The Better Part of Valor

by Tanya Huff

  The voice of the watch officer over the ship’s internal comm snapped the captain’s attention off the general as though he no longer existed. “On screen in here, Commander Versahche.”

  The modified comm unit disappeared to be replaced by a familiar star field. The only thing missing was the alien ship usually hanging motionless in front of it.

  “This is coming in from the buoy we set on the other side of the ship, Captain. When I emphasize the aurora…”

  Soft green rays spread out against the stars. At their center was a shimmering green circle.

  “I see it, Commander.” Carveg stepped closer to the screen, facial ridges spread. “How far back behind the ship is that thing?”

  “About one hundred and thirty-six thousand kilometers.”

  “Dangerously close.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Given the estimated size of the portal, there’s no way the vessel coming through will be able to decelerate in time.”

  “Which means?” the general snapped.

  “Which means,” Captain Carveg repeated grimly, “that the vessel coming through is going to smack into the other side of the alien ship at a high speed, blowing themselves and very likely the alien ship, as well, into fragments. Commander Versahche, do we have any fighters out?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Good. Get us to a safe distance and ready defense systems.” With a last look at the screen, she pivoted on one heel and moved quickly toward the nearer of the room’s two exits, bare feet slapping purposefully against the deck. “Yellow alert. I’m on my way to Combat Command Center.”

  After a stunned moment spent staring at the rapidly retreating back of the captain’s head, General Morris charged after her, Lieutenant Stedrin at his heels. They caught up outside the conference room, the moving clump of three officers sending ship’s personnel on their way to duty stations hard up against the bulkheads. “Captain! I will not allow you to abandon my Marines.”

  “General, one of two things is about to happen.” Without breaking stride, or removing her gaze from the link station at the end of the passageway, Captain Carveg lifted her left hand into the air, first finger extended. “Either that ship is made of stronger stuff than anything in the Confederation and the incomer will bounce off its hide, in which case, we’ll go back for your Marines because I assure you I am not abandoning anyone. Or…” A second finger joined the first, the three joints allowing it to snap erect with an emphasis a Human finger could never achieve. “…your Marines are about to become part of a large debris field traveling toward us at high velocity and as much as I have no intention of abandoning those Marines, neither do I have any intention of joining them in death.” Reaching the link station, she slapped her hand over the call pad. “Captain’s override, car sanute di halertai.” With her back against the access hatch, she looked up at the general, her expression carefully neutral. “You’ll be able to watch the whole thing from the Marine attachment, which is where I respectfully suggest you go. Now.”

  “And do what?” General Morris snarled as the link arrived.

  “Try prayer,” she suggested, stepping back through the hatch. “Because that portal’s going to open, and there’s not a serley thing we can do about it.”

  * * *

  Crimson hair keeping up a steady sweep from side to side, Commander Versahche fell into step beside the captain as she stepped off the link and onto C3. “We’ve got a problem, Captain.”

  “Does it have to do with the main engines being off-line?” she snarled.

  “You noticed.”

  “Inertial dampers aren’t that good, Commander. What’s happening?”

  “We don’t know. For no apparent reason, we’re as dead in space as our big yellow friend.”

  “We can’t move?”

  “Not a centimeter. Engineering’s working on it, but there’s nothing to actually work on. All available data indicates the engines should be working.”

  “But they aren’t.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Wonderful.” She took her place behind the captain’s station, one hand resting over the communications touch pad. Each finger opened a channel to a specific area of the ship, pressure from her palm opened a channel shipwide. Her thumb dipped, then lifted. No need to urge engineering to work faster; if anyone knew the result of a vessel exiting Susumi space too close to another solid object, they did. The three screens in front of the commander showed five-second sections of the surrounding star field, the alien ship, and the portal. Its aurora had brightened. “All right; any idea of what’s coming through?”

  “No ma’am. Only thing we can tell for certain is that it’s not one of ours.”

  “Not Navy.”

