[Confederation 04] Valor's Trial

by Huff, Tanya

  “There are being your start point!” She poked an imperious finger toward the view screen and the scattered points of light. “It are not hiding!”

  “It’s also not in the damned computer!” Sighing, he sagged back in the chair, unable to look at his reflection in her glasses. He’d found one possible reference point—deep space telemetry had picked up what it thought might be the Colvin-Habbes Nebulae—but that was it. Not nearly enough information to anchor a Susumi equation.

  “You are saying before it are only a matter of time.”

  “I lied.”

  “So you are saying now?”

  “That we are totally screwed. Fukked royally. Up the proverbial shit creek without the proverbial pa . . . Ow!”

  Presit released the piece of his thigh she’d pinched and stepped closer, peering up into his face, her teeth very sharp and very white between the black lines of her lips. “I are not believing that.”

  He snorted. “It doesn’t matter what you believe. Believe the porky if you want to, but screwed, fukked, shit creek—that sums things up.”

  “Then we are looking for why we are here.”

  “Here?”

  “Here. Why are they dumping us here?”

  “They didn’t . . .” Craig stared out at unfamiliar star fields, back at Presit, and sighed. Why not. It wasn’t like they had anything useful they could be doing. “Okay, fine, I’ll bite. Why did they dump us here?”

  She swatted him on the thigh, right where the bruise was rising. “I are not knowing that! But I are suggesting we be looking for real estate with atmosphere we are able to be breathing, then the Others are able to be breathing it, too.”

  He spent a moment working over the syntax, then said, “How do you figure?”

  “Their known space are overlapping our known space, thus we are being at war.” She waggled linked fingers at him, claws gleaming. “But that are only happening if we are wanting the same spaces and that are meaning breathable air. The same breathable air. We are not fighting the Methane Alliance!”

  She had a point. “So I look for planets around here with breathable air. And then what?”

  “And then we are at least not dying up here when the air are being too contaminated for the air scrubbers!” The additional you idiot came through loud and clear.

  “No drama about that.” A fond pat on the edge of the control panel; breathable air he could deal with. “As long as I can find ice, I can keep the O2 levels up.”

  “Ice?”

  “Not exactly rare.”

  “And food?”

  “Eventually, that may be more of a problem,” he admitted.

  Head cocked to one side, she folded her arms and raked a speculative gaze over him, the points of her teeth showing. “You are being good for many meals.”

  And he had no doubt that if it came to it, she’d kill him in his sleep and mourn the lack of condiments. Presit took care of number one. “Okay, then, why don’t I look for some planets?”

  From the outside, the prison looked like a single-story bunker, the walls stained and pitted by the particles on the wind, the single window and hatch the only breaks in the visible sixty meters.

  What kind of idiot built an underground prison in an area so geo-logically unstable? Torin wondered. Just one more thing that made no sense to add to the mental list of what the fuk she’d been keeping since she woke up in that cave.

  Tucked to one side, in a metal cup that had to be another sixty meters across, was an equally enormous chunk of ice.

  “Berg or asteroid,” Freenim wondered, eyes squinted against the glare.

  Torin shook her head. “No fukking idea.”

  Just because this part of the planet was on fire didn’t mean all of it was. It could, and likely did, have ice fields extending around both poles. But berg or asteroid, the cup explained where the water for the prison came from.

  Directly outside the hatch was a covered platform clearly—given the burn marks and the tie-downs—used for skimmers. Unfortunately, there were no skimmers on the platform.

  Still in the air lock, Torin had laid out the order of the march. “The Artek’ll head out first, then the Polina—given the environment, there’s no reason for them to be held to the pace of the bipeds and a lot of reasons for them to get the fuk out of this mess as soon as possible. Ressk, when you get to the landing site, get the hatch open. Durlin?” She’d paused, and the durlin had nodded, approving the order. And thank fukking God for that; Torin had been half afraid she’d argue. “The rest of us will stay together. We will not survive out there in a firestorm, so let’s make sure we don’t have to.”

