by Huff, Tanya
Torin really hoped there weren’t politicians tucked away in here somewhere.
Colonel Mariner was a staff officer, not a line officer. Which made very little difference, given their current location, but she’d have to remember to use a more delicate touch when dealing with him. The time spent on Ventris debriefing what felt like half the staff officers in the Corps now seemed to have become, in retrospect, a useful learning experience.
Within a forest of beards, he was clean shaven, and the dome of his head gleamed. Permanent depilatory. Torin vaguely remembered the style from around the time she’d joined the Corps and figured the colonel was lucky it suited him. It was also a fair indication that he was a man who made up his mind and never changed it.
She came to attention—because he expected it—and snapped out, “Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr, 7th Division, 4th Recar’ta, 1st Battalion, Sh’quo Company, sir!”
“At ease, Gunnery Sergeant.”
She dropped into parade rest and stared just past his left ear. “Corporal Mashona has told us a bit of your history until you were captured by the Others and dropped here with us . . .” And I believe less than half of it, added the subtext. “. . . and I’d like to hear the rest from you. And when I say the rest, I mean I’d like to hear how you came to be wandering the tunnels in such a way as to be picked up by one of my patrols.”
“Yes sir. It will require some background on the situation as I found it, sir.”
“Excellent. The present cannot be judged without an awareness of the past. Do you know who said that, Gunnery Sergeant.”
“No, sir.”
“Shirree Sataan. One of the great H’san philosophers. The only one ever translated into Federate.”
“Isn’t ze also the one who said, the cheese stands alone, sir?”
“Ze adopted that from a Human philosopher, Gunnery Sergeant.” He leaned forward, shifting the highlight higher up the shiny curve of skin. Torin squinted slightly, and the major with the short beard bit his lip. “The background details, Gunny?”
So she told them about how Harnett had taken control. “That was the situation in that node when I arrived.”
“Good God!” Mariner’s cheeks had flushed nearly purple. “He called himself a colonel? The man has to be stopped. Our policy of nonintervention as long as his people stayed on their side of the barricade has to be changed.”
Torin fought to keep her opinion of nonintervention from showing on her face. “He’s been taken care of, sir.”
“Taken care of?”
“Yes, sir.”
The young major and the Krai captain seemed to have figured out the ending. The others were looking appalled, outraged, and a little nervous. Upon reflection, Torin decided the nervous major may have also figured out the ending.
Mariner began to relax slightly. “The Marines rose against him.”
“No, sir. I killed him.” She kept it matter-of-fact. She might have been reporting on the toilet paper inventory.
“They rose against his goons.”
“No, sir. I killed about half of them.”
“About half?” The colonel was no longer even a little relaxed. He looked as though he’d twang if flicked with a fingertip. “How many, precisely, is about half?”
“Precisely seven, sir. Sorry, eight.” She’d forgotten about tossing Bakune into the disposal unit. “And Harnett makes nine. And then I returned command to Major Kenoton.”
“So you’re telling me that on your own recognizance, without orders, you killed nine Marines?”
“No, sir, on my own recognizance, I killed half the people who were starving a hundred Marines to death.”
“And Major Kenoton approved of this?”
“He preferred it to starving to death, sir.”
Safely out of the colonel’s line of sight, the young major bit his lip again.
“And it never occurred to you to approach Major Kenoton and place yourself and your skills under his command so that due procedure could be implemented in the removal of Staff Sergeant Harnett from his position?”
It wouldn’t have surprised Torin if some sort of due procedure existed for exactly that situation. There were officers on Ventris who did nothing but come up with due procedures without ever considering how to implement them in the field. “No, sir. Harnett would have kept me from approaching the major until I was too weak to stand against him.”
“I think you overestimate how much of a threat he’d have considered you, Gunnery Sergeant Kerr.”
The Krai captain leaned forward. Given that Colonel Mariner was sitting, that put his mouth right at his CO’s ear. “Sir, she killed ten Marines who’d been handpicked for size, general badass attitude, and a willingness to crack heads. A few of them must have seen her coming.”
