Valour's Choice

by Tanya Huff

  Jarret jerked to a stop and reached out to grab her arm, only barely managing to keep his fingers from closing—the situation had not yet deteriorated to the point where he’d be excused for panic-clutching his senior NCO. “Cri Sawyes!”

  “Contained, sir.”

  “Contained?” When she nodded, he started breathing again. “I can’t believe I forgot there was a Silsviss on board.”

  “Well, I wasn’t the one who contained him,” Torin admitted dryly, figuring one confession deserved another. “The Mictok ambassador arranged it while I was in the cockpit.”

  “Really?”

  “Not something I’d be likely to make up, sir. And you, at least, had the excuse of having been knocked unconscious.”

  Fingertips lightly touched the bruise purpling his cheek. “Careless of us both, Staff Sergeant.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He held her gaze for a moment, then started walking again. “Strangely enough,” he said, his matter-of-fact tone an almost exact copy of her earlier one, “the discovery that you’re not perfect is making me feel significantly more confident.”

  Unable to decide if she was insulted or amused, Torin fell back into step beside him. “I’m glad I could help, sir.”

  “Do you believe Cri Sawyes when he says the missiles weren’t Silsviss?”

  “I believe him when he says he doesn’t recognize them, sir. As to whether or not they’re Silsviss...” She shrugged. “I don’t know. He also points out that we can’t hold him responsible for the actions of the entire planet.”

  “We can,” the lieutenant corrected wryly. “The question is whether or not we should.”

  “He says he isn’t our enemy.”

  “And do you believe that?”

  “Well, lying is in his best interests right now, but I don’t think he was.”

  “Why not? Because you like him?”

  “Essentially, sir, yes.” When Lieutenant Jarret shot her a questioning glance, she shrugged again. “Not much to go on,” she admitted, acknowledging his expression.

  “I wouldn’t say that.” He nodded toward the rank insignia on her collar. “You didn’t get those by being a bad judge of character.”

  Surprised at the depth of her reaction, Torin touched the stacked chevrons over the crossed KC silhouettes. “Thank you, sir.” For no good reason, she found herself feeling better about the unmitigated mess they were all facing.

  *Contamination levels now 3.9 and rising.*

  A little better. Not a lot.

  * * *

  “Pontoons?”

  “The empty storage units float, sir, and they’ll hold the Dornagain.”

  Standing just behind the lieutenant’s left shoulder, Torin leaned around him and glanced pointedly at Strength of Arm’s muddy haunches.

  “Well, they will now,” Aylex amended, grinning. “As long as they cross one at a time.”

  Stepping onto the first of the completed sections, Lieutenant Jarret bounced thoughtfully. Dried mud flaked off the sides of the containers into slow moving ripples as the bridge undulated along its entire length. The omnipresent odor of rotting vegetation grew momentarily stronger. After one final bounce, he turned, stepped back onto the VTA, and yelled, “Well done!” over the sudden crash of two more units bouncing down the wing. “How soon can you have it finished?”

  Aylex looked over at his crew and shrugged. “Well, sir, as long as Strength of Arm keeps tearing things apart and Gar’itac keeps tying them together...”

  The Mictok was actually tying the storage units together with cable but doing it with a speed and dexterity impossible to match with only two arms.

  “...it’ll be done before it’s time to leave.”

  * * *

  “Talk about out of the frying pan into the fire,” Hollice muttered. He squatted and stared into the water, but nothing had changed over the last fifteen seconds—suspended organic matter still made it impossible to see below the surface. “Damn.”

  Once they’d slogged their way out of the splatter zone, the ground, although not much higher than the swamp around it, had been relatively dry. Relative to the swamp. Given the unfamiliar terrain and the massed vegetation, they’d made slow but steady time.

  Until now.

  It looked as if something had taken a gigantic bite out of the ridge they’d been following and the swamp had seeped into the hollow. There was no way around it that didn’t involve a significantly worse scenario and the end of the kilometer they were scouting was on the other side.