  “Not from the Confederation at all unless someone’s put something new in vacuum and no one gave us the specs for it.”

  “Like that’s never happened before,” Carveg snorted. “You’d think we weren’t involved in a shooting war out here. What about the Methane Alliance?”

  “Again, if it is, it’s something new. They use essentially the same Susumi drive we do, and this is subtly different.”

  The captain froze in place. “In what way?”

  Before he could answer, another member of the C3 crew broke in.

  “Captain Carveg, we just picked up a signal from the alien ship.”

  “From the ship or from the Marines, Ensign?”

  “It was very brief, ma’am.” Scalp darkly mottled, the young Krai had hands and feet both working his board. “I’m analyzing the little we got.”

  The aurora had grown so bright, the Berganitan’s screens dimmed automatically.

  “Engineering?” Asking, not urging. Because she knew engineering was already busting their collective asses.

  “Still nothing, Captain.”

  “Captain, we have a seventy percent probability that the signal came from Captain Travik’s implant.”

  “And the message?”

  “What little there was, was completely scrambled.”

  “Unscramble it.”

  The lieutenant monitoring the buoy cut off the ensign’s reply. “Portal opening, Captain!”

  “Engineering!”

  “Engines are still off-line!”

  “Vessel emerging from Susumi space! Speed registering as fifty-one thousand, four hundred and three point seven seven kilometers per second.”

  Screens flared, then went blank almost immediately.

  “Buoy’s fried. Vessel’s bow wave has reached the alien ship.”

  Captain Carveg slapped her palm down on the touch pad. “All hands! Brace for impact!”

  Except that at those speeds, impact should have happened before the words left her mouth. When it still hadn’t happened a heartbeat later, she took a moment to breathe. “Anyone know why we’re still alive?”

  “Ma’am, last data from the buoy indicates that the alien vessel was absorbing the energy from the incomer.”

  All eyes turned to the lieutenant.

  “You think the alien ship—what did you call it, Commander?—Big Yellow?—absorbed the incomer?”

  “No, ma’am.” Eyes on her screen, the lieutenant’s voice held equal parts disbelief and awe. “I think it stopped it.”

  “Stopped it?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Data fragments support the theory that the incomer’s just sitting there, on the other side of the alien ship.”

  “All right.” Palm back on the touch pad, a little more gently this time. “All hands, stand down from impact!” Palm up. “Lieutenant, let’s get some unfragmented data; launch another buoy. Stealth mode.”

  “Aye, aye, ma’am, buoy away.”

  “Commander Versahche, have General Morris informed that his votes in Parliament are alive.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And until we know what’s out there…” Palm down once again. “All hands, red alert!”

  * * *

  “…heading for nearest air lock and…son of a bitch. He�
�s gone again.”

  “You think they heard you, Staff?”

  “No way to tell.” Torin straightened and pushed Captain Travik’s mouth carefully closed. “We don’t know if his implant’s strong enough to breach the hull. We don’t know if he actually turned the damned thing on.”

  Orla’s eyes lightened. “If you’d told me to activate my implant in that tone, I’d have come back from the dead to do it.”

  “Thank you. Should you get an implant, I’ll keep that in mind.” She rocked back on her heels and stood. “What made you put him in the HE suit?”

  “It was his, and I thought it would be easier than carrying them separately. He’s not hooked in, so I left him in his combats and got the arm of the suit to conform.”

  “Good thinking. Let me know if he comes to again.”

  The rest of the Recon team stood a cautious distance from the only sealed container in the room that hadn’t scanned as a solid object, watching Werst direct the beam of his benny along the seam between box and lid. Without hinges, without a hasp, it was the only way in. As Torin returned from attempting to contact the Berganitan, he was just finishing the last side.

  As she slid back into the position she’d vacated at Orla’s summons, Guimond half turned and flashed her a welcoming smile. “Any luck, Staff?”

  Other heads turned until there were as many eyes on her as on Werst.

