The Better Part of Valor (39 page)

“Ryder, this Kerr. What the hell took you so long?”

“What?”
She could hear the smile in his voice.
“You started starving in an hour and a half?”

Was that all it had been?

“It’s a little more serious than that.” The bugs were all in a day’s work, but the engines…

“You sure they’re engines?”
he demanded after she filled him in.

“Ryder, I’ve got two engineers in here and a Niln with a fukking armload of degrees. They’re engines. Get us off this thing.”

“That’s what I’m here for. But I’m going to need some help hooking up.”

The
Promise
came with what the manufacturers advertised as a universal lock—a flexible, ribbed tube guaranteed to seal
to any solid surface on contact. Unfortunately, the four small thrusters on the end of the tube came with a safety feature that kept them from firing within three meters of organics—which was how their software recognized Big Yellow.

“You’re going to have to throw something out, hook onto the tube, and drag it in. Once there’s contact, it should seal.”

“Should?” Dursinski protested loudly.

“And what are we supposed to throw?” Nivry demanded from the barricade. “Bug parts?”

“Too organic.”

“Good. ’Cause that’s called indignity to a body and they charge you for stuff like that.”

“So you’re allowed to shoot them, but you can’t toss them around?”

“Everyone shut up.”

“Torin, we don’t…”

“You, too, Ryder.” She tapped her fingers against the edge of her slate and worked through the variables again. It might work. It should work. “All right.” A deep breath and she straightened, shaking off the last couple of hours.
“Harveer
, can Johnston use your slate to open the lock?”

The elderly scientist peered from Torin to the engineer and back. “He’s a bright boy. Probably.”

“Good. Jynett, Orla; take the civilians down to the escape pods. If worse comes to worst; launch all three of them.”

“No.” Her fur dull, Presit pulled away from Gytha’s grip, showing a hint of her old animation for the first time since Guimond died. “I are not moving away from a story. I are not even hearing the other half of…” When words failed her, she waved a tiny hand toward Torin’s helmet. “…that.”

“Ma’am, if it’s a choice between having you carried away from your
story
or watching your eyeballs explode as you spontaneously decompress, I know what I’d choose.” The pause lasted just long enough for Presit to begin to bristle. “If you’ll go to the pods, you can take Private Frii’s helmet with you and listen to everything on group channel.”

“Uh, Staff…”

“She deserves to get the end of the story.” Torin scooped up the helmet and offered it to the reporter. “Well?”

“I don’t think eyeballs explode during spontaneous decompression,”
Johnston muttered away from his microphone when the civilians were safely out of sight.

Torin flicked her mike up. “Who cares? Get the lock pressurized and the door open.”

Her slate began a steady hum.

“The rest of you stay where you are. Werst, you’re with me.”

The hum stopped.

*   *   *

They stared at each other over the captain’s body.

“You refuse,” Torin told him, her voice so low he leaned forward to hear, “and we use the suit without the captain. You agree, and we may be able to make him the kind of hero General Morris needs.”

“We’d be doing this for the general?”

“Fuk him. We’d be doing this to keep Parliament from tying the Corps’ hands. Be nice to achieve something worthwhile today,” she added when he frowned.
Be nice if we could salvage something from Guimond’s death.
But she didn’t have to say that out loud.

Werst’s ridges clamped shut. “If it goes wrong?”

“I’ll take the heat.”

“Fuk that, too. And the rest of the team?”

“They just have to play dumb.”

He snorted. “Shouldn’t be too hard for most of them.” All at once, he grinned, showing an ivory slash of teeth. “Hope I can get the
serley
accent right.”

Her own teeth clenched together, Torin pushed down on the captain’s jaw and reached into his mouth. It was beginning to cool. She found the ridge that ran under his left molars and activated the implant.

Microphone down, Werst bent over the captain’s mouth, their lips almost touching in a parody of tenderness.

*
No! I will not allow one of my Marines to take that kind of risk. I will…
*

“…be the one to get that tube.”

“But, sir, you’ve been unconscious…”

“Krai are tougher than you think, Staff Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir, but…”

“Don’t argue with me, Staff Sergeant Kerr. I’m the one giving the orders. I’m in command here, not you.”

