The Better Part of Valor

by Tanya Huff

  “Everyone shut up.”

  “Torin, we don’t…”

  “You, too, Ryder.” She tapped her fingers against the edge of her slate and worked through the variables again. It might work. It should work. “All right.” A deep breath and she straightened, shaking off the last couple of hours. “Harveer, can Johnston use your slate to open the lock?”

  The elderly scientist peered from Torin to the engineer and back. “He’s a bright boy. Probably.”

  “Good. Jynett, Orla; take the civilians down to the escape pods. If worse comes to worst; launch all three of them.”

  “No.” Her fur dull, Presit pulled away from Gytha’s grip, showing a hint of her old animation for the first time since Guimond died. “I are not moving away from a story. I are not even hearing the other half of…” When words failed her, she waved a tiny hand toward Torin’s helmet. “…that.”

  “Ma’am, if it’s a choice between having you carried away from your story or watching your eyeballs explode as you spontaneously decompress, I know what I’d choose.” The pause lasted just long enough for Presit to begin to bristle. “If you’ll go to the pods, you can take Private Frii’s helmet with you and listen to everything on group channel.”

  “Uh, Staff…”

  “She deserves to get the end of the story.” Torin scooped up the helmet and offered it to the reporter. “Well?”

  “I don’t think eyeballs explode during spontaneous decompression,” Johnston muttered away from his microphone when the civilians were safely out of sight.

  Torin flicked her mike up. “Who cares? Get the lock pressurized and the door open.”

  Her slate began a steady hum.

  “The rest of you stay where you are. Werst, you’re with me.”

  The hum stopped.

  * * *

  They stared at each other over the captain’s body.

  “You refuse,” Torin told him, her voice so low he leaned forward to hear, “and we use the suit without the captain. You agree, and we may be able to make him the kind of hero General Morris needs.”

  “We’d be doing this for the general?”

  “Fuk him. We’d be doing this to keep Parliament from tying the Corps’ hands. Be nice to achieve something worthwhile today,” she added when he frowned. Be nice if we could salvage something from Guimond’s death. But she didn’t have to say that out loud.

  Werst’s ridges clamped shut. “If it goes wrong?”

  “I’ll take the heat.”

  “Fuk that, too. And the rest of the team?”

  “They just have to play dumb.”

  He snorted. “Shouldn’t be too hard for most of them.” All at once, he grinned, showing an ivory slash of teeth. “Hope I can get the serley accent right.”

  Her own teeth clenched together, Torin pushed down on the captain’s jaw and reached into his mouth. It was beginning to cool. She found the ridge that ran under his left molars and activated the implant.

  Microphone down, Werst bent over the captain’s mouth, their lips almost touching in a parody of tenderness.

  *No! I will not allow one of my Marines to take that kind of risk. I will…*

  “…be the one to get that tube.”

  “But, sir, you’ve been unconscious…”

  “Krai are tougher than you think, Staff Sergeant.”

  “Yes, sir, but…”

  “Don’t argue with me, Staff Sergeant Kerr. I’m the one giving the orders. I’m in command here, not you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They flipped up their mikes at the same time and sat back.

  “Nailed the accent,” Torin told him, pushing the captain’s jaw shut. “We lost the implant after the I will but that was plenty. It’s only important that Presit hear the whole speech, we just need the general to believe he’s alive. Get him sealed up and ready to go.” She rocked back on her heels, stood, turned, and found, as she knew she would, every pair of eyes in the passage locked on her.

  Moving deliberately, so they all could see her do it, she flipped her mike back down. Long silences would not help the story. “Huilin, get out of your HE suit. There’s nothing to tie off to in the air lock, and Captain Travik wants me to anchor him.”

  Huilin’s eyes were dark and under the edge of his helmet his hair was in constant motion. “The captain’s regained consciousness?”

  Torin slowly raked her gaze over the Marines, her expression silencing any other questions. “You heard him. He seems to feel it’s his duty to get the tube. He also seems to think if he’s going to risk his ass, so should I. Get out of the suit. Now.”

