[Confederation 04] Valor's Trial

by Huff, Tanya

  The Krai were still standing at the end of it—their preferred real estate never entirely stopped moving, giving them a highly developed sense of balance. Torin had cracked her knee against the panel but remained on her feet as had two of the Polina—Bertecnic had dropped back onto his haunches, rear legs spread to either side. The position would have looked comical if not for the scimitar curve of ten-centimeter claws fully extended from each foot. Everyone else sprawled where the quake had thrown them. The Artek, tucked back into the angle of wall and floor were—with no danger of misinterpreting their reaction—just one side of hysterical.

  The lemon furniture polish smell was nearly overwhelming. Torin rubbed her hand under her nose. Maybe it was the short rations lowering the levels of complacency drug. Maybe the smell was acting like smelling salts. Maybe this most recent burst of adrenaline had burned things off. She felt more like herself than she had since Harnett’s death. “Technical Sergeant Gucciard, can you use what you learned opening the inside hatch to get through the outside hatch ASAP?”

  He stood, rubbing his left elbow. “I can.”

  “Do it.”

  Scooping his tools off the floor, he stepped into the air lock. “Ressk!”

  “On it, Sarge.”

  “Gunnery Sergeant Kerr, we do not know the external atmosphere.”

  “We know it required filters for whoever manned this control room. We know they required the same rough mix we do—we passed no air locks between the prisons and the upper levels. Logically, we then will manage with filters.

  Vertic tossed her head, the short mane flaring. “It would be best if the control panel could be made to function.”

  As the durlin moved closer, Kyster picked the slate up off the ground and handed it to her remaining by her side, his nose ridges flared—with her if it came to a power play. Torin appreciated the thought, as unnecessary as it was.

  “Durlin Vertic, we have run out of time. This facility is on its way to a collapse. We need to get our people out of here before that happens.”

  She blinked, thick fringe of lashes sweeping up and down. “Of course.”

  “All our people.” Torin inserted the words cleanly into the pause. The durlin had clearly been going to continue speaking and part of the trick was to never appear to interrupt. Plausible deniability was everything.

  The durlin stared at her for a long moment then repeated, “All our people.”

  Torin decided to take the statement as agreement. “So far, our best way off this rock, our best way to get all our people off this rock, is that landing site. We need to pick up the pace. I’ll have everyone ready when the sergeant gets the outer door open.” The other part of the trick was to sound so confident that an argument appeared to be a petty play for power.

  Vertic frowned slightly, reacting to Torin’s tone even though the words she actually understood came from the slate with a flat mechanical delivery. “And if there is no ship at this landing site?”

  “I’ll have the technical sergeant build one.”

  She smiled, then. A quick flash of teeth, as much challenge as amusement. “Very well. Go ahead.”

  “Sir.” A quick sweep of the room showed Everim already handing out the filters. Freenim was beside him, making sure everyone knew how to achieve a seal regardless of the shape of their skull. They shared a silent moment of communication at the NCO level, then continued with what they’d been doing.

  “Durlave Kir Sanati.”

  The Druin turned from the control panel. Torin didn’t want to read too much into an alien expression, but she looked relieved. Given that the panel had surrendered nothing after the blast shield, her frustration level had to be high.

  “Get as much intell on the earthquakes from the Artek as possible and make sure they’re ready to move out.”

  They glanced together at the giant bugs still pressed tightly up into the angle between wall and floor. They were no longer clattering like a skimmer with a bolt loose, but they weren’t happy.

  Sanati snorted, and in the natural light Torin noticed a nictitating membrane flick across the black on black of her eye. “I do not think convincing them to leave will be a problem, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  “Gunny!”

  Ressk’s summons pulled her into the air lock.

  “Inner hatch needs to be closed to open the outer. And the sarge figures that it’s going to whoosh.”

  “And whoosh would be a tech term for?”

