Valor's Choice

by Tanya Huff

  “It’s not gettin’ fukking colder, it’s just less warm.”

  “The Silsviss aren’t going to attack in this,” Ressk declared as water ran off the curve of his helmet and down the back of his neck. “I think the lieutenant should call it a night.”

  “Oh, yeah. And everyone who thinks that’s going to fukking happen, don’t speak up all at once.”

  Ressk turned a worried frown on the heavy gunner. “So you think they’re going to attack?”

  “No, I think we should all curl up in our little beds and be buddies until morning. How the fuk should I know?”

  Sighing heavily, Ressk stared out into the night. “This is beginning to remind me of Hallack IV. You remember, we got pinned down covering the serley evacuation of those H’san colonists?”

  “I remember. I was trying not to fukking think about it.”

  They listened to the rain for a while.

  “You guys think Hollice is going to make it?” Binti asked at last.

  “We’ve all seen worse,” Ressk reminded them. There was no need for him to go into more detail; some things couldn’t be forgotten.

  Juan sighed. “Yeah, and some them didn’t fukking…did you hear that?”

  “There’s nothing out there but dead Silsviss, Juan.”

  “Fuk you, too. Something out there is alive. And moving.”

  Peering through his scanner, Ressk muttered, “Got it. I hate it when you’re right.”

  Binti snapped down her helmet mike. “Staff? There’s something happening over here.”

  * * *

  “Sir? Private Mashona reports movement to the north about halfway between us and the hills.”

  Jarret resealed the top of his food pouch and stuffed it in his pocket as he stood. “Could the Silsviss have moved up without our scanners seeing them?” he asked, picking up his helmet and tucking it under his arm.

  “I don’t think so, sir.” Torin kept her voice as low as the pounding rain allowed as together they hurried toward the north wall. “We couldn’t have missed seeing them come down those hills.”

  “There’s a lot of bodies out there, maybe it’s scavengers.”

  “That’s the most likely explanation, sir.”

  “Staff? This is Conn at the south wall. We’ve got movement.”

  Torin passed the new message on to the lieutenant, mentioned that his helmet would be of more use on his head, then asked Conn, “Are they at about the halfway point?”

  “About that, Staff. Between the speed they’re moving at and the rain, it’s hard to get a solid fix. Whatever they are, they’re staying awful close to the ground.”

  Torin checked that the lieutenant had heard just as her scanner picked up movement no more than five meters from the north wall. From Jarret’s expression, he’d seen it as well.

  Frowning, he stared into the darkness. “I think I’d like some light on this.”

  “Yes, sir. Heavy gunners! By number, illuminate!”

  From the westernmost end of the south wall, a voice bellowed, “One!” Then, from high above, the compound was lit by brilliant while light.

  “Don’t stare directly at the flare!” Torin warned, turning slowly in place so that she could examine all approaches. “And remember to…son of a…!”

  One moment, the night had been a solid presence on the other side of the wall, the next, a Silsviss leaped into the light, landing on top of the grain bags howling at full voice and brandishing a short spear in one rain-slick hand.

  Ressk threw himself backward into the mud and fired.

  The howl lingered for a moment after the body fell.

  “You’re lucky the stupid fuk paused to pose,” Juan noted, ignoring the spray of blood dribbling down his cheek as he snapped his upper receiver over to flares. “If these kids were real soldiers, you’d be fukking dead.” He took a step back from the wall. “Cover.” When the Marines to either side shifted position slightly, he aimed at the sky. “Two!”

  The second flare.

  Another six Silsviss.

  None of them made it to the top of the wall.

  “They spent the day hiding behind their dead.” Jarret yelled over the mixed sound of challenge and gunfire and pounding rain. “We were scanning the hill for them, and they were already halfway here.”

  “Smart kids,” Torin acknowledged.

  The third flare.

  Only Cri Sawyes saw the arrows arching over the south wall. Grabbing Torin’s arm, he swung her around.

