by Tanya Huff
Marie’s tongue dragged across her lower lip. “You think I . . . ?”
“I think Gunny was standing to the left of the targets and you were in the left lane. I think there’s a chance there’s an easier answer to this situation than we thought.”
“I didn’t . . .”
“She didn’t,” Alamber interrupted. “The boss had turned away from the range, and her finger was on the trigger. She was planning to shoot someone.” His hair lifted. “So there was someone there.”
“You don’t know that,” Werst growled not looking at Bilodeau so pointedly she drew in a ragged-edged breath.
“Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr.” Alamber held out one hand. “Trigger discipline.” And held out the other.
Ressk pulled Werst close against his side. “Kid’s right. It wasn’t an accident.”
“Stop calling me kid.”
“Stop being so young.”
Binti laughed. Normal helped.
“Good eye, Alamber.”
His hair flicked at the praise.
Marie had returned to staring out the window, a white-knuckle grip on her weapon.
Cap and Elisk had a silent conversation about taking her off watch that everyone in the room understood, but agreed, still silently, to leave her there. No point in piling humiliation on humiliation.
If she’d been di’Taykan, she’d have needed touch. Alamber didn’t know what Marie in particular needed, but Nicholin pushed out from his table, wandered to the service counter to refill his mug, and returned to his seat by way of the west window.
“Navy,” he said as he came up beside her. When she cocked her head toward him, gaze locked on the courtyard, he took a long swallow of coffee. “You guys really are terrible shots.”
“Fuk you.”
“If you want.”
She half laughed. He bumped his shoulder against hers hard enough she had to brace herself on the wall before returning to his seat.
Elisk looked pleased. Alamber assumed it was about his team coalescing.
Med-evac was still fifty-five out. Which was not only impossible, but stupid. In another minute he’d . . .
“Don’t.” Binti dropped into the chair beside him. “You can’t hack the hospital system. You don’t have all the data.”
“How did . . . ?”
“I know you.” She pressed a long line of comfort against his side and set her slate on the table. “Start your after action so Gunny hears how well we behaved for the babysitter.”
“Not looking forward to that,” Werst grumbled, one finger poking at his slate. “Gunny’s always pissy when she’s been tanked.”
Unwilling to use the words—helpless, bleeding, dying—Alamber sketched the position of the boss’ body when he found her. Gravity would have caused anyone else to sprawl, his vantru’s arms had been flung out away from her body, but Torin had collapsed efficiently. The program corrected for pressure against the screen, smoothing out the uneven line. He’d was just adding compass points when Craig came into the canteen, slid Ressk, chair and all, almost over on top of Werst, and sat.
“Med-evac?”
“Delayed again.” The thunder and lightning had moved on, but Alamber could hear the dull roar of heavy rain against the steel roof. “They insist that as long as she’s in the autodoc, she’s okay.”
“Okay’s not good enough. She needs to be tanked.”
Alamber glanced past Craig, past Ressk, at Werst. “She hates being tanked.”
Craig’s hands curled into fists. “Then she should fukking stop getting fukking shot.”
“Yeah.” He listened to Craig breathe; a long inhale, a long exhale, fighting for control. He listened to Marilissa making more coffee. Only coffee, although both her staff were in the kitchen. Probably better sah wasn’t available, actually, given the effect on Humans and how these particular Humans were feeling already.
Inhale.
Exhale.
When Craig’s breathing steadied, he said, “Thanks for finding her.”
Alamber pressed comfort against Craig’s side. At some point while he’d been watching over the boss, he’d stripped out of his wet clothes and put on loose pants and a sweatshirt that smelled of Lieutenant Maaren; the pants too large and the sweater too small, his shoulders straining against the fabric. Some Humans denied needing touch, said it was a Taykan thing. Some Humans were idiots. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. No.” The pressure against Alamber’s side increased. “I hate this. There’s nothing I can do except be there when she wakes up.”
“Then why . . . ?”
The creases at the side of Craig’s eyes deepened, and Alamber opened more light receptors to watch them. “She’s in an autodoc, Alamber. She’s not going to wake up until she’s out of the autodoc.”
“Do you think I could . . .”
Craig swiveled in the chair and examined Alamber’s face. Had he been Taykan, the gray-blue of his eyes would have darkened. After a moment he nodded. “Yeah, go on in.”
* * *
• • •
The autodoc looked like the cylinders the Marines carried their deconstituted dead out in. No secret the boss still carried the weight of every cylinder she’d ever humped out of a war zone and now she was inside a giant copy. That was metaphor or irony or . . . actually, Alamber didn’t know what it was called, but it had to be something. The size, almost twice the size of the unit on Promise, explained why Craig hadn’t rolled it onto their shuttle and taken Torin himself, fuk the med-evac.
He glanced at his slate. Still no ETA.
When a shadow fell over the numbers scrolling across the upper arc, he assumed, for a moment, Craig had returned. He drew in a deep, coffee-washed breath, and knew before he turned who it was.
Marilissa looked surprised to see him. “The AD malfunctioning?”