  Her voice moved his hands to the seals . “Why…”

  “Because it’s the only one I have a hope in hell of fitting in. Dursinski’s too short and Jynett’s integrity has been compromised. Move it, Marine. Time’s wasting.”

  The suit puddled around his legs. Huilin glanced toward the vertical that led to the escape pods and back to Torin.

  He knew.

  They all knew. Although Torin suspected the whispering she’d heard had been Nivry filling Dursinski in.

  They’d known her for eight days in Susumi space and for thirty hours on Big Yellow. They trusted her to get them through battles alive, but trusting her in this was a whole different ball game.

  “It’s my suit, Staff,” Huilin said, at last. “I should go.”

  “Did I ask for volunteers? Just give me the damned suit.”

  I won’t involve you lot any more than I have to.

  They heard the subtext. It echoed around the suddenly quiet passageway so loudly, Torin was afraid Presit would hear it one level down.

  After a long moment, Johnston made the decision for all of them. “I’ll have the lock open by the time the captain’s ready, Staff Sergeant Kerr.”

  “Good. And I’ll need someone’s rope.” She stripped off her combats and held out her hand for Huilin’s suit.

  * * *

  *Torin, what the fuk is going on in there?*

  The sudden blaring of her implant made her drop the captain’s body. It was a damned good thing he only had to sound alive. Hauling him back up again, she half turned and nodded to Werst.

  “Close the inner door, Lance Corporal Johnston.”

  Johnston scowled in Werst’s direction, but all he said was, “Closing the inner door, Captain.”

  *Torin? Answer me, damn it. Captain Travik is not seriously heading out to save the day? He was a fukking vegetable when I left.*

  She tongued her implant on and subvocalized so the suit mike wouldn’t pick it up. *Trust me.*

  *Trust you?* The heavy sigh came through loud and clear. *Do I have a fukking choice?*

  *No. Stay on group channel.* And then aloud, “Ryder, Captain Travik and I will be working on command channel for clarity. Were you given the codes?”

  “I have the codes. What I don’t have is all day; move your collective ass.”

  “Keep your goddamned pants on,” she muttered, watching the panel of lights as the air lock depressurized. Which was not an image she needed. Stuffed into an HE suit a di’Taykan had been wearing for hours had her so horny that Ryder’s voice alone was nearly enough to overload the circuitry. The series of lights Johnston had told her to watch for flashed green, and she laid her glove against the pressure pad.

  The door slid open the way a thousand air lock doors had slid open all her life.

  Moving carefully, she centered herself and Captain Travik in the opening and set her boot magnets at full power.

  “I see you.” A short pause, and he added, “Both of you.”

  Torin smiled and adjusted her grip on the captain. And thank you for playing.

  It was good to see the stars.

  “Torin, Sibley says you might want to think of hurrying. Bugs are moving in.”

  “Roger that.” She resisted the urge to look for the bugs. It wouldn’t make a damned bit of difference if she knew where they were.

  With the bulk of Big Yellow behin
d her, the Promise looked absurdly small. The floating end of the universal lock was smaller still.

  With one end of the rope tied around the captain’s waist and the other around hers, Torin flipped him over so his boots were pointing toward the universe and threw the already stiffening body toward the tube. Her aim didn’t need to be exact. When he was closer to the tube than Big Yellow, she punched his boot codes into her slate. Part of her job was ensuring that the captain’s equipment functioned properly.

  Magnetic soles worked fine.

  * * *

  “What the sanLi are they doing?”

  Sibley took a look straight up through the canopy. “Putting their best foot forward? Booting up the air lock? Proving they’ve got sole?”

  “You done?” Shylin sighed.

  “For now.”

  “Well, I don’t know about soul, but the little guy’s got balls the size of…Bugs!”

  The Jade slid to the left, dropped six meters, and fired as a shot streaked by their portside. A touch on the upper right thruster flipped them around. Another touch on the lower left stopped the spin.

  “Target’s taking evasive action.”

