The Heart of Valor

by Huff, Tanya

  The captain who’d asked the first question had been Intell, seeded into the group by Major Alie. It was inevitable those particular questions would be asked, so the major had arranged for them to be asked under controlled conditions. The timing, before the Q&A officially began, had allowed her to cut the questions off when the information she’d wanted released had been covered. It was a smart move.

  Torin appreciated smart, but she had no intention of mentioning that to the major. Intell got a little snotty when one of their subtle plans turned out to be that obvious.

  The afternoon session was a near exact copy of the morning’s—minus General Morris’ small part. Finished at 1800, she skipped the Senior Rank’s Mess and headed to a pub she remembered fondly from her last course on station. She was expecting a call and didn’t want it going through the duty officer before it reached her in the SRM. Off-duty and in a public part of the station, the message would be bounced straight to her implant.

  On the OutSector stations the lowest two or three levels of the center core were set aside for off-duty and civilian personnel. On a station the size of Ventris, certain broad concourses had been set aside for stores, bars, and cantinas. The recruits were given access to the lowest concourse on their last tenday. They never saw the other four until they returned to Ventris as Marines.

  Sutton’s, on Concourse Two, was about half full. A group of privates and corporals were watching mixed league cricket on the big screen in the corner. Apparently it was an oldEarth sport the Elder Races had taken to the way the H’san took to cheese, but Torin couldn’t see the attraction. Along the other side of the bar, eight of the small tables were full, two of them pushed close so a group of four officers and their companions could eat together. Three di’Taykan sat at the bar itself, bodies close and looking about five minutes from heading to someone’s bunk for the night.

  Torin took one of the small tables, where she could see both the door to the concourse and the door behind the bar leading to the kitchens, and coded her order into the tabletop. To her surprise, Elliot Westbrook, the grandson of the original owners, came out with the first part of her order.

  “Gunny,” he said as he set down the beer, “I hear you single-handedly got the Silsviss to join up. Any chance you can give me a scouting report on their beverage selection?”

  Seemed that Major Svensson was right; everyone on the station was talking about her. Still, it never hurt to cooperate with the man cooking dinner and, while information about how she’d single-handedly got the Silsviss to join up was classified, what the giant lizards drank was not. What’s more, if they were going to join the Corps, it was an important cultural touchstone. “The upper ranks drank fermented fruit juices, but the lower ranks usually drank beer.”

  “Good to hear.”

  “The beer was usually green.”

  Elliot grinned. “So they’re Irish?”

  When her pie arrived, he left her to it, heading back to the bar muttering notes about ales and lagers and fermentation times into his slate.

  She was just mopping up the last of the gravy when the call came through.

  *I’ve docked. Section 8, slip 17.*

  Pushing her plate away, she tongued an acknowledgment and murmured, “On my way,” just loud enough for the implant to pick up.

  They were naked twenty-two minutes later.

  TWO

  PUSHING DAMP HAIR BACK out of her eyes, Torin rolled up on one elbow and frowned down at her companion. “I get the impression you missed me.”

  “Funny, because I got the impression I was right on target . . . OW!” Tugging her fingers out of his chest hair, Craig Ryder wrapped Torin’s hand in his, immobilizing it. Since she wasn’t planning on going anywhere for a while, she allowed him to think he could hold her. “You win,” he said. “I missed you. You’re just lucky I needed to register new salvage tags.”

  “You’re talking like I’m the only one here who got lucky.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.” He waggled his brows suggestively. “But you are saying you got lucky, then?”

  She freed her hand, moved it lower on his body, and squeezed. “A couple of times.”

  “Bloody cheek!”

  But this time when he grabbed for her, Torin rolled off the bunk and rose to her feet out of reach. “That thing’s too small for comfort.”

  “You’d better be talking about the bunk, mate. And you are not sitting your bare ass down on my control panel,” he growled as she moved the very small distance to the other side of the cabin.

