by Tanya Huff
“So what do you think about it?”
Turned out she hadn’t been listening closely enough although she was fairly certain he’d been telling her about a military rumor now making the rounds of the general public. Which would make the safest response: “I doubt it’ll happen.”
Craig shrugged. Torin watched the movement appreciatively. “I don’t know, Presit seemed sure your R&D guys could reverse engineer her pilot’s trip behind the Berg to Big Yellow.”
Presit a Tur durValintrisy, reporter for Sector Central News, had wanted the story of the unidentified alien ship badly enough that she’d bullied her pilot into locking onto the tail end of the Berganitan’s Susumi signature, basing his own equations on information received from riding the sweet spot in the warship’s wake. It was amazing piloting, and Parliament had declared the stunt too dangerous to be repeated without further study. A lot of further study.
The reporter still had no time for Torin but considered Craig one of hers. One of her what Craig wasn’t willing to say, although the Katrien were a matriarchal species, so the chances of him being embarrassed by the details were high.
“If your lot can dummy a way to follow the Others home,” he continued, “then won’t you be able to take the fight to them?”
“We will.” Torin shoved her med kit into her pack. “And then there’ll be more fighting.”
“I thought that was what you did.”
It wasn’t a question, so she didn’t answer it. Wouldn’t have had an answer to it had it been a question.
“So . . .” The chair creaked as he shifted his weight. “. . . one of my salvage tags seems to have gone walkabout.”
“You probably stuffed it into the junk drawer.” No probably about it—she knew he’d stuffed the tag in the junk drawer because that was where she’d taken it from. It was currently tucked in between her breasts, hanging around her neck on a length of braided cord.
He shook his head and grinned. “The buggers are chipped, Torin.”
“I know.”
“I run the codes and I can find it.”
She looked up then. She’d taken it on impulse, wanting to carry something of his with her and ignoring the fact that she never did anything impulsively. On the shuttle ride to the station, turning it over and over, she’d found a weird sort of comfort in knowing that as long as she held on to it, he could find her. Provided he was close enough. Her military ID had a stronger signal, but he’d be more motivated.
She hoped he’d be more motivated.
She’d almost sent it back to him twice. Almost.
Finally she said, “I know.”
After a moment, Craig reached out and touched the edge of the screen. “This must be costing you big bikkies.”
“A few.” Full squirt with no discernible time delay was expensive, but they wouldn’t have another chance to talk until she got back to the station. No way of knowing when they’d be together physically, and the thought of that made her ache in ways she found just a little disconcerting. It wasn’t the sex—there was always plenty of that to go around—it was him.
“Why?”
That got him her full attention. It was the same tone he’d used during their we’re going to damned well discuss a future whether you like it or not conversation. She hadn’t liked it. And he hadn’t backed down. And damned if they weren’t likely to have a future together. Some day.
“Why what?”
“Why spend so much to say good-bye?”
“It isn’t . . .”
He snorted and she paused.
“Fine. You mean that much to me. Okay? Happy?”
“Yeah.”
His smile made her fumble a rolled pair of socks, and she called herself a sentimental ass as she bent to pick them up.
“Happy unless,” he continued as she straightened, “you’ve got a bad feeling about this fight and you think this may be it.”
She flicked an eyebrow in his general direction. “I’m going into combat. Of course this may be it.”
“Damn.” One corner of his mouth twisted, turning the smile into a parody of itself. “I wasn’t expecting you to agree with me.”
“Don’t worry.” She stopped herself before she could touch her fingertips to his on the screen, knowing that whatever the impetus for the cliché, no matter how much Craig would appreciate the gesture, she’d hate herself for it later. “I’m not that easy to kill.”
He snorted. “Everyone’s easy to kill, Torin.”
