Valor's Trial

by Tanya Huff

  This lock, like the other, was big enough for a skimmer, but with nine of them in there and two of them still flat on the floor, there wasn’t much room to spray sealant.

  “The Artek?” she asked as she pulled their second tube of sealant out of her vest.

  “I believe they are dormant.” Sanati knelt by Firiv’vrak, her ear pressed against the chiton. “I believe they chose to do this in order to survive.”

  “Can you wake them up?” She stepped over Darlys to get a better angle on Mashona’s legs.

  “No. I believe they will wake when conditions are favorable.”

  “Define favorable.” When Sanati looked confused, Torin shook her head and tried another angle to get at Mashona’s burns. “Never mind.”

  “Give it here, Gunny.” Werst stood as Kichar peeled Torin’s combats down Watura’s legs. “I don’t have to bend.”

  With the sealant on and air no longer hitting the broken blisters, the pain dropped to ignorable levels. Torin accepted her combats from Kichar, considered what would happen as they rubbed against the burns, and decided against putting them on.

  “Besides,” Mashona pointed out as she refused hers, “they reek of pheromones, and I’m in no shape to start an orgy. You owe me,” she added, poking Darlys gently in the side with the toe of her boot.

  The di’Taykan managed a weary obscene gesture. “I’m lying down.”

  Werst snorted and lifted Watura’s arm. “Got a reading, Gunny. Same as at the prison, but CO2 levels are rising.”

  “It’s an air lock,” Torin sighed. “They’re notoriously underventilated. Ressk.”

  In answer, there was a hiss of air pressure balancing, a few eddies that didn’t stink of sweat and blood and sulfur, and the interior door slid open.

  Freenim held up a hand for silence and leaned just far enough out to peer up and down the corridor. “Empty.” He started to pull the filter off and snarled out a string of words neither the slate nor Torin’s implant bothered to translate as the band remained firmly attached to his skin.

  Grunting as muscles pulled, Torin reached back, dug her fingers into the soft seal between the band and her skull, and dragged it off. “The hair probably helps to break the seal,” she muttered, frowning at the amount of hair turned brittle in the heat that had broken off with the filter.

  “Then it’s just your hair, Gunny.” Mashona had three fingers from each hand digging at the band, but it didn’t budge.

  It seemed that only Torin’s came off easily. Even Merinim’s with the actual filter hanging in tatters around the edges of her face seemed stuck tight.

  “You checked each seal, Gunnery Sergeant,” Durlin Vertic reminded them. “Perhaps they keyed to your touch.”

  “Then, if I may, Durlin . . . ?”

  She inclined her head, giving Torin access to the back of the band. It didn’t come off easily and a chunk of the Durlin’s pelt came with it, but it came off.

  “Fukking alien tech,” Werst muttered as Torin tried to keep as much of his scalp as possible attached to his head. “Good thing you didn’t cak it, Gunny or these fukkers’d be permanent.”

  “Hang on to them,” the durlin ordered, tucking the filter into her vest as the two males helped her to her feet. She touched her right foot down, took a step, snarled, and curled the leg up against her belly. “We do not know what we will face in this building.”

  “I’m guessing tunnels,” Werst snorted, rubbing his head.

  The corridor outside the air lock looked like it could have been in any one of a hundred stations Torin had visited during her time in the Corps. There were two doors sharing the wall with the air lock entrance, another almost directly across from it, and one to the right of that.

  Werst snorted again. “Or not.”

  “Ressk, get to work on that door.” Torin nodded at the door across the hall. They needed to go deeper into the building to find the landing bay and that seemed to be the only route. “Mashona, Kichar, help Darlys and Watura. The rest of you make sure to move the Artek out of the air lock before the door closes and we can’t get it open again.”

  “When will they wake up?” Kichar asked as she draped Darlys’ arm across her shoulders.

