The Better Part of Valor (41 page)

As the rope dragged them down into the pen, Torin reached around and hit the external controls for Orla’s
cleanup suction, passing her off to reaching hands in almost the same move.

“We lose anyone?” she asked as Nivry pulled her to a strap beside the captain’s body. The bugs were strapped along the back wall, the Marines to the sides just above the angled sections that kept the pen from being rectangular.

“Acceleration drove the edge of the pen into Huilin’s thigh. Bone snapped, but it didn’t break the skin and his suit’s fine. He’ll…”

The universe became brilliant yellow-white light.

Torin’s helmet polarized instantly, going completely opaque. Still, she could see nothing but glowing blotches burned into her eyes. The temperature inside her suit began to rise. “Marines! Sound off by number!”

Only eight of the original twelve, but she heard from all eight. Huilin and Orla both sounded like shit, but they were alive.

She had no way of checking on the bugs.

She was sweating now. Squinting, she could just make out the readout on the left curve of her collar. Environmental controls placed the highest temperatures where her suit was touching the pen. “Marines, loosen your straps. Move out from the sides but do not, I repeat, do
not
unstrap completely.”

One of the great things about vacuum, it didn’t hold heat.

“Torin!”

Her helmet beginning to clear, still tied to the captain, and unable to tell the bugs to move away from the pen, she headed back to physically shift them. “We’re still here.” One bug was totally unresponsive; alive or dead, Torin couldn’t know. One clutched at her in terror. Pain shooting along her left side, she barely managed to break free.

“What the hell happened out there?” she demanded, dragging herself back one-handed along the rope to her place between Nivry and the captain.

“Big Yellow’s gone.”

And that meant the rules had changed.

“C
aptain Carveg! Our engines are back on-line!”

“Captain Carveg! The Others’ ship has simultaneously sent a message to every fighter!”

“Captain Carveg! Mr. Ryder reports he has surviving Marines, scientists, and bugs on board.”

The last report shut off the noise in C3—from chaos to quiet in an instant. All eyes lifted from monitors and data streams and turned to the captain.

She alone was looking at the lieutenant charged with monitoring the
Promise.
“Mr. Ryder has bugs on board?”

“Yes, ma’am. He says the last five bugs surrendered and are in suits in the salvage pen with the Marines.”

“Prisoners of war.”

Not entirely certain it was a question, the lieutenant answered anyway. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Right.” Captain Carveg straightened in her command chair, adrenaline banishing exhaustion. Those species who fought for the Others—or
were
the Others, no one knew for certain—never surrendered. And now Staff Sergeant Kerr was returning to the
Berganitan
with five. Things were about to get interesting. “Engineering, I want full maneuverability five minutes ago!”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

“Flight Control, let our pilots know the bugs are likely to attempt some kind of unified attack.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

“Lieutenant Demoln, see that Mr. Ryder is kept informed.” She reached out and slapped her palm down on the touch pad. “All hands, battle stations!”

*   *   *

Torin was really beginning to miss the quiet inside Big Yellow. “Sir, Captain Travik saved the life of Presit a Tur durValintrisy, Sector Central News’ star reporter. She’ll make sure everyone knows it. Even without Big Yellow, you’ve got what you needed. Captain Travik is a hero.”

“And he commanded the mission that captured five of the enemy,”
the general added thoughtfully.

“They weren’t exactly captured, sir. They surrendered.”

“Perhaps.”

Perhaps? Torin sagged back against the side of the pen, the material no longer hot enough to damage her suit. The stim she’d taken had cleared her head and washed the fatigue from her body but it hadn’t changed the fact that it had been a very long day.

“As far as the public needs to know, they were captured. We don’t need to tell all we know, Staff Sergeant.”

She glanced over at the captain’s body, her tone carefully neutral. “Yes, sir.”

“We can count on the captain to say anything he feels is in his best interest.”

She could see the general, sitting at his desk, fat fingers spread on either side of the raised comm unit.

“Pity that reporter’s crew person got killed.”

“As well as nine scientists, Navy Lieutenant Czerneda, and Private First Class August Guimond. Sir.”

