Valour's Choice

by Tanya Huff

  As she approached, reinforced bootheels stamping emphasis into the landing field, she saw her reptilian counterpart moving in on a parallel course. Fully aware of what the other was about to do, and under no obligation of rank to make nice, they ignored one another.

  Torin stopped a body-length back of the officers in time to hear the Silsviss say, “...no fear of the crowdsss. The citizensss in and around Shurlantec are very much in favor of usss joining with the Confederation.”

  And did that mean, Torin wondered, that citizens in other areas are less in favor? When the lieutenant turned toward her, she stiffened to attention. “The platoon is in position, sir.”

  “Thank you, Staff Sergeant.”

  “Ret Assslar.” The Silsviss NCO taped the metal band near the end of his tail sharply against the pavement. “Our troopsss are likewissse posssitioned.”

  The translation program left names and titles alone but changed everything else to its closest Confederation equivalent. Torin didn’t know why it had decided to maintain the elongated sibilants, but she suspected all that hissing was going to get old pretty damned quick.

  Ret Aslar acknowledged the information, then turned back to Lieutenant Jarret. “We will, no doubt, have further opportunity to ssspeak at the Embasssy, Lieutenant.” His tail hit the pavement much as his NCO’s had. “Until then.”

  * * *

  “He’s definitely done diplomatic work before,” Jarret murmured as they moved toward their position.

  “He, sir?”

  “Ret Aslar. You can only develop his skill with small talk crammed into a room full of strangers who’ve been told to be polite.”

  “How could you tell he was male, sir?”

  “Smell. The big ones are male. All the soldiers are male.”

  Only a di’Taykan could scent the sex of species not even in the same phylum. Torin made a mental note to keep an eye on Haysole, who seemed determined to be more di’Taykan than most.

  “First impressions, Staff?”

  It took her a moment to realize he meant the Silsviss. “They look like they fought to get to where they are and have no intention of giving any of it up.”

  Lieutenant Jarret shot her a confused glance. “Any of what?”

  “Of who and what they are.”

  “The Confederation never asks that.”

  “When was the last time you went out without your masker?” When he opened his mouth to answer, she added, “In an area not controlled by the di’Taykan. When you get right down to it, sir, the Confederation is essentially an agreement to compromise, and I don’t get the impression the Silsviss play well with others.”

  “You got all that...” His nod somehow managed to take in both the civil servants and the soldiers. “...from watching this lot stand around for an hour?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  His eyes lightened as he glanced down at her. “So staff sergeants really do have super powers?”

  Torin had been about to explain that survivors learned from experience to recognize those species likely to follow up their first shot with a second and a third but decided instead just to answer his question, responding to his teasing smile with as bland an expression as she could manage.

  “Yes, sir.”

  * * *

  Outside the high walls of the landing field, huge, fernlike trees not only made it impossible to see more than a few meters from the road but explained why the city had been so difficult to spot from space. Torin only hoped that the defense satellites were as good as tech thought they were because should the Others break through, take Silsvah, and attempt to enslave the Silsviss, it would be a nasty job taking all these overgrown bits of it back.

  Not that the Silsviss would be particularly easy to enslave, she acknowledged, listening to the soft rhythm of claws impacting with pavement.

  They hadn’t gone far when the burned concrete smell of the landing began to clear from her nose and Torin got her first unimpeded whiff of Silsvah. It reminded her of hot summer afternoons spent turning the compost pile, of anaerobic bacteria, and of scrubbing the algae out of the water troughs. It reminded her of one of the many reasons she’d left the farm.

  The crowds lining the roads hissed and pointed and occasionally clusters of them would break into high-pitched ululating cries. It didn’t sound friendly, but Torin was willing to allow that Ret Aslar knew his people better than she did— H’san cheering for the home team sounded like they were being skinned alive. Although some of the platoon were looking just a bit twitchy by the time the parade came to a stop at the edge of a wide plaza, they managed to form up without incident.

  Taking her place at the rear, behind the three sergeants, Torin made a note of rigid shoulders and flattened hair and hoped that whatever was about to happen wouldn’t take long.