“And your point, Captain Diir?”
His nose ridges opened and closed. “My point, sir, is that I doubt Gunnery Sergeant Kerr is overestimating anything.”
Mariner shifted uncomfortably on the pallet. “Yes, well . . .” He looked down at the knife then back up at Torin. “Now we know how the situation stood when you arrived, perhaps you’d best fill me in on the details of how you resolved it.”
“Yes, sir.”
So she told him about meeting Kyster and the hunting party, about gaining the knife, and, eventually, about dealing with Harnett.
“You just walked in? Bold as brass?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What were you thinking?”
“That there was only one way to resolve the situation, sir.”
“But to kill . . .” His voice trailed off as though he still couldn’t quite believe it.
Suddenly weary, Torin closed her teeth on a sigh. The Corps had taught her to pull the trigger, to divorce what had to be done from what she was actually doing. Killing Harnett and his men was no different from killing the Silsviss who had her platoon pinned down or any of the Others she’d faced over the years. It all came down to getting her people out alive. For all his lethargy, at least Major Kenoton had understood that.
Mariner’s brows, particularly emphatic because of the lack of other hair, drew in. “And yet you barely fought when Lieutenant Schmid’s scouting party discovered you.”
“I didn’t want to hurt anyone, sir.”
“There were four of them, Gunnery Sergeant.”
The young major snorted and hurriedly covered the noise with a cough.
“Given the way your people responded when they met Harnett’s people in the tunnels,” Torin continued, drawing the colonel’s attention back to her, “I knew this area had maintained discipline.”
“Discipline is at the heart of the Corps,” he said, nodding approvingly. Although who or what he was approving, Torin had no idea. “But you were carrying one of their weapons.” A nod was redirected toward the obsidian knife. “Lieutenant Schmid assumed you were one of them.”
“A valid assumption, sir.”
“So,” he fixed her with what he likely assumed was a piercing glare. “Why are you here, Gunnery Sergeant?”
“My orders were to assess the situation in this area and to determine what plans had been made toward escape so as to prevent duplication of effort.”
He laughed at that, a short, sharp sound that held no humor. “There is no escape, Gunnery Sergeant. When you’ve been here a little longer, you’ll realize that. Well, you’ve certainly given my staff and me plenty to discuss. Corporal Mashona.”
Mashona snapped to attention so perfectly she might as well have flipped him the finger. Fortunately, Torin was the only NCO around to see it. “Sir!”
“You will liaise with Gunnery Sergeant Kerr while she is with us.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Gunnery Sergeant.”
“Sir.”
“I expect you to keep a lower profile than you’re in the habit of while you’re under my command.”
The young major bit his lip.
“Yes, sir. I will need to report back to Maj
or Kenoton, sir. Soon.”
“You won’t get back to the barricade before dark, Gunnery Sergeant, so you’ll be with us for tonight at least.” Mariner patted the knife. “I’ll hang onto to this. Dismissed.”
“Liaise, Gunny?”
“Keep me from killing anyone.”
“Is he fukking kidding?”
Torin grinned and gripped Mashona’s shoulder for a moment. Underground prisons apparently made her sentimental. “Don’t worry, Corporal, I have every intention of staying on the colonel’s good side. And I suspect he mostly just wants you to show me how to get fed, where to sleep.”
“He couldn’t just say that?”
“Takes all types, Corporal.” She studied faces as they walked. “Any-one else here we know?”
“No one from Sh’quo Company, but Major Ohi came in the same time as Technical Sergeant Gucciard and me. He’s the young guy who kept trying to not to laugh. He’s artillery. Seven, two, four Fan’tal Company. I don’t know about the other area, though—rest of the fukking company could be there.”
“There’s another area?”
“Yeah.” She pointed toward the tunnel opposite to the one Torin had arrived by. “That way. Two day’s walk. It’s just like this one only with a lieutenant colonel as the ranking officer, so hopefully the stick up her butt is one rank smaller.”
