The Better Part of Valour

by Tanya Huff

  “Corridor,” Harrop told her. “Just like on the map.”

  Handing Huilin over to Frii, she checked her slate. According to the map, the corridor ran a quarter of a kilometer aft, then ended in a T-junction. The port arm ran a hundred meters then cornered and headed back forward. The starboard arm went two hundred meters then through a series of compartments. The next vertical appeared to be in the middle of the fourth compartment.

  Aft. Starboard. Down. Just where they needed to go.

  “I checked the door,” Harrop continued. “It can’t be locked from the outside. I think the ship wants us to take a break, Staff.”

  “The ship wants us to take a break?”

  He shrugged.

  “And since when do we do what the ship wants?”

  “Pretty much from the moment the air lock blew,” Ryder snorted.

  “No one asked you.” Torin glanced down at her sleeve. 2343. Another two hours and seventeen minutes and it would be tomorrow. It had been a long day. Unfortunately... “If the bugs get to the air lock first, they’ll use it and then destroy it so that we can’t use it, trapping us on board.”

  Harveer Niirantapajee stared up at her from the corner of a couch. “Why would they do that?”

  “Every enemy they take out of the fight is one less they’ll have to face later.”

  “And you know this because?”

  “Because it’s what I’d do.”

  “If we are just talking to them...”

  “You’d say what?” Torin asked the younger scientist. “Why can’t we all just get along? Well, ignoring the immediate bug/ Federate language barrier, if we could get an answer to that, we wouldn’t be fighting this war. Or any other wars for that matter.”

  “Then why are we not using another air lock?” Presit demanded. “There are more than one. So this air lock are closer; let the bugs have it!”

  In answer, Torin held up her slate. “The maps we were given—before we knew we were heading into bugs—have all gone aft of our original position. If we start for another air lock now, we’ll be wandering blind. We have limited food and, more importantly, limited water.” A sweep of her arm directed everyone’s attention to the window. “Also, there’s a whole different battle going on out there and we need to get off this thing while the Berganitan is still able to protect the shuttle.” She swept an uncompromising gaze around the room. “Fifteen minutes, people, then we’re moving out.”

  “Do you want someone on the door, Staff Sergeant?” Harrop asked before any of the civilians could make another protest.

  He was so obvious, Torin grinned. “You lock it behind you when you came back in?”

  “I did.”

  “Then I think we can ignore it for fifteen minutes.” Crossing the room, she dropped to one knee by the end of the sofa where Tsui was sitting. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine, Staff.” He flexed the arm. “Bug just creased me; lots of blood but no real damage.”

  A gesture turned him in the seat so she could take a look at his field dressing. “Nice work. Who... What the hell is wrong with this thing?” Although the cushions looked soft, there was no give under her hand and the surface had the familiar slickness of the original walls.

  “I think Big Yellow doesn’t quite get it,” Nivry offered, dropping onto the other end of the sofa and rapping it with her knuckles. “The stuff behind the bar is one big molded piece, too. It’s like it took the visual part of the captain’s memory but nothing else.”

  “Probably didn’t want to go any deeper into the captain’s head,” Tsui snorted. “I mean, talk about a gross... invasion of an officer’s privacy.”

  “Nice save,” Torin told him, smacking his leg lightly as she straightened. The chemical burn had been neutralized before it breached the integrity of Jynett’s suit—given the amount of damage it had done, without the suit it would have gone right through her arm. Huilin’s light receptors were beginning to reopen. Dursinski was complaining of a charley horse. Captain Travik’s condition seemed unchanged. All things considered, they were in pretty good shape.

  A full circuit of the room brought her to the window. Coincidence only that Ryder was standing by it, arms folded, looking out.

  “I don’t see any more fighters,” he said as she stopped beside him.

  “There.” Torin pointed at a distant moving point of light. “And there. At this distance and at their speeds, they’re hard to spot unless you know what you’re looking for.”

  One of the points flared suddenly.

  “Saw that,” Ryder said softly. “Any idea if it was us or them?”