  They were facing an enormous colonnaded building set off from the plaza by a set of steps broad enough to be used as a graduated dais. The two groups of diplomats stood between their military escorts and the stairs. The media occupied the outer edges of the first two sections and standing on the top were those Silsviss too high ranking to be bothered with a trip to the landing field. A male and three females, judging by size alone, or a large male and three smaller males, or two smaller males and a female, or two females and a smaller male or... Now this is a species that could use a little pink and blue. The actual genders were of no immediate importance, Torin just liked to know. They wore robes—the first she’d seen—of some pale, diaphanous fabric that glittered in the sunlight and all four exuded nearly visible arrogance.

  At least half the media seemed to be pointing their recording devices upward, and everyone seemed to be waiting for something to happen.

  The big male at the top of the stairs stepped forward.

  Inflated a brilliant yellow throat pouch.

  And roared.

  Shit! Torin couldn’t hear anything over the pounding of her heart, but she saw at least three weapons snap up into firing position and her own muscles trembled with an instinctive need to respond. Lieutenant Jarret stepping forward brought her back to herself, and she marched around to take up his vacated position, thankful for the chance to move. This, at least, had been covered in the briefing.

  “At some point in the ceremony we’ll be asked for our battle honors.” Lieutenant Jarret had gazed earnestly at his sergeants as he passed on the bare details of the day. “Staff Sergeant Kerr will take the platoon while I answer.”

  If it turned out that the lieutenant had known just what form that question would take and hadn’t told her, Torin planned on kicking his aristocratic derriere right back to Ventris Station where he could repeat the course on keeping his NCOs informed.

  Standing on the first step, he raised his head and began. “We are of Sh’quo Company...”

  He clearly knew he couldn’t match volume for volume so he played with tone, answering the heat of the Silsviss challenge with cold. As he detailed the company’s history, his subtext clearly said: We have nothing we need prove to you. Torin was impressed. She could feel the mood of the platoon behind her change, until, when he finished speaking, the Silsviss were in the least amount of danger they’d been in since the Marines had landed.

  Then he spun on one heel and walked back to his platoon.

  At that moment, they were his.

  Pity it won’t last, Torin thought returning to her original position.

  The rest of the ceremony maintained a more conventional tone. Two of the three high ranking females—or smaller males— gave speeches of welcome, the two ambassadors reciprocated, and finally the third of the smaller Silsviss at the top of the stairs announced they were giving over an entire wing of the Cirsarvas for the visitors to use while they were in Shurlantec.

  Then the press moved in to take one final image of their leaders standing beside aliens from the stars.

  * * *

  “Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Ressk grunted, kicking off his boots and stretching his toes.

&
nbsp; “Speak for yourself.” Mysho pulled off her tunic and threw it over a stool. “I feel like I’ve been cooked.”

  “Ready for seasoning and serving,” one of the other di’Taykan groaned.

  Stripped down to his masker hanging from a thong around his neck, Haysole fell back onto a bunk. “Look at the bright side, these mattresses are wide enough for two.”

  “Species with tails need more room,” Corporal Hollice said, coming in from the hall. “You should see the design of the crapper. It’s not just the tail either,” he went on, moving out of the way so the curious could go take a look, “they’re up on their toes so their legs bend high, like the Dornagain’s.”

  “You an’ Kleers are gonna need a fukking stool,” Juan snickered to Ressk when he returned. “Good thing there’s so many of them around.”

  “Tails,” Hollice said again, one hand absently rubbing Mysho’s shoulder as he spoke. “You can’t use a chair with a back when you’ve got a tail.”

  “So, corporal got-all-the-answers, how do you explain that the showers are bang on identical to the fukking showers back up on the vacuum pack?”

  “They’ve never been used; I’d say someone sent down the specs and the Silsviss built them special for us.”

  “Must’ve smelled you coming, Juan.” Grinning, Mysho stepped away from the heavy gunner’s swing and backed right into Binti’s arms.