  Lifting the end of an exoskeleton, Freenim shrugged. “Because they keep so much to themselves, the details of their species are not well known even by those who also serve.”

  “But they will wake up?”

  He grunted a little at the weight. “Probably.”

  “If they don’t,” Werst began.

  “Allies,” Torin reminded him. No need to be more specific; she knew exactly what he’d been about to say, and the Krai’s eating habits were best kept within the Corps.

  Before Werst could respond, the door across the hall opened.

  “Fast work, Ressk.” She crossed toward it, followed by Durlin Vertic, who waved everyone else back. Kyster followed anyway. Torin wasn’t entirely certain if he was following her or the durlin.

  Ressk shot a look of contempt at the control panel. “It wasn’t locked, Gunny. It’s just a pressure pad. Just had to get the cover off, then it doesn’t get anymore straightforward. It’s like we’ve got this far, and they’ve stopped messing with us.” He smacked the side of his fist into the wall. “Too late for Technical Sergeant Gucciard, you bastards.”

  “Let’s not punch inanimate objects until we’ve got a better idea of what’s going on here,” Torin suggested. “Don’t forget what happened on Yenal’s Five.”

  “What happened to you on Yenal’s Five?” Durlin Vertic asked, and Torin remembered that the Polina had been among those they’d faced—although she hadn’t known their species name at the time.

  “A frustrated tech punched a hidden detonator and every piece of abandoned equipment on the field blew.”

  “Good.”

  Torin had to admit that was fair; they were her side’s hidden detonatorsafter all. Fair, but a bit tactless. “We lost a lot of good people there, Durlin.”

  “As did we.”

  The background noise dropped as they stared at each other for a long moment.

  “No one wins,” Torin said at last.

  The durlin nodded. “Not that I have seen, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  They turned together to look through the open door.

  Another control room. Similar but simpler than the one in the prison—fewer of the matte-green surfaces they’d assumed were screens and stools for only three operators.

  “If there is a blast shield over that wall . . .” Durlin Vertic waved a hand at the apparently blank space over the main control panel. “. . . we need it down. We need to see what is in here.”

  “Ressk, Sanati.”

  “The sarge opened the other one.”

  “Corporal.”

  “Gunnery Sergeant?”

  She jerked her head toward the control panel—partially because she didn’t trust her voice and partially because she had nothing to say. Ressk was right, but Mike was dead, and they marched on because that was what they did.

  No one wins.

  Not that I’ve seen.

  Her stomach growled, and she tried to remember the last time she’d eaten. They had half a biscuit each remaining although the water situation should have just reset. “Those stools say crew, and where there’s crew there’s facilities. We’ve already proved that once, people, prove it again.”

  The door to the left of the air lock opened onto crew quarters. Three lockers, two bunks—there’d be someone on watch at all times, and they were clearly hot-racking although Torin didn’t see why, they had plenty of room. Could include a species that sleeps standing up, she thought checking the lockers. Empty. An interior door led to the head.

  “Put the di’Taykan on those beds until they recover . . .” Neither di’Taykan managed innuendo and that, in and of itself was reason enough to get them lying down. “. . . then get the canteens refilled.” She drank the last of the lukewarm fluid in hers and passed it over. They wouldn’t die
of thirst, but starvation was a very likely possibility unless they returned to the prison for more supplies in the next couple of days. “Splash a couple of bowls of water on the Artek, see if that brings them around.” Then something occurred. “They don’t melt or anything do they, Durlave?”

  Freenim grinned. “Not as far as I know, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  “One Artek at a time,” she amended.

  “Gunny!” Ressk’s voice was only just audible from the control room. Torin spent another moment missing her PCU before heading out of the crew quarters. Apparently everyone in their mismatched little squad had gotten a promotion recently since everyone but the di’Taykan and the Artek followed her. “Thought you might want to be here for this,” Ressk continued as they entered the room, and he twisted what looked like an old-fashioned, delineated knob.

