The Privilege of Peace

by Tanya Huff

  The weapon the Silsviss held, in what were almost human-looking hands, screamed deadly at about the same volume as the lizard itself screamed male.

  “Away from the consoles!”

  Consoles? Fukking translation program. Consoles had been referred to as boards since before she’d started training. Hands up, Boomer rolled back, and turned around to face the hatch as Keezo surged up out of his chair, past the weapon, and punched the lizard in the throat. Right. Ex-Marine. Idiot. The lizard went down, but his tail lashed out, catching Keezo at the knees, sweeping his legs from under him. Before he could get back onto his feet, his head exploded in a spray of blood and brains and purple hair.

  The second lizard sneered as the wheezing lizard lurched up onto his feet. “The Taykan struck a good blow. A worthy enemy.”

  Spewing puke over the floor between her feet, Boomer reminded herself it could’ve been worse. At least Keezo hadn’t been Human.

  * * *

  “You’ll want to reenlist.”

  Torin couldn’t help herself; she blinked.

  General Morris kept talking. “You should, by rights, come back in at the staff sergeant level, but, given the benefit the military will accrue from the publicity, your rank will be restored. You will be Gunnery Sergeant Kerr again.”

  “I have no intention of reenlisting.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You will not return to Big Yellow as a civilian.”

  “Fine.” Obvious now why the general had requested a private meeting. His plan had been to separate her from those who’d object to her returning to active service. Craig. Her team. Her current employers. Anyone who’d ever met her and was still capable of thought. Although standing at ease—a habit she doubted she’d ever be able to break—she kept her gaze on General Morris’ face. Not challenging. Not listening respectfully. Just there.

  Cheeks beginning to flush, he stepped closer, attempting intimidation.

  Torin raised a brow.

  He stepped back again and tried to make it look as though it had been his idea. “I’ve had uniforms made for you.” That explained the CMC case on the conference room’s table. “You seem to have maintained your conditioning, at least.”

  “Thank you for noticing.” She managed to keep her mouth from twitching at his expression, but it was close. “However, I won’t need your uniforms, I have my own.”

  His eyes narrowed again. “I am completely serious about you not returning to Big Yellow as a civilian, Kerr.”

  “And I am completely fine with that.”

  The general opened his mouth. Closed it again. Torin could see him reviewing the conversation, trying to determine where he’d lost control. She doubted he’d have much success, operating, as he was, on the mistaken belief that he’d ever had control. “You’re refusing to return to Big Yellow,” he said at last.

  “I’m refusing to reenlist.”

  “Then you won’t . . .” He paused and actually started thinking. For all he annoyed her, he wasn’t stupid. “You have the Susumi equation.”

  As Craig had made the initial jump and then provided the equation to the military, that didn’t merit a response.

  “We can’t allow you to approach the plastic on your own.”

  “You’ll have the Navy fire on a Justice Department ship?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Good. Because I doubt the Navy would make such a critical error in the current political climate.”

  His cheeks were red, approaching purple. He lowered himself into a chair and stared up at her. Torin knew how he saw their positions—he was sitting, she was not; therefore she was the inferior. Torin preferred to believe she had superior mobility as well as the high ground. “I see you’re aware of the discussions in Parliament. Good. The Younger Races must prove our worth to remain full members of the Confederation.” He raised a hand although Torin had no intention of interrupting. “I know what you’re thinking. We’ve proven our worth in blood and bodies for centuries, but that’s not how politics works. The question becomes, what have we done for them lately? If the Elder Races try to restrain us, there will be war. Us against them. We have the equipment, we have the training, but we don’t want to destroy the Confederation.”

  Torin remembered a planet of preserved weapons, more deadly, more destructive than anything permitted since.

  “Weakening our position would be foolish,” he continued. “The Primacy will attack if they consider us at a disadvantage, and we fought too long to have the Primacy win.”

  Seemed his desire to avoid another war had more to do with pride and less to do with having no more of his people die.

  “What precisely do you want from me, General?”

  “I want you to accompany me to Big Yellow under my command.” He clearly considered it a magnanimous offer.

  “You assume that if I’m under your command, you control me.”

  “You were an excellent NCO. Control may be too strong a word, but you know where the lines are.”

  She nodded, once, to acknowledge his point.

  “And, in this instance . . .” The heavy emphasis suggested she not get above herself. “. . . we’re stronger with you than without you. The plastic has spoken to you twice, raising the odds it will speak to you again.”

  “You want to speak with the plastic?”

  “Of course we want to speak with it.” The don’t be an idiot was almost silent. “The more we learn about the plastic, the better we can defeat it. We’ve developed a weapon based on the data gathered by Dr. Sloan on Major Svensson’s plastic bones, but it would help if we knew what precisely to aim at. We may not be able to destroy Big Yellow . . .” The hand lying flat on the conference room table curled up into a fist. “. . . but we can hurt it.”

  “You realize,” Torin began, because it wouldn’t be the first time he hadn’t considered consequences, “if we hurt them, they’ll hurt us back.”

