The Truth of Valor

by Huff, Tanya

  “Almon! Back off!”

  The di’Taykan drove his fist into Craig’s stomach one last time, then backed away breathing heavily, his arousal evident. Craig’s own arousal had been dealt with twice. Vomit descending from half a meter up provided sufficient friction. Who knew? The relief had been temporary; he could still pound nails with his donger.

  “Hose him down, he stinks.”

  He turned his face into the splash of water to get the blood out of his eyes and managed to focus on the Human male by the door.

  Shorter than the di’Taykan by about half a meter, he had a cap of glossy black hair, dark eyes, a rivet through his right earlobe, and, behind the glimmer of a filter over his mouth and nose, an expression that suggested Almon’s fists had been merely the prologue. Given the condition they’d found Page in, Craig had already figured that out for himself.

  “Now get out.”

  Almon bent closer to the other man and said something too quietly for Craig to catch.

  “Do I look like your sheshan? Go to the infirmary and check.”

  The di’Taykan shot Craig a look of such loathing on the way out the hatch, Craig wondered how much damage he’d managed to do with his cutter. Damage to someone Almon cared about. That would explain the personal touch.

  He wasted the time while the new guy crossed toward him wondering if this was what a crazy person looked like. Almon sure as shit hadn’t been the guy who’d done Page.

  “Craig Ryder. Yes, I know who you are,” the new guy said, stopping at the edge of the mess on the deck. “You’re probably wondering why you’re here. I need your codes.”

  Craig spat out a mouthful of blood. “Could’ve just asked for them, mate.”

  “Would you have given them up?”

  “No, but you still could’ve asked.” More than the beating, the red-hot spikes through his temples, left over from whatever the fuk they’d taken him out with were making it hard to think. What the hell had Sirin and Jan locked down? What was big enough for three people to die to protect.

  “I don’t like to waste time, Ryder. Which is why I’ve come to make you an offer.” He had to be the captain, Craig realized, no one else would have had the authority to make an offer. “Join my crew.”

  “What?”

  “Join my crew, and your codes become part of our ...” He looked slightly pained. “. . . booty. Refuse and you die. There’s a lot more salvage operators out there and, while I’d rather not have to put more time into this, frankly, you’re not that hard to grab.”

  All things considered, Craig had to agree with that. “What do you want my codes for?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Hey, my codes, my business.” The blow took him by surprise. He hadn’t thought the captain would be willing to get his hands dirty.

  When Craig managed to focus on the captain’s face, he smiled. “You decide to join us and you’ll find out what I need the codes for.”

  “You couldn’t possibly trust me if I joined you.”

  The captain’s smile twisted. “I have it on good authority that when push comes to shove, we don’t trust anyone. You’ll be outnumbered, and even if you could get away from the rest of the crew, where are you going to go? We’re in deep space. You could make a run for it when we reach a station, I suppose, but should we dock at a station that might offer sanctuary, I suspect I’m smart enough to lock you down for the duration.”

  “Being a member of your crew sounds a fuk of a lot like being your prisoner.”

  “Beats the alternative. And you have nothing to go back to, remember? Your ship was destroyed, your woman left for dead.”

  “Left for dead?” Torin wasn’t dead.

  The Captain shrugged. “She was alive when we folded, but her suit had been breached, and vacuum has a way of taking care of these things. Think the offer over,” he added turning toward the hatch. “It’s open for a limited time.”

  Torin wasn’t dead!

  Craig heard the hatch slam and looked up to find himself alone in the small room, bruised, bleeding, still hard enough to pound nails, and tied to a chair.

  Torin wasn’t dead. She’d been left for dead, but when talking about ex-Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr, that was a long way from being dead. All he had to do was stay alive until she found him.

  Damn, but she was going to be pissed.

  “That went well,” Doc said, thoughtfully looking up from the monitor as Cho joined him.

  Cho glanced down at the screen and frowned. “Why is he laughing?”