  “Let it. We’ve got two more closing on the Promise.” He goosed the Jade up and in. “Ryder, you want to remind your Marines they’re not alone in the universe?”

  * * *

  “No shit. You think that’s why people keep shooting at us?”

  All Ryder could see was the middle bulge of the tube, but the instruments showed the end had nearly reached Big Yellow. “Could be your sparkling personality.”

  “Mine?” Torin wondered. “Or the Corps’?”

  “Is there a difference?” A bug fighter streaked past almost too quickly to identify. It was amazing how the old panic, the panic he could feel bubbling and roiling beneath the forced, teeth clenched, surface calm, kept new panic at bay. At least if he got blown to component atoms by something that looked like a cross between an ant and a cockroach, he’d die alone in his ship.

  His one-man ship.

  Alone.

  The way it was supposed to be.

  “Securing first point of UAL and manually activating the seal. You sure this thing’ll stretch to fit?”

  Torin’s voice helped.

  “The brochure said ‘one size fits all.’”

  “Yeah, well let’s hope it wasn’t written by the same moron who sizes lingerie.”

  A sudden vision of what Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr wore under her combats caused an involuntary smirk. “You never struck me as the lingerie type.”

  “I have hidden depths.”

  “That, I never doubted.” The UAL controls greenlined. “We’ve got a seal.” He stared down at his hand on the panel. An inch to the right were the main thruster controls. He wouldn’t even have to move his arm.

  “Craig?”

  And it came as no surprise she could read his thoughts in the silence.

  “Tell your people to pressurize.” He watched his fingers curl into a fist. “I’ll deploy the salvage pen.”

  “Roger. I’m switching back to group channel. Any time you think you can’t do this, contact me.”

  “I can do this.”

  “Glad to hear it. Kerr out.” Torin propped the captain up against the inside of the lock and stepped in front of him to keep him from falling. “Marines, we are leaving. Johnston, get this thing pressurized. I want wounded and civilians moving, and moving fast, the instant the door opens.”

  * * *

  “I’m sorry, General, we still can’t raise Captain Travik.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s not answering, sir.”

  General Morris placed both hands on the edge of the console and leaned into the comm officer’s space. “I heard him not ten minutes ago!”

  “Yes, sir. But he’s not answering now.”

  “If you’re still being blocked, why don’t you blast the signal through that salvage ship the way you did with the first shuttle? It’s practically sitting right there on the hull.”

  “We can’t, sir. It’s a civilian vessel and its comm unit isn’t set up to handle that kind of amplification.”

  “Why the hell not? Why wasn’t it set up before it launched?”

  “We didn’t have time, sir.”

  “So you’re telling me I still can’t speak to the officer commanding?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Goddamned Navy.” General Morris rocked back on his heels and fixed the comm officer with a basilisk glare. “Fine. If you can’t raise the captain’s implant, I suppose it’s too much to hope you can raise the staff sergeant’s—so get me Ryder,” he continued without waiting for an answer. “Unless your tin can and piece of string don’t reach that far!”

  * * *

  “I’m a little busy, General.” Ryder swiveled his chair around so that he was staring at the air lock. “What do you want?”

  “What do I want? I want a full report on the situation!”

  Both inner and outer doors were still closed. The lock itself was unpressurized. He was alone in the cabin. A full report to General Morris would keep things that way for a good long time.

  “Ryder! Goddamn it, answer me!”

  One hand reached back for the comm controls.

  “I think you’re forgetting that I don’t work for you, mate.”

  * * *

  “Remember, the ship’s AG field stops at the outer hull. I want one Marine to a civilian, one helping Tsui, two carrying each of the stretchers. You drop your baggage, you grab an armload of suits, you haul ass back to Big Yellow.” A shadow flickered over the thin membrane of the tube. No way to tell if it was a bug fighter or a Jade. “I want a minimum of time spent in this worm casing.” And what was taking the goddamned pressurizing so long?