“No.” He glanced back down at his slate, maximized the autodoc connect, and repeated, “No.”
“You slaved the AD to your slate? That’s illegal. I mean, you’re a Warden . . .” He could hear the question, the inflection she gave it, the way the ex-military he worked with no longer did. “Even I know it’s illegal.”
“And now if anything, anything at all goes wrong, every slate in the building will scream about it.” The numbers continued to scroll. “I’m not leaving her alone in there.”
“Every slate? You don’t do things by halves, do you?” The curve of her mouth flattened. “You and the gunny, you’re not . . . ?” Her voice trailed off into disapproval. No surprise with Craig in the canteen drowning himself in her coffee. She wasn’t Taykan and a small number of Humans had weird ideas about closeness. Not usually those who’d served, but Marilissa had been Navy and from what he’d heard, the Navy was . . . different.
The words for what the boss was to him existed in Taykan, not in Federate, and he didn’t owe those words to Marilissa or anyone else. “No. We’re not.”
“Well, okay, then.” He couldn’t read her expression. She took a step farther into the room, let out a breath, and in a tone so neutral he figured it hid strong emotion, said, “Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr. She just doesn’t die, does she.”
The upper curve of the autodoc felt comfortingly cool under Alamber’s fingertips. He wondered how much plastic it held. “Not so far.”
* * *
• • •
“The protesters are gone. They left three heaters in the tent, loaded all their shit onto the carrier, and booted.”
“How long ago?”
“How the hell can I determine that?”
Cap glanced over at Alamber, who raised a hand in the universal gesture for give me a minute as the time signature on the big screen raced backward. Blob and static. Blob and static. Static. Static. Blob and static. Static. Static. Rain and smaller fast moving blobs. “They were there when it
started to rain.”
“All of them?”
“Sorry, Cap. Signal to noise ratio is too high.”
“Your security system is crap, Lieutenant.”
“Tell that to the department comptroller, Warden. Are we done out here or does the Justice Department have another job for us?”
“So much for making friends,” Binti muttered.
Cap ignored her. “I can assume you packed up the tent and the heaters?”
“You can assume we’ve been doing our job longer than you’ve been doing yours.”
Werst snorted. “Bet they wirtine about us all the way out.”
Alamber didn’t know the word. From the reaction of the other Krai in the canteen, it seemed like one worth knowing.
Cap drew a finger across her throat and the room fell silent. “Med-evac hasn’t given us a new ETA, so it looks like we’ll be here when you get back.”
“Oh, joy. Maaren out.”
By the time Alamber had compiled a file with clear images of the protesters, the storm had moved far enough south for him to bounce a signal through Promise and slice through the nominal security of the census bureau. He had their identities and every bit of digital information available before the PLE made it back to the training facility with the crawler.
* * *
• • •
Cap stopped by his side as the EMTs moved the autodoc out through the canteen into the carrier. “Alamber?”
“Don’t worry, I’m in.” The EMS carrier had next to no security; he could have taken control had he wanted to.
“Attach all identifying information pertaining to the carrier and the EMTs to the susumi packet, seal it, and send it.”
“Pertaining?”
“They made me go to OS. Taught me big words.”
“Yeah. Okay. Isn’t that a little paranoid?”
She huffed out a low laugh. “It’s how Gunny would want it.”
* * *
“Did you forget that some asshole sauntered up close and shot her!” Craig wanted to lean over the commander’s desk and yell that in his face, but he managed to hold himself back.
Ng’s frown deepened. “That doesn’t mean you can break the law.”
“Government files are open files!”
“Census files are . . .”
“Are government files! And Wardens are permitted to access any and all surveillance that may assist in apprehending those who have broken the laws of the Confederation. I read the manual!”
Releasing his hold on the inert edge of his desk, Commander Ng ran both hands back through his hair, and took a deep breath. “Access to satellites must be given by the planetary government. It is . . .” He held up a hand, cutting Craig off. “. . . a formality, granted, but formalities exist for a reason.”
“Formalities take too long!”
“And the Strike Teams move too quickly. I understand that.”
Craig opened his mouth, closed it again, and frowned. “You do?”
“I deal with you lot on a daily basis, yes, I do. The letter of the law was bent, not broken, but . . .” He leaned forward again. “. . . the spirit of the law was exercised with extreme prejudice.”
“That wasn’t extreme.”
“So I’ve been informed.”
He’d already spoken to the leads of Ch’tore and U’yun. Cap and Elisk had refused to tell Craig what had been discussed, but Werst, as Torin’s second, had come out of his debrief and sent Craig in. Craig had things to say, so he’d gone.
“While I’m happy to hear it could have been worse,” Ng continued, “that’s not an argument I can take upstairs.”
“You want to take something upstairs?” Craig paced to the hatch and back to the desk, hating the total lack of anything but faint impatience on the commander’s face. Torin had been shot. “Then take this upstairs,” he spat. “Who knew we were on Seven Sta? Who knew we were at that specific training facility?”
