The Truth of Valor (40 page)

“Nine letters in their family name?” Torin frowned. Taykan society was hierarchical. The more letters in the family name, the lower the class. Alamber was a di’Cikeys; six letters, solidly working class, and making up a high percentage of the di’Taykan in the Corps. Prodded by Parliament, the Taykan were working toward equalizing their society based on merit and more or less succeeding on the colony planets.

“Unfortunately, the poor bastards come from home world,” Mashona continued as though she’d been following Torin’s line of thought. “With nine letters stacked against them, I’m amazed they even got off the ground. By all accounts, Nadayki, the youngest, is some smart. Ressk-level smart. And, like you said, Gunny, he does what Ressk does.”

Ressk snorted.

“Cho has Nadayki breaking the seal on the armory, so he
could
be Ressk-level smart,” Torin pointed out. “But he’d have had to fight for any opportunity to prove that at home.”

“Could’ve joined up,” Ressk muttered, pulling the big screen up from the
Star
’s board.

“Crime’s easier. Are they siblings?”

Mashona shook her head. “No.
Thytrins
. Almon, the oldest, he’s a big guy and apparently pretty damned protective of the kid. Competent street fighter; no training but if he fights, he doesn’t tend to lose. Only thing I heard about Dysun was that she took to pirating like the H’san took to cheese. She’s on the bridge of the
Heart
doing pretty much everything Huirre doesn’t.”

“I got told she’s likely to have her own ship someday.” Arms folded, Werst met Torin’s gaze. “If she survives. They’re none of them too
serley
old, Gunny.”

Torin thought of Alamber and ran both hands back through her hair. “And Nat?”

“Okay, she’s old. Well, not young anyway, not by Human standards,” Mashona amended. “When Cho showed up looking for a crew, she was the first to sign with him. There’s a lot of rumors about what she used to do but I’m guessing ninety-nine percent of them are bullshit. Me and Werst compared stories and think she was probably quartermaster corps back in the day and cashiered out for black marketeering.”

“And the other one?” Torin asked. “The Human male I saw with her?”

With the schematics hanging in the air over the board, Ressk spun the chair and joined the conversation. “That’s Doc.”

“Definitely ex something,” Mashona continued, “but no one agrees on ex what. Everyone figures the military broke him, but no one’s willing to risk getting caught talking about him because he’s completely bugfuk. Disturb his calm, and he’ll hurt you. Someone with more balls than brains challenged him to a fight once. At the end, Doc gouged his eyes out and dropped them on the body.”

“Showy,” Werst snorted. “But effective.”

“Good thing I’m not actually taking Big Bill’s job,” Torin muttered.

The three ex-Marines murmured varying agreements.

He’d watched Dysun stagger back to the
Heart
just after Torin had pinged off, and now, watching Huirre cross from the air lock to the storage pod, Craig wondered if the two things were connected. Had Dysun brought news in from the station? News about Torin? Had someone finally realized he was the bearded man in the vids from the prison planet?

Then he wondered how true all those stories were.
Once a Krai tastes your flesh, they’ll do anything to get more of it.
He straightened, rolled his shoulders to loosen stiff muscles. If Huirre wanted more, Craig would start him off with a mouthful of fist.

“Captain says you’re to pull some rack time.”

Braced for a fight, that wasn’t the opening line Craig had expected.

“Oh, fukking great,” Huirre sighed. “I eat your toe, you get all weird around me. Well, pull your shit together, and go grab a few hours sleep.”

Pulling his shit together sounded like a good idea. So did sleep. Craig dug the heel of his hands into his eyes. “The captain told me to watch that exit to the station, let him know immediately if Big Bill returned.”

“And he sent me here to replace you, you
serley chrika
.” Holding the edge of the hatch, Huirre leaned into the pod. “Not done yet?”

“Asshole,” Craig heard Nadayki mutter. “Ryder was talking to himself.”

When Huirre leaned back out to snort a wordless request for an explanation, Craig shrugged. “Trying not to fall asleep.” He rolled his shoulders again, cracking his upper back. “He’s lucky I didn’t sing.”

“Yeah, well he’s lucky about a lot of things.”

Craig heard boots ring against the deck then Nadayki stood in the open hatch, scowling down at the Krai, the ends of his hair flicking back and forth in short, jerky arcs. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Hurrie ignored the question. “You going to get that thing open in time?” His nose ridges flared and closed, slowly, deliberately, and—although Craig realized his perceptions might be colored by lack of sleep—he suddenly sounded dangerous. “Cap’ll pitch a fit if you promise and don’t deliver. You don’t want to piss him off, do you?”

Nadayki’s eyes darkened. “If the captain does anything to keep me from working, he’ll never get through this seal. Not when I’m the only one who understands the groundwork I’ve laid.”

“Was that a threat, kid?”

“No.” Nadayki’s chin rose, but his hair flattened. Mixed messages. “It’s a simple if/then statement. If he hurts me because I haven’t finished, then I can’t finish. Cause and effect.”

“Yeah?” Huirre flexed his toes against the deck. “Does it effect you if he hurts one of your
thytrin
to motivate you?”

“Affect,” Nadayki snapped. Craig had to suppress a completely inappropriate desire to laugh. “And no. If he hurts one of my
thytrin
, I won’t finish.” This, he was sure of. His hair started moving again.

“If you’re not going to finish,” Huirre pointed out thoughtfully, “he might as well hurt you.”

“What?” Nadayki’s hair stopped moving again.