  Torin snorted. “Not after what happened the last time.” Scooping his discarded shirt off the floor, she tossed it on the pilot’s chair covering the majority of the duct tape and sat. One of the reasons the bunk was too narrow for them both was that Craig Ryder was a big man. Undressed, there was a little softness at his waist, but most of his bulk was muscle, his arms and shoulders so broad and heavy, they distracted from his height.

  “What?”

  All right. Maybe she had been staring. “Rumor has it that this is a romance.”

  “Really?” Craig rolled up on his side, head propped up on one huge hand. He looked amused, the bastard. “Who’s been talking, then?”

  She shrugged a shoulder, suddenly wishing she hadn’t brought it up. “Some of the medical staff off the Berganitan are on station. Apparently, I’m a topic of conversation.”

  “Apparently?” When she shrugged again, he laughed.

  “Fuk, all you’ve done in the last year was convince a race of aggressive lizards to join up right before you outsmarted a big old alien spaceship. Can’t see why they’d be talking about you. Obviously, they’re talking about me.”

  “You?”

  “Don’t mean to skite, but I’m the other half of the romance, aren’t I?”

  Torin scratched at the drying sweat on her stomach. “There is no romance. There’s sex.”

  “Good sex.”

  “Granted.”

  “That’ll do, then.” Blue eyes gleamed. “So what the hell are you doing all the way over there?”

  Later, when she stepped out of his shower—which meant stepping out of his tiny hygiene unit into the main cabin—he handed her a mug of coffee and said, “You ever hear what happened to the escape pod from Big Yellow.”

  Torin took a drink, set the mug on the small, half-circle table folded down from one of the cabin walls, and started dressing. “It’s a piece of unknown alien technology, I expect R&D has it tucked away somewhere, probably somewhere on this station—although there’s always a chance that one of the Elder Races rabbited off with it. All I know is that the whole thing’s been classified Top Secret, and I have orders not to talk about it during my current the Silsviss are our friends tour.” Skimming her pants up over her hips, she reached for the mug again. “Why?”

  “I rode it from Big Yellow, yeah?”

  “Yeah.” She knew where this was going.

  “That makes it my salvage, doesn’t it?”

  “Technically, the Berganitan retrieved it.”

  He folded his arms, the motion causing the worn sweats he’d pulled on to fall a little farther from his waist. “I was in it. And in salvage, like life, possession is nine tenths of the law.”

  The vacuum jockeys from the Berganitan had rescued him, directing the spherical escape pod into a net in one of the ship’s shuttle bays. Given the mulish expression he was wearing, Torin decided not to remind him of that. “You must have made inquiries,” she said, buttoning her shirt.

  “I did. No one knows anything about it.”

  “That’s because it’s classified Top Secret.”

  “No. They won’t talk about Big Yellow, but they don’t seem to know about the escape pod.”

  “You’re a civilian. Neither branch of the military is likely to tell you what they know.”

  “Please.” Fingers digging in his short beard, he snorted. “I deal with the military all the time. I know when they’re fukking me around and this was more
like they honestly didn’t know.”

  Torin set the empty mug back on the table and frowned. “Maybe they didn’t know. You couldn’t have been talking to anyone with a very high clearance.”

  “That’s possible.”

  She stared at him for a long moment. “You want me to ask someone, don’t you?”

  He grinned. “It is good sex.”

  “Not that good.”

  “Liar.”

  “Fine. There’s an Intell major running the Silsviss briefings I’m doing. If I get a chance, I’ll ask her.” She slid a foot into her right boot and bent to tie the laces. “How long will you be docked?”

  “Odds are good I’ll be gone by 1400 tomorrow.”

  His tone pulled her attention back to his face. If he was off station by 1400, this was it. They’d probably see each other again when she got back to her unit. Civilian salvage operators weren’t unknown at OutSector stations, but only the brass knew how long they’d keep her here. “All right, I’ll ask at the morning briefing.”

  “Ta.”

