The Truth of Valor (21 page)

“If you come back,
chica
...” Pedro closed a hand on Torin’s shoulder. “We’ll do another deal.”

Words that would wound rose to her tongue. She could see the damage stitching across his chest, spraying blood. Teeth clenched, she settled for shrugging out from under his touch and saying, “I’ll arrange for the transfer on the way to the ship.” She pulled out her slate. “Let’s go.”

“I are still coming with you,” Presit announced before Torin could move. “As much as I are hating to admit it, you are being right. This are going to be an amazing story.” She closed her hand on Torin’s wrist—claws dimpling the skin, fingers barely making it halfway around—and held her in place as she turned a sneer on the listening crowd. “And besides, as are having been mentioned before, Craig Ryder are being my friend.”

“There’s information on the pirates coming in from all over the station—I’ve directed it straight to the ship.” Pedro stood by the air lock, arms folded. “People want to help.”

Torin ignored him. She knew defensive when she heard it.

*Merik, what the hell is taking Presit and Ceelin so long?*

*They are being on their way. Presit are making sure she are having full remote access to Sector Central.*

Of course she was.

“You’ve got supplies on board for a tenday—there’s ice in the converter, you shouldn’t have to capture more. Torin ...”

Torin was fully capable of looking out over a platoon of Marines and keeping her opinion of the situation—of any situation, good or bad—from showing. Here and now, she didn’t bother.

Pedro winced. “It’s your life to throw away, but you’re delusional if you think he’s alive. Craig’s dead.”

“No, he isn’t!” Helena pushed past her parents—the other three had gathered at the far edge of the cargo bay, unwilling to be contaminated by hope. She ran across to the air lock as they shouted her name and followed. Instead of her usual station overalls and soft shoes, she wore scuffed boots and a jacket that was just a little too big for her. A small green duffel bag hung over one shoulder. “I’m going with you. I’m probably a better pilot than you are,” she added quickly, “and I know what to do if the
Star
gets weird.”

“I’m sorry, Helena,” Torin stepped forward, physically cutting off whatever Pedro had been about to say. “But you’re too young.”

“I’m not!”

She closed her hands on the girl’s shoulders, met her gaze, and held it. “Thank you for offering. I don’t doubt your courage or your commitment, but I can tell you right now, that in order to get Craig back, I’m going to do things no fourteen year old should have to deal with. Even if you survived the experience, parts of you would die. I won’t be responsible for that, and you’re three years away from taking responsibility for yourself.”

“But I want ...”

“I know.” And she did. She’d seen it a hundred times. Kids who’d lost friends or family in the war—a station destroyed, a colony attacked, a ship lost—and had joined up because hitting back was the only way they could make sense of what had happened. It wasn’t as simple as just taking revenge—although she’d seen plenty of those kids, too—they didn’t join because they hated the enemy, they joined because they’d loved something and lost it.

Helena searched her face for mockery and finally nodded, eyes glistening. “You’ll bring him back?”

“I’ll bring him back.”

Leaning in a little closer, she peered into Torin’s eyes. Torin knew what the girl was searching for and she let her look. Finally Helena nodded, one corner of her mouth twisting up, and she said, “They don’t know what they’re in for, do they?”

Torin gave her back the smile she’d been attempting. “No, they don’t.”

“The child are not going with us, right?” Presit’s voice carried.

“No, she isn’t.” Torin gave Helena’s shoulders a final squeeze and released her, the space where her hands had been almost immediately taken by Alia, who clutched her daughter to her protectively. Helena shook her mother off, eyes rolling.

“Good. It are an old vid adage never to be appearing with the young of any species. One way or another, they are always going to be making you look bad.” Presit patted Helena’s arm approvingly as she passed. The girl looked startled but pleased. “Ceelin, you are being careful with the camera. It are being the conscience of the cowardly.”

The Elder Races may have brought Human, diTaykan, and Krai into the Confederation to fight their war, too pacifist to take up weapons and keep themselves from slaughter, but some of the Mid Races were clearly willing to draw blood.