  The blast shield went down—just as it had at the prison—exposing a window—just as it had at the prison. But the view . . .

  Standing between Ressk and Sanati, Torin, Freenim, and Durlin Vertic leaned on the edge of the control panel and looked out.

  “That’s a landing bay.”

  Sanati nodded. “It is.”

  And looked down.

  “That’s a ship.”

  Ressk nodded. “It is.”

  Given the alien configuration—and Torin had to admit she was a little impressed by that given the constraints atmospheric entry put on ship design—it was impossible to tell what kind of a ship. Or even, from above, how large it was.

  Torin took a deep breath, stomped down hard on the little voice that cried they were saved because they’d determined nothing of the sort, not yet. They’d be saved when they were unloading back on MidSector only to discover Finance had screwed up their back pay. She raised her voice to fill the room and spill out into the hall, the translation from the slate rising in counterpoint. “New job, people! Find the way to that ship!”

  It didn’t take long. Nothing they did worked on the door to the right of the control room, but the door to the right of the air lock opened onto a broad set of gray metal stairs. If Torin had to guess, she’d say they ended five floors down—and that was using floor as a measure of distance, not suggesting there were five actual floors. There were forty-two steps on each of the two spans they could see clearly, and they looked just a little higher than Human norm. The lights seemed dimmer than they did on the upper level, but that could have been the result of distance and tired eyes.

  “As no one is looking forward to going down those and returning again,” the durlin said from the doorway, “I suggest, Gunnery Sergeant, that you take those you want with you when you examine the ship. You may have Corporal Ressk and leave Durlave Kir Sanati working on the panel; the others are up to you.”

  “Yes, sir. I don’t suppose you have a pilot with you?”

  “Not that I am aware of.”

  “I believe Firiv’vrak has said she is a pilot, Durlin.”

  All heads turned toward Sanati.

  Who shrugged. “When she told me, it did not seem relevant given our position underground without a vehicle.”

  “As I said . . .” The durlin’s front claws twitched against the floor, but with her weight on only one back leg, she couldn’t dig in the way she wanted to. “. . . not that I am aware of. Unfortunately, until Firiv’vrak regains consciousness, it would not matter if she were a hydnograte, so I fear the answer is no, Gunnery Sergeant, I do not currently have a pilot.”

  “Then there’s no need for anyone but Ressk and me to make the climb.”

  “Durlin Vertic!” Everim pushed forward. “There should be one of our people there as well.”

  Vertic twisted her torso around until she could see him. “Why?

  “They could break the ship!”

  Torin had a feeling the translation program missed sabotage although the more simplistic break was accurate enough.

  “And also strand themselves? I do not think so.”

  “If he’s going, Gunny, I’m going.” Kichar shouldered her way through to Everim’s side and glared at him. She wasn’t tall for a Human, and he was the tallest of the Druin, so the shit-eye was happening on the level.

  “Neither of you are going unless the durlin orders it,” Torin snapped. “The slate stays here, and it’ll create fewer misunderstandings if those heading down the stairs can understand each other.”

  “I agree.” Arms folded, Durlin Vertic swept a flat unfriendly stare over those assembled. “Gunnery Sergeant, you and Corporal Ressk get started. Durlave Kan Freenim, I am certain that you will find plenty for these others to do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But, Gunny!”

  Torin sighed. “Do as you’re told, Kichar.”

  The steps were wide enough that they could walk side by side. With no railings, Torin took the side nearest the wall. As a Krai—and a Krai who’d ridden over from the prison rather than run there on his own two bowed legs—Ressk was significantly less likely to fall. And a lot less comfortable given the depth of the stairs and the length of those legs.

  “Gunny, do you mind if I take a short cut?”

  “Be my guest. If it’s actually shorter, I may follow you.”

  He flipped over the edge and began to descend under the stairs, swinging hand to foot from step to step.

  “Or not.” It was certainly faster. “Wait at the bottom before you try anything.”