  “Whoosh!” He made a broad, sweeping gesture with one hand. “Serley thing opens all the way when activated. One unstoppable movement.”

  Torin glanced over at Mike’s broad back, his head bent over the open panel, both hands working. “And you have to open it manually from here.”

  Since it wasn’t a question, he didn’t bother answering it.

  “Go get him a filter.”

  “You don’t think it would be better to get me a filter, Gunny? I mean, if you’re going to lose one of us . . .”

  “We’re not losing anyone, Corporal. Go.” As Ressk trotted out into the control room, she moved closer to the hatch. The light bar blinked orange and lavender. “Time frame, Mike?”

  “Five,” he grunted. “Ten maybe.”

  “Make it five.”

  She had to admit she was impressed by the detail his wordless response managed to convey.

  “Durlave Kan Freenim says everyone has a filter but you, Gunny.”

  The Krai’s bare feet made no sound against the heavy rubber floor. Bare feet and lava pits—that would have to be dealt with. Taking the filter from Ressk’s hand, she nodded. “I’ll be right in. Mike.”

  He reached back without looking up.

  “Put it on,” she said, dropping the seal over his fingertips.

  “Still five.”

  “Do it now so it’s done.” She’d worked with enough tech to know not to leave him to his own devices. He’d remember about the time he was measuring the lack of oxygen in the air, calculating the precipitants, and passing out.

  Even with his back to her, she could see his eyes roll, but he slid the band over his head, settled the ear pieces, and activated the seal.

  Torin stepped forward and checked it, feeling the seal ease more completely into place under her fingertips.

  Ignoring her, he kept working, big hands maneuvering makeshift tools with delicate precision.

  “Good thing for us you work hardware as well as software,” Torin murmured, touched him lightly on the arm, and left. He neither needed nor wanted her hanging over his shoulder.

  She took Ressk with her when she left. “You’re operating the inner door,” she told him before he could protest. “You’re the only other person in here with a hope of reopening it if it locks down. His ass is in your hands.”

  His nose ridges flared. “Neither of us . . . Oh.” The top of his head flushed. “Metaphorically.”

  “You think?”

  With Ressk standing ready at the interior controls, Torin leaned back into the air lock. “Closing the inner door now, Technical Sergeant.”

  “Fine.”

  She straightened and pulled the hatch closed, dogging it down.

  The lights remained a steady blue and yellow.

  “They should begin blinking when Sergeant Gucciard has the outer hatch open, Gunny. And the odds are good that’s when the serley thing’ll lock again.”

  “That’s why you’re standing there, Corporal.” With Mike on the other side of the hatch, Torin would have happily traded a bag of biscuits for a working com unit. Actually, at this point, she’d happily trade a bag of biscuits for a cold beer and take her chances on starving to death.

  “Gunnery Sergeant Kerr?” Freenim stood at her shoulder. “The filters have no seal on the Artek, but Samtan Firiv’vrak is fairly certain they will breathe outside. As long as they move quickly.”

  “Fairly certain?”

  He shrugged. “Sanati’s translation. She says they wait for the technical sergeant’s analysi
s, but their species is adaptable for many atmospheric levels and they know what fire requires to burn.”

  “Good.” Torin glanced out the window. Fire was certainly burning. Which reminded her that she had one more thing to take care of before they began the run to the landing site. “Durlave, don’t the Polina usually carry another species into battle?’

  “Yes. They work together as a team.” He offered no more information on how they worked as a team, nor did Torin expect him to. They were allies by chance, once out in the real world, they’d be enemies again. “It was thought strange,” he continued, “that there were no Ner in the prison.”

  No Ner on one side. No heavies on the other. Their captors had some strange prejudices.

  “Do you think they’d be willing to carry another species across to the landing pad.”

  “Not the Artek.”

  Too bad; she’d like to see that. “No, not the Artek. The Krai.” “Ah. The feet. You have noticed the Polina also do not wear boots.”