  The other woman inhaled deeply and her steadying hand moved slowly around the di’Taykan’s waist. “I think you need to turn up your masker,” she murmured, face buried in the moving strands of pale hair.

  “Unfortunately, I think I need to take a cold shower.” Sighing, she untangled herself. “It’s the heat. I’ve got to bring my body temperature down, or I’ll keep over-emitting.”

  Binti snorted and slapped Haysole on a bare thigh. “So how come the pheromone kid here isn’t any more enticing than usual?” she asked over his protest.

  “I don’t know—maybe I’m from farther north, maybe the recruiting sergeant checked his psych profile and gave him an industrial strength masker, or maybe...” Her tone grew distinctly dry, “...because not all members of the same species react to heat the same way.”

  “Or maybe,” Juan continued before anyone else could respond, “your climate controls are fukked.” He held out his hand. “L’me look at your tunic while you shower.”

  “We’re on duty.”

  “So get permission from the sergeant—just do it in your shirtsleeves so I can look at your tunic. It’s not doin’ you any fukking good and anyway, the regs say dress c’s are uniform of the day unless on parade or on guard. What?” he added when everyone in earshot turned to stare. “You never read in the crapper?”

  * * *

  “Just great, if her climate controls go...”

  “She’ll be miserable, but she’ll survive.” Hands on her hips, Trey turned a slow circle in the middle of the small room assigned to the NCOs. “I can’t get over how quiet everything sounds in here.”

  “Old building, thick walls,” Torin told her shortly. “Power grids are all surface mounted, so this place is probably at least a hundred years old. And I wasn’t thinking so much of Mysho but of the effect on the rest of the platoon.”

  “So they’ll be miserable on duty and in the sack off duty, but they’ll survive, too. Haysole’ll probably consider it license to turn his masker off at every opportunity, but other than that I don’t see much of a problem.” Fuschia eyes narrowed. “You don’t usually worry this much about the di’Taykan. This have something to do with the lieutenant?”

  “Like what?” Torin asked, wondering if that last night of liberty was finally coming home to roost.

  “Like a little sucking up to the species in charge.”

  Hoping the relief didn’t show, Torin raised both brows. “In charge?” she repeated with heavy emphasis.

  Trey grinned. “Good point. Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about an overheated masker. Considering what we usually face eight hours into a planetfall, it’s minor.”

  Torin grunted an agreement and dropped onto a stool, grabbing the edge of the desk just barely in time to stop herself from tipping over backward. Chairs with no backs, desks with no brains, and a climate that clung—all inconveniences that could be ignored under fire but under the current circumstances... “So is it a sign of pure intentions that this ‘embassy’ is pretty much completely indefensible or have we deliberately been given the weaker position?”

  “Or are you completely paranoid?”

  “Just doing my job.”

  “Hey, Torin.” One hand on the heavily carved and overly ornate wooden door, Mike Glicksohn leaned into the room. “Sled’s finally here from the VTA.”

  “About time. Hold down the fort,” she tossed over her shoulder at Trey as she headed out into the hall. “I’m going for my slate. And you,” she threw at Glicksohn as she passed, “get a work detail together and get everything unloaded before the Silsviss offer to help.”

  The two sergeants exchanged a speaking glance as Torin’s footsteps faded out toward the courtyard.

  “Is she completely paranoid?” Glicksohn asked after a moment.

  Trey shrugged. “Apparently, it’s her job.”

  * * *

  “Hey, did any of you guys notice that some of the Silsviss soldiers inflated those throat pouch things when that big guy on the step roared?”

  “Not me.” Ressk wrapped his feet around the bar at the end of his bunk, toe joints cracking. “I was too busy trying not to overload the moisture sensors in my uniform.”

  Frowning, Juan looked up from the sensor array exposed in the armpit seam of Mysho’s tunic. “What the fuk does that mean?”

  “It means he was trying not to piss himself,” Binti explained from her bunk. “Me, I was just glad my brain came back online before my finger squeezed the trigger.” She reached up and stroked the stock of her KC. “And civilians wonder why we’re not hardwired into our weapons. Mama does like having her baby this close, though.”

