The Heart of Valor

by Huff, Tanya

  “You’ve got about a half an hour if Dr. Sloan maintains speed. I’ll ping you before the fireworks start.”

  “Roger, Gunny. Out.”

  Nice to know the other two sentries were exactly where she expected they’d be. It raised the odds they’d be right about the rest of the drones gathered in the power station.

  It turned out to be closer to forty-five minutes, Dr. Sloan visibly tiring as she covered the final kilometer back to the platoon, the circle of light her sleeve cast on the snow skittering sideways at odd moments, the red line looping to both sides of the green. The moment she was far enough from the sentry, Major Svensson went out to meet her, nearly carrying her the last few meters.

  Torin had objected and then shut her mouth about it. She hated waiting, too.

  “Next time,” Dr. Sloan panted, dropping onto the rock ledge the major had cleared of snow, “you can just go yourselves and get shot. I honestly don’t care.”

  “Next time,” Major Svensson agreed, dropping to one knee so he could look into her face. When he was satisfied with what he saw, he handed her a canteen.

  She took a long swallow, wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, and said, “You know you have a bunch of Marines down there by those trees, right?”

  “They’re at the ZP,” he told her. “The Zero Point. Any closer and the enemy sentry would have to do something about them.”

  “What? The drones know we’re here?” Leaning forward, she punched him in the shoulder. Torin glared at the watching Marines until they stopped smiling. “I thought the whole point of my little trek through the twelfth circle of hell was so the drones wouldn’t know we were here.”

  “No, it was so they wouldn’t know we were planting explosives. They know we have Marines at all three ZPs. They know these Marines won’t attack because attacking a sentry over that distance, a sentry that’s aware of you, is stupid at best and suicide at worst. While we’re covering the distance, they’d have nothing to do but shoot at us.”

  “I thought they couldn’t kill you.”

  “They can’t. But the ETGs only ensure nonlethal until the programming changes, and we don’t know when that’ll happen, so we can’t risk . . .”

  Dr. Sloan raised a hand, cutting him off. “I get that we don’t want the programming to change,” she said wearily, “and I’ll take your word for the rest.”

  “Sorry. The point is, they’re dug in and defensible, they can afford to be lax.”

  “They’re not lax,” she sighed. “They’re programmed. They’re drones.”

  “Ah, but they don’t know that.”

  It took her a moment. She frowned as meaning pushed past exhaustion. “You people . . .”

  When she let it lie there, the major patted her arm— not unsympathetically, and stood.

  “Make it happen, Gunny.”

  “Yes, sir.” Torin turned to face the settlement. It wasn’t necessary; she could detonate the charges no matter which way she faced, but she preferred to look the enemy in the eye—or sensor array—even if the gesture was purely symbolic because of the dark. A tap on her comm to make sure the entry teams were listening. “Heads up, people . . .” Behind her, she could hear the sound of Marines readying their weapons. “. . . we’re about to blow.”

  Both sergeants, Torin, and Major Svensson had all done demolition training—although only Torin and the major had applied that training in combat. A quick run over their options and they’d agreed to err on the side of caution and use all the available charges. Training platoons didn’t travel with an abundance of explosive power; privately, Torin hoped they’d have enough.

  The sound wasn’t as loud as she’d expected; a series of distant bangs when she’d been hoping for blam. Turned out the blam had been momentarily delayed. The power plant lit up the night sky, painting the settlement with streaks of orange and red.

  “Holy crap,” someone observed.

  Either the drones were extraordinarily explosive with only a little encouragement or the charges had gotten stronger since she’d taken her last course.

  Three squads at the ZPs. Another three ready to move in a direct line to the anchor. Get it. Hold it. The final three squads, including the walking wounded, to remain in place, guarding the doctor and injured. Torin and the major were going in with the second wave. It only made sense; together they had more combat experience than everyone else in the immediate area combined, and if the bulk of the drones hadn’t been destroyed with the power station or if the Others managed to reprogram before they had the platoon under cover, they needed to be on the scene and able to make the necessary decisions.