“Mashona.”
“Sorry, Gunny.”
A familiar tone filled the node.
“There’s chow,” Mashona said when she could be heard again. “You got a bowl?”
“I do.”
The bowls here were the same shade of brown, but the kibble was slightly lighter. Torin wondered if that was because this node put more officers into the mix. It tasted the same, though, and she figured she’d best keep the thought to herself.
“I never thought I’d miss field rations.” Mashona scooped a double fingerful of mush up to her mouth and swallowed with minimal chewing. “That’s some great knife you came in with, Gunny. No one here’s got one.”
“The surrounding tunnels don’t cross the lava flow, then.”
“Captain Yonvic is going to love it. She’s a . . .” A wave of her hand spattered a bit of mush onto the polished stone floor. “. . . rock person. She’s always poking around the small caves. You won’t believe this, Gunny, but she found two stones you can smack together to make fire. Well, sparks since nothing down here burns.”
“The captain found flint and steel?”
Mashona snorted. “Doesn’t look like steel. Looks like two rocks. There’s a whole bunch of one, though, and not much of the other. Scouting parties going out are supposed to keep an eye out for it.” She used her thumb to clear the last of the mush from the bowl, polishing the plastic clean. “So, Gunny, you really killed nine people at that other pipe?”
It was almost not a question, and Torin could tell it hadn’t been prompted by disbelief. “Yeah.” She swallowed the last mouthful of her own mush. “I really did.”
“You okay with it?”
She was the first person to ask.
Torin had done what she had to do in order to get the job done and, given the job, she’d long since learned not to second-guess the tough decisions. She regretted Edwards, not because he was dead but because she’d killed him in anger. His death was a little too close to the line between soldier and killer. The rest? If they’d had a couple dozen MPs and a stockade, things might have been different, but since they didn’t . . . nine dead and their deaths her responsibility measured against over a hundred alive and their lives her responsibility, too. “Yeah, I’m okay with it.”
Mashona nodded as though she’d heard both halves of the response. “All right, then. So, you really got a plan to get out of here, Gunny?”
“Beginning of one.”
“This lot . . .” She flicked long dark fingers in the general direction of a hundred or so Marines all concentrating on a plastic bowl. “. . . they just laugh when you talk about escape, you know? Like you’re so new you don’t know it can’t be done.”
“Hasn’t been. Doesn’t mean it can’t be.”
“That’s what I said.”
Any of the Krai would have recognized Torin’s smile. “Yeah, but they’ll listen to me.”
“And thank the gods for that.” Legs crossed at the ankle, Mashona rocked up onto her feet. “Let’s get you a pallet. Hope you don’t mind bunking by me and the tech sarge, Gunny. We’re all that’s unassigned.
“After nearly a tenday?” Torin stood a little more slowly, still favoring her left knee.
“All six platoons want us, so the colonel is taking detailed request things.” One long fingered hand sketched the word in the air. “Starts with a dee.”
“Depositions?”
“That’s it.”
“And Major Ohi?”
“He was added to the colonel’s staff pretty much immediately so that the colonel could get all the new buzz. Me and the sarge were a bit less thoroughly debriefed.”
Torin spared a moment’s sympathy for the young major as they approached one of the areas delineated by the lines of rock. There were no automated retrieval drones, but quartermaster stores never looked like anything but what they were regardless of the situation.
“Lieutenant McCoy? Gunnery Sergeant Kerr needs a pallet.”
The lieutenant scowled up at Mashona then over at Torin, then backed up a few steps to lessen the kink in her neck. It was a maneuver Torin had often seen from the Krai; she’d never seen a Human use it before, but the lieutenant was tiny. “Can’t the gunnery sergeant speak for herself, Corporal?”
“The colonel said I was to liaise, sir.”
“I see.” But she didn’t look happy about it. “I only have two spare pallets right now.”
