Valour's Choice (13 page)

“Maybe they just don’t like aliensss.”

“No, they’d like aliens fine if those aliens were with them, but since they’re not, they’ve become a convenient excuse.”

“For a fight?”

“Yes.”

His throat pouch inflated slightly as he studied the movements in the crowd below. “And the fight becomesss a ssstudy in the sssocial interplay between ssspeciesss.”

Torin shrugged. “When something is inevitable, you might as well learn what you can from it.”

“We are not Human, Ssstaff Sssergeant.” He turned his golden gaze from the patio to her. “Nor are we Krai, nor are we di’Taykan.”

“No, but you
are
a social species with a paid fighting force who share intoxicants in a social setting.” She shrugged again. “If it walks like a duck...”

The movement of his inner eyelids made him look momentarily cross-eyed. “What,” he demanded, “isss a duck?”

“A medium-sized water bird from Terra.”

He opened his mouth, clearly thought better of what he was about to say, and shook his head. “You really are a most confusssing ssspeciesss.”

* * *

Hollice felt something compact under his foot, wasted a second wondering where that something had come from, as the floor had been clear when he’d started the step, and then suddenly realized what that something had to be.

“That was my tail!” A large Silsviss, nearly Plaskry’s size, rose off his stool and spun around to face the Marine. “Clumsy alien, egg sucker,” he snarled into the silence that had answered his first bellow. “Clumsy alien, tailless, egg sucker.”

From the reactions around him, Hollice suspected the insults had lost a little in the translation. “Sorry. Didn’t see it. Let me buy you a beer to take your mind off the pain.”

“You think that is all my tail means to me!” The throat pouch began to distend. “I will rip your miserable alien heart out and eat it!”

He felt more than heard Binti move from the dart game into place behind him. The others were too far away to add much initial backup, and he couldn’t see Haysole at all. “Look, I said I was sorry and I offered to buy you a beer. I don’t know what else I can...” The blow glanced off his left shoulder. It threw him sideways without doing any real damage, and he came up smiling. First contact had been made.

His return blow took the Silsviss in the belly and would’ve had more impact had he not been avoiding a swinging tail when he made it.

The Silsviss’ companions rose as one.

Hollice heard the high trill of a di’Taykan attack cry, saw Binti smash a tray into a Silsviss face, and then had time to notice nothing beyond his immediate survival.

* * *

“There, see! The us-against-them split isn’t Silsviss, nonSilsviss. There.” Torin pointed. “And there. Silsviss fighting beside Marines.”

“Thisss isss what you wanted to sssee happen?”

“This is exactly what I wanted to see. The lieutenant will be pleased.”

“Then if you have the information you need, we’d bessst ssstop the fight before sssomeone isss... before sssomeone elssse isss...” Nostrils flaring, Cri Sawyes glared down at the battle. “When you sssaid the Krai would eat anything, I never assumed that included tailsss.”

“Your boy bit him first.” Torin watched a Silsviss who’d been thrown down onto the floor bring the claws on both feet into play and nodded thoughtfully. “But you’re right, we should stop it before an outside authority arrives.”

They turned together and came face-to-face with two of the uglier customers from the room below. A little surprised they’d been able to move into position so quietly, Torin ducked the fist blow.

The second connected.

Had the rail been an inch shorter, she’d have gone over it. As it was, she dropped, rolled, and came up holding a Silsviss tail in both hands. A yank and a kick toppled her attacker sideways, his claws barely tearing the fabric across her thigh.

He was fast, she acknowledged as she leaped into an answering kick.

Son of a... I should never have let go of that tail!
Sucking a painful breath in through her teeth, she wondered if the ribs were broken.

The Silsviss responded to her pain by inflating his throat pouch and roaring.

Heart pounding, the taste of her own blood in her mouth, Torin scooped up her stool and smashed it into the side of his head.

He finished the roar on the way down, and it ended with impact.

“Well done, Ssstaff Sssergeant.” Throat pouch still slightly extended, Cri Sawyes cleaned his claws against a bit of his opponent’s harness. “You were certainly not what he expected.”

“Oh?”

