The Truth of Valor

by Huff, Tanya

“Ryder! What the fuk is going on out there?”

  Craig watched Torin get her hands under her and push herself up onto her knees. Breath knocked out of her then, not hurt. He wanted to go to her, but she wouldn’t thank him for getting into the middle of the fight. He yanked his borrowed slate off his belt. As long as Nadayki was in the pod, Cho had a potential weapon on the dock. Not a great one, but even useless shits could turn the tide. “It’s the Grr brothers, Captain!”

  “I know it’s the fukking Grr brothers! Nadayki told me.” Yeah, big surprise; the little shit squealed at the drop of a hat. “What the hell are they doing!”

  “Fighting! With the gunnery sergeant.”

  “She knows you!”

  Fuk Nadayki’s fukking ears! Had Torin admitted . . . He ran over everything he could remember of Torin’s conversation with Big Bill. No, she hadn’t. “The Grr brothers are causing trouble. They don’t like that she’s in tight with Big Bill.”

  “Then why is she supposed to kill you?”

  “Not me, them!”

  “Nadayki said . .”

  “He misheard! I was standing right beside her.” Craig aimed for Cho’s ego, not exactly a difficult target to hit even for a civilian. “You were right! Big Bill’s up to something!”

  “I fukking knew it!”

  “Captain, I can’t get the air lock open.” Nose ridges flared, Huirre ran through the sequence again. “Outer doors are under station control!”

  “That son of a bitch!” Big Bill was going after the weapons. Cho had known it all along. Known from the start that anyone who stole an entire station from the government wouldn’t settle for fifteen percent. Turned out they did want the same thing. “Dysun!” Cho slapped a hand down on the intercom by the hatch. “Dysun, haul ass out of your rack and get this hatch open.”

  “What? Captain, I don’t . . .”

  “You will! You want to see your share for those weapons, you’ll get your ass to your board now! Get the tasiks,” Cho snarled at Huirre, pivoted on one heel, and headed for the control room. “I want Doc out there with you the moment the door is open. If Big Bill wants a fight, he’s got one!”

  “Ressk!”

  *Working on it, Gunny!*

  The Grr brothers had been farther from the deck when the gravity kicked in, but they were Krai and Krai bones bounced. Torin rolled up onto her feet, aimed a kick at the closer brother, missed his head, hit his shoulder, and twisted out of the way at the last second. She couldn’t let them grapple. Once they got a hand or foothold, teeth would be next. Pain and physical damage aside, no one reacted well to being eaten alive. She had to use her greater reach and hope like hell she could use one of them to disable the other. Again.

  Her odds went up if Ressk regained control. As a species, the Krai might be naturals in zero G but in specific, she’d had a lot more training.

  When the gravity kicked out, Craig anchored himself on the edge of the storage pod. He could hear Nadayki flailing and cursing inside the pod, and he realized the kid would have no trouble knifing either him or Torin in the back should Cho command it. Nadayki had to be dealt with before Cho remembered he wasn’t permanently attached to the armory.

  Even injured, Craig could take the kid in a fight. He was bigger, stronger, and although he had little experience with the kind of up close and personal violence Torin excelled at, Nadayki had even less. Craig could take him down, tie him up with his own overalls, and when Ressk opened the outer doors, the kid would die. Sure, Nadayki was low on the list for di’Taykan of the year, his blood sure as fuk not worth bottling, but he had to give him a fair go.

  When the gravity came back in, a moment later, he took his weight on his good foot then hopped over the lip into the pod, grabbing Nadayki’s upper arm. “Come on, kid, move!”

  Eyes dark, the young di’Taykan struggled but couldn’t break Craig’s grip. “Let go of me, you senak!”

  “No, like it or not, I’m pulling your head out of your ass!” Craig shook him hard, lime-green hair flicking back and forth against the motion. “They’ve already fukked with the zero G; what happens if they vent the atmosphere next? I’ve seen a di’Taykan sucking vacuum and it’s not pretty.”

  Nadayki shoved his slate into Craig’s face. “Fuk you! I’m almost done!”

