Valor's Trial

by Tanya Huff

  “Gunny . . .”

  “No, you won’t either, kid.” Werst cut Kyster off cold. “Not unless she orders it. Then all three of us go.”

  “Stop reading his mind, too,” Torin muttered absently, reaching as far as she could and feeling the faint ridge of buckled metal. She gripped it as hard as she could, fingertips only, and tried to lift herself off the floor. No real surprise when there wasn’t enough resistance to hold her; she’d need suction cups. “Odds that your patch will hold come morning, Sergeant?”

  Mike shrugged again. “It’s a sleeve, Gunny. Probably shouldn’t have worked at all.”

  That was helpful. Make a decision, Torin. Do your fukking job. “All right. We sleep. Kyster, Werst, and Ressk are excused watch and ready to climb at first light. Sergeant, do what you have to in order to get that slate working, remembering you’ll eventually be climbing that bastard of a pipe and that, at least, is one thing the slate can’t help with.”

  She dreamed that night that the pipe led into the shuttle bay of a Navy cruiser. It might have been the Berganitan, she didn’t see enough of the ship to know for certain. Haysole was there, and Guimond, and Sergeant Glicksohn, and a dozen other Marines she knew were dead. Dead Marines were a part of her life, but Craig was there, too, and when she woke, half an hour before light with the dream still in her head and the edges of the salvage tag cutting into her palm, she had every intention of blaming the fukking kibble for the soppy state of her subconscious.

  “Did you sleep at all?” she asked crouching by Mike’s side, one hand on a broad shoulder for balance.

  “No.”

  “You sure that’s wise?”

  He slipped a hand into his vest and pulled out a stim. “If we were always wise, would they give us these?”

  Torin touched her vest over the inner pocket where her two remaining stims waited for inevitability. She’d forgotten about them. Another malfunction to blame on the kibble.

  “Operating system’s up and running.” He turned the screen just enough for her to see a familiar pattern. She could practically hear him filtering what he was about to say, dumbing it down for the nontech-inclined. “Another hour, maybe less, and I’ll have recovered the first program.”

  “Which is?”

  The shoulder under her fingers lifted and fell even as he continued to stroke data off the screen. “Damned if I know. Could be solitaire. Could be long-distance communications. Could be CMC Mapping.”

  “I vote for option two or three.” She tightened her grip for a moment,then stood. “Good work, Sergeant. All right, people wakey, wakey. Welcome to another glorious day in the Corps.”

  “Does it count as day when it’s still too fukking dark to find your ass with both hands,” Mashona grumbled as half a dozen pale circles sprang up on the ceiling, indicating where Marines had hit their cuff lights.

  “I’ll find your ass,” one of the di’Taykan offered. Male. Probably Jiyuu.

  “As happy as I am that you’re offering to help a fellow Marine,” Torin told him, “Mashona’s lost ass is her problem. I want us fed and watered when the lights come back on, so let’s move.”

  The pale circles slid down the walls and spilled in darker circles on the floor—a game of connect the dots and find the Marines.

  “I thought that was an if not a when, Gunny.”

  “I am applying the power of positive thinking, Mashona.”

  “If you will it . . .”

  No mistaking Darlys’ quiet murmur.

  “I’m going to will my boot in your butt in a minute, Private. Let’s move!”

  The water still ran at the pipe although the contact point had stiffened further.

  “No surprise, given the abuse it’s already taken,” Torin grunted, smacking it hard with the side of her fist. With her bowl full, she switched it for Mike’s and moved out of the way so Watura could fill his and Jiyuu’s.

  “One minute to light.”

  They’d make the climb regardless.

  “Ten seconds.”

  Eleven.

  Twelve.

  “Maybe we’re in a different time zone?” From anyone but Kichar, it would have sounded sarcastic.

  Thirteen.

  Fourteen.

  And then Torin realized she could see the pale slash of the pipe stretching up toward the distant ceiling.

  “Could be rerouting within the sleeve to handle the load,” Mike said thoughtfully.

  “You design the hookup to do that, Sarge?” Ressk sounded impressed.