  “Ground gets a lot higher over there,” Ressk assured him, squinting through his scanner and pointing at the opposite shore nearly six meters away.

  “Yeah. But we’re over here.”

  “My scanner says the bottom’s solid.”

  “Yeah. So does mine.”

  “It’s only just over a meter deep.”

  “Good. Then it won’t be over your head.”

  Ressk snorted. “Oh, that makes sense, send the short guy.”

  Juan fanned a cloud of tiny insects away from his face and swiped at a dribble of sweat with the backstroke. “Would one of you just get your ass into the water! I killed the fukking snake and we haven’t seen another one!”

  “Haven’t seen another one.” Straightening, Hollice stepped back, staggering a little as the ground reluctantly released his boots. “Bin, take a look at those trees over there.” They didn’t look much like trees, more like giant sticks topped off with a tuft of fern, but they were the tallest vegetation in the area, and after a few planetfalls he’d leamed to be flexible. At least they weren’t moving under their own power. “Scanner says they’re tall enough to bridge this—you think you can take them down from this side?”

  “Sure.” Weapon resting on her hip, Binti squinted across the gap. “But it’ll attract attention.”

  “We’re still showing no unfriendlies.”

  “Great, just one thing; I can’t make them fall where you want them from here. It’s got to be done from that side.”

  “You positive?”

  “I’m positive. So, as much as I hate to agree with Juan, get your ass in the water.”

  “You should...”

  “No, I shouldn’t,” she interrupted emphatically. “That’s lumberjack work, and you want the best shot on guard in case that snake had friends.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. Snapping his scanner down, Hollice took another look at the water. The organic soup remained too thick for a clear reading. “I ever mention how much I hate snakes?” he muttered, stepping back to the edge. “That whole legless thing they’ve got going just wigs me right out.” Lifting his weapon over his head, he lurched forward, bumped into Ressk’s arm, and stopped. “What?”

  “I’ll go.”

  “Oh, that makes sense,” Hollice snorted. “Send the short guy. No, I’m in charge here. I’ll do it. Just make sure you shoot anything that moves.”

  “But the snakes...”

  “Especially shoot the fukking snakes!”

  The water was warm, almost body temperature. Unfortunately, dress uniforms, while essentially waterproof, hadn’t been designed for walking in a swamp. Combat gear presented one impermeable surface to the outside world. At the moment, his pack, vest, and helmet would stay dry, no matter what, but he could feel water seeping into his boots and pushing up under his tunic to pour down inside the waistband of his trousers. Placing one foot carefully in front of the other, he tried not to think of what might be seeping, pushing, and pouring in with it.

  The moisture dribbling down his sides he at least knew the source of. If the brains at R&D had come up with an environmental control strong enough to handle fear sweat, he’d never worn it.

  Halfway across. He was wet, and every ripple added another layer to the stink of the place that lined the inside of his nose, but so far so good.

  Then something brushed against the back of his leg.

  The next thing he knew, he was scrambling out on the opposite
shore, heart beating so violently he couldn’t believe it hadn’t triggered his med-alert. Flopping over onto his back, he jerked up and pointed his weapon back along his path.

  Nothing. His passage had whipped up a greenish-brown foam, but whatever had touched him was still below the surface.

  “Hollice? You all right?”

  “Did you see it?”

  They hadn’t. And nothing had shown up on Ressk’s scanner.

  “Are you all right?” Binti repeated.

  “Yeah. Fine.” Breathing beginning to calm, he stood, slowly, and watched a small orange blob slide off his legs to splat against the mud below. When it started to move away from him, he stepped on it. At the moment, building impossible bridges and humping gear back at the VTA held a definite attraction.

  * * *

  “Hey, Staff, you know what I heard?”

  Torin dropped to one knee by Haysole’s stretcher and linked her fingers through his. With their lower body temperature, di’Taykans usually felt cool to Humans, but his skin was warm. “What have you heard?”

  “After I get my new legs, I can go home.”

