[Confederation 04] Valor's Trial

by Huff, Tanya

  “What?”

  “Don’t even try to tell me that was the only reason you came. You came because Jiyuu came.”

  “He’ll be fine with Darlys. Me, her—it doesn’t matter to him.”

  “Evidence suggests it does.”

  Watura shrugged.

  Fine. So much for the compassionate approach. Plan B. She leaned forward until their faces were so close the air between them began to warm and she could feel her body responding—the near contact overwhelming Watura’s masker—but she wasn’t planning on holding the position long enough for it to be a problem. “Look at me.”

  His eyes had started to pale as the light receptors closed.

  He’d be reacting to her arousal in a minute, so she had to make this fast before it spiraled out of control. Voice too low to be overheard out in the tunnel, she said, “I’d really rather you hadn’t come along, but since you did, and since in a moment of temporary insanity I didn’t send your ass back to Staff Sergeant Pole, your ass is my responsibility. That means your ass is getting out of here with the rest of us, so stand up and get out in that tunnel and try to convince me that you’re worth being considered a Marine.”

  He leaned back, unable to look away, and tried to focus on her face. “We don’t leave our people alone.”

  “No. We don’t leave our people behind.” Still holding his gaze, she stretched out an arm and picked up one of the pale blue hairs, tucking it into Watura’s vest. “Remember this. Now . . .” She straightened. “If the Others catch up because you decided to park your ass, I’m going to be more than just a little pissed! On your feet!”

  At the edge of her peripheral vision, she saw Kyster glance down at the body as though he expected it to respond. Hell, she was a gunnery sergeant in the Confederation Marine Corps and if she wanted the dead to rise, they’d damned well do it, but right now she’d settle for getting one pain-in-the-ass di’Taykan moving.

  On his feet, Watura looked like he couldn’t remember standing.

  Torin jerked her head toward the exit, and he moved with the motion,as though a string connected her desires and his actions. Which was, bottom line, the way it worked in the Corps with or without complacency-causing kibble.

  As he began to push his way back through the crack toward the tunnel, Kyster closed his hand around her wrist.

  Knowing what was coming, Torin dropped back to her knee, one hand resting lightly on the dead Marine’s shoulder.

  “I can take a part of him out as a part of me,” Kyster said quietly, mouth up against her ear.

  She’d given him this, a way of making right what he’d had to do to stay alive. She couldn’t take it away again. This wasn’t about food— although the Krai could get food value out of anything organic—this was about giving meaning to death.

  “Do it,” she said, picked up another pale blue hair, and stood. She waited until she heard the first crunch, then she worked her way back out into the tunnel, her boots making as much noise as possible against the rock.

  Slate held in his feet, Ressk worked the screen with both hands, freeing Mike to lean against the opposite wall of the tunnel and watch her as she emerged. When both brows lifted slightly, she wondered what he saw, wondered if he’d expected more than the carefully blank expression she knew she wore.

  The three di’Taykan stood together, bodies touching shoulder to hip, heads bowed, lime-green, fuchsia, and ocher hair interweaving as they studied the line of pale blue crossing Watura’s palm.

  The weight of Torin’s regard pulled Darlys’ attention up off the hair. “We didn’t know him,” she said.

  “Yes, you did,” Torin told her as Kyster slipped out into the tunnel. “He was a Marine.”

  A single whistle got Werst and Kichar moving again.

  “Ressk.”

  “Just one more . . .”

  Mike reached down before she could reply and pulled the slate from Ressk’s grip. “When we stop again, Corporal. Let’s get out of here.”

  They were no more than three meters from the cave when he fell into step beside her and said, “At least we definitely know we’re heading toward a pipe.”

  “I thought the geography told us that.”

  “They wouldn’t have dropped that Marine here if they hadn’t expected him to be picked up by the Marines at the pipe.”

  Torin frowned. “So they’re not watching all the time. There’ve been no other bodies, so they knew to stop using this section of tunnels.” Too late for the dead corporal.

  “Makes me think the delivery system is automatic.”

  “Or they were in too much of a hurry to check the situation at the pipe when they left him.”