  “Them.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I don’t.” She could feel his gaze on the side of her face but she kept her own eyes locked on the stars. “So as far as I’m concerned, it’s always them.”

  * * *

  “Shylin!”

  The lieutenant kept her attention on her screen as the Jade flipped one eighty to come up behind an enemy fighter. “I see him.”

  “Then you think maybe you could do something about him?” Although there was no way to tell for certain, Lieutenant Commander Sibley thought there were bugs flying the fighters as well as bugs inside Big Yellow. They flew with a certain style that suggested non-binocular vision.

  “Give me a minute, he’s jamming the targeting computer.”

  “And isn’t that the reason I bring you along on these little outings?”

  “I thought it was for my witty repar... Got it! PGM away and... Sib, he’s shooting back!”

  Sibley slipped the Jade sideways and down. “Looks like his bug buddy’s taking out our ordnance.”

  “He’s shooting at it; hasn’t hit it yet.”

  “B7 this is B8, I’ve got a double tail wagging; you think you could get one of them?”

  “On our way.” Leaving their smart bomb to its own devices, Sibley pulsed full lower thrusters. “Ready, Shy...”

  They popped straight up a fast hundred meters. Full upper thrusters to kill momenteum. Energy burst back along the X-axis meeting the enemy missile dead on.

  The canopy polarized at the sudden flare, but by then the Jade had already moved forty-five degrees forward and down, away from the debris field.

  “Thanks, B7, we can handle the other one.”

  “You sure, Boom Boom?”

  “If you hadn’t just saved my ass. I’d find that question highly insulting. Looks like your guy’s getting away.”

  The Jade flipped in time to see their PGM taken out before reaching its targeted fighter. “Crap. Hey, bug buddy, those things are expensive! The Navy likes us to hit stuff with them!”

  “He can’t hear you.”

  “I think most bugs are roughly female.”

  “Whatever. Looks like she’s trying to get in under the guns.”

  “B9! Herd dogs!”

  “Roger, Seven.”

  The moment it had become apparent that Big Yellow wasn’t going to prevent fighters from either side crossing its axes, the flight commander had divided the squadrons into offense and defense—half to try and take out the Others’ ship, half to defend the Berganitan against enemy fighters.

  Simultaneously—or so close to it there was little point in clocking the difference—the Others had done the exact same thing.

  Black Star Squadron had drawn the defensive end of the stick.

  As Black Nine moved to intercept the enemy fighter, Sibley tucked in behind, bobbing and weaving to avoid being target locked. Together, they herded it toward the Berganitan’s big guns. At the last possible instant, it sped up, slid in and down, flipped, and nearly skimmed the surface of the Berganitan as it raced away, firing at both fighters, secure in the knowledge they couldn’t fire back without hitting their own ship.

  “Fuk. That bug can fly.”

  “Good thing she was more interested in hitting us than the Berg.” Sibley brought the Jade around. “At that range, even a bug couldn’t have miss... Boom Boom! You’re
double tailed again!”

  “Tell me something I don’t know! A little help?”

  “The second missile must’ve split.” Shylin’s fingers danced over the pad. “Get me closer.”

  “I’m trying. Boom Boom, level out so my gunner can lock!”

  “I level and I’m toasted.”

  “No. We take one, your gunner takes the other.”

  “He won’t have time to lock!”

  “Tail’s be right up your ass, he won’t need to lock. He can reach out and smack it away.”

  The pause took them forty meters in three directions.

  “B8 leveling. Just don’t fukking miss!”

  “Now, I’m insulted,” Shylin muttered. “Got the lock!”

  This time, they went right through the debris field. No way to tell for a long moment what or who the pieces had belonged to.

  Then something big hit them all along the portside.

  “B7! B7 this is B8, respond!”

  “I’m a little busy right now, Boom Boom.”

  “Looks like that serley piece of shit took out your port thrusters!”

