An Ancient Peace

by Tanya Huff

  “Sorry, you startled me.” She flexed her exoskeleton. “Don’t know my own strength.” She hadn’t bothered to sound sincere, they were all aware she knew her own strength down to the micro-newton. “And I wasn’t planning to . . . Why does it smell like shit down here?”

  “Broadbent.” Verr’s voice boomed against the walls, the sound wrapping around the engines, smacking against the straight wall of the corridor, and curving back around. “He’s been crushed. Bowels blown out all over the place. There’s barely five, maybe ten kilos of uncorrupted meat.” Shaking her head, she appeared around the left side of the curve. “What a waste. Oh, and the H’san shit, as opposed to Broadbent’s shit, goes all the way around, Major.”

  Dion ghosted his hand a centimeter above the wall. “Not shit. Letters. Words. Sentences.”

  “Thank you, Professor . . .” After nearly seven tendays of Dion, Sujuno figured she could handle anything the progenitor bureaucracy threw at her. “I understand how language works. What do the sentences say?”

  “I don’t know.” His eyes were locked on the marks they’d been following, flicking by screen after screen on his slate. “There’s a possibility I could find familiarity and extrapolate from position and context, but it could take years. Decades. This is a lifetime’s work. This is the kind of find H’san scholars dream of.”

  “Illegal?” Nadayki snorted. “Or just boring?”

  “Lieutenant, was there evidence of a door . . .” At this point their working definition of door had become somewhat variable. “. . . back there?”

  “Didn’t see one, Major.”

  “All right.” She turned to Toporov. “We go out two groups; one left, one right. Fifteen minutes out, then back.”

  She went left with Keo and Nadayki and Verr. Toporov, Wen, and Dion went right. Dion had insisted he stay behind to work on translating the curved wall, but Sujuno played to his ego and convinced him the sergeant would need help should they run into new writings by the H’san.

  “Don’t trust him on his own?” Nadayki asked as they reached the corner.

  “Nor you,” she replied.

  The light hadn’t lied and they turned right into yet another corridor that appeared to have no end, walls joining at a distant vanishing point. The left wall was unbroken stone. Ten meters from the corner, they passed the first of three large metal doors on the right.

  “What do you think is behind there, Major?”

  “There were centuries’ worth of dead H’san interred on this planet. I assume the doors lead to new catacombs.”

  “Or maybe the shipyard where they built that shuttle,” Keo said, fingers trailing over the metal of the third door.

  It wasn’t that far-fetched a theory. She had no idea why she was so certain they weren’t the doors to the weapons cache.

  “Holy shit, they’re . . .” Keo snatched her fingers back. “. . . vibrating?”

  The distant slam of metal against stone caused Sujuno’s hair to lift and while she forced it down, the three of them stared at the doors.

  “That wasn’t our door.” Verr twitched, toes flexing against the floor. “But if there’s another corridor like this to the left, then who’s to say there aren’t other doors?”

  Sujuno started to run back the way they’d come, the others falling in behind her. Her boots slid against the slick stone as she cornered. She braced herself against the wall, grabbed Keo as she slipped, and together they raced for stairs and the ship. Almost there, they saw Toporov, Wen, and Dion running toward them, the sound of boots and bare feet echoing back from the hard surfaces of the surrounding stone.

  Dion held his arm across his body, fingers dripping red, and it wasn’t hard to see that only Toporov’s grip on the back of his jacket kept him on his feet.

  “We found the entrance to the weapons cache, Major.”

  Her heart pounded too violently for her to speak.

  “What happened to him?” Nadayki demanded as Verr checked her bonded.

  “He tripped the defenses.” Wen pushed Verr’s hands aside.

  And Sujuno realized that the sounds of boots and feet had stopped, but the sound of marching, of claws, of buckles and leather, had not only continued but had grown louder.

  “Sergeant?”

  He shot a glance over his shoulder and his face wore an expression as close to panic as Sujuno had ever seen on an NCO. “Incoming H’san, Major.”

