The Better Part of Valor

by Tanya Huff

  “Right. Well. Looks like you’re in the clear, Staff Sergeant.” The commander signaled her security team to fall in around the news team. “If you’ll all come this way, Captain Carveg and General Morris would like to speak with you.”

  Torin stepped back as Presit a Tur durValintrisy swept forward and fell into step beside the commander, who was shortening her stride considerably. She found herself walking beside the third Katrien. Probably a male, but she didn’t make assumptions. When she glanced down, it held up a hand.

  “Durgin a Tar canSalvais. Call me Durgin.”

  She stroked her palm across his—a Tar, male. The skin was so soft it felt as though it had been dusted with powder.

  “Nice you’re not holding a grudge at least.”

  His ears flipped. “Hey, I are just her pilot. What are I caring if you are intimidating the aururist?”

  The way the hair lifted off Presit a Tur durValintrisy’s spine, Torin figured that had to be a very bad word. Now that she was getting a better look at it, that black triangle was too regular to be natural. It had to be dyed.

  “Actually,” Durgin continued, “I are thinking you are going to pick her up by the throat and shake her.”

  Torin’s eyes narrowed as she watched the reporter mincing up the corridor. “Yeah. So was she.”

  FIVE

  “General, General.” The reporter raised a gently protesting hand, silvered claws glittering. “Protests are beside the point. Under laws of full disclosure if media are present, media must not be denied. If Marines are going into ship, we are going in with them.”

  “All three of you?”

  “No. Durgin are pilot only. He are staying with my ship. I, Presit a Tur durValintrisy, and my crew, Cirvan a Tar palRentskik, are going in.”

  Her crew didn’t look too happy about it.

  “We don’t know what’s in there, Presit a Tur durValintrisy…”

  She smiled winningly, showing many tiny points of teeth under the black line of her lip. “Call me Presit.”

  “…but it will be dangerous. You’ll be putting yourself and your crew in danger.”

  “I are not going in, in front, General Morris.” The tiny points of teeth reappeared, and a purple tongue swept lightly over them. “But I are going in.”

  Teeth, tongue, body language; if the reporter had been Human, Torin would have said she was flirting with the general. She looked like she was about to rub against his leg.

  By the time the security detail had escorted the three Katrien back to the briefing room, the scientists had been cleared out. Only the three Marine officers, Captain Carveg and two of her officers, and Craig Ryder remained. As far as Torin was concerned, they should have tossed Ryder out with the other civilians—having reached the alien ship, there was no longer a need to suck up in order to get his Susumi equations. The general had probably gotten used to including him and hadn’t even noticed he was there.

  Hands behind his back, General Morris frowned down at his reflection in the reporter’s dark glasses. “All right. You and your crew may accompany the science group into the ship. You will not go in with the Recon team because I will not have you exposed to unknown dangers.”

  “A compromise, General? According to law, I are not having to compromise.” She lifted one hand and combed her claws through her whiskers. Alien body language or not, Torin recognized a smug gesture when she saw one. “But I will.”

  “Good. And now, the other matter—you said you followed Staff Sergeant Kerr to the Berganitan…”

  “No, no, no,” Presit interrupted. Leaning around the general, she showed teeth at Torin. This time, it didn’t look anything like a smile. “I are only following Staff Sergeant Kerr until I know what ship she are taking. Then I are following that ship to Berganitan.”

  “Fine. You followed Lieutenant Commander Sibley’s Jade to the Berganitan. How did you follow the Berganitan through Susumi space?”

  Presit actually waved a tiny finger at the general. If Torin hadn’t disliked the reporter so much, she’d have been enjoying this. “I are not having to tell you that, General Morris. Thanks to suspicious Parliament, full disclosure works only one way. You are having to disclose to me, but I are not having to disclose to you. But,” she added as the general flushed puce, “it are no big thing. I are merely…”

  Durgin trilled an interruption. Torin figured he objected to Presit’s pronoun.