  “Some people’ll do anything to get out of cleaning toilets.”

  Haysole flashed her a fraction of his usual grin. “Cleaning the crappers wasn’t so bad, but all that marching up and down in straight lines was really beginning to weigh.”

  They winced in unison as another supply container crashed against the wing.

  “Staff, after I get my new legs, will I be able to dance?”

  “Sure.”

  “That’s great, ’cause I can’t dance now.”

  Torin had always found it amazing how much bad humor transcended species parameters. She smiled even though Haysole’s eyes were so pale she doubted he could see more than a silhouette of her against the sky. “I know a sergeant who got busted down a rank for that joke.”

  “Good thing I’ve got no rank to bust, then.” He sucked at the straw the doctor had tucked into the corner of his mouth, and when he’d finished swallowing sighed deeply. “I never meant to be such a screwup.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  His eyes darkened as he forced himself to focus.

  “And don’t try to tell me you regret a thing because I won’t believe it. You enjoyed bucking the system, even if it meant being a private for your entire time in. There’re too many corporals around anyway. And way too many sergeants.”

  This time the grin lit up most of his face. “All after your job.”

  “Every damn one of them.” She tightened her grip for a moment and then released his hand. “Speaking of my job, I should get back to it.”

  “Staff?”

  She paused at the foot of his stretcher. “What?”

  “If I die, take off the masker before you bag me.”

  “You’re not going to die.”

  “Hey, even you can’t guarantee that.”

  He laughed at her overly indignant reaction, and she carried the sound away with her, adding it to her armaments.

  * * *

  “How’s Private Haysole?”

  Torin shook her head, although she wasn’t certain what she was denying. “His hair was so still...”

  “It’s the sedatives.”

  “The sedatives? Of course...” It wasn’t like she’d never seen an injured di’Taykan before. She felt herself flush under Lieutenant Jarret’s steady gaze. Every man and woman in the platoon was her responsibility. She wasn’t supposed to have favorites. And we weren’t supposed to face any combat on this trip either. And generals aren’t supposed to send their troops in unprepared. And... As the lieutenant’s hair fanned out from his head—and she noticed he’d finally let the doctor attend to his face—she cut short her silent soliloquy and found a new subject. “They’re securing the last floats to the bridge, sir.”

  “Good. Has Corporal Hollice’s team reported back yet?”

  “Not yet, sir.” The communication system built into her helmet—into everyone’s helmet—buzzed. “I expect this is them now.”

  “Not an especially fast kilometer.”

  Torin looked past the mud drying and cracking on everything in sight to the tangled mass of vegetation beyond. “Not especially,” she agreed, thumbing the receive.

  * * *

  “...last of the kilometer took us out of the swamp. We’re sitting high, dry, and defensible.”

  “Unfriendlies?”

  “Nothing on scanner, Staff.”

  Torin glanced at the sky. The sun had moved past its zenith some time before but was still a distance above the horizon. “Can we get there before dark? Carrying wounded?”

  “Piece of cake.”

  “Corporal?”

  “That’s an affirmative on arriving before dark with wounded.”

  Lieutenant Jarret reached out and touched her arm.

  “Sir?”

  “Have them start back.” The lieutenant’s gaze swept over the VTA, over the civilians, over the wounded, over the dead. “We’re going to need all hands.”

  * * *

  “Back?” Ressk swallowed and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Is she kidding?”

  “Lieutenant’s orders,” Hollice told them, flipping the tiny microphone back up into its recess. “We’re to set out a perimeter and leave the packs.”

  “We’ll be walking it three fukking times while everyone else walks it once!” Juan protested loudly.

  “Yeah, and back at the VTA they’ve been sitting on their collective ass while we’ve been working.” Activating his perimeter pin, Hollice pushed it into the ground. “Set up and let’s get moving.”

  * * *

  Brows down and hair up, Lieutenant Jarret swept a questioning gaze up one side of the armory and down the other. “We seem to be exceptionally well armed for a ceremonial mission, Staff.”

