The Better Part of Valor (16 page)

Ryder took a step closer and was pushed back as Dr. Hodges returned to his data, the spectators surging back and forth with his movements. “So what’s his machinery do?”

Torin shrugged. “No idea. I do know it’s damned heavy and, apparently, it shouldn’t be dropped.”

“Did you drop it?”

“Not personally.” The light strip, now on the wall, lit up. For all Torin knew it might have been the same strip Dr. Hodges had used in the air lock. As far as she was concerned, one set of red-and-green flashing lights looked like another. She dropped her benny down off her shoulder and brought it around to the ready, just in case.

“Dr. Hodges. Dr. Hodges!” Whiskers quivering, Presit pushed herself between the scientist and Captain Travik. “Are you please telling our viewers just what it is you are doing?”

“I’m about to open an access panel. Now get out of my way.”

As the reporter stepped indignantly back, Captain Travik stepped forward. “As the officer commanding this mission, I’d like to…”

“I said, move!”

Enjoying the captain’s discomfort, Torin didn’t see the actual moment the panel opened. When the cheering drew her gaze, a three-or-four-centimeter crack already ran halfway down the wall between the two beams of light. As it widened farther, all the hair rose off the back of her neck.

The deck shivered under the soles of her boots.

Grabbing a handful of Ryder’s shirt, she threw him down behind the packing crates and followed him to the floor just as an explosion filled the corridor with flying debris and plumes of smoke. Ears ringing, she rolled up tight against the lowest crate, shoulder pressed hard against Ryder’s back.

“Staff! What the hell was that?”

She snapped her mike down against her mouth. “Explosion by the lock! Report!”

“Area rippled. No damage. No casualties.”

A second blast slammed up against the pile, sending the upper crates flying. A hunk of meat still wearing a bit of sleeve splashed against her boot. “We’ve got both!” Coughing, she checked her sleeve. Combats had a lot of basic tech built in. “Pressure’s holding; no hull…Craig!”

Twisting around, Ryder swept one arm up and swept the debris off his forearm. It crashed and bounced, missing them both by centimeters.

“Staff? Staff Sergeant Kerr?”

“I’m here.” Her eyes burned and her nose streamed. She wiped her face on the back of one hand while pulling a filter mask out of her vest with the other. “I say again, pressure’s holding; no hull breach.” A flick of the wrist unrolled the mask and she slapped it over her nose and mouth. The edges sealed.

“We’re on our way!”

Metal screamed against metal.

“Be careful, there’s a lot of smoke and the whole area’s un…Fuk!” Her legs, Ryder’s legs, the crate had all sunk into the floor.

And they were continuing to sink.

There was nothing she could grab. Nothing that wasn’t sinking as fast as she was.

*   *   *

“Son of a fukking bitch!” Instinct brought his hands down to shove against the floor. They sank. And he couldn’t pull them out again.

Something popped in his shoulder. He kept fighting.

Not like this. Not like this. Not like this.

“Mr. Ryder! CRAIG!”

Strong fingers turned his head.

“LOOK AT ME!”

The voice promised consequences worse than being swallowed by an alien ship if he disobeyed. Torin’s face swam into focus.

“Stop it! It’s not doing any good and it’s pissing me off.”

“Oh, that’s comforting,” he panted, panic shoved aside by irritation.

“Good.”

*   *   *

Now he’d stopped thrashing, Torin grabbed for Ryder’s right arm with both hands.

He jerked away.

“Staff Sergeant Kerr!”

“Nivry!”

“Staff! What’s happening?”

“We’re being sucked into the goddamned floor, that’s what’s happening!”

Still feeling a solid surface under her feet, she couldn’t stand. She couldn’t change her position. The pressure against her lower body was so slight, it couldn’t possibly be holding her in place. But it was.

What had been the floor was now up around their waists.

The muzzle of her benny was under the surface. The trigger was up by her right breast. The angle was bad, but she forced her thumb through the trigger guard without touching her elbow to the floor.

“What are you doing?” Ryder coughed, eyes widening. He began to struggle again, leaning away from her.

“Fighting back!”

