[Confederation 04] Valor's Trial

by Huff, Tanya

  “News to me.” Torin stopped walking, forcing Pole to turn and actually look at her. “Staff, this place is . . .”

  “Safe,” he said quietly. “Now. Thanks to you. There’s nothing out there but more tunnels, Gunny.” One hand rose to scratch at an ingrown hair on his throat. “You do what you have to, but my responsibility is with these Marines right here.”

  “And if I find a way out?”

  He shrugged carefully as though his uniform still rubbed against bone too close to the surface. “We’ll reassess then.”

  She nodded. There wasn’t really another response available. “While I’m gone, Staff, the small caves need to be searched.”

  “We’ll maintain the patrols for incomers, Gunny.”

  “Good, but we also need to find the way the Others are bringing the new Marines in.”

  Pole’s eyes narrowed. “We?”

  “You.”

  “Seems like something you could stay around for.”

  “A way in doesn’t necessarily mean a way out, Staff, and my gut says escape is on the other side of that rockfall.”

  “Rockfall will still be there after the caves have been searched.”

  “I know, but . . .” Torin looked around the node. At the pipe. At the Marines. At the place where Harnett died. At the episode of SpaceCops which had definitely not included that gesture. Had she started feeling like she belonged there? “. . . I don’t have that kind of time.”

  “Fuk, Gunny,” Pole snickered. “All you’ve got is time.”

  Torin still had most of the supplements she’d been carrying but pulled another three sheets for each species from Harnett’s stores. The only tube of sealant she could find was the one she carried, and the stores were skint of pain killers entirely, but there were enough filters that everyone who’d come through in a vest must’ve been carrying. That seemed like a sign to Torin, so since neither Kenoton, or, more importantly, Pole cared, she made sure that all of her people had the full set of three.

  No one tried to stop her when she claimed the knives and clubs Harnett’s men had carried.

  Ressk and Kichar had hung onto the canteens they’d been given for the two-day trip between Baudry’s and Mariner’s pipes. Before leaving, Mike had somehow managed to talk Lieutenant McCoy out of one; Kyster still had the one he’d carried out to the barricade . . .

  “Not the same one, Gunny. Traded with Maeken when I sent him back.”

  . . . and Torin had made damned sure she’d left Mariner’s pipe carrying all three of the canteens she’d walked in wearing. One to Mashona, one to Werst; that left only one extra.

  “Gunnery Sergeant Kerr?”

  Jiyuu. Torin handed Werst the tied-off sleeve of kibble and turned.

  Not only Jiyuu but Darlys and Watura as well. All three di’Taykan were in vests and carrying canteens—the three canteens that were to go out with the relief to the barricade, Torin assumed, and slung over Watura’s shoulder was another tied-off sleeve.

  “We want to go with you.”

  “Why?”

  Jiyuu glanced over at Darlys. Her hair flattened and she said, “You are sa verniticna sa vey. We need to atone for the evil we committed under Harnett. If we remain here . . .” She shook her head. “. . . it will be forgotten.”

  Unable to stop herself, Torin searched out Private Graydon and found him standing, arms wrapped around his torso, at the edge of a group of Marines. “I don’t think so,” she growled.

  “Perhaps not by everyone,” Darlys admitted, ocher eyes so dark they looked almost brown, “but Akemi and Maeken are sleeping communally and only Terantowicz speaks of taking power again.”

  Behind her, Werst snarled, “Terantowicz doesn’t know when to fucking quit.”

  No one argued.

  “You want me to punish you?”

  “We want to work toward your forgiveness.”

  It might have been what Darlys wanted. She had a fanatic’s attachment to that whole progenitor thing and was well on the way to making it a personal religion. Since Torin had considered herself the voice of God pretty much from the moment she made sergeant, she didn’t have a lot of trouble with that in theory, but she’d be damned if she was going to give any of Harnett’s people a way out.

  “No.”

  “We can be useful, Gunnery Sergeant.” Jiyuu’s hand rose toward his masker, but at Torin’s glare, he snapped it back to his side.

