The Truth of Valor

by Huff, Tanya

  “Then I need to get to one of the station’s boards. Easy in from there.”

  “I have an all-access pass to the station—apparently the free merchants need to see I have Big Bill’s trust,” she explained as she handed Ressk her slate. “But whatever I do, wherever I go, Big Bill will be watching. That’s a given.”

  “Then we need him to look away.” Ressk dropped back into the second chair and worked both thumbs across the screen. “Or we need him to believe he’s seeing something he isn’t. This . . .” He tapped the lines of code. “. . . is almost too simple. Your slate will identify you to any locked hatch. The lock, in turn will record your presence.”

  “Tracking me.”

  “Yeah. But it’s not hard to see Big Bill’s point. He’s just given the most dangerous person he’s ever likely to meet the run of the station. He’s going to want to know where you are.”

  “Serley suck-up,” Werst snorted.

  “Best part of it is,” Ressk continued, ignoring him. “I can separate out the ID code that makes this work. These things aren’t random, they’re sequential. I copy the whole thing into my slate and give myself the next lower number, and I now also have an all-access pass.”

  Mashona held out her slate. “Do one for me.”

  “The next lower number that Ressk is using already belongs to someone.” Torin took her slate back as Ressk began messing about on his own. “Let’s send up as few flares as possible.”

  “So how does chrick and geeky here get to a board?” Werst asked.

  “Alamber.”

  Torin stopped checking the movement in her hand—eighty percent, she could work with that—and stared at Ressk. “No.”

  Ressk shrugged. “At worst, Big Bill will think you’re heading to Communications to build and consolidate a power base.”

  “Fukking a di’Taykan is like breathing air,” Werst pointed out. “Evidence suggests Big Bill’s too smart to see anything else in it.”

  “Then he’ll just think Gunny’s getting some.”

  Mashona raised her hand. “I volunteer to get some.”

  “Weirdly, Alamber wants Gunny.”

  Werst unsuccessfully hid a snicker. “You’ll have to use your wiles, Gunny.”

  “I don’t have wiles,” Torin snapped. Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of a better idea. “What if Alamber was lying and Communications is under surveillance? You think Alamber and I getting it on will make Big Bill look away?”

  Ressk looked up at that. “Who notices a di’Taykan having sex? If Big Bill happens to stumble over the recording, he’ll think nothing of it. And, if it turns out he’s still up and watching live, you’ll be distracting him while I slip in and crack his system. More to the point, you’ll distract Alamber.”

  Unfortunately, Ressk was making sense. “If I’m there to see Alamber, why would I bring you with me?”

  “You wouldn’t. Aren’t. I’m bringing myself.” Ressk patted himself on the chest. “Most of the station maintenance is done by Krai wearing blue overalls much like these. Unless they’re into seams and pockets, anyone watching will just see another maintenance worker. Humans usually can’t tell us apart.”

  “True.” Mashona rolled back up onto her feet and moved to stow the first aid kit.

  Gross physical features like height and weight aside, Humans—with their substandard sense of smell—could only identify individual Krai by the pattern of mottling on their scalps. Put them in uniforms, remove the individuality of clothing choice, and the Humans working with them when they were integrated into the Corps had to learn new recognition skills. Fast. Outside the military, most Humans never bothered.

  “If the Grr brothers are watching?” Torin asked.

  “Acceptable risk.”

  Werst suddenly grinned. “So he slips in while Alamber’s slipping in?”

  “Oh, fuk you,” Torin sighed.

  “That would make a stronger man than Big Bill look away,” Mashona pointed out, rolling back up onto her feet and moving to stow the first aid kit.

  Werst raised both arms and flexed. “Not the first my cernit’s scared off.”

  “Deformed?”

  “Enormous.”

  “Enormous would be deformed on a little guy like you.”

  It sounded like business as usual, but Torin could hear the concern under the banter. She was the one thing they shouldn’t have to worry about. Be a whole lot easier if people started shooting at them. That, she could deal with in her sleep.

  Speaking of . . . It was 2426 ship time, and there’d be no chance of rest until this was done.

