by Tanya Huff
“Sorry, Dur . . .” Teeth cracked against each other as he shut his mouth around the Primacy rank, ears down, mane flat.
Not the first time he’d been told. Torin shifted until her posture became more gunnery sergeant than Warden and met his eyes. “Well?”
Claws emerged and disappeared again. His mane rose. A muscle jumped in his jaw.
Torin waited.
“He’s my brother,” Dutavar growled reluctantly. “The youngest. He’s a damned fool and desperate to prove himself. Our mother wants him home alive. My superiors owed her a favor.”
“You didn’t exactly volunteer.”
“Not as far as my mother’s concerned, no.”
“And your orders?”
“Everything you said. Watching. Reporting. Get the weapon if I can, get specs if I can’t.”
“And your actual orders?”
“To bring my brother home alive.”
Torin threw Dutavar a clean towel. “I hope she knows you can’t guarantee his safety.”
“Do you have a mother?” he asked, rubbing at the moisture on his chest.
“Fair point.”
Craig shifted his knee on Keeleeki’ka’s back, his weight pressing her against the floor. “Stay down!”
“We’re on a ship in the between.” Her antennae flicked back and forth, a touch against his thigh and away. “A ship you control. Where would I go where you couldn’t find me?” Antennae relaxed into a sullen curve, she clicked her outer mandibles. “I only wanted to learn about you. About your worlds. About your Confederation.”
“In my control room?” A new scent overpowered the licorice and lifted the hair on the back of Craig’s neck. On ship or station, even considering the amount of ceramic, the smell of heated metal did not evoke a neutral reaction. Vacuum was unforgiving.
“This is the heart of your story.” Keeleeki’ka unfolded her upper arms, fanning out the multiple slender digits, reaching for nothing. “We only know what the council tells us about you and we know they lie.”
Civilian salvage operators, even ex-civilian salvage operators who’d become Wardens, weren’t big fans of the government. Craig eased his weight up. “Don’t run.”
Releasing his white-knuckled grip on the edge of the shell, Craig shifted his weight to his other leg, and straightened. His knee had barely cleared the carapace when the Artek slid out from under him and scuttled toward the control room hatch.
“Promise. Lock two.” The bolts slid home. Craig folded his arms and glared. “Not until we’re done, Keelee.”
Pivoting 180 degrees on her rearmost legs, Keeleeki’ka backed into the closest corner. “The others were your enemy, not me!”
“You’re the drongo who stuck her mandibles in where they didn’t belong!”
“I didn’t bite your ship!”
“I never said you did!”
“Keelee is not my name!”
“So I should click for forty minutes when I talk to you?”
“Yes!”
“Why didn’t you ask if you had questions?”
Keeleeki’ka’s wedge-shaped head swung from side to side. “Why would I believe you would answer? Knowledge is power. Why would you give power to me?”
“Knowledge also keeps you from making stupid mistakes. Like messing around in my control room!”
*Craig?*
He tongued his implant. “Torin.”
*I just got a ping that you locked the hatch. Everything all right?*
It hadn’t been that long ago that he’d been unable to handle having anyone else on his ship. Limited air. Limited supplies. Unlimited sweat and a bung brain. He could hear the memory of those bad old days in Torin’s voice. “Everything’s aces. Keeleeki’ka’s up here giving me an ear-bashing, didn’t want to be interrupted.”
*Remember what Vertic told us.*
“That she’s not the officer you’re looking for?”
*What? No, that Keeleeki’ka is more important . . .*
“Than she appears.” Craig blew out a deep breath and ran both hands back through his hair. “Memory’s not that bad, luv.”
*If she’s willing to talk, see if you can get anything useful out of her.*
“About?”
*Anything. Except how to kill her.* Torin sighed and he knew exactly the expression she’d be wearing. *I know how to do that. Anything else. Knowledge is power.*
“So I’ve heard.”
