Valor's Trial (18 page)

“Tell me something I don't know, Corporal.”

“Di'Taykan tastes like chicken.”

“Didn't
need
to know that.”

The noise in the node had changed in just two days as more and more Marines shook off the listlessness that had kept them lying silent and gray on their pallets. It wasn't the supplements, not in only fifty-six hours. It was, Torin believed, the normalcy of routine, of organization they understood, of a visible chain of command. And all that would go to hell if she had to save them again. At some point, people had to start saving themselves.

The next morning, they found Staff Sergeant Kem Takahani dead on her pallet.

“She was pushing seventy,” Pole said quietly as he rose carefully to his feet. “Heading toward becoming one of those grizzled old sergeants who'd found their niche and had every intention of staying there until retirement forced her out. She was one of the first taken, and I'm a little surprised she lasted this long. She had a broken face and was pissing blood when I got here,” he explained as Torin raised a brow. “Couldn't stand straight—something with her spine. She fought Harnett and paid for it.” He glanced down at the body, one cheekbone flatter than the other, her hands so thin the veins stood out under the skin like blue-gray cord, and he smiled. “She used to lie there and mutter over and over,
bastard'll get his
. When you brought his walls down, and there he was, lying dead, head on backward, she said, ‘I told you so.' ” He frowned. “I don't remember her speaking again. That may have been the last thing she said.”

“As last words go, they're not so bad.” Torin glanced across the node at the knot of officers. “I'll tell the major.”

The warning for the morning meal came as they were sliding Sergeant Takahani and her pallet into the pit. Torin touched the pockets on her vest where the capsuled remains of her Marines should go and tried not to grind her teeth.

“I half expected you to bitch a bit more after the funeral about the waste of food.”

“No point, Gunny,” Werst grunted. “What the hell do you think the kibble is made of?”

Torin paused with a fingerload of mush halfway to her mouth. “There hasn't been enough . . .”

“No. But it's in there, and in the biscuits. Can't miss the taste.”

Torin glanced over at Kyster, who nodded as he chewed. “And the Krai who've been here all along?”

“They know,” Werst told her. “No way they couldn't know. But they're not going to say anything. You lot are touchy about meat.”

“We're touchy about being considered meat,” Torin corrected. “And if this was what I didn't want to know, why tell me now?”

“Kyster told me what you said out in the tunnels. How this is a way to carry our people out with us. Very Krai for a Human. I was impressed. And . . .” He licked a bit of mush off his fingers. “There's no way of knowing what information is necessary to break out of here, so it's best you have all of it.”

“I'm planning a breakout?”

“Aren't you?”

Wasn't she?

“It's been a busy few days. Can I have a minute to catch my breath?”

Werst snorted. “The Staff Sergeant Kerr I know would have been out of here by now.” He set his empty bowl aside and grinned at the other Krai. “You should've seen the gunny when she was a staff sergeant, Kyster. Now that was a Marine.”

Kyster's lips curled up off his teeth and his nose ridges clamped shut. “I think she's amazing,” he snarled.

“You're young.”

“Kyster!” Torin's tone sat him back down so quickly his teeth snapped. “It's all right, Corporal Werst is just being a pain in the ass. Ignore him.”

“But he . . .”

“All he said was that when I was a staff sergeant I was a good Marine. He didn't say I wasn't a good Marine now.”

“But . . .”

“Let it go.”

After a long moment, Kyster covered his teeth. “Yes, Gunnery Sergeant.”

The thing was, Werst was right. She'd been so caught up in the drama, she hadn't thought of escape in days. Sliding her hand into her vest, she touched the salvage tag. That had to change.

“What the hell is going on here?” Torin grabbed the corporal by the collar of her combats and yanked her back. Maybe, given their relative conditions, she was rougher than she needed to be, but she was pissed.

“This doesn't concern you, Gunny.” The corporal staggered but managed to stay on her feet. “This is a fireteam matter.”

“Really? Because I could have sworn I heard you call this Marine a whore.”

“He was fucking for food, Gun . . . nery Sergeant.” Torin's expression made the diminutive a bad idea. “That makes him a whore in my book.”

“Was it his choice?”

The Marine in question, young enough that his auburn whiskers were sparse on his cheeks, closed hazel eyes, eyelashes lying in a thick fringe against his cheek. He still had bruises around both wrists and a band around his throat turning purple and green where the collar and leash had been.

“He didn't fight. Just like he's not fighting now.” Like Staff Sergeant Pole, the corporal was missing teeth. A common enough result of malnutrition. Torin fought down the urge to knock out a few more.

“Use the brains the gods gave you and look at his hands. He fought.” The knuckles were swollen and bruised, a couple probably broken. Torin shifted her grip to the front of the corporal's combats and dragged her so close they were breathing in the same hot, stale air redolent of mush. “There were seventeen of them, and the bruising on his body says they beat him for fun.” She didn't need to add what else had happened
for fun
. “Seventeen to one odds—how well would you do, Corporal? I see a hundred to seventeen odds, I see one hundred of you and three of your own being tortured, and you didn't do a Goddamned thing, so before you say another fukking word to this Marine, you make sure there aren't a few choice words he could call you.”