“He agreed to come?” Torin asked quietly as Ceelin crossed the cargo bay all but buried under an impossible amount of gear.

Presit snorted. “Please, I are practically having to lock Merik in the ship to keep
him
from coming.”

“Merik has his . . .” She closed her teeth on
orders
. “. . . part to play before he meets us at Val Doron Station. But Ceelin . . .”

“Ceelin are knowing the odds. He are also knowing you and I are where the career-building stories are being. He are ambitious. Also . . .” She fluffed her ruff. “. . . I think he are having
jurnifa
for me.”

“You honestly don’t think they’ll be any help,” Pedro muttered as Presit disappeared into the ship. “And don’t give me that bullshit about her being Craig’s friend.”

Torin thought about flattening him. Didn’t. But it was close. “You’d be amazed at how few people shoot at the media, all things considered.” She nodded again at Helena—
good-bye
and
thank you
and
don’t worry, we’ll bring him back
all layered onto the movement—then paused, just inside the
Second Star
’s air lock. “You went out after Jan and Sirin.”

Alia had the grace to look embarrassed. “To find out what happened. We know what happened to Craig.”

Torin laid her palm against the control pad, one finger bent to touch the plastic trim. “No,” she said quietly, “you don’t. Craig told me once that you took care of your own. He was wrong. All you’re willing to do is throw parties for the dead.”

Pedro’s small ship was the same basic model as the
Promise
—rectangular cabin with the control panel and two chairs across one narrow end, bunk and the hatch into the head across the other. The air lock and suit storage took up the majority of one long wall while across from it were general storage, cooking facilities, and a half-oval table with two chairs that snapped out from recesses in the wall. Because the
Second Star
had an additional three-by-three module, some of the storage space had been replaced by another hatch across from the air lock. Presit claimed this space as hers and graciously permitted Ceelin and their equipment to share it.

“I are willing to support you in front of fools and cowards,” Presit announced, climbing up into the second control chair and tucking her feet under the thick fringe of her fur, “but now it are just you and me, I are wanting to be assured you are knowing what you are doing.”

“The station’s docking computer is in control until we clear the panel array,” Torin told her without looking up from the board. She’d been surprised to learn the station
had
a docking computer and wondered if they hadn’t trusted her to leave on her own without causing deliberate damage. Fair enough. She didn’t trust herself.

“Not what I are asking. You are having a plan?”

A call from the station pinged the ship before Torin could answer. Unlike the steady stream of data still being downloaded through Pedro’s personal comm to the
Second Star
, this message was addressed specifically to her.

“Kerr, go.”

The Krai on the screen looked nervous, his nose ridges opening and closing so quickly they seemed to be fluttering. “Gunnery Sergeant Kerr, this is Kenersk. We uh, spoke, back at the funeral.”

“I remember you.” An ex-Marine who’d done two contracts, Kenersk had fought with the Four Three, holding the line during the evacuation of the Denar Colony, so she let the form of address stand. Turned out, he’d also been the Krai who’d allowed Winkler to get his hands on the cup of
sah
—which was why she remembered him.

“I don’t know if it’ll help, but I can tell you where you can find a pirate ship.”

Torin waited.

After a moment, Kenersk rubbed a hand over the bristles on his head and continued. “It’s a Krai ship, the
Dargonar
. All Krai. Captain Firrg hates Humans, I mean, really, really hates them. Don’t know what she thinks about di’Taykan, but Humans, Humans she obsessively hates.”

“I got that, Kenersk.” The information might have been a warning. Or possibly merely Kenersk trying to talk himself into the betrayal.

“Yeah, well, they say she likes to pick off the occasional ore carrier—just the drones, though, and never often enough to set off alarms—and they say she sells the ore at the Prospect Processing Station. They say, she’ll be at Prospect in two days.”

“Who are saying . . .”

Kenersk broke the link.

Presit snorted. “If he are not supplying his sources, I are not trusting his information.”

Torin drummed her fingers against the control panel’s inert trim. “Good thing it’s my call, then.”