“All deaths are…”

“Strap in tight, mates!”
Ryder’s shout over the group channel cut the general off in mid-platitude.
“We’re about to be swarmed.”

*   *   *

“Never a bug zapper around when you need one,” Sibley muttered, slamming on his thrusters and moving away from the salvage pen to give himself more room to maneuver. “Looks like every bug out here’s heading this way.”

“B1
to squadron. Heads up, team, we’re about to be visited by every goddamned bug with wings.”

“Didn’t I just say that?” He switched to the squadron’s frequency. “You got a number on every goddamned bug,
B1
?”

“Five squadrons minus the ones we’ve taken out. A whole fukking lot of bugs.”

“Roger that. Tell me, how did we get so popular?”

“Maybe they’re attracted to your sparkling personality, Sib. Defensive pattern 12-4-2, people. We let the bugs come to us and hope the rest of the group knocks a few out before they get here.”

“They’re not having much luck,” Shylin observed dryly.

Although the Jades were significantly more maneuverable, the bug fighters flew a lot faster in a straight line and they were heading right for the
Promise.

Black Star Squadron had lost three Jades—Boom Boom’s
B8
had been destroyed,
B2
and
B11
had been grounded;
B2
with no loss of life, but
B11
’s gunner had taken a jagged edge of the control panel in the throat. The twelve Jades remaining in the squadron moved into a two-on defensive pattern, four pairs defending the
Promise
’s four main axis points, two pairs free to go where they were most needed.

Sibley found himself beside
B6
, matching the
Promise
’s speed a half a kilometer out from the stern of the cargo pod.

“I’ve got fifty-two bugs on my screen, Sib. There’s no way twelve of us will be able to stop them.”

“Well, not with that attitude.”

Light flared in the distance.

“Now there’s fifty-one,” Sibley grinned. “Piece of cake.”

“They’re moving too fast to be locked.”

“Then they’re moving too fast to lock—they’ll have to slow down to get a shot off.” Lifting his hand, he ran though a quick series of finger exercises, then laid them over the complex keypads that controlled the Jade’s thrusters. “I’m ready. Bring ’em on.”

“Maybe not,” she declared with more energy than he’d heard in hours. “Sib, I need Flight Command.”

*   *   *

“Group, this is Flight Command! Gunners who have a shot, lock missiles on the bug fighters’ trajectories. Repeat, lock missiles on the trajectories, not the fighters.”

*   *   *

“We know where they’re going, and we know they’re taking the shortest way there, so we let missiles and bugs run into each other—very smart, Shy. There’s gonna be pats on the head for you.”

“How nice for me,” Shylin replied absently, feeding the
last of the data into her targeting computer. “Permission to fire two remaining PGMs.”

Sibley grinned. For a regulation question it had sounded a lot like a statement. “Permission granted. Fire away.”

Forty-eight. Forty-two.

The flares of light made a pattern of destruction against the stars.

“You’d think seeing other fighters blow would bug them just a little. Enough to try something else.”

“They know there’s more of them than there are PGMs remaining.”

“Would they be…”

“Ablin gon savit!”

“What?” He jerked against the restriction of his webbing.

“We lost a Jade in a debris field.” A moment later on the small side monitors that showed Jades in the field, a call sign began flashings.
“Red Nine.
Jan Elson and Dierik.”

The webbing felt like it was getting tighter with every second that passed. “I fukking hate waiting. You know, I once saw Dierik eat half a dozen pouches of that crap the grunts call field rations.”

“Probably enjoyed them, too.”

“Said it reminded him of his
jernil’s
funeral.”

More flares. Closer now.

Thirty-seven.

*   *   *

“And why the hell can’t I take evasive action?” Ryder demanded, his screens showing three dozen bug fighters plus one still heading right for him.

“You’re easier for the Jades to protect if they know where you are. You start changing your trajectory, and half their attention switches to you. Just let our people deal with this, Mr. Ryder. It’s what they do.”