“A challenge isss alwaysss anssswered before the fight continuesss.”

She poked the prone body with her foot until he moaned, reassuring her he was still alive. “I
answered
the challenge.”

“In your own way, yesss. Are you hurt?”

Shallow gouge, bruises, one rib possibly cracked. “I’m fine. What about you?”

His tongue flicked out, and he tapped his fallen opponent lightly with his tail. “I told you, they challenge and lossse and challenge again.”

Torin grinned. “Pitiful really.”

“Indeed.”

Which was when she noticed it had gotten very quiet down below. “Wonderful, looks like the authorities have arrived.”

“Tarvar ssselk.”
After a moment, her translator came up with, “Military police.”

* * *

“You, alien, tell me who issued challenge.”

Hollice shifted his weight off his swelling right knee. “I didn’t notice.”

The Silsviss swept his gaze over the rest of the Marines. “And I suppose none of you other aliens noticed either?” When he receiyed the expected negative chorus, he turned his attention to his own people. “Well?”

Wiping his claws off on his leg, Plaskry snarled, “Happened too fast.”

“What about you, Yrs?”

“Didn’t see nothing.”

“Really?” The MP smacked his tail guard against the floor as he swept his gaze over the rest of the room. “Ranscur. Looks like you took a few hits. You wouldn’t know who hit who first would you?”

The big Silsviss who’d made first contact gazed over the heads of his companions at the Marines then at the MP. “No idea.”

“Don’t give me that
ara srev crovmirs shartlerg!”

All six slates hissed and sputtered but surrendered the attempt at a translation.

“Someone challenged first, and we’re all going to stay right here until I find out who!”

* * *

Standing just off the patio, Torin watched Cri Sawyes walk over to the MP and show his credentials. Their discussion didn’t last long. The MP wasn’t happy, but Torin suspected his unhappiness didn’t come close to how the Marines felt when they were escorted out of the
savara
and found their Staff Sergeant waiting.

Haysole finally broke the silence. “Did you know your leg is bleeding, Staff?”

“Yes. I know.”

“Were you fighting?”

“I’d worry less about what I was doing, Private, and more about what you’ve been doing.” Eyes narrowed, she very deliberately examined each of them. Injuries seemed minor although they’d all been marked by Silsviss claws.

“The military police officer tellsss me that none of your people will sssay who ssstarted the fight.”

Torin looked past the Marines to Cri Sawyes and past him to the Silsviss standing quietly on the patio. “Is that true, Corporal Hollice?”

“Yes, Staff Sergeant.”

“And do you know who started the fight?”

“It all happened so fast, Staff Sergeant.”

She snapped her gaze down to meet Hollice’s level stare— slightly less level than usual due to a rapidly spreading black eye—and smiled. “Of course it did, Corporal.” Still holding his eyes with hers, she raised her voice. “Cri Sawyes, if you could please see that things are settled here, I’ll take my people back where they belong.”

“Of courssse.”

* * *

He caught up just before they reached the embassy. “The proprietor hasss been paid for damagesss, the military police officer hasss left—nothing will come of thisss adventure.”

Torin grinned as a certain amount of tension left the shoulders of the six Marines marching in front of her. “Nothing will come of it from the Silsviss,” she amended.

The shoulders tensed again.

She marched them to the west door, managed not to laugh at the faces of the two Marines on guard, and waved them through. “Lieutenant Jarret wants to speak with you.”

“Now, Staff Sergeant?”

“Do any of you need to see the doctor immediately?”

“No, Staff Sergeant.”

“Then the lieutenant would like to speak with you
now.”

Just inside the door, she paused to watch them climb the stairs and note who was favoring what. Her own injuries had died to a dull throb, easy to ignore. As she followed, she realized she actually felt better than she had in days.

“You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”

Torin glanced up at Cri Sawyes. He could be requesting information, but she suspected that he’d learned to read Human reactions fairly accurately during the last few weeks and was, in fact, asking only for confirmation. “Yes,” she told him, trying not to smile as broadly as her mood demanded, “I did.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Remember how you told me you knew what would happen tonight becaussse you knew your people?”