*Record everything.*
“Teach grandpa to suck eggs.” With thirteen members of the Primacy Torin’s responsibility—however much she changed the definition of responsibility when referring to the six on the ship and the seven on 33X73—she’d be a fool not to want any conversation between the two halves of her team recorded. And Torin was no fool; any foolishness she’d brought into the Corps had been trained out of her. Replaced with responses more useful to war. He’d hoped he’d replaced a few more of those than it seemed as if he had.
*Craig!*
Keeleeki’ka had swiveled all eye-stalks in his direction.
“Sorry. Thinking.”
*I said, or I could listen through your implant.*
“Or you could continue turning recent enemies into a cohesive unit because you’re just that good. We’re not fighters, Keelee and I. We’ll be fine. No drama.” He tongued off his implant before Torin could reply. The pilot’s chair creaked a protest when he dropped into it and, as the familiar support wrapped around him, the stiff ache in the line of his shoulders relaxed. “All right, you want to find out about us, fine, we keep it fair. You and me. For every question I answer, you answer one of mine.”
Keeleeki’ka scuttled closer, upper body slightly raised, the weak points on her undershell exposed. Craig couldn’t decide if it was trust or carelessness. She smelled of acetone. There was a fair go that meant she was feeling smug. “We’re in your territory; you ask first.”
“Okay.” He couldn’t think of a damned thing. The smell of acetone grew stronger. “Okay. What makes the Sekric’teen different from the rest of the Artek.”
“Ah, a good question.” The smell changed to cedar shavings. Approval. “We hold the origin of our people.”
“You’re historians?”
Her arms and antennae waved in counterpoint. “Yes. When the council agreed one of us would go, I was chosen to hold this story.”
“Can you fight?”
“I hold the story.”
Yeah, that was helpful. He swung his feet up onto the board and crossed his legs, right heel in the paint-free divot he refused to have repaired. “Your turn.”
“I believe you asked two questions, so my first is this: Who is grandpa and why must he learn to suck eggs?”
“Historian?” Eyes on the two Druin working their way through the Krai’s climbing lines, Firiv’vrak rolled her antennae. “Inflexible, pedantic, hypercritical, unimaginative, bombastic, supercilious . . .”
Torin was impressed by the translator’s vocabulary.
“. . . opinionated pains in the thorax. The Sekric’teen had the lowest percentage of military involvement across our entire species. I knew nymphs cut off entirely because they bucked tradition and volunteered. On behalf of the Artek, I apologize to Captain Ryder for the lecture on our glorious history he’s no doubt having regurgitated on him as we speak.”
• • •
“We only know what the people who put the translation program together want us to know.”
Craig kissed her shoulder and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer. “Your brain goes sexy places post-coital.”
“The translator had no problem with supercilious, but paused before spitting out plastic aliens.”
“So the Primacy calls the little fukkers something else, no surprise.”
“You’re right. It isn’t. B
ut why can’t we know what the Primacy calls them?”
He yawned, her hair moving with the force of his eventual exhale. “Why do we need to?”
“No reason.” She pushed his arm up under her breasts, and cradled it with her own. Whatever had been bothering him earlier seemed to have passed before they had to talk about it. “Don’t change.”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” he murmured sleepily against the top of her head. “You neither, my paranoid preciosa.”
“Spanish?” It had been a common second language among Craig’s Human friends on the salvage station.
“Spanish is sexy.”
“Craig . . .”
“No. You can listen to the Q&A tomorrow. Go to sleep.”
That night she dreamed of Staff Sergeant Harnett, her hands bloody as she threw herself at him over a wall of the starved Marines he’d enslaved. She twisted a muscle in her back as she jerked awake, but managed to keep from punching Craig in the throat.
• • •
“. . . and what you have to realize is that my people are essential in keeping the history of the Artek alive and it was because of our intimate knowledge of that history that we were able to notice our leaders were not acting as Artek always had, so we knew there had to be outside influences . . .”
