A Peace Divided

by Tanya Huff

  “Loyalty.”

  “Yes.”

  The air tasted of sadness. “I don’t think you understand what loyalty means.”

  Sareer’s mouth twisted into a painful looking curve. “Fuk you. We saw people we’d shared our lives with blown apart. Pieces of them, pieces of the ship, all tumbled together. Blood spinning by in perfect spheres. The living sucked into vacuum too fast to scream. You don’t understand what that shit does to the survivors.”

  “Some of the survivors,” Arniz pointed out tersely. “There’s ten who didn’t answer your commander’s call.”

  Nostril ridges closed, Sareer straightened and stared down at Arniz, lips lifting off her teeth. “And four who did.”

  “First of the DLs went active, Boss.”

  Torin and Vertic moved together to the front of the VTA, Vertic waving Torin on ahead. “I can see over you, Gunny. It doesn’t work the other way.”

  Unless they were advancing toward open fire, officers went first. And old habits died hard. Torin put a hand on Alamber’s shoulder and leaned in. “What’ve you got?”

  “The Krai we got the best look at on Ganes’ image . . .”

  “Lieutenant Beyvek, Engineering.”

  His hair flipped out, stopping just short of Torin’s chin. “Yeah, well, Beyvek’s hanging out in a bunch of ruins all by himself, eating snakes. Even Werst could’ve made the shot from where they set up the look and listen.”

  “Except that we’re not shooting.”

  “Yet,” Vertic added.

  She wasn’t wrong. It always came to shooting in the end.

  “Ah, that are being the first sight of the enemy.” Torin held her ground, so rather than push her out of the way, Presit squirmed in beside her, peering over Alamber’s other shoulder. She’d been resting, overwhelmed by the fall from the shuttle and the trek through the jungle. Temporarily overwhelmed as it turned out. “I are going to be needing to access the feed.”

  “You may have access to a copy of the feed,” Torin told her. “Not to the live signal.”

  “I are . . .”

  “You are not going to endanger lives,” Vertic growled.

  “I . . .”

  “No.”

  Torin kept her eyes on the monitor. And didn’t smile.

  Beyvek ate two more snakes. His weapon rested against a carved block of stone a meter, a meter five away from his perch and, if he’d been ex-Corps, Torin would’ve been pissed on principle. Justice wanted criminals captured, and she bet her pension that after finding one of the enemy alone, Werst had considered a “dragged off by wild animals” scenario. Two on one, Krai to Krai, they might’ve been able to manage it without giving the alarm. Unfortunately, might have crossed the preventable risk to the hostages line that had been the reason behind the no contact order.

  The second and third DL went active seventeen and twenty-four minutes later.

  “Are they clearing a road?”

  “Looks like a road, Boss. They’re down to stone here, and here.” Alamber aligned the two screens. “Also, looks like the road leads straight to those ruins where Beyvek’s waiting.”

  “They are thinking the weapon are having been hidden in the ruins!”

  “Possibly.”

  “Possibly?” Presit’s response was shrill. “Then why else are they going there, Gunnery Sergeant?”

  “For the snakes?” Alamber nodded at the screen. “I mean, why eat packaged when you can eat fresh, right?”

  “Are your name being Gunnery Sergeant?”

  “Alamber, tag both hostages and mercenaries as we see them. I want a full head count as soon as possible.” The Niln squatting at the side of the road looked old, the two Katrien distressed, and all three of them exhausted. The Krai squatting beside the Niln, probably Sareer, looked annoyed. Better than angry, Torin allowed. “D . . . Vertic, any thoughts on why Netrovooens is standing in the underbrush, weapon ready?”

  “I assume he’s standing guard? Other than that, no.”

  Why would he be standing guard so far from the road? What could they be guarding while standing withers-deep in foliage?

  Two Niln, a Katrien, and Commander Yurrisk rose up out of a tangle of green and brown until they stood only ankle-deep. Netrovooens adjusted until all three were in his line of sight. One of the Niln began talking, hands and tail waving.