  “I could start on the door.”

  “Wait.” Not a tone he could argue with. She couldn’t be positive he wouldn’t take stupid risks, thinking that Mike’s death meant he had something to prove. She could understand where he was coming from, sympathize even, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to indulge it.

  There were five floors. Forty-two steps per span. Two spans per floor. Eighty-four fukking steps per floor. The sound of her boots slamming down on the metal treads set up a complementary pounding in her head. Her knees were aching, the muscles in her calves were tight, and she wasn’t entirely positive that she hadn’t sweated the sealant right off the blisters by the time she reached the bottom. It sure as hell felt as if someone had rubbed salt into open wounds. The only bright side was that the air felt cooler against her exposed skin.

  Ressk was standing by the door, hands locked behind his back, staring at the control panel. “It’s not a pressure plate,” he said without turning. “But I don’t think it’s much more complex.”

  “Good. Get the door open, then.” Torin sat on the second step up, trying not to make it look too much like a controlled fall just in case Ressk turned. The metal was cool under her ass, separated from her skin by only by a thin layer of underwear, her combats having been abandoned on the end of Watura’s bunk. Between the burns and the di’Taykan pheromones, she hadn’t wanted them anywhere near her. Besides, without knowing what was under Durlin Vertic’s vest, she was still one article of clothing up on her. Hell, three if she counted her socks. Five if she counted her boots. She’d won poker games with worse odds.

  “Gunny?”

  Ressk’s voice shook her out of her reverie. The door was open.

  It had been a mistake to sit. She had to pull the club from its loop on her vest and use it to push herself up onto her feet.

  Standing just back of the threshold, Torin looked into the launch bay. She could feel the air moving past her, swirling around her legs. It was warmer than the air in the stairwell but not by much. It wasn’t outside air, that was for damned sure. A quick glance up showed the top of the bay closed off with some kind of force shield.

  “I wonder what’s powering that?”

  “Best guess,” Ressk said dryly, “geothermic.”

  “Well, they’ve got enough of it. Smell anything on the breeze when the door opened?”

  He snorted. “Nothing personal, Gunny, but all I can smell is you.”

  “How can that possibly not be personal?”

  He frowned. “You don’t smell edible?”

  Her turn to snort. “Small mer
cies. Come on.”

  There were another forty-two steps leading down from the door onto the floor of the landing bay. Torin’s boots seemed to get heavier with every step. As they reached level ground, she pointed over at the link waiting with open doors. “That’s how we’re getting back up.”

  “If I can make it work.”

  “It goes up and down, Ressk. How hard can it be?”

  Looking at it on the level, the ship wasn’t particularly large and had the charred look of a vessel that had been brought in through atmosphere more than a few times. Backs against the wall, they moved slowly along the starboard side. Except for the sounds of their footsteps and the distant hum of the roof, the launch bay was completely silent.

  “I don’t see anything that looks like a Susumi drive, Gunny.”

  “No. Neither do I. Doesn’t mean there isn’t one, though.”

  “The drive the Primacy uses looks a lot like ours.”

  “This isn’t a Primacy ship.”

  Fortunately, the exterior hatch was open, or neither of them might have recognized it.

  Before Torin could step on the ramp, Ressk pushed past her and walked halfway up it.

  “Doesn’t seem like security’s enabled, Gunny.”

  “Pull a dumbass stunt like that again, Corporal,” she told him tightly as she caught up, “and tripping an automatic security system will be the least of your worries.”

  His nose ridges closed. “I just . . .”

  “I know.” She gently touched his shoulder. “Don’t do it again.”

  Toes of her boots just about to the edge of the hatch, Torin tossed her club into the air lock. The inner door was open, and there was nothing to indicate that the ship was using power in any way, but then again there was nothing that indications of power usage were mandatory. The club bounced on the deck, rocked a few times, and stilled.

  It seemed safe.