  “And how do we make sure of that, Gunny?”

  “We move our collective asses, Watura. And if you’ve got something to pray to, you pray.”

  He’d glanced over at Darlys, then, who was once again staring at Torin like she had all the answers and then some. It was the and then some that made Torin want to say, “Don’t be praying to me, dumbass, I’ll be out there with you!” but she decided not to waste her breath.

  “Marines, set your environmental controls as low as they can go.”

  “That’s not very low, Gunny,” Mashona had murmured watching both di’Taykan fiddling with their cuffs.

  It wasn’t. Regular combats weren’t designed for the kind of heat they’d be facing. But it’d be better than nothing. Not much better but a little.

  The Artek had taken off running the moment Mike reopened the outer hatch, looking like nothing so much as giant cockroaches scuttling for safety. Which, technically, they sort of were although no one—and Torin could see more than one set of lips pressed close behind the filters’ shimmer—had the bad taste to make the observation aloud.

  The Polina had paused for a moment, the males holding back only because they were tucked in behind the durlin.

  “Gunnery Sergeant, Durlave Kan. We will meet you at the landing site.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Gunny . . . !”

  Kyster wasn’t worried about riding, but she could see the panic rising at the thought of being away from her. “It’s just like climbing the pipe, Kyster. Ressk and Werst are right there, and I’ll see you at the other end. You’ll be fine.”

  “But . . .”

  “I said you’ll be fine.”

  He’d nodded then, holding so tightly to the straps on the durlin’s harness, his knuckles were white.

  When they ran full out, the Polina moved a lot like big cats. It didn’t look comfortable for the riders, but then, Torin had never actually ridden a big cat, so she could be wrong.

  It took little discussion to put Kichar out on point with Torin and Everim back on their six with Freenim.

  “If this was a vid,” Torin muttered, “one of them would begin to fall into a lava pit and the other would save their ass and they’d become best friends forever.”

  Freenim snorted. “We have those stories, too. In real life, one of them will no doubt shove the other into a lava pit given the opportunity. Best to keep them separate.”

  The first part of the skimmer path—about a hundred meters out from the platform—could almost be called crushed gravel. The skimmers were at their lowest there, weight and backwash grinding the path to conform to the drive requirements. There’d be a similar hundred meters at the other end. Ten kilometers away.

  “Well, at least it’s a dry heat,” Watura sighed wearily.

  No one laughed.

  Torin fell into an easy lope, glad to have Kichar beside her because it forced her to shorten her stride to where the four Druin—roughly the private’s height—could keep up. Air sucked through the filter tasted of sulfur and ash, but it didn’t burn either her eyes or her soft pallet, so the odds were good any taste at all came from her expectations. The air looked like it should taste of sulfur and ash and so it did, filter be damned. Some Marines never really got used to working in the smaller filters that sealed tightly over mouth and nose, but Torin preferred them to
the full-face versions. It always took her a while to begin ignoring the shimmer just at the edge of her eyelashes, and this time out she didn’t have the luxury of a while.

  The air emerging from skylights over lava tubes would be hot enough to singe hair and bake eyebrows off but easy enough to avoid as the column shimmered—provided Torin could tell the difference between the filter’s shimmer and the air shimmering. There’d be no skylights on the skimmer path—unless some had broken through since the last time it was used—but if the wind shifted while they were passing one, there’d be close to the same amount of damage done.

  At the end of the first hundred meters, the path got rougher. Loose rock and small fissures forced a certain amount of caution.

  “You turn an ankle and we will drag you the rest of the way.” Loud enough all nine runners could hear her. “It won’t be fun, so stay on your feet!”

  Half a hundred strides later, they passed a skylight about three meters to the right. In the absence of any wind, the temperature may have risen a degree or two. Maybe not. It was hot enough a degree or two made little difference.