“Yes.”

His tongue flicked out. “I would say that your lieutenant knows
his
people, too.”

“I
would say that your lieutenant knows his people too.”

Torin frowned as she limped up the stairs to Lieutenant Jarret’s office. Their orders
had
wanted them to report on the interaction between the Marines and the Silsviss. To do that, they
had
needed interaction to occur but, more importantly, they’d needed to control the inevitable rebellion born of inactivity that was brewing in the platoon.

“Inevitable?” the lieutenant had repeated.

“Yes, sir. The Marines have trained these people to survive on the edge. It’s what they’re used to, and, after a while, it’s what they’ll go looking for. They need the rush that comes with facing the unknown.”

“You think I should let them look for that rush.”

“Yes, sir. I think you can use whatever they find to make field observations and to bleed off the excess energy before the whole system blows.” She’d shifted her weight from foot to foot as she considered how much more she should say, then, finally, had added, “I told the general right from the beginning that this was no job for a combat unit.”

“You don’t think that sending a group of boredom-crazed Marines out among the Silsviss will set diplomatic relations back to square one?”

“No, sir. Not if we maintain control.”

“So, you believe that since something’s going to happen anyway, it shouldn’t happen randomly?”

“Yes, sir.”

Lieutenant Jarret had stared at her in silence for a few moments. “How do you suggest we control the situation?” he asked at last.

“When a group large enough to make observations valid goes out the lock, Cri Sawyes and I will follow them, observe them, and keep them out of trouble if need be.”

“No. I don’t think we should involve the Silsviss.”

“I don’t think we should let our people out without involving the Silsviss,” Torin told him dryly. “And Cri Sawyes has the authority to stop anything that might start.”

Although he clearly hadn’t liked the idea, he reluctantly nodded. “All right. Cri Sawyes goes, but why you? Why not one of the sergeants?”

“The sergeants are specific to each squad, sir, and we can’t be certain which squad will go over.”

“Whereas you’ve put the fear of the gods into the whole platoon?”

“Yes, sir.”

He’d stared at her a moment longer, lilac eyes dark. “I see.”

At the time, Torin had considered his response nothing more than a noncommittal way to end the conversation. Now, though, she wondered what he’d seen. Had he seen past her reasoned arguments, noticing that the forced inactivity and the pointless ceremonial duties were driving her just as crazy as the six Marines now leading the way up the stairs? Had the night’s adventure been as much for her to release pressure as for the platoon or for their orders?

Was he actually a good enough officer to see what she needed, or had that one unfortunate night together taught him more about her than he had any right to know?

Give it up. He’s a di’Taykan. Sex may be a large part of their lives, but they keep it separate. Is it so hard to believe that he might actually be becoming a good officer?

It seemed a little early, but she supposed it was possible. It was always a difficult transition to begin thinking of second lieutenants as more than merely warm bodies in a uniform, to realize they were actually beginning to take command.

He’s got a lot of bloody nerve trying to manipulate me
battled with
They grow up so fast.

Her half-dozen malcontents/observational subjects were waiting in the hall outside Lieutenant Jarret’s door. Torin walked through them, looking neither left nor right as they shuffled out of her way, and she knocked on the worn wood.

When the lieutenant’s voice told them to enter, she turned to the Marines. “Form a line, single file, along the south wall under the row of high windows.” Fortunately, the latch—its dimensions uncomfortable in human hands—gave her no trouble. Few things undermined authority like public fumbling. “Private Mashona...”

Binti paused in the doorway and Ressk turned sideways to get around her.

“...the gash on your shoulder is bleeding again. You should see the doctor immediately.”

“What about your leg, Staff?”

“What about it?”

“It’s bleeding again, too.”

Torin looked down at her leg and up at Binti. The younger woman’s expression was easy to read:
If you don’t need to see the doctor immediately, neither do I, so I’m not abandoning my team. And besides, if I’m standing there bleeding on his floor, the lieutenant’ll keep it short.

There were just the two of them and the Silsviss in the hall now. Her own face expressionless, Torin moved out of the way. “Get in there, then.”