The Truth of Valor

by Huff, Tanya

  “We have first tag on it, now Page is dead.” Craig scowled at the empty coffeepot, then took it into the head to fill it, raising his voice over the sound of running water. “Not to mention, if we chuck back to our previous coordinates, the government will pay for the fold. It’s a little ghoulish, but it’s practical since the reason we were headed there originally still stands—we know there’s no surprises in the salvage to mess up a rookie run.”

  “Except for the pirates.”

  He froze halfway back through the hatch and stared at her. “Shit.”

  Seeing how long she could let him hang wasn’t really an option; maintaining a relationship took roughly the same care as training a green second lieutenant, leaving little room for error between teasing and making him look like a fool. “If the pirates had planned on staying in that area, they’d have sent both the body and the ship into the nearest star. I expect they’re long gone.”

  “So you gave me the gobful about it because . . . ?”

  She frowned. “Seemed like you’d forgotten them. I don’t think we should.”

  Craig made a noncommittal noise as he crossed back to the coffeemaker. She watched him set the coffee to brew, wondering what the noise had meant. He stood, back toward her, until his mug filled, then he turned and said, “You sure you’re not looking for a new enemy?”

  “Why would I want a new enemy?”

  “You’ve always had one.”

  “Habit?”

  “Purpose.”

  Torin opened her mouth to deny it, then closed it again. She wasn’t one hundred percent sure he was wrong. From what she could see of his expression behind the mug, he knew it.

  “We just got a yabber from Alia. No connection between Firebreather and Fortune’s Favor. She doesn’t know who Page was messaging, but she does know Jan and Sirin weren’t. Weren’t messaging the same person. At all. Ever.”

  Torin swore softly as she cinched a tie-cable tight and checked that it was reading the mass of the salvage. “No chance of yanking the Wardens’ thumbs out of their collective asses, then.”

  “Not for what looks to be a shitty coincidence. Torin, that piece with the electronics in it . . .

  Grinning, Torin silently mouthed the rest of the sentence along with him.

  “. . . has to go in the pen closest to the ship so we can hook it up and make sure there’s nothing that might go active when we fold.”

  “I’m on it.” There wasn’t enough “electronics” on the piece to go active even if they hooked it directly to the engines.

  “I’d mentioned that?”

  “Couple of times.” Considering he’d spent almost as long working alone as she had in the Corps, he wasn’t doing too badly in his supervisory position. The small clump of tagged debris she was securing didn’t need two people suited up, and she needed the practice. It hadn’t taken her more than fifteen minutes to convince him of that. Had he been a green lieutenant, she could have done it faster. There were days she definitely missed her old life.

  Demagnetizing her boots, she tightened up her safety line and used it to gain enough momentum to flip out of the pen, magging up again to drop down just forward of where she’d racked the “gun” used to attach the tags to the salvage. Fine motor skills suffered in an HE suit, so the trigger mechanism was oversized but familiar. There were a limited number of ways aim and pull could be interpreted mechanically.

  Twisting to the left, she lined up the next piece of salvage in the crosshairs, and fired, careful to brace herself against the minor momentum. It would take a lot more than one shot to actually move her anywhere, and one shot was all she needed.

  “No surprise you’re good at that.”

  It would have been more surprising if she’d missed it, given the size.

  “Your tax dollars at work,” she muttered as she locked her suit on the tag, released her boots, and pushed off. Her jet swiveled to eighteen degrees almost immediately and fired a micro burst, lining her up more precisely. There were automated systems that would do all this from the control panel of the ship, but every piece of equipment added cost, and salvage operators never had the kind of margin that allowed them to ignore the brains and bodies they could wrap in an HE suit and use for free. Torin suspected Craig, on his own, had seldom bothered with either the jets or the 100 meters of safety line spooling out behind her.

  She only wore the jets on Craig’s insistence since jets and an unbreakable safety line was a fair definition of redundant.

