A Peace Divided

by Tanya Huff

  There were vents in the kitchen ceiling.

  Torin lost sight of Dutavar and Bertecnic a lot sooner than she’d expected. She knew the success of any part of a plan didn’t guarantee success of the rest, but it never hurt to start a fight on a positive note.

  “I wonder if we’d be harder to see at dusk,” Firiv’vrak said thoughtfully by Torin’s knee. “As the light changes, as mammalian vision adapts, we’d be another shadow against the . . .”

  Dirt sprayed up no more than two meters out from the point where the ancient road left the jungle.

  “They’re shooting at shadows,” Torin noted.

  Firiv’vrak’s antennae flattened. “So they are.”

  “Take them when you can, Mashona. Keep them alive if possible.”

  *Roger, Gunny. No clear shot yet. Shooter’s being careful.*

  Another shot. Another spray of dirt.

  *Correction, shooters. There’s a second one two windows to the right of the first.*

  The last of the light faded, and the sound of the insects intensified.

  “Firiv’vrak. Keeleeki’ka. Go.”

  They dipped on and off Torin’s scanner, proving the ground wasn’t as flat as it appeared.

  *At the cliff, Gunny. Heading down.*

  “Roger, that. Ressk?”

  *Not so much climbing as . . . Garn CHREEN!*

  “It’s okay,” Torin said as Vertic’s ears flattened. “He’s enjoying himself. And he should do it silently,” she added as Ressk whooped. “I’d rather they didn’t hear you coming.”

  *Sorry, Gunny. Teeth together.*

  “At least he’s not dwelling on the state of his bonded.”

  “There’s that. All right, Durlan, wait here until the Polint emerge. You can cover the distance fast enough there’s no reason to expose yourself before it’s necessary. You’re a big, bright target.”

  “So I’ve heard,” she huffed. “And if the young males don’t emerge?”

  “New plan.”

  Vertic’s tail flicked. “Can you share this plan?”

  “Not yet.” Torin grinned. “It depends what emerges in . . .”

  The plateau lit up like midday under a white dwarf, each blade of grass standing out in sharp relief. Torin couldn’t see the Artek, but they were out there. Exposed.

  “Mashona!”

  *On it, Gunny.* One. *I haven’t got anything . . .* Two. *. . . big enough to take it with a single shot.* Three. Four. *But if I keep hitting the same spot.* Five. Six. Seven. Eight . . .

  And it was dark again.

  Rounds from the anchor hit up in the trees.

  Torin blinked and tried to recover her night sight. “Remind me to make yet another requisition for impact boomers.”

  *With pleasure. I’m moving left. Two, three trees over.*

  “You think they can hit you?”

  *At this distance with what they’re firing? The way they’re firing? Not a chance. But if I get a better angle, I can hit them.*

  “Gunny!”

  Torin followed the line of Vertic’s arm. One of the shooters had begun tearing up the dirt about two hundred meters from the shuttle.

  “What the fuk are you doing, Malinowski?” Martin threw his slate down on the desk in the anchor’s communications room.

  “I saw a bug!”

  “Yeah, well, this armpit of a planet is all about bugs.” The security feed from the plateau side of the anchor filled the desk’s surface with blurry shadow, a pixilated mass rising up into the air on the other side of the darker mass of the shuttle. “What idiot installed such a worthless piece of shit?”

  Peering through a small air vent over Martin’s head, Werst silently echoed the question. The NOD had a crap image intensifier, low luminous sensitivity, and enough visual noise only experience let him identify the fuzzy mass as flying dirt.

  “Not a bug, Sarge, a . . . FUK! I’m hit!”

  Werst’s lips curled back off his teeth. One for Mashona.

  “How bad?”

  “Through the fleshy . . .” She sucked a breath through her teeth, loud enough the slate picked it up. “. . . fleshy part of my arm. The new one. Damn, that’s going to void the warranty.”

  “Seal it. Mashona’s better than we thought. I’m sending the di’Taykan up. They get there, you and Zhang come back down.”

  “You said the Wardens wouldn’t shoot to kill. Looks like the sniper’ll put a hole in whatever she can hit.”