Craig shook his head as he silenced the recording. “Her people spent centuries holding onto traditions with all eight to sixteen fingers and arguing that something was wrong. A lot of it’s devolved to rhetoric at this point, but being right has put them in an interesting position. A chunk of the Primacy want to elevate them to a kind of priesthood. And a bigger chunk resents the hell out of them for being right.”
“She told you that?”
“Didn’t need to, did she?”
No, Torin acknowledged, she didn’t. Get past the superficial physical and cultural differences and sentience was a one trick pony. And Craig could read everything he needed to know about a mark across a poker table between one card and the next. “What did she learn about us?”
“Bit of history, bit of politics. Then it got personal.” He grinned as Torin’s eyebrow rose. “She thinks it’s disgusting that mammalian embryos are internal parasites, and was appalled we didn’t use artificial wombs. Apparently, they’re a popular option in the Primacy.”
“Get the import license, we’ll make a fortune. Since you don’t need to listen to this . . .” She fished her shoes out of their compartment in the bulkhead. “. . . I’ll review it on the treadmill. Later, we’ll compare it to Presit’s inevitable interview and look for discrepancies. If someone’s been sent to sabotage the mission and prove the Primacy and the Confederation can’t work together, Keeleeki’ka is our wild card.”
“Her people were against the war.”
“Thus, wild card.” Her voice trailed off under the weight of Craig’s regard. “Look, I’d like us to be part of a new alliance, but I have to consider other possibilities.”
“And if it’s beer and bikkies all the way to the bottom?”
She stopped to brush his hair back on the way to the hatch. “Then we’ll have a party. But everyone’s safer if I assume death and destruction. And I need to keep my people safe.”
• • •
“Two thirds of this file is redacted.” Werst looked up from his slate and glared at Torin. “What the fuk happened on the Paylent?”
“My file is as redacted as yours,” Torin told him. “We’re all reading the same thing.”
They were all back in the Polint quarters, going over the briefing packets on the mercenaries together. Experience had taught Torin that one of the best ways to avoid conflict was to make sure everyone involved had the same information and be damned sure they interpreted it the same way. “Petty Officer Sareer, Lieutenant Beyvek, Lieutenant Gayun di’Dizon, and Seaman Pyrus di’Himur all in the image Commander Ganes got out, all among the fifteen survivors of the destruction of the Paylent.”
“It was a cruiser,” Binti said softly. “That’s three hundred enlisted, thirty officers.”
“That’s three hundred and fifteen dead,” Alamber added, his hair flat against his head.
Ressk snorted. “No surprise they didn’t re-up after that.”
“Any of you lot able to fill in the details?” Werst growled across the room.
“My people don’t . . .” Keeleeki’ka began.
Firiv’vrak cut her off. “Your people don’t fight. They all know that. Shut up. It wasn’t a boarding I was a part of, nor a ship whose honors I know.”
Werst’s lip lifted. “Three fifteen dead isn’t hon . . .”
“Enough.” Torin cut him off. “We’re not refighting it now.”
“We . . .” Vertic’s gesture included Bertecnic and Dutavar. “. . . were ground troops. We’d no more know about it than you would. Freenim?”
“No.” He glanced at Merinim and tapped the back of his left hand. She returned the gesture. “Neither of us have heard of it.”
“I guess you lot killed so many . . .”
“Werst!”
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Sorry, Gunny.” Looked across the room, nostril ridges open. “Sorry. War’s a fukking waste.” Another deep breath. “A lot of Krai in the Navy.”
Ressk reached over and wrapped a foot around his ankle.
“Fourteen survivors mentioned a Commander Yurrisk, helmsman. Krai. All of them said they wouldn’t have made it without him.” Torin knew she was holding her slate too tightly. “Although what he actually did has also been redacted.”
“Heroes.” Vertic held her hand out, palm up. “Villains.” And turned it over. “Those who give the orders seldom want to know exactly how we carry them out.”