  “However they left him.”

  “Matter transmitter ray?”

  “They used a matter transmitter ray in Pirates of the Back Belt,” Jiyuu offered. “When they needed to get the captain out of the brig.”

  Mike held out his hands. “That’s what I’m saying.”

  Torin almost smiled. “For shame, Technical Sergeant, pulling a theory from bad vids.”

  “It wasn’t a bad vid, Gunny!”

  She did smile at the indignant protest. Her cheeks felt funny.

  “Don’t the Others just bring the Marines in under cover of darkness, Gunny?” Darlys asked, moving closer. “That’s what we always assumed.”

  “Your lot made a number of incorrect assumptions,” Torin reminded her.

  “And I am sorry for what I was a part of, but still, there’d be no one in the tunnels at night to hear them,” Darlys insisted. “Not with everyone gathered around the pipes.”

  “Kyster?”

  His teeth snapped together. “Never heard them.”

  “You couldn’t be in every tunnel, every night.”

  “Next cave to the gunny’s when she came in. Didn’t hear them.”

  “But if you were in a cave, you might not have heard them.”

  “Would have.”

  “But . . .”

  “He says he would have, Darlys. That’s the end of it.”

  “Yes, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  Contrary to expectations, there was more damage in the tunnels the closer the pattern told them they were to the pipe. Cracks and fissures widened, and at one point the lights hung no more than a meter and a half from the floor, dangling on their cables.

  “Solid workmanship.” Mike reached out, fingers not quite touching the twisted metal. “I’m impressed they’re still on.”

  “I’m impressed you repaired them with a sleeve,” Torin told him, stepping over a pile of loose rock. “I’m less impressed by the workmanship of an enemy holding Marines captive.”

  “Holding a grudge, Gunny?”

  “Hasn’t been long enough to be considered a grudge, Sergeant.” She noted the recon marks on the wall and waved her people over to the right, where Werst had determined the floor was more stable. “Check back in a couple of days.”

  They caught up to Werst and Kichar at the turn just before the last straight ten meters into the pipe. Werst’s nose ridges were slowly opening and closing, and his lips were drawn up off his teeth.

  They could all smell it this time, not just the Krai.

  Torin shifted her grip on the club and deliberately drew in a couple of deep breaths, letting the smell of rot coat the inside of her mouth and nose. No point in ignoring it, it wasn’t going away. Best to get used to it quickly so that it wasn’t a distraction. “We go in like we’re expecting survivors,” she said. “If we’re attacked, and it’s at all possible, we disable, we don’t kill.”

  “What if it’s not Marines we’re attacked by, Gunnery Sergeant?” Kichar’s dark eyes seemed enormous.

  “Disable,” Torin told her. “I want some fukking answers.”

  She wouldn’t have allowed an officer to physically lead a team into an area so potentially deadly, but not only wasn’t she an officer, she had the most combat experience of the group and would be best able to threat assess the situation. And t
hat put her out front.

  Not that it really mattered.

  They all knew what the smell meant. Preparing for a threat was the military version of wishful thinking.

  The first body lay across the tunnel exit, one hand stretched out toward them. Human, male, his skin as dark as Mashona’s, his face haloed by a stain on the stone. Torin held the others in place and carefully, gently, turned his head with the toe of her boot.

  “Looks like the blood came out of his nose,” Darlys murmured.

  “Filters!” Torin snapped.

  Whatever it was had killed quickly. With any luck, they weren’t slapping on protection just a little too late.

  Almost all the bodies were sprawled facing the tunnels, but there was no way of knowing whether they’d started to run because they’d known there was something in the air or because the pipe had buckled. It hadn’t pulled out of the ceiling though it had exposed approximately six meters more length disappearing into a jagged hole. Half a dozen of the dead Marines closest to the pipe had been crushed under falling rock.

  “All right.” Torin let the club hang by her side. “Technical Sergeant Gucciard, get that slate up and running. The rest of you, by twos and by tunnel sections, get me a head count. And stay sharp; at least some of that rock has fallen since the pipe came down.”