Quartermasters were like quartermaster’s stores—true to type. Although their job was to supply the Corps, they hated actually releasing any of their inventory.
“I only need one, Lieutenant.”
Dark eyes narrowed. “I’m aware of that, Gunnery Sergeant.”
Torin waited, gaze locked on the lieutenant’s face.
“All right, fine, you’d best get it then before the lights go out. Follow me.” She led the way across to the opposite imaginary wall and gestured at the two rolled pallets. “Take the one on the left and sign for it.”
“Sign for it, Lieutenant?” Torin followed the pointing finger and looked down. On the floor next to the pallets was a drawn rectangle enclosing a list of names scratched into the rock. Next to the rectangle was a slightly paler rock, just smaller than her fist. “Ah. Sign for it. Yes, sir.”
Technical Sergeant Gucciard glanced up when Torin dropped her pallet down beside his and grinned. “I see you’ve met Lieutenant McCoy.”
“I appreciate gung ho as much as the next Marine,” Torin muttered as she shoved the ends of the pallet flat with her boot, “but that was a bit . . .”
“Surreal?”
“That’s just a little more polite than I was going to go with.”
“Fukking surreal?”
Torin returned the grin. “That’s it.” She sat and nodded toward the pair of combats spread across his lap. “So, Gucciard . . .”
“Mike.”
“Mike . . . you still think you can get that slate up and working?”
“I’ll let you in on a secret, Gunny . . .”
“Torin.”
“Torin.” He nodded toward the spill of fabric. “Once I set my mind on something, failure is not an option.”
She watched for a while as his large hands teased the tech free of the fabric at an access seam. Given the size of those hands, he had a surprisingly delicate touch. “I take it you can’t just plug into the diagnostic points?”
“Is it ever that easy?” he asked as he exposed another millimeter of tech. “The diagnostic points can hook up to other combats and to the slate, but for the hookup to the power source, I’m going to have to improvise.”
Torin had to
admit he looked like he knew what he was doing and, over the years, she’d developed good instincts for who was faking it.
The announcement that it was ten minutes to lights-out finally freed Mashona from the three lieutenants who had her cornered. She jogged over to her mat and dropped down with a heavy sigh. “They want to know how long you’re staying, Gunny.”
“Not long,” Torin told her, voice pitched to carry over orders to retrieve pallets and the sounds of a hundred Marines doing just that. She hadn’t noticed before how much the smack of a pallet hitting the rock sounded like a body going down for the count.
“You got people who’ll come after you?”
“Very probably.” Kyster definitely. “How do they know how long until lights out?”
“Colonel’s got people assigned to count.”
“Count?”
“One, H’san like cheese. Two, H’san like cheese.” Mashona folded her arms behind her head. “You can use whatever spacer you want, but you go to a thousand and then pass it off to the next guy. Forty-two thousands in a day,” she added anticipating Torin’s next question. “Give or take.”
Torin did the math. “Roughly a twenty-eight-hour day.”
“Station norm,” Mashona agreed. “If you’re here long enough, you’ll get your own place in the queue.”
“Colonel Mariner needs noncoms; he’s going to want to keep you,” Mike put in, looking up from his work.
“No, I don’t think so.” Torin grinned. “I make him nervous.”
The technical sergeant snorted. “Can’t think why.”
“She killed nine mutineers single-handed back at the other pipe. What? Was that supposed to be a secret?” Mashona asked as Torin turned toward her. “Sorry, Gunny.”
“I can see how that would make the colonel a little nervous,” Mike admitted. “If it’s true.”
Torin sighed. “It’s true. Although aren’t mutineers Navy?”
“Damned if I know.” He shook his head. “No Navy around to ask. So you took out nine? In that case, you should be gone by . . . shit.”
Like everywhere else she’d been in the underground complex, the lights didn’t dim. They just went out. There was a fair bit of swearing for the first few minutes—for the sake of swearing mostly. As far as Torin could see from where she was sitting, nearly all the Marines had been on, or right beside, their pallets.