“Yes, sir.”

They flipped up their mikes at the same time and sat back.

“Nailed the accent,” Torin told him, pushing the captain’s jaw shut. “We lost the implant after the
I will
but that was plenty. It’s only important that Presit hear the whole speech, we just need the general to believe he’s alive. Get him sealed up and ready to go.” She rocked back on her heels, stood, turned, and found, as she knew she would, every pair of eyes in the passage locked on her.

Moving deliberately, so they all could see her do it, she flipped her mike back down. Long silences would not help the story. “Huilin, get out of your HE suit. There’s nothing to tie off to in the air lock, and Captain Travik wants me to anchor him.”

Huilin’s eyes were dark and under the edge of his helmet his hair was in constant motion. “The captain’s regained consciousness?”

Torin slowly raked her gaze over the Marines, her expression silencing any other questions. “You heard him. He seems to feel it’s his duty to get the tube. He also seems to think if he’s going to risk his ass, so should I. Get out of the suit. Now.”

Her voice moved his hands to the seals . “Why…”

“Because it’s the only one I have a hope in hell of fitting in. Dursinski’s too short and Jynett’s integrity has been compromised. Move it, Marine. Time’s wasting.”

The suit puddled around his legs. Huilin glanced toward the vertical that led to the escape pods and back to Torin.

He knew.

They all knew. Although Torin suspected the whispering she’d heard had been Nivry filling Dursinski in.

They’d known her for eight days in Susumi space and for thirty hours on Big Yellow. They trusted her to get them through battles alive, but trusting her in this was a whole different ball game.

“It’s my suit, Staff,” Huilin said, at last. “I should go.”

“Did I ask for volunteers? Just give me the damned suit.”

I won’t involve you lot any more than I have to.

They heard the subtext. It echoed around the suddenly quiet passageway so loudly, Torin was afraid Presit would hear it one level down.

After a long moment, Johnston made the decision for all of them. “I’ll have the lock open by the time the captain’s ready, Staff Sergeant Kerr.”

“Good. And I’ll need someone’s rope.” She stripped off her combats and held out her hand for Huilin’s suit.

*   *   *

*
Torin, what the fuk is going on in there?
*

The sudden blaring of her implant made her drop the captain’s body. It was a damned good thing he only had to sound alive. Hauling him back up again, she half turned and nodded to Werst.

“Close the inner door, Lance Corporal Johnston.”

Johnston scowled in Werst’s direction, but all he said was, “Closing the inner door, Captain.”

*
Torin? Answer me, damn it. Captain Travik is not seriously heading out to save the day? He was a fukking vegetable when I left.
*

She tongued her implant on and subvocalized so the suit mike wouldn’t pick it up. *
Trust me.
*

*
Trust you?
* The heavy sigh came through loud and clear. *
Do I have a fukking choice?
*

*
No. Stay on group channel.
* And then aloud, “Ryder, Captain Travik and I will be working on command channel for clarity. Were you given the codes?”

“I have the codes. What I don’t have is all day; move your collective ass.”

“Keep your goddamned pants on,” she muttered, watching the panel of lights as the air lock depressurized. Which was not an image she needed. Stuffed into an HE suit a di’Taykan had been wearing for hours had her so horny that Ryder’s voice alone was nearly enough to overload the circuitry. The series of lights Johnston had told her to watch for flashed green, and she laid her glove against the pressure pad.

The door slid open the way a thousand air lock doors had slid open all her life.

Moving carefully, she centered herself and Captain Travik in the opening and set her boot magnets at full power.

“I see you.”
A short pause, and he added,
“Both of you.”

Torin smiled and adjusted her grip on the captain.
And thank you for playing.

It was good to see the stars.

“Torin, Sibley says you might want to think of hurrying. Bugs are moving in.”

“Roger that.” She resisted the urge to look for the bugs. It wouldn’t make a damned bit of difference if she knew where they were.

With the bulk of Big Yellow behind her, the
Promise
looked absurdly small. The floating end of the universal lock was smaller still.

