The Heart of Valor

by Tanya Huff

  When the Confederation set a colony of the Younger Races down on a new planet, the first building, the anchor, was a cross between the Marine Corps packets and a large Vacuum-to-Air transport. Thirty meters by twenty meters by six meters, it could withstand both the rigors of space and an atmospheric entry. It held everything the new colony needed to get started and once emptied became a community center, a hospital, and—if necessary—a fortress.

  “I grew up on Sacurr,” Jiir told them. “And every year we went to the Festival of First Seeding and I’m telling you, seventy-one years later that anchor was still in great shape. The verrkark things are indestructible.”

  Annatahwee frowned at her screen. “And Dunstan Mills has one?”

  “Should have.”

  “But you don’t know for sure?”

  “It’s set up like a colony . . .”

  “So you keep saying,” she interrupted sharply. “But why would they waste one of these indestructible anchor things on Crucible?”

  “To teach Marines how to do their jobs,” Torin said before Jiir could answer. “Any colony the Corps is sent to defend—or retake—will have an anchor. Therefore, any colony used in training needs to have an anchor as well. It won’t need to be completely tricked out, but it will need to have the same structural integrity. If Dunstan Mills is set up like a colony, it will have an anchor, and when we can get to it, we can hold it for as long as we need to.”

  Annatahwee shook her head. “They know where we are, and they’ll know where we’re going.”

  “They’ll know that no matter where we go, so we might as well head somewhere that’s worth the trip.”

  * * *

  “You want me to what, sir?” McGuinty stared up at the major with wide eyes.

  “There’s a CPN at ninety-seven degrees and 1.3 kilometers; use the map on the staff sergeant’s slate to find it, then use his codes to gain access. If the Others aren’t in control, shut it down. If they are, take the system back.”

  “The system? The whole system? Sir, if the Others are in control, taking the system back won’t be easy. They’ll have encryptions, sir. Alien encryptions. Those’ll take time to break.” His gaze turned inward, his brows nearly touching over his nose. “Maybe a lot of time,” he muttered.

  “Did I say it would be easy, McGuinty?”

  The brows snapped apart. “No, sir! How long do I have?”

  “We’re moving out at dawn.”

  “Dawn. Right.” He glanced up at the sky as though the stars would give him some hint of when dawn would be. “I’ll disable the staff sergeant’s slate so it can receive but not send. That’ll isolate it, and I’ll use it to back up my work. If you get me to another CPN, I can pick up where I had to leave off.” The silence pulled his attention back to his listeners. “Uh, if that’s okay, sir.”

  “By all means, disable the staff sergeant’s slate.” The major wasn’t bothering to hide his amusement. “And we’ll see what we can do about getting you hooked back up if you have to bail tonight. Take another recruit with you—someone who won’t be fascinated by what you’re trying to do and will therefore actually keep watch and keep an eye on the time. They’re to check in with the gunny once you’ve got to the CPN and, if you can’t immediately shut the node down, every hour after.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, go!”

  “Sir, yes, sir!”

  * * *

  A few minutes later, as Torin brought the information on Dunstan Mills to the major, there was just enough light to see a pair of shadows heading for the trees; McGuinty and . . . had to be Piroj. The lack of height made it a Krai, and Piroj was in McGuinty’s fireteam.

  “I’ll tell the sergeants to take McGuinty and Piroj’s team off watch and scouting rotations,” Torin said as the shadows deepened and she lost sight of the two recruits. “If Lirit and Ayumi become the primary stretcher carriers for Staff Sergeant Beyhn, that’ll put all of two/one on special duties and make it easier to draw up a fair rotation.”

  “What do you figure the odds are he can use the staff sergeant’s codes to shut down this node and keep the drones off us for this sector at least?”

  “Honestly, sir, not high.”

  “Oh? How do you figure, Gunny?”

  “Because that would be just too damned convenient, sir.”

  * * *

  Finding the CPN wasn’t the problem; it was exactly where Staff Sergeant Beyhn’s map said it would be, tucked in behind a false front on an outcrop of rock. And access wasn’t a problem with the staff sergeant’s codes.