  “…locking on the tail end of the Berganitan’s Susumi signature,” she continued, ignoring her pilot. “It are a tricky maneuver—we are having to be close enough to follow but not so close we are being swept up in the wake and destroyed—but are not a secret.”

  His broad cheeks lightening slightly to maroon, General Morris attempted to lock Durgin in a steely glare, but it kept sliding off the nearly black lenses of his glasses. “You’re a pilot, you had to have known how insanely dangerous that was. You could have destroyed both ships. As it was, you nearly destroyed yourself and your passengers.”

  The pilot’s ears flipped down and up. “Unfortunately,” he began.

  Presit cut him off, her glasses still pointed toward the general. “Durgin a Tar canSalvais are working for me. If he are intending to continue working for me, he are keeping certain things to himself.”

  Durgin’s ears flipped again. “Yeah, what she are saying.”

  “Fine.” Taking a deep breath, the general appeared to accept the situation the law had placed him in although his voice retained a snarl around the edges. “Owing to the unfortunate, near destruction of your vessel, Presit a Tur durValintrisy…”

  “Please, Presit.”

  “Yes, Presit.” He cleared his throat and continued through clenched teeth. “Captain Carveg has kindly offered all three of you quarters on the Berganitan.”

  “Where she are keeping an eye on us,” Presit murmured, summing up exactly what Torin had been thinking. “Still…” The fingers of her left hand made three quick passes through her whiskers. “…I are graciously accepting.”

  Captain Carveg stepped forward. When a Krai showed that much tooth, the more edible species usually found some distance to put between them. “If you’ll just accompany Yeoman Sanderson,” she said politely, her tone in complete opposition to her expression, “he’ll show you to the guest quarters. This is a warship and space is at a premium, so I’m afraid your pilot and your crew will have to share.”

  “They are not caring.” Leaning around the other side of the general, Presit waggled silver-tipped fingers toward Captain Travik. “We are talking later, you and I.”

  The captain nodded graciously, “I’d be honored.”

  “You’d be honored?” General Morris asked, turning slowly to face his subordinate.

  “Yes, sir. The full disclosure law may require my compliance, but if Presit a Tur durValintrisy of Sector Central News wants to speak with me, I would be honored.”

  He sounded sincere.

  Torin couldn’t decide what she wanted to do more, puke or smack him, but it certainly explained why he was so popular with the press.

  “And this one, General.” Presit’s attention switched to Torin, who met her gaze with bland indifference. “You are intending to deal with how she are behaving to me?”

  “That are…is, between myself and the staff sergeant.” He nodded at the yeoman, who stepped forward.

  “Ma’am.”

  “So polite.” She smiled up at the young Human. “You are leading us, so go. We are following.”

  Looking slightly confused by the syntax, Yeoman Sanderson led the way from the briefing room, the reporter and her crew close on his heels, talking rapidly in their own language. Durgin fell in behind, occasionally interrupting. Cultural rules seemed to differ when communicating in Katrien as opposed to Federate.

  General Morris rocked back on his heels as the door closed. “I don’t suppose there’s any way the locks on their quarters can malfunction until we’re done here?” he snarled in Captain Carveg’s directio
n.

  Recognizing the snarl had nothing to do with her—which was lucky for the general—she shook her head. “Sorry, no.”

  “I can’t believe they followed us through Susumi space.”

  “So it seems.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “Yes.”

  “We have to get their equations. If they’ve actually found the sweet spot—and aren’t merely the luckiest three S.O.B.s ever evolved—the information will have major military applications. Is there some way you can access their ship’s logs?”

  “Legally? No. Accidentally…” Captain Carveg smiled.

  The smile suggested her people were already working on it.

  “Good.” Nodding, he repeated “good” to himself a couple more times, then turned toward Torin. “Now then, Staff Sergeant Kerr.” His voice frosted over. “If I could have a moment of your time.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They walked a short distance from the clump of officers.