  “Good thing we’ve got non-Humans to waste, then.”

  The vent was smaller than the palm of Werst’s hand. He had Martin alone, and couldn’t get to him. Couldn’t squeeze enough of himself through to do any damage. That pistol they’d taken off the gunrunners would have come in handy in such close quarters. Two shots at the base of his head—bam, bam, severed spine. As he followed Martin out of the room, slithering through the rigid tubing, thankful the bruising was on his back not his front, Werst was starting to see the pistol’s attraction.

  At the edge of the common room, the tubing narrowed as it ran vertically up toward the second floor and broadened as it dipped and ran along the inside wall just above floor level. About five centimeters past the junction, a bundle of cables came through the lower curve. He couldn’t go up. His skull wouldn’t fit, let alone his shoulders. He’d have to follow the cables.

  So the vents on the roof were out. Fine. Cables running in such a convenient location meant there had to be an access hatch somewhere close. Or it was an idiotic design. He wasn’t ruling that out.

  “Pryus! Mirnish!” As Werst passed a small oval vent, Martin barked out the di’Taykan’s names as though he had the right to command.

  “Mirish!”

  He ignored the correction. “Get upstairs. Send my people down.”

  “Sergeant . . .” The commander sounded unimpressed.

  “Malinowski’s been hit. Zhang helping her. We need shooters in those windows to keep everyone safe.”

  Not hard to see how Martin, the waste of oxygen, had been manipulating the commander all along.

  “Go, then. But Mirish, Pyrus, fire defensively only. Our position will be stronger during negotiations if no one dies.”

  Two of the hostages were already dead.

  Werst stretched out his arms, grabbed two handfuls of cable, and dragged himself through the barely adequate space, the slick fabric of the Niln overalls all that made movement possible.

  He ignored the bruising. Ignored the pain.

  Imagined passing both on to Robert Martin.

  *Beyvek has been neutralized. Am in process of shutting down search program.*

  *He didn’t fight back,* Keeleeki’ka added. *He had a weapon and time to fire, but used neither. I am securing him. There is urine.*

  “Artek can be startling if you’ve never seen one before,” Freenim said quietly.

  “And a hell of a lot more startling if you have,” Torin noted. “Lieutenant Beyvek was Navy. Mashona?”

  *I’m set.*

  “Freenim, Merinim, let’s go.”

  Although 33X73 was a MidSector planet, its rotation had their particular piece of it pointing away from the core. The stars were scattered enough their light was neither help nor hindrance. Torin locked her scanner on the tent’s position. Three meters and one thirty-five degrees off her zero, Merinim followed. Freenim had their six.

  *Search program requires command codes. Keeleeki’ka, ask the prisoner . . .*

  *Beyvek is nonresponsive. How does he breathe with his nostrils closed so tightly?*

  *I’ve got this.* Craig sounded amused. *Don’t mean to skite, but I’ve rebuilt more control panels than the yard at Ventris. One on one, Firiv.*

  Torin ran at full speed, crouched low, KC in her left hand, pack humped high on her back, her silhouette as non-Human as
she could make it. The tent, reflective in sunlight, absorbed what little light there was, and she was almost on it when her scanner flared.

  The ground to the right dropped six meters.

  As the soft dirt crumbled and her right foot went out from under her, she threw herself to the left, landed on her knee, pivoted, and subvocalized, “Pit at my ninety!”

  Then she threw herself forward, grabbed Merinim’s wrist and yanked her hard enough that her next two strides were on air. Impact knocked Torin’s breath out, but she got her arms around the Druin and rolled them away from the edge.

  “Seriously?” Merinim sighed into Torin’s chin. “Another one?”

  “This one reads as dirt all the way down. I assume the archaeologists are responsible.”

  “That makes all the difference.” She rolled off Torin and up into a crouch.

  “Tent,” Torin said, eyes on the anchor. “Now.” Merinim slid in under the fabric. As Freenim raced up, she indicated he should follow. Then she gave them a ten count. Had Craig dropped out of sight like that, she’d appreciate a moment.

