The Truth of Valor (47 page)

Vacuum being what it was, air locks had safeties built into their safeties; everyone knew that. Everyone also knew who’d programmed Vrijheid. William Fukking Ponner.

“What part of Big Bill’s trying to screw us did you miss,” Cho snarled, rubbing his hands together. “Get that air lock open!”

*Hostiles incoming, Gunny! I don’t have control of the inner hatches.*

Torin pivoted around toward the exit to the station. Interior decompression hatches had access panels on both sides. “We can jam it from here.”

*It’s complicated, you’ll have to . . . *

“Smash the panel.”

*Yeah, that’ll work.*

“Good.” Torin bent to pick up the wrench, but Craig’s hand on her arm dragged her back upright, and turned her in time to see the
Heart
’s air lock close behind a Human male. Not very tall, broad shoulders, long dark hair. Vaguely familiar.

“It’s Doc,” Craig said quietly. “He’s crazy. And when I say crazy, I mean certifiable. He was a doctor, an actual Navy doctor. His ship got destroyed, and it broke him. Literally broke him in two. There’s the medic side and the likes-to-see-you-bleed side. And the likes-to-see-you-bleed side, it doesn’t lose.”

“What ship?”

“What ship? I have no idea.” Craig scooped up the wrench and held it two-handed, across his body. “Does it matter?”

Torin shrugged, then continued the movement, working the stiffness out of her shoulders. “It might have. Go jam the hatch. I’ve got this.”

“Why? Because he was military, you think you have to face him alone?”

Maybe. He wasn’t Corps, but still . . . he’d been broken by his service and that made him her responsibility. It was entirely possible Craig knew she believed that; not that it mattered.

“No.” She met his gaze and held it. “Because if Big Bill sends more of his people in after us, we’re fukked.”

After a long moment, a moment she wouldn’t have granted anyone else, Craig nodded. Acknowledged her point. “Torin, Doc is . . . he’s good at violence.”

“So am I.” She managed half a smile. “Your tax dollars at work.”

He wanted to say more, but he nodded again and started toward the hatch, half hopping, half hobbling, most of his weight on his right foot.

Torin had almost forgotten his injury—pushed it to the back of her mind while she did what she had to. Injuries weren’t unusual in her old job; dealt with and the job went on. She didn’t much like that she kept forgetting Craig was a noncombatant.

As Doc came closer, Torin realized where she’d seen him before. Most recently, watching the fight in the Hub, but before that, heading into the bar, into the game, where Nat Forester had set them up.

No mistaking the tension that pleated the soft skin around his eyes. Ex-military—the tells were obvious to anyone who’d spent as much time in uniform as Torin had—with the look of someone who’d seen too much and not been able to let any of it go. He was the first person she’d met since getting out that she wasn’t entirely positive she could beat if it came to a fight.

As much as Torin wanted to destroy anyone who had a part in Crag’s abuse, she forced reason past reaction. Not fighting this man would be the smart thing to do.

“We don’t have to get into this,” she began.

“Yes, we do.” For all the teeth showing, there was nothing Krai-like about Doc’s smile. It was a very Human smile. The last time Torin had seen that particular expression, she’d been looking in a mirror. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“For me?”

He shrugged and continued closing the distance between them. “For someone like you.”

His eyes were a flat emotionless blue, not gleaming in anticipation. He wasn’t going into this fight for the fun of it; he was the deadly serious kind of bugfuk crazy. The kind that would methodically torture Rogelio Page. The kind who would cut off a man’s toe when ordered to so that the pain would teach him his place.

“Everyone figures the military broke him . . .

Torin shifted her weight. This would not be a long fight, and only one of them would survive it. She noted the minor damage she’d already suffered as potential weak points she’d have to guard. Her heart began to beat faster. In all honesty, she was just as glad he hadn’t backed down.

Unfortunately, time was on his side. She couldn’t wait for him to make the first move.

Doc blocked her kick, dropped, and slid under her leg. Torin twisted on the ball of her foot and the side of his fist slammed into the meaty part of her thigh instead of the joint. When she pushed off his shoulders in order to flip around and face him again, he dropped further. She used her weight to drive him into the deck, but he tucked his feet under his body and threw himself backward.