  Both boots secured, she moved to the hatch and paused, left hand rising to touch her jaw. “The upgrade’s got a signal strong enough to reach ships in space.”

  Craig’s brows rose when she stopped, clearly expecting more.

  She didn’t have any more.

  His fingers went back to his beard. “You’ve got the Promise’s codes.”

  “I do.” Her left hand settled against the scarred surface of the hatch. The upgrade went to grades Gunny and above, so that if they had Marines dirtside, and the comm unit got hit, they could call for evac. They weren’t for . . . She glanced back at Craig; from the way the corner of his mouth was twitching, he knew exactly what she was thinking. Cocky bastard. Stepping out onto the ramp, she turned again. “Be careful.”

  He nodded. “You, too.”

  “Major Alie.”

  The major’s hair lifted. “Is there a problem, Gunny?”

  “No, sir.” di’Taykan didn’t have the concept of personal space, so Torin stepped a little closer. They were standing, once again, at the front of Compartment 29 waiting for the morning’s group of senior NCOs to finish taking their seats, and Torin figured that her odds of getting an answer were better if the major thought she couldn’t be overheard. In the raw light of day, minus post-coital endorphins, this was obviously a bad idea, but she’d told Craig she’d ask—and that left her only two options. Keep her word. Or not. “The CSO who . . .”

  “You’re seeing.” The words were tame for a di’Taykan. The innuendo was all it could be.

  “Yes, sir.” Torin responded to the words alone. “He was wondering what happened to the escape pod off Big Yellow.”

  The major’s hair flattened. “The alien ship is classified, Gunny.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And classified means you’re not to speak of it.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Not even to your vantru.”

  Given the major’s expression, now was not the time to mention that vantru—more or less translated as primary sexual partner—was a bit strong, if only because of the di’Taykan weight the word carried and not because she was actually getting any anywhere else.

  “I’ve got no way to keep him from mentioning it to me, sir.”

  “NinLi civilians!”

  Like many sentient races, the primary Taykan religion had not only the concept of damnation but the profanity to go with it.

  “Yes, sir.”

  But while the major had said, “The alien ship is classified ,” her expression had added, “What escape pod?” It was fast, gone almost before Torin saw it. Someone watching a little less closely would have missed it entirely,but Torin had spent years learning to spot bullshit and next to some of the di’Taykan she’d commanded, for whom bullshit was a vocation, Major Alie was an amateur.

  Her anger at not knowing had given her away.

  Intell hated to think there were things they didn’t know.

  At 12:45, Torin set down her lunch tray and pinged the Promise from a table terminal in the SRM.

  “What the bloody hell did you ask at that morning briefing?”

  Torin poured creamer in her coffee, the artificial stuff significantly safer than the real cream in the other jug. There were no cows on Ventris Station. “I asked the major about your possible salvage.”

  “Just like that, then?”

  “You wanted to know.”

  “I expected you to be a little more . . . I don’t know, circumspect.”

  “I said I’d ask.” She took a preliminary swallow—the coffee had probably been started by the first cook on Ventris—and added a splash more creamer. “This is not the kind of thing that I can sneak about trying to discover for you. Nor would I if I could.”

  “I had a visit this morning from a couple of Marines who thought I needed to be reminded of what classified meant.”

  That wasn’t entirely unexpected. “And?”

  “They pointed out that military salvage tags don’t grow on fukking trees.”

  Neither was that. It was, after all, the only handle they had on him. “Happy ending?”

  “They’re letting me bail, if that’s what you mean. In fact, they pretty much told me to rack off.” She heard him sigh, could see him sitting back in the pilot’s chair, feet resting on the spot his heels had worn shiny on the control panel. “I’m never going to see that salvage, am I? Never mind. Don’t answer that. Are you in the crapper for bringing it up?”

  It surprised her that he’d ask. “Not so far.”

  “Good. Let me know when you’re back at OutSector.”

  “I will.” She cut the connection, ate her soup and her sandwich, and wasn’t at all surprised to find a Marine waiting for her in the corridor outside the mess when she left.