  Her eyes widened and her reaction changed from an enraged snarl to, “Arrows incoming!”

  Most buried their points in the ground. A few skidded off the impenetrable curve of a helmet. Only one Marine was hit.

  When Torin reached his side, Aylex had his hand pressed to his forehead. At sunset she’d started cycling the di’Taykan out to positions on the wall—maybe she should have been keeping a better eye on them. “Where’s your helmet?”

  “There.” Di’Taykan hair shed water as though it were made of plastic instead of protein, but pain had clamped Aylex’s tightly to his head.

  Squatting by his side, Torin softened her voice. “Let me see.”

  He slowly moved his hand away.

  Another flare went up, illuminating an ugly red line running diagonally from the inside corner of his right eyebrow up into his hairline, blood running in unbroken watered lines down his face.

  “Looks like it hit the bone and skidded. It’s nothing serious.”

  Aylex’s eyes lightened. “Di’Taykan have hard heads.”

  “I am fully aware of that, Private. Now pick up your damned helmet and go get that cut sealed.” She backed out of his way. “And I want the helmet on your head when you come out of the med station.”

  “Yes, Staff.” Looking considerably less stunned now that someone had taken charge of the situation, he dumped the water out of his helmet, hung it from his belt, and began to move away from the wall.

  Torin paralleled him for a moment, both of them bending low. Which’ll get us an arrow in the ass, Torin thought, but does bugger all otherwise. Still, instincts insisted that when under fire the only intelligent response was to duck.

  When she was satisfied he could make it on his own, she began to angle away. She could hear shouting from the south, Mike’s distinctive parade ground bellow bludgeoning back the Silsviss challenges. Aylex didn’t need her any longer, but there were others who…

  She saw him fall from the corner of her eye, the brilliant pink hair drawing an almost visible arc through the night as he pitched forward and landed facedown in the mud. By the time she had him rolled over on his back, the Mictok were there.

  “Allow us, Staff Sergeant Kerr.”

  Eight forelegs slid under the fallen di’Taykan and in spite of the tremors beginning to rack his body, lifted him easily onto the stretcher. Torin had to run full out to keep up.

  * * *

  After picking off a Silsviss archer too slow to drop back down behind his shielding corpse, Binti stared at the arrow buried deep in the mud by her leg. “You guys think Hollice told anyone about what the Dornagain believed?”

  “What? That traveling faster than fukking snails is impossible?”

  “No, asshole, that these arrows might be poisoned.”

  Juan and Ressk exchanged worried frowns.

  “If the brass knew, they’d have told the platoon,” Ressk said at last. “We’d have got some kind of warning.”

  “You better fukking tell somebody,” Juan pointed out, firing twice at a suspicious break in the rain.

  There wasn’t any point in asking why she should tell, Binti realized. With Hollice wounded, she was next senior, so the shit jobs came automatically to her. Beginning to rethink her desire to get her corporal’s hook, she flipped down her mike. “Sergeant Glicksohn?”

  * * *

  Torin paused dripping inside the door of the med station while the Mictok slid the now thrashing Aylex onto Dr. Leor’s table and answered her helmet’
s insistent call. “What is it, Mike?”

  “Mashona says the Dornagain think the arrows might be poisoned.”

  Back arced, Aylex began to fling his arms from side to side. A loop of webbing gently restrained him.

  Torin’s stomach clenched. “Tell the lieutenant.” Spinning around, she raced back out into the rain. The north wall was closest, but the few arrows that had made it over were buried point down in mud. She didn’t even slow. Ignoring the lieutenant’s voice in her helmet ordering the Marines to treat the arrows like the death threats they were, she placed her left hand flat on the top bag propelling herself up and over. She grabbed the first two arrows she saw sticking into the grain, and, fully aware of the sudden flurry of shots her activity had provoked, jumped back.

  She had the slate off her belt before she’d taken two steps. The first arrow had only traces of toxins too small to read, but the second…

  * * *

  “Doctor! It’s poison!”

