[Confederation 04] Valor's Trial

by Huff, Tanya

  “I’ve noticed!” Kichar flushed as four sets of eyes locked on her. “Well, I have.”

  “So have I,” Torin told her. “The technical sergeant and I think there’s something in the food that causes complacency,” she added, expanding her attention to include the rest. “Kyster’s been down here as long as many of them, but he hasn’t been eating from the pipe. He’s still willing to challenge the status quo.”

  “Given that we’re stuck with the kibble, all the more reason to get out before it dulls us, too.” Mike reached out for a fingerful of mush, glanced at the screen, frowned, and flicked the mush to the floor. A quick swipe of his fingers against his combats and they were back on the screen. “And I want the slate out of here before the colonel realizes he can keep the minutes of his staff meetings on it.” His fingers actually paused in their patterning when he looked up. “He made a desk.”

  “Uh, Sarge?” Ressk reached out a foot—toward Mike’s bowl Torin thought at first and then realized his eyes were locked on the slate. “If you need any help reprogramming . . .”

  “Know what you’re doing?”

  “I do. I’ve . . .”

  At that point the sentence slid into jargon, and Torin didn’t bother trying to make sense of it. She knew as much tech as she needed to do her job and was fully confident she could do her job with no tech at all. Mike had already proved himself capable of miracles, and Ressk was personally responsible for the latest security upgrade to the Navy’s sysop. It wasn’t long before they were shoulder to shoulder peering down at the screen.

  “Mike.” Torin dropped his nearly full bowl in his lap. “You need to eat while there’s food available.”

  Something in Torin’s tone actually got through Mike’s programming haze. “You expecting food to not be available?”

  “We don’t know what’s on the other side of that rockfall,” she reminded him.

  “I can keep working on the slate while you eat, Sarge,” Ressk offered eagerly, fingers and toes flexing.

  He looked from Ressk to the slate to his bowl and reluctantly passed the slate over. “But you stay right here!”

  “Not going anywhere, Technical Sergeant.” Ressk’s nose ridges were fluttering. Clutching the slate with his right foot left the fingers of both hands free to dance over the screen.

  “I get it back when I’m done eating.”

  “Of course, Technical Sergeant.” Noting with some amusement that Mike never took his eyes off the slate, Torin picked up the bit of discarded mush and rolled it between her fingers.

  “What you seem to be forgetting, Gunnery Sergeant Kerr, is that you are not running an independent command.”

  Behind Colonel Mariner’s left shoulder, Major Ohi was trying so very hard not to roll his eyes he might as well have surrendered to the expression.

  “If Major Kenoton plans on allowing this ludicrous escape plan of yours to be carried out, Technical Sergeant Gucciard will be going with you.”

  “But, sir . . .”

  “No arguments, Gunnery Sergeant, you’re not going to change my mind. As he is already accompanying you back to Major Kenoton’s sector to train technicians in the charging of combats, it only makes sense for him to continue on. Not to mention the fact that with the combats charged there is no job remaining in the known sectors suitable for a man of his rank and ability. He may be the only chance of success for your harebrained plan.”

  “Yes, sir.” In that particular instance, Torin’s agreement was sincere.

  “Now, then, about the slate . . .”

  “Sir.” Major Ohi leaned forward. “It’s just more useless tech without the sergeant.”

  Colonel Mariner stared at his hands lying flat on the desk. “Fine,” he said after a long moment. “He might as well take it with him, then.”

  “Thank you, sir.” But she wasn’t speaking to the colonel.

  “You’re very good.”

  “It’s just a different kind of programming.” Torin grinned as she handed Mike a full canteen and began filling another. “And, in all fairness, the colonel wasn’t at the top of his game.”

  “I feel a bit sorry for Major Ohi.”

  She took advantage of her position to rest her forehead against the pipe, the smooth metal cool against her skin. “Yeah, me, too. Bright side, it won’t be long until he starts thinking of this as his life.”

  “How long?”

