The Heart of Valor

by Huff, Tanya

  “Yes, sir.” Factor in ice and crevices masked with drifts of snow and even the di’Taykan would have difficulty taking that particular high road while carrying Staff Sergeant Beyhn. The thirty meters of flat land between ridge and swamp was the best route north. Low evergreens, their needles sharp enough to cut through exposed skin, hugged the base of the rock. Spindly trees—so close to willows in appearance and habitat that Torin applied the name even though they were an entirely different species on an entirely different world—grew in sparse clumps between the evergreens and the swamps. The land itself—probably boggy in the summer—was mostly flat and easy to move over.

  At the moment, however, the most distinguishing feature of the area was the hole left by the mine—earth and rock and bits of bloody flesh spread out in a two-meter radius. By heading nearly due north since before dawn at the fastest possible pace the stretcher bearers could maintain, the platoon had moved far enough off the path of the training scenario that the mine field hadn’t been marked on anyone’s download.

  There were plenty of high-tech ways to do soft tissue damage, but mines were cheap and so basic a construction that they couldn’t be disarmed from orbit, requiring the significantly more dangerous physical contact. While it was a truism throughout most of known space that the shortest distance between two points was a straight line, it was equally true as far as the Corps was concerned that the shortest distance between two points had probably been mined. Both sides used them and although the Corps PR insisted the Others had used them first, Torin wouldn’t have been willing to swear that was the case.

  No way of telling when these particular mines had been planted although they’d undoubtedly been serviced the last time NHS19 had come up for maintenance. DIs bringing their platoons this way, knowing the mines were part of their scenario, would use them as teaching tools and object lessons; blowing them for the best effect.

  Activating them wouldn’t require reprogramming but merely the flipping of an off/on switch. Even with only partial control of the systems, the Others could easily manage that.

  One/one had been on point, a minimum distance out in front.

  “We’re in bizarro land now, Gunny, keep them close,” Major Svensson had told her as the team moved out. “We can’t take a chance on having a team cut off.”

  Torin had agreed with the major’s assessment.

  In the lead, Hisht had been hugging the bushes, desperate enough for green that he was willing to put in the extra work to avoid the clumps of needles that capped each branch. He hadn’t noticed the stubby-legged herbivore until he nearly stepped on it. He jumped back as the animal rocketed up out of its nest, tripped over his own boot print in the snow, and fell flat.

  Pieces of the animal, chunks of dirt, shards of rock and shrapnel from the mine passed harmlessly over his head.

  Sakar was hit twice on his way to the ground, but his vest absorbed most of the impact.

  Kichar’s helmet deflected a rock that would have caved in the side of her skull.

  Farthest from the blast, favoring the leg that had been creased in their first skirmish, Bonninski hadn’t been hit by anything either large or solid enough to do damage.

  Major Svensson looked at the four imprints of bodies in the snow, then over at the Marines who’d been bruised and frightened but were still very much alive. “Sometimes the gods smile,” he grunted.

  “Yes, sir.”

  And sometimes they kick you over and stomp you flat.

  The major knew the corollary as well as Torin, so she didn’t bother mentioning it.

  Doctor Sloan, who’d gone through the shelling with considerable aplomb for a civilian, had reached her limit on explosions. She quickly checked bruises and inconsequential lacerations while keeping up a steady stream of snark about the sort of people who’d leave explosives lying around for other people to step on interspersed with a detailed list of just what exactly said explosives were capable of doing to Human, di’Taykan, and Krai bodies.

  Sergeant Annatahwee started toward her, intending to shut her up.

  “Let her talk.” Torin blocked the sergeant’s path.

  “I don’t think the recruits need to hear the gory details of what’ll happen to them if they step on a mine.”

  “I do. A few gory details now could stop a lot of gore later.”

  “She’s freaking them out.”

  “She’s freaking you out; at least half of them seem fascinated. Let her talk.”

  Annatahwee stared past Torin’s shoulder for a moment,then she nodded, spun on one heel—not an easy maneuver given the snow—and stomped away.

  “Trouble, Gunny?”

  “No, sir.”

  He pushed his helmet back on his head and scratched under the edge of his toque. “Options.”

  “The mines have no energy signature for the scanners to read, and while I have a reader on my slate, I don’t have a wand.” She paused, one brow up. The major would have a reader on his slate as well, she’d bet her pension on that. The only question was—would he have one of the filaments that actually swept the ground when the original scenario had not included mines?

  “Reader,” he nodded. “But no wand. You always forget to pack something. I probably left the lights on, too.”

  Running the mines without a wand had a survival rate just above suicidal.

  “We’ll be exposed out on the swamp, but the snow isn’t deep and we’ll make good time. We won’t be as exposed on the ridge, but we’ll move a lot more slowly.”

  The major squinted up at the top of the rocks. “And there’s something to be said for having the high ground.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Mind you,” he continued, “with this particular high ground what’s likely to be said is, ‘Help, I’m falling.’ Odds of trouble from above?”

  Torin glanced up at a pewter colored sky. “Likely, if you’re talking about snow. Total crapshoot if you’re talking about Crucible coming at us from the air. We’re moving blind with no way of knowing what the Others have available to activate in this sector.”