  “Is getting this thing open worth dying for?” Craig demanded. “You think Cho would die for you? He’s locked himself in the Heart—all safe and warm—and he’s locked us—you and me—out here!”

  “No way!” Twisting free, Nadayki pushed Craig aside, surged out the hatch, and stared toward the ship. Even with Human vision, the lockdown was obvious from the storage pod. “That ablin gon savit!”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” Craig grabbed his arm again. “Come on, if we can’t get onto the ship, we go out into the station.”

  Nadayki’s gaze flicked over to where Torin and the Grr brothers were fighting. “But they said you’re with her!”

  “Right now, in the interest of not dying, I’m with you! Move!” He tightened his grip and hauled Nadayki around until he faced in the right direction. “We need to get the hell out of here before the crazy bastards finish with her and start on us!” Ignoring the fight, trusting Torin to survive, he hustled Nadayki across the ore dock to the hatch, cutting him off every time he tried to speak, finally shoving him through and slamming the hatch behind him.

  Entry from the station to the ore docks had to be cleared through the station sysop. Craig doubted Big Bill felt much like opening doors right now.

  He glanced at the big doubles, hoped Big Bill wasn’t willing to sacrifice the Grr brothers for the win, and headed at his top speed toward the storage lockers and the suits.

  One of the Grr brothers couldn’t see out of his right eye, and the other . . .

  Torin stomped down hard.

  . . . had at least two broken toes.

  He screamed.

  She ducked under an attack and came up off the deck, driving her stiffened fingers into his throat. Not a move the Krai were familiar with as opponents tended to stay the hell away from their mouths. Clearly, they hadn’t been paying enough attention as she’d fought her way across the Hub. As his eyes widened and blood gushed out his mouth, he grabbed a handful of her hair.

  Torin twisted under his grip, turned a little too slowly to meet the other Grr’s charge, raised her arm to block . . .

  . . . and got sprayed with blood as Craig slammed him in the back of the head.

  His teeth snapped shut

  The impact took them both to the deck.

  “Torin!”

  “I’m okay.” They heaved the limp body off her together, and then Craig held out a hand. Torin didn’t need it, but she took it anyway and let him help her up to her feet.

  “You’re bleeding.”

  She was covered in blood. “This isn’t mine.”

  “On your arm?” He gently bent her right arm up closer to her face, his fingers warm around her wrist.

  Her sleeve flapped loose, about four square centimeters of cloth missing, a smaller piece bitten out of her forearm. Adrenaline still buzzing through her system, Torin could hardly feel the injury but, later, it was going to hurt. “Okay, this is mine. But it’s minor.” She could use the arm. Right now, that was all that mattered. “Your foot?”

  “Old news.” He looked worried, relieved. And there. Right there. Right in front of her. When the corners of his mouth curved up, slowly, as though he wasn’t sure this was real, Torin felt as though one of the Grr brothers had chewed a piece out of her heart not her arm. She could feel each beat, and it hurt. Craig released her wrist and laid his palm lightly against her chest, as though he knew. “I’d kiss you, but you’re covered in blood.”

  “Something to look forward to, then.” Her smile felt too wide, awkward, but she couldn’t dial it back. “What did you hit him with?”

  “Pipe wrench.” Brows up, he lifted his other hand. Blood dripped from the heavy curved end of the tool.
“Wasn’t sure you’d want me to get involved.”

  “No, it’s good.” She took a deep breath and all of a sudden it was. It was very good. “I’m all for you participating in your own rescue.”

  He grinned and let the wrench drop to the deck. “Fuk it, what’s a little mess.”

  *Gunny!*

  Torin jerked back just before Craig’s mouth touched hers. “It’s Ressk.”

  Craig rolled his eyes. “Yeah, the little mood killer’s patched me through.”

  *I’ve got the Hatch, but Big Bill’s unlocked the Heart!*

  “You need Nadayki for this, Captain.” Dysun’s eyes were nearly black as she worked both index fingers over the screen of her slate. “This is more his sort of shit.”

