The Truth of Valor (5 page)

“Torin, these are my wives Alia and Jenn and my husband Kevin. The horde is ours collectively. There’s an air lock there,” Pedro continued, nodding at the control panel Torin had already noticed on the far side of the bay, “and another one off the kitchen. We’ve got a ship a little bigger than the
Promise
locked in up there and another about twice as large down here. If the klaxon goes, don’t worry about which one you end up in. Closest adult grabs the kids, singly or collectively, then sings out so everyone knows where they are. We’ll shuffle around once we’re clear.”

It was the first time Torin had ever been given emergency evacuation protocols mixed in with introductions, but what the hell.

“So you’re the one sucking back half of Craig’s precious oxygen,” Alia extended a hand. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

She was missing the top joint of her second finger. It looked like an old injury, long since healed. Torin had never known anyone—and she’d seen a lot of injuries—who’d refused the medical advances the Confederation offered.

Alia noticed Torin staring. “No regen tanks here,” she explained, “and I just couldn’t be arsed to get to a government station. By the time I had time, didn’t see any point in regrowing something I didn’t miss.”

“I see.” It was the tone Torin’d used on officers when they were being enthusiastic about something particularly stupid. Polite interest; no noticeable approval.

Jenn and Kevin were huggers. They were both packing serviceable muscle.

“I was going to be a Marine.” The child tugging at her jacket was somewhere between five and ten, gender indeterminate, with Pedro’s rich, dark skin and Jenn’s green eyes. “But Da says the war is over. Are you going to have to stop killing people now?”

Torin thought about it long enough Craig turned from his conversation with Kevin and asked the question again, silently.

“As things stand right now,” she said at last. On the way up the stairs, she dragged two fingers along the gray plastic handrail.

Later, after an amazing meal, where everyone present provided her with enough potential blackmail material to even out the stories her family had told to Craig, Pedro sat down beside her on the sofa and said, “He really loves you.”

“Is this the
if you hurt him, I’ll do you
speech?” Torin wondered, watching Craig racing with Helena, the fourteen year old, on the room’s bigger vid screen. He was working his slate one-handed and using the other to poke Helena and make her fall off her hoverboard into the snow. Helena knew some words Torin hadn’t learned until she got to the Corps.

Pedro snorted. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

“Noted.”

“He’s still not talking, Cap.”

Cho’s fingers curled into fists, and he carefully uncurled them. “Have you tried convincing him?”

“I have. I even sent the di’Taykan in without their maskers.” Nat snickered. “Thought maybe all that sexual frustration might loosen his lips.”

The di’Taykan exuded pheromones that crossed species boundaries—and if there was a species outside the Methane Alliance that was immune, Cho’d never heard of them. Without the maskers they wore, arousal levels were at best irritating and at worst painful. “And?”

“Well, he started talking all right. Old bugger was downright inventive. Almon got pretty pissed when I hauled their multicolored asses out of there before they could follow through.” She dug her fingernails in through the short bristles of her hair and brought them away bloody after a vigorous scratch. “Oh, fuk it. I knew that damned cream of Doc’s wouldn’t work.”

Cho stared down at the image of the armory on his slate. Rogelio Page had been working the same scattered debris field for years. A crazy old loner, even by CSO standards, he’d never salvaged anything Cho would consider worth taking from him, but he was easy to find and easy to grapple right off the side of his pen. Almon had deftly set the hooks in the old man’s HE suit and reeled him in, kicking and swearing the whole way. Checking the meager contents of Page’s pen while Nat took care of getting his codes, Cho had no idea how the old man managed to find enough salable salvage to stay alive, but he supposed if staying alive was all a man cared about, it didn’t take much.

Cho wanted more. A lot more. To begin with, he wanted that fukking armory open.

“Let Doc talk to him.”

Nat paused in mid scratch. “You serious, Cap? Page is a stubborn old bastard, and Doc’s not exactly subtle.”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly through his nose. “I want those codes.”

Nat recognized the tone. “Aye, Cap.”

“Tell Doc, I’m going in with him.”

The old man grinned as Cho led Doc into the room. His teeth were bloody, bruises were rising on pale, loose skin, and he was still half erect in spite of the air scrubbers. “So you’re the fly in charge of this shit pile.” He spat, the mouthful of bloody saliva spattering over the toe of Cho’s left boot. “Looks like we can finally get this show on the road.”

Cho raised a hand, holding Doc in place. “Give me your codes and I’ll put you back on your ship.”

To his surprise, Page laughed. The laughter turned into coughing. “Liar,” Page gasped, and spat again. “Only one reason scum like you wants government codes. You got something big—something big enough to compensate for the size of your dick and that’s one fuk of a lot of compensating, so I’m thinking weapons. One really big one or lots of little ones, don’t matter. You’re not getting my fukking codes.”

“Give me your codes,” Cho told him, barely managing to keep his voice level, “and I’ll kill you quickly.”

“The fuk you will,” Page snorted. “You’ll have your trained ape kill me quick.” He narrowed the eye that still worked, looked past Cho, and locked his gaze on Doc’s face. “I’ve seen your type before, boy. You wanted Recon or Ranger, but you were too crazy even for those crazy fukkers.”

Doc showed no reaction to Page’s accusation. Less than no reaction.

“No one tried to convince you too hard to stay, after your first contract ran out, did they, boy? No, it was, ‘so long, Private, have a nice life. Hell, have a shitty life, just have it away from us.’ ” Taking a deep breath, Page straightened as much as age and the earlier beatings allowed. “Sergeant Rogelio Page, 3rd Division, 1st Re’carta, 4th Battalion, Serra Company, Confederation Marine Corps. Do your worst.”

