by Tanya Huff
“Are you of knowing they aren’t, Gunnery Sergeant?”
Hisht’s Federate apparently took a beating under stress. “No, I’m not. That’s why we kept it under fifteen. There’s a time code on the upper left of your scanner; it reset automatically off the OP when we landed. Use it.”
His eyes nearly crossed as he tried to look at her and his scanner simultaneously.
The unmistakable blast of impact boomers sounded from the trees to her left, near the leading edge of the platoon and then, a heartbeat later, from the other side.
Hisht’s ridges slammed shut. “They rain destruction!”
Archaic but succinct. Also, wrong. “No, those are ours.”
“Platoon!”
And here, finally, was the staff sergeant.
“Fireteams in the back half of the march, advance toward the enemy on my word. Give me sound and fury, but don’t waste ammo! Go!”
“Hisht?”
“I can rain for my team.”
“All right, then.” Torin rose with the rest of the fireteam under cover of the impact boomers. “Gunnery Sergeant Kerr?” Kichar had to shout to be heard as they advanced. “Why only the rear fireteams?”
“Why do you think, Kichar?” Something slammed into her combat vest, but no alarms sounded, so she ignored it.
“Because the front teams would walk into the fire from whoever flanked the enemy.”
“Whoever?”
“The scout team?”
“Don’t ask me questions you know the answer to, Kichar. It’s annoying.”
* * *
“How do you program morale?” Major Svensson asked, a coffee pouch in his right hand and his left under Dr. Sloan’s slate. “That’s got to be skirting close to that old AI issue.”
“Well, I don’t blame them for running. Wheeling. Hovering. Whatever it is they do.”
“They have legs and feet, so mostly they run.”
“Good for them.” Hands shoved deep in her pockets, the doctor paced seven strides away, seven back. “I’d have run if I’d had any idea of where to go!”
“You were perfectly safe, ma’am.” Torin would rather have been circulating around the fireteams with the other NCOs, but from the look Beyhn had shot her when he’d discovered both she and the major had been in the thick of the fight, she suspected she wouldn’t be welcome. “The drones were programmed to miss you. You did the right thing, staying where we left you.”
“And at the risk of being annoyingly repetitive, you left me!” Color burned high on each cheek. “You were supposed to be protecting me.”
“In the old scenario.”
She turned on the major, pulling off a mitten to jab a finger at him. “I am not a scenario!”
Major Svensson shrugged carefully so as not to move his hand. You weren’t in any danger, Doc.”
They had gone back for her when the platoon had started doubling away from the killing corridor, tucking back into formation and staying beside her as they made the best time possible over the rough terrain until the scout team had led them down into a rough gully where a rock overhang would give them cover in the event of enemy air support. Where, between the rock and their gear, they’d be invisible from the air. Wounds were tended, all of them too small to require the doctor’s involvement. Painkillers and stimulants were pulled from packs as energy levels sagged with the fading of adrenaline.
“Gunnery Sergeant Kerr.”
Torin looked up to see Beyhn and the two sergeants standing together at the edge of the gully. It took a moment for her to realize what was wrong—all three had their helmets off and one of them, probably Beyhn, was subvocalizing into his implant. “Staff Sergeant.”
“A moment of your time.”
That didn’t sound like a request. Interesting.
“Sir?”
“Go ahead, Gunny. You want me to come with?”
“Forget it,” Dr. Sloan snapped. “You’re staying right here!” Crouching, she checked the screen on her slate. “Adrenaline seems to cause an interesting response in the polyhydroxide alcoholydes.”
The major frowned down at what he could see of his hand. “Define interesting?”
“I can’t yet. But they’re still remarkably active on a cellular level, perhaps even more than they were last night. How badly does your head hurt?”
“It doesn’t.”
She folded her arms.
“It’s no big deal.” When her foot started to beat out an impatient rhythm against the snow, he sighed, took a swallow of his coffee, and looked up at Torin. “I guess I’m staying here.”
