The Truth of Valor (16 page)

He wasn’t going to back down, Cho realized. Not when it came to protecting his
thytrin
. If Almon hadn’t been already suited up and on his way into the cargo bay, Nadayki would have bled out and Almon would likely have ripped the helmet off their captured CSO and spaced him. Pushed now, he’d push back and he was still wearing the
tasik
clipped to his suit. Lucky for him, Cho knew that the trick to turning the kind of people who were willing to do the things the job required into a functioning crew, was knowing when not to push. And when to shove the offender out the air lock.

Stretching out a foot, Cho poked the body slumped against the bulkhead. Everyone looked bigger suited up, but Craig Ryder was clearly not small. “Get your suit off,” he snapped at Almon. “Then get his suit off and get him secured to the chair before he comes to. Doc, how will we know if Ryder’s still functional?”

“Functional is usually pretty fukking obvious,” Doc grunted without looking up, his hands leaving bloody prints all over the ruin of Nadayki’s suit.

Head lolling forward, too heavy for his neck to hold, Craig felt like he had the worst hangover in the history of hangovers. Worse than that time back when him and Kurt and Nicole had grabbed the first bottle they could get their hands on out of Nic’s dad’s liquor cabinet and gotten stupidly drunk on crème de menthe. Only a drongo could have decided that that particular green poison, of all the many ways the Human species had created to get shitfaced, needed to go with them into space. Took months before Nic had stopped puking at the smell of mint.

He remembered a card game. Except he never drank to excess when he was playing.

After?

He tried to move his arms and legs. Couldn’t. How fukking drunk had he gotten that he couldn’t . . .

Couldn’t because there were bands around his arms. He could feel the pressure against his skin. Bands around his ankles, too. Warm liquid pooled on his right thigh, but it was his left thigh that hurt. Blood?

Hospital?

No. He was sitting up.

Station lockup?

No. Torin wouldn’t . . .

Torin!

He saw stars, the attacking ship, his poor wounded lady, debris flying off in every possible direction, Torin caught up in it—the bright orange of her HE suit, visible then obscured by wreckage as he pinwheeled.

Memory surged back hard enough it slapped against the inside of his skull, causing starbursts of brilliant white against the inside of his lids. The attack. The explosion. The net. Pain . . .

They’d hit him with some kind of current.

Pain radiated out from the burning circle in his left thigh where they’d jabbed the contact point into flesh. The dull pain across his lower back matched up to where his tanks impacted. The ache in his mouth—Craig remembered spasming, teeth closing on his own flesh. Last but not least, a red-hot iron spike had been jabbed into each temple.

Only not actual spikes since he was apparently still alive.

He was pretty sure he was breathing.

He was naked. No surprise, if they’d just peeled him out of his suit.

Tied to a chair. He couldn’t lift his head or open his eyes.

Torin’s suit had been leaking air.

No way she’d survived a war and been taken out by pirate scum.

No fukking way.

But she hadn’t been conscious.

And her suit had been leaking air.

He recognized the vibrations he could feel through the soles of his feet. The Susumi engines were on-line. The pirates had folded away from the debris field.

Away from Torin.

This wasn’t the first time he’d been expected to believe Torin had carked it. Last time, the Primacy had taken out most of a battalion, melted Marines and equipment and the ground they were standing on into a sheet of gray-green glass. He hadn’t mourned Torin then. He wouldn’t now.

Muscles knotting across his shoulders and upper back, he forced his head up and his eyes open.

“Finally.”

Craig blinked, closed his mouth around a line of pink drool—the warm liquid on his thigh explained—and looked for the source of the voice. The young male di’Taykan standing by the hatch had pale yellow hair and a nasty expression. As Craig watched, he raised one long-fingered hand to his throat, and turned his masker off.

“Fuk you.” Even to his own ears, it sounded garbled, but Craig figured he got his message across.

The di’Taykan sneered. “I’ll remind you of that in a few minutes when you’re begging me for release.”

Dragging his tongue across dry lips, Craig managed a snort. “Are di’Taykan even able to withhold sex?” The plastic cable ties that held his forearms and his lower legs tight to the chair had no give in them. Fukking sentient alien plastic, never around when needed. The chair had been secured to the deck. No matter how he threw his weight—forward, back, side to side—he couldn’t budge it.

When he rocked his hips forward, his ass came off the seat, skin ripping up off the plastic with a disgusting sucking sound. If these were the same pirates who’d tortured Rogelio Page—and he almost wanted them to be if only to keep down the numbers of bugfuk crazy sons of bitches cruising around known space—he had a good idea of what made the seat sticky. Maybe not a
good
idea . . .

The di’Taykan watched him, eyes dark, so he rocked his hips forward again, trying to bring the bastard close enough that he could rip his throat out with his teeth. He’d never considered himself a violent man, but for this lot, he’d make an exception.

He felt himself beginning to respond to the pheromones. They’d crank him up until he was so sexually frustrated he couldn’t think straight and then go after whatever the fuk it was they wanted to know. Had they started that way with Page?

Tough old bastard had held out, though, forced them to bring out the knives and live wires.

Had died in this chair.

This chair.

This inert plastic chair. Fukking figured. Insult added to injury.

Craig began to fight the bindings. Held nothing back. Felt his knee pop. Kept fighting. Had no idea when the struggle turned to rut. His skin felt on fire, and if he didn’t get some release, soon, he was going to . . .

The fist that smashed into his face snapped him back to himself. He’d never had any interest in tying sex to pain. Although, by the third blow, he couldn’t remember why.

Out in the corridor, Cho frowned down at the monitor and the image of Almon beating their prisoner. “This can’t go the way the last one did.”

Beside him, Doc shrugged. “Then make him an offer.”