  She stood, flexing her hand. “I hope you caught some sleep while I was gone. Werst, Mashona, go back out into the Hub and find out everything you can about the Heart of Stone. How many in her crew, who they are, what kind of training. How many weapons they have. Their captain, Cho . . .” The bonded knuckle pulled painfully but held as her fingers curled into a fist. “. . . he’s ex-Navy. And there’s a young di’Taykan named Nadayki working the seal, doing the same sort of shit Ressk can. If necessary, use that information to get people talking. Take into account that anyone off a ship is an amoral s.o.b., and the support staff isn’t a lot better. If you’re done before Ressk and I are back, the armory is in an old explosives storage pod off the ore docks, up against the back bulkhead, maybe ten degrees off from the lock. The Heart’s at the lock. Go into the schematics of this place and find the fastest way to get the armory off the station. Quick and dirty, we’ve got no time for finesse. And speaking of no time for finesse ...” She sighed and headed for the air lock. “Come on, Ressk. Let’s see if Alamber really does spend all his time in Communications.”

  “What are you going to . . . ?”

  Torin cut him off. “I’ll decide when I get there.” She glanced down at the camera on the edge of the control panel, thought briefly about pretending to forget it, and changed her mind. Ultimately, rescuing Craig trumped her ego. “Whatever happens,” she muttered, reaffixing the camera to her tunic, “you’re editing this bit out.”

  Torin would have preferred to have avoided the Hub entirely, but it was the only way to get from the docking arms into the station. “Remember,” she said quietly, pitching her voice under the noise of the games on the big screens and a fight between two di’Taykan under the nearer one, “play nice. Recon only. Do not engage.”

  “If they swing first?” Mashona asked, arms folded.

  “Win.” Torin swept a disdainful gaze around the Hub. At first glance, she couldn’t tell the pirates from the station crew. The thieves and murderers from the support staff. Fukking Werst. “Might makes right with this lot.” The two di’Taykan were rolling around on the deck. Given they were di’Taykan, it wouldn’t be a fight much longer. “If it comes to it, I want this lot to think twice about pissing us off.”

  Wrest flexed his toes against the deck, cracking the knuckles. “Just twice?”

  “Twice is fine. It’s 0341 now; if we’re not back at the ship by 0830 station time ...” Five hours was more than twice the time Ressk said he’d need. “. . . assume we’ve been caught. Abandon subtlety. Blow the docking clamps, haul ass, and call in the Marines to deal with the armory.”

  “This is subtle?”

  “Werst.”

  His nose ridges flared. “These are bad guys, Gunny. You get caught doing bad things, they’ll assume it’s because you’re a bad guy, too. Not because you’re a good guy trying to screw them.”

  “Figuratively speaking,” Mashona muttered under her breath.

  “You get grabbed,” Werst continued ignoring her, “precedent suggests you’ll haul your ass and Ressk’s out of the fire. We’ll wait.”

  Torin opened her mouth to tell him she’d just given him an order and, from his expression, he knew exactly what she was about to say. Easy enough to figure out his response. With less than fourteen hours, they didn’t have time to argue. “Fine. Presit can call in the Marines. She’ll know before you do.” Nodding toward the n
earest bar, she added, “Put your drinks on my tab.”

  Mashona grinned. “So we can skip out without paying it.”

  “Cherish the small things,” Torin agreed. “Now go before I get any older and this plan gets any more ludicrous.”

  There were three ways to get to System Administration from the Hub. With no reason to be anywhere near the staff quarters or the maintenance tubes, Torin took the obvious and most public route. What was your business in Admin? would be a lot easier to answer than, Why were you skulking about? should her journey come to Big Bill’s attention in the next . . .

  Torin glanced at her slate.

  ... twelve hours and forty-one minutes.

