Valor's Trial (51 page)

Presit peered out the hatch at the undulating tube attaching the
Promise
to the VTA and crossed her arms with enough emphasis they compacted the fur under her HE suit and disappeared into a fold in the orange fabric. “I are not going into that.”

“It's exactly the same tube you used to get off Big Yellow,” Craig snarled. He briefly considered tucking her under one arm but decided he'd rather survive the trip.

“And Big Yellow are such a happy memory!”

“You're about to break a story about a third force in known space, a group that's imprisoning our people and the Others—no, the Primacy—and you're worried about what?”

Under the faceplate, her lip curled. “Nothing.” She pushed herself forward, sliding headfirst down the tube as though she actually knew what she was doing in zero G.

Maybe she did.

Picking up the camera, Craig adjusted the bag hanging off his shoulder, and followed.

They still didn't know where the fuk they were, and they still had no way to get home—even for enormous fukking values of
home
. They were entering a VTA designed by unknown and evidently unfriendly aliens piloted by a giant bug who, last time out, had been trying to kill them. They were about to land on a surface that was the fukking poster planet for unstable geology with no real plan for leaving again.

But Torin was alive.

So who the fuk cared about the rest of it?

They'd been on minimal calories for a while. Even with sufficient water, that made a difference. Torin gave the di'Taykan, who hadn't completely recovered from their collapse after the run between buildings, two tendays. No more. The three surviving Humans, maybe another tenday. Maybe not. None of them had been carrying extra body fat when they arrived. The Krai, with their flexible definition of food, would live the longest. As for the others, Torin had no idea, but the teeth on the Polina seemed to suggest a willingness to crack bone for marrow. Except Durlin Vertic had lost her fur about five centimeters around the burns, and the skin underneath it was an angry red and hot to the touch. She had a chance if it didn't go septic. If it did . . .

Kyster spent a lot of his time limping between the durlin and the taps, bringing her water and shoving the two males out of his way— he'd acquired status with that punch in the balls. Once again, some things were universal.

Kichar and Everim were fighting. Yelling about old battles, the slate between them and the soldiers around them taking no side in the fight. Eventually, yelling would escalate to shoving and someone would break it up. Torin wondered what would happen when no one bothered. A broken body at the bottom of the stairs would keep the Krai alive longer.

When Firiv'vrak got back, they'd send her to the prison for kibble. And biscuits. And maybe they'd all go back to the prison. Presit could reach the
Promise
just as easily from there.

“Incoming!” Ressk and Sanati were the only ones left showing any real interest in the world around them, and their focus had tightened to discovering the mysteries of the control panel.

The building began to vibrate.

Torin moved over to stand beside them.

“You sure you want to be so close to the window, Gunny?” Ressk plucked at her vest. “We're only mostly sure we've got the landing sequence worked out.”

“I'm sure.”

THE SEATS WERE BENCHES PROPPED
up at an angle. A couple of the straps on the safety harness were more than a little suggestive of possible alternative uses, the kind that involved slick and a willing partner. The actual pilot's console looked vaguely familiar and, all things considered, that wasn't right.

Teeth exposed, Presit spent most of the trip trilling at their pilot in Katrien. The pilot had less chance than a boil on a bug's arse of understanding her—hell, Craig'd been spending more time shepherding the reporter around the universe than he wanted to think about and he didn't understand her—but at least one of the patterns those antennae were making in response was definitely rude. Turned out some gestures really did cross species lines.

Gravity took care of getting the VTA back into the atmosphere. It wasn't exactly rocket science; rocks did it all the time. Landing, though, landing became a bit tricky if survival got taken into account. And he needed to survive this.

Torin wasn't dead.

She was Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr; she didn't just fukking die.

He never should have doubted that.

And the little voice of reason that kept saying,
well, this is just fukking wonderful, mate, now you two can die together,
was easy enough to ignore.

Mostly because the odds seemed good the landing was going to kill him.

“Hey! Uh . . . Firivak! Not that I'm criticizing, but we're coming in a bit steep! And fast! And . . . holy crap!” He clenched his teeth before he bit off the end of his tongue. The last time he'd had a ride this rough, there was a set of twins involved.

Torin's voice in his military surplus PCU sounded distant. Flat.

“Rough ride,” he growled without relaxing his jaw.

“Might be.” That had sounded more like Torin.

“Landing bay know there's meat on board?”

“Oh, please, you are not to be talking about your penis again!”

Craig shot Presit a look that made her snicker. Definitely time to work up a new intimidating expression. “It was nothing.”

Except
all right, then
sounded more like
whatever
. Torin fighting her way out of an impossible situation and taking her people out with her, that was business as usual. A Torin who didn't much care, that was wrong. It was true what they said about coming back from the dead—it changed a person.

The shield came up over the window automatically as the VTA hit the brakes, filling the landing bay with smoke and flame. On the single screen they had functioning, the bay looked a lot like the surface of the planet. Smoke and flame.

“Coolant, then force field, then the air lock opens. You know the drill.”

He was shouting by the end, probably so that Firiv'vrak could hear him.

“You all right?”

She thought about calling him on the lie. Didn't. “Firiv'vrak?” No need to ask about Presit. If the reporter had sustained any damage, Torin would hear about it.

Not a situation where an expletive followed by an extended pause was likely to be good news.

“Lost it?”