  “. . . unless one of you lot have learned how to breathe vacuum. Private Kerr!”

  Torin jerked awake and onto her feet. Since she’d arrived at Ventris Station, her days had been filled with intense physical and mental training and her nights had held no more than four to five hours of sleep. She wasn’t the only one dozing off in quiet moments—or even not so quiet moments. Tom Wiegand had fallen asleep during drill. His body had managed to keep marching in a straight line, but an order to about face had caused a pileup and resulted in an extra 5K run for the entire platoon.

  But Wiegand wasn’t the one on the hot seat now.

  She blinked and managed to bring Staff Sergeant Beyhn into focus. His eyes were dark—most of the light receptors open—and his hair—which was honest-to-gods scarlet and not auburn or strawberry blond—jerked back and forth. She’d never met a di’Taykan until she got to the Marine Corps recruiting center on Paradise and was amazed to discover that the stories about them were mostly true. She’d never met a staff sergeant either, and the stories about them were definitely true.

  When he saw he had her attention, Staff Sergeant Beyhn smiled and said, with exaggerated patience, “Perhaps Private Kerr would like to tell the platoon what she would do should she find herself in vacuum in a leaking HE suit.”

  Oh, thank gods, this was something she knew. “I’d patch the leak, Staff Sergeant.”

  “You’d patch the leak, Private Kerr? That’s it?”

  Torin had no idea what he was getting at. “Yes, Staff Sergeant. I’d patch the leak in the suit.” Since he seemed to be waiting for more, she added, “Or I’d die.”

  “And you don’t intend to die, is that it?”

  She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “No, Staff Sergeant, I do not.”

  His eyes darkened further and she wondered how much more there was for him to see. After a long moment he nodded, and said, “Good.”

  Wait . . .

  She frowned. She had a leak in her HE suit?

  Not good.

  Leak in suit . . .

  As soon as the pressure dropped, the internal patching material would have been released. If the leak was large enough, a further drop in pressure would release the secondary IPM.

  Conscious personnel were instructed not to wait for the release. Conscious personnel needed to preserve more air. Torin’s first attempt resulted in an inarticulate croak. No good enough. She wet her lips, swallowed, and tried again.

  “Command! Patch release!”

  Better.

  It was cold. She remembered that from training. Cold and a little slimy.

  “And then what, Private Kerr?”

  Staff Sergeant Beyhn’s red eyes were blinking. Off. On. Off. On. Off.

  Torin blinked when the lights stopped and the surrounding stars came slowly into focus. The surrounding stars and quite a bit of moving debris. Calming her breathing, she worked back from what she knew.

  She was in an HE suit. In space. Surrounded by moving debris. There’d been an explosion. Frowning, she opened and closed her right hand. She’d been holding something.

  Craig. She’d been holding Craig. The tethers had been cut.

  She couldn’t see him. Not even with the helmet magnification on full.

  “Craig! This is Torin, do you copy?”

  A ship had come out of nowhere, shot out Promise’s cabin, cut the tethers, and blown up the clump of wreckage she and Craig had been t
agging.

  “Craig! Damn it, answer me!”

  The wreckage had blown as spectacularly as it had because the shot had set off the eight small charges they’d set to free up that piece of Primacy tech.

  “Command! Run diagnostics on communication unit.”

  By tucking her head down, she could see Promise’s lights flashing in the distance and her own cut tether pointing back the way she’d come. She was moving away from the ship. Diagnostics told her there was nothing wrong with the comm.

  “Craig!”

  No answer.

  No sound at all but her own breathing. Usually, Torin found that comforting.

  She’d been carrying twelve hours of air when they left the ship. They’d been out for ninety minutes when the shooting had started. Her suit said she had four hours and twenty-three minutes left. The leak had not been a hallucination. Or not only a hallucination.