With one end of the rope tied around the captain’s waist and the other around hers, Torin flipped him over so his boots were pointing toward the universe and threw the already stiffening body toward the tube. Her aim didn’t need to be exact. When he was closer to the tube than Big Yellow, she punched his boot codes into her slate. Part of her job was ensuring that the captain’s equipment functioned properly.

Magnetic soles worked fine.

*   *   *

“What the
sanLi
are they doing?”

Sibley took a look straight up through the canopy. “Putting their best foot forward? Booting up the air lock? Proving they’ve got sole?”

“You done?” Shylin sighed.

“For now.”

“Well, I don’t know about soul, but the little guy’s got balls the size of…Bugs!”

The Jade slid to the left, dropped six meters, and fired as a shot streaked by their portside. A touch on the upper right thruster flipped them around. Another touch on the lower left stopped the spin.

“Target’s taking evasive action.”

“Let it. We’ve got two more closing on the
Promise.”
He goosed the Jade up and in. “Ryder, you want to remind your Marines they’re not alone in the universe?”

*   *   *

“No shit. You think that’s why people keep shooting at us?”

All Ryder could see was the middle bulge of the tube, but the instruments showed the end had nearly reached Big Yellow. “Could be your sparkling personality.”

“Mine?”
Torin wondered.
“Or the Corps’?”

“Is there a difference?” A bug fighter streaked past almost
too quickly to identify. It was amazing how the old panic, the panic he could feel bubbling and roiling beneath the forced, teeth clenched, surface calm, kept new panic at bay. At least if he got blown to component atoms by something that looked like a cross between an ant and a cockroach, he’d die alone in his ship.

His one-man ship.

Alone.

The way it was supposed to be.

“Securing first point of UAL and manually activating the seal. You sure this thing’ll stretch to fit?”

Torin’s voice helped.

“The brochure said ‘one size fits all.’”

“Yeah, well let’s hope it wasn’t written by the same moron who sizes lingerie.”

A sudden vision of what Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr wore under her combats caused an involuntary smirk. “You never struck me as the lingerie type.”

“I have hidden depths.”

“That, I never doubted.” The UAL controls greenlined. “We’ve got a seal.” He stared down at his hand on the panel. An inch to the right were the main thruster controls. He wouldn’t even have to move his arm.

“Craig?”

And it came as no surprise she could read his thoughts in the silence.

“Tell your people to pressurize.” He watched his fingers curl into a fist. “I’ll deploy the salvage pen.”

“Roger. I’m switching back to group channel. Any time you think you can’t do this, contact me.”

“I can do this.”

“Glad to hear it. Kerr out.” Torin propped the captain up against the inside of the lock and stepped in front of him to keep him from falling. “Marines, we are leaving. Johnston, get this thing pressurized. I want wounded and civilians moving, and moving fast, the instant the door opens.”

*   *   *

“I’m sorry, General, we still can’t raise Captain Travik.”

“Why not?”

“He’s not answering, sir.”

General Morris placed both hands on the edge of the console
and leaned into the comm officer’s space. “I heard him not ten minutes ago!”

“Yes, sir. But he’s not answering now.”

“If you’re still being blocked, why don’t you blast the signal through that salvage ship the way you did with the first shuttle? It’s practically sitting right there on the hull.”

“We can’t, sir. It’s a civilian vessel and its comm unit isn’t set up to handle that kind of amplification.”

“Why the hell not? Why wasn’t it set up before it launched?”

“We didn’t have time, sir.”

“So you’re telling me I still can’t speak to the officer commanding?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Goddamned Navy.” General Morris rocked back on his heels and fixed the comm officer with a basilisk glare. “Fine. If you can’t raise the captain’s implant, I suppose it’s too much to hope you can raise the staff sergeant’s—so get me Ryder,” he continued without waiting for an answer. “Unless your tin can and piece of string don’t reach that far!”

*   *   *

“I’m a little busy, General.” Ryder swiveled his chair around so that he was staring at the air lock. “What do you want?”

“What do I want? I want a full report on the situation!”