Dropping his hand, Cho stepped to one side. “You heard the man.”

He was, he admitted nearly an hour later, impressed with how long Doc had kept Page alive and more or less coherent. Sure there’d been screaming and moaning, but there’d been actual words as well. The ending, however, came as no surprise.

During the questioning, Doc’s hair had come loose and the strands hanging around his face were stiff with blood, drawing lines of red against his bare shoulders as he turned, blue eyes looking even bluer within the crimson splatters. “Sorry, Captain. He’s gone. Heart gave out. If you want my opinion, he wasn’t going to talk anyway.”

“I don’t want your opinion,” Cho growled. So close, so fukking close! With the weapons in that locker, things would be different. He’d get . . . no, he’d take what he deserved. No more just accepting the shit the universe threw at him. He needed that locker
open
!

“Goddamned fukking stubborn old fool!” Pivoting on one foot, he spun around and slammed his fist into the bulkhead.

Even over the sound of the impact, he heard his knuckle crack.

The pain hit a moment later.

“Let me look at it, Captain.” Doc’s fingers were sticky, but his touch was sure. “Yeah, you broke it. Come on, let’s get to sick bay and I’ll shoot you full of blockers. You won’t feel a thing when I bond it.”

Hand cradled against his chest, Cho shook his head. It was never smart to access the two halves of Doc’s personality too close together. “I’ll meet you up there after I get us moving. No point in lingering out here any longer.”

Doc nodded, his hair dripping red as he tied it back. “If you take too long, I’ll come looking for you.”

Cho waited until the other man left the room, then crossed to Page’s body. “Just to set the record straight,” he growled, “Doc was a medical officer, CMO on the
Seraphim
. You remember the
Seraphim
. Two hundred and thirteen survivors from a crew of five thousand. Doc, he’s a walking, talking fukking casualty of war. Huirre!”

“Aye, Captain?”

“Best time to Vrijheid.”

He could feel how badly Huirre wanted to ask if Doc had been successful but, after a long moment the Krai erred on the side of self-preservation and said only, “Aye, aye, Captain!”

Torin woke the next morning to an incoming message from the station OS. Brian Larson had found the missing
Firebreather
, her hull breached and her pen abandoned. He’d salvaged the debris and had begun scanning the immediate area for bodies.

“Bodies.” Craig scratched the matted hair on his chest and padded across the cabin to start the coffee, shaking his head. “Why the hell would they put up a fight?”

“You don’t usually?”

He blinked, visibly replayed both lines of dialogue in his head, then backtracked so far he’d have been outside the ship had he been actually moving. “With what? Confederation law specifically states, all weapons are to remain in the hands of the military. What?” he demanded when Torin raised a brow.

“While we circled the station looking for a lock, I saw at least seven ships armed with salvaged weapons. They weren’t obvious, but they were unmistakable if you know what to look for. These ships wouldn’t be able to sell back to the military or any reputable recycling yard without being brought up on charges, but I’m betting someone on this station, on any salvage station, is willing to act as a middleman, providing legal tags for a price and buying the tagged salvage back.”

“Torin . . .”

“You wondered
why
the
Firebreather
put up a fight, so you knew they were armed.”

He stared at her for a long moment then he smiled. “I keep forgetting you’re no drongo. Smarter than you look.”

“You keep forgetting,” she told him levelly, not responding to the smile, “that we’re in this together now.”

“I’m sorry.” Craig drew in a deep breath and exhaled quickly. “We’re big on minding our own bizzo, us.”

She thought back to crossing the station’s market, the clear division between us and them. Between us and her. “I’m part of that
we
now.”

“I know. Old habits.”

“Get over them.”

This was an entirely different smile. “Yes, Gunnery Sergeant.”

What the hell. She could stay mad, or she could recognize she’d be sharing a small space with this person—that she
wanted
to share a small space with this person—for the foreseeable future. “What did I tell you about calling me that out of bed?”

He laughed then, a little relieved, a little turned on, and got the mugs out of storage. “So I guess the question is, what the fuk did they find that was worth dying for?”

Torin stretched out on the bunk and ran possible scenarios in her head.

“Torin?”

She glanced up at him. “What the fuk did they find that was worth keeping away from pirates?”

Craig poured both mugs of coffee before asking, “Isn’t that the same question?”

“Not quite.”

TWO

TORIN HAD ASSUMED THEY’D STAY
to honor the dead. She’d seen enough death over the years to know the importance of celebrating lives lived. She’d seen enough death
recently
—her entire company, most of her GCT, and a prison planet of Marines she’d all but promised to free—that the Corps psychologists had come to the conclusion she had to be repressing at extreme levels in order to even function. In turn, she’d come to a few conclusions about the Corps psychologists, and they’d parted on terms of mutual dislike.

Holding onto the living rather than the dead was not repressing. Binti Mashona and Ressk were all that had survived of Sh’quo Company, Miransha Kichar and Werst all that had survived of their recon unit. Kichar had stayed in, the other three had left the Corps around the same time Torin had. Kyster, di’Hern Darlys and di’Ameliten Wataru—the other Krai and the two di’Taykan who’d escaped the prison planet with them—had taken medical discharges and disappeared into the population of their respective home planets. Torin kept an eye out for Kyster, but, as Darlys had been the instigator of Torin as a progenitor, she’d let the di’Taykan go.