  Her hair pulled free of her control and clamped close. “All H’san on this planet are dead, Sergeant.”

  He shook his head as though denying what he was about to say. “Yes, sir, they are.”

  She glanced at the stairs. From the top, they could hold the stairway. Hold it. Block it. Blow it up. But the sergeant said they’d found the entrance to the weapons cache—her mind skittered past what exactly he’d just agreed with—and the entrance was on this level. If they went up, would they ever get down again?

  . . . travel only forward.

  Thirty meters to the corner. An infinite corridor beyond that.

  “We found the entrance to the weapons cache, Major.”

  . . . travel only forward.

  “Run,” she said.

  SEVEN

  “EXITING SUSUMI SPACE IN TEN. Everyone, strap in.”

  “You expect to hit something, Ryder?” Werst asked over the sound of the entire team pulling webbing into place.

  “No.” Craig leaned right and dragged a run of scrolling equations closer to the center of the board. “But uncertainty’ll cark you before expectations. We’ve only got Presit’s word that her equations were for the H’san’s system of origin—at this point, who’s to say the H’san aren’t keeping the Katrien away with false coordinates? Satisfy curiosity, assume they’ll never be used. I have no idea what we’ll exit into.” The ancient chair complained when he shifted his weight. “And when I say into, I hope I don’t mean that literally.”

  “Presit wouldn’t kill you.” Binti sounded sure.

  “Not on purpose. I’ll withhold my opinion on the H’san’s intent until after I know we’ve survived the jump.”

  “Wow,” Alamber muttered. “That’s grim.”

  Sitting second, Ressk twisted far enough around to see Torin’s face. “Gunny?”

  “I’m withholding my opinion on his pessimism until after we’ve survived the jump.”

  Craig laughed, reached back, and squeezed her calf. “Sounds fair.”

  They emerged just outside the elliptical orbit of an icy dwarf planet about as far from the red giant as they could get and still be in the system. If there’d ever been enough traffic for a buoy and a web, there wasn’t now. With nothing in their way, they rode their momentum in, engines off, scanners on and slaved to the maneuvering thrusters—at the speed they were going, flesh and blood didn’t have a hope in hell of reacting to a potential collision before it became actual. And over.

  Thumbing her webbing open, Torin stood, stretched, and folded her arms on the top of Craig’s chair. “Well, what’ve we got?”

  “There’s another dwarf, almost at its far aphelion, a gas giant we’re going to pass at an uncomfortable 3.7 million kilometers—probably far enough out to avoid the gravity well, but that is one fuk of a big planet.”

  “Thus the term gas giant,” Alamber muttered, draping himself over the back of Ressk’s chair. Ressk reached back and smacked his leg, indicating he knew the di’Taykan was there rather than with an intent to do damage.

  “After the gas giant . . .”

  Torin grinned at Craig’s emphasis. Alamber’s hair flipped him off.

  “. . . we’ll cross the remains of an asteroid belt. Fortunately, the belt’s close enough to big G, most of them were probably sucked in, minimizing the potential for impact. Finally, over there . . .” Craig pointed left. Torin didn’t bother looking, she knew she wouldn’t
see anything she could understand. “. . . is a planet at the inside edge of what was the habitable zone before the star went red. Nine and a bit AU. Everything closer in, fried. Three habitable planets,” he answered before Torin could ask.

  “But if this is the right system, the H’san got everyone out, right?”

  “That’s what history says.” Torin appreciated Binti’s caution. As they hadn’t been greeted by signs saying welcome to the H’san’s system of origin, proceed at own risk, they were still relying on Presit’s information, ignoring, for the moment, the accumulating evidence that suggested there was history the Elder Races hadn’t shared. “Any sign of the defenses Presit mentioned?”

  “Not this far out.”

  “If this is the right system and the coordinates are available . . .”

  “To the right people,” Alamber interrupted, making right people sound like an insult.