“You don’t know what that’ll do!”

“Well, I don’t fukking like what’s happening now!”

The weapon fired—she watched the charge drop—but it had no effect.

“Staff Sergeant Kerr!”

She stopped pulling the trigger. Took a deep breath. Coughed. Spat. Watched it sink.

“Listen up, Nivry: there were three scientists down by our gear. If anyone made it, they did.” The floor was up by her shoulders. Torin could see a mark made by one of the pieces of heavy equipment, a black scuff against the gray. If she turned her head, she could see the piece of arm—di’Taykan or Human. It was too small a sample to tell for certain. Apparently, the ship didn’t want it. “Deal with the civilian casualties, then get the team out.” Her left arm was under, immobile. She held her right arm over her head.

“We’re not leaving you behind, Staff.”

“Glad to hear it, Corporal. Feel free to come back with the proper gear.”

The floor touched her chin. It felt cool. She couldn’t smell anything but the smoke she’d inhaled before she got the filter on.
What the hell does a floor smell like anyway?
Since she couldn’t move her head, she stared into Ryder’s eyes. They really were the most remarkable blue. Pity his nose had been running into all that facial hair.

“Take a deep breath,” he advised.

“No shit.”

She folded down all but one finger on her right hand.

The world went dark.

“S
taff Sergeant Kerr!”

No response.

Six running paces later, Nivry tried again. And six paces after that. Six paces after that brought them around the corner into NS1, the corridor leading to the air lock.

All twelve jostled for position.

“Fuk a duck,” Guimond breathed.

It looked like the explosion had blown every piece of scientific equipment they’d humped off the shuttle into a barrier stretching wall to wall and very nearly ceiling high. Tendrils of gray-brown smoke pushed through the narrow opening and slowly dissipated. An HE suit had been fused across the front.

“Hey!” Orla took a step closer, her eyes darkening. “That’s my suit!”

“We are so screwed,” Dursinski murmured. “Those things aren’t supposed to melt.”

Johnston swung the scanner around. “It’s not melted,” he said after a moment. “Its molecules have been integrated into the molecules of the equipment behind it.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better how?”

The engineer shrugged. “It didn’t melt.”

“I don’t care if it’s stuck on with spit,” Nivry snapped. “We’re either going over or through. If there’s anyone alive, they’re on the other side of this thing.”

“Not to mention,” Werst grunted, “so is the air lock.”

“Not to mention,” the corporal agreed.

*   *   *

The darkness lasted thirty-one seconds—give or take the few seconds it took Torin to overcome panic and begin
counting. The first twenty-eight seconds lasted forever; no sight, no sound, no smell, no touch, and only the bitter taste of burning chemicals in her mouth. At twenty-nine, she could move her legs. At thirty, her lower hand came free. At thirty-one, kicking and clawing for freedom, she dropped into dim gray light.

Her legs absorbed most of the impact. She rolled and would have come up on her feet had another body not slammed into the same space—knocking her flat and driving the breath out of her.

After a moment spent gasping, she slid her hand under a heavy, familiar shoulder and heaved.

Ryder flopped to one side, coughing out a curse as his head hit the floor, and Torin fought to catch her breath.
And wasn’t that the perfect end to an unpleasant experience?
Still, it could have been worse. If the aliens did any probing during her trip through the flooring, they’d done it without her noticing and, as far as she was concerned, that was the preferable way to be probed—di’Taykan opinions on the matter aside. Hitting this new floor had left nothing more serious than bruises. Fortunately, Ryder’s elbow had been moving fast enough that her vest had absorbed most of the impact.

The mask was gone. Wherever they were, the smoke hadn’t come with them. The air was clear, odor free but for the stink of fear-sweat that clung to her and Ryder. Torin could hear Ryder’s breathing and her own blood pounding in her ears but nothing else. As near as she could tell—given the light levels—the ceiling above her head was as featureless as the floor that had swallowed them. Rolling her head to the right, she could see a wall—looking like every wall they’d seen on the ship and, for that matter, like the floors and the ceilings. To her left, Craig Ryder’s profile filled most of her line of sight but a few meters beyond him, she could see another wall.