  “I think they’re looking at pieces of buildings, Boss. They’re standing on a corner of wall. See?”

  Alamber sketched a bright pink highlight across the screen. “Runs across here and back that way.”

  Now he’d pointed it out, she could see the underbrush grew over stone differently than it did over clear ground. Commander Yurrisk was being admirably thorough, heading for the intact ruins but not discounting the bits along the road.

  “Is that Niln helping the mercs?”

  The heavier set of the two Niln, his scales a soft charcoal gray, was speaking directly to Commander Yurrisk, both hands sketching what Torin assumed was emphasis on the air. There could have been Niln still in the VTA, a Niln on the mercenaries’ side however unlikely, a Niln not caught in Ganes’ image. “Can you clear up the sound?”

  “Can I clear up the sound.” Alamber snorted. “Already on it, Boss. Dropping animal life and tree noises to background hum on three, two . . .”

  “Although erosion has smoothed out the marks, I doubt very much these blocks were machine dressed, but that’s neither here nor there. Many primitive societies built in stone and some created elaborate underground chambers. I’ll have a better idea when we finally reach those ruins your companion returned to inform us . . . you . . . of as actual intact walls that would allow me to build a hypothesis. In the meantime, I really think we should take the opportunity this illegal entry under the canopy gives us to note the foliage before tearing it away from any remaining flooring. Harveer Tilzonicazic, who, if you’ll recall is our xenobotanist, would like to record her findings and is more than willing to have you remove any communication ability from her slate. And Harveer Arniz, I’m sure, would be willing to assist as most botanical growth offers insight into the soil and . . .”

  “I don’t care about any of that,” Yurrisk responded.

  The Niln spread his hands. “Well, why would you? I understand, I’m all about the architecture myself, but . . .”

  “Clear the plants away. Continue searching for underground chambers.”

  “But . . .”

  Yurrisk’s nostril ridges slammed shut. “Now.”

  “I’m feeling a certain sympathy for Yurrisk.”

  Torin tightened her grip on Alamber’s shoulder. “Yeah.”

  “There were four Humans in the original image and none in this one. Or in the ruins.” Vertic leaned close enough Torin could feel her body heat raise the temperature of the air between them. “Adjust until we can see the other side of the road. There . . .” She pointed a thick, clawed finger at the screen. “. . . lock on the Druin.” The DL rotated until Alamber locked on, red clothing more visible against the green than even Netrovooens’ fur. The Druin directed the Niln and Katrien tearing vines aside, while Camaderiz, the black Polint, stood guard. “Where are the Humans?”

  Presit combed her claws through her ruff. “Perhaps they are already having been eaten by insects.”

  “Reducing our opposition by four ex-Marines?” The Primacy officer sounded amused. “It never works that way.”

  “Gunny! We found ruins!” Torin turned as Firiv’vrak launched herself into the VTA and rose up, arms unfolded and waving, the remainder of her legs still propelling her toward the front of the vessel. “Intact buildings . . .” Her eyes shifted toward the screen where Beyvek now stood on the carved capstone, staring up at a small bird like he was staring up at dessert. “Buildings like those!”

  • • •

  Stepping int
o the jungle on the far side of the clearing was like stepping into deep water. Deep, dirty water. There were no clear lines of sight and the late afternoon sunlight through the leaves had tinted the uncomfortably humid air green. Heavy artillery could have been preparing to fire a hundred meters away and Torin wouldn’t have been able to see it. Granted, had the mercs put heavy artillery into play, her helmet scanner would’ve registered the energy signatures, but equipment could fail, had failed, and in this kind of environment, eyes and ears—Human eyes and ears—were at a disadvantage.

  The dense growth wasn’t notably different than the tangle she’d faced leading Presit back to the shuttle, but the reporter and the adrenaline burn of the jump sizzling under her skin had been a distraction. Here and now, all she had to concentrate on was the jungle.