  “So . . .” Torin could hear him drumming his fingers against the edge of the control panel. Knew he was searching for things to say that didn’t involve the suggestion that she come on in and he take it from there. “. . . you’re not arguing the shitty coincidence theory?”

  “Did you want me to?”

  “Didn’t figure you as believing in coincidence.”

  “I believe in it,” Torin told him. “I don’t trust it. Was Pedro able to add anything to Page’s background?”

  “Haven’t heard from him yet. Alia says he took the smaller ship out to do some second tagging at 772ST4.”

  Still only halfway to the new salvage, Torin had time to run over the CSO’s debris field designations. “The Kertack and the Cameroonian?”

  “That’s the one.”

  The two Confederation battleships as well as three cruisers and nearly equal representation from the Primacy had faced off about eighteen months ago. Torin had been tanked at the time but heard about it when she got out because one of her physical therapists had a thytrin on the cruiser that had been blown with all hands. The other ships had taken twenty-five to thirty percent casualties. Torin didn’t know what the Primacy’s loses had been, but they’d definitely contributed to the debris. More importantly . . . “That’s almost to the edge.”

  “Yeah, but there’s an ace chance of pulling in pieces of enemy tech.”

  “There’s a good chance of attracting enemy attention.”

  “War’s over.”

  She sighed and flipped around to begin decelerating. “He’s got kids.”

  “To provide for.”

  “Yeah, I get that.” And she did. But when she thought of Pedro out on the edge, she couldn’t stop herself from thinking of Jeremy without one of his fathers.

  “Dargonar had her engines on, Captain.” Huirre transferred his slate to his right foot so he could spread both hands in a fukked if I know gesture. “But there’s no way of knowing if Captain Firrg used the equations I sent her until we’re out of Susumi space and she’s either there or she isn’t.”

  “She’ll be there,” Cho growled. “I don’t trust her as far as you could spit a spleen, but she screws us over and she screws over Big Bill.”

  “She could turn on us on the other side. Lie to Big Bill about it.”

  “Why would she do that?” Dysun asked, most of her attention on shutting down the communications board.

  “Firrg hates Humans.” Huirre’s nose ridges flared. “Captain’s Human. So’s Nat and Doc.”

  Dysun shrugged, hair rising and falling in time with her shoulders—both the Taykan and Krai had adopted the gesture, but only the Taykan had really mastered it. “So’s Big Bill.”

  “Doesn’t count.”

  She looked up at that. “Why doesn’t ...”

  “Enough!” Cho snapped. Huirre had made the only relevant point—the Dargonar would be there when they emerged or she wouldn’t; they couldn’t do shit about it either way, and he was sick to death of the constant speculation. “Go fuk your thytrins or something.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain!” As the last of the board locked down, Dysun tossed off an enthusiastic salute and ran from the control room.

  “Like there was a chance of or something. You’d think she hadn’t got any for a tenday instead of a couple of hours,” Huirre snorted. Then he snapped his teeth together and added, “Serley di’Taykan.”

  “So join them,” Cho sighed, sliding down in his chair until his spine barely maintain
ed contact. Inside Susumi space, the ship didn’t require a captain and, as long as the crew managed to keep from killing each other, he didn’t give a shit what they got up to.

  “It’s not . . .”

  He could read the reason for Huirre’s recent ill humor in the pause. “Firrg wouldn’t have you if you were the last Krai in known space. You’ve been contaminated by contact with Humans. You want to go crawling to her and beg her to take you on so you can be horny and frustrated in her presence, be my guest.”

  “That’s harsh, Captain.” His nose ridges opened and closed a couple of times. “You’d just let me go?”

  “Better than you being horny and frustrated on my boat. Go or get over her.”

  He shifted his slate from foot to hand and back to foot again. “Not too many female Krai out here, Captain.”

  “That’s why the universe gave us the di’Taykan.”

  “It’d make me feel better if I got to dispose of the next CSO we pick up.”