Wherever they were, the scenery hadn’t changed.

And where the hell’s the packing crate?
It had been sinking as fast as they had, but it wasn’t with them now.

Groping for the weapon that should have been lying along her right side, Torin realized that, although the strap remained over her shoulder, the benny was gone.
H’san on fukking crutches!
Drawing in her legs, she touched the knife in her boot—more for reassurance than because she planned on immediately
using it—and sat up. Slowly. If anyone—or anything—was watching, she didn’t want to startle them.

They were alone in what was essentially a cross section of one of the corridors—three meters by three meters by three meters of uninterrupted gray.

A moan drew her attention to her companion. “You all right?”

“I just got swallowed by a fukking floor!”

Apparently civilians, like officers, were inclined to state the obvious. “And you survived it.” An obvious observation back at him. “Are you injured?”

“Physically? No.”

“Then move on.” Crossing her ankles, she stood.

Ryder propped himself up on his elbows and glared at her. “Mind if I take a moment to have a freaking reaction to the experience?”

Torin shrugged; it wasn’t like she needed his assistance. “Take all the time you want.”

The shuttle had to have been destroyed by the explosion or Captain Travik’s implant would have been sending her his vital signs—or lack of vital signs. Considering how close he’d been to ground zero, he and his implant had likely been blown to pieces. Her orders from General Morris had been to keep the captain alive, but she had no intention of beating herself up over a death she couldn’t have prevented nor mourning an officer the Corps was inarguably better off without.
And on the bright side, Sector Central News probably went with him, so there’s nothing to stop the general from having him die a hero’s death and everybody’s happy.

Her helmet mike, snapped down before the explosion, still nestled against the corner of her mouth.

“Corporal Nivry. Nivry, this is Kerr. Acknowledge.”

No response. Not even static.

“Corporal Harrop. Harrop, this is Kerr. Acknowledge.”

“What are you doing?” Ryder groaned as he got to his feet.

“Attempting to contact my Marines.” Lips pressed into a thin line, Torin slid her helmet off and checked the display. The telltale was green; if that still meant anything, the unit was working. It was possible that the internal structure of the ship was blocking the signal. It was also possible they could hear her, but she couldn’t hear them.

Nivry’s code in the slate brought no results. Neither did any of the other eleven.

Hooked into the
Berganitan
’s system, she could have used the tracking program to find anything with a familiar energy signature—other slates, comm units, weapons, living bodies. Without the
Berganitan
, she’d need one of the big scanners.

Her slate’s mapping function had been disabled. Her own position was as unknown as the teams’.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m not getting through.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. You think it could have something to do with the alien technology we’re surrounded by?”

“No need to be so sarcastic,” he grumbled, staring up at the ceiling. “You sure they’re alive?”

“Yes.”

The inarguable response brought his attention back to her. “You don’t know…”

“I know they were alive when we went out of contact, and that was less than five minutes ago.”

“Look, I don’t have to tell you that a lot can happen in five…”

“They’re alive,” Torin growled, daring him to argue.

Both hands lifted, he backed away.

She couldn’t stop herself from taking another look around the cube.

No scanners. No weapons. No Marines. Just Craig Ryder, pacing from wall to wall, fists clenched as though he wanted to hit something. “We have to find a way out.”

“No shit. What do you think I’ve been doing?”

“A piss-poor job. You’re not even touching the walls.”

“Well, excuse me for distrusting solid surfaces.”

Torin rolled her eyes and crossed to his side. “All you have to do is…” Her hand stopped a centimeter from the surface. Muscles along her arm trembled; she couldn’t bring herself to actually put flesh in contact with the wall. It felt as though she’d been stalled there for minutes, although it couldn’t have been more than five or six seconds at the most. Breathing slowly and deliberately, she continued the motion back to her vest and pulled off one of the recharge bars for her missing benny. “…tap on the walls with this.”

The wall seemed to absorb the sound but was otherwise solid enough.

She could feel him watching her, so she turned, one eyebrow lifted. “Did you need to borrow a bar?”

He knew. She could see it in his eyes. He knew she’d stopped and he knew why.