  Four hours and twenty-one minutes before the scrubbers were no longer effective and the oxygen levels dropped below what the suit considered air. She could manage for another ten to fifteen minutes after that as long she didn’t need to do anything too complex

  Even more fun, two layers of internal patching hadn’t quite stopped the leak.

  “Shit.”

  Had she been wearing jets, it wouldn’t have mattered; she’d be back to the Promise before she ran out. But she’d been wearing a safety line. Jets and a safety line were redundant.

  Apparently not.

  Had she been in Craig’s suit instead of one of the new military tested designs, she’d have been screwed and this was not the time to think about Craig in Craig’s ten-year-old suit, unconscious, unable to make repairs. “Command! Foam release.”

  The foam—more or less the same material that protected Navy fliers in disabled pods—filled in all the space between Torin and her suit, started warm, got very hot for seven seconds, then semi-solidified, becoming, in essence, a second suit. She could still bend her arms and legs but not without effort. Design flaw—fix a leak, but then make her work harder, breathe harder. To add insult to injury, the foam itself was a brilliant pink. So was the skin under the foam. On the other hand, insulted beat dead. The collar seals bulged up against the bottom of her chin but held.

  Giving thanks that she’d bothered to hook up the plumbing this trip, Torin considered her next option.

  She wasn’t moving particularly fast, but she was moving away from the ship. Fortunately, the tagging gun was still strapped to her leg and . . .

  Her tanks hit first.

  Given the amount of debris around her, moving at differing angles and speeds, it was inevitable she make contact with a piece of it. This felt like a big piece. And, in this instance, make contact was clearly a euphemism for full body impact.

  Her tanks, or tanks like them, had been dropped out of a low orbit and continued to work when the defense contractors dug them out of six meters of dirt. Torin had seen the vid; she wasn’t worried about her tanks.

  Instinct said, brace for impact.

  Training said, relax

  Torin had seen Marines thrown about like rag dolls by unexpected explosions, ending up bruised and battered but without major injuries. Rag dolls didn’t break.

  The foam pressing against the collar seal held her head in place.

  Her brain, unfortunately, continued moving until it was stopped by the inside of her skull.

  “If the collision is relatively elastic, then object A is going to rebound much like a rubber ball, traveling now back along its original course.” Sergeant Roper paused, turned away from the formulas on the screen, swept a weary gaze over the training platoon and said, “Here in the Corps, we call inelastic collisions crashes. Try to avoid them.”

  “Yes, Sergeant!”

  Torin really wished people would stop shouting. She had one fuk of a headache.

  Opening her eyes, she squinted her surroundings into focus and slowly realized something was wrong.

  No, right.

  Most of the wreckage continued to follow the blast radius, moving out and away.

  She was on her way back.

  That was good.

  Four hours and six minutes of air.

  Okay, the concussion she seemed to have wasn’t optimum, but as long as she could avoid slamming into anything else that massed out significantly higher than she did, she could work around it.

  Evidence seemed to suggest an HE suit full of semi-solidified foam made collisions remarkably elastic.

  Unfortunately, because her tanks had hit first, she’d lost enough energy during the crash that she’d slowed considerably. She pinged the Promise—114 kilometers—then waited five minutes and pinged again—113.27 kilometers. She’d traveled .73 of a kilometer in five minutes, .146 in one minute, so in sixty minutes she’d travel 8.76 kilometers.

  “These things need a fukking speedometer,” she muttered, redoing the math.

  Math never lied.

  When she ran out of air, she’d be a little under 80 K short of the ship.

  She needed to be moving three times faster. Roughly three point three times faster, but who was counting.

  Not entirely convinced she could keep it down, Torin took a sip of tepid water and swallowed carefully. Ignoring the unpleasant reality of—she glanced down—three hours and forty-one minutes of air—the two liters of water would recycle for days until the laws of diminishing returns caught up to her. The concentrated sludge in the emergency food pouch would keep her from starving. Craig had mocked her when she filled it. His was empty.