  Dr. Leor kept his eyes on the needle going into Aylex’s throat. “This one is aware of that, Staff Sergeant.”

  “I’ve done an analysis.”

  “And you want this one to do what?” He removed the needle and closed his fist around the body of the syringe. “Create an antidote? With what?” He turned to face her then, fist raised. “With these primitive tools? This one is not a miracle worker, Staff Sergeant!” His voice rose with every word. “This one has no proper equipment! No proper light! This one has patients dying!”

  Torin took another look at the body on the table and realized it was just that—a body on the table. “He’s dead.”

  “Yes! Dead! This one does not have patients die!” All at once, his crest fell and he sagged. “This one,” he said softly, laying one hand against Aylex’s cheek, “is an environmental physician. This one does the research that allows members of the Confederation to live safely on new planets.”

  “Then do it.” Torin held out her slate. “If I understand, this stuff correctly, it can kill every Marine in the compound with a scratch. Humans, Krai…” The pause was barely noticeable. “…and di’Taykan. I can’t worry about scratches, not and keep my people alive.”

  “But you are not keeping your people alive, are you, Staff Sergeant? You can perform miracles no more than this one can.”

  “Performing miracles is part of my job, Doctor.” She understood his distress; she didn’t give a damn about it, not if it was putting her people in danger, but she understood. “And whether you like it or not, it’s part of your job, too.”

  He stared down at the slate, then slowly pulled it out of her hand. “This one will try to find an antidote.”

  “No. Trying isn’t good enough. Find one.”

  “And if this one doesn’t have the right drugs?”

  “Then find another. Find one that uses the drugs you have.”

  “Ah.” He glanced down at Aylex and over at her again. “It will not bring the dead back to life.”

  Torin drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It never does,” she said, and walked out into the rain, rubbing the falling water off her face with the palm of one hand.

  * * *

  “You hear that?” Hollice asked, head turned toward the next stretcher.

  “My ears still work,” Haysole muttered.

  “Sounded like Staff ripped a few feathers out of the doctor.”

  “Sounded like someone just died.”

  Hollice sighed. “Yeah, that, too.”

  The stretchers had been moved to the center of the room. A Marine stood on a grain bag against each wall, weapon resting on the thick lower edge of the window, attention fixed on any movement in the night. The room behind them could have been empty for all the attention they paid it.

  “You know why they won’t look at us?” Haysole asked suddenly. “They’re afraid that our bad luck will rub off on them. See the dying, become the dying.”

  “I’m not dying,” Hollice snapped. “I’m just missing a shoulder.” Under a thick layer of sealant, blood vessels had been stretched across the damaged area in an attempt to save the arm. He felt nothing at all since the corpsmen had numbed the part of his brain that would have acknowledged the pain, and if he had his way, it would stay numb until they slipped him into a tank back on the Berganitan. Actually, he felt pretty good—which, all things considered, was just a little too weird.

  On the other side of his injury, Haysole sighed.

  The only light in the room came from the two corpsmen who were tending to one of the Marines unconscious since the crash, but it was enough for him to see the di’Taykan’s hair had flattened tightly to his skull. “And you’re not dying either,” he added sharply.

  “I’m not living.”

  “Oh, for fuk’s sake, Haysole, it’s just your legs. They’re easy enough to rebuild.”

  “If the Berganitan comes back.”

  “If it doesn’t, another ship will, Marines don’t abandon their own. And I’ll tell you something,” he continued quickly before Haysole could make another melancholy objection, “if no one comes back for us soon, Staff’ll build a ship out of lizard shit and…and…”

  “And bones.”

  “Yeah, and bones. Sounds like there’s enough of them piling up out there. She’ll build a ship and kick it off this planet with her own dainty foot before she lets us rot here,”

  “You’re probably right.” The di’Taykan sighed again, and his hair began to make a few tentative movements.

  “No probably about it.” Hollice firmly believed that after a point living and dying was as much a state of mind as anything and no one was dying right next to him. Not if he had anything to say about it. “You feeling better?”

