by Tanya Huff
Werst needed medical attention. Torin weighed the odds of him receiving it against the odds of him being shot in the head. If they intended to shoot him, it would be a hell of a lot safer to make sure he was dead before going into the pit for the di’Taykan.
*Zhang has informed Malinowski that the Warden is a scout. That were the rest of the team in range, she’d already be dead.*
Zhang recognized the uniform. Which was the point of uniforms; couldn’t have a battle if no one knew who to shoot. The Justice Department had insisted that the Strike Teams be easily identifiable. While the other guys get to wear civvies and hide in plain sight, Torin grumbled silently, jumping a low wall. If the ground on the other side could hold the Polint, it could hold her.
In some ways, the job had been easier back when they’d been contract players.
*She’s tied off the rope, and is about to descend. Do I take the shot, Gunny?*
With Zhang down, Malinowski and Tehaven would go on the defensive. There’d be a standoff while Werst bled out.
*Gunny?*
“Negative on the shot.” Torin shouldered the weight of Werst’s life and lengthened her stride. “Bertecnic, pick up the pace!”
Blinked at the sound of shouting. Human voice. Female.
“Gayun is broken, but breathing.” She snickered. “B . . . b . . . broken but b . . . b . . . bleeding. The Warden cushioned his fall! Tehaven, go for a stretcher!”
Blinked at a rumble from above.
“Fukking hell. Language. Malinowski, tell him to go for a stretcher.”
“How?”
“I don’t care. Use interpretive dance!”
“Regular stretcher or AG?”
“What do you think? Gayun’s in the bottom of a hole!”
“So we leave him there. Why make the effort? He’s not one of us.”
“He’s on the same side we are as long as we’re on this shithole of a planet. Marines don’t leave people behind! Stretcher! Now!”
Blinked as a light shone into his eyes.
“So, you’re alive, eh?”
Was he? Good.
“Sarge, the Warden’s alive.”
Blinked at the voice. From a slate. Not using implants, must be using slates. Communication important.
“Bring him in, Zhang. I’ll send Tehaven back with both stretchers.”
A hand closed around his jaw. “Fuk me, that’s a lot of blood.”
He couldn’t remember how to snap. Remembered what sealant felt like, though. Warm. Then cool.
“You got enough juice left inside, you should be fine. You don’t, well, not my problem, is it?”
*Boss, I’m in Werst’s implant, switched it to group, and boosted the gain on his mic. As long as his mouth is open, we’ll hear what he hears.*
“But Martin has your military’s implant,” Freenim called out. “Wouldn’t he know that’s possible and have the implant physically turned off?”
Torin’s lips pulled back off her teeth. “Martin’s served with Krai. He knows better than to put anything organic in their mouths.”
Blinked at the light back in his eyes.
“Come on, Warden, I know you’re awake. Since we’re stuck in the bottom of a pit clearly not dug by the people from upstairs—unless they enjoyed primitive living and kept their ability to create seamless walls made of who the fuk knows what for the important things like, well, pits that look a lot like big empty, creepy cylinders—and because Gayun entirely sucks as a conversationalist, right now it’s up to you. Because this is the pits.”
Blinked.
“Oh, come on, that deserved better. It was funny, right? Look, if you’re going to die on me, I should at least know your name.”
*Werst!*
Blinked. “Ressk . . .”
Blinked again.
Thought he heard someone say, “Fuk me. You hear that, Sarge?”
Blinked . . .
The darkness settled in to stay.
“I’m confused,” Binti called out from behind her. “Why is it a good thing those assholes think they’ve scooped Ressk instead of Werst?”
“You heard them.” Zhang’s conversation with Martin had been enlightening. Martin’s crew knew Ressk was a member of Strike Team Alpha, they were familiar with his skill set, and were aware he had a better chance of understanding alien tech than anyone currently dirtside—regardless of how vehemently Alamber had protested that opinion. He’d continued protesting, his discontent a background rumble in everyone’s jaw, until Craig threatened to take the VTA up a kilometer and drop him on the anchor if he wanted to be there so badly. “They need Ressk,” Torin reiterated. “That need will keep Werst safe. He can fake it until we arrive.”