  Mouth moistened, she tongued his codes into her implant. Her comm was working, but his might have been damaged in the explosion. “Craig! Answer me!”

  Still nothing.

  Torin ran her magnification back to full, trying to see between the pieces in the thicker parts of the debris field, but she had a bad feeling she wouldn’t find him without the ship’s scanners.

  She froze. Barely breathing.

  One of the charges hadn’t blown. A ping read it at 2.6 kilometers away at 320 degrees to her zero. Without maneuvering thrusters, it might as well be in the next system.

  Three hours and thirty-seven minutes of air.

  If she could get to the charge, she could use it to shoot herself at the ship.

  Shoot . . .

  Her brain must’ve taken more damage than she’d thought.

  Forcing her arm down to her side, she slid the first finger of her right hand through the trigger guard and pulled the tagging gun free of the holster. Still ninety-seven tags in the magazine. She drew a mental line along the path the piece of debris carrying the charge would take. Another along the line she’d have to take to meet up with it.

  Aimed the barrel back along that line.

  Adjusted to account for the debris’ speed.

  Adjusted to account for her speed.

  Adjusted to account for any additional speed that might be added by the tagging gun during the course correction.

  Realized there was no way in hell she could do that kind of math in her head.

  And pulled the trigger.

  Better to die attempting the impossible.

  A full magazine held a hundred tags. She’d used three while they set the charges. She used another twenty-two before her path looked like it would cross the debris’ path. Maybe. Probably.

  “Fuk it.”

  Three hours and four minutes of air.

  Two hours and fifty one minutes.

  It was going to be close.

  Another six tags made it closer.

  Moving slowly and carefully, Torin stretched out her left arm . . .

  Two hours and forty-seven minutes.

  ... and closed her thumb and forefinger on the edge of the debris.

  At this point, spin didn’t matter—she’d have to aim herself at the ship regardless, so she moved as quickly as she could, arming the charge and then using the remains of her tether to strap the piece of debris across her back. By the time she
managed it, she’d used up another forty-nine minutes of air.

  Fourteen tags lined her up facing the Promise’s lights.

  Fifty-one tags left to adjust her course—she was aiming a projectile at a target almost a hundred kilometers away by eye—and to keep her from slamming into the ship at a speed that would do neither her nor the ship any good.

  It all came down to whether or not the blast would supply enough push to get her to the Promise’s tanks before her air ran out.

  “Fire in the hole!”

  Teeth together, tongue safely out of danger, she detonated the charge.

  “Escape pods . . .” Captain Farmer slapped the curved metal of the pod beside her. “. . . are not designed for comfort. They are designed to get you away from your transportation and the battle that’s destroyed it as quickly as possible. You will be pulling close to 4 Gs during the initial thrust, so if you’ve taken any injuries during the time the Navy has been getting the shit shot out of it, it’s going to hurt.” She smiled out at the training platoon. “Here in the Corps, we feel a little pain is preferable to going down with the ship.”

  When Torin came to, a nosebleed had gummed her lips together. She checked the time—she’d been out for twelve minutes—worked her lips apart, and licked them mostly clean. Good thing she’d never minded the taste of blood.

  Most of the debris field had moved past her at this point. This was a good thing because slamming into random pieces of wreckage currently filled the top spot on her list of things she’d rather not do.

  A ping put her at 84.6 kilometers from the ship. She’d traveled 14.4 kilometers in the twelve minutes she’d been out. That was 1.2 kilometers a minute and 67 kilometers an hour.

  She’d reach the Promise in an hour and thirty-six minutes.

  This left her a little better than thirteen minutes to get inside and hook up to the ship’s tanks. At full magnification, it appeared that only the cabin had been holed, but she couldn’t be a hundred percent positive the tanks were intact until she actually got there.

  Decelerating would also eat up some time, but she had a plan.

  If not for the concussion, she’d catch a quick nap—setting her comm to wake her in an hour. As that wasn’t an option . . .