The shield came down as the smoke cleared. Torin caught one quick glimpse of the VTA, scorched but intact, and then the bay filled with billowing clouds of white vapor.

“Sanati, Firiv'vrak has lost a leg.”

The Druin leaned toward the window, as though she were trying to peer through the coolant and right into the VTA, then turned to frown at Torin. “How did she lose it in the ship? It is not that large a ship.”

“Not misplaced. It's no longer attached to her body.”

“I understand—removed!” Sanati nodded, pleased to have worked it out. “If the trauma to her body is not great, in time the leg will regrow.”

Cross-species definitions of trauma aside, Torin doubted Firiv'vrak had the time. Given that she had no more time than any of them.

“After there are being the all but crash landing of an alien spaceship,” Presit muttered stepping into the link, “why
not
be taking the risk of yet more alien technology.”

Craig shuffled to the back of the elevator and tucked the duffel he was carrying into the corner, giving Firivert as much room as possible. “You want to climb five flights of stairs, knock your furry self out.”

“I are not wanting to climb,” she snorted. “I are just saying that this are being a stupid way to die, all things being considered.”

They'd tell the universe that prisoners had been taken from both sides. They'd tell that during the escape, enemies had become allies. Mashona was wrong. Torin didn't want the reporter to broadcast a last will and testament, she wanted Presit to send out a warning.

Once that was done, she could . . .

She stared down at her hands as she walked out into the corridor. Curled them into fists. The skin stretched across her knuckles split, clear fluid seeping from the wounds.

Just get the warning out.

Nothing else mattered.

The link opened onto a corridor that could have been on half a hundred stations. Firivink scurried out—and fuk political correctness, bugs scurried—then Presit moved to stand in the open door. And waited.

Craig's palms were sweating inside his HE suit. Nothing else, just his palms. He couldn't seem to make his legs work. Torin was dead. This was some sick joke the universe was playing on him.

“I are not waiting forever while you are getting your head out of your ass,” Presit snapped, flipping her hood off and sliding her dark glasses onto her muzzle. “Move!”

He didn't seem to have any other options.

As he stepped forward, she glanced over her shoulder and her lip curled. “Camera! It are not being carried for decoration!”

Ah. She wasn't waiting for him; she was waiting for her close-up.

He lifted it to his shoulder, hit record, picked up his duffel, and followed her out of the lift.

Firverk had gone to join another giant bug. There were two species he'd never seen before—three of a cat/Human combo and four bald, black-eyed, squishy-faced bipeds. So that was the enemy. They didn't look like much. Three Krai—one of them with a swollen eye sticking pretty close to the cat/Human alien who seemed to be injured. Two di'Taykan who looked like shit, like part of their fukking hair had been melted, and three Humans. Torin and two other women.

Torin and one of the squishy-faced bipeds were the only ones standing. The others weren't so much sitting as in various states of collapse against the wall.

Torin.

Alive.

Thinner. Obviously thinner given she was wearing her combat vest over boots and underwear. The broken blisters weeping on the reddened skin of her arms and legs explained the lack of clothing. Wouldn't want to put clothing on over that. How the hell had she got them in the first place, though? There was also a pattern of scabs about three centimeters across down the entire length of her right leg. She didn't seem to be in pain, but then, she never did. Her hair looked fried. Frazzled.

There was fresh blood on her lips but old shadows under her eyes. She was staring at him. She was alive. But in some weird way that had nothing to do with her injuries, she didn't look like herself. She looked . . . beaten.

Grateful she couldn't see his fingers trembling inside the gloves— because she'd never let him live it down—he flipped the shoulder catches open and pushed his helmet back.

It could have been anyone in the HE suit. Well, anyone willing to wear a ten-year-old design with a gray patch on the right shoulder and a stain on the left knee he refused to explain. That narrowed the list, admittedly, but still, it could have been anyone.

Then he or whoever it was, reached for the shoulder catches and pushed the helmet back.

Craig had blue eyes. Really amazingly blue—not gray or blu
ish
but summer sky on a planet with a decent O2-level blue. When she'd seen him last, he'd just shaved off his beard—it came and went according to whim—but the reddish-brown scruff on his jaw had moved beyond stubble, so maybe he was growing it back. It was long enough she almost couldn't make out the dimple in his chin.

He was staring.

What the hell was he doing
here
?

He gone to see where she'd died—she'd deal with that later—and then used Presit's hello-I'm-a-suicidal-egomaniac equations to followthree of the enemy's battleships into Susumi space, got ditched, found this planet, and, finally, found her by way of a salvage tag she'd accidentally activated.

What the hell was
he
doing here?

Didn't matter how she asked the question, she didn't like the answer.

At all.

She was a Marine. She didn't fukking believe in coincidence.

Craig heard Presit's narration voice droning on in the background without really listening. The scent of unwashed bodies filled the corridor, unwashed bodies with a faint underlay of burning apples and cinnamon.

He had more brains than to gather Torin up in his arms and murmur sweet nothings into what was left of her hair. That wouldn't end well. And he hadn't expected her to run toward him in slow motion or some such shit, but he had expected more than the thousand-yard stare that had greeted him.

Sort of. When he hadn't expected her to be dead after all and him the butt of a cosmic joke.

Then Torin's eyes narrowed.

Her chin rose.

Her shoulders straightened.