[Confederation 04] Valor's Trial

by Huff, Tanya

  The remaining arc of the pipe was smooth, unmarked metal. Torin ran her fingernails over it just to be sure. Metal. Not plastic. Past experience had taught her not to trust that particular shade of gray. Remembering that the hatches leading out of Big Yellow’s replica of the dirtside warehouse had looked and felt like metal didn’t help.

  “Gunny?”

  “Just feeling a little paranoid, Staff.”

  “Part of the job.”

  “That’s what they tell me.” Turning away from the pipe, she could see the stack of pallets where Harnett had slept. Fortunately, there were four of them, so there’d be three for her and Werst and Kyster with the top one left over—none of them would have to sleep directly on the same pallet Harnett had.

  There was little available to make his private quarters opulent, but he’d done what he could. Besides the bed, there were two other pallets folded into chairs, two water jugs—one of them clearly for pissing into—and a scattering of things that had to have been taken off incoming Marines.

  “Son of a fukking bitch . . .”

  “A little hard on his mother,” Torin heard Pole murmur as she ran for Harnett’s quarters. She hadn’t been mistaken. It was a slate. Impossible to tell whose or what it had on it but she felt better just holding it in her hand and, as much as she hated to admit it, she completely understood why Harnett had kept it close.

  “None of the tech works,” Pole reminded her, sinking down onto one of the chairs, breathing heavily. “It’s all been completely drained of power, and there’s no way to get it running again.”

  Torin just barely managed to keep herself from stroking the housingas she snapped the slate onto her vest. “If all we need is power, then there has to be a way to recharge.”

  “Because you say so, Gunny?”

  “Because the lights are running on something.”

  Pole glanced up at the high ceiling. “Can’t reach the lights.”

  “We can in the tunnels.”

  “All right, you can touch the lights, maybe even tap their power, how do you use it to recharge the slate?”

  “I have no idea,” Torin snorted. “I’m no tech. But there’s a hundred Marines gathered around this pipe; odds are good there’s one with the skills we need.”

  “A hundred Marines out of the hundreds of thousands available and you think those are good odds?”

  She smiled at him then. “I’ve had worse.”

  “Okay. But speaking of your power source, we need to get that second extra feeding started if we’re going to do it tonight. The lights won’t stay on much longer.” He stood, stepped forward, swayed, and would have fallen had Torin not caught him.

  Strange to hold a man with so little flesh on his bones, to feel the ridges of his spine, the blade of his hip. Craig was . . . muscular. Burly even. Heavy, working muscle she could test her own strength against. They’d have told him she was dead. They—everyone—believed the Others didn’t take prisoners.

  “Gunny?”

  She hurriedly schooled her expression. Pole’s tone had been too kind; her thoughts had to have been showing on her face. “Sorry.”

  “Not a problem.” His hands closed around her wrist, and she realized she still had an arm around his waist. “But we’re going to have to stop meeting like this or people will start to talk.”

  “Start?” Torin found a fairly believable laugh as she carefully released him. “I can’t get people to shut the fuk up . . .”

  “There are not being much of a story there.” Presit speared a piece of fruit out of her drink and popped it into her mouth. “The Others are having used a big weapon, and our side are having lost,” she continued after swallowing when Craig remained silent. “I are having seen the military vids, and the ground are being flat and glassy. Flat and glassy are not looking exciting on vids.”

  “And you think that’s all there is to the story, then?” Craig asked, using his beer bottle to make interlocking circles of condensation on the tabletop. “So the military word is dead set to you now; you never used to believe them.”

  The reporter shrugged, the motion sending highlights rippling once again through her dark fur. “The law are insisting they are giving full disclosure. So unless you are knowing a reason they are hiding something . . . ?”

  He didn’t. He looked around the bar, kept dim because of the number of Katrien at the tables and in the booths, and saw no reasons there either. “You used to believe they were always hiding something.”

  “I are knowing what you are doing,” she sighed. “You are wanting to go and be seeing where Gunnery Sergeant Kerr are dying . . .”

  “I’m not . . .”