“They know we’re coming now,” Freenim said, a bland statement of fact. “They’ll retreat to the anchor.”
“So we change the plan.” Torin matched his bland. “We needed someone inside to open the door. Werst is inside.”
“Yes, fine, you’ll both soldier on regardless because senior NCOs don’t worry. They adapt.” Vertic snorted. “I, personally, am bothered about the depth of their knowledge, particularly concerning Strike Team Alpha. They know your strengths, they know your weaknesses.”
“They know individual strengths and weaknesses.” Torin stepped over one of the winged snakes, grounded by Bertecnic’s passing, and ignored Binti’s expletive. “They don’t know how we integrate them.”
*Sergeant Martin and Corporal Zhang are having indicated their knowledge are being several layers beyond what are being readily available to the public.* Presit’s claws tapped out a background rhythm behind her words. *It are obvious, to me at least, that they are being fed information. There are being no other possibility. I are willing to sift data on Strike Team Alpha—all of which I are having on my slate—and attempt to be finding the connection between the Justice Department and these mercenaries.*
Torin felt her brows rise. “All of which?”
*Besides my own sources, Commander Ng are having been most forthcoming.*
“Wonderful.” Torin was aware that Presit considered Strike Team Alpha to be hers; she wasn’t thrilled to find Commander Ng agreed.
*And, as our presence are no longer being a secret, I are able to bounce a signal through the Promise and into the net.*
“To cross reference.”
*Aw, Gunnery Sergeant Kerr are having expanded her vocabulary. That’s . . .* She broke off with a huff of air, and Torin sent a silent thank you to Craig. *Yes, I are able to cross reference.*
“Then see what you can find. I’m less concerned about the extent of their knowledge of the Strike Teams,” she continued, when Presit remained silent, “as I am about them knowing we have Primacy members with us.”
“But they don’t. Unless the Artek were seen . . .”
*We weren’t.*
“. . . my brother wouldn’t have told Corporal Zhang of the attack. Zhang is female,” Dutavar explained. “Tehaven lost the fight.”
*He didn’t lose it,* Firiv’vrak began.
Keeleeki’ka cut her off. *We went to ground as Warden Werst instructed before I could defeat him.*
Not for the first time, Torin wished the fight had been within the range of the nearest DL. Artek against Polint. That would have been something to see. “You have unexpected skills.”
*Hardly unexpected. I told Warden Ryder I carry the story of Tyar Who Defeated the Warlord. Stories worth carrying have substance.*
When Torin turned, Freenim shook his head. Seemed this was new information to him as well. If a durlave who’d served with Artek in the war didn’t know, the Primacy as a whole—Artek excluded—didn’t know. Facing forward again, she ducked a low branch and said, “Craig, go through that list of stories. Check for any other with potentially useful substance.”
*On it.*<
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“It doesn’t matter if the fight ended without a clear winner.” Without pausing his forward momentum, Dutavar snapped a slender tree off at the base and tossed it over a low wall. “. . . my brother will be shamed he didn’t win and won’t want to lose honor in front of a female.”
Bertecnic barked out a laugh, and smacked Dutavar on the rump. “Honor?” He sidestepped away from the return blow. “Like it’s ever that simple.”
“Simple?” Binti scoffed. “Zhang’s a female of a different species.”
“In a combat situation, it doesn’t matter.”
Torin tuned out Alamber’s enthusiastic agreement. “That must make for interesting battle plans.”
“Tell me about it,” Freenim muttered.
No one suggested Werst might surrender the information.
“Can Werst convince the hostiles he’s analyzing alien technology?” Merinim called out loudly enough Torin heard her external to the implant. The Druin, for all their shorter stride, had easily maintained the pace set by the Polint. “He punched the coffee maker.”
“He’s smarter than he looks,” Ressk growled above Binti’s laughter.