  The section of corridor directly off the vertical was utilitarian. Gray. Cleaner than the public areas, granted, but also less streamlined. Not all the mechanicals were hidden and it reminded her of the engineering sections of a battle cruiser. It was stupid o’clock in the morning station time, between shifts, so she expected to be alone, but four meters away at the access to a second vertical, a Krai in maintenance overalls stood swearing at an open panel. Glanced up as Torin’s boots hit the deck, dismissed her as unimportant, and returned to profanity. Big Bill could almost definitely pick the Grr brothers out of a crowd, but his maintenance workers? Not likely. Not unless they were behind on their fifteen percent. Ressk would get to Communications right after she did, and no one would see him coming.

  System Admin had its own set of decompression doors.

  According to the schematics, Communications was at the end of the next corridor, the last in a line of closed, unlabeled hatches leading to Records, Finance, and Weapons Control.

  Torin couldn’t see the surveillance cameras, but she didn’t doubt they were there. To be on the safe side, she stayed as far from the locks as the corridor allowed. Her new code opening them in sequence would sure as shit attract the wrong kind of attention. Enough attention to justify waking Big Bill should he have gone to sleep.

  The hatch to Communications was already open.

  Unable to see how it could possibly be a trap, Torin stepped in over the lip. A glance at her slate showed Ressk’s sweeper program had picked up no surveillance in the room. So far, so good.

  Communications was long and narrow. Two extended boards ran along both side bulkheads with a double row of monitors over each. The monitors offered a tour of the station’s surveillance cameras, three seconds on each view. Torin noted four different angles on the Hub, the interior of half a dozen bars or half a dozen interiors of the same bar, interiors of the shops—Vrijheid had a masseuse? Pirates got stressed?—and one fuk of a lot of empty corridors. Looked like a dedicated monitor on the last hatch before the ore docks. Each monitor had its own station. The room also held two wheeled chairs; minimum staff to cover maximum distance. An ocher-haired di’Taykan sprawled in one chair. The other chair was empty.

  The di’Taykan looked up and frowned. Although the Taykan showed few visible signs of aging to non-Taykan, Torin’s experience with Staff Sergeant Beyhn on Crucible made her think this was a di close to turning qui. That meant she wasn’t here because she was young and stupid. She was here because she chose to be here.

  “Who the fuk are you?” she demanded.

  New plan.

  “New hire,” Torin said, moving closer, careful to make it look like she was watching the monitors.

  “And I’m supposed to train you? At this hour? Fuk that. Wait . . .” Her eyes darkened, most of the ocher disappearing as the light receptors opened. “. . . I saw you with the boss. Couple of times.”

  “That’s what I said. New hire.”

  “What, and you’re here to keep an eye on me? I don’t fukking think that . . .”

  As a species, the Taykan had long slender necks. Easy to get an arm around. Lots of room to cover the mouth and nose. Easier for Torin to kill her than disable her, but Werst had made that impossible. Ignoring the fingers clawing at her sleeve, Torin wondered if she should thank him.

  As the ends of agitated ocher hair stung her face, Torin moved her mouth in close and murmured, “Big Bill sent me.”

  The di’Taykan stiffened momentarily before finally going limp. Message received.

  The thin plastic panels fronting the vertical bottoms of the control boards—solid and unchanging under her touch—were easy enough to slide off although Torin had to open up four sections before she had room for the unconscious di’Taykan. Stretching her out on her side, Torin turned her masker up full, slid the panels back on, and stood. No way the di’Taykan would be out for the full twelve hours and thirteen minutes, but she’d be out of the way for a couple of hours at least. And when she came to, she’d remember Big Bill had been responsible and she wouldn’t raise the alarm.

  For a while.

  With any luck.

  If the vids were right about bad people being willing to suspect other bad people without question.

  With luck, with her masker turned up, Alamber would consider any whiff of the other di”Taykan just a part of the ambience of the small room.

  “I knew you couldn’t resist me, trin.”

  Speak of the devil. Torin turned to face the young di’Taykan as he closed the hatch behind him and leered at her, pale hair fluffed out in anticipation.

  And, back to the old plan.

  Before Torin could speak, he frowned, his hair flattening. “Where’s Nia?”

  “I told her to leave.”