  “That’s interesting . . .”

  “Interesting how?” Piroj demanded from his position on top of the rock. “Interesting where you can shut it down and we can haul ass back to camp? Or interesting where I’m standing around here all night watching you try and try and win the war by using your ten precious fingers to rearrange a few ones and zeros?”

  “Interesting where this CPN has definitely been tapped and once you get inside a bit, it looks like the Others are using a weird variation of Marine security encryptions.” McGuinty bent closer over the screen, bare fingers flying over the surface from one input to the next. “It isn’t. It can’t be. But it looks like it could be.”

  Piroj snorted. “Isn’t. Can’t. Could.”

  “I almost cracked Ventris.”

  “Yeah and almost right now is going to get our asses bagged.” He turned slowly in place, data flashing across his scanner. No enemies. No wildlife either, though that was no surprise, not with the damage that tank had done to the woods. He came from Naalirk, the largest city on Kraiyn, had grown up on streets close enough to the spaceport that he could feel the ground shake whenever one of the shuttles lifted off, but even he felt the pain of those shattered trees. He’d hate to be Hisht, who came from far enough upcountry that he’d probably never even touched ground until he was considered an adult.

  The trees here were in one piece, not too big, though, with the rock so close to the surface. The snow had been disturbed around the base of the outcrop when they’d arrived and something had gone charging out of the clearing. Maybe more than one something—all the wildlife he’d ever seen had been in bars after payday. He guessed that for real wild animals, 1.32 kilometers was still a little close to all the explosions.

  “It’s the almost that makes this a fukker,” McGuinty muttered. The screen flickered, then steadied, then flickered again. “Convinces you that you think you know what you’re doing, then after an hour or so kicks you in the nuts and runs off laughing.”

  “I think you need to cut back on the stim sticks, McGuinty.” Sighing, he settled into the most comfortable position possible. “I’ll let the gunny know we’re going to be here for a while.”

  * * *

  McGuinty and Piroj were young—pulling an all nighter wouldn’t hurt them. It’d certainly hurt a lot less than having every drone on Crucible suddenly show up to pound the shit out of them. Torin had learned through experience that when facing another long hump on no sleep, perspective was everything.

  Since she was up, she made a fast, silent circuit of the sentry positions. She wouldn’t have bothered with more seasoned Marines at the posts, but this lot were on their first time out and it wouldn’t hurt for her to check up on things.

  No one was sleeping and no one shot at her—things were going better than she’d anticipated. The night was quiet beyond the perimeter. The Others seemed to have blown their offensive capabilities with the sammy and the tank.

  “Gunny?”

  Torin turned toward the quiet voice. “What is it, Sergeant?”

  Her face a flare of red on the scanner, but otherwise nearly invisible in the dark, Sergeant Annatahwee stopped close enough for them to talk without waking the camp. “I’m not sure we’re doing the right thing, moving off the scenario.”

  “We’re moving off because we’re five days from anything we can hold against a determined assault if we stay on.”

  “A det
ermined assault by what, though? If the Others are on Crucible,” she continued before Torin could respond, “the odds of them showing up in this section and facing off against us are pretty slim. They have a whole planet to cover.”

  “I’m more concerned with their control over the planet’s armaments than I am with them personally,” Torin pointed out. “You agreed we’d be better off heading two days’ north to Dunstan Mills.”

  “I know, Gunny, but I’ve been thinking. If the Others have cracked the surveillance satellites . . .”

  “Which the tank seems to indicate they have.”

  “. . . then they’ll know where we’re going as soon as we start to move. Dunstan Mills is the only possible destination on that heading. They could easily have the drones in the colony reprogrammed and waiting for us.”

  “Easily?”

  “All right, not easily, but . . .” Annatahwee glanced around, as though expecting a protest or support from an outside source. Torin wondered if she’d been talking things over with Jiir. “We’re supposed to keep moving. That’s what this scenario is about; moving the platoon to where it’s supposed to be.”