Torin glanced up to see Ressk directly above her. “Hold!” Infantry, as they said, could stop on a dime and give you nine cents change. She had no idea what a dime or cents were, but both the Confederation and the Primacy had planted mines—stopping on command beat taking one more step and losing body parts. Resettling her pack, she reached up and squeezed his foot. “Sitrep.”
His answering expression insisted he was holding it together, but his toes tightened around her fingers. “We’re twenty meters out from the bog.”
During their run to plant the DLs, he and Werst had mapped the bog at five hundred and seventy meters across. They’d been unable to ping either end. Combined experience in humping gear over various unfriendly landscapes had identified the area as an old river, silted up and spread out beyond its original banks.
“We can’t go around.” Vertic gouged a trench with one front foot as they gathered for another look at the map rising off Torin’s slate. “And it’s barely over a meter at the deepest point.”
*Torin, they know we’re incoming.* Craig sounded impatient. *Why walk?*
“At this point it’s just as fast. And considerably more subtle.”
*Yeah, yeah, they have hostages, no backing the bodgie gits into a corner.* His eyeroll was nearly audible. *They’ve got one of ours now.*
“I know.” He hated feeling useless as much as she did. “I’ll let you know when you can drop the shuttle on their heads.”
*Are she meaning that literally?*
“Until then, keep Presit off the coms.”
*Because I can do the impossible.*
She could hear the reluctant smile in Craig’s voice and answered it. “Yes, you can.”
“A meter deep is nothing,” Binti pointed out.
Merinim raised her hand. “Uh, Freenim may be a meter five, but just over a meter tall here.”
“Just over,” Binti repeated. “Over’s good. And you have boats. A kind of variable definition of boat, sure, but I want to see them in action.”
The Druin equipment had included personal flotation platforms. Freenim had explained the inclusion with the observable fact they were, as a species, short.
“We’re wasting daylight.” Torin clipped the slate back on her belt. “Ressk, find a path.”
“On it, Gunny. There’s a ruined wall that’ll take us a third of the way, water barely over your ankles. Bertie . . .”
“Don’t call me that,” Bertecnic sighed.
“. . . forty-five degrees to your left until your feet get wet. Two, maybe three meters. Move!”
“He’s motivated,” Vertic said approvingly as Ressk swung out in front again. “Danger to a bonded will inspire extraordinary effort.”
“Yes, sir. That’s how I explained it to Commander Ng.”
She heard Binti snicker behind her. “You figure Werst’ll hold off on kicking ass until we get there, Gunny?”
Torin felt her forward boot sink into the loam. “He doesn’t usually.”
“What were you doing out here?” Yurrisk shoved his face toward hers, teeth bared, eyes gone crystalline. “You need to stay where I put you. You need to hold the line. I didn’t clear you to leave the ruins.”
Arniz slid her gaze past his—he wasn’t seeing her, so what did it matter—lowered herself onto a piece of carved and broken stone, and waved a hand until she could catch her breath, trying not to inhale a cloud of tiny silver insects with each gasp. Who knew being dragged out of a pit would be so exhausting? All she’d done was dangle. “I was looking,” she managed at last, “for Hyrinzatil.”
Yurrisk whipped his head around to glare at the ancillary. “You were trying to escape, were you? Planned to circle around and use the shuttle’s com system to send for help? Thought I wouldn’t notice one lizard missing? I know how many enemies I have. No matter how many come, I’ll protect what’s mine.” He’d taken a single step toward Hyrinzatil, fists clenched, when Qurn’s gloved hand on his wrist brought him to a sudden stop. He swayed right and right again, took a deep breath, then said in a less terrifying tone, “Answer me.”
“I ran because an animal was attacking.” Hyrinzatil folded his arms, unfolded them, folded them again, tail tip lashing. Had he stopped there . . . but then he wouldn’t be Hyrinzatil if he stopped on the prudent side of the line. “It was the sensible thing to do.”