  “All right. Without wands, the straight and narrow path is out. I don’t like the idea of this lot having to fight the landscape as well as an unknown enemy, so that knocks us off the ridge. Looks like we’re sprinting up the frozen swamp, Gunny. Any chance it’s mined, too?”

  “A slim one, sir. And if it is, we’ll be able to pick it up on the scanners.”

  “We will?”

  “Crucible is a classroom, sir. If there’s a mine in the swamp, it’s just there to reinforce the lesson these mines have taught. If a path is obvious to you, it’s obvious to the enemy,” she added when he indicated she should expand on just what that lesson might be. “And you should always watch where you walk.”

  “What if, in this case, they’re teaching us that you can’t get there from here?”

  “Then we’re screwed, sir.” But the subtext said, Stop being an ass just because you can. Sir.

  He heard the subtext and grinned. “Move ’em out on the ice, Gunny. We’ve got miles to go before we sleep.”

  Presit a Tur durValintrisy worked for Sector Central News, their main offices for this part of the sector at MidSector Station. Craig liked MidSector Station. It was a short Susumi jump away, it usually had a few cheap berths open, and there was a decent chop shop at sub27 where he could get a few parts for the Promise at an “I see no removed serial numbers” price.

  Unfortunately, Presit, who considered herself an investigative journalist rather than a fuzzy pain in the arse, wasn’t at MidSector Station. Fortunately, Craig had been with her on Big Yellow while she covered the top news story of the year; that plus his best smile and a little heavy charm convinced one of the office PAs to spill.

  “She’s where?”

  “Presit a Tur durValintrisy are in orbit around Rosenee.” The Katrien on his screen scrunched up her very pointed muzzle in distaste. “There are being riots on a gas mining platform.”

  �
��Is she likely to be there for a couple more days?”

  “Easily. Apparently, she are getting to the bottom of things.”

  Craig grinned at the tone. Presit hadn’t made herself too popular around the station, it seemed. “Let’s hope I get there before someone shows her the bottom of a gas tube, then.”

  “There are no need for you to be hurrying.”

  “Any other time I’d agree with you, but this time I need to chew over some old news with her. Thanks for the info.”

  “You are welcome, Mr. Ryder. But if you are please not letting her know how you are finding her.”

  It took him a moment to untangle the syntax.

  “Don’t worry, darlin’,” he told her at last. “I won’t let on who gave me the drum.”

  She might have looked relieved, but it was hard for a nonfurbearing species to tell for certain. After he signed off, he called up all current Susumi equations for Rosenee, a gas giant out toward the edge of the sector’s y-axis. As the basic equations would need specific adaptations for his ship, he poured himself a fresh cup of coffee and settled down at the console to do some basic math.

  Bigger ships, ships with crews, had Susumi engineers. He had a good program, a head for numbers, and a basic desire to survive the trip.

  “Sergeant Jiir! Long-range scanner’s got an energy signal at 193 degrees!”

  Jiir jogged over to the Marine’s side. “Show me, Stevens.”

  “I don’t . . .” Stevens tipped her head left, then right. “Damn.”

  “You’ve lost it?”

  “It was at the edge of the scanner’s range,” she explained, continuing to try and coax the reading back. “It was barely . . . There! 193.77 degrees!”

  From his lower angle he might have seen a flicker of something at 193.77, but he wasn’t sure. At 193.84, though, his scanner showed a fuzzy point of contact. “Don’t lose it again,” he snapped. “And let me know the moment you get better definition.” Stepping away from her position, he tapped his com with one mittened hand. “Gunny, we’ve got incoming on our six.”

  “How many?”

  “Still too far back to get separate signals.”

  Long-range was relative with the basic helmet scanner. Marines were infantry and generally not particularly interested in anything they couldn’t shoot with a KC-7—on the other hand, they were very interested in what might be showing up to shoot at them. Had they been carrying any artillery, they’d have had an actual long-range scanner. As it was, they could grab an energy signal at five kilometers under optimum conditions. Fortunately, the total absence of any ambient energy in the area made the current conditions about as optimum as it got.

  “Let me know the moment we get a number.”

  “Sergeant Jiir! I have three signals, Sergeant.”

  He stomped back beside her and squinted through his scanner. “They’re still at the edge of scanner range, Stevens. I’m only seeing one.”

  “They’ve split and come back together a couple of times. Never more than three contacts, though. There! See the split? Three contacts.”

  His nose ridges flared. “For maybe half a nanosecond. Are you sure?”

  “Sir! Yes, sir!”

  “Three,” Torin repeated. “Good work, Sergeant. All right, people, let’s pick up the pace!” As the platoon began to move faster over the frozen swamp, she trotted forward to tell the major.

  “Three drones against thirty-six of us?” he snorted as she fell into step beside him. “The Others never struck me as that bad at math.”