  Each bunk had a weapons rack built in. Or what looked like a weapons rack. The platoon had decided, individually and collectively, that they didn’t much care what the Silsviss used it for.

  A sudden cheer from the dice game in the back corner drew everyone’s attention.

  Corporal Hollice ducked his head so that he could look through the line of bunks at the players. “Hey, Drake, you win back that fifty you owe me yet?”

  “As if!”

  “Then keep it down before one of the sergeants shows up.”

  A Human, his skin only a little lighter than Binti’s, rose up out of his crouch and flicked a good-natured finger in the corporal’s direction. “Why don’t I owe you this, too?” Then he froze. “Or not.”

  The Marines closer to the door turned to see what had caught his attention.

  Sergeant Glicksohn smiled. “You’re not gambling back there, are you, Drake?”

  “Uh, no, Sarge.”

  “Glad to hear it. Outside, now. The sled’s here from the VTA, and it needs unloading.” His smile broadened. “Bring your friends. And if you...” A finger jabbed at Haysole. “...aren’t back in uniform in three seconds and heading up to the sled, I’m coming over there to kick your bare butt. You’re standing down, you’re not off duty.”

  “But, Sarge, it’s hot.”

  “So.”

  “The Silsviss aren’t wearing clothes.”

  “Grow a tail and we’ll talk.” As the dice players filed past him, he frowned thoughtfully. “In the interests of expediency, you three...” The frown lit on Hollice, Juan, and Ressk. “...can join the detail, too.”

  “Aw, Sarge, I’m fixing Mysho’s fukking tunic.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Cooling system’s fukked. She’s getting too warm for her masker to handle.”

  “That’s just what we need. All right, Mashona, up top in his place.”

  Binti dropped off her bunk, muttering under her breat
h just low enough for the sergeant to ignore.

  “What’re we unloading, Sarge?” Ressk asked, shoving his boots back on.

  “Personal effects and rations,” Glicksohn told him. “Not that it matters, you’d be unloading it regardless.”

  “So you find out what the Silsviss drink for fun yet, Sarge?” Ressk asked as they started up the stairs to the courtyard, side by side.

  “Beer. Local brewery supplies the army with its own brands. There’s a light and a dark and a green.”

  “Green?”

  Glicksohn grinned. “Maybe they’re Irish.”

  “Irish?”

  “Skip it. Alcohol content’s low by our standards and since there’s nothing in any of it that’ll hurt us, once we get used to the taste, we’ll be able to drink the Silsviss under the table. Officers and ranking civilians’ll be drinking a distilled, fruit liqueur that packs more of a punch but smells like socks after a month in combat boots and will build up toxins in both Human and di’Taykan. You Krai, as usual, can handle it.”

  Following close behind, Hollice and Binti exchanged an identical, questioning glance.

  “We’ve only been here a few hours, and we spent most of that time playing toy soldiers. How did the sergeant find that stuff out so fast?”

  Hollice shrugged. “It’s a gift. Let’s just hope he never uses it for evil.”

  “Half the time, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Binti muttered, shaking her head.

  * * *

  Although the door was open, the lieutenant wasn’t alone. Moving quietly across the wide hall—an action made more difficult by the steel-reinforced heels of her dress boots—Torin paused in the open door. Rank had gotten Lieutenant Jarret a pair of adjoining rooms on the upper floor. Out of the half dozen available, he chose two at the top of the central stairs and Torin had to admit she liked the symbolism. Enemies of the Confederation would have to go through him to get to the civilians.

  She liked the symbolism of the doctor and the corpsmen setting up shop directly across the hall a little less.

  The room the lieutenant had decided to use as his headquarters was huge, painted a deep, under-the-canopy green, and mostly empty. It held what passed for a desk on Silsvah, a long, low table along one wall, a number of stools of varying heights, the lieutenant, and a Silsviss male. At least Torin assumed it was a male; it was difficult to tell the genders apart without either a size comparison or an inflated throat pouch.