  “. . . but the military are not allowing civilians to the site. Full disclosure laws are meaning they are not keeping me away, so you are coming to me.” She speared another piece of fruit and paused with it halfway to her mouth. “I are owing you a little bit . . .” Thumb and forefinger on her other hand were close enough together that the silvered claws nearly touched. “. . . for the story on the gray plastic alien, and I are willing to do this for you if you are finding me a story there. So far, you are wasting my time.” The piece of fruit disappeared behind sharp white teeth with a bit more emphasis than Craig thought was merited.

  “Parliament has sent in a team to do DNA testing at the site . . .”

  “No one are wanting to watch DNA testing.”

  “. . . to identify the remains . . .”

  “There are being no remains. Remains are interesting.”

  “. . . before the Others return.”

  “There are being a chance the Others will return?”

  He had no idea. He just needed to see the place where Torin had died. “That was the impression the Commandant of the Corps tried not to give me when I was on Ventris.”

  “Why are the Commandant of the Corps talking to you?”

  Clearly, breaking the story on the gray plastic aliens hadn’t been enough for Presit to gain further access to High Tekamal Louden, and it was pissing her off a bit. Not that it was particularly difficult to piss Presit off. “I used her name to access sections of the station off limits to visitors. She tracked me down to tell me not to do it again.”

  “Ah.” Presit sat back in her chair and ran her claws through her whiskers. “And then you are all being friends and she are giving you privileged information?”

  “We were talking about Torin. Her father—Torin’s father—he was there, too.”

  “And there are being drinking? Of alcohol?”

  “There are . . . was.”

  “Humans are talking about everything when they are drinking alcohol. I are noticing that in the past.” She combed her whiskers again. “A chance to be getting actual footage of the Others invading while there are only helpless scientists attempting to be bringing closure to the grieving, that are being something I can use.”

  Craig found it amazing that it hadn’t occurred to her she’d be just as helpless as those scientists in case of an attack, but since he needed her to get the coordinates for the Susumi equations from the military, he didn’t point that out.

  “You are wanting to be my crew?”

  “I’ve done it before, haven’t I?” No point in adding that since the camera did most of the work, it wasn’t exactly a difficult job. Presit, yeah, she was difficult. The job, not so much.

  “And you are offering your ship for transport?”

  “I’m sure as shit not leaving her here.” Hiring her out to Sector Central News would cover his costs.

  Black lips curled up off Presit’s teeth. “And you are realizing I are being your boss for the duration?”

  He lifted his bottle and tried not to think of a planet’s surface melted like glass. “I can cope if you can.”

  Torin sent Darlys, Jiyuu, and Akemi to the barricade carrying sleeves of kibble skimmed from the morning feeding, a canteen each, and two eight-liter jugs of water hanging off a yoke made from the smart fabric.

  The m
ajor had seemed resigned to her choices.

  The two biscuits in the middle of the day tasted a bit like the jerked yeast she’d had in the barbecue place next to the recruiting station high above Paradise. She hadn’t thought of that place, or the recruiting station, in years.

  “You don’t want to know, Gunny,” Werst snorted when she asked him what he tasted. “You really don’t.”

  Something in his tone convinced her she didn’t.

  That afternoon, she sent Werst and Divint, Kyster and Sergei out into the tunnels to check the small caves for new Marines. Tunnel three was nearly a direct route to a wall of obsidian, the remnant of an ancient lava flow, but the other six had to be covered.

  “Colonel Harnett had a schedule based on the pattern of arrivals he’d observed,” Terantowicz sneered. “Should’ve thought of that before you killed him.”

  “I’d have killed him if he’d had a foolproof plan to get us all out of here,” Torin told her with a smile.

  She blanched and backed away.

  Torin spent a moment regretting that Terantowicz had convinced Bakune to attack her at the pit rather than doing it herself.

  New supplement sheets dropped out of the pipe the next morning. Torin suggested they station a Marine at the pipe with one of the clubs, ready to jam the hatch open the next time something dropped. Major Kenoton seemed less than enthused but allowed her to give the order to Pole.