Craig sighed. “Huirre’s fukking with you, kid. Getting you to waste time. Then he tells the captain, and he’s golden while you catch shit.”

Huirre snickered. “You’re no fun at all. Tasty, but no fun.”

Eyes darkening, Nadayki frowned, then smirked in triumph. “You hate that I’m more important right now than you!”

“Moment of glory. Enjoy it.” The Krai dipped a hand into his pocket and held it out, a stim on the tip of one finger. “Captain wants you to take this.”

“I don’t need a . . .”

“Yeah, you do, kid.” Back against the bulkhead, Craig worked himself up onto his right foot, keeping his weight off the left until absolutely necessary. “You get tired, you’ll make mistakes. You make a big enough mistake, we all die. Bottom line, that’s what the armory blowing up means. We all die. I don’t want to die. You don’t want to die. Take the stim.”

“Stop calling me kid!” But he took the stim.

Huirre picked up one of the takeout boxes with his left foot and tossed it up into his hand. He sniffed the stained interior and took a bite. “
Chrick
. Just like my
jernil
used to make. Now get lost, Ryder. And you might want to fukking shower. You stink.”

Considering he was still breaking out in a sweat every time he moved his foot, Craig wasn’t surprised. He hadn’t thought of showering until Huirre mentioned it, but right now, there was only one thing he wanted to do more than stand under hot water. Torin’s implant could reach dirtside to a ship in orbit. It could reach him in the
Heart
.

He took a careful step away, weight on his left heel, and remembered Torin had wanted him to check on how they’d moved the armory into the pod. The deck was smooth. They had to have shifted the armory from the ship’s cargo bay doors in through the big decompression doors—it was too gods damned big to get it to the storage pod any other way—but they hadn’t moved it on rails.

“Hey, Huirre.” He nodded back toward the pod. “You know how they got that thing in here?”

“The armory? Yeah.”

Craig waited.

Huirre snickered. “I’m not going to tell you. Ask the captain. Or Almon. He could beat you up again before he fuks you.” He took another bite of the box. “I don’t give a shit about Doc’s pirate guidelines. Far as I’m concerned, you’re not crew until you’re in deep enough you can’t screw us over with the Wardens. Until then, you’re walking snack food.”

After showering, Torin felt a lot more Human. They still had ice in the hopper, and the
Star
had a top-of-the-line recycling system; they’d have plenty of water to get them through the next . . .

She glanced at her slate.

... five hours and seventeen minutes. Given what Big Bill charged for water—up front—that was no small thing.

The station schematics had proved without a doubt the armory had come through the ore dock’s decompression doors—the armory was just too big to have gotten onto the station any other way. But how had they maneuvered it from the doors to the storage pod? That was the question. The schematics showed nothing capable of maneuvering that kind of . . .

Her implant didn’t so much ping as ring loudly enough she felt her jaw vibrate.

*Good morning, Gunnery Sergeant. I hope I’m not waking you.*

Torin had survived under fire more times than Big Bill had charged his fifteen percent. No way was she going to show that the son of a bitch had startled her. “I’m up.”

*Good. Meet me at the old smelter in thirty. I’ll send a route to your slate.*
The ping when he broke the connection was at a volume significantly closer to the default.

Torin fought the urge to beat her head against the bulkhead, reached for clean clothes instead, and began dragging them on. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten that Big Bill had her codes. Technically, he
was
her employer, so she’d had no good reason to refuse when he’d asked. Actually, she’d had any number of good reasons, but none she could give him.

She paused, one arm through her shirt. Big Bill’s implant codes didn’t go into the system. As far as the station sysop was concerned, that call hadn’t happened. Therefore, her codes hadn’t been put into the system and she could still contact Craig without putting him in danger.

“Probably,” Ressk agreed as she put her boots on. “I’ll go in and check. Easy enough to take them out now anyway.”

“Easy enough?”

“I set it up as a link to the communications boards.” He waved his slate. “Full access from here.”

“Can you eavesdrop on Big Bill’s implant?”

“Not yet. But I’m working on it.”

“Good.” Second boot on, she took a moment to lay her head on her knees and get her shit together. “I’m a soldier,” she muttered. “I fukking suck at this undercover shit.”

“You’re doing okay so far, Gunny.”

She straightened then and glared across the cabin at Ressk. “Just okay?” That pretty much proved her point.

He grinned. “I’m sure you’d be happier if someone was shooting at us.” He held out his hand, a familiar white dot on his palm. “Mashona found stims in the first aid kit. Look like ours—the Corps’—don’t they?”

They did. She crossed the cabin and lifted the tiny white pill on her fingertip. “How many?”

“Two. I took the other one. Mashona and Werst’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way. They’ve fought a war on less sleep.”

“War.” Torin swallowed a mouthful of saliva caused by the familiar, bitter taste of the stim. She shrugged into her tunic, checked that Presit’s camera was secured, and headed for the air lock. “War has rules. Whatever this is, it could use some rules.”

“Harder to break an arbitrary decision,” Ressk agreed as the lock cycled closed.

Five hours and six minutes. They needed a plan.

The route Big Bill had sent to her slate would have taken her more than thirty minutes even if she’d left the ship immediately after receiving it. With only nineteen minutes remaining, she took a short cut. First up to the Hub’s mezzanine level, moving quickly through the public areas—senior NCOs did not run in order to reach their destination on time. At least not where they could be seen. Once through a locked hatch, Torin picked up the pace, racing down the pale gray corridor that led to the staff quarters, left at the t-junction, then past twenty identical darker gray hatches . . .