  General Morris’ lip curled. “I never expected Gunnery Sergeant Kerr to be a coward.”

  “How dare you.” Torin rolled the words out in a bored monotone. “I’m not a coward, and I’ll prove it to you by doing exactly what you want.” She sighed. “General, my job remains completing the mission and bringing my people home alive. I can’t do either if you open fire. You can’t beat the plastic, and you can’t stop them from killing you.”

  He stared up at her for a long moment, then he snorted derisively. “I’d say their visit in your head brainwashed you, but since that’s been ruled out by professionals, I think all that chasing around after Humans First has blurred the line between you and them. Just like Humans First, you’re interested in only taking care of yourself. Except,” he leaned forward and sneered up at her, “at least they’re out doing something!”

  The lights in the conference room flickered. Torin pressed her tongue hard against her implant for a full three count—the team’s signal for “I don’t care what you think you’re doing, stop it. Now.” As Alamber hadn’t specifically been told not to listen in, odds were high the lights had flickered in response to General Morris’ accusation, warning her there’d be worse to come.

  “General, Strike Team Alpha is going to Big Yellow, with or without you. The government I work for wants us there. We’d prefer to go as part of the military as no one knows what’s about to happen and the Promise has no weapons.” Binti had blown up a Marine armory with a cutting laser, but Torin wasn’t planning on reminding the general of that. “I’d prefer to make the plastic pay for the lives spent during their social experiment, but I’ll settle for convincing them to get out and stay out of our corner of the universe. Remember, they killed millions of us when they saw us as bacteria in a petri dish—what happens when they see us as enemies?”

  The general’s lips pulled back off his teeth. He’d served with Krai; it wasn’t a smile. “When that happens, I expect you’
ll complete the mission and bring your people home alive. Glad we had this talk, Warden.”

  Gunnery Sergeant Kerr couldn’t tell a superior officer to go fuk himself. Warden Kerr was considering it when the hatch to the conference room slammed open.

  “General! Staff on the station over Silsviss have hit the panic button. You’re going to want to see this!”

  * * *

  “With the Silsviss now in command of the observation platform orbiting their planet, we can only assume that every Confederation citizen on board is dead.” Head swaying, the Slaink presenter slid the station schematics to one side and flicked up an image of the embassy. “The Minister of Foreign Affairs has been unable to make contact with the Confederation Embassy on Silsviss and, in spite of the security systems in place, has expressed concern over the safety of the Ambassador and their staff.”

  * * *

  “I assume you’ve seen the latest?” Anthony smiled as he strode into Commander Belcerio’s office, frowned at the short, heavyset woman standing by the star map on the wall, and said, “Who are you? Never mind. Get out.”

  She glanced over at Belcerio.

  “I pay the bills, not him. Go.”

  “Commander.” She nodded once in that irritating military way and headed for the hatch. “Per Marteau.”

  “That was my XO,” Belcerio said as the hatch closed behind her. “You don’t give her orders.”

  “I don’t care. And, yes, I do.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Now, answer my question.”

  “The report on Silsviss? Yes, I saw it.” Although they were alone in the room, Belcerio dropped his voice. “Scale and Claw has been successfully implemented.”

  “And careens toward its inevitable conclusion.” Anthony clasped a hand on Belcerio’s shoulder and squeezed. “I find wetware so ridiculously easy to program.”

  Only two point four percent of the network knew they worked for the cause, but the effect was the same.

  NINE

  “THE NAVY CAN’T TAKE the Silsviss out. That would be equivalent to declaring war on them.”

  General Morris glared across the desk at Commander Ng. “And what do you call taking the station if not a declaration of war?”

  “It could have been nothing more than an unfortunate misunderstanding. Cyr Tyroliz seems to honestly think he was responding to our declaration of war.”

  “And you believe that declaration of his? He’s a Warlord,” the general sneered. “Of course he wants war. He’s provoked our response by killing innocents!”

  “Although not as many as originally reported.”

  General Morris ignored him. “The station was an observation facility. It had no weapons.”

  “It is an observation facility,” the commander corrected mildly. “It has no weapons. The station still exists, General. It did, however, have what I see referred to as . . .” He flicked through a few files on his desk although Torin knew damned well it was for effect. “. . . as a panic button.”

  “Of course it had a panic button! Should the less conciliatory members of the Silsviss controlling faction prevail, the station would be in danger. They needed a way to contact the Confederation for a quick response. That seems to have been barely adequate as a precautionary measure.”

  Commander Ng pressed his palms together and tapped the sides of his first fingers against his chin. “That seems to me as though the Silsviss are being treated as a potential enemy.”

  “The Silsviss are dangerous and not entirely united.”

  The commander’s expression acknowledged the deflection. Torin recognized the expression. The general didn’t. “So if they decide against joining the Confederation, we plan to keep them confined to a planet they’ve managed to leave on their own?”