  “Well, I don’t have Nadayki, do I?” Cho snarled. “Or his shit.” He’d dragged Dysun down to the air lock controls when she’d been unable to free up the system from her board. Not that it had helped. Useless! They were all fukking useless! “Nadayki is out there on the other side of the . . .”

  The telltales turned green.

  “Finally!”

  Dysun lifted both hands, eyes lightening. “It wasn’t me.”

  “I don’t care who it was. Doc! Huirre!” They each held a tasik, and the fingers of Doc’s free hand kept folding into a fist and unfolding again. Cho doubted he knew he was doing it. Huirre had been less than enthusiastic about joining the fight until Cho’d reminded him his share of the weapons’ sale was at stake. He watched them step into the air lock. Watched the door close.

  “Outer door opening . . . Closing again!” Huirre sounded freaked. “Hey! What the fuk are you . . .

  “Outer doors have closed and locked again, Captain.” Dysun slapped her thumb repeatedly against the screen. “Looks like the signal’s coming from the station sysop. No one can crack Big Bill’s system.”

  “You can’t,” Cho sneered, tried of hearing excuses. “That doesn’t mean no one can. Huirre, report!”

  “Doc’s out. Shoved me, threw away his tasik and squeezed through at the last second. He looked weird. Even for Doc.”

  “Captain,” Dysun’s eyes were dark again when she looked up, and her hair flicked back and forth in short jerky arcs. “A body in the path of the door, even a moving body, should have stopped the door from closing.”

  Vacuum being what it was, air locks had safeties built into their safeties; everyone knew that. Everyone also knew who’d programmed Vrijheid. William Fukking Ponner.

  “What part of Big Bill’s trying to screw us did you miss,” Cho snarled, rubbing his hands together. “Get that air lock open!”

  *Hostiles incoming, Gunny! I don’t have control of the inner hatches.*

  Torin pivoted around toward the exit to the station. Interior decompression hatches had access panels on both sides. “We can jam it from here.”

  *It’s complicated, you’ll have to . . . *

  “Smash the panel.”

  *Yeah, that’ll work.*

  “Good.” Torin bent to pick up the wrench, but Craig’s hand on her arm dragged her back upright, and turned her in time to see the Heart’s air lock close behind a Human male. Not very tall, broad shoulders, long dark hair. Vaguely familiar.

  “It’s Doc,” Craig said quietly. “He’s crazy. And when I say crazy, I mean certifiable. He was a doctor, an actual Navy doctor. His ship got destroyed, and it broke him. Literally broke him in two. There’s the medic side and the likes-to-see-you-bleed side. And the likes-to-see-you-bleed side, it doesn’t lose.”

  “What ship?”

  “What ship? I have no idea.” Craig scooped up the wrench and held it two-handed, across his body. “Does it matter?”

  Torin shrugged, then continued the movement, working the stiffness out of her shoulders. “It might have. Go jam the hatch. I’ve got this.”

  “Why? Because he was military, you think you have to face him alone?”

  Maybe. He wasn’t Corps, but still . . . he’d been broken by his service and that made him her responsibility. It was entirely possible Craig knew she believed that; not that it mattered.

  “No.” She met his gaze and held it. “Because if Big Bill sends more of his people in after us, we’re fukked.”

  After a long moment, a moment she wouldn’t have granted anyone else, Craig nodded. Acknowledged her point. “Torin, Doc is . . . he’s good at violence.”

  “So am I.” She managed half a smile. “Your tax dollars at work.”

  He wanted to say more, but he nodded again and started toward the hatch, half hopping, half hobbling, most of his weight on his right foot.

  Torin had almost forgotten his injury—pushed it to the back of her mind while she did what she had to. Injuries weren’t unusual in her old job; dealt with and the job went on. She didn’t much like that she kept forgetting Craig was a noncombatant.

  As Doc came closer, Torin realized where she’d seen him before. Most recently, watching the fight in the Hub, but before that, heading into the bar, into the game, where Nat Forester had set them up.

  No mistaking the tension that pleated the soft skin around his eyes. Ex-military—the tells were obvious to anyone who’d spent as much time in uniform as Torin had—with the look of someone who’d seen too much and not been able to let any of it go. He was the first person she’d met since getting out that she wasn’t entirely positive she could beat if it came to a fight.