  Jiyuu was doing what he’d done with Harnett, sucking up to power.

  “I said, no.”

  “You have no di’Taykan on your team,” Watura pointed out. “According to the Parliamentary regulations pertaining to the Corps, all three species must be proportionally represented in any maneuver.”

  She didn’t have the faintest fukking idea what Watura was up to although the way he was standing protectively behind Jiyuu suggested he was there only because the other di’Taykan was. How sweet. And it didn’t matter. “What part of no don’t you understand, Privates? You are not going with us to find forgiveness. You are not going with us because I’m the scariest thing left down here. And you are sure as shit not going with us because the Parliament that keeps fukking insisting that the Others don’t take prisoners wrote you a fukking note!” She was right up in Watura’s face, nerves singing with the proximity and more than willing to turn the low-level lust into violence.

  “Gunny.”

  Mike’s voice, closer than he’d been, his voice held understanding and warning about equally mixed.

  Torin stepped back, took a deep breath as soon as she’d gained some distance, and forced her fists to uncurl. She seemed to have been doing that a lot since she’d arrived in the tunnels.

  Watura swallowed and wet his lips. He was visibly shaken, but only ’]]]his hair gave it away. His voice remained steady. “Major Kenoton sanctioned our request to go with you.”

  “He sanctioned it?”

  “Yes, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  “Did he make it an order?”

  Darlys would have lied to force Torin’s hand—Torin could see that on her face—but she let Watura answer.

  “No. . . .”

  “Then you’re shit out of luck, aren’t you?” She pivoted on one heel and scooped up her canteen. “Let’s go, people. I want to get as far as we can before the lights go out.”

  “Gunnery Sergeant Kerr . . .”

  She indicated that the others should keep moving—Mike looked dubious but snapped the slate onto his vest and waved Kichar out on point—then she turned just far enough to growl, “When I say no, I mean no.”

  Terantowicz gave them a one finger wave good-bye as they left the area. “You’re going to die out there,” she said cheerfully.

  “If I was certain of that, Private, you’d be coming with us,” Torin told her in exactly the same tone.

  Her expression twisted and Torin could read like to see you make me as clearly as if she’d spoken the words out loud. That she hadn’t proved she was smarter than she looked.

  “Ten to dark, Gunny.”

  Torin acknowledged Mashona’s observation but kept her team moving.

  There was a red-brown stain on the smooth rock floor outside one of the small caves and the smell that spilled out into the tunnel coated the back of the throat with the taste of decay. All four Humans were breathing through their teeth.

  “What is it?” Kichar fought to keep from gagging.

  “Rot,” Torin told her shortly, a little surprised given the constant temperature and lack of moisture that the smell lingered over a tenday later. She figured it was likely the lack of other smells that made it seem so potent, and if it wasn’t . . . well, she wasn’t crawling into the cave to find out.

  “Marines that Harnett left to die, Gunny?”

  “Not exactly.” When Kyster glanced up at her, Torin shook her head. The story didn’t need to be told. “Five minutes should get us to the next t-junction and around the corner. Air’ll be fresher there.”

  It was—although
given that they were still underground “fresher” was a relative term. The air had the same recycled flavor as air on a station or ship—familiar enough to be disregarded—and Torin wasted a moment wondering where it was coming from. She hadn’t seen any vents. Up by the top of the pipe where the lights made it impossible to get a good look at the “ceiling”? Probably.

  Around the corner, one small cave cut into the left wall in the approximately twenty meters of straight tunnel. For thousands, maybe millions of years caves had meant security to early Humans, and Torin could feel herself responding to that racial memory. She hadn’t even thought to question spending that first night in the cave with Kyster, so maybe she’d been more shocky than she’d thought because now, training took one look at a single, tiny entrance and screamed “trap.”

  “Kyster.”

  “Gunny?”

  “Anything in this place but Marines?”

  “No, Gunny.”

  “No tunnel trolls?” Werst grunted.