  “Where the fuk is Tehaven!”

  Werst dragged himself a few painful centimeters farther along the conduit, his breathing fast and shallow.

  “Might be eating.”

  One of the Polint. Werst couldn’t tell which.

  “Eating? Who said it was snack time? You, Camaderiz, go haul his hairy ass out of the kitchen!”

  It wasn’t so much a tent as Torin defined it as a fabric shelter over an assortment of equipment—some partially disassembled. In the center of one of the two longer tables, a violet light was flashing. Torin recognized two screens and what might be a microscope. Nothing else. The tables could be folded, the stools had broad feet so they wouldn’t sink into the dirt, and none of it would be any help cracking the anchor. The actual entrance to the shelter was ninety degrees off the anchor—also no help—so the three of them dropped and peered out under the side opposite from where they’d entered.

  *And we’ve dummied it out. Wholesale destruction saves the day. Scan is off. You’re on, Alamber.*

  *Already locked and blocked our implant frequency . . .*

  “He’s fast,” Freenim murmured.

  *Not if you need me to go slow,* Alamber purred. *Well, hello there. Thanks, Keeleeki’ka.*

  “For?” If Keeleeki’ka was improvising, Torin wanted to know about it.

  *She just sent me the codes to Beyvek’s slate. From Beyvek, I can get into every slate he’s had contact with. Relevant to this mission, that’s his crew and Martin. Once I’m into Martin, I’m into the rest of the mercenaries. This won’t take long now, Boss.*

  The Artek hadn’t mentioned computer skills. “Keeleeki’ka?”

  *I carry the story of Inwetermin who said to the government, that information is ours and if you keep it from us, I will take it.*

  *Uh, Gunny, should we be worried that Inwetermin’s familiar with Confederation codes?*

  “Not our job, Mashona.” Torin’s scanner marked two of the upper windows empty of glass, but the angle was too acute for her to pick up a heat signature. “Not our job.”

  “You useless, four-legged idiot!”

  “It’s not my fault!” Tehaven’s voice, halfway between a growl and a whine, cut clearly through the wall. “The Warden said he knew my brother!”

  “How?”

  “He said they served together, but that’s complete shit.”

  “He said? He answered you?”

  “Yeah. Then he went after my balls and locked me in the storeroom.”

  “I don’t care if he tried to remove your balls with his teeth!” Martin wasn’t so much shouting as screaming. He was pissed. Werst snickered as he dragged himself forward another half a meter, Martin’s reaction easing his pain. “Your PCU has a translation program!”

  “So?”

  “So that’s how you understood him. How did he understand you, huh? How? I knew that tree fukker was hiding something.”

  Delusional dimwit. Heartbeat pulsing in his throat, Werst sucked air through his teeth as his fingertips touched lapped metal.

  “Malinowski! Zhang! Get to the roof. He’s Krai. If he’s in the vents, he’ll have gone high!”

  And he would have, had the vertical not been as big around as his dick.

  *I’m in, Boss. A few minutes more and I’ll have control.*

  “Can you patch me through? Slate to slate?”

  *How much of you?*

  “Voice only.”

  *No problem. Audio takes almost no space.*

  Torin crawled forward on her elbows until her hips were clear of the tent, then drew her legs in under her.

  “You’re certain they won’t shoot?” Freenim murmured behind her.

  “I’m certain they’re lousy shots.”

  “One out by animal attack, one into the pit with Werst, one hit by Mashona, one down in the shuttle—four casualties, eleven mercenaries remaining. They can’t all be lousy shots.”

  Technically, five mercenaries and the crew of the DeCaal. “They can’t all fit in those two windows either.”

  *Gunny, we’re in back of the anchor. Dutavar has used the Artek weapon to take out the camera.*

  “The camera? Singular?” The Artek weapon fired silently, but she’d expected half a dozen cameras.

  *Scientists seem to trust walls. Infirmary window is unshielded, lights are on.*

  “Proceed with caution.”