  As much as Torin wanted to destroy anyone who had a part in Crag’s abuse, she forced reason past reaction. Not fighting this man would be the smart thing to do.

  “We don’t have to get into this,” she began.

  “Yes, we do.” For all the teeth showing, there was nothing Krai-like about Doc’s smile. It was a very Human smile. The last time Torin had seen that particular expression, she’d been looking in a mirror. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “For me?”

  He shrugged and continued closing the distance between them. “For someone like you.”

  His eyes were a flat emotionless blue, not gleaming in anticipation. He wasn’t going into this fight for the fun of it; he was the deadly serious kind of bugfuk crazy. The kind that would methodically torture Rogelio Page. The kind who would cut off a man’s toe when ordered to so that the pain would teach him his place.

  “Everyone figures the military broke him . . .

  Torin shifted her weight. This would not be a long fight, and only one of them would survive it. She noted the minor damage she’d already suffered as potential weak points she’d have to guard. Her heart began to beat faster. In all honesty, she was just as glad he hadn’t backed down.

  Unfortunately, time was on his side. She couldn’t wait for him to make the first move.

  Doc blocked her kick, dropped, and slid under her leg. Torin twisted on the ball of her foot and the side of his fist slammed into the meaty part of her thigh instead of the joint. When she pushed off his shoulders in order to flip around and face him again, he dropped further. She used her weight to drive him into the deck, but he tucked his feet under his body and threw himself backward.

  She kneed him in the kidneys. Rolled clear.

  He rolled with her, crushing the fingers of her right hand against the deck.

  Her kick knocked him back just far enough to free her hand, spraying the deck with blood from the split along a cracked cheekbone.

  They scrambled back up onto their feet and Torin blocked a body blow. He lunged sideways and her stiffened left hand jabbed into his shoulder instead of his throat.

  His arm spasmed. His other hand closed around her wrist.

  Lubricated by the blood from the earlier bite, she twisted in his grip, negating most of the torque, and slammed her forehead into his nose.

  His knee came up, hard. Torin felt a rib crack, but she moved with the blow and slammed the point of her other elbow into the thinner bone at his temple.

  He staggered and released her but got an arm up in time to stop her from taking out his right eye
—a blow actually intended to distract from the hard one, two, three jab to the solar plexus. His mouth opened, but no sound emerged and, fighting for breath, he fell to the deck.

  Swiping at the blood dripping from her forehead, Torin gasped, “Stay down.”

  Doc didn’t have breath enough to laugh, but he tried it anyway.

  Teeth bloody, he surged forward, curve of his shoulders tucked under her knees, weight slamming her to the deck. Torin wrapped her legs around his neck, rolled up, and wrapped her right arm around, his chin nestled in the cup of her palm, her fingers curled uselessly against his cheek. She ignored the blow that broke the damaged rib and twisted.

  The crack was loud.

  Doc grunted. And exhaled.

  And went limp.

  “Okay, the atmosphere’s a match so I’m slaving the outside hatch to the inside and seeing if working them in unison will . . .”

  Both hatches opened.

  Ignoring Dysun’s self-congratulatory babbling, Cho pushed past Huirre and charged out into the ore dock.

  Doc would . . .

  Doc wouldn’t.

  Doc dropped to the deck like a useless piece of crap, body collapsing into the boneless sprawl of the newly dead. Big Bill’s gunnery sergeant stood.

  Cho rocked to a stop.

  Wiping away the blood that continued dripping from her forehead, right arm pressed against her ribs, right hand cradled against her chest, Torin turned toward the sound of running footsteps.

  Mackenzie Cho stood staring, eyes wide, mouth open, about five meters from his air lock.

  Torin smiled and started toward him.

  Doc had done the damage, but Cho had given the orders. Time to make Cho pay.

  The look the gunnery sergeant had been shooting him earlier in the storage pod had been Doc’s crazy under control look. This look, this matched Doc’s crazy out of control on every point—only Cho had never seen it directed at him. This look didn’t say, I’m going to kill you. It said, You’re a dead man.