  “Nor me, sir, but it’s likely taking them some time to program the CPNs. It’s easier to free up the long-range drones the way they freed up the tank—they’re throwing what they can at us while they work at gaining enough control over Crucible to destroy us.” She pulled off a mitten and thumbed a map up on her slate. “We’re off the scenario, so there’s no telling what resources each CPN has, but . . .” A touch on the screen and the node they were approaching lit up. “. . . if we camp in tight, we can not only give McGuinty another chance to crack the system but extend the node’s no fire zone over the platoon.”

  “No fire zone?

  “None of the scenarios I downloaded ever included making camp right on top of a node. Every camp has been a minimum of one kilometer away. It looks like the drones have safety protocols that keep them from firing near their controllers and by camping tight and forcing the Others to work through that on top of everything else, we’ll delay them gaining control of this specific CPN.”

  “Unless they’ve already got control and we’re walking into an ambush.”

  “We’ll watch for that, sir.”

  He scratched his throat under the collar of the bodyliner. “Or during the night they could gain control of everything but the safety protocols and ambush us in the morning.”

  “That’s possible, sir. We’ll take that into account when we move out.”

  “Business as usual, then, Gunny? Stay sharp and out of the bag?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And the three drones behind us?” He jerked his head.

  Torin turned, looking past the Marines, past the thick tufts of rushes stuck up through the ice, drifts of snow fingering out from their leeward side. She smiled. “We’ve got three Marines who shot Expert, sir.”

  Silver-gray sky, silver-gray snow; Stone checked his sights again and thanked any gods who were listening that the drones were not silver gray. At least the drones they’d seen so far hadn’t been. These could be, of course.

  A rustle to his right.

  “Calm down, Cho,” he murmured, eyes on the sky. No point in shutting down all energy systems if the drones sensed movement.

  “They should be here by now. What if they changed heading?”

  “Gunny said to give them an hour. Said if they haven’t passed by then, they won’t.”

  “Well, how long’s it been?”

  “Twenty-seven minutes.”

  “Seems longer.”

  He wasn’t arguing. It had been the longest twenty-seven minutes he’d ever spent lying camouflaged in a snowbank.

  “What if we can’t see them,” Cho muttered. “Snow and sky’s the same color.”

  “Not to me,” Lirit snorted from Stone’s left. “I can see . . .”

  “Incoming.” He shifted slightly to better track the center drone. “Twelve o’clock.”

  “Got them.”

  “They’re moving fast.”

  “Yeah, but right toward us.”

  “On my word.” Gunnery Sergeant Kerr had put Stone in charge. Because someone has to be, she’d said. And you’re marginally the best shooter. You have to hit them simultaneously; if they start evasive action, you’ll be SOL. It wasn’t exactly shooting at a moving target; it was more like shooting at a target that kept getting bigger. The question became: how much bigger should they be allowed to get?

  “Stone . . .”

  “Wait for it.”

  The center drone filled his gunsight: triangular wings clearly visible, folded extremities a shadow against the main casing. He refused to look up and see how close it actually was.

  “Acquire your target.”

  “One acquired.”

  “Three acquired.”

  “Two acquired.” Maybe he didn’t need to say it. He wasn’t sure. “Fire on silent three count.”

  Deep breath on one. Hold it on two. Squeeze the trigger on three.

  Three shots so close together they sounded like one. An instant after that, the echo bounced back off the ridge.

  Two drones flared red and dropped out of the sky.

  The third drone hit the ice and didn’t bounce.

  The crack as it broke through sounded like a fourth shot.

  The sounds as the ice continued to crack brought up memories of a sinking tank and Stone threw himself back out of the drift, tripped over the rushes and landed in a tangled pile with both Cho and Lirit who had, evidently, done the same damned fool thing. The di’Tayk
an got to her feet first. Head cocked, she held up a hand for silence.

  The other two Marines complied. The ice continued to crack.

  “Son of a fukking . . .”

  And then it stopped.

  It was suddenly so quiet, Stone thought he could hear his nose hair freeze.

  “Didn’t come this far. We’re okay.”

  Crack.

  “Not that humping our butts out of here isn’t a damned good idea!”

  As the only Marine besides the major with recon experience, Major Svensson had put Torin on point with one/three—moving one/one, too jumpy to be sharp, into the body of the moving platoon.

  “From here on in, we teach these Marines how to stay alive and that means we utilize all that government training we’ve benefited from over the years.” He swept a pale gaze across his NCOs. “Since we’ve got a whole platoon of greenies under attack, we’ll all be getting our hands dirtier than we might be used to.”

  Dirty wasn’t a problem—cold, though, that was making things a bit dangerous as Torin, on her stomach, cheek pressed against the snow, both arms buried almost shoulder-deep, had begun to lose feeling in her fingers. On the other hand, the cold—or more specifically an eddy in the vapor plume her breath made in the cold air—had given away the position of the upper filament just before her shin would have hit the lower, so she had no plans of complaining too loudly.

  “All right, Ashlan . . .” She worked her right hand free. “. . . give me back the scarab.”

  “I still can’t believe you saw that line,” he muttered as he set the tool back in her hand, waiting until her fingers had closed around it before he let go.

  “I didn’t see it.” She carefully worked the blades back into the spool’s access hole, right hand pressed against her left arm as it moved lest she cut anything better left in one piece. “I saw a pattern I couldn’t identify.”