  He snorted. “Not intentionally.”

  It grew light enough to see faces and then expressions. Shadows lingered out among the dead, but by the pipe it had clearly gotten as light as it was going to get. “All right, then, let’s . . .”

  The vibration was slight. If Torin hadn’t had one hand flat against the pipe, she might have denied she felt it. “Technical Sergeant?”

  “I don’t know, Gunny . . .”

  “It feels like standing at the perimeter of the spaceport, watching the ships take off,” Kichar said quietly.

  “Like the ground is shaking?”

  “Yeah.”

  At some point the ground had shaken enough to bring down a section of the tunnels. Not to mention partially collapse the pipe they were standing by.

  Mike nodded. “Small earthquake.” He gestured toward the hunks of rock that had fallen from the ceiling, the parts of dead Marines protruding from under them adding emphasis. “I suggest we get the hell out of here.”

  “Excellent suggestion.” The tremors seemed to have stopped. “How do you want to do this, Corporal?”

  Head tilted back, nose ridges open, Werst stared up at the ceiling, one palm flat against the smooth metal, fingers spread. “Off shoulders,” he said at last. “Serley thing’s too vertical down here. The higher we start, the better the odds we’ll be able to find an angle that’ll hold us. Me first, then Ressk, then Kyster.”

  “But his foot,” Kichar began. Cheeks flushing as everyone turned to look at her, she snapped her lips closed, pressing them together until the edges whitened.

  Kyster showed teeth, but he let Werst answer.

  “Yeah, kid’s only got three working limbs which is still one more than the rest of you. If he can’t follow up, you lot’ll never manage and we’ll have to fukking stay down here until we rot.”

  No one seemed too upset at the thought. Torin wondered if there was a difference between calm acceptance of the inevitable—which Marines were not supposed to excel at in point of fact—and not actually giving a damn.

  “There’s the rope,” Darlys reminded him after a minute.

  “It’ll help if we get a chance to tie it off.” He had it slung diagonally across his body. “You still need somewhere to put your serley feet.” A finger jabbed at Watura. “You’re tallest.”

  It was actually almost funny to watch Werst climb Watura like a tree until he stood, feet gripping the di’Taykan’s shoulders.

  “Brace him, I’ll have to jump.”

  Jiyuu and Darlys each took a shoulder and Torin made the third side of the triangle when she set both palms flat against the middle of Watura’s back, just below where his neck joined his body. Mashona was almost as tall, but the gravity difference made Torin just a little stronger. Just a little might mean squat, but it might make all the difference.

  “On three,” Werst growled. “One. Two . . .”

  Torin flexed her right leg and braced her left. She could feel Watura readying himself.

  “Three.”

  He jumped with all four limbs spread, fingers and toes scrambling for purchase the instant he landed. Torin tried not to think of how much he looked like a tree frog wearing gray-on-gray camouflage. He slid back about half a meter, then somehow managed to creep right about the same distance and stop his fall. “Here,” he grunted. “Catches the edge of where the pipe buckles. Serley shadows make it hard to see from the ground.”

  Watura shifted to the right until he was
directly under the point indicated, and Ressk climbed to his shoulders as Werst carefully moved higher. Ressk’s jump was significantly more graceful, but then, he knew where he was going. When Kyster jumped, he seemed to use his back foot like a rudder in the air, and if he slid a little when he landed, it wasn’t so far that anyone still standing at the base of the pipe was forced to notice.

  Then there was nothing to do but watch them climb.

  Torin suspected Darlys was praying and only hoped she wasn’t praying to her—for she was a vengeful god, or, at the very least, a god who could use a few hour’s more sleep and a large cup of black coffee.

  All three Krai picked up some speed as they crossed the point where the pipe had buckled and slowed again at the longer, more vertical section following. Werst slid once, and it took both Ressk and Kyster to stop him. He used a few words Torin had never learned and snarled, “Stay left.”

  “First program’s up, Gunny.”

  Hating to do it, although it was a stupid conceit that her gaze alone held the climbers up, she turned to the technical sergeant and said, “That’s amazing.”