  The amount of insect life nearly overwhelmed her helmet scanner, so she filtered them out and maintained only the mammal and reptile scans. The paler fronds of a bracken clump waved from behind the trees to her far left, but she could see no indication of ruins beyond the crumbling sections of broken wall that drew humped lines under the tangled mats of vines and organic debris. If they were standing on the route the two Artek had taken, Torin could see no sign of it. “Did you PIN the ruins?”

  “No need, Gunny. We’ll follow the scent trail.” Firiv’vrak folded her arms back in under the edge of her carapace and disappeared, reappearing a moment later in a break between two tufts of fern, sliding through the foliage like a missile through vacuum. Between random glimpses and the out-of-place scent of cherry candy, Torin managed to follow until they moved into even denser foliage. Stopped at the edge of a clump of chest-high bracken, she took a moment to consider the path to the right versus the path to the left. Firiv’vrak had to have gone around, but damned if Torin could tell which side. And while the air at ground level was still and damp, the leaves up above moved constantly, their pervasive whisper drowning out any noise the Artek made as she moved.

  Only officers considered themselves so omnipotent they never had to ask for directions. “Firiv . . .”

  A hiss from her right dropped Torin to one knee and an insect about as large her palm dove through the space her head had just occupied. Flat enough that only its spread wings gave it volume, the big bug looked disturbingly like an Artek. Her finger outside the trigger guard . . .

  “Because shooting at shit gives your position away, Corporal. What part of recon do you not understand?”

  . . . Torin watched the insect hit the ground and run for the nearest tree, wings a blur as it climbed. About a meter up, the bark bulged and a pale appendage whipped out of a crevasse. An instant later, the insect had been dragged, fighting and hissing, in under the bark and out of sight.

  “Gunny?”

  She stood, uncertain if the hunter had been another insect or the tree itself, and reinstated the scanner’s defaults.

  “Looks like a symbiotic parasite,” Firiv’vrak observed.

  “I hate jungles,” Torin replied.

  • • •

  She could see patches of pale blue sky above the ruins, through the same tall, slender trees she’d seen around the image of Lieutenant Beyvek. Huge heavy roots, out of proportion to the trees they supported, grew through and around buildings made of dark gray stone. The same stone, pitched and uneven, covered a courtyard twenty meters by thirty. Along the far end of the courtyard, a building two stories high with ornate stonework around the arched windows and doors and the edge of the roof, anchored the narrow end. Adjusting the zoom on her scanner, Torin could see carvings on larger blocks set into the lower levels. Language or abstract art—she neither knew nor cared. The buildings on the shorter arms of the courtyard were a single story high and significantly less decorated.

  No, not buildings. Building. The single-story structures connected to either end of the larger building, and it looked like all existing divisions between them had been made by time.

  At the remains of the wall that had once enclosed the area, Torin kicked at a broad-leafed plant exposing paler stone with lines of brown through the gray. She followed the lines of the crumbled wall first to the left then to the right past the dark gray arch that had probably once topped the gate but now lay on its side partially buried in the ground.

  “Gunny?” Firiv’vrak paused in turn, halfway to the two familiar figures perched on the curve of a root. Their positioning suggested Keeleeki’ka had been telling Craig yet another story of her people—her oratory posture had become familiar over the last couple of days. Before Torin left the VTA this second, less spontaneous time, Vertic had explained that she’d sent the two Artek out exploring to force them to learn to cooperate.

  “And because they’re the next thing to indestructible,” she’d added too quietly for Firiv’vrak to overhear.

  “Both valid points,” Torin had acknowledged.

  As neither Vertic nor Firiv’vrak had mentioned they’d be meeting up with Craig, best guess said Keeleeki’ka had gone looking for him while Firiv’vrak went after her.