  When the pipe broke, a flood of kibble had spewed out across the node. The edge closest to the water outlet had clearly been turned to mush and then allowed to dry. The five-by-two-meter slab looked like the crust that formed on the top of the manure pile in high summer back on her family’s farm, but Torin figured she’d keep that observation to herself. The speed at which the kibble absorbed water had probably kept it from destroying the entire spill—a good half meter of the far edge remained loose and mixed with the occasional biscuit. Given the pervasive smell of rot, she couldn’t tell if they’d gone bad, but the Krai would know. And not much care.

  The water chute had kinked, but the area around the contact point was damp. Torin pressed it in with her thumb, pressed harder when it refused to give, and finally slammed it with the club. A trickle of water ran over her wrist. She cupped her hands and nearly filled them before the pressure behind the contact pushed it out again. Unable to drink it through the filter, she let it splash against the floor, turning the pale gray dark. It’d be a pain in the ass, but they could fill the canteens.

  The living taken care of, she turned her attention back to the dead.

  Ninety-seven.

  Werst was chewing. “Cree arac,” he said shortly. Cousin, Torin translated. Or as near as made no difference. “On my father’s side. Went MIA about twenty-four maybe twenty-five tendays ago.”

  The dead were the main course at Krai burial rituals. As a rule, Marines gave that sort of thing up, but then, as a rule, Marines weren’t left to lie where they’d fallen.

  “There’s almost a hundred of them,” she said when Kichar expected to start carrying them off to the disposal pit. “We haven’t the time. Nor for that,” she added as Kyster opened his mouth. The last thing she wanted to cope with right now was the reaction to him suggesting the three Krai act like a memorial unit by eating a finger off each of the dead. Then she turned her attention back to Werst.

  “You took off your filter.” Carelessness she wouldn’t have expected from Werst.

  He swallowed. “Heeirc and I were close, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  He expected to be reamed out for it, but Torin couldn’t see much point. The filters were significantly more uncomfortable for the Krai than they were for the other two species, and that likely had as much significance in his choice as his cree arac did. That and the additive in the food wearing away his ability to care. “You’re our canary, then.”

  “Your what?”

  “Just let me know if you start dying.” She scratched at the edge of her filter—damned thing was pulling at the skin of her cheek. “You, Kyster, and Watura start pulling the biscuits out of that kibble on the floor. Grab only the ones that smell like a Human or di’Taykan system could handle them. Jiyuu, Kichar—refill the canteens. You’ll need to slam the contact with the club and the water won’t stay on for long. Mashona, Darlys—the extras that came in with the Marines have to be in here somewhere. There’s definitely going to be something we can use. Ressk, help the sergeant. I want that slate working sooner rather than later.”

  “When do we get to take the filters off, Gunny?” Ressk shot a resentful glare at Werst.

  “If Werst’s alive in half an hour, it should be safe.” She took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a heartbeat, and opened them again to see all eight Marines watching her. “Don’t just stand there with your thumbs up your collective asses! You have your orders; move!”

  The question was, what did they do next? Torin had never wanted an officer around quite so much. Good, bad, indifferent, it didn’t matter—just someone to deal with the big picture while she handled the details. It was shortsighted of her not to arrange it so that Colonel Mariner sent Major Ohi along. He’d come in with Mashona, he was still functional. He could have functioned for her so that she could function for everyone else.

  Sagging back against the pipe, she let it hold her weight as she slid to the floor.

  The floor?

  Crap.

  The pipe rang as she slammed her head back against it. Eyes watering, she forced herself up onto her feet. First Watura, then Werst, now her. The additive in the kibble was definitely beginning to work. She couldn’t tell if the pain helped her focus on anything but the pain, but even that was something.

  “Gunny?”

  “What?”

  Mashona was smart enough to take her cue from Torin, wiping the obvious question off her face. “The stuff was all together wrapped in a piece of the smart fabric. Six more filters, another tube of sealant, some leather ties like they used to hold the rocks on the clubs, and some rope.”

  “Rope?”

  There were loops of pale gray draped over Mashona’s outstretched hand. “There’s about thirty meters.”