  Torin could already feel the heat on her hands and the back of her neck, skin beginning to prickle and pull tight. Watura may have been joking, but it was a dry heat—similar to that generally found in industrial-sized ovens.

  “Watura, Darlys—you tell me if the heat is too much. Mashona, Sergeant Gucciard—keep an eye on the di’Taykan.”

  “You don’t think we’d say something, Gunny?” Watura asked.

  Darlys wouldn’t; not and risk her disappointment. She’d like to think that, now Jiyuu was out of the picture, Watura’d have more sense. She’d like to think so, but she wasn’t banking on it. “At these temperatures, you could go down before you’re aware you’re being overcome.”

  “If I’m going down, Gunny, I’m aware of it.”

  The opportunity for innuendo had perked them both up. “Good for you.”

  When they reached the first large, triangular fissure and the skimmer path swooped right to go around, Torin realized 10K was a low estimate. Ten kilometers as the 740 flew—not that any Marine would want to take a bird out in the abrasive soup that passed for atmosphere—but probably closer to twelve or fifteen at ground level. Still easily doable but that much again more dangerous.

  “Stay all the way to the right,” Torin barked as they began the bypass. “We don’t know how stable the edges are.” The fissure was deep and about six meters across at the widest end, the lava in it deep red and already beginning to develop an insulating skin.

  They were warmed up now—and considering they’d be cooked in a little under an hour, that was almost funny—so she picked up the pace. Both the Artek and the Polina were out of sight, but that was more the terrain than the speed the nonbipeds were making.

  The Gunny’d said he’d be fine, so he was, but Kyster had grown up in the city, he’d joined the Corps as soon as he was legally able, and neither in the city nor in the Corps had he been expected to ride large animals. Or the enemy. Or an officer.

  It wasn’t that it was hard; it was just weird. The motion reminded him of the upper walkways in the wind—the ones so high only the Krai ever took them. He hung on to the straps on the vest and the bellyband with his good foot and kept his weight high up on the durlin’s withers, centered on her spine, and tried not to think about how it was the durlin’s spine. The di’Taykan would be good at this, they liked touching, except their feet would be dangling on the rock and that would kind of defeat the whole purpose.

  For the first time ever, he wished he had his boots. If he’d had his boots, he’d be running with the gunny.

  They crested a ridge and the durlin didn’t slow, bounding down the far side, rear legs sliding sideways in the loose rock as she reached the bottom. She dug in her claws, let momentum center her, and crossed under the first of the massive stone arches without having lost any speed. As they passed, the heat from the wide fissure slapping against his left side like an open palm, Kyster saw scorch marks high on the rock. Not the place to be in a firestorm obviously. He tightened his grip . . .

  . . . and nearly lost his seat when the durlin’s arm reached back, her hand closed around his wrist, and she shoved down.

  Down?

  There were a set of straps lower on the vest as well. He transferred the hand she wasn’t holding and she released him, slapping him on the thigh as he dropped that hand down as well.

  The slap seemed like a good thing. Like approval.

  He realized why she wanted him to change his grip a moment later as they reached a steeper ridge and she threw her body forward, using her hands and arms to help claw her—their—way upward.

  Her sides were heaving by the time the ground leveled out, the short golden fur darkened with sweat, but instead of slowing, she lengthened her stride. Kyster could feel long muscles moving under his legs. It was comforting in a way. Like being a part of something, something that meant not being alone. The rise and fall of her spine threw him forward and back, reinforcing the similarities to the upper walkways. He found himself suddenly remembering home and wondered if there was less oxygen in the air than Technical Sergeant Gucciard thought.

  It hurt to think of home. He’d learned that on his own in the tunnels, so he never did it; except now, he couldn’t seem to stop. The light at home was green, not orange, and the breeze in his face would smell of food, not alien body odor. For the first time since Harnett’s men had abandoned him, he let himself believe he might be able to go back someday. Gunnery Sergeant Kerr had gotten him this far, he just had to believe she could get him the rest of the way

  She believed she could do it; that had to be good enough for him.