  Kyster stared at the older Krai, nose ridges slowly opening and closing. “Tunnel troll?”

  “A troll that lives in tunnels.” The you idiot was silent but clear.

  He glanced over at Torin, who shrugged. “We find a med-op down here to patch you up and you may try to kick his ass. Until we do, attempt to get along.” She checked her sleeve. Three minutes to dark. The question now became did they keep moving with the cuff lights or did they bunk down for the “night.” Six hours until the tunnel lights came back. A Marine could get by on a lot less sleep, and all of them had, but eventually fatigue impacted on decision making. Balance that against the need to get out before the kibble melted their will. Add in the potential for getting lost as it became harder to identify the correct turns and cross tunnels.

  One minute to dark.

  “We’re stopping for the night, people. Pick a spot up against the right wall.”

  “Gunny, the cave . . .”

  “Has no back door.” Torin cut Mashona off. “And we’re against the right wall,” she continued before one of them could ask, “because if anything comes out of the cave in the night, it’ll orient itself along the left.”

  “What’s going to crawl out of the cave, Gunny?” Kichar asked, dark eyes wide.

  “Who the hell knows? We do know that since the incoming Marines appear in the caves, the Others have access. So piss against the left if you’re going to.” She sat back against the side of the tunnel, club cradled in her arms like her KC-7, and stretched out her legs. She had a job to do, she had no officer to interfere with her doing it; if she’d been carrying her actual weapon, she’d have been relatively happy.

  Kyster settled in on one side while Mike propped himself up on the other, using the last minute of light to work on the slate.

  The sudden darkness was no longer entirely absolute. The circular beams of four cuff lights danced over the opposite wall.

  “Lights out, people.”

  “I’m just going to work a little longer,” Mike murmured, head down, face illuminated by the screen. “I’ve almost accessed the index.”

  “And?”

  “And then I can start recovering programs.”

  “We,” Ressk muttered quietly from along the tunnel.

  “We,” Mike amended, his smile shifting the shadows.

  Torin slid along the smooth rock until she was lying flat, club along her right side.

  “Gunny?” Kyster’s head was practically on her shoulder. “You know they’re following us, right?”

  Past Ressk, Mashona snorted.

  “I know,” Torin told him. The three di’Taykan had been careful but not quite careful enough, not when they were the only other movement in the tunnels. “Now get some sleep, we have a lot of rock to move tomorrow. Technical Sergeant Gucciard, remember the dark lasts only six hours . . .” It had seemed longer until they could time it. “. . . and we move out with the light.”

  He snorted. “I never sleep much without my own pillow anyway.”

  “Well, maybe by tomorrow you can call home on that thing and have it delivered.” She slipped her hand inside her vest, closed her fingers around the salvage tag, and closed her eyes.

  The rocks in the fall were flat, brittle, and felt just a little greasy. Rubbing her fingertips together under her nose, Torin could pick up an oily scent that reminded her of low-tech machinery. It matched the puddle’s flavor. Odds were evening out that the crack had exposed a natural vein of water rather than a broken pipe.

  “Shale,” Mashona offered, tossing another onto the pile behind her and rubbing her hands on her thighs. Settled on new worlds, Humans had taken the labeling of oldEarth with them and concentrated on similarities—differences carefully cataloged and then ignored by almost everyone.

  “Slate,” Torin corrected. “Started as shale but went through some high heat; it’ll shatter before it crumbles.” She glanced down at the stone knife in her boot. “Question is, was it changed by the volcano or by whatever the Others used to make these tunnels?”

  “Does it matter?” Werst snorted.

  “Everything matters in the end, Corporal.” Torin reached up and carefully began to ease one of the medium-sized slabs free. “You never know what information you’ll need to win the war.”

  “And I’m sure this’ll be useful, Gunny, if we’re ever up against a battalion of geologists.”

  Torin grinned down at him. “Who’s to say we haven’t been? They threw rocks on Simunthitir.” She braced her legs and shifted her grip as the stone started to move. “Stand clear—when this comes out, we’re going to get another spill.”