Moving a full GCT of fifty-four officers and 1,178 enlisted Marines from the station out through the lock tubes and into their packets on the Hardyr called for split-second timing and some inventive profanity. As all three GC companies, the recon platoon, and the engineers waited to board, the masses of black uniforms surging back and forth across the main loading bay looked, at best, like barely organized chaos. The chaos was unavoidable, but Torin had made damned sure that Sh’quo Company’s part in it at least was organized. Their armory had been loaded, their packets checked, their mess adjusted—Supply had its collective head up its ass if they thought Marines could survive a four-day Susumi jump and an indefinite time fighting on their idea of coffee rations.
Slate in hand, she watched as C’arden Company moved its first squad over the lip and into the tube and grinned as Sergeant Perry, a distinct enough of this shit tone to his voice snapped out, “Double time, people! I’ll be right pissed if we miss the rest of the war!”
First squad in set the pace, and double-timing half a kilometer with full gear should be no one’s idea of a rough time. They might even get all three companies loaded before the Marines on the short-list claimed their contracts were up.
With Captain Rose and First Sergeant Tutone huddled up with their counterparts, Torin calmed Second Lieutenant Heerik, who was not handling the waiting well, broke up a shoving match between a pair of heavy gunners by threatening to link their exoskeletons to a dance biscuit, and joined Sergeant Hollice watching Corporal di’Merk Mysho repack her pack.
“She says fussing kills time,” Hollice said without being asked.
Torin shrugged as Mysho smacked Sam Austin’s hand away from a bag of high-calorie chews. “She’s right.”
“She also said fukking would kill time.”
“She’s right again.”
“Except that we’re in ranks and I wouldn’t excuse her.”
“Bastard.”
Hollice snorted. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure she expressed an opinion on my parentage, too.”
“You need to learn more di’Taykan, Sergeant.”
He snorted again. “Safer not to know, Gunny.”
“Is Private Padarkadale praying?” His eyes were closed and his lips were moving, and a circle pendant dangled from one pale hand.
“Probably,” Hollice allowed, rolling his eyes in the greenie’s general direction. “But we needed a religious one to complete the set.”
Mashona was asleep, head on her pack, KC-7 cradled against her chest like an infant, long, dark fingers gently cupping the sniper scope. Boots off, slate held in prehensile toes, Ressk worked the screen with both hands—nose ridges clamped shut, lips drawn back off his teeth. Whatever he was working on, he was finding it a challenge. Given that he’d broken through station security so cleanly they’d remained unaware of the breach for almost six tendays, Torin told Hollice to check him out and continued circulating.
Sh’quo would be the last of the three GC companies to load. Most of the Marines had their slates out playing a game biscuit or writing one last message home; a few, like Mysho, were going through their gear, fewer still were sleeping. There were a couple of quiet conversations, a couple of louder conversations, and another shoving match broken up by their teammates before Torin could get across the floor.
The engineers would load after Sh’quo and then Recon—last on, first off.
“Gunnery Sergeant Kerr!”
Torin knew that voice. She turned, slowly, figured what the hell, and
smiled at the dark-haired young woman currently trying not to smile at her. “Private Kichar. I see you’ve gone into Recon.”
Dark eyes narrowed over a prominent nose. “How . . .”
“Collar tabs.”
Kichar flushed slightly but didn’t glance down at her tabs. Point for her, Torin acknowledged. “I just wanted to say it’s an honor to be serving with you again, Gunnery Sergeant.”
“I can’t say I’m unhappy about it either, Kichar.” And she meant it. The battle on Crucible had knocked the stick mostly out of Kichar’s ass—the creases pressed into her combats indicated she was still an annoying overachiever, but there’d be plenty of battles to knock that out of her, too.
“I didn’t ask to be posted to 4th Recar’ta 1st Battalion after training,” Kichar explained.
“She doesn’t want you to think she’s stalking you, Gunny.” The Krai corporal’s teeth were showing as he detached himself from the crowd and moved into their space. “Even if all she does is fukking talk about you.”
“You don’t think I’m worth talking about?”
He snorted. “I don’t know, Gunny. What’ve you done lately?”