  He smiled and his hair lifted again. “That’s right. You don’t like to share. Doesn’t mean you can order people around, trin. Naughty, naughty.”

  “Big Bill’s hired me on.”

  “A man with taste, our employer.” If anything, Alamber’s mannerisms broadened at the mention of Big Bill, a shield he could hide behind. “He’s hired you on to do what?”

  “Can’t say. Not yet.” She could deal with him the way she’d dealt with Nia. Faster, definitely, but she suspected that rather than slink off to safety, Alamber would raise high holy hell when he came to.

  In order to save Craig and destroy the armory in less than twelve hours, high holy hell topped her list of things to avoid.

  Not to mention that taking out both people in Communications would leave no one watching the store and definitely attract unwelcome attention.

  “You can’t say, but Big Bill’s hired you to a position that not only lets you tell Nia to leave but has Nia actually listen? Interesting.” Alamber dropped into the chair, sprawled out with effortless grace, and looked up at her from under half lidded eyes, more blatantly seductive than di’Taykan usually wasted time bothering with. “Well, if you’re here to see me, trin, I’m all yours.”

  Torin sat on the edge of a board, rested one boot in the space between his spread knees, and held him in place. “How old are you?”

  His smile picked up edges. “None of your damned business.”

  It was hard to tell under the black-and-white makeup—Torin had never seen a di’Taykan use makeup, so she had no basis of comparison—but up close he didn’t look old enough to join the Corps, and that was far, far too young to be here on this station although Torin knew better than to assume lack of years meant lack of life experience. Humans had a tendency to be delusional about the Taykan because of the way they looked. Torin didn’t. There were bastards in any species. She shrugged. “You know about me. You want me. I want to know about you.”

  He spread his hands, the fingers nearly bone white against the dark, fingerless gloves. “I’m awesome.”

  “Details?”

  “Recordings, if you like.” A nod toward the monitors, hair moving fluidly out over his face and back again. “I like to leave my quarters active.”

  “I’ll bet.” That might mean he could turn the surveillance cameras off. It also might mean SFA. “How did you get the hell and gone out here? Tagged along with thytrins?”

  “Tagged along?” He sighed, the sound suggesting he’d expected better from her. Long fingers stroked her ankle
above the boot. “I came with my vantru, okay?”

  Torin hid her reaction. A vantru? The rough translation may have been primary sexual partner but the way Alamber said it layered on shades of meaning that took it a Susumi fold from the relationship Jan and Sirin had. And for a di’Taykan to choose to have a vantru with or without shading at Alamber’s age? Not impossible, but . . .

  “She died in a bar fight almost a year ago.” His eyes darkened so they nearly blended with the thick band of black makeup around them. His lips were pale enough his tongue looked shockingly pink as he swept it along the lower curve, rising and falling over the piercings. “You could make me feel better about it.”

  “Why me?” Torin wanted to hear his answer, but she didn’t need to. Not all relationships were between equals. His vantru had definitely been older. Female. Stronger personality. In charge. Almost a year ago, Torin’s presence on Presit’s vids about Big Yellow and Crucible had been inescapable. Alamber didn’t want sex—actually, he was di’Taykan, so of course he wanted sex—but he was also looking to her for familiarity. Comfort.

  “What happened to that salvage operator you hooked up with?” he asked running two fingers up the back of her calf.

  “We’re spending time apart.” The pull on the broken knuckle reminded her to relax her hands.

  “You don’t sound happy about it.” His voice dropped to a purr. “I can make you happy.”

  Considering the way he was working this, working her, Torin had started to be happy his vantru was dead. Particularly, given the suspected age difference. Particularly, because Vrijheid was a place where bad people ended up. “You can make me happy by teaching me how the communications system for the station works.”

  “Not what I meant.”

  The panel by the door flashed green and in her peripheral vision, Torin caught sight of a Krai outside a closed hatch on one of the monitors.

  Ressk.

  She stood and went around behind Alamber’s chair, one hand on his shoulder, keeping her body between him and the door. “But it’s why I’m here. We’ll start at the far end.” No surprise the chair ran smoothly along the deck.