  If they did join the Confederation, they’d be the youngest of the Younger Races and, depending on how the vote in Parliament went, might still be confined to a planet they’d left on their own. Torin kept her gaze locked on the bulkhead behind Commander Ng’s left shoulder. Why complicate the argument or acknowledge the H’san in the room?

  “We can’t risk them gaining access to the equivalent of Susumi drive! They could wreak havoc across Confederation space.”

  “In which case, the station calling in the Navy would be a preemptive strike.”

  “Precisely.”

  “I see.” Commander Ng didn’t bother hiding what he thought of that line of reasoning. General Morris didn’t bother hiding what he thought of Commander Ng. Torin wondered why, exactly, she’d been summoned. “As it happens,” the commander continued, “Parliament has declared this a crime, not a declaration of war and therefore it falls under the jurisdiction of the Justice Department.”

  And that explained why.

  “Warden Kerr.”

  “Sir.”

  “The prevailing opinion is that you’ll have the best chance of getting through to Cyr Tyroliz given your history with the Silsviss. Do you agree?”

  Cyr Tyroliz was an adult male warlord, not an adolescent jockeying for power in a wilderness pack. But she had a skull on the wall over the entertainment center that gave her a level of credibility with the Silsviss no one else in the Confederation had yet acquired. Nor were likely to, given the prevailing attitude toward skulls on the wall. “Yes, sir, I agree.”

  “Yes, sir, you agree,” General Morris mocked. “You’re going to Big Yellow.”

  Torin raised a brow. “I don’t work for you.”

  “And you’re suddenly fine with those plastic puppet masters jerking our strings again?”

  Commander Ng answered before she could. “Since its return, the plastic has made no aggressive moves toward or within the Confederation. The taking of the station has resulted in the deaths of six of our citizens. That is the concern of the Justice Department.”

  “Six!” The general surged up onto his feet and planted both fists on the edge of the desk, then leaned in close to Commander Ng’s face. “I want to prevent deaths in the millions!”

  “I’m aware,” the commander told him, unintimidated. “Which is why Wardens Ryder, Werst, and di’Cikeys will be traveling to Big Yellow. Warden Ryder was also a host, and Warden Werst was present during the previous visit to the ship. Wardens Kerr, Ressk, and Mashona will be returning to Silsviss.”

  “Commander?” Torin hadn’t stood when the general did. Nor did she intend to. She kept her tone level, ignoring the implied threat in the general’s position. “We should split Strike Team U’yun between us to bring up our numbers.”

  “Why U’yun?”

  “They’re new, sir. They trained with us on Seven Sta, and they’re still new enough to be flexible about the change.”

  “Good idea.” His fingers moved over the desk, drawing up orders. “The Promise goes with Ryder, the Baylet with you. U’yun’s C&C will follow.”

  “And Alpha’s?”

  “Big Yellow isn’t a Justice matter. I can keep Alpha’s C&C busy.”

  General Morris squared his shoulders, now personally rather than situationally annoyed. “And I have nothing to say about this?” he growled.

  “As I explained, General, the attack on the station is a Justice Department matter.” Commander Ng favored the general with his most reasonable expression, and Torin watched the general turn purple in response. “You’ll continue to have our cooperation, but I can’t send a Warden with you whose unique skills are required elsewhere. Warden Kerr?”

  “Sir?”

  “As soon as you’re able to hand the Silsviss situation over to C&C, join General Morris at Big Yellow.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You think it’ll be that easy?” The general’s lip curled. “Don’t tell me you’ve begun believing the legends of Torin Kerr.”

  “I believe the evidence, General, and I doubt it’ll be easy.” In st
ark contrast to the general, the commander looked entirely unaffected by the conversation. “You were one of the first to interact with the Silsviss; you, if anyone, should know better.”

  General Morris glared down at Torin who shook her head minutely. She’d never spoken of the circumstances that had sent a platoon to Silsviss to die in a political arena to anyone but Craig. Some things remained personal, even under the banner of full disclosure.

  “This has been a waste of my time,” he snarled, spun on one heel, and headed for the hatch. “If Ryder hasn’t got the Promise attached in forty minutes, I’m leaving without him.”

  Torin stood as the hatch closed, paused as the commander said, “You just spent an entire tenday worth of sirs.” He sounded amused.

  “I had a few extra lying around.”

  His mouth twitched. “I’m sure.”

  She needed to get to Craig, but she lingered a moment longer. “Did you intend to make an enemy, Commander?”

  Fingers stilled on his desk. “I didn’t much care for his viewpoint, nor do I care if he considers me his enemy. A preemptive strike is not only against several laws and statutes, but against the core tenets of the Confederation.”

  “His entire adult life has been the military. The politics of the military anyway. He had rank enough to get his time in extended, but time’s running out for that fourth star. He’s getting desperate.”

  “Are you defending him, Warden?”

  Once, General Morris had been willing to die to further strengthen the Confederation. He’d never been in a battle, he’d never carried the bodies of his people out, he’d never taken a life with his own two hands, but he had been willing to die. It had been a shortsighted plan put into motion without considering all the variables, but . . .