  “Why not try groping it and find out?”

  “Oh, yeah, you’re feeling better. My work here is done.”

  “Does that mean you’re not going to…”

  “Yes.”

  “You are?”

  “No.”

  “But…”

  “Get some sleep, Haysole.” A grenade exploded not far from the building and bits of chaff drifted down from the thatched roof, lightly dusting both men. “Or not.”

  * * *

  By the time Torin reached Lieutenant Jarret, grenades were exploding all around the compound.

  “I ordered the heavies to blow up the closest bodies,” he told her. “Everything within the illumination of the flares. If we can keep them back out of arrow range, we don’t have a lot to worry about.” Then he caught sight of her expression. “What is it?”

  “Aylex is dead. Poisoned. The doctor’s working on an antidote.”

  “Too late.”

  “Yes, sir, for Aylex, but there are plenty more Marines in this compound.”

  Jarret looked around, squinting as the rain drove up under the edge of his helmet and into his face. “We can only react, can’t we?”

  “It is the problem with a defensive position, sir.”

  He nodded and waited for the sounds of another grenade to fade before saying solemnly, “I never expected my first command to be like this.”

  Torin reached out and lightly grasped his arm. The di’Taykan needed touch for comfort. Humans kept insisting they didn’t. They were wrong. “No one ever does, sir.”

  * * *

  The rain stopped shortly after midnight. The Silsviss didn’t.

  An arrow, its forward momentum almost spent, scraped across the abraded knuckles of a Human Marine. Humans proved to be significantly more susceptible than the di’Taykan. She died instantly, looking surprised.

  About to fire a flare into the air, the heavy gunner by her side fired at the Silsviss archer instead. He also died instantly, but the smoke rising up from the burning hole in his chest made it impossible to see his expression before he fell.

  * * *

  Torin snuggled down into the clean sheets with a contented sigh. The feeling defined safety for her and had her whole life. As a child, it meant she was free of her fath
er’s expectation that she’d take over the stupefying drudgery of the farm. As an adult, it meant she’d survived the filth and horror of combat once again, that she at least had survived. By then, she wasn’t always alone between the sheets because there was no point in survival unshared by those she cared for. Or was responsible for. Or, bottom line, both.

  Sometimes it got a little crowded.

  Today she was alone. She stretched out, thankful for the space, and smiled as the cool fabric slid across her skin.

  “Staff Sergeant Kerr?”

  “Sir!” Forcing her eyes to focus on the concerned gaze of Lieutenant Jarret, she realized to her intense embarrassment that she’d been asleep. “I’m sorry, sir. I just closed my eyes for a moment.”

  “It’s all right, Staff. No harm done. It’s not like you were awake for the last thirty-two hours or anything.” Smiling, he handed her a pouch of coffee, already warmed. “Sun’s rising, the Silsviss seem to be having a lie in, and an old friend’s back.”

  “An old friend?” She sucked at the spout as she stood, sliding the webbed strap of her KC up onto her shoulder. About to ask him what he was talking about, and hoping she could be polite about it, she felt the ground vibrate slightly. “Ah.”

  The ghartivatrampas stood looking confused, forelegs shifting from one massive foot to the other, tail sweeping back and forth.

  The wispy remains of an early morning fog laid a surreal perspective over the ring of carnage around the compound. The grenades had torn up the ground and scattered Silsviss body parts far and wide. One or two whole bodies, missed in the darkness and rain, punctuated the scene, beginning to bloat in the rising heat of the morning. Small scavengers scuttled about feasting on bits of flesh, occasionally squabbling over choice chunks, although there was certainly enough for all. Hundred of thousands of carrion flies provided a constant background buzz.

  “Why did it come back?” Jarret wondered as they watched the giant creature’s distress.

  “This is probably a regular trail. I’m guessing it sleeps in the swamp at night where the water can support some of its bulk and heads out every morning to its grazing ground. At night it goes back to the swamp by a different route.”

  “But why stay on a trail that leads through this?”