  “You think?” As the galaxy spun wildly around him, Sibley locked his eyes on his instruments and fired the starboard thrusters, canceling their rotation and bringing the Jade more or less level—a position that lasted less than a heartbeat as Shylin fired one of the starboard guns and they were suddenly engulfed by another debris field. An unidentifiably soft object slapped into the canopy and stuck.

  “Damn it, Shy!” There were days when he’d kill for a little air resistance. This was clearly going to be one of them.

  “No choice; spin took us into the path of a bug. Us or them situation. I voted for us.”

  “That’s because you’re not flying this thing!” His fingers danced over the keyboards. “Give a two H’san burst on your PFU.”

  She squeezed the trigger. “One H’san, two H’san.” And then she released it. “Better?”

  “Much.” This time when he got them straightened they were more or less facing the Berganitan, both wingmen hovering close.

  “B7, this is Eight. You need a hand.”

  “No, thanks, Boom Boom.” Sibley glanced up at the body part stuck to the canopy. “Got one.”

  “B7, this is B9. Can you make it back to mother?”

  “It won’t be pretty but I think so.”

  “Sib...”

  “I see it. Boom Boom, we’ve got an enemy fighter moving in. Looks like they’re going to try and finish us off.”

  “I’m on it. B9, I’ll chase off the bug, you get Seven back to the ship.”

  “Roger, B8. Will tuck Seven in safe and sound.”

  “Unless you’d rather take out that second fighter.”

  “What sec... Fuk, Sibley, you’ve got eyes like a hurnatic.”

  “Yep, keep them in a jar on my desk. Don’t worry about us, we’ll get ourselves back. You go deal with the bad guys.”

  “Roger, B7. Dealing.”

  As both his wingmen peeled away, Sibley tried not to think of how vulnerable the loss of a quarter of his maneuvering thrusters made his Jade. They’d be sitting ducks if an enemy attacked while they were on their final approach to the launch bay.

  Something flared in the distance, the pattern unmistakable against the stars.

  Even without knowing, it hurt.

  “One of theirs?”

  Shylin checked her positioning data, her hair flattening. “No.”

  * * *

  “What I don’t understand,” General Morris growled, glaring at the long view of Big Yellow on the center screen, “is why you don’t launch another squadron, have them blow through the enemy fighters around the Berganitan, and then attack the Others’ ship with superior numbers.”

  “General, the moment we set to launch, the Others will know and they’ll do the same, blowing through our fighters, and in the end we’ll be in the same position only we’ll both be short a squadron. As long as Big Yellow’s holding us in place and keeping us from using our heavy ordnance, neither of us will commit all our fighters.”

  “The Others are an alien enemy, Captain. How can you possibly know what they’re thinking.”

  Captain Carveg’s teeth came together with an audible snap, but before she could answer, the flight commander turned from his station, eyes narrowed. “They’re fliers, sir.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that cognitive patterns follow function?”

  One shoulder rose and fell in a motion that might have been a shrug had it not been directed toward a full general. “How do you anticipate what the enemy will do on the ground, sir?”

  * * *

  “It looks bad. Chief. Black Seven’s coming in with no port thrusters and he’s coming in fast. Seems like they’re shooting at him out there and he can’t fire back without losing his approach. Which you, of course, already knew,” Tristir amended as the squadron’s senior NCO turned a basilisk stare on her. She hurriedly added, “Emergency crews are ready—the fire team and two corpsmen are standing by.”

  “What’s his ET...” A loud crunch and shudder that ran through the deck plate and up into his boots cut off the last letter. “Never mind.”

  It wasn’t the worst landing Chief Graham had ever seen— worst was reserved for those landings when a crippled Jade smashed home so hard it took out some of the crew waiting there trying to help it. Worst was reserved for the Jade whose pilot found out when they reached the docking bay that the braking thrusters were slag and they hit so hard the fighter went right through into the ship and they had to seal off the section to prevent decompression—pilot, gunner, half a dozen of the emergency crew, and two poor bastards who’d just been passing by dead.

  By those standards, this landing was merely messy.