  Mike grinned. “No, it would be amazing if you’d done it. From me, it’s business as usual.”

  “Fair enough. What’ve you got?”

  “High-end translation program. Had to hazard a guess, I’d say major’s slate at least.”

  “A translation program?”

  “High end. Probably belonged to one of Colonel Mariner’s original staff officers from that diplomatic mission. We know the Others pick up more than one prisoner from an engagement.”

  “A high-end translation program.” It didn’t sound any better when she said it.

  “Could come in useful.”

  Torin sighed and raised her voice slightly. “Anyone here forget how to speak Federate?”

  The responses suggested not. Even the climbers chimed it with a no, a not yet, and a profane suggestion the slate translated as physically impossible given the way knees bent—although Jiyuu looked intrigued.

  Mike’s grin broadened. “I’ll get to work on the next one, then.”

  Torin relocked her gaze on the three Marines climbing the pipe as though her attention would make the metal less slippery, as though it would make the curves flatten into a path leading safely to the light, as though they needed her attention to keep them safe.

  “I will not fall. I will not fall.” Kyster knew that non-Krai in the Corps believed his people would eat pretty much anything they could fit into their mouths, which was true although fit was a relative word, and that they never fell, which was stupid. A life lived tens or even hundreds of meters above the ground in the living jourdun or in the copies tech had built near the spaceports meant falling, or rather impact, and not necessarily with the ground, was the biggest killer of both the young and old.

  Krai bone was hard enough and the distance small enough that sliding down the pipe, hitting the floor by the fused kibble, and splatting down at Gunnery Sergeant Kerr’s feet would do damage but wouldn’t kill him.

  He’d die of embarrassment.

  The toes of his good foot ached and his bad foot burned, the pain a heated reminder of his disfigurement. He struggled to keep up and snapped his teeth when one of the others too obviously waited for him.

  At the point where the pipe rose up into the ceiling, they found places to perch where the metal had buckled. Kyster’s fingers actually ached with the effort of holding on, and he squatted gratefully, head back, following the beam from Ressk’s cuff up through the rock toward the light. Cables, about as big around as his leg, matte black and impossible to see from the ground, split the crevasse into smaller sections. Once into the crevasse it would be an easy climb. Even for him.

  “Six meters to the top,” Werst grunted. “Give or take. Not far.”

  “Tight fit for the sarge,” Ressk pointed out.

  “Tight fit for the gunny.”

  “Not going without her,” Kyster growled.

  The two older Krai turned toward him, teeth bared.

  “No one’s suggesting that, dumbass.” Werst was breathing hard enough his nose ridges stayed open. He lifted his hands carefully off the pipe and, without warning, threw himself up and sideways, just barely hooking the fingers of his right hand over sharply angled stone. Swearing, he hauled himself up and grabbed on with his other hand and both feet.

  Ressk slid back about half a meter. Close enough that Kyster could reach out and catch him. Catch him and follow him to the ground. Don’t catch him and let him fall on his own. Problems with both choices. Fortunately, he managed to stop his fall a handspan from where Kyster would have had to choose and snarl, “A little warning, you serley chrika!”

  “Didn’t want to think about it too long,” Werst muttered absently as he climbed higher, moving faster now he was in the cleft. “Stay there; first cable I cross, I’ll send the rope down.”

  “Don’t need the rope!” Kyster shoved his bad foot into a crease in the pipe and shuffled forward. “I’ll prove it!” When Ressk grabbed his arm, he barely managed to stop from jerking free and sending them both plummeting floorward.

  “Wait for the rope, Private.”

  “You can’t . . .”

  Jerking his chin toward his collar tabs, Ressk’s lips drew back. “Yeah. I can.”

  “Tri keert!”

  The end of rope slapped into the pipe half a meter away, but both Kyster and Ressk had braced at Werst’s warning.

  “Go on!” Ressk nodded toward it. “You first. If you fall, I’ll shove you to one side on the way by so that you don’t crush anyone when you hit bottom.”

  “I won’t fall!”

  “Yeah, yeah, famous last words. Get your ass up there.”