  They’d all been scooped up from the same battle. They’d all shared the same timetable. They’d already been in the tunnels for fourteen days. Did she care less now about getting out than she had? Did she care about caring less? The pipe made a surprisingly loud, unsurprisingly hollow thunk as she bounced her forehead off it.

  “Torin?”

  “We need to get the hell out of here.”

  “No.” Sitting on top of the barricade so that he was eye to eye with Yvonne Sergei, Kyster bared his teeth. “I’m not going. Gunnery Sergeant Kerr said to wait for her here and that’s what I’m doing.”

  “She’s not your CO,” Sergei insisted. “Major Kenoton is.”

  “Did he send orders for me to leave the barricade?”

  “No, but . . .”

  “Then I’m staying.” He watched Sergei pace away and then back and then glare at Divint leaning against the barricade absently chewing on a mouthful of biscuit. He’d have stayed even if Major Kenoton had sent orders, but Sergei didn’t need to know that.

  “A little help here!” she snapped.

  “Makes no fukking difference to me if he stays,” Divint drawled. “Why do you care?”

  “Because it’s not what’s done. Three Marines come out. Three go back. Not three come out and one goes back with two of the ones who are already here!”

  “It’s been done once,” Divint reminded her, reaching into his vest pocket and breaking off another piece of biscuit.

  Kyster stopped listening. The argument didn’t actually have anything to do with him; they were arguing for the sake of having something to talk about. Humans sucked at sitting in silence. So did di’Taykan, but they usually found a quieter way to pass the time. He spent a while wondering what a Human would have done out in the tunnels all alone—besides die—and figured they’d have ended up arguing with themselves.

  And then . . .

  “Shut up!”

  “Fuk you! You can’t just . . .”

  He turned far enough to snap his teeth uncomfortably close to Sergei’s chin, and she shut up.

  He could hear voices, just at the edge of hearing, and he thought, maybe, he could see a shifting of patterns in the gray distance. If he could see patterns, then he’d been hearing the voices for a while but assuming they were just more of the sounds his head made when he was alone.

  When Divint shifted, sleeves whispering against the rock, he growled.

  By the time Sergei started to say, “I don’t think . . .” Kyster was over the barricade and doubling it down the tunnel. He’d heard a sound he knew.

  “Yeah, but, Gunny, you convinced Lieutenant Colonel Baudry to transfer us to your team because we were troublemakers, and Kichar here couldn’t make trouble if it was marching in front of her wearing a target.”

  A Krai, older than him. Werst’s age probably. The sound had been his bare feet slapping against the rock.

  “I can make trouble if I have to!”

  Human. Young and female.

  “You were troublemakers by association, people; unfortunately, the colonel didn’t take to me.”

  Gunny. Gunny. Gunny.

  “Gunny. Incoming.”

  “Where, Mashona?”

  If she could see him at this distance, one small figure moving quickly and close to the tunnel wall, the one called Mashona had good eyes. And not just good for a Human either. Actually good.

  They stopped talking then, but they kept moving. Maybe a little faster, Kyster couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t seem to slow down.

  She stopped the others and came forward alone to meet him
. Caught his shoulders, brought him to a stop close enough he could feel the heat coming off her body. Catch her scent. He wanted . . . he wanted to climb her. Find refuge in her branches. Be home.

  “Hey. It’s all right. I’m back.”

  The only place he wasn’t trembling was under her hands. “I waited, Gunny.”

  “So I see. Sitrep?”

  Sitrep. He could feel the heat rise in his face. She needed to know what had been happening while she was gone. He took a deep breath. “Divint and Sergei are at the barricade. I sent Maeken back with Waturu.”

  “You sent?”

  He shrugged, an awkward mimicry of the Human motion. “He went.”

  “Good job, Marine.” She released him as she turned but moved a step closer. He would have closed the distance between them if she hadn’t. “Private Kyster, this is Technical Sergeant Gucciard . . .”

  Human, male. Older. He looked competent. His eyesbrows looked . . . scorched?