  Small rocks slid into the holes left by the removal of the larger rocks. This time they kept spilling in and over the space, edges whispering against each other until Torin was standing ankle-deep in shards of rock, boots protecting her from minor injuries. She twisted, handed the larger rock she still held off to Mashona and studied the rock face as she freed herself. If anything, it extended a bit farther out into the tunnel.

  “Get the feeling the whole planet’s going to slide down here given half a chance, Gunny?”

  “If it does,” she grunted, reaching for another rock, “it’ll make it easier to get to the surface.”

  “Don’t even know if there’s an atmosphere,” Werst pointed out.

  “I’d put prisoners in a moon.” Ressk glanced up from the slate. “Make it harder to escape from.”

  “Gunny, what if there’s no atmosphere?” Waiting her turn at the rock face, Kichar sounded a little desperate.

  “Well, that depends, Private. How long can you hold your breath?”

  They started with three Marines at the rock face, either Technical Sergeant Gucciard or Ressk working on the slate, two hours on, two hours off. On her first break, Torin walked back to the cave she’d been found in and swept her sleeve light over the walls.

  She’d meant everything she’d said to Pole about a way in not necessarily meaning a way out, but she was here . . .

  “What’re you looking for, Gunny?” Kyster hadn’t quite pressed up against her leg.

  “The way out. If the Others dropped me here . . .” She glanced down at the top of his head. “. . . and we both know they did, then there has to be an access hatch.” Atmosphere, air pressure, gravity; according to her sleeve, it was exactly the same in the cave as it had been in the tunnel. Rough in places, and smooth in others, the walls, ceiling, and floor were solid. Her sleeve light threw cracks into high relief, but none enclosed an area large enough to move an unconscious body through. “You found me soon after I arrived; how did you know I was in the cave?”

  “I heard you moan. No noises but me,” he added at her silent suggestion. “Makes not me noises really loud.”

  Being back in this cave wasn’t doing Kyster any good, devolving his speech patterns to near where they’d been at Torin’s arrival. Since that was all being in the cave was accomplishing, Torin waved him out and followed close behind. The Others had to have a way in�
��they weren’t just pushing Marines in through solid rock.

  Still feeling a solid surface under her feet, she couldn’t change her position. The pressure against her lower body was so slight it couldn’t possibly be holding her in place. But it was.

  What had been the floor was now up around their waists.

  Then the floor touched her chin. It felt cool. She couldn’t smell anything but the smoke she’d inhaled before she got the filter on. . . . Torin reached out and touched the tunnel wall for reassurance.

  Torin reached out and touched the tunnel wall for reassurance. Definitely rock. Still, there was nothing that said there couldn’t be a patch of organic plastic in the ceiling of one of those caves. It would feel like rock to the touch—Big Yellow had felt like all of the substances it had appeared to become—and without the scanners in their helmets, they’d never find it. And that could explain why no helmets had come through.

  She could find it. All she had to do was run her hands over every square millimeter of every cave and every tunnel. Crucible had proved that the alien reacted to her—to her and to Craig back on Ventris—probably because of the way they’d been deep scanned.

  From what she’d seen, Big Yellow—well, the component parts of Big Yellow, and that was still easier to say than polynumerous molecular sentient polyhydroxide alcoholydes with an agenda—was certainly capable of setting up this kind of a system, but it seemed like an awfully complicated load of rubbish to go through just to . . . what? Study a few hundred captive Marines?

  No. Her father had never thought much of the Corps or her joining it, but the two of them—her father and the Corps—had shared a few essential beliefs, the relevant one being that the simplest answer was usually the right answer.

  Why would unknown aliens bother to set up such a complex scenario when they’d proved they could observe the entire Corps with no one the wiser? And not only observe but make them dance?

  “Twenty-seven percent of the polyhydroxide alcoholyde in the major’s arm has migrated—primarily to his nervous system . . . I suspect the alien entity is probably observing the major from the inside.”