She kneed him in the kidneys. Rolled clear.

He rolled with her, crushing the fingers of her right hand against the deck.

Her kick knocked him back just far enough to free her hand, spraying the deck with blood from the split along a cracked cheekbone.

They scrambled back up onto their feet and Torin blocked a body blow. He lunged sideways and her stiffened left hand jabbed into his shoulder instead of his throat.

His arm spasmed. His other hand closed around her wrist.

Lubricated by the blood from the earlier bite, she twisted in his grip, negating most of the torque, and slammed her forehead into his nose.

His knee came up, hard. Torin felt a rib crack, but she moved with the blow and slammed the point of her other elbow into the thinner bone at his temple.

He staggered and released her but got an arm up in time to stop her from taking out his right eye—a blow actually intended to distract from the hard one, two, three jab to the solar plexus. His mouth opened, but no sound emerged and, fighting for breath, he fell to the deck.

Swiping at the blood dripping from her forehead, Torin gasped, “Stay down.”

Doc didn’t have breath enough to laugh, but he tried it anyway.

Teeth bloody, he surged forward, curve of his shoulders tucked under her knees, weight slamming her to the deck. Torin wrapped her legs around his neck, rolled up, and wrapped her right arm around, his chin nestled in the cup of her palm, her fingers curled uselessly against his cheek. She ignored the blow that broke the damaged rib and twisted.

The crack was loud.

Doc grunted. And exhaled.

And went limp.

“Okay, the atmosphere’s a match so I’m slaving the outside hatch to the inside and seeing if working them in unison will . . .”

Both hatches opened.

Ignoring Dysun’s self-congratulatory babbling, Cho pushed past Huirre and charged out into the ore dock.

Doc would . . .

Doc wouldn’t.

Doc dropped to the deck like a useless piece of crap, body collapsing into the boneless sprawl of the newly dead. Big Bill’s gunnery sergeant stood.

Cho rocked to a stop.

Wiping away the blood that continued dripping from her forehead, right arm pressed against her ribs, right hand cradled against her chest, Torin turned toward the sound of running footsteps.

Mackenzie Cho stood staring, eyes wide, mouth open, about five meters from his air lock.

Torin smiled and started toward him.

Doc had done the damage, but Cho had given the orders. Time to make Cho pay.

The look the gunnery sergeant had been shooting him earlier in the storage pod had been Doc’s
crazy under control
look. This look, this matched Doc’s crazy out of control on every point—only Cho had never seen it directed at him. This look didn’t say,
I’m going to kill you.
It said,
You’re a dead man.

No doubt. No question.

Absolute certainty.

He needed to run. Run now.

He couldn’t move, held in place by the awareness of his approaching death.

Where the hell was Huirre? Huirre had the
tasiks
. Huirre should be here, beside him. He shouldn’t be standing alone, that’s why he had fukking crew!

“Torin!”

Ryder. Still closer to the hatch than the gunnery sergeant but quickly closing the distance between them. To Cho’s surprise, the gunnery sergeant jerked to a reluctant stop.

Craig hadn’t expected Torin to stop. He’d hoped. If he’d had time, he’d have prayed, but he hadn’t expected it.

When she turned, he wished he was closer. Wished he was far enough away he couldn’t see the look on her face.

“Don’t.” No need for him to elaborate. They both knew what he meant.

Torin spat a mouthful of blood out onto the deck. “He deserves . . .”

“Not arguing.” Almost to her now, Craig cut her off. “But what he deserves and what you should do about it . . . Torin, it’s not who you are. It’s not what you are.”

Her expression was pure Doc. Her mouth twisted into something that in no way resembled a smile. “I’ve killed before.”

“I know.” Here and now, there were three bodies on the deck. Although he’d killed one of them and wasn’t going to think too hard about that until they’d come out the other side of a Susumi fold and were safely away. “But there’s a difference between killing and . . .” Fuk! He sketched meanings in the air. “. . .
killing
.”