  “Is it true you threatened Presit a Tur durValintrisy?”

  Torin met his gaze levelly. “No, sir. She made a statement, and I asked her politely for an explanation, saying both ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ It’s all on record.”

  “I’m not an idiot, Staff Sergeant.” He clamped one hand down on a chair back. His knuckles whitened, his fingers sank into the upholstery. “I am well aware you’re capable of saying please in such a way as to blister the finish off a tank.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Sighing, he released the chair. “Don’t do it again.”

  “No, sir.”

  “The scientists will want a day or so to interpret the data. See that our people are ready when they are.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Recognizing a dismissal when she heard it, Torin waited until he’d rejoined the others, then she left the room. She was barely three meters down the corridor when she heard someone following, and a moment after that, Craig Ryder fell into step beside her.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. We’re just going the same way. It’s a free corridor. And,” he spread his arms, “it’s the only way…excuse me…” Spinning sideways, he allowed two of the Berganitan’s crew to go by. “…to the links.”

  “What are you so happy about?”

  “Well, I’m just basking in the knowledge that there’s now a life-form on this ship you dislike more than me.” He hit the link call a second before she could, but when the car arrived, Torin slid past him to claim it.

  “For what it’s worth,” she said, as the door closed, “if you were also a reporter, I’d dislike you more.”

  Staring at the closed door, Craig grinned and hit the link call again.

  “She wants me,” he said conversationally to the crewman who’d arrived in time to hear the parting remark.

  The crewman stared at him for a moment and then burst out laughing.

  * * *

  The next afternoon, Captain Travik, having spent the morning stroking his own ego with Sector Central News, arrived at the enlisted quarters for a surprise inspection.

  Torin managed to get him out before much damage had been done. “I want this place spotless by the time I get back,” she snapped, following the captain out the hatch. “And if it doesn’t pass my inspection, you’ll be doing it again.”

  “First, I’m reporting this incident to the general and then I’m putting them all on report,” Captain Travik snarled as she caught up. “Every last one of them. When I’m done, the corporals will all be privates and the privates will be…privates for longer!”

  “It was an accident, sir.”

  “Which was an accident, Staff Sergeant?” he demanded, cradling one hand against his chest. “The slammed locker or the spilled depilatory?”

  Since Krai had minimal hair, the depilatory had been more of a waste of time in Torin’s opinion. “Both, sir. You took them by surprise. You were the last person they expected to see.”

  “That was the point,” he sneered. “It was a surprise inspection, and they attacked me.”

  “They are combat Marines, sir, and beyond that, they’re Recon. First in, always facing the unknown, hair-trigger responses; if they’d actually attacked you, you’d be in Med-op right now. But you know about that, you’re Recon.” Amazed she’d managed to get that last bit out without gagging, she checked his expression.

  The sulky look had vanished.

  “Hair-trigger responses…”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He tentatively flexed his fingers. “It was an accident?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right.” They’d reached the door to his office. He turned and drew himself up to his full height—which would have been more effective had that not put the top of his head at Torin’s collarbone. “For the sake of the team and because we’re all Recon together, I will overlook their behavior.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “This time.” His chin lifted, his nose ridges flushed. “But I’m still recording it, and if anything like it happens again, accident or no, I will not be so understanding.”

  “Sir, if anything like it happens again, I will personally hold the air lock open while you kick their collective asses into space.”

  * * *

  Although she’d been gone only a short time, the enlisted quarters were gleaming when Torin returned. Standing just inside the hatch, fists on her hips, she swept her gaze up one side of the compartment and down the other, allowing it to freeze each member of the team indiscriminately. She didn’t know exactly who’d done what, and she didn’t care.