  Individually, they had more combat experience than everyone else in the immediate area combined. Using the information Torin sent him, the major could make the necessary decisions safely back beyond the ZP. Unfortunately, the major didn’t see it that way.

  Jiir lost the toss and remained with the reserve squad.

  The explosion was not only intended to destroy the majority of the drones but also to pull the enemy sentries out of their defensive positions. In Torin’s experience, there was nothing like an attack inside the perimeter, the sudden, explosive evidence of failure, to throw sentries off their game.

  The distinctive crack of KC-7s proved her point.

  “One/two reporting target down. Moving in.”

  “Three/one reporting target down. Moving in.”

  “One/one reporting target down.” Torin could hear the relief in Kichar’s voice and she grinned. “Moving in.”

  “All right people, let’s go.”

  The first surviving drone nearly took off Sakur’s head. Would have had Hisht not knocked the di’Taykan to the snow as a round slammed into the building behind him, spraying them with smoking debris.

  “Ablin gon savit!”

  “Highly welcome,” Hisht yelled back, rolling clear.

  Sakur scrambled up to his feet, heart pounding, hair stinging his cheeks as it whipped around under the edges of his helmet. “I thought they were programmed not to kill us,” he snarled knocking the snow from his weapon.

  “You have not died,” the Krai pointed out as Lirit caught the drone in a short, sharp burst and blew it to bits.

  The second surviving drone came around the corner of one of the buildings they’d already searched and moved out onto the road behind them. It got off three fast shots before Kichar took it down with a single shot of the KC-9.

  Sakur’s vest absorbed most of the impact of all three enemy rounds. “Why me again?” he demanded, wincing as his vest lost its defensive rigidity.

  “Your sparkling personality?” Kichar offered, smacking him on the shoulder as she caught up. “Let’s move.”

  “No sympathy?”

  “For bruising?” she snorted. “Not likely. Now move, we have another eight buildings in this sector.”

  “You can’t . . .”

  “I can,” she growled, glad of the mittens that hid the way her fingers were trembling. “The gunny put me in charge of this team. Now move!”

  The third, fourth, and fifth surviving drones were together in a building on the north side of Dunstan Mills not far from the sentry’s position. With one/two keeping up steady but random fire, Stevens crawled forward to toss both her grenades through one of the broken windows near where her scanner showed them as red circles behind the barrier of the wall. As she moved, the distance registered kept changing.

  Just like we practiced on the range, she told herself, hissing through her teeth as melting snow dribbled down the inside of her cuff. These things can’t kill us. Unless the Others had reprogrammed in the last few minutes. And they could have. Shut up, brain! The first grenade made a perfect arc through the broken window. As the second grenade left her hand, a three count after the first, she turned and raced back toward a low wall. Still counting, she dove for cover—she’d made the move a hundred times back on Ventris. Could almost hear Staff Sergeant Beyhn yelling at her to hustle.

  Four of
the five rounds fired from the building hit the wall.

  The enemy killed the first grenade. But not the second.

  “Textbook example of using an adrenaline rush against the enemy,” Ioeyn said smugly as the rest of the team dropped down beside her, kicking up a spray of snow.

  “Hardly surprising,” Cho snapped at the di’Taykan. “This is a classroom.” Then he took a good look at Stevens’ position. “Are you all right?”

  Steven’s stared up at him with wide eyes, then twisted around, trying to examine her right cheek. “They shot me in the ass! When I went over the wall, they shot me in the ass!”

  “No one ever died from getting shot in the ass,” Duarte observed, her heart pounding so loudly she could barely hear her voice over it. “And your med-alert didnt even go off.”

  “It fukking hurts!”

  “It bounced off you. It didn’t even go through your combats.”

  “I got shot in the ass!”

  “Then you left your ass up where they could shoot it! This isn’t an exercise! Didn’t Oshyo teach you that?”