  “. . . Lance Corporals Ressk and Mashona . . .”

  They measured him, Krai and Human, their expressions weirdly identical given their species differences.

  “. . . and Private Kichar.”

  The young one. Dark hair, dark eyes, nose like a bird of prey; she stared at him like she wanted his place beside the gunnery sergeant. His lip curled up off his teeth. Ressk noticed, but Kyster didn’t care. Not when he felt Gunny’s hand close on his shoulder.

  “They’ll be leaving with us,” she said.

  Us.

  Balanced carefully on the edge of his bad foot, he stood a little straighter.

  “Why not have them tear the barricade down and head back with us, Gunny?”

  “Not my call.” Torin watched Kichar back out of one of the small caves and emphatically signal all clear before moving on. She’d put the young Marine out on point to give her something to do away from Kyster. Kyster believed he’d won their snarling match because he was still walking by Torin’s side. Kichar believed she’d won because she’d been given the job of checking the caves. Torin expected she’d have to physically knock their heads together at some point.

  “It smelled like a latrine,” Mashona continued, rubbing her hand under her nose although the smell in question was half a day’s fast walk away.

  “Hardly surprising,” Torin pointed out. “I’ll give Major Kenoton the details, but the decision is his.” She didn’t care about the barricade. At worst, it was a symbol of Harnett’s control. At best, it gave the captive Marines something to do.

  And those were valid reasons for not caring.

  She wasn’t not caring just because she didn’t care.

  How long did they have before the additive in the food sapped their ambition and trapped them in the tunnels until the end of the war?

  “Let’s pick up the pace a bit, people.”

  “Forty minutes before the evening kibble.” Mike checked Ressk’s sleeve as they turned onto the last straight section of tunnel before the node. “We made good time.”

  “Forty minutes if the areas are in sync,” Torin pointed out, indicating that Kichar should fall in behind with the other three. “Because I’m going in first,” she said as the private passed.

  Kichar blinked. “I wasn’t going to ask, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  “You were thinking why so loudly it was setting up an echo.” She ran a hand back through her hair and sighed, turning just far enough to sweep a gaze over all five of her . . . team? Squad? “Odds are good they won’t care, but the Marines at this pipe have reason to be paranoid. If they see me, they shouldn’t overreact.” She turned again to stare down the tunnel. “If they react at all.”

  Major Kenoton listened without comment to Torin’s report, his hair nearly still. When she finished, he visibly roused himself and said, “Colonel Mariner?”

  “You know him, sir?”

  The major’s eyes lightened slightly. Torin thought they’d gained some variation in shade during the eight days she’d been gone, but she couldn’t be certain. “I know of him, Gunnery Sergeant—a staff officer lost while accompanying a diplomatic mission to the Edge. And he’s the senior officer in here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Bet that’s up Baudry’s ass,” he muttered, then raised his voice to add, “I read the lieutenant colonel’s file on the battle of the TriVor Stations. She reminds me a lot of you. When does Colonel Mariner want to see me?”

  “He didn’t say, sir. I expect he’ll send a runner. It’s how he communicates with Lieutenant Colonel Baudry.”

  Sitting on one of the folded pallets with his back braced against the pipe, the major stared at her for a long moment. “Colonel Mariner could have sent orders with you, but it seems he just wanted you and your . . .” His gaze flicked over her shoulder to where the others were waiting. “. . . team gone. Why is that, Gunnery Sergeant?”

  “I got the impression he didn’t want to delay the escape attempt, sir.” Torin had no qualms about using Mariner to overrule any of the major’s objections and she was running out of time to be subtle.

  “The escape attempt?”

  “Yes, sir. Through the rockfall.”

  “The rockfall.” The ends of his hair flicked back and forth as he frowned. Just as Torin thought she’d have to remind him about the rockfall, he said, “So Colonel Mariner has approved your plan, has he?” He sounded like he didn’t believe her. Fortunately, he also sounded like he didn’t care. “All you’ll find is more tunnels, Gunnery Sergeant. Waste of time. Still, it’s not like we don’t have time to waste and speaking of time . . .” He tapped his left sleeve. “. . . Lieutenant Myshai tells me your tech is up and running.”