“An offer?”

“Traditionally, in this way of life, if the captured seaman had needed skills, it was join the crew or die.”

“Join the crew?”

“Or die.”

“What if he decides to die?”

Doc sighed. “No one decides to die. Page was a crazy old loner who stood on principle, but his actual death was an accident.”

“You accidentally
questioned
him to death?” Cho asked dryly.

“It happens. The point is, it won’t happen to this guy if I don’t have to
question
him.” Doc repeated the emphasis exactly. “Ryder’s ship has been destroyed, his woman is dead, what does he have to return to? Nothing. Offer him life.”

“As a part of the crew? We won’t be able to trust him.”

“So? When push comes to shove, we don’t trust anyone.”

It was, Cho acknowledged silently, opening the hatch, a valid point.

“Almon! Back off!”

The di’Taykan drove his fist into Craig’s stomach one last time, then backed away breathing heavily, his arousal evident. Craig’s own arousal had been dealt with twice. Vomit descending from half a meter up provided sufficient friction. Who knew? The relief had been temporary; he could still pound nails with his donger.

“Hose him down, he stinks.”

He turned his face into the splash of water to get the blood out of his eyes and managed to focus on the Human male by the door.

Shorter than the di’Taykan by about half a meter, he had a cap of glossy black hair, dark eyes, a rivet through his right earlobe, and, behind the glimmer of a filter over his mouth and nose, an expression that suggested Almon’s fists had been merely the prologue. Given the condition they’d found Page in, Craig had already figured that out for himself.

“Now get out.”

Almon bent closer to the other man and said something too quietly for Craig to catch.

“Do I look like your
sheshan
? Go to the infirmary and check.”

The di’Taykan shot Craig a look of such loathing on the way out the hatch, Craig wondered how much damage he’d managed to do with his cutter. Damage to someone Almon cared about. That would explain the personal touch.

He wasted the time while the new guy crossed toward him wondering if this was what a crazy person looked like. Almon sure as shit hadn’t been the guy who’d done Page.

“Craig Ryder. Yes, I know who you are,” the new guy said, stopping at the edge of the mess on the deck. “You’re probably wondering why you’re here. I need your codes.”

Craig spat out a mouthful of blood. “Could’ve just asked for them, mate.”

“Would you have given them up?”

“No, but you still could’ve asked.” More than the beating, the red-hot spikes through his temples, left over from whatever the fuk they’d taken him out with were making it hard to think. What the hell had Sirin and Jan locked down? What was big enough for three people to die to protect.

“I don’t like to waste time, Ryder. Which is why I’ve come to make you an offer.” He had to be the captain, Craig realized, no one else would have had the authority to make an offer. “Join my crew.”

“What?”

“Join my crew, and your codes become part of our ...” He looked slightly pained. “. . . booty. Refuse and you die. There’s a lot more salvage operators out there and, while I’d rather not have to put more time into this, frankly, you’re not that hard to grab.”

All things considered, Craig had to agree with that. “What do you want my codes for?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Hey, my codes, my business.” The blow took him by surprise. He hadn’t thought the captain would be willing to get his hands dirty.

When Craig managed to focus on the captain’s face, he smiled. “You decide to join us and you’ll find out what I need the codes for.”

“You couldn’t possibly trust me if I joined you.”

The captain’s smile twisted. “I have it on good authority that when push comes to shove, we don’t trust anyone. You’ll be outnumbered, and even if you could get away from the rest of the crew, where are you going to go? We’re in deep space. You could make a run for it when we reach a station, I suppose, but should we dock at a station that might offer sanctuary, I suspect I’m smart enough to lock you down for the duration.”

“Being a member of your crew sounds a fuk of a lot like being your prisoner.”

“Beats the alternative. And you have nothing to go back to, remember? Your ship was destroyed, your woman left for dead.”

“Left for dead?” Torin wasn’t dead.

The Captain shrugged. “She was alive when we folded, but her suit had been breached, and vacuum has a way of taking care of these things. Think the offer over,” he added turning toward the hatch. “It’s open for a limited time.”

Torin wasn’t dead!

Craig heard the hatch slam and looked up to find himself alone in the small room, bruised, bleeding, still hard enough to pound nails, and tied to a chair.

Torin wasn’t dead. She’d been left for dead, but when talking about ex-Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr, that was a long way from
being
dead. All he had to do was stay alive until she found him.

Damn, but she was going to be pissed.

“That went well,” Doc said, thoughtfully looking up from the monitor as Cho joined him.

Cho glanced down at the screen and frowned. “Why is he laughing?”

“. . . unless one of you lot have learned how to breathe vacuum. Private Kerr!”

Torin jerked awake and onto her feet. Since she’d arrived at Ventris Station, her days had been filled with intense physical and mental training and her nights had held no more than four to five hours of sleep. She wasn’t the only one dozing off in quiet moments—or even not so quiet moments. Tom Wiegand had fallen asleep during drill. His body had managed to keep marching in a straight line, but an order to
about face
had caused a pileup and resulted in an extra 5K run for the entire platoon.

But Wiegand wasn’t the one on the hot seat now.

She blinked and managed to bring Staff Sergeant Beyhn into focus. His eyes were dark—most of the light receptors open—and his hair—which was honest-to-gods scarlet and not auburn or strawberry blond—jerked back and forth. She’d never met a di’Taykan until she got to the Marine Corps recruiting center on Paradise and was amazed to discover that the stories about them were mostly true. She’d never met a staff sergeant either, and the stories about them were
definitely
true.

When he saw he had her attention, Staff Sergeant Beyhn smiled and said, with exaggerated patience, “Perhaps Private Kerr would like to tell the platoon what she would do should she find herself in vacuum in a leaking HE suit.”