  “Available to the right people,” Ressk amended, repeating the emphasis, “then the H’san clearly don’t give a shit about visitors this far out. Any defenses will be protecting the planet with the weapons cache, keeping non H’san from landing, and we’re about twelve hours out from being able to pull any readings. Until we get something that says stay away from our ancient weapons or we’ll kick your ass, we could be anywhere.”

  Staring out at a whole lot of nothing, Torin shook her head. “If she had to do this run every two tendays, Jamers must’ve been bored spitless.”

  “She wouldn’t have done this run more than once.” Torin stepped to the side as Craig leaned the chair back, then tucked back in against his shoulder as he swung his feet up on the edge of the panel, still talking. “Once she had a chance to look around, she’d adjust her Susumi equations to match the orbital path of her destination and slide in tight and tidy. It’s what I’d do.”

  “Is it? Well, if working for Justice ever gets dull, we could always try smuggling.”

  He wrapped an arm around her waist. “Torin, love, you couldn’t smuggle a ship’s biscuit unless you were convinced it was for the greater good.”

  “Hey, I could . . .”

  A piece of biscuit bounced off her elbow, and she turned in time to catch a second piece. Binti grinned and ate the rest. “Not a chance, Gunny. Listen to your pretty man, he’s right.”

  The gas giant was beautiful up close. Swirling bands of purple and yellow and gray—darker at the poles, lighter at the equator.

  Perched on the edge of the pilot’s chair, Ressk leaned forward, toes digging into the padding. “Weird.”

  “What is?” Werst asked absently, distracted by the muscles flexing in his bonded’s feet.

  “When’s the last time you saw a gas giant without a harvesting station or six?”

  “Sixty satellites in orbit, powered up and scanning. I’m not reading weapons . . .”

  Civilian salvage operators had specs for every Confederation and Primacy weapon. No one wanted a salvaged hunk of metal to blow up their ship. Torin suspected they had some of both allied and enemy specs before the Corps got them. Specs for H’san weapons, on the other hand, hadn’t been included in Intell’s IP. No one had been surprised.

  “. . . I am reading a shitload of high energy crap I can’t identify, so I’m going to step into our metaphorical vacuum and suggest that’s what’ll fry us.”

  “Agreed.” They looked enough like weapons signatures to Torin; she had no trouble labeling them as such. There was plenty about astronavigation she still didn’t understand, but weapons, weapons she knew. “Or if not fry, hold us until the H’san arrive.”

  “And then what?” Binti demanded.

  The whole team was back in the control room.

  “We disappear,” Werst growled.

  Ressk tapped the board and scowled down at the new line of numbers. “Or they wipe our minds.”

  “Or use us as slave labor in the cheese mines of Traxus.” Alamber’s hair was a pale nimbus around his head.

  “I think that’s covered in we disappear,” Binti said thoughtfully after a moment.

  Werst made a noise halfway between disbelief and insult. Binti bounced a wadded-up piece of rice paper off the back of his head. Alamber laughed. When Torin cleared her throat, Werst pointedly ate the paper and sat down.

  They all needed to get off the ship and do something. Torin looked at the planet in the distance and shook her head. “And then nothing good happens,” she said. “What about ships in orbit?”

  “No ships. And no energy trails either.”

  “I found . . .” Ressk began.

  Craig cut him off. “You didn’t find a trail.”

  “I found mathematical evidence of multiple trails. One of them significantly larger than the rest. I think this is the right place, and I think both Jamers and her employers are using a brush.”

  Torin raised a hand before Craig could protest again. “A brush?”

  Alamber answered before Ressk had a chance. “It’s a burner that disperses your trail. They’ve been a rumor in the darker corners for years. If someone’s actually managed to build one that works, that takes all the variables into consideration, then that someone is a decent engineer and a fukking brilliant coder. I’m in love.”

  “Good for you. Don’t let it affect your aim.”

  He grinned. “Never has before.”

  Torin ignored the increasingly salacious suggestions of what he’d been aiming at and tipped Craig’s chair back far enough for her to see his face. “So, a burner?”