  She swore under her breath, condemning the biscuits and whatever was in them to hell and beyond.

  “They cannot walk across open flame and by the end of the journey they may be uncomfortable, but their feet are very tough; the center pad, which bears most of their weight, is covered in a hard and nerveless . . .” The translation program noticeably paused. “. . . shell.”

  A clear case of “close enough.”

  “And carrying a Krai? Their bones are very dense.” Information exchanged for information. “They aren’t light.”

  He exhaled audibly through his nose. “You can ask, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  She could ask. He wasn’t going to.

  Fine.

  The quiet tick of claws on stone behind her turned Torin to meet Durlin Vertic who’d nearly reached the hatch.

  “How much longer, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  A glance down at her sleeve as though Mike had given her a definitive time. “Not long, Durlin.”

  “Good.”

  The lights over the door began to blink. A moment later they turned a deep, ugly orange.

  “External hatch open, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  “Understood, Corporal.”

  The control room was silent except for the distinct scent of used cat litter. Torin wished she could ask the Artek for a translation. A moment later, the lights returned to their original color although they continued to blink. A moment after that, they stilled.

  “External hatch closed and sealed, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  It was an assumption, of course, but it seemed a valid one. “Open it up, Corporal.”

  “Understood, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  The durlin rolled her eyes and Torin smiled, the way she’d smile at one of the Krai, her teeth covered. If Ressk was laying it on thick enough for an alien species to notice, it was thick on the ground indeed.

  “Convenient you have two tech among you, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  “Yes, Durlin, it is.” She responded to the words alone, the way she would with any officer. “I had noticed, Durlin, that when your species goes into battle you go with another.”

  “We do.” A muscle jumped in Vertic’s right arm as she went to reach back, then stopped herself.

  “The Krai use their feet as extra hands.” Inexact, but Torin needed to use words the slate could translate correctly. “They have no boots and . . .”

  Vertic cut her off. “And you want to know if we will carry them to the landing site as we would carry the Ner.”

  “Yes, Durlin.”

  “Perhaps it would be more sense if they stayed here. Without boots.”

  “We don’t leave our people behind, Durlin.”

  “We are both leaving a great many people behind, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  Torin inclined her head to acknowledge the point, to acknowledge the three-hundred-odd Marines still down in the tunnels eating their kibble and filling their time and not caring they were prisoners. And, hopefully, there still were three hundred Marines—the quake that had opened the way to the surface had wiped out an entire node and the last quake had definitely done some damage.

  “As you said, Gunnery Sergeant, we need to get all our people out.” She glanced at Ressk, working on the locking mechanism. “But we both start small. We will carry your Krai.”

  “Thank you, Durlin. They aren’t light.”

  The durlin dismissed that observation with a cutting motion. “Neither freetay nor ryrin . . .”

  Mount nor rider, Torin translated silently when the program didn’t try.

  “. . . wears body armor or carries weapons or ammunition or even much in the way of supplies. And, we are strong.”

  “Under these conditions . . .” A glance toward the window where a firestorm close to the building painted the glass with lurid bands of color. “. . . the extra weight on your feet . . .”

  “Our feet are also strong.”

  “Yes, Durlin.” The durlin had been emphatic enough that Torin no longer believed she’d agreed purely for the benefit of the Krai. Sometime, when she had the time, she’d like to have the relationship between the Polina and the Ner explained.

  The lights over the hatch stopped blinking, burning a steady blue and yellow. Ressk spun the handle and pushed the hatch open.

  “Filter works,” Mike said stepping out into the control room. Looking directly at Torin, he slapped at the readout on his sleeve. “Seventy-four point two percent nitrogen, twenty-two point three nine percent oxygen, carbon dioxide six point two percent and neon point zero seven percent. Everything else, and there’s a lot of it, reads trace.” The Krai would be happy with the CO2 levels. The di’Taykan would not. “Precipitants are mostly ash, but there’s other shit this thing’s too basic to read.” He sounded personally insulted by the failings of his uniform tech. “Temperature’s up to 39.7 degrees C and that’s in the shade of the building. Closer to the fires, well, it’ll be hotter.”