  “Well, I could offer you possibilities and speculation—but I won’t. This much I know for certain; Captain Travik was conscious long enough to activate his implant. Unfortunately, he lost consciousness before he could tell me if the Berganitan replied.”

  Guimond’s smile broadened. “That’s great! They know we’re alive.”

  “They know Captain Travik’s alive,” Tsui snorted. “But why would they wait around for him?”

  Torin leaned far enough forward to spear the lance corporal with an icy glare. “Tsui, I don’t really give a crap what your opinion of our OC is and that means, I don’t want to hear it. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Staff Sergeant.”

  “Good.”

  “I’m through,” Werst grunted in the sudden silence that had replaced the constant background noise of the benny. “Charge is down to twelve point four percent.”

  Standard operating procedure called for power packs to be replaced when the charge hit ten percent, not before. Packs carried in were to be carried out and inspected by the senior NCO who was responsible for ensuring both that all packs were accounted for and under the minimum charge. NCOs who consistently came up either under count or over charge were written up. Combat officers who recognized the reports were a load of crap tended to lose them, but they were exactly the sort of thing Captain Travik would enjoy passing on.

  Captain Travik was unconscious.

  Not that it would have made any difference.

  “Open it,” Torin told him. “Take cover, people. Huilin, Jynett, Dursinski…”

  As Marines ducked behind other cases, the two di’Taykan stepped forward wearing their HE suits, helmets up. Dursinski, also in her suit, held her benny pointed toward the crate. If anything unpleasant came out of it, the suits would keep them alive long enough to get it closed again.

  Or at least they lengthened the odds.

  “You’re just not much of a risk taker, are you, Staff Sergeant?”

  “It’s my job to keep these people alive, Mr. Ryder.”

  “And, sometimes, doesn’t that mean riding the whirlwind?”

  Torin turned just far enough to meet his gaze. “I don’t ride whirlwinds, Mr. Ryder. I beat them into submission.”

  One corner of his mouth lifted. “And just thinking of you doing that is turning me on.”

  “Turn yourself off again.”

  The lid slid clear.

  Nothing emerged.

  Inside, were thirty-six medium gray, empty boxes. The interior of the case showed only smooth gray walls identical in color and texture to the walls in both the original corridor and the cube.

  After removing the boxes, the entire company, with the exception of Orla and the captain, stared at the empty case.

  Torin sighed. “Son of a fukking bitch.”

  “You’re thinking that’s the way out?” Ryder asked in much the same tone.

  “Yes, I am.”

  Tossing one of the boxes from hand to hand, Guimond shook his head. “Uh, no disrespect, Staff, this thing’s solid. See?” He tossed the box back into the crate where it bounced noisily.

  “Solid is a relative term around here,” Torin reminded him wearily. Before she could tell him to remove the box, the lights dimmed and an earsplitting burst of static evoked some creative profanity in three languages as helmets were snatched off.

  “What was that?” Nivry demanded, hair an emerald aurora around her head.

  “Let’s assume it was a suggestion from Big Yellow that we move on.”

  “Big Yellow?”.

  “There’s a limit to how long I can refer to something as ‘the alien ship’ and that seemed the obvious name.” Replacing her helmet over hair nearly as wild as the di’Taykan’s, Torin nodded toward Guimond. “Take the box from the crate.”

  The big Marine shrugged good-naturedly, grabbed the edge with his left hand, leaned in, stretched, slipped a little, and froze. “Staff…”

  It was the first time Torin had heard him sound anything but cheerful. From the sudden surge forward, it was the first time for all of them. By the time she reached the crate, she had to shove Marines out of her way in order to get a place by Guimond’s side. The fingers of his right hand had sunk into the floor up to the first joint. When he turned to face her, his eyes were huge in a flushed face, pupils so dilated the irises had all but disappeared.

  “I can’t…I can’t get them out.”