  Even with only one working foot, he could go up a rope. Babies could climb before they could walk. He swung up onto the lowest cable and then, at Werst’s nod, went one higher.

  “Talk to me, Corporal!”

  “Couple more minutes, Gunny. We’re almost there.”

  The gunny’s voice had effortlessly filled the space. Werst had sounded like he was bellowing. Feeling smug about the difference, Kyster wrapped a hand around the next cable as Ressk reached the cleft and pulled himself up.

  “Brakes on, junior!”

  “Let him go. How much serley trouble can he get into in six meters?”

  The weary, superior tone in Ressk’s voice made him want to find some trouble, but he concentrated on climbing, on finding the way out the gunny knew was there. He could feel weight bowing the final cable as someone joined him and hurriedly thrust his head out into the light. There was a brief flash of curved walls and fallen rock and then he found himself back down in the cleft, Werst holding a fistful of his combats and snarling right into his face.

  “The gunny wouldn’t appreciate you losing your fukking head.”

  He didn’t have a hope in hell of freeing himself and he knew it. “There’s nothing up there.”

  “You know that now!”

  “Someone had to be first!”

  “Shouldn’t have been you, dumbass!”

  “No loss if I buy it.” He had a horrible feeling he sounded sulky.

  “Listen, kid . . .” Werst dropped his voice, nose ridges pinching closed. “. . . no idea why, but Gunny likes you. She sits down and gives up, we’re fukked. You get killed, I’m not sure she’ll keep going. Don’t fukking get killed. Understand?”

  Kyster felt his jaw drop. “She likes me?”

  Muttering profanity under his breath, Werst pushed past him up and out. Kyster pulled himself together enough to follow.

  “Gunny wants to know what we’ve got,” Ressk called from a couple of cables down.

  “We’ve got tunnels.”

  “That’ll thrill her.”

  It looked like the tunnels on the lower level. Same smooth rock, same curved walls; Kyster couldn’t see any caves, but a part of the wall had collapsed near where the pipe continued to rise behind the rock. He limped
over and took a closer look.

  He could just barely see the pipe, but he thought he could reach it. Balanced on a hunk of fallen rock, he stretched out an arm, fingers reaching until they brushed the . . .

  “Gunny! Kyster’s down! Werst thinks the pipe in the upper tunnel is live.”

  “Live?”

  “Probably a broken cable in the wall making contact with the metal!”

  “Go.” Mike handed her the rope. “I’ll anchor this end.”

  Down was not dead. Werst would have said dead. Torin had nine people to get out. She wasn’t losing any of them. And she really wasn’t losing a kid who’d spent all that time surviving injured and alone before she got there.

  “One on the rope at a time,” she said, slinging her canteen and the sleeve of biscuits. “Minimize losses.” Years in allowed her to say it as though those losses weren’t listening.

  It was hand over hand for the first three meters before there was enough of an angle to bother putting her boots on the pipe. Logic said bare feet would grip better against the slick metal, but logic had never met the soles of Marine Corps boots. They read the pressure and surface under them and adjusted accordingly. Torin had no idea how it worked, but it worked regardless of the power situation so, in point of fact, she didn’t give a good Goddamn. Someone had told her once—it might have been Glicksohn way back—that they’d been designed to mimic the pads on the Mictok’s eight legs. No, probably not Glicksohn, he’d always been a little freaked about the Mictok.

  Died saving one.

  Kyster would just be one more name on her personal list.

  Except there was never any just about it.

  Her shoulders were aching and her palms burning by the time she reached the cleft.

  “Going to be a tight fit, Gunny,” Ressk warned her. “Stay as far left as you can.”

  The cables had minimal give. The shattered planes of the rock, none at all. Fortunately, flesh compacted.

  Over the sound of her skull scraping against stone, she could hear Mashona beginning to climb.

  “Foot here, Gunny.” Ressk’s hand wrapped around her ankle, bending her leg as he set her foot on a higher cable. “And push.”

  Torin grimaced as she finally emerged into the upper tunnel. It had to be Darlys’ whole progenitor fascination that made her think of a birth canal because she sure as hell couldn’t remember the original experience.