“Why are you trusting him? Because he are stroking your ego and calling you Gunnery Sergeant.”

“No. Because he feels guilty about Winkler getting the
sah
, and he owes me for not calling in the Wardens. Salvage operators don’t like to be beholden. It makes them feel dependent.”

“They are not liking to be dependent on the kindness of others. It are a quote from Human literature,” she added, sounding annoyed that Torin hadn’t recognized it. “I are having read it at university in XenoHistory. You are being familiar with it?”

“No.” She slid her hand between Presit’s fingers and the board. Presit’s claws caught against her knuckles but didn’t break the skin. “Don’t touch that.”

“I are turning light levels down! Humans are always keeping the lights too bright.”

“I’ll turn them down after we fold. Until then, I need to see the board.”

“I are thinking that the station’s docking computer are doing the hard part,” Presit sniffed.

A ship the size of the
Second Star
was no harder to fly than an APC was to drive. Easier, since dirtside driving provided a lot more solid objects to hit. Also, APCs were seldom empty, the driver responsible for every Marine on board. APCs, however, didn’t have Susumi engines. Torin had read somewhere that eighty percent of all accidents in space were a direct result of a Susumi error. “Firrg’s taking the unmanned drones because they’re the most likely to go missing in a fold.” No computer could compensate one hundred percent for the unexpected.

Presit made a noise that sounded remarkably like the Katrien version of,
Well, duh.
and then said, “Who are being his source, I are wondering.”

“He said it’s an all Krai ship,” Torin muttered studying the charts to place Prospect in known space. “Four-day fold from here . . .”

“Four days are not so long, but even you,
ex
-Gunnery Sergeant Kerr, even you are not being able to go up against a ship full of Krai pirates on your own. Not even if they are out of their ship and under the influence. You are being weighed down by numbers alone. Although,” she added thoughtfully, head cocked to one side, “that would be having amazing visuals.”

“I don’t have to go up against a ship full of Krai pirates. I only need to get one of them alone.”

“You are probably needing to be getting the captain alone,” Presit scoffed. “You are not able to guarantee anyone else are having the information you need.”

“Then I’ll get the captain.”

“And it being are just that easy for you?”

Torin pulled up the charts with the Susumi equations. Remembered Craig bitching about her basic level math. “I’m motivated.”

SIX

“SO, I ARE THINKING THAT
while we are being trapped together in Susumi space and are having time, you should be filling me in on the Silsviss.”

Stretched out on the bunk, replaying her last moments with Craig over and over, Torin had been paying next to no attention to Presit’s background babble, but that got her attention. “I should fill you in on the Silsviss? Where the hell did
that
come from?”

“If a large, aggressive, reptilian species are joining the Confederation ...” One foot pressed against the edge of the control panel, Presit rocked the pilot’s chair back and forth. Unlike the chair in the
Promise
, the pivot point was mercifully silent. “. . . I are thinking smaller mammalian species are wanting to know about it.”

She had a point, Torin acknowledged. On Silsviss, small mammalian species were considered snacks. “Well, you’re out of luck because I can’t talk about them.”

“Can’t or won’t.”

“Both.” Sitting up, Torin scraped a clump of silver-tipped fur off the blanket and wondered just why she’d agreed to have Presit come along. They’d established beyond a doubt that the reporter was Craig’s friend, but she wasn’t Torin’s. No more than Torin was hers.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Faulty logic from a military point of view, where nothing prevented the enemy of an enemy from also being an enemy, but Torin supposed it worked in this instance. Craig had given them common ground; perhaps it was time to move beyond that and establish a connection of their own.

One of the basic tenets of the Corps was that no Marine got left behind, that in the midst of violence and death, in spite of rank or lack of rank or species or gender, they were all in it together. For whatever reason, Presit had stepped up when no one else had.

“There are being stories about Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr and the Silsviss. I are thinking you are wanting to set the record straight. Ceelin are just sleeping. He could be setting up ...”

“No. I was senior NCO of the platoon accompanying the first lot of diplomats,” Torin told her, rolling the fur into a tight silver cylinder. “That’s all.”