  “Oshyo?” Stevens glared at Duarte. “Don’t even talk to me about her!”

  “Not the time to be talking, period,” Cho growled, grabbing her arm. “We have to finish clearing this section. Can you walk?”

  “It fukking hurts!”

  He rolled his eyes. “Can you walk?”

  “Yes, I can walk!” Sucking cold air past clenched teeth, she stood. “Still hurts.”

  “Still not going to die,” Duarte murmured as she passed. Oshyo had died.

  Torin could hear the entry teams taking fire, and prayed that the Others hadn’t reprogrammed.

  Grenade!

  One of theirs. And only one. Odds were good it meant that one of the teams had taken out a small enclave of drones.

  Torin tried not to think about the odds in combat. That way led to hard liquor and an early body bag.

  Head down, staying close to the major’s left side, she pounded along the streets that gave them the fastest path to their chosen building.

  “Definitely the anchor,” Major Svensson panted by her left shoulder as all three squads paused, pressed tight up against the buildings closest to their target. “Let’s hear it for the anal retentives in Parliament who insist every colony starts the same way, thereby ensuring that the anal retentives in the Corps drop an anchor into their training colonies.”

  Two stories tall, set back from the river, it commanded a good view of the entire settlement—which was very likely why the scenario included at least one drone on the roof.

  “Son of a bitch!” The Marine on point dove back toward safety as rounds from the roof kicked up a spray of snow.

  Being able to see the drone as a red circle a meter in from the edge seemed a bit moot. They knew it was there.

  “Any way to be certain they’re still targeting nonlethal areas, Gunny?”

  “Only one I can think of, sir.”

  “Not sure walking out there and letting him shoot you is a good idea, Gunny.”

  “Hadn’t intended to let him shoot me, sir.” Although she had given it a moment’s consideration.

  Safest decision was to act as if they could die at any moment and the anchor had to be reached anyway.

  They crossed one at a time, broken pattern running, trusting to the night and to camouflage and to whatever gods they personally believed in. Unless the shooter was very good or very lucky, moving targets wearing combats designed to fool the eye were damned near impossible to hit with a personal weapon. Unless the Others were in control of the drones in which case the trainers worked remarkably like a targeting beacon.

  Torin crossed first, only because she had the best odds of identifying and disarming any traps on the doors. And being one of the only grown-ups is getting old fast, she sighed as she sprinted across the open ground, twisting, turning, and adding about another fifteen meters to the run. Her boots seemed to have been gaining weight all day and now felt like dragging a full-grown Krai around on the end of each leg.

  The outer doors were unlocked and open about six centimeters, snow drifted across the threshold and into the air lock entry. The inner doors were wide open. The scenario had left the explosive equivalent of a bucket of water propped on one of the outer doors, and Torin had it disarmed before the next Marine arrived. Annatahwee had sent two/two over with orders to take out the drone.

  “Remember that if it’s on scenario, the Others don’t surrender. It’ll self-destruct. If it’s been reprogrammed, it’ll just try to kill you,” she told them as they passed. Because she hadn’t been intended to hear it, and because she hadn’t told them anything they didn’t already know, she ignored Ducote’s murmurmed, “Yes, Mother.” She had no idea how Staff Sergeant Beyhn had survived a career of taking new Marines to Crucible. After only three days, she had to constantly fight the urge to shove them out of the way and do things herself.

  Of course, the staff sergeant’s recruits had never been in any real danger.

  A spray of snow chased Kirassai to the building.

  “Break the pattern up!” she yelled, grabbing the di’Taykan’s arm and hauling her up onto the step. “Keep it fresh and keep it moving!” Pushing Kirassai to the left edge of the door, she snapped, “Watch 90 to 180! Shoot anything you see that isn’t one of us.”

  “Ducote!” Sergeant Annatahwee on group channel as the last of the second squad started toward the anchor building. “Is there a particular reason why that bastard drone is still shooting at us and not at you?”