  “Yes, sir.” Torin brought her arms out from behind her back and showed him that her cuff believed it was 0917. “Technical Sergeant Gucciard has developed a way to use a pair of combats as a buffer and recharge off the power lines in the tunnels.”

  “He’s worked out a way to interface the combats with alien technology?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m impressed. Lieutenant!”

  Lieutenant Myshai hurried over, hair swaying against her movement. “Sir?”

  “Tell Staff Sergeant Pole that Technical Sergeant Gucciard is to have whatever he needs.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky,” he said thoughtfully as Myshai led the sergeant away, “and someone stored some decent music in their inseam. When do you plan on leaving, Gunny?”

  “As soon as possible, sir.”

  The twenty-second tone delayed his answer. As sergeants began sending two Marines from each squad to the pipe, Kenoton smiled. “I have a good idea of what you’ll need from me, but I’d like to hear you say it.”

  “I’d like to take Werst, sir.”

  “Not what I meant, Gunny.”

  The supplements had put some color back in his face, but the major, like everyone else at this pipe, was still painfully thin. She hated to ask, but if she’d intended to live doing only what she wanted, she’d never have joined the Corps. “If we could pull half the biscuits tomorrow and half the next day as well as filling a couple of sleeves with kibble, we’ll have . . .”

  “You’ll have to find another food source.” He didn’t sound like the loss of the biscuits bothered him much. Apparently not giving a shit had trumped nearly starving to death. “Even at only three biscuits a day, you’re looking at five days. Maximum. Or two and a half out, two and a half back. You won’t get far.”

  “If we each have a sleeve . . .”

  “An extra two days.”

  They could cut rations further if they had to; let the Krai forage. Even starting from the rockfall with full canteens, water would be the problem.

  “It’s still worth attempting, sir.”

  “If you go alone, you’ll get a lot farther.”

  That was true enough and Torin had lain awake in the dark at the base of the barricade, ignoring Kyster’s grip on her sleeve, working the numbers over and over,
knowing that every Marine with her meant one less day in the tunnels. But, bottom line, for whatever reason—imprisonment, the kibble, Craig—she didn’t have it in her to carry the weight of three hundred Marines she couldn’t see or hear or fight for. Make her responsible for the lives of six Marines who were right there, right in her face, and she didn’t give a rat’s ass how she personally felt or what the Others put in the food, she’d get them out. She’d come back for the rest.

  “Hey, Gunny, my combats won’t fukking charge.”

  Torin looked up from tying off a sleeve of kibble. “Technical Sergeant Gucciard say why?”

  Werst shook his head. “Said he could find out if Ressk managed to pull the diagnostic program up on the slate.”

  “And Ressk said?”

  “He’d have better odds of getting H’san opera.”

  With the tech up and running, they had the time, environmental conditions, medical readouts, and a few of the actual physical functions. The body armor was iffy at best. She’d have to talk to Staff Sergeant Pole about vests.

  Some Marines arrived in the small caves with vests, some didn’t. As far as she could tell, it was completely random. She’d arrived with one, so had Mike, Ressk, and Kichar. Werst, Kyster, and Mashona hadn’t.

  None of the Krai had come through with boots. None of them seemed too upset about it.

  “SpaceCops?”

  Pole grinned as they skirted two dozen Marines grouped around one gesticulating di’Taykan. “Nermei has the first three seasons damned near memorized. Every afternoon, he does an episode—most of the dialogue and some of the action even.”

  “How much do you figure he’s making up?” Torin had been a bit of a SpaceCops fan herself, and she couldn’t remember that particular gesture.

  “Does it matter?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Point is, it’s giving people something to do. Something to look forward to.” He snorted. “Hell, not even the di’Taykan can fuk all the time.”