  “I’d say that standard operating procedure blew with the OP.” Seemed Annatahwee didn’t like having her scenario messed with.

  “But, as Marines, we’re supposed to keep moving,” she insisted.

  Torin bit back a suggestion that the sergeant not tell her what Marines were supposed to do. “If we weren’t dirtside playing silly bugger, then, yeah, we’d continue in our assigned AO, but since there’s no actual reason to keep moving west and thirty-six very good reasons to find a place we can defend, we’re heading for Dunstan Mills. And the anchor.” Her tone suggested that was the end of the discussion, and if she still had doubts about there being an anchor, she should keep them to herself.

  Fortunately, Sergeant Annatahwee caught the subtext and kept face and voice carefully neutral as she asked, “Will you be taking Staff Sergeant Beyhn’s squad?”

  “No, divide his fireteams between you. I’ll handle the platoon; you two keep handling the pieces. You know these Marines, I don’t.”

  “Recruits.”

  “Sorry?”

  She stiffened disapprovingly, the shadows that marked her shoulders lifting and squaring in place. “You called them Marines, Gunny. Until they finish Crucible, they’re still recruits.”

  “Crucible changed the rules, Sergeant. This is now a combat situation and, for that, we need Marines.”

  “Saying they’re Marines doesn’t make them Marines.” Sergeant Annatahwee took a step back as Torin smiled.

  “It does if I say it,” she growled.

  * * *

  Torin slid out of vest and boots and into her bedroll thinking that the shelter seemed empty with Dr. Sloan spending the night watching over Staff Sergeant Beyhn. Perspective was a funny thing since, with all three of them in residence, the shelter had been on the crowded side. With one less body, it was definitely a little cooler, but she’d slept in worse and so had Major Svensson, who was snoring softly, left arm thrown up over his eyes to block the dim light from her sleeve. As she flicked it off, his nails glowed green and then faded so quickly, she wouldn’t have seen it had she not been looking directly at them as darkness fell.

  I wonder if he knows they do that? Making a mental note to ask him in the morning, Torin dropped off to sleep.

  With Staff Sergeant Beyhn semiconscious and strapped to a stretcher, doped to the eyeballs with a tranquilizer Dr. Sloan insisted was safe at any stage, Jonin stepped forward as the senior di’Taykan. While the sergeants had been seeing to the breakup of the camp, Torin had taken him aside and explained what he needed to do.

  His hair spread out from his head, ends trembling slightly, he stared down at the body bag with dark blue eyes. “Fraishin sha aren. Valynk sha haren.”

  Pushing his left mitten down, Sergeant Jiir bit a small piece off the base of his thumb, chewed, and swallowed. “Kal danic dir k’dir. Kri ta chirkdan.”

  “We will not forget. We will not fail you.” As he finished speaking, Major Svensson nodded, once, and Torin dropped a knee to the packed snow, activating the single charge in the bag.

  The bag stiffened, then flattened. When Private di’Lammin Oshyo had been reduced to ash and that ash contained, Torin picked up the small metal cylinder and slipped it into one of the measured pockets in her combat vest. She was the senior NCO, and it was part of her job to see that all her Marines made it home.

  “Move them out, Gunny.”

  “Yes, sir.” She swung her pack up over her shoulders and buckled it down. “Listen up, Marines! As of last night, this became a combat mission; Crucible’s stopped playing by the rules, so we need to reach a position we can defend until the Navy finishes its latte and sashays on back here. You’ve got the new route and our destination on your slates. Sergeants, move your squads into position and let’s haul ass.”

  EIGHT

  YOU WERE RIGHT.

  That got his attention. He checked again, but the message had indeed been sent by Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr to Civilian Salvage Operator Craig Ryder, point of origin the CS NirWentry. His codes had opened it, and the ship’s security protocols had verified hers. A little worried about just how, exactly, he’d been right, Craig propped his heels up on Promise’s control panel and kept reading.

  Those I’ve spoken to—people who should know about the escape pod—seem to have forgotten it ever existed. The brass has forgotten . . .