Arniz ached with how much she missed Dzar and the emphasis of youth, then she pushed the ache aside because Yurrisk had drawn himself up to his full height, his spine a rigid line, and Hyrinzatil’s primary was, as usual, useless, more concerned with a hole in the ground than the life he’d been given responsibility for. “Sensible only because Trembley was willing to fight,” she snapped. “Am I wrong?” she demanded as Hyrinzatil leaned around Yurrisk to glare at her. “The greater majority of predators chase running prey. If Trembley hadn’t been there, the animal would have caught and eaten you.”
“I don’t have to run faster than the animal, Harveer, I only have to run faster than you.”
“I should have let you stay lost in the jungle.”
“I wasn’t lost! And let’s not forget, I’m the one who found you and went for help!”
“Enough.” Yurrisk pointed at Hyrinzatil, the weary officer back at the surface. “Get in the pit. Assist in the removal of the plastic.”
“Removal?” Salitwisi, kneeling between the two ropes dangling over the most stable point of the crumbling edge, twisted around and glared. “We need to examine it in situ!”
Yurrisk took three fast steps, grasped Salitwisi’s tail with his right foot, and swung him out over the edge. “Then look at it in situ,” he said calmly over the shriek as he let go. “And you . . .”
Hyrinzatil opened and closed his mouth, tongue darting out to taste the air and disappearing again.
“. . . go in after him. Under your power or mine, I’m not fussy.”
“Go on,” Arniz said when the ancillary glanced over at her, willing to yield to her authority now, when his other options had run out. “It’s not deep, and there’s a pile of debris built up from all the in and out to soften the landing.”
Beyvek and Mirish di’Yaunah—both of whom turned out to be engineers although Arniz thought that might mean something different in the Navy than in academia—had been gratifyingly enthusiastic about her discovery and had brought quite a bit of fresh debris in with them. She’d kicked some in herself on the way out.
“Commander?” Beyvek’s voice rose up out of the pit. “We seem to have acquired a civilian.”
“He’s there to observe the plastic in situ.”
Arniz was too tired to prevent her smile at Yurrisk’s tone.
“That a Niln word for hole
in the ground?”
“I assume so. Don’t let him delay you, Lieutenant, but don’t allow him to assist either. He wants to observe, let him observe. His ancillary is on his way.”
“Good. We could use another set of . . .”
“Great egg! Don’t touch it with your bare hands!” Seemed Salitwisi had survived the fall. “You need the prop . . . Awk!”
“You heard the commander, tail against the wall and observe.”
A meter from the edge, Hyrinzatil stood frozen in place. Yurrisk sighed pointedly. “Did you need me to assist?”
“Go on,” Arniz repeated. “I’m a lot further from the egg than you, and that hole wasn’t open to the sky when I discovered it. I went through the roof.”
Hyrinzatil shuffled forward, tail tip twitching. He balanced on the edge for a moment and, when Yurrisk stepped toward him, jumped.
Niln bones weren’t as light as the Rakva, but they were light enough to keep the mass part of mass times acceleration low. From the near instantaneous sound of both Beyvek and Salitwisi ordering him around, Hyrinzatil had landed safely.
“Did you have an observation to make?”
When she realized Yurrisk was speaking to her, Arniz snorted. “I’m surprised Salitwisi didn’t expect the figurative kick in the ass, but, other than that, no.” His response, given that Salitwisi still hadn’t internalized the current power structure, had been reasonable. No one had been hurt. Martin wouldn’t have been so restrained.
He waved at the black Polint waiting by the tree where the ropes had been secured, pointed at his eyes, then pointed at Arniz. “Camaderiz. Watch her.”
Camaderiz made a derisive sound and, while Arniz had no idea what she was likely to do except sit and feel old, she didn’t think the derision had been aimed at her. Nor did she think the Polint were as unaware as they pretended. It was highly unlikely the bright green item she’d glimpsed through the fur in Camaderiz’s ear was purely decorative.
“The Niln has a point,” Qurn said quietly. “Not her,” she added when Yurrisk frowned at Arniz. “The other, Salitwisi. To remove unfamiliar tech and expect it to keep working . . .”