  “Possible,” he admitted reluctantly. “Probable even, if Presit sent us to the right place.”

  “It raises the odds that she has.” Torin let the chair drop level again. “Are we in danger?”

  “From the satellites? Not yet. Ressk’s right, they’re set up to keep people from landing.”

  “Keep scanning, then. We need to know how to get past them.”

  “You think?”

  “Gunny. We found their ship.”

  “On my way.” She dropped off the back of the treadmill, grabbed a towel, and peered into the complex system of ropes and pulleys dangling in the corner. “Coming, Werst?”

  “No.” He grabbed a passing line with his left foot. “Not until I can hit something.”

  “How could the satellites miss that?” It wasn’t a small ship. Even allowing for Craig pulling the front port to full zoom, it looked at least as large as Promise’s current configuration.

  “We’re not reading it either, Gunny.” Toes gripping the edge of the panel, Ressk’s fingers flew over the board. “It’s eyeballs only. Invisible to nonorganics.”

  “Love the twisty and brilliant mind that came up with the code,” Alamber murmured, hair sweeping slowly back and forth. “The blocker’s essentially broadcasting you don’t see me so sincerely that tech doesn’t see it.” He slid around in the pilot’s chair, unable to turn it due to Craig’s white-knuckled grip. “We need a third station, Boss. I can’t work under these conditions.”

  He had a point, Torin acknowledged. Alamber and Ressk together had been able to beat every security system they’d come up against, but doing it on the move left Craig standing and required a dangerous game of musical chairs if they needed to maneuver—like during those instances when they were in range of multiple satellites armed with unknown weapons. And gods help them if a situation arose where Binti needed to shoot back. By law, nonmilitary craft were unarmed, but salvage ships carried cutting lasers and Promise had kept hers when she’d changed trades. No one who’d ever used a benny during a boarding party would argue against a cutting laser being a weapon. “I’ll bring it up with Justice next time we’re docked. If Justice is still speaking to us after this.” She frowned and leaned in, uncomfortable behind Ressk’s chair, but refusing to admit it. “Is that a second Susumi engine?”

  “It’s probably the Susumi off
Jamers’ ship. She unhooked so she could land, hooked it to the larger ship to take advantage of their block. There’s a shuttle missing off the big ship as well.”

  So Jamers was dirtside with their grave robbers. “Looks like we’re in the right place.”

  “Looks like you owe Presit an apology for doubting her.”

  “Not if she doesn’t know about it. Besides, I didn’t doubt her, I doubted the H’san. All right, while you work out how they got down without being shredded . . .”

  “Odds are they put the same blocker on their shuttles.”

  “. . . and duplicate it, let’s cut off their escape route. Mashona, to the control room.”

  “On my way, Gunny.”

  “You figure we can fit the grave robbers and Jamers in here?” Craig asked in the silence that followed Binti’s response.

  Judge. Jury. And executioner.

  If they worked out a way to get past the satellites and down to the planet, they’d be the only ones leaving.

  “They’ll fit in the gym.” Werst wouldn’t meet Torin’s eyes when she turned. “We can slack off for a while.”

  She assumed Alamber would redirect the conversation. He didn’t. Like Ressk, he kept his eyes on his screens, but they were both listening.

  Craig folded his arms. “We don’t know how many there are.”

  “So they’ll be crammed in.”

  Or they might not.

  Judge. Jury. And executioner.

  Just before the silence stretched to the point where Torin would have to remind them of what their orders had been, Alamber sighed and said, “Won’t a dead ship in orbit eventually get noticed by the H’san? I thought we weren’t supposed to be noticed.”

  “We aren’t,” Torin began.

  Craig cut her off. “Once we get her Susumi equation, I can tow her. I’ve towed bigger wrecks.” The fingers of his left hand dug deep dimples into his thigh. “Salvage I can deal with.”

  Judge. Jury. And executioner.

  What couldn’t he deal with? Torin wondered.