“Fukking right.” Werst lifted his pouch of sah, and everyone save Keeleeki’ka, Alamber, and Craig joined in the salute.
Torin had to force her swallow of coffee down before she continued. “Three years ago, an Aggressive Class minesweeper, the DeCaal was registered to Commander Yurrisk, who’d left the Navy with a medical discharge.”
“Details of the discharge redacted,” Ressk muttered. “A lot of detail redacted given the original file length. Poor fukker.”
“His registered crew, Sateer, Beyvek, di’Dizon, di’Himur, and Mirish di’Yaunah, di’Dizon’s thytrin. Seems safe to assume that when Commander Ganes took his picture, Commander Yurrisk was in the shuttle or still in the DeCaal in orbit. Robert Martin, Brenda Zhang, and Emile Trembley have all been keeping a reasonably low profile since they left the Corps. Trembley’s only been out for a year and there’s nothing in the public records. Zhang was cautioned ten tendays ago by security on an OutSector station after a public screaming match with a Katrien.”
“Cautioned or deafened, Gunny?”
Presit had declared she was perfectly capable of reading briefing packets without help, borrowed two bottles of Alamber’s nail polish, and disappeared into her quarters.
“Martin,” Torin continued when the laughter quieted, “has been fired from fifteen jobs in the last eighteen months. And Jana Malinowski, who saw more combat than the other three put together, has been arrested six times for fighting and has consistently skipped out on her court-appointed therapy.”
“Who would do such a thing, Boss?”
“Damned if I know. All four were basic infantry, no specialties, and Martin did legitimately make sergeant. Field promotion, just before his contract ended.”
Keeleeki’ka waved both antennae and all four arms. “I have a question. If Robert Martin is a sergeant and Yurrisk is a commander, why do you give Commander Yurrisk his rank but not Robert Martin?”
“Because for whatever reason they’re on Threxie, Commander Yurrisk is broken and Robert Martin is an asshole. What?” Craig tossed his empty coffee pouch in the recycler and reached for another. “More than just a pretty face. I can rea
d between the lines, and I know how Torin thinks.”
“Poor fukker,” Ressk repeated.
“You’re very lucky,” Vertic told him.
Craig smiled tightly. “Yes, I am.”
Alamber’s eyes darkened and he glanced from Craig to Torin. When he opened his mouth, Torin glared it shut again. “Vertic, if you could cover the Polint.”
Vertic had no more personal information on any of the three than what had been in the briefing packets, but she went over the different fighting styles. “And while Camaderiz may be the only one with military training,” she concluded, “do not discount the other two. They can point a gun and pull a trigger and, if they have enough ammunition, no one will care about a lack of precision shooting.”
“What about the blades?” Ressk asked.
Her nostrils flared. “Don’t get close enough for them to bring the blades into play.”
There were a few snickers, but no one in the room doubted she was serious.
“If it comes to close quarter fighting, one on one,” Torin said, holding the attention of everyone in the room, “the Polint will fight the Polint. No arguments. And, while we’re on the topic of Polint fighting Polint, Santav Teffer Dutavar has information to share.”
His ears flattened.
“Or would you rather I did it?”
Arms folded, mane up, Dutavar glared at Torin.
Torin raised a hand and cut Vertic off. Then she waited.
“It’s no one’s business,” he growled.
“You know better.”
He did. She could see his mother’s instructions fighting the abilities that had kept him in the military longer than most Polint males. His lips curled back off the ivory slabs of his teeth. “Tehaven is my brother.”
“Are we supposed to be surprised?” Alamber asked as Dutavar swept a challenging scowl around the room. “You look like copies.”
“Netrovooens has the nearly same coloring as Bertecnic,” Dutavar snarled. “Do you assume they’re brothers?”
Alamber grinned. “Even with crappy slate resolution, I can tell Netro’s not a copy of Bertecnic. Not by, as it were, a long shot.”