. “The squad have any trouble getting used to it?”

  “Not after Ressk and Mashona knocked a couple of heads together. They said I’d been leading them around by the diran avirrk for months anyway, I might as well get paid for it.”

  Torin grinned. The Corps tried to keep combat units together when it could. Familiar faces strengthened both stability and loyalty under adverse conditions, and Marines had their own ways of working through the disruptions promotions brought.

  “The captain was a little afraid they were going to send you to Recar’ta HQ,” Hollice told her as they stepped onto the lower beltway.

  “So was I.” She’d asked to be returned to Sh’quo Company. They were short NCOs and, as she’d pointed out, she’d be wasted in a staff position. Although the Corps reserved the right to send her wherever the hell it pleased, both points were inarguable and she’d gone home. It hadn’t hurt that the Commandant of the Corps had agreed with her—although wasted in a staff position had not been the phrase used.

  Given the hour, the lower beltway was nearly deserted.

  “They’ve started sweeping our Division,” Hollice said as they rode toward the heart of the station. “Started at 1 Recar’ta, of course, so the war could bloody well be over before they get to us. Scuttlebutt says they haven’t found anything.”

  He tugged at his collar tabs and Torin hid a smile at the tell. In a poker game, he’d have been bluffing. In a conversation, he was trying to draw her out. This was why he’d come to meet her; she’d been with the recon team on Big Yellow—the alien spaceship that turned out to be the actual alien, or aliens, the terminology remained uncertain—she’d initiated the investigation into why no one remembered Big Yellow’s missing escape pod, and had actually spoken to a collective of the alien on Crucible. Granted, melting her jaw had meant she’d been tanked during the initial There are aliens among us! hysteria and she’d missed the development of the search protocols, but she was the closest thing to an authority in the Sector.

  “You think they will, Gunny?” Hollice prodded. “Find anything, I mean?”

  “Find bits of a shape-shifting, organic plastic alien that boots through our security protocols like cheddar through a H’san?” Torin asked him blandly. “One that can separate into microscopic pieces to avoid detect
ion and then recombine itself back to sentience when the danger has passed? I very much doubt it.” Search protocols be damned. “Not unless it wants to be found.”

  “Great.”

  She had to admire the dryness of his delivery. He’d deserved that promotion. “Not really.”

  “What does it want?”

  “It told me it was collecting data.”

  “Studying us?”

  “So it seems.”

  “Why?”

  “No idea. We may never know.” Little pieces of plastic were ubiquitous throughout Confederation space. The alien could be a part of any of them. It could be any of them. It could mimic other materials, and while the parts they’d most recently been in contact with had been gray, Big Yellow proved rather conclusively that didn’t have to be the case. The handrail on the beltway could be recording data for the alien—as the alien— while she passed. Torin, who by both circumstances and disposition was more paranoid than most, had made a conscious decision not to think about that.

  “It could make us all forget it was ever here,” Hollice pointed out, his voice fraying a bit around the edges.

  “Not all of us, Hollice.”

  He turned, stared at her for a moment, and smiled. “That’s right. It can’t mess with your head.”

  “Took a look inside and was scared off. If it wants to get to Sh’quo Company, it’ll have to get through me.” Which was both the truth and complete bullshit since she had no more way of stopping the alien, singly or collectively, than she had of convincing the Navy that a straight line was the shortest distance between two points. But it was bullshit Hollice needed to hear and bullshit he needed to repeat to his squad. Or maybe it was the part of the statement that was the truth he needed to repeat. Whatever worked.

  The shortage of NCOs meant that Torin had only to put in a request to the station Sysop to have her old quarters reassigned. The recon mission to Big Yellow had been a temporary posting but the promotion before traveling to Ventris to brief Command on the Silsviss had destroyed the certainty of a round trip ticket—integrating an aggressive reptilian species into the Corps would take decades and she’d essentially been responsible for their willingness to join. That made her, if not an expert on the species, someone whose opinion Command intended to exploit. Fortunately, new information from the Marines stationed at the Embassy on Silsviss had pushed her experience from the center of the target. Some of those Marines were trained xenopsychologists rather than noncoms with good instincts and a willingness to kick ass when required and, more importantly, none of them had been expected to kill a senior officer.