  Torin wasn’t happy about Craig being away from the relative safety of the clearing. He was their pilot. How the hell was he supposed to pilot half a klick away from the VTA? Not to mention how much the jungle resembled a deadly accident waiting to happen.

  Her grip tightened on her weapon. If Craig was killed, the peace would definitely be sabotaged.

  Without enough light to see into the buildings, even at full zoom, every room could be hiding multiple threats. Pity she hadn’t thought to bring Dalan—his camera had a higher resolution. On the other hand, Presit wouldn’t have allowed him to go alone and Torin had done Presit-in-the-jungle once already today. The dark stone walls were too thick for her scanner to pick up heat sources, but both the not-a-spider and the web it had built across one of the upper triangular windows registered high thermal signatures. High enough that Torin spent a moment wondering what the web had been built of.

  Had they planned to take the ruins, she’d send Binti around to a secure location on the far side of the buildings where they could map out the interiors by bouncing a signal from scanner to scanner. Stations, ships, and anchors were constructed to prevent the enemy doing the same, but, as far as she knew, no one had applied the tech dirtside pre-Confederation.

  Lines of data scrolled past as an amphibian—ninety-seven point four probability—waddled out onto a cracked threshold and sat blinking in the dim light. Torin recorded the possibility of interior water and finished her scan back where she’d begun. The not-a-spider now read thirty-seven point two degrees; the web two point four degrees cooler with a line of weak joins flaring cooler still in the upper right quadrant—the best access to the window if breaking the web became the only option.

  She took another look at the information she’d been able to gather: depth of rooms directly back of openings, thickness of walls at the openings, surface temperatures that allowed for the mapping of weaknesses, position of every exterior life-form. Data representing four-point seven percent of the scanner’s potential. Threat due to lack of information: high. In the environments they were designed for . . .

  Torin frowned.

  In the environments they were designed for, combat scanners could expedite illegal activities. In the wrong hands, a scanner could bypass security systems and indicate how to break into buildings where cases of weapons were stored waiting legitimate shipment. The Wardens investigating the MI robbery had never used a combat scanner, and the Elder Races who considered war to be socially primitive would have little trouble considering the equipment used to fight it equally crude. Evidence suggested the Corps was having a hell of a time keeping track of billions of pieces of decommissioned equipment, and the gunrunners had known they were coming.

  “Gunny?”

  Experience insisted the courtyard was a kill zone.

  “New experiences,” she reminded herself, and stepped onto the fir
st angled slab. When the hostages were safe, she’d suggest Justice have someone run an MI robbery simulation in full combat gear. Craig opened his mouth; she raised a hand and kept it raised until she was close enough he wouldn’t feel he had to shout and attract unwanted attention.

  He looked unimpressed. “I’m here because Keelee came and got me.”

  “I figured.”

  Firiv’vrak snapped her mandibles over the end of Torin’s response. “I told you to wait here.”

  “You don’t tell me what to do.” Keeleeki’ka flicked her antennae back. “Warden Ryder hears the story. Besides, you were gone for so long, I thought you weren’t coming back.”

  “I thought you were,” Craig added, “so we waited. Right here. No exploring without an armed escort.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I haven’t got a death wish, luv.” The corners of his eyes crinkled. “Nor did I want to get jumped by something nasty in the ruins.”

  She returned his smile, amazed by how well he understood her. “How did you get here before us?”

  “I didn’t have to wait for orders to leave.” He spread his hands. “Told Bertecnic where I was going and left.” He waved a small cloud of insects away from his face and turned the movement into a gesture that took in the entirety of the ruins. “It’s something, isn’t it?” Born on a station, he’d spent most of his life in space.

  Not the time nor place to challenge his belief about her relationship with Vertic. “It is. I’ve never seen anything this old.” For the most part, the war had taken her to OutSector colony planets and stations. “Except for the H’san tombs,” she amended.

  “Doesn’t count. They were tidy. Sterile. This isn’t. This looks . . .”