  “Yes, Sergeant! We can’t get onto the roof. We’d need a demo charge to get through the door.”

  And the charges had been used.

  Three/two was across. The drone still had a shot at Major Svensson, the sergeant, and three/three as well as the three squads working their way in from the sentry positions.

  “One/one, one/two, three/one—we have a shooter on the roof of the anchor. Repeat a shooter on the roof of the anchor. Advance with extreme caution.”

  During shipping, the access to the roof had been sealed between two pieces of spaceship hull. The colonists would cut out the inner piece, open the door, cut out the outer—the door opened in and couldn’t be locked from outside. If two/two couldn’t get through it, the drone had fused it somehow.

  Another learning experience, as Dr. Sloan liked to say.

  Major Svensson was across. Then Sergeant Annatahwee.

  Then Meir slipped on ice under the snow and landed hard on his back. The drone had a clear shot at his face, the one uncovered part of his body. A guaranteed lethal shot. Meir jerked at the impact, then scrambled to his feet and raced for the doorway, blood seeping up from the crease across his left bicep.

  “It’s still a scenario,” Torin declared as the sergeant nearly dragged Meir off his feet getting him up and into the building. “That means somewhere inside is the way to get through that door!”

  “On it!” Handing Meir off to Leford, the sergeant ran inside, yelling for Ducote and crew to leave the door and start searching the upper level for a cutting tool.

  “Hope it wasn’t in the power station,” the major murmured quietly enough so only Torin heard.

  When the last two Marines made it across, Torin followed them into the anchor, leaving Kirassai at the door on watch.

  Straight ahead, a wide hall led to another set of doors. Almost directly to the left, through a wide break in the interior wall, was a large rectangular room with long, narrow windows taking up nearly the entire far side. It had probably started as storage for construction supplies and become the community hall when it emptied out after the other buildings were built.

  “Three bennies in a weapons locker, rear of this floor, near what looked like holding cells,” the sergeantannounced, grinning broadly as she rejoined Torin and the major. “Ducote’s team are cutting the door out now.”

  “Good work.” Major Svensson pushed himself up off the wall and walked past Torin into the community ha
ll. “Let’s get the rest of the building secured.”

  Torin answered Annatahwee’s worried frown with a noncommittal shrug and followed. The major might be reaching the end of his reserves, but until he fell over, she could do nothing about it.

  Her light picked out a pile of objects in the middle of the room just as her nose recognized the familiar smell of rot. The hair lifted off the back of her neck. She could hear the major’s breathing hitch and then speed up.

  “Meat bags,” Sergeant Annatahwee said quietly. “They set them out under a stasis field when they set up the scenario. When it’s activated, the stasis field is turned off. It’s to get the recruits used to . . .”

  “I know.” Torin cut her off. “Get them used to what you find because the Others don’t take prisoners.”

  “Yeah. I’ll have the di’Taykan put their nose filters in,” the sergeant added. “We’ll move these out once we know . . .”

  Three quick shots.

  “Gunny . . .”

  For one long moment Torin thought the next words out of the major’s mouth were going to be with me, and she had a vision of him charging forward and falling flat on his face.

  His expression suggested he was having the same vision.

  “. . . take care of that!”

  “Yes, sir!” She pounded the length of the room and through a small door in the middle left of the building’s center wall. A quick turn, and she was in the lower level toilets. As she ran past the open stalls, the Marine by the sinks whirled around, weapon up, just as the rest of her fireteam piled through the door in the other end of the room.

  “What the hell is going on . . .” Two more long steps and Torin could see the Marine’s face. “. . . Vaughn?”

  “Sir! I saw something, sir!”

  “Don’t call me sir, Vaughn.”

  “Yes, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  The shattered mirror made it fairly obvious what she’d seen.

  When the major grinned, the rest of Vaughn’s team took that as permission to ride their teammate mercilessly. Torin let it go on for about thirty seconds.