Kichar’s eyes narrowed further, her weight shifted forward, and she was clearly about to do something she’d just as clearly regret about five seconds after doing it. Torin closed a steadying hand around her arm. “It’s okay, Kichar. Lance Corporal Werst was with me on Big Yellow—although he was a private then.”
“And I’d be one again if they let me give the fukking hook back,” Werst grunted.
Torin grinned. She’d bet serious credit on him ending up career Marine. “I’m sure you can figure out a way to lose it.”
Although she managed to keep from grabbing the much shorter Krai, Kichar’s hands kept opening and closing. “You never said you served with the gunny before.”
Werst shrugged, a Human gesture both the di’Taykan and Krai had adopted. “So? Dursinski’s here too, Gunny. Still bitching.”
That was a surprise. The lance corporal hadn’t seemed to be enjoying her time in the Corps. A bigger surprise that she’d remained in Recon given the attrition rate. “She reupped?”
Werst shrugged again. “Said it beat looking for a real job.”
“That’s not,” Kichar began, paused and frowned. “You were kidding?”
“Not me,” Werst told her, nose ridges pinching shut. “Dursinski might’ve been.”
“Gunny, I need to . . .”
“Ask the corporal what she meant?” Torin interjected into the pause. “Go ahead.”
“Fuk, she’s annoying.” Popping something in his mouth Torin was just as glad she couldn’t identify, given the Krai were as indiscriminate in their eating habits as the di’Taykan were about sex, Werst nodded toward an argument among the engineers. “You going to deal with that?”
The trio of specialists seemed to be disagreeing on who’d be carrying what equipment. Before Torin could work up enough interest to care, a Human technical sergeant broke it up, smoothly separating the combatants and bending quickly to catch something that looked like a metal spider before it hit the floor. As he straightened, he met Torin’s eye and nodded before handing the spider back to the Marine who’d dropped it.
“Looks like it’s under control,” she said. Across the loading bay, Captain Rose raised a hand. “And I’m needed. Be seeing you, Werst.”
“You can join us out in front any time, Gunny.”
Gunnery sergeants did not need the approval of lance coporals, but Torin was Human enough she appreciated the thought all the way back across the bay.
“It’s like supervising a kindergarten class,” the captain sighed as she joined him. “Tutone’s just gone to broker a deal with Captain Yun’s First concerning pudding cups.”
“Pudding cups, sir?”
“Yun thinks their mess got too many vanilla cups.” He scratched at a patch of old scar tissue on his jaw and sighed. “We don’t wait well, do we?”
“No, sir. But we’ll snap to once the fight starts.”
“Gunny!” Captain Rose leaned in so close she could feel his breath hot against her cheek. The only way to be heard over the Others’ artillery and their own answering it. “Any word from Heerik’s number three squad?”
“No, sir!”
“Should have sent a runner when the PCUs went.”
“Yes, sir!” A lot of “should haves” got missed with the company pinned down under small arms and artillery fire while attempting to take an entrenched position. Blasted communication units made the list even longer.
“I have to know . . .”
They ducked together as something impacted against the other side of their hastily thrown up earthworks and blew with a whomph that rattled Torin’s teeth.
Coughing and spitting out mouthfuls of finely pulverized dirt, the captain glared at her with bloodshot eyes. “You think they knew we were coming?” he bellowed as the dust settled.
“Seem to have baked a cake, sir.”
He spat again and rubbed dirt off the readout in his sleeve. The various items actually woven into their combats were pretty much the only wireless tech working; even their slates were down. “God fukking damnit, I’m not directing an air strike down on my own fukking Marines. Find that squad, Gunny! And when you find it, move it back!”
“Yes, sir.”
Balancing safety and speed and concluding she had no time for the former, Torin raced toward the squad’s last known position. They were out front, every one knew that, but no one knew how far out front and where they’d gone to ground. If they’d gone to ground. If they were still alive.
She jumped a body, got cursed out by the corpsman working on a slightly more intact body beside it, recognized the pale orange hair, and froze momentarily as another mortar hit. The Others were blowing nothing bigger than their own Em223s. Small stuff from the firing position, significantly bigger boom for those at the other end of the trajectory.