  “Can’t see Harnett not having tried this,” Pole pointed out.

  “He may have,” Torin allowed, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t.”

  The next evening Torin met the last three of Harnett’s goons out in the tunnels. Two Humans and a di’Taykan who stared at Torin as though he were trying to figure out if it was true—where it could mean only one thing. The Humans just stared, one of them trying to figure out if they could take her.

  “No, you can’t,” she told the younger woman wearily.

  “I wasn’t . . .”

  Torin raised a brow, and Private Malan fell silent. So far, things were going well.

  Which was, of course, when Lance Corporal Zhang Yadong, the second Human, charged her. Torin twisted, grabbed his arm above the elbow, and continued his forward momentum into the rock wall. Her desire to kill him was so strong it frightened her a little—a long time since anything had done that—and she barely managed to make sure his skull impacted with less than lethal force. When he flipped over, blood streaming into his eyes, Torin put a boot on his throat before he could rise. “Stay down!” she snapped.

  He could have grabbed her ankle and taken advantage of the way she stood, balanced with her weight on one foot. She would have. But he stayed down.

  Malan was staring with her mouth open in shock—or awe, it was hard to say—and the di’Taykan had a visible erection.

  “Private Waturu.” Experience kept her from adjusting her clothes. She’d been a lot more uncomfortable for the same reason.

  “Yes, Gunnery Sergeant!” He leaned toward her, lime-green eyes dark.

  “Turn up your masker.”

  “It’s at the regulation mark, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  “Then you’re obviously overpowering it. Turn it up.”

  “It’s not my fault; you’re der heen sa verniticna sa vey.”

  With a Human, Torin would have moved into their personal space. Di’Taykan, particularly di’Taykan as aroused as Wataru seemed to be, were likely to take that the wrong way. Teeth gritted, grateful she was female, Torin growled, “Does it say progenitor on my collar tabs?”

  “No, Gunnery Sergeant!”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass whose fault it is; turn your masker up!”

  His erection looking suddenly less visible, he did as commanded. Malan looked grateful.

  Torin nodded down at Zhang as she lifted her foot from his throat and stepped back. “On your feet, Corporal. It’s almost time for evening mush, and I get cranky if I miss a meal.”

  “I’m bleeding.”

  “But you’re alive, so I’d say the cup is half full. Hand your weapons to Corporal Werst . . .” He rounded the corner on cue. “. . . then go and get your platoon assignments from Staff Sergeant Pole.”

  “And that’s it?” Malan asked suspiciously as she handed Werst her stone knife.

  “As far as I’m concerned,” Torin told her.

  “So you’re in charge?”

  “Major Kenoton is in charge.” Torin stepped aside to let her pass. “Try to stay out of trouble.”

  “That’s not it,” Werst muttered as they watched the last three of Harnett’s survivors head into the node.

  “Tell me something I don’t know, Corporal.”

  “Di’Taykan tastes like chicken.”

  “Didn’t need to know that.”

  The noise in the node had changed in just two days as more and more Marines shook off the listlessness that had kept them lying silent and gray on their pallets. It wasn’t the supplements, not in only fifty-six hours. It was, Torin believed, the normalcy of routine, of organization they understood, of a visible chain of command. And all that would go to hell if she had to save them again. At some point, people had to start saving themselves.

  The next morning, they found Staff Sergeant Kem Takahani dead on her pallet.

  “She was pushing seventy,” Pole said quietly as he rose carefully to his feet. “Heading toward becoming one of those grizzled old sergeants who’d found their niche and had every intention of staying there until retirement forced her out. She was one of the first taken, and I’m a little surprised she lasted this long. She had a broken face and was pissing blood when I got here,” he explained as Torin raised a brow. “Couldn’t stand straight—something with her spine. She fought Harnett and paid for it.” He glanced down at the body, one cheekbone flatter than the other, her hands so thin the veins stood out under the skin like blue-gray cord, and he smiled. “She used to lie there and mutter over and over, bastard’ll get his. When you brought his walls down, and there he was, lying dead, head on backward, she said, ‘I told you so.’ ” He frowned. “I don’t remember her speaking again. That may have been the last thing she said.”