  Four canisters of foam sealed the bay along Black Seven’s damaged side. Chief Graham popped the hatch the moment the compartment had been repressurized and entered in time to see Lieutenant Commander Sibley climbing out of his pod refusing the corpsman’s offer of help.

  “We sucked a little smoke, but we’re fine. Aren’t we fine, Lieutenant?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Shylin crawled from the rear section, eyes still watering, hair flat against her head. “We’re fine.”

  The corpsman folded her arms. “You still have to go to medical, sirs.”

  “Not a problem, we know the... Chief!”

  “Lieutenant Commander Sibley.” Chief Graham crossed the bay and squatted by the Jade’s damaged side.

  “So, how fast do you think you can get it fixed?”

  He straightened slowly and turned to glare at the pilot. “How fast can I get it fixed?”

  “Well, yeah, there’s...”

  “How fast can I get it fixed? You didn’t scratch the paint, sir; you had your port thrusters blown away and you’re leaking enough radiation to scramble sperm you haven’t thought of spilling yet. Get to decontamination, then get to medical, and stop being so goddamned anxious to get back out there and get yourself killed!”

  Sibley opened his mouth, took a closer look at the chief’s face and closed it again. Gathering up his gunner, he headed for the hatch. As it closed behind them. Chief Graham sighed.

  “Would you fukking look at that; they also scratched the paint.”

  TWELVE

  “CC Hydroponics Garden, Paradise Station. It was the first HpG I’d ever seen—blew me away that you could grow things without dirt.” Torin leaned over the familiar/subtly wrong railing, and stared up at the central column with its rings of plants’ roots hanging down in nutrient sprays, growing tips supported by fine filaments. Six levels high, it was an aesthetic design, not a practical one. The shallow ramp that circled the outside of the atrium was also edged with plants—the greens were too uniform to be real, but she had to give Big Yellow an “A” for effort.

  “And you were worried about what would come out of your head,” Ryder murmured by her left ear. “Me, I knew it couldn’t all be death and destruction.” />
  Torin looked just far enough over her shoulder to meet his gaze and asked flatly, “How?”

  “Well, it’s... uh...”

  Behind them, a Marine snickered.

  Pivoting on one heel, Torin swept her gaze over the gathered Recon team. “Listen up, people, we need to go down a level and this looks like the only chance we’re going to get. Huilin, eyes?”

  He squeezed them tightly shut and opened them again. The right looked darker than the left. “About seventy percent. Maybe seventy-five.”

  “Stay in the middle of the march. Harrop, your squad takes point. Keep alert; at the bottom of the ramp you’ll be in a park of sorts and there’s about two dozen places the bugs could be shooting from on that level alone. You hear or smell anything that could be bugs, you assume it is. Heer, don’t eat that. It’s not a real gitern, it’s a part of the ship.”

  The engineer looked sheepishly down at the fruit in his hand. “Ship’s partly organic, Staff.”

  “And it could be trying to get you to ingest it as a way to infiltrate the Confederation. You have no idea what you’d be shitting.”

  “You really think so?”

  “No. Get rid of it.”

  Heer sighed and tossed it back into the tank with its parent plant.

  A quick glance at Werst showed the other Krai staring challengingly back at her. His jaw might have been moving. Nothing she could do about it now if he’d eaten something and, besides, if it came down to a one on one, Big Yellow against a Krai digestive tract, smart money would be on the colon.

  “At the bottom of the ramp, we head across the atrium on a diagonal. Keep moving until we’re out of all this cover. Maintain PCU silence unless there’s no other option, and keep the dialogue to a minimum. We clear?” Heads nodded. “Orla, get your goddamned helmet on.” The patch of fuschia amidst the gray disappeared. “Go.”

  The back of Torin’s neck crawled as they moved down the ramp. The public HpGs were always crowded. There should have been hundreds of people, dozens of races, every size and age, all milling about in a space that now held fourteen Marines, two scientists, a reporter, and a salvage operator. She should have been able to smell a dozen things but mostly the gardens. There should have been noise.