  She grinned as Ressk grunted, *Where’s the fun in that.*

  *Okay, Boss, I’ll have control of the anchor in no more than five, but you’re in now. You talk, they’ll hear you.*

  “Hey, Dr. Ganes? Doc? There’s something crawling on the window.”

  “Insect, attracted to the light.” Ganes crossed the infirmary to stand by Trembley’s bed. The young man had been plucking at the covers since Harveer Arniz had left—the outward sign of an inward turmoil. Ganes had left him to stew, but was willing to interact should he have something to say. Young and stupid was, after all, a correctable condition. “See the way the wings pick up the light?”

  “It’s . . . huge.”

  “Wingspan of approximately eleven centimeters. The mandibles are prominent, but we’re still not sure if it’s a predator or . . .”

  A long-fingered hand wrapped around the central body and, with a panicked flutter of wings, the insect disappeared.

  “Not good!” Trembley groped for a weapon that wasn’t there.

  The circular end of a narrow rod clicked against the window. Clicked again. Faster until the sound became a continuous soft burr. Fractures ran across the theoretically unbreakable glass and a moment later the sheet collapsed into pieces, each no more than five millimeters square, small enough it sounded like rain when it hit the floor.

  “Well, that worked. Points to R&D.” The Krai climbing into the infirmary flashed teeth. “Commander Ganes?”

  “Dr. Ganes.”

  He paused, bare feet three centimeters above the floor. “Didn’t think that through . . .”

  Ganes pulled the extra blanket off the end of the bed—his extra blanket, his bed—and used it to sweep the glass aside.

  “Thank you, Commander.” His finger slid over the trigger guard as he shifted his grip on his weapon. “If it isn’t Private Emile Trembley.”

  “He’s no threat. He’s been injured.” Ganes leaned out the window and saw two large shapes heading for the corner of the anchor. He didn’t think they were Dornagain, they looked a little more like H’san. “Warden Ressk?”

  “How do you know . . . Werst!” Nostril ridges shut, he ran for the stasis pods. “Where is he?”

  “Your bonded is downstairs. Weak from blood loss, but walking and talking. I repaired the hole in his throat and unless he’s done something extraordin
arily stupid, it should have held.”

  Warden Ressk blinked. “Your bedside manner sucks, Commander. Doctor.”

  “I’ve been told.”

  “Attention in the anchor. This is Strike Team Lead Warden Kerr. Surrender the hostages immediately.”

  “What’s she doing?” Trembley demanded.

  “Negotiating.”

  “That sounded more like an ultimatum.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said. Stay in here.” Without waiting for a response, Ressk slipped out of the infirmary and across the hall to the Niln sleeping chamber.

  “Who’s that?” Ganes heard Malinowski snarl over the sound of two sets of boots descending the stairs from the roof.

  “Go!” Martin yelled.

  Arniz watched the Polint race for the air lock. Watched Qurn struggle to keep Yurrisk by her side. His nostril ridges were closed, his teeth exposed, and unless the Druin was a lot stronger than she looked, she wouldn’t manage it for much longer.

  “Once the hostages have been surrendered, unharmed, we will discuss the multiple infractions committed against the laws of the Confederation.”

  Like the murder of innocents. Like the murder of Dzar. Like the murder of Magyr.

  Torin raced for the air lock door as Vertic ran across the plateau roaring a challenge. One of the Polint running toward her stumbled. Dutavar and Bertecnic charged out from behind the anchor.

  *Everyone stay clear of the windows!*

  The shields fell first, then the glass, leaving six large openings behind.

  Torin changed course.

  There were more than three Polint outside the anchor. Had Martin been hiding more Polint in the shuttle?

  “New plan!” Turning from the windows, eyes narrowed, Martin lifted his weapon and pulled the trigger.

  Arniz began moving before the screaming started.

  “Too many!” Fingers white on the edge of the mattress, Trembley swung his legs out of bed. “The Warden’s outnumbered!”

  Ganes watched Malinowski charge into the Niln sleeping chamber after Warden Ressk, Zhang at her heels. If she’d remembered she was holding a KC in one hand, the Warden would already be dead. As it was, a Krai in close combat against two Humans and a di’Taykan wouldn’t stand a chance.