  “No.” Cho didn’t care how fukking frustrated his helmsman got, the last thing he wanted, given what had sent Huirre out into the deep, was to indulge the Krai’s taste for Human flesh. Sure, running Page through Huirre’s gut would have removed any evidence of the way he’d died, but it wasn’t like the Wardens would stumble over the CSO’s body anytime soon. OutSector Wardens were about as much of a threat as a pouched H’san.

  “So, Captain . . .” Huirre’s nose ridges began opening and closing slowly. Cho figured he was breathing himself into a better mood. “. . . seems like this equation’s going to take us pretty damned close to the edge.”

  “We need a younger salvage operator. The young take chances. The edge is all about taking chances. We’ve got a line on a single ship, and I don’t want a repeat of Page.”

  “Ah.” Huirre nodded. “Suppose it doesn’t hurt that the Wardens never get out that far.”

  “No,” Cho agreed in a tone that said the conversation was over, “it doesn’t.”

  The Dargonar had come out of Susumi space three seconds before the Heart of Stone, having made no changes in the equations Huirre had sent. Cho chose to take that as a good sign.

  “Move in at one eighty to our zero.” Cho frowned down at the ship locked into his long-range scanners. “Don’t worry about being seen, just tag the pen. When they dump, they’ll hit their aft thrusters.” Fukking predictable. The first thing a CSO did after dumping their pen was hit the aft thrusters every damned time. Surged straight ahead until they could fold into Susumi space. It was like every one of them forgot normal space had three dimensions. “We’ll be waiting to grapple the ship in. Make sure the operator is in the ship before you tag.”

  “Gre ta ejough geyko. You just do your job and leave us to do ours. We keep what’s in the pen. Firrg out.”

  Cho glared at the back of Huirre’s head. “Translation.”

  “Roughly, sit on it and rotate.” Huirre kept his gaze locked on his board. “She’s moving out.”

  “Take us into position.”

  “We can’t just let her have the pen, Captain!” Dysun protested.

  “We can if I say we can,” Cho told her shortly. Let Firrg have the pen. He had a Marine armory with all the promise of a great and glorious future it contained, and the Krai captain didn’t have a hope in hell of scoring anything that even came close to matching it.

  As Huirre maneuvered the Heart of Stone into position, her signature masked by the static emitted by a pair of lopsided rings circling an equally lopsided planetoid, he split his attention between the salvage ship and the empty space beyond it, waiting for Firrg to appear.

  “Captain, the salvage ship’s engines have come on-line.” Dysun transferred the information to Cho’s screen. “I think they’re getting ready to move out.”

  “No one asked for your opinion,” Huirre growled, hands and feet ready over his board.

  The di’Taykan’s hair flipped up on the side closest to the Krai. “Who tied your kayt in a knot?”

  “Gren sa talamec!”

  “If someone stuffed it up yours, you’d be in a better mood,” she snorted.

  “Shut up. Both of you.” Fingers digging into the edge of his screen, Cho willed Firrg to make her move.

  “Net’s are away, Captain!”

  “I don’t see them.”

  “We’re not picking them up on visuals, but there’s a ripple in the data.” Hair flicking quickly back and forth, Dysun bent over her board. I’m boosting magnification. Give them a minute or two to show . . . There!”

  “I see them.”

  She drummed her fingers on the inert edging. “If that ship starts to move before the nets . . .”

  “We know,” Huirre interrupted. “For horon’s sake, we all know.”

  Twenty kilometers.

  Fifteen kilometers.

  Five.

  Contact.

  “Anchor lines have caught. Dargonar has powered the buoys. They’ve dumped their pen, Captain! They’re moving!”

  “Get them, Huirre.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  Huirre moved the Heart of Stone out of concealment directly toward the fleeing ship.

  Suddenly faced with another ship, the salvage operator did the unexpected and went straight up the Y-axis.

  “Son of a fukking bitch!” Cho shifted forward on his seat as though the movement would bring them into alignment. Huirre had them perfectly positioned had the other ship been where it was supposed to be. It just figured that today, when it meant so much, he’d run into the one original thinker in the entire fukking salvage fleet. “Almon!”

