The Truth of Valor (33 page)

Having refused the chair, Torin stared across the desk at Big Bill—directly at him, not at a point just over his shoulder, he was no officer of hers—and wondered if she’d heard him correctly. “You want me, us, to train . . . pirates?”

He raised a hand. His palm was pink and, as far as Torin could see, completely free of calluses. “I prefer the term free merchants.”

“Fine. You want us to train free merchants to fight? As a unit?”

“Yes. We’ll start by training the crews who frequent this station, but once word gets out, I expect our numbers will grow.” Head cocked, he studied her face. Fortunately, Torin had long since learned to keep her opinions of even more asinine plans to herself. After a moment, he sighed, and shuffled a pile of paper around without actually moving it anywhere. Torin had never seen paper piled on a desk before. How did he access his screens? “Things are going to hell in a hand-cart, Gunnery Sergeant Kerr,” he said at last. “You should know, you pushed the cart off the cliff. You and your discovery of the gray plastic aliens. I’ve been watching you, you know, and during the short time you’ve been in this room, you’ve managed to touch most of the visible plastic.”

Torin curled her fingers in toward her palms.

“You’re looking for them.” Big Bill picked up a plastic stylus, spun it at eye level, then put it back down. “You know they’re still around. You know they’re still fukking with us. And you ask why I want you to train these people? I should think it would be obvious. We’re going to take what’s rightfully ours. What the gray plastic aliens have taken from us when they involved us in this war.”

Had she been here for any reason other than to get to Craig, she’d have asked him what the hell he thought had been taken from him. She could almost hear Presit demanding an answer from Big Bill’s image on the monitor. As it was, she didn’t give a flying fuk. All she wanted to do was move this conversation as quickly as possible toward Big Bill giving her an all points access pass. “Why me? You have muscle.”

“Muscle. Exactly. Ignoring for the moment that their present job keeps them surprisingly busy, the Grr brothers have a reputation with the people who use this station that would ensure compliance but little actual learning. Your reputation, on the other hand ...” He leaned toward her. “You brought the Silsviss into the Confederation. You fought the enemy to a standstill in the depths of the Big Yellow ship. You escaped from an inescapable prison. You’re someone people listen to, aren’t you? You can turn the free merchants into a force that a government who lies to us over and over and over will have to take notice of.”

It was almost funny—in a bitterly painful way—that the salvage operators and the free merchants wanted the same thing. To have the free merchants noticed by the government. Sure, the salvage operators wanted them noticed by a battle cruiser, and who the fuk knew what kind of notice Big Bill had in mind, but still the similarities were hysterical. Interestingly, Torin could feel hysteria beckoning. “What will this force be armed with?” she asked, her reaction safely locked behind the gunnery sergeant. “Harsh language?”

Big Bill’s chair creaked a protest as he leaned back and steepled his fingers. “I just happen to know where I can gain access to a Marine Corps armory. Still sealed. Contents intact.”

Torin heard a nearly audible click as the last piece fell into place. Jan and Sirin had scooped an armory up out of their debris field, and everything else made perfect sense.

Still sealed.

“You haven’t opened it?” Even to her own ear, she sounded like she couldn’t quite catch her breath but figured there were valid reasons enough, given a sealed armory. Big Bill wouldn’t question it.

He didn’t. Asked only, “What difference does that make?”

They hadn’t opened it. But it was on the station and the
Heart
was docked, so that could only mean they were working on getting it open. Working on getting past the seal the original CSOs had used to lock it down. Using the CSO they’d grabbed to break the code when Page had died before giving them what they needed. Using Craig. Who was alive. After a moment, Torin realized Big Bill was waiting for her to answer his question. Back in the day, it had been part of her job to remain calm regardless of the situation. Surrounded by a couple hundred juvenile sentient lizards. Trapped in the belly of an unidentified ship. Under fire by their own training equipment. In a prison that shouldn’t exist. She could do this. She could sound like she didn’t want to dive across the desk and grab Big Bill’s ears and slam his head into the wall over and over and over until he agreed to take her to Craig.

Torin regained enough motor control to shrug. “It makes a difference because you don’t know what’s in the armory.”

“We don’t know exactly what the contents are ...” Glancing down, he shuffled a few papers on his desk and looked up again. “. . . but I’m sure you could draw up a reasonably accurate inventory.”

“I’d have to see it. There’s more than one type of armory. Platoon support, armored support, hell, even air support.”

Craig was at the armory.

“So you’ll take the job?”

If she agreed too quickly, he’d get suspicious. If she agreed too slowly, there’d be yet another delay in getting to Craig.

“Depends. On what kind of an armory you’ve found,” she expanded when his brows rose. “No point if it’s carrying the wrong gear. And,” she added before he could speak, “it depends on what’s in it for me.”

“You’d be at the forefront of the revolution.”

“And?”

“And?” He laughed. “And do you have any idea how much fifteen percent of everything amounts to Gunnery Sergeant? You’ll be very, very well compensated.”

“
After
the revolution. I’m not taking a job that offers nothing more than the possibility of being well paid.”

“You do your job right, and that possibility is a certainty.”

“Chance is always a factor.”

He stared at her for a long moment. Torin kept her expression absolutely neutral. And here she thought she’d never have anything to thank General Morris for.

“You and yours stay here free,” Big Bill said at last. “Air, food, water—you work for me, I pick up the tab. Plus extra credit you can spend on the station.”

Thus tying them to the station.

“No deal until I see the armory.”