Yeah, well, under normal circumstances, he’d be heading for Susumi space and the hell with sucking small fighters in with him. Unfortunately, he had live cargo in salvage pens and although the field would extend to cover them, they wouldn’t survive even a short jump.

Not that the odds of them surviving thirty-seven enemy fighters were a lot better.

We are all going to die.

Too late to stop himself from thinking about exactly how many “we all” were.

Crap.

Denial was a wonderful thing—while it worked.

His muscles had knotted so tightly it felt as though daggers had been driven into the back of his neck, and every time he had to move his arms, pain shot from his spine to his shoulders. He
knew
he had six people in the cabin with him, but as long as they were quiet, he’d been able to ignore them. The Katrien had helped by locking themselves in the head with Presit’s small recorder when he’d told them they were going out the air lock if they didn’t shut the fuk up about the light levels.

Two of the Marines were unconscious. The Niln was sleeping, snoring anyway. He could feel Ken Tsui’s gaze on the back of his head.

Carbon dioxide levels were rising.

He couldn’t breathe.

He had to turn around. Had to. Not a good idea.

The only thing he could hear was his own heartbeat.

His fingers were trembling as he had the
Promise
contact Torin’s implant. Never very good at subvocalizing, he had no idea what was about to come out of his mouth and no desire to have either the general or the
Berganitan
’s comm station listening in. The eavesdroppers behind him were plenty.

“Torin.”

*
I’m here.
*

All at once, the situation didn’t seem so dire. Her voice gave him a new focus. He wished he knew how she did it but, for now, it was enough to be able to draw a full breath. “Jades took out nearly a third of the bugs. Still three dozen coming in, though.”

*
We can see them.
*

She sounded bored. As if being strapped into a salvage pen while three dozen enemy fighters blasted through a mere dozen defenders was something she did every day. Ryder grinned. Maybe it was.

“Navy says we should trust them to do their jobs.”

*
As Dursinski would say, Goddamned Navy.
*

Dursinski. He had a sudden vision of her, blonde brows drawn tight into a worried frown. Since she seemed happiest
with something to worry about, she was probably ecstatic right about now.

“Is everyone okay?”

*
Yeah, most of them are sleeping.
*

“Sleeping?”

*
Why not? You get those bugs to climb in here with us and we’ll kick ass; until then, it’s been a long…
*

The
Promise
’s small port polarized too slowly to prevent purple-white dots from dancing across his vision. “Torin!”

*   *   *

“We’re fine,” she snorted, switching back to group channel for her answer, her tone making it quite clear she had no intention of allowing her people to be anything but fine. “You might not be aware of this, but it takes more than bright lights to damage a Marine. We’ve been highly trained to deal with loud noises, too.”

Someone snickered. It sounded like a di’Taykan. Nivry probably. The Corps had to have put her through at least one leadership course and this situation was tailor-made for that last lesson in Combat Morale, “
If you’re going to die anyway, see to it that your people die with dry underwear and a smile.
”

“We don’t usually get to watch the vacuum jockeys work from such good seats,” Torin continued before Ryder could respond. “Maybe we’ll finally find out why they get the big…”

Not so bright this time, although the salvage pen rocked.

“…bucks.”

*   *   *

“So if there’s three bugs for each of us, why the fuk are there five bugs on me!” Unable to take either hand from the thruster controls, Sibley jerked his head toward the stars.

“At least they haven’t got a clear shot off.” Shylin’s hair stood out from her head in a cadmium nimbus. “And…I’ve…got…Damn it, Sib.” The salvage pen was now straight up. “How am I suppose to take them out when you keep…”

The Jade slid down forty-five degrees to port and flipped ninety degrees.

“Saving our collective ass?”

“Yeah. That. I need a clear target; we’ve only got small stuff left.”

“The AR-67s?”

“One.”

“We had four!”

“Now we have one. And after that it’s PFUs only.”

“And after that we throw cocktail weenies—get ready.”

A one-eighty flip and a short burst on the rear thrusters.

Shylin’s shot hit the bug fighter a glancing blow, spun it into another fighter’s path, and sent the two of them careening out of control.