  “Captain?”

  “Get the grapples into that ship!”

  “It’s not . . .”

  “I know it’s not! Huirre, bring the aft end around!” In spite of the inertial dampeners, his stomach lurched as Huirre flipped the Heart vertically. “Almon, do it!”

  “But . .”

  “Now!” He was not letting this salvage operator get away. Not when he was so close to getting that armory open.

  “Aye, aye, Captain. Grapples away!”

  Cho watched the signals from the grapple ends close in on the smaller ship, willing them to make contact and dig in. He’d haul that CSO’s ass inboard so fast it would . . . Contact! “Huirre!”

  “Aye, Captain.” Eyes locked on his own screens, Huirre worked the lateral thrusters with both hands. “Adjusting angles.”

  “Shit!”

  “Talk to me, Almon.”

  “Looks like the Susumi drive’s punctured!”

  The silence in the control room was so complete Cho could have sworn he heard half the light receptors in Dysun’s eyes snap closed. “Looks like?” he growled. “Be sure!”

  “I tried to warn . .”

  “Cover your own ass, why don’t you,” Huirre muttered.

  “Captain! Energy leakage.” Dysun’s voice had risen half an octave. “There’s a puncture for sure.”

  A punctured Susumi drive meant they were, at best, moments away from being caught in a blast wave of Susumi energy. At worst, they’d go up with the other ship.

  “Release grapples!”

  “Released! But it’ll take twenty-seven seconds to bring them in!”

  “Huirre! Get us out of here!”

  “Captain! The grapples!”

  “Fuk the grapples! Let them swing!” Being smacked about by their own lines was the least of their worries. Susumi explosions twisted space. “Huirre, get us back behind that rock!” The planetoid that had hidden them earlier offered their best chance of survival; its bulk would deflect most of the Susumi wave.

  Huirre burned everything they had. They were still too close.

  “What the fuk is going on up there?” Krisk had bypassed the comm protocols again.

  Before Cho could answer, Huirre snarled a fast sentence in Krai at the engineer, who growled back, “Not on my watch.”

  The Heart of Stone surged forward. Swearing, Huirre worked his board with a
ll four extremities, fighting to maintain course while riding the unexpected burst of power. They’d just passed the planetoid’s rings and were rounding the horizon when the salvage ship blew. In the 2.73 seconds it took for the blast wave to hit, Huirre managed to get most of the Heart to safety. Cho made a mental note to give him a really big gun when they got the armory open.

  If they survived.

  The blast hit the aft end just behind the cargo hold, flinging the Heart end over end. Huirre danced both hands and feet across his board, firing microsecond bursts on one thruster after another to keep them clear of the rings. Rock slammed into the hull. The lights flared and went out. Dysun swore and threw herself backward as her board sparked, left hand cradling her right.

  Then it was over, the control room lit only by the telltales on the boards.

  “Nat!”

  “Aye, Cap. Checking cargo integrity.”

  “Fuk cargo integrity.” Krisk sounded furious. “We’ve got two small hull breaches, and we’re at half thrusters until someone gets out there and looks at the damage the right fukking grapple did.”

  “The hull breaches . . .”

  “I sent Lime-boy out to do interior patches . . . Krisk had never bothered to learn the di’Taykan’s names. “. . . but at least one is going to need exterior work. Easy fix. No idea about the rest until I see on real time.”

  “Could be worse,” Huirre muttered, still working his board.

  “I’m fried.” Still holding one hand against her chest, Dysun danced the fingers of the other over a blank screen. “Scanners are out. Internal communications are using the captain’s station as their primary. It’ll only take a moment to reroute external comms.”

  “One-handed?”

  She glanced down at her hand, seemed to see the reddened curl of her fingers for the first time, and whimpered, her hair flattening tight against her skull.

  “Get down to Doc. Have him fix it, then get your ass back here.” Pain had shut her eyes down so far there was almost no black among the orange. Given the lack of light, he wondered how she could even see.