Big Bill smiled that smile he’d learned from the Krai. “Seems like you’ve already attempted to take a look at it. My station, Gunnery Sergeant,” he added, more teeth coming into view as his smile broadened. “I know everything that happens on it. I assume you had a good reason to be down by the old ore docks?”

“We did.”

He waited and, when Torin didn’t expand on her answer, finally snarled, “Let’s hear it, then, and I’ll decide how good it is.”

“We heard rumors that the
Heart of Stone
had come in with a big haul and wasn’t sharing. No one mentioned the word armory, but we thought we might convince the captain to share. For a small finder’s fee.”

“Running percentages.” He nodded. “I do like you, Gunnery Sergeant Kerr, but only I run percentages on this station. Understand?”

Torin had seen warmer expressions on corpses. “Perfectly, sir.”

The
“sir”
pulled out a real smile. Torin had known it would; it was the most manipulative word in a NCO’s arsenal. “Right, then. Let’s go take a look at the armory, and you can tell me what we have.” Pulling a pile of paper toward him, Big Bill added, “Wait for me in the outer office.” An order given to establish the chain of command. “There’s no need for your people to hang about; send them back to the ship. Do not mention the armory. You can fill them in when we have all the details worked out.”

The vid Presit had shot on the prison planet filled all screens when Torin went back into the outer office. Each screen showed a different feed, a different point in the recording. She could see herself, Mashona, Presit, the plastic alien, and, given the HE suit, Craig’s knees. Two screens had subtitles in languages Torin didn’t recognize.

The Grr brothers sat staring at the screens, ignoring the other people in the room.

Appearing
to ignore the other people in the room.

Keeping the two Krai in her peripheral vision, Torin beckoned Werst, Ressk, and Mashona in close, a hand signal moving Mashona far enough to the left to block the pertinent details of their interaction from Big Bill’s muscle. “We’ve been offered a job. Training the
free merchants
to fight.”

Werst recovered first. “With what?” he snorted.

“I’m about to find out.” Hands on her hips, Torin stretched out her index finger and wrote
armory
on the screen of her slate. Ressk’s eyes widened slightly and she stroked the word away. “Go back to the ship, I’ll fill you in when I know what’s going on.” Wrote
locked
. “If you stop in the Hub for a drink, don’t mention the job offer where you could be overheard. There’s no guarantee we’re taking it.” Stroked the word away.

“Haven’t had any better offers,” Mashona muttered.

“Granted, but we’re not going in blind.”

Werst’s nose ridges were nearly shut. “What’s the payment?”

“For now? We get to breathe and eat.”

“Activities I’m fond of,” he admitted. “However ...”

“Still here?” Big Bill asked, stepping out of his office.

Torin shifted slightly, just enough to put herself directly in Big Bill’s line of sight. “They were just leaving.”

“Gunny?” Werst didn’t quite growl the word.

“Don’t worry. Standing next to Big Bill is the safest place on the station.”

“It’s true.” He brushed a bit of nonexistent dust off his shoulder. “Everyone loves me.”

Ressk gave him a look that suggested he was wondering how the large man would taste with a nice red sauce. Given Big Bill’s amused expression, Torin suspected he’d been looked at that way before.

“You’re wasting . . . Big Bill’s time,” Torin pointed out. The pause had been small enough it could be explained by any number of reasons. If Big Bill asked, she’d think of one. He didn’t ask. They were wasting her time. Craig’s time. Big Bill could shove his time up his ass for all she cared. “Go.”

They still recognized an order when they heard one.

When they heard the hatch close at the end of the corridor, the Grr brothers snapped off the screens and stood.

Big Bill shook his head. “If anything comes up, the gunny’ll take care of it. Right?”

Torin shrugged. “Your first one’s free.”

“I
do
like you.”

The Grr on the left made a noise Torin nearly echoed.

The Grr on the right rolled his eyes and dropped back onto the sofa, grabbing for the remote.

As she stepped out into the corridor, Torin heard the sound come up on one of the screens and Presit say, “You are having aliens and he are having aliens in your heads—being lovers who are being reunited and who are discovering way to be saving the day. Very romantic.”

And Big Bill said, “Whatever happened to that lover you were reunited with?”

“We had aliens in our heads,” Torin growled, stepping through the hatch.

When he laughed, Torin resisted the urge to turn and slam him in the throat, crushing his windpipe. But only just.

No one approached them when they crossed the Hub although everyone tracked their progress, voices rising and falling as they passed in a wave of sound that had become familiar to Torin over the last few years.

“Feel free to use your implant,” Big Bill told her as they started toward the ore docks, his voice pitched intimately even though there was no one around to overhear. “Many of the free merchants do, although, given that free merchants are strongly individualistic, very few of them have tied into the station. In the interest of security, I’ve had to have the station’s sysop capture and record all signals, even those using ship’s computers as SPs.”

Torin moved her tongue away from the contact points. None of her crew had implants—the Corps installed them in sergeants and above—but Craig did and Craig was alive on the station. Walking half a stride ahead of Big Bill in an empty corridor, it had seemed like a good time to let Craig know she was there. Just a ping. A moment’s contact. And now her codes and Craig’s had been captured by the station. They wouldn’t know who he was, not yet, but the moment they did, they could connect him to her, and that could be fatal.

“Over the years I’ve noticed a specific muscle twitch, just here . . .” Big Bill touched his own face, not hers. Good thing. She didn’t have a Krai’s jaw strength, but she’d have made a damned good attempt to bite his finger off. “. . . when an implant is in use.”

The bastard didn’t miss much.

“Of course, when you agree to work for me, I’ll need your codes.”