  “Stop trying; you’ll hurt yourself.” She reached in and gripped his arm, stopping the constant jerk, jerk, jerk as he tried to pull free. The muscles under her fingers felt more like stone than flesh. “It’s all right, Guimond, you’ve just found the way to the next level.”

  “I have?” He managed a wan smile. “Good for me. You want me to keep going?”

  “I don’t think you have a choice.”

  “We could cut his fingers off.”

  Giving Guimond’s arm a last squeeze, Torin straightened. “Shut up, Tsui.”

  “No, really; six months or so with his arm in a regen sleeve and he’ll grow a whole new se…” The last word got lost in a strangled squawk as Werst grabbed a fistful of combats at around Tsui’s waist and lifted the larger Marine off his feet.

  “What part of shut up,” he growled, “do you not understand?”

  “Werst, drop him.”

  “Unfortunate choice of words,” Ryder murmured by Torin’s ear as Tsui hit the deck, both hands yanking fabric away from his crotch.

  “Deliberate choice of words,” Torin told him, aiming her reply under the covering shouts of laughter and at least three voices telling Guimond what had happened. “All right, people,” she cut the noise off as Tsui got to his feet, “listen up. This is our way out. Private Guimond is on point.” A touch on his shoulder and she was pleased to hear a chuckle from within the crate. “But I want two Marines in there immediately, and I mean immediately after him. Tsui, Werst, you just volunteered. Huilin, Jynett, Dursinski, stay in your suits. Frii, you help Orla with the captain. Johnston, go find our civilians and get them over here. Someone bring me Guimond’s pack, I’ll take it through.” A pause and she raised her voice just a little. “Let’s go, Marines, we’re moving out.”

  * * *

  Clutching the edge of the crate so tightly that silver polish flaked off her claws, Presit stared down at the visible two thirds of Guimond’s hand. “I are not going through there.”

  “Yes, you are,” Torin told her absently, catching the end of the line connecting Tsui and Werst to Guimond and tossing it back into the group of Marines who secured it. “You ready?”

 
Tsui looked anything but ready. Werst grunted an affirmative.

  “Heer, Johnston?”

  “Scanners up and running, Staff.”

  Both scanners were reading a big fat nothing under the crate, as though reality ended halfway up Guimond’s right hand. But that was about to change. Because it had to change. It had to become the way out. It had nothing to do with faith. It had everything to do with putting all the pieces together in the right order.

  “Just relax, Guimond.”

  “Trying to, Staff.”

  There didn’t seem to be any way around Guimond going through to the next level headfirst.

  “You won’t drop until your entire body is in the open so you’ll actually fall no more than a meter.” Provided this works like it did the last time, amended a snide voice in her head. Torin ignored it. “Tuck and roll and you’ll be fine.”

  “Tuck and roll,” Guimond repeated. “Right.”

  Under the circumstances, he sounded remarkably cheerful.

  Stepping back, Torin nodded to Tsui and Werst. “Go.”

  Bending, they each lifted one of Guimond’s legs. The moment they released the pressure against the crate, he began to sink.

  He sank very fast.

  Seconds later, Tsui and Werst hit the bottom together, and were almost instantly ankle-deep.

  “Let the line play out,” Torin snapped, as it began to tighten, “we’ve got plenty.” Watching the line run into the crate, she began to count under her breath, ignoring the watch on her sleeve. It was more important that she do something than that the count be accurate to the nearest nanosecond. “One MidSector Station. Two MidSector Station.” The top of Werst’s helmet disappeared. “Three MidSector Station.” The crate was empty again. “Four MidSector Station. Five MidSector Station. Six Mid…”

  “Staff Sergeant Kerr, this is Private Guimond, do you read?”

  The cheering was a little premature but she let it run anyway. “I hear you, Guimond.”

  “We came through fine and you were right.”

  “It’s part of the job description.” Never let the relief show. They had to believe she never worried. “But what—specifically—was I right about this time?”