* * *
The three DIs were quiet as Torin walked up to them. They shuffled closer when she stopped, and indicated that she should remove her helmet. “You want to make sure Major Svensson isn’t listening in,” she said as she slipped it off.
Beyhn’s eyes darkened. “Is that a question, Gunny?”
“Not really, no.” Helmet tucked under her arm, she scratched under the edge of her toque, then nodded at the brilliant blaze of the staff sergeant’s hair. “Bad example for the other di’Taykan, Staff, and noticeable from above.”
“The enemy has no air support in this part of the scenario.”
“Do you know that for certain? The scenario has already been changed, and that attack seemed air strike specific.”
“Forget about the air strike! There was no air strike!” It took a visible effort for him to lower his voice. “The question is: who changed the scenario?”
“This morning you thought the cold had fukked with the program.”
“A failure of an attack program to launch is one thing,” he snarled. “A whole new attack is something entirely different.”
“Can’t argue with that.” He expected her to, though; Torin could see it in his face and, in spite of the cold, she was still getting a pheromone hit off him. This time, she was close enough to see that his masker was on the highest setting. Time to change the subject. “I think your masker’s broken, Staff.”
“No.” Looking miserable, Sergeant Annatahwee shook her head. “This one came off one of the recruits. Worked there but not on him.”
“He is standing right here!”
Annatahwee shifted her weight. “Sorry, Staff.” Pushing past the rising desire, Torin forced herself to concentrate. “Check to see if one of the recruits is carrying a spare. Maybe two in tandem will work.”
“Good idea!” Sergeant Jiir began to peel away from the group, but Beyhn grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. Nose ridges completely closed, he still reacted to the staff sergeant’s touch but managed to stop himself before he rubbed up against the much larger male’s leg.
“Do it later,” Beyhn snapped. “I think an unscheduled ambush is higher priority than your species’—both your species’—inability to control its biology. The ambush has convinced me that the changes are a test.”
Torin filed the first part of his statement away for future reaction and concentrated on the second. “A test? What kind of a test?”
“There have been rumors that some of the DIs have been giving the scenario specifics away to their recruits. The recruits have fewer screwups, the DIs look good. You look good enough and you’ll move up the promotions list.”
Stand on the front lines and you’ll move up the promotions list, Torin thought as the staff sergeant continued. “Too many platoons look too good, and it sets off alarms. Eventually, Command does something.”
“This is a dangerous something,” Torin pointed out, breathing shallowly through her teeth. “If the DIs don’t know what’s going on, there’s a good chance recruits will get hurt. Badly hurt.”
No one disagreed with that assessment.
“Have you contacted the OP?”
“If we’re being tested,” Beyhn snarled, “that’s the last thing we want to do. We take whatever they can throw at us—and we don’t go crying to our sheshan.”
“They have to tell you what they’re up to, Staff Sergeant.�
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“Do they?”
Torin didn’t actually have an answer for that.
“We need to see the scenario you downloaded,” Annatahwee told her. “To see if it’s the same as ours.”
“You think I may be the safety?”
“No,” Beyhn declared, his tone unarguable. “I think you and the major are part of the test. Observers to see how we react when things are changed.”
“I’m not.” Unless she didn’t know she was. She could be here to be exactly that, an observer sent in to allay the suspicions of Command, unaware of it until her de-briefing back on Ventris. If they’d sent her in with orders to observe, that would have been one thing, but putting her in another position to find out what was really happening after the fact, after Marines died, that really pissed her off. “I don’t mind following orders,” she growled as she pulled out her slate. “But I hate being manipulated.” Two taps on the screen pulled up the scenario. She passed it over to Beyhn, and the three DIs huddled over it.
“Chreen!” Jiir snarled a moment later, showing teeth. “Identical download.”
“What about Major Svensson?” Beyhn handed the slate back. “He has the download?”