  “As last words go, they’re not so bad.” Torin glanced across the node at the knot of officers. “I’ll tell the major.”

  The warning for the morning meal came as they were sliding Sergeant Takahani and her pallet into the pit. Torin touched the pockets on her vest where the capsuled remains of her Marines should go and tried not to grind her teeth.

  “I half expected you to bitch a bit more after the funeral about the waste of food.”

  “No point, Gunny,” Werst grunted. “What the hell do you think the kibble is made of?”

  Torin paused with a fingerload of mush halfway to her mouth. “There hasn’t been enough . . .”

  “No. But it’s in there, and in the biscuits. Can’t miss the taste.”

  Torin glanced over at Kyster, who nodded as he chewed. “And the Krai who’ve been here all along?”

  “They know,” Werst told her. “No way they couldn’t know. But they’re not going to say anything. You lot are touchy about meat.”

  “We’re touchy about being considered meat,” Torin corrected. “And if this was what I didn’t want to know, why tell me now?”

  “Kyster told me what you said out in the tunnels. How this is a way to carry our people out with us. Very Krai for a Human. I was impressed. And . . .” He licked a bit of mush off his fingers. “There’s no way of knowing what information is necessary to break out of here, so it’s best you have all of it.”

  “I’m planning a breakout?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  Wasn’t she?

  “It’s been a busy few days. Can I have a minute to catch my breath?”

  Werst snorted. “The Staff Sergeant Kerr I know would have been out of here by now.” He set his empty bowl aside and grinned at the other Krai. “You should’ve seen the gunny when she was a staff sergeant, Kyster. Now that was a
Marine.”

  Kyster’s lips curled up off his teeth and his nose ridges clamped shut. “I think she’s amazing,” he snarled.

  “You’re young.”

  “Kyster!” Torin’s tone sat him back down so quickly his teeth snapped. “It’s all right, Corporal Werst is just being a pain in the ass. Ignore him.”

  “But he . . .”

  “All he said was that when I was a staff sergeant I was a good Marine. He didn’t say I wasn’t a good Marine now.”

  “But . . .”

  “Let it go.”

  After a long moment, Kyster covered his teeth. “Yes, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  The thing was, Werst was right. She’d been so caught up in the drama, she hadn’t thought of escape in days. Sliding her hand into her vest, she touched the salvage tag. That had to change.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Torin grabbed the corporal by the collar of her combats and yanked her back. Maybe, given their relative conditions, she was rougher than she needed to be, but she was pissed.

  “This doesn’t concern you, Gunny.” The corporal staggered but managed to stay on her feet. “This is a fireteam matter.”

  “Really? Because I could have sworn I heard you call this Marine a whore.”

  “He was fucking for food, Gun . . . nery Sergeant.” Torin’s expression made the diminutive a bad idea. “That makes him a whore in my book.”

  “Was it his choice?”

  The Marine in question, young enough that his auburn whiskers were sparse on his cheeks, closed hazel eyes, eyelashes lying in a thick fringe against his cheek. He still had bruises around both wrists and a band around his throat turning purple and green where the collar and leash had been.

  “He didn’t fight. Just like he’s not fighting now.” Like Staff Sergeant Pole, the corporal was missing teeth. A common enough result of malnutrition. Torin fought down the urge to knock out a few more.

  “Use the brains the gods gave you and look at his hands. He fought.” The knuckles were swollen and bruised, a couple probably broken. Torin shifted her grip to the front of the corporal’s combats and dragged her so close they were breathing in the same hot, stale air redolent of mush. “There were seventeen of them, and the bruising on his body says they beat him for fun.” She didn’t need to add what else had happened for fun. “Seventeen to one odds—how well would you do, Corporal? I see a hundred to seventeen odds, I see one hundred of you and three of your own being tortured, and you didn’t do a Goddamned thing, so before you say another fukking word to this Marine, you make sure there aren’t a few choice words he could call you.”