  Wondering why the hell she thought giving herself a concussion was a good idea, Torin nodded. “Good work.” A quick glance down at her sleeve and she raised her voice. “Eleven minutes to lights out, people.”

  “We staying here tonight, Gunny?”

  Torin looked past Mashona, past the bodies, out at tunnels. Was there another pipe after this one? And another one after that? Were they right, everyone who’d said there was nothing out there but more tunnels? Mariner and Braudy and Kenoton and Pole . . . More tunnels and no way out?

  She didn’t, couldn’t believe that.

  “Yeah, we’ll bunk down close to the pipe for the night.” Most of the dead Marines, struggling toward the tunnels when they died, were closer to the node’s outer curve. “Take advantage of the water, make sure we’re all good and hydrated before we start out at first light. We might not get this lucky again. Let’s pull some pallets over while we can see clearly.”

  Crouched by the spill of kibble, separating out the biscuits, Kyster watched the gunny and Mashona pull pallets around to the side of the pipe where the crushed bodies weren’t. He wasn’t thrilled about staying the night, but there was enough of the food from the pipe that the smell of decaying meat shouldn’t be too much of a temptation.

  “Gran used to make a killer greetani krii,” Werst muttered, tossing another biscuit in the sleeve.

  “Mine, too,” Kyster admitted. It was tricky getting the meat to rot without insects finding it even with technology that tried to guarantee it. The effort was part of what made it taste so good. He turned a biscuit over, didn’t like the blotch of color on the back and tossed it in the dubious pile, finding it hard to believe he was actually discarding food.

  “This is what she asked for.”

  He turned to see Darlys standing by Watura holding a pallet, the lower half of her face weirdly out of focus behind the shimmer of the filter. “Who?”

  “Gunnery Sergeant Ke
rr.”

  “She asked for a pallet?” Watura wondered, standing.

  “She said,” Darlys told him quietly, “that she wanted to find a pipe with working water that had delivered biscuits before it quit. She asked for this . . .” Balancing the pallet on one edge, she waved a hand at the sleeve Kyster had just filled. “. . . and she received it.”

  Werst snorted. “She also wanted the pipe to have fallen out of the ceiling leaving us an easy exit. And I don’t see that . . .”

  The lights cut him off, and Kyster slapped at his cuff.

  “She asked for a way out.” In the darkness, Daryls sounded as though her faith had been justified.

  “What the fuk are you talking about?” Werst demanded.

  With the light from Watura’s cuff shining up into her face, Darlys’ eyes were solid ocher lid to lid. “Look up. The gunnery sergeant asked for a way out.” One hand reached out and grabbed the other di’Taykan’s wrist, pushing his light down toward the floor. “Just look up.”

  “Son of a . . .”

  Kyster exchanged a confused look with Werst, who shrugged. They both stood, walked to Watura’s side, and looked up.

  “I don’t see . . .”

  “Follow the line of the pipe,” Darlys told them.

  “In case you’re missing the point of the exercise, genius, it’s too serley dark to see anything without . . .”

  When Werst’s voice trailed off, Kyster frowned and tipped his head back. “But it’s just . . . Oh.”

  At the top of the pipe, where a chunk of the ceiling had fallen, there was light.

  NINE

  “IT’S LIGHT,” MIKE SAID DEFINITIVELY. “It’s not a light.” “So it’s a way out?”

  They were standing close enough, necks craned back to stare up at the pale pinprick of illumination high above them in the dark, that Torin could feel him shrug. “It’s a way into someplace else. Can’t promise out.”

  “Good enough. Werst . . .”

  “Not in the dark, Gunny. Not if we don’t have to.”

  “Stop reading my mind, you’re still a distance from that sergeant’s hook.” She frowned, hands flat against the pipe. The smooth surface, even crumpled by the collapse would be a bitch to climb. If Werst said he’d rather not attempt it in the dark, well, it was her choice still on whether it was worth it to try. If their need to haul ass was greater than the risk to the Krai. If waiting until they had light was the best thing to do or merely the easiest.