  At those temperatures, with only basic environmental controls working, the di’Taykan were going to be very uncomfortable. If Torin was reading Freenim’s expression correctly, the Druin weren’t too happy about it either.

  “We can reach the landing site, then, Technical Sergeant Gucciard?”

  Mike shifted his gaze to the durlin, one scorched eyebrow raised, and repeated, in a tone that wondered why she asked, “The filter works.”

  She scraped her rear claws against the floor. “Gunnery Sergeant, Durlave Kan—get everyone into the air lock. Helic’tin, Bertecnic— we will carry the Krai.”

  Torin felt a hand grip her sleeve. “What is it, Kyster?”

  “They will carry the Krai?”

  “That’s what the durlin said, Private.”

  “On who . . . uh, which, Gunny?”

  “Not for me to say.”

  Teeth carefully covered, the durlin pointed at each Krai in turn. “You, on Helic’tin. You, on Bertecnic. You, on me.”

  When Torin looked down, Kyster didn’t look happy about getting to ride an officer across a lava field. “Gunnery Sergeant?”

  “You can’t walk through a lava field, Private. Say thank you and mount up.” She raised her voice slightly, more for impact than need. “Filters on everyone.” A quick round of the room to check the seals. Hairless, the Druin and the Krai needed only minor adjustments, the press of her finger along the band to ease it down the last bit. Other species took a little more tweaking. Given that the di’Taykan hair were sense organs—the Corps used hoods for that very reason—Watura and Darlys both kept fussing until she glared their hands down.

  “Is it painful?”

  “No, Gunny, but it feels . . .”

  “Like crap,” Watura finished, the ends of his unconfined hair flipping up and down.

  “Lung burn feels worse,” Torin reminded them. Their uncovered hair was going to take damage, no way around it. Her own hair was about the same length, and the band settled uncomfortably, sealant seeping through and around it. Her scalp itched. Although, sinc
e she hadn’t washed her hair for days, there could have been other reasons for that.

  Kyster looked unhappy perched on the durlin’s withers, clutching the straps on her vest. Ressk looked intrigued. Werst looked bored. They could maintain their hold on a tree in a high wind, Torin had every confidence they’d stay on board. All three Polina seemed . . . not exactly happy, but significantly more settled.

  The floor bucked once, the whip end of a wave motion, tumbling them together but not actually knocking anyone down.

  “Watch your fukking elbows,” Mashona growled as she steadied Kichar.

  Freenim snarled something the program missed as the Artek charged through the hatch. The last bug into the air lock clicked something back.

  Torin understood their need for speed. “Marines, we are leaving!”

  TWELVE

  “THEY MUST HAVE BEEN KNOWING WE WERE BEING behind them!” Presit paced the width of the tiny cabin, her legs short enough it was actually worth the effort. “I are still saying they are having deliberately ditched us!”

  “Not so much still saying as continuously,” Craig muttered, bending over the board. And Presit was delusional. If the Others had been aware of the small salvage ship locked onto their Susumi tail, they’d have destroyed it rather than risk a message with any kind of usable equation getting back to the enemy. No, they’d been ditched out here beyond the black stump because trusting to the Susumi modification had been a fukked idea from the get go—where nothing else was certain that much stood out like a dog’s balls. But he’d given up arguing with Presit some time ago, allowing her to monologue uninterrupted.

  Her small hand grabbed his forearm, lacquered claws digging in just enough to keep him from jerking free. “Why are we not going back already?” she asked suddenly, suspiciously. “You are working that board since we are being left here, and nothing are happening.”

  “We can’t go back until we know where we are,” he reminded her, plucking her hand from his flesh. “Destination equations are dependent on the start point, and I don’t have a start point.”