  It wasn’t quite as much of a surprise when the durlin reached back the second time. Both her hands gripped his wrists hard for a second and then let go.

  He got that he was supposed to do something, but he didn’t know what.

  Then he saw the fissure directly ahead of them. The path followed the edge of the fissure half a kilometer, maybe more to the left, over a small arch of the harder, smoother stone then looped back to turn away from the channel almost directly across from where they were.

  Helic’tin charged past, yelling a challenge. Then Bertecnic. It didn’t look as though either of the males were going to turn.

  It didn’t feel as though the durlin were going to turn.

  Leaping over the fissure would definitely be faster than going to the bridge.

  Muscles bunched as she planted her rear feet.

  Nope. Not going to turn.

  Kyster hurriedly stuffed his bad foot under the bellyband. Helic’tin launched himself. Landed. A moment later, Bertecnic landed on his heels. Ressk and Werst might have yelled something, but it got lost in all the whooping.

  He clamped his nose ridges shut and closed his eyes as the durlin launched herself over the fissure. The blast of heat as they crossed suggested the lava flow wasn’t very far down, but he had no intention of opening his eyes to find out for sure. The last thing he needed was to have the fluid in his eyeballs cooked away. He’d heard that kind of thing could happen.

  The landing slammed his teeth together, and if he hadn’t been Krai, he was sure they’d have shattered. He sucked in a scorching lungful of air with the impact. He could feel the durlin readying her next stride when she began to fall back.

  With a crack like breaking bone, the edge of the rock split away, splashing down into the lava flow.

  The durlin screamed. Kyster smelled burning hair. Cooking meat. Her hindquarters bucked up. He let the movement throw him forward, over her shoulder. His bad foot caught on the bellyband, but he kicked free. When he hit the ground, he rolled, slammed up against the rough curve of a boulder, and bounced back. Didn’t matter. At least the durlin wouldn’t have his weight forcing her down.

  Another crack.

  He looked up in time to see the durlin silhouetted in front of a fountain of red.

  She
screamed again.

  Helic’tin and Bertecnic surged forward and grabbed her arms. Werst and Ressk were both standing, toes clutching the lower straps, reaching out for fistfuls of her uniform.

  Another crack.

  The two males leaped back, dragging the durlin with them.

  And then they were all standing, breathing heavily, a good two meters in from the new edge.

  “Kyster, are you hurt?”

  “Why?” Kyster grunted, rolling up onto his feet. The rock was hot. Almost too hot against the scar tissue.

  “Why? You fell off!”

  “I jumped.”

  “You jumped?” The older Krai exchanged a glance that pulled Kyster’s lips up off his teeth.

  “She was falling. I didn’t want to be too heavy for her.” He limped back to the durlin’s side, ignoring the conversation going on over his head. The language seemed to include a lot of growling and snarling—he didn’t think they were fighting, but they might have been. “She’s hurt.” There were two ugly burns on Durlin Vertic’s right haunch, both deep enough to show charred muscle, both seeping blood, the larger trailing rising lines of white blisters all the way down her leg.

  “Even through the filter, she smells chrick,” Ressk murmured.

  Kyster’s mouth was watering. He couldn’t remember when he’d last had cooked meat. “I don’t think they have sealant.”

  “Good thing Gunny had me carry the one we found, then.” Still standing, Werst pulled a tube from his vest. “Already works on three species, and she’s bleeding red, so here’s hoping we’ve got enough body chem in common.”

  Kyster caught the tube, then held it up high enough to get the durlin’s attention and mimed spraying it on the burn.

  Bertecnic growled a protest. It sounded like a protest. Durlin Vertic growled something back that shut him up and gestured for Kyster to get on with it.

  “This shouldn’t sting and it should keep the blisters from breaking and it should block the scent a bit, I hope.” He kept his voice soft, nonthreatening, the words slurring into each other in a soothing rise and fall of sound.

  “She can’t understand you,” Ressk pointed out.