  “Staff Sergeant Kerr, we are not being carried…”

  “Yes, you are. We don’t have time for sloppy maneuvering in zero gee.”

  “Captain Travik! I are asking you…”

  “The captain can’t answer you, ma’am.” Torin glanced back at the corpse. “Saving all our lives took everything he had. He’s drifting in and out of consciousness again.”

  * * *

  “Black Seven, this is Red Three. We’ve got bugs heading toward your position.”

  “So stop them,” Shylin muttered, her fingers dancing across her targeting data.

  “They appear curious rather than hostile. We see no attack patterns.”

  “Yet.”

  “Roger, Red Three. B7 out.” Sibley took the Jade down over the tube, around and under the deploying salvage pen. “You know, Shy, you’re starting to be a real downer.”

  * * *

  Clutching her helmet in both hands, Presit surged forward as the air lock door opened, took one look at eighteen meters of ribbed tube stretching out to the Promise’s lock, and her toes clamped down on the edge of the deck.

  “I are not…”

  Before Torin could speak, Nivry grabbed the reporter from behind. “Yeah, you are.”

  Three long strides took her to the edge of the hull, and a graceful dive—made less graceful than di’Taykan norm by an armload of squirming Katrien—took them both out of the AG field and to the Promise just as the outer lock opened. She caught herself on the edge of the lock and practically threw a vehemently protesting Presit into Ryder’s arms.

  Torin grinned at his expression and began to strip out of Huilin’s suit.

  Nivry back. Huilin and Gytha.

  Huilin back. Orla and the harveer.

  Two shadows passed over the tube almost too fast to register.

  “Keep it moving, people.”

  Orla back.

  Heer and Werst with Tsui on the first stretcher, Tsui protesting all the way that he could manage without a foot in zero gee.

  “Tsui.”

  He tilted his head enough to see her around Heer.

  “Make sure nobody touches Mr. Ryder’s stuff and,” she raised her voice loud enough to
be heard inside the Promise, “gag that reporter if she doesn’t shut the fuk up!”

  The torrent of Katrien protests shut off.

  Tsui grinned into the sudden silence. “You got it, Staff.”

  Still standing at the outer edge of his air lock, Ryder tossed a smile in Torin’s direction. Torin, in turn, tossed Huilin his suit. And blamed any visceral reactions on residual pheromones.

  Frii.

  Of the serious casualties, only Harrop remained on Big Yellow.

  * * *

  “They’re going for the tube, Sib!”

  “I’m on them!”

  A hard burst with both left and right upper thrusters, intended to drop the Jade down behind the bug, put them into a spin. Sibley swore, corrected, and raced to intercept.

  “What happened?”

  “Forgot about the new lefties. I hit them too hard.”

  Fingers gripping the edge of the panel, right thumb a whisper above the fire control, Shylin shook her head. “We may not get a lock.”

  “We have to.”

  Her hair flipped forward. “You got anything encouraging to say that’s not a cliché?”

  “At this hour? I doubt it.” He fought to get everything he could out of the Jade. “Goddamned bug is not getting away.”

  “Target has flipped one-eighty. She’s coming back at us, Sib.”

  “Good.” Teeth clenched, he headed the Jade right down the bug’s throat. “We’ll use less fuel catching her.”

  * * *

  One piece of the debris hit the Promise. The others passed to the left of the tube.

  “Son of a…! Torin!”

  Nivry, Orla, and the stretcher holding Harrop were between them, but there was no mistaking the terror now in Ryder’s voice.

  “This thing won’t take a direct hit from a thrown turd. If it punctures…”

  If it punctured with both air locks open, it would at the very least decompress the smaller ship, killing everyone on it and probably sucking two or three Marines into space before the emergency protocols closed the inner doors.

  She kept her own voice vaguely disinterested. “What do you suggest we do about it, Mr. Ryder?”

  Nivry and Orla had Harrop inside. She could see him now. More importantly, he could see her. When she locked her gaze to his and lifted a deliberate brow, he grinned and shook his head. “I suggest we don’t throw any turds.”