  “Standard armory on a VTA this size, sir.”

  “But two extra lockers of KCs?”

  Torin had wondered about that herself. The KC-7 was a Marine’s personal weapon, and it made no sense that they were carrying enough to outfit a second platoon. “Supply back on the station told me they were part of the diplomatic mission and not our concern.”

  Jarret shot her an incredulous stare. “They were going to arm the Silsviss?”

  “That’s certainly what it looks like.”

  “Has the Parliament completely lost its collective mind?”

  That was probably a rhetorical question, but Torin chose to answer it anyway. “I believe they thought the Silsviss were on our side.”

  “Still...” He sighed and stretched out a hand toward the closest locker. “Not a total loss, we can use them to arm the diplomats.” Then he paused, thumb over the lock. “Why haven’t you armed the diplomats, Staff?”

  “The diplomats refused to be armed, sir.”

  His arm fell back to his side as he turned toward her. “Can’t say as I’m surprised. What are we...”

  *Contamination now at 4.2 and rising.*

  “...leaving behind?” he finished as their implants quieted.

  Torin ran her hand along the edge of a weapons locker and sighed. “Everything here, sir. We’re limited without the sleds.”

  “Everything? What about mortars?”

  “I’ve sent two of the EM223s up, sir. Two ammo packs each.”

  “Two emmies? Is that all?”

  “Even an emmy weighs in at 21 kilograms, sir, and we’re already carrying food, water, and wounded.”

  “We’re surrounded by water, Staff.”

  “Yes, sir, and we’re carrying a purifier. Counting the two sergeants, we have fifteen uninjured Marines,” she continued when he opened his mouth to protest further. “We’ll need six to carry the three stretchers and four to carry the emmies. That leaves only five with their hands free for their weapons if Corporal Hollice’s team makes it back before we leave. Granted, some of the injuries aren’t serious—they’ll be carrying the ammo packs and riding herd on the civilians.�
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  “The aircrew...”

  “The two surviving aircrew will be carrying Captain Daniels.”

  “Lieutenant Ghard...”

  “Is not my responsibility, sir.”

  He drummed his fingertips against the curve of the helmet tucked into the crook of his elbow. Reading his mood in the rhythm, Torin decided not to remind him about fingerprints smudging the photoelectric receptors. Some things it was better just to let happen.

  “All right.” The drumming stopped. “Standard operating procedure has us making camp a minimum of three kilometers away from a downed VTA.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Once we’ve established a defensive position, we can send a team back to pick up more weapons.”

  She found that such an inane thing to say she had to step on the urge to ask him about his head injury. “First of all, sir, the contamination...”

  “May never rise above the levels a di’Taykan can handle.” His eyes narrowed. “And second?”

  “Second, standing orders are to blow the armory.” When she’d asked him to come down here with her, she’d said nothing to him but “Sir, the armory,” and now she wondered what the hell he’d thought they were going to do. Given that he was di’Taykan, she decided not to speculate.

  “When evacuating in territory held by the enemy.”

  “Sir?”

  “I am familiar with standing orders, Staff Sergeant.” His expression made it quite clear he found it insulting that she’d assumed he wasn’t. “The armory is to be blown when evacuating in territory held by the enemy. We don’t know who the enemy is, so we certainly don’t know what territory they’re holding. Do we?”

  “No, sir,” she admitted reluctantly, “we don’t. But we are in a wilderness preserve, filled with hormonally hopped-up young males attempting to prove themselves by combat. If they get their hands on our weapons...”

  “I think that Marine Corps security protocols are sufficient to keep out a boarding party of adolescent lizards, don’t you?”

  “With all due respect, sir, those sound like famous last words.”

  “Good.” His tone drew a line and suggested she not step over it. “Because those were my last words on the subject. We are not losing a chance to add an SW46, and one of these sammies to our defenses.” He stretched out a hand toward the locker holding the surface to air missile launcher and then, reluctantly, let it fall. “We don’t know how long we’ll be here or what we’ll be up against.”