“He does.”
“Can you get a look at it?”
“The major was as surprised as I was this morning when that attack never came.”
“He would be, wouldn’t he?” The staff sergeant focused past her shoulder, and Torin knew he was watching the major and Dr. Sloan. “Crucible seems like a strange place for physical therapy.”
“He came out of combat, he’s going back into combat. Crucible lets Dr. Sloan run tests under controlled combat conditions.”
“Not as controlled as they should be.”
True. “All right. I’ll check the details of Major Svensson’s download, but I still think you should contact the OP and find out what’s up.”
“Is that an order, Gunnery Sergeant?”
Beyhn’s tone was aggressive enough it pulled Jiir’s lips back off his teeth. “It’s your platoon and it’s your scenario,” Torin told him flatly. “It’s a suggestion.” The for now was heavily implied. With no intention of blemishing Beyhn’s spotless record last trip out before retiring, Torin would pull rank all over his ass the moment she thought he was actively putting his recruits in danger. It was weirdly easy not to think of his ass. The pheromones seemed to be down to more normal levels and those in the air had dissipated.
“The OP will be observing the test—think on that.” His lip curled. “I’m sure they have orders to lie to any DI who asks too many questions.”
“Then let me have the codes, and I’ll ask them some questions. You won’t come into it at all.”
“I will not be left out of it!” Hair whipping back and forth, he pivoted on one heel and stomped off. It wasn’t much of a stomp, given the combination of inherently graceful di’Taykan body language and the snow, but the intent was clear.
Torin slid her helmet on and smiled at the two junior DIs. “What the hell is up with him?” she demanded as Annatahwee took half a step back and Jiir closed his lips over his teeth in a conciliatory movement.
“I wish we could tell you, Gunny.” The Krai sergeant pulled his helmet back on over his toque. “He’s been touchy lately—not in a di’Taykan way, but…”
“Yeah, I get it.” She rolled a mittened hand in the air, indicating he should move on.
“We thought it was just the thought of retiring. He doesn’t want to, this has been his whole life, but he got a message from home and, well, it’s making him…”
“Slightly crazy,” Annatahwee put in dryly. “We’ve been cutting him all kinds of slack, but…”
But, indeed. Most Marines never lost their trained reaction to a senior DI—even those currently working with him. Command would have made sure that neither Jiir nor Annatahwee had gone through in one of Beyhn’s platoons, but, other than that, they were on their own.
“What about the pheromones?”
“They’re strong. Or they don’t exist at all. We figure they’re tied to his emotional state and, you know, we live through it.”
“The Corps needs more female Krai,” Jiir moaned. Looked up at the other two. His nose ridges snapped shut. “Sorry.”
Torin waved it off. “I’ve heard it before. Has Jonin spoken to either of you?”
They exchanged glances and shrugged.
“He’s a leader among the di’Taykan recruits,” Annatahwee offered.
“Three-letter last name, I’m not surprised. There’s something going on with him and the staff sergeant.”
“Something about their families?”
“Could be.” Taykan hierarchy didn’t usually cause problems, but if Beyhn was being forced to retire by his family and Jonin’s family were their direct superiors… Torin could see how that might be trouble.
“Jonin’s in my squad. I’ll talk to him.”
“Jonin’s not who we need to talk to,” Jiir snorted. “We need to talk to the guy in the sky, and the staff sergeant’s refusing. Stupid fukking system that only gives the codes for the OP to the senior DI. What the hell is up with that?”
“The Corps moves in mysterious ways,” Annatahwee muttered.
“Should we need to, and I’m not saying we do,” Torin added, “can we contact Staff Sergeant Dhupam and get her codes?”
Jiir’s nose ridges flared. “The platoons are deliberately isolated. All necessary contact would be made through the OP. And we can’t contact the OP because we don’t have the codes unless the staff sergeant’s med-alert goes off.”