“All the Strike Teams, most of the Wardens, and anyone on the station paying attention. A fair chunk of the planetary government, as I had to get clearance for the use of weapons. The planetary press, and about ninety percent of the PLE. Granted, we can concentrate on the Younger Races and quite possibly narrow it down to Humans alone, but if you’re looking for a conspiracy, Warden Ryder, you’ll still have to narrow your focus.”
Craig folded his arms. “The Elder Races have always been willing to have the Younger do violence for them,” he snarled.
Ng opened his mouth. Closed it again.
Even odds Ranjit, Elisk, and Werst had also pointed out it hadn’t been a random shooting. Random shootings didn’t happen in the Confederation. Humans First operated from stations and abandoned facilities on moons and asteroids because it was impossible to get weapons through planetary security. Both Alamber and Ressk had named it impossible; Craig wasn’t pulling the word from his ass.
“That’s not likely,” Ng said at last.
“But possible. And we know things they don’t want us to know.” He wasn’t going to mention the H’san by name. Not standing in a government office. Not when the government guaranteed full transparency. He could almost see Ng thinking.
“All right. I admit it’s possible. But we don’t act on possibilities, we act on evidence. Therefore, you’re going to put together a report that mentions your emotional condition after Warden Kerr was shot and how that condition influenced everything that happened afterward. The report will be for the higher-ups and for the planetary government. Hopefully, they’ll think it’s romantic and not scrap the program.”
“Scrap the Strike Teams?”
“You may have noticed how Parliament has been debating whether or not the Elder Races can civilize the Younger before their violent corruption violates the whole.”
“They want to lock us down.”
“They do. And the Strike Teams are a logical place to begin. If it doesn’t happen, we can thank Humans First. They’ve made it clear they require an armed response and the only thing Parliament wants less than the Strike Teams charging in like a H’san in a cheese shop is to involve the military. They believe that changing the laws that prevent the military from dealing with civilian problems is the beginning of the end, and I’m not sure they’re wrong.” He examined a file, then flicked it off to the left too quickly for Craig to get a look at the content. “With your report, I’ll hand over the worst of Warden Kerr’s tanking data, reminding them that this is what the Strike Teams risk every time you go out. They’ll acknowledge they’re grateful and tell me that, regardless of your willingness to sacrifice, you have to learn some manners, and I’ll agree.”
Craig paced to the hatch again. “You seem to have this all worked out. Why did you need to talk to me?”
Ng shrugged. “I thought you might need someone to yell at. I know I did.”
* * *
• • •
Craig had assumed Alamber would want to stay with Torin on her trip back to Berbar on the CS Odylk. Promise couldn’t carry a full immersion tank, the Odylk was a patrol boat so had no attachment capabilities, and Craig was not allowing Werst to pilot his ship in and out of Susumi. Alamber was the obvious choice as Torin’s companion.
Alamber had been thinking more clearly than he had, however. “We don’t know who shot her. Whoever goes with her has to be able to protect her.”
“She’s on a Navy ship.”
Alamber’s hair had flattened, and he’d repeated, “We don’t know who shot her.”
Binti and Werst had thrown bones for it, then they’d both gone.
Had Justice not been willing to move Torin to a tank on Berbar, the whole team would’ve remained on Seven Sta. Craig assumed that an unwillingness to lose the team had been the primary reason behind the Justice decision. That, and he had no doubt government transparency would be adjusted t
o translucency when they controlled the flow of information.
He didn’t like spending time at the tank, but he came anyway. He didn’t like seeing Torin helpless and suspected that was what she hated so much about being tanked. All that time spent unable to kick ass.
Her spleen and liver and a big chunk of intestine were being regrown, finishing up with brand new skin over sixty percent of her abdomen. There’d be no physical scars. Knowing Torin, probably no mental scars either, although he had a few new ones. She’d be pissed about being shot, though; that was a given.
His life before Torin had been riskier than most. CSOs worked on the edges, and edges crumbled. He’d picked over the debris of battle, but even when he turned DNA over to the MIA data banks, the violence hadn’t affected him personally. After Torin, the violence had gotten personal—aimed deliberately at him or at people he cared about.
He liked his life. His friends. The team that had replaced the chosen family he’d left behind on the salvage station, or maybe the family who’d left him behind when they’d abandoned him to the pirates.
He loved to fly. Loved that he’d been able to bring his Promise with him, her reconfiguration the outer map of their inner change.
He hated there were people who deliberately caused pain. Dealt death.
He loved Torin. Had she died, he was almost positive he’d have stayed on with the team after he sobered up.
There was something to be said for making the universe a better place even if the actual words said were usually profane.
Hand pressed against the tank, as close as he could get for another tenday, Craig squinted, trying to correct for the soft focus of the viscous fluid surrounding her. With luck, by the time she was decanted, they’d know who shot her. Have a plan. Head out to make an arrest.
His breath fogged the glass. At least she was unconscious while she was helpless, unlike the rest of them.
* * *
“Hey, Bishami, remember that hinky coding you had?”