  General Morris. Only brass it could be for Torin. Interesting that she wasn’t mentioning names.

  . . . and says it wasn’t in my report or anyone’s report, and not one of the team mentioned it in their debriefing. His aide agrees with him. Nothing unusual about that last bit except that I believe both of them believe what they’re saying.

  A yeoman and a member of Lieutenant Commander Sibley’s deck crew off the B. also believe the escape pod doesn’t exist.

  She was paranoid enough not to spell out Berganitan but figured that Sibley, being dead, was safe. Safe from what? Respecting the paranoia of a professional, he cranked his security protocols up a notch.

  Memories have been wiped and not by the military—civilian watchdogs would never allow us to develop that kind of tech.

  True enough. A military of any kind gave most members of the Confederation bleeding piles and a good portion of those members would—if not for the aggression of the Others—happily stuff Humans, di’Taykan, and Krai back onto their home worlds and blockade them in. Had even the hint of a rumor of either branch working on mind control tech slipped out, shrill shrieks of hysteria would have filled known space; deafening and impossible to miss.

  Logically, it had to have been done by one, or more, of the Elder Races—there’s something about Big Yellow’s escape pod they don’t want us to know.

  As Craig remembered it, it wasn’t that great an escape pod—a smoothly featureless gray sphere with a padded interior designed for multiples of a smallish species or something Human-sized with no friends. Nothing about it seemed worth hiding. And mind wiping? What the hell was the point when everyone knew about Big Yellow? The alien ship had been all over the vids for days after they got back. What was so different about the pod?

  Maybe that they had the pod.

  Maybe the Elder Races didn’t want tests run. Who knew what shite would be discovered?

  He wished Torin had sent voice instead of text; he couldn’t read emotion into words on a screen. That strong emotion prompted her to message, well, that was obvious. No other way Torin would have ever admitted he was right and she, by implication, was wrong. But which emotion. Fear? Anger?

  Actually, if there was something in known space Torin Kerr was afraid of, he didn’t want to know about it. Anger, then. Much safer. The Elder Races had betrayed the Corps, which meant they’d betrayed Torin personally, and she was righteously pissed.

  “Bloody, fukking hell.” He rubbed both hands back through his hair
and tugged hard enough to stretch his scalp. He’d just wanted Torin to check on his salvage, not find a conspiracy and then put things in motion to take it down.

  The big question seems to be: Why weren’t you and I wiped?

  “Yeah, you think? Because I’m thinking who, specifically, is doing the wiping is a little more important.”

  What’s different about us?

  “Besides a donger even the H’san envy?”

  And it has nothing to do with your dick.

  Mind reading was apparently part of her job description. He wasn’t sure how he felt about her ability to read him. Although, in all fairness, that had been a giveaway.

  I believe they couldn’t memory wipe us because we were deep scanned by Big Yellow. I believe the alien ship may have changed our brain wave patterns in some way. There’s only one way to be sure about this.

  His eyes widened as he realized where she was going. “Please don’t.”

  There’s only one other person deep scanned by Big Yellow who survived. You’re going to have to find Presit a Tur durValintrisy and see if she remembers the pod.

  Moaning, Craig dropped his face into his hands. The Katrien reporter was not one of his favorite people—she was an arrogant, self-absorbed show pony. Although, in all fairness, she thought he’d crawled out of the arse end of the universe, too. Eventually, because not looking at it wasn’t going to make it go away, he lifted his head and finished the message.

  If she remembers, tell her what I’ve told you and let her blow this wide open. Classifying the pod is one thing, screwing with memories is something else again. If they’ve wiped out knowledge of this, what else have we forgotten? If they can adjust the memories of the Corps, what have they told us to do that we don’t remember doing?

  Yeah. Anger.

  If all goes well, I’ll be back on V. in about twenty-four days.

  “What if it doesn’t go well, eh?” he asked the screen. “What if this mind wiping they of yours catches on that they missed you and tries take you out on Crucible? What then?”

  Then I get annoyed and kick their collective unnamed asses.