Right. She knew that. The last part anyway. The odds were good that at the moment both sergeants were considering the placement of nonlethal wounds.
“If you’re finished with my sergeants, Gunny, I need them back.” Back on his PCU, Beyhn sounded almost jolly.
* * *
Torin figured there were two ways she could approach Major Svensson about his download…
“Sir, may I examine the scenario in your slate?”
…but the direct approach seemed best.
“In case I’ve got a download of what’s actually happening?”
“Yes, sir.” It was a conclusion anyone with more than three functioning brain cells might come to.
Shifting his weapon away from his body, he took his slate from his vest and passed it in front of the doctor.
“Is this what you four were doing back in the gully?”
“Yes, sir.” The footing was secure enough she could split her attention between walking and scrolling through the major’s scenario. Point by point, it was identical to hers. “Dr. Sloan?”
“I don’t have a scenario of any kind on my slate.” The doctor stepped up on a fallen log the other two had been able to step over, shifted the weight of her pack, and stepped down. “And I guarantee no one could have put one there without my knowing.”
“He should call the platform,” the major mused, gaze seeking out Staff Sergeant Beyhn walking up ahead. “See what they have to say.”
No mention of his name to attract attention. Torin wondered how long the OP would attempt to contact Staff Sergeant Beyhn before they sent the VTA down to find out what the hell was going on. “And if the OP says things are proceeding as planned, sir?”
“Then at least we know there’s a plan, however fukked, and no one changed things on the fly last night. It’s unusual for di’Taykan to sleep alone,” he added as Torin leaned around the doctor to look at him.
“His pheromones are a bit off.”
The major flushed. “Yeah, noticed that, too. I could order him to contact the platform. You think it may come down to me taking command of the platoon, Gunny?”
“It had occurred to me, sir.” Essentially.
* * *
That night, they camped 16.2 kilometers from their first camp in a heavy copse of trees next to the large lake they’d been paralleling all day. Although the ambush had delayed them, the original scenario
would have delayed them as well, so they were within the five-kilometer adjustment of where they should be. They drew water from the wide mouth of a small creek and set up shelters in a random pattern within the area covered by the perimeter pins. The di’Taykan set their communal shelter up against a rise in the land; by the time they finished, it had become part of the landscape.
“The di’Taykan know how to work with snow,” Major Svensson acknowledged, accepting his meal with a not entirely hidden grimace. “Let’s hope none of them get lost on their way back from the latrine, or they’ll never find it again,” he added, waving off Torin’s offer to switch meals.
“No maskers inside the shelter, sir, so I doubt it.”
“I’d like to take some readings as it gets colder, Major.” Dr. Sloan stared suspiciously at her peppered noodles, before winding one around her spork. “Do you think you could keep your mitten off for—oh, say—forty minutes?”
“After I eat.”
“Of course. But before you spend another hour behind a bush.”
“An hour?” Torin asked, not liking the sound of that considering how long he’d been out of the shelter less than eighteen hours earlier.
The major sighed. “I wasn’t behind a bush for an hour.”
“Fine, you chatted with a few recruits after you finished. You were behind a bush for fifty-five minutes.” Waving a spork of noodles, the doctor continued before he could protest again. “I’d also like to take a few readings on your bowels. We regrew your lower intestine from scratch, and while it doesn’t involve any new technology, it could be…”
“Dr. Sloan!” All three of them rose as Kichar charged through the trees toward them. “You’re needed ma’am! Staff Sergeant Beyhn is having a seizure!”
SEVEN
Torin rocked to a stop almost on Dr. Sloan’s heels and stared at the fifteen di’Taykan surrounding Staff Sergeant Beyhn’s shelter. Just under half of Platoon 71 was di’Taykan, standard numbers for infantry, and grouped together they made an imposing—and colorful—barricade. Somewhere in the group, Masayo could be heard praying; Torin hoped she was praying that the whole multicolored lot of them would come to their senses before bad things happened.