  “Come in, Gunnery Sergeant Kerr. I won’t keep you long.”

  Torin entered as ordered and came to attention in front of the desk, staring at the gray-green plaque on the wall just over General Morris’ head. It was the same color as Major Svensson’s fingernails and that led down paths she’d rather not travel—although artificial fingernail was not the strangest building material she’d ever seen used. She couldn’t quite make out what battle the raised letters commemorated.

  “Damn it, stop doing that. You know I hate it.”

  “Yes, sir.” She relaxed slightly into parade rest.

  “What escape pod, Gunny?”

  That drew her attention to his face. “Sir?”

  Hands linked, he tapped joined index fingers against his chin. “You asked Major Alie this morning about an escape pod from Big Yellow.”

  Not a question but she answered it anyway. “Yes, sir.”

  “What are you up to?”

  “Sir?”

  “There was no escape pod, Gunny.”

  By the time she’d made sergeant, Torin could remain expressionless under any condition. That skill came in handy now. There had been an escape pod. She’d seen Craig Ryder get into it on Big Yellow and had seen the alien ship spit the pod out into space. One of the Jades from the Berganitan’s Black Star Squadron had caught it up in an energy field and maneuvered it back to the ship, tossing it into a net strung across shuttle bay one to catch it. General Morris had been there when Craig had emerged from the pod.

  General Morris was a politician at heart, but he wasn’t that good a liar.

  He believed there was no escape pod.

  “I spoke of the escape pod in my mission report, sir.”

  “No, you did not.”

  Yes, I damned well did. “If I could see . . .”

  “No, you can’t. The mission reports concerning Big Yellow are classified.” He leaned back, eyes narrowed within the folds of flesh. “But I assure you, Gunnery Sergeant, there was no mention of an escape pod in your mission report. Nor in any of the others. Nor at any of the debriefings.”

  The recon team had been debriefed separately and then sent back to their respec
tive units. It was possible, if unlikely, that no one else had mentioned the escape pod. But she had. She remembered it clearly.

  “We’d lost the first one because we misinterpreted the controls, but the second one launched with CSO Craig Ryder inside.”

  The Elder Races insisted they were against violence in all forms; Torin found herself wondering how they felt about mind control. And why would they wipe General Morris’ memory but not hers or Craig’s?

  “I understand how the kind of attention you’ve been under lately can go to your head, but you, of all people, should know better than to exaggerate for the sake of your audience. Not that you should have an audience,” he continued as Torin blinked at him. “You know the information about Big Yellow is classified.”

  Okay. Firm ground here, at least. Even the patronizing tone was familiar. “Yes, sir.”

  “Thanks to Presit a Tur durValintrisy at Sector Central News, the greater part of the Confederation—those who were not actually on the mission—knows exactly what we want them to know. And we don’t want them to know anything else.” His eyes narrowed above florid cheeks. “Do I make myself clear, Gunnery Sergeant Kerr?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. You’re going to have to hurry to make your afternoon briefing.”

  “Yes, sir.” She came back to attention, pivoted on one heel, and left the office. Well, that was a whiskey tango foxtrot conversation.

  “Gunny.”

  Torin stopped at Captain Stedrin’s desk.

  He glanced toward the open door to the outer office, where two corporals and the Krai private who’d been sent to fetch her toiled over the general’s data entry, and beckoned Torin closer.

  She leaned in.

  “Look, if you were anyone else, you’d have been up shit creek for that stunt this morning. I’m finding it hard to believe that the Marine I knew would make up a salvage claim even for a vantru. You’re golden right now, Kerr, but don’t let it go to your head.”

  “No, sir.”

  Lieutenant Stedrin—Captain Stedrin—had also been there when Craig came out of the escape pod.

  She made it to her afternoon briefing on time, but only just. Distracted by the certainty that something hinky was going on, she dropped into the wrong vertical and had to start again from the parade square.