  “Captain Travik has been convinced not to bring the whole lot of you up on charges.” From the stiffening of certain shoulders, the fact that Captain Travik could bring charges hadn’t occurred to everyone. “You lot are luckier than you deserve to be, and if you ever again put me in the position where I’ve got to kiss up to an officer—any officer—to save your sorry butts, I am going to make your lives so goddamned miserable you’re going to beg to be dropped into the front lines stark naked and armed with a sponge just to get away from me. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, Staff Sergeant.”

  It wasn’t exactly a unison response, but it was close enough.

  “Something funny, Guimond?”

  The big Human’s smile disappeared. “No, Staff Sergeant.”

  “Good. The whole miserable lot of you are confined to the attachment tonight. No one goes into the Berganitan. Twenty minutes, simulation room, full HE gear.” She stepped back through the hatch and slammed it closed.

  “Problems, Staff?”

  Only with lieutenants who lurk in corridors! Palm flat against the cool metal of the hatch, she counted to three before she turned. “No, sir.”

  “General Morris sent me to tell you that you’re going in tomorrow morning.”

  “Thank God.” It felt so good, she checked to see that Lieutenant Stedrin’s masker was on.

  He actually smiled, eyes light. “Natives getting restless, Staff?”

  “That would be the polite way of putting it, sir.”

  “Well, they can keep busy tonight humping their gear to the shuttle. Navy’s moving it to our lock right ASAP. We should have full hookup in thirty,” he added glancing down at his slate.

  “Do we have numbers on the scientists, sir?”

  “We’re still trying to get them to agree to six, but you can assume eight; plus Ryder and the two Katrien from the news vids. The general wants everyone on board and ready to go at 0830 tomorrow.”

  Nice to get the chance to sleep in. There were benefits to traveling with civilians. “Should I tell Captain Travik?”

  “I’ve already done it.” About to turn away, Lieutenant Stedrin paused, his eyes darkening. “You wouldn’t happen to know why he tried to get the drop on me as I came into his office?”

  Tried. Torin grinned. “He’s Recon, sir. Hair-trigger responses.”

  * * *

  “Weren’t we sup
posed to be in the simulation room in twenty minutes anyhow?” Guimond wondered as the sound of the slammed hatch stopped ringing through the compartment.

  “She’s not as pissed about what happened as she’s pretending,” Nivry told him, yanking her locker open.

  “Oh, yeah?” Heer pulled a sheaf of crumpled schematic diagrams out from under his mattress and began reattaching them to the bulkhead over his bunk. “Then why the CTA?”

  “We’re always confined to the attachment just before a mission,” she reminded him. “And besides, she is pissed about the sucking up. Today’s simulation is going to be fast and mean.”

  “And that’s just the way Werst likes it.” Frii tossed his headphones onto his bunk and made exaggerated kissing noises at the Krai.

  Who responded with a curt, “Fuk you.”

  “Fast and mean.”

  “You’ve still got seventeen minutes,” Guimond said helpfully.

  The di’Taykan looked intrigued, but when Werst shot him an unmistakable gesture, he turned to the big Human instead. “What were you smiling about, Guimond?”

  He shrugged, smiling again. “I just thought that whole naked with a sponge thing was funny.”

  Werst snorted.

  “You didn’t think it was funny?”

  “Moron.”

  “Corporal Nivry!”

  Waving the others quiet, Nivry opened the channel on her slate. “Staff?”

  “Simulation’s been scrubbed. We’re out of here tomorrow. I want the whole team in the armory in fifteen.”

  “We’ll be there in ten, Staff.”

  “No need to suck up, Corporal, I’m as anxious to get out of this tin can as you are.”

  * * *

  At 0820 Torin stared down at her slate, read the contents again, then looked up at the general. “Sir, I still think the civilians should be on a second shuttle. Our STS can back off, and they can attach the moment we’ve secured the immediate area.”

  General Morris shook his head. “They’ve studied the coupling, and they’re afraid that once an STS has detached, it’ll need a complete overhaul before we attach another.”