As soon as the earth stopped moving, she started running again.
“Gunny!” One of the new recruits. “What are we supposed to do?”
“Wait for air support,” she snapped without breaking stride.
And right on cue, three Marine 774s screamed by with two of the enemy’s planes in close pursuit.
Torin half heard the whistle, shouted, “Down!” with no hope of being heard, and hit the dirt as at least half a payload landed a little too close. The earthworks shuddered as the blast wave hit, then slowly toppled inward. Torin tried to scrabble clear and got tangled with a warm body. She managed to get her arms over her head to make an air pocket as the dirt rained down.
Fuk!
Rocks in the mix slammed against body parts not protected by her vest. She took a hard hit to the calf, then strong hands grabbed her ankle and began to haul her clear. Digging in elbows and knees, she gave what help she could.
“You okay, Gunny?”
“I’m fine, Anderson. Thanks,” she added as the heavy gunner set her on her feet. Fortunately, the exoskeletons had been unaffected by whatever pulse the Others had hit them with. Half turning, she saw another heavy drag Lieutenant Jarret out from under the collapsed barrier.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this, Gunny . . .” He coughed and spat out a mouthful of mud. “. . . people’ll start to talk.”
Torin’s lips caught against the dirt on her teeth. “Let them talk, sir.”
He returned her grin. “What’s your heading?”
“Lieutenant Heerik’s three squad is up front.” New bruises were rising, but everything essential still worked. “We need to place them so the captain can call in coordinates for the air strike.”
The lieutenant glanced at the Marines working to rebuild the blown section, his lilac eyes dark. “Call in on what? Nothing’s working!”
“We’ve had word that Signals are running filament. Should be out our way eventually.”
“And until then?”
Gunnery sergeants did not e
ver admit they didn’t know. “Smoke signals, sir.”
He blinked, then he grinned again and nodded. “Stay on thirty-seven degrees. If she proved to have half a brain and stayed put, you’ll find Heerik.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Keep your head down, Gunny.”
“Count on it, sir.”
She didn’t find Heerik, but she found her other two squads. “God damn it, Doctorow, don’t tell me you’ve lost your lieutenant already!”
The staff sergeant rolled his eyes. “She went up to find three squad.
“She went herself with this lot sitting on their fine Marine asses getting fat?”
The Marines close enough to hear suddenly found something to look at over the barricade.
“Said it was her job. Wouldn’t listen to me. Slipped away when I was dealing with . . .”
Screaming.
“. . . that. Damn it, Huran,” he whirled and glared at the corpsman. “Knock him out if you can’t shut him up.”
“We’ve been through this, Staff. His religion says he can only lose consciousness naturally.”
Padarkadale. Or most of him.
Torin held up her right arm. “See all these hooks? They say my religion trumps his. Dope him!”
“Gunny, I . . .”
“Do it!”
“That was intolerant of Padarkadale’s beliefs,” Doctorow muttered as Huran bent back over his patient.
“Yes, it was,” Torin told him as the private stopped screaming. “His god can talk to me about it later. Which way did Heerik go?”
“That way—one hundred and eleven degrees from Marine zero.”
Torin lined up on the way he was pointing and checked her sleeve. “How far?”
“Shouldn’t be more than a klik and a half.” He snorted. “Could be anywhere in hell’s half acre.”
Another set of 774s roared by. Higher this time.
“They’ll start dropping by eye any minute now,” Doctorow noted, glaring up into the sky.
“They’ve started.”
“Oh, fukking joy.”
One hundred and eleven degrees took Torin over the barricade . . .
“. . . through the woods and to grandmother’s house we go,” she muttered, slapping a filter over her mouth and nose. That took care of breathing, but with all the dust in the air, she could hardly see. Running bent almost double, KC-7 in her right hand, left arm out in front to maintain her bearing, she concentrated on keeping the readout in the green.