The corporal's pupils were dilated, and she was breathing in short, terrified bursts.

Torin shook her one more time, hard enough for her to flop within her combats like a rag doll, and released her. “We will
not
have this conversation again.”

There was the sudden, sharp smell of urine as the corporal pissed herself in fear. Torin ignored it, turning to touch the young private gently on the arm. His head ducked down as if he were bracing for a blow, but he opened his eyes. “Walk with me, Private . . . ?”

“Graydon, Gunnery Sergeant, 6th Division, 3rd Recarta, 2nd Battalion, Sierra Company.” His voice had been roughened by the pressure on his throat, the vowels softened by a soft drawl she couldn't place.

“Private Graydon . . . we need to talk.”

He was taller than she was, broad shoulders, much of his height in his torso rather than his legs. Like Craig, she realized and forced her thoughts in another direction. He walked with a limp, curled in on himself, trying to make his size seem less of a threat. He was so damned young it hurt her to look at him. “You came off Crucible, your unit was deployed, and you were taken in your first fight?”

“Yes, Gunnery Sergeant.” He sounded surprised. Not the question he'd expected.

“You need to bring the surviving Marines who served Harnett up on charges.”

“I what?”

“I killed them to stop them from doing what they were doing, but I can't just kill them because of what they did.” Although she found herself wishing she'd slammed Corporal Zhang's skull into the rock so hard his brains had painted the tunnel. “We're all Marines here; we have to remember that and, when Marines do what they did, they're dealt with by the Corps. You, and the others, bring them up on charges, and Major Kenoton will see that they're dealt with.”

“Why can't you do it?”

Her hands were curled into fists so tight that, within them, her fingers ached. “I wasn't here.”

They walked halfway around the node, slowly, quietly. Graydon was thin, flesh skimmed over bones, but he'd clearly been getting at least some supplements.

“I'd have to tell what they did,” he said at last.

“Yes.” It wasn't a question, but Torin answered it anyway.

“It was easier when the di'Taykan turned their maskers down.”

She'd never heard of a di'Taykan taking an unwilling partner, but she supposed there were bastards in every species.

Something of the thought must have shown on her face because Graydon gave a short, humorless bark of laughter. “You're not unwilling, then, and you enjoy it. We were grateful to the di'Taykan.”

“But they weren't always there.”

“No.” His turn to answer what wasn't a question.

“It wasn't your fault.”

“And I'd tell you it wasn't your fault either, Gunny, but we both know you'd believe that here . . .” One hand pressed against the fabric over his heart. “. . . as much as I do.”

“Charges, Gunnery Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir.”

The major shifted slightly on the folded pallet as though searching for a spot where he still had enough flesh to cushion his tailbone. “And when they are found guilty, how do you expect me to punish them?”

Torin took the moment she needed to keep from saying,
You could drop them in the disposal pit
and said, “That's not for me to say, sir.”

“As I just asked, I think it is.”

“You could begin by reducing their rank.”

“I'm sure that will make a huge difference while we're imprisoned.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don't be deliberately obscure, Gunnery Sergeant, it's annoying. Say what you mean.”

“Marines have a clearly defined rank structure, sir. If we're Marines while we're imprisoned, then to knock Harnett's survivors down to the bottom of that rank structure is at least a beginning.”

“But where do we go from there, that's the question.” Major Kenotan sighed, and his hair swept languidly from front to back. “Still, it will give everyone something to focus on, something to keep us from slipping back into . . .” The pause extended almost too long. “. . . bad habits. Captain Allison was a lawyer before he got his commission. I'm sure he can convene a disciplinary court.”

“You might consider asking the three Marines who'll be laying the charges what they'd consider a suitable punishment, sir.”

The major looked up at her, and for the first time since Torin had handed over the command, his eyes changed color, darkening slightly as he studied her face. Not for the first time, Torin wondered how much he could actually see. “You think I might consider that?”

“Yes, sir.”

He drained his bowl and very nearly smiled. “You're an extraordinarily bloody-minded individual, Gunnery Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The question now becomes: What do we do with you?”

She'd been half expecting this.

“Although Corporal Werst seems to have a fairly balanced opinion—and whether that's in spite of or because of your history I have no idea,” he continued—“the Krai seem to be following young Kyster's lead. Most of the di'Taykan . . .” A quick glance toward Lieutenant Myshai, who wasn't even pretending not to hover just beyond eavesdropping range. “. . . expect you to begin that family line here and now. As far as the Humans are concerned, well, you're one of theirs. And, over all, you're Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr—you defeated the Silsviss, you outwitted Big Yellow, you exposed a new alien threat, and you marched in here and single-handedly saved us from starving to death under Harnett's gentle care.”

He hadn't known about Big Yellow or the new alien threat three days ago.

“I've been hearing stories, Gunny.” His eyes lightened again although the difference was minimal. “There's quite the cult of personality developing around you.”

The warning came through loud and clear.

“I think we need to get you out of here, Gunnery Sergeant.” More than anything, he sounded weary.

“Yes, sir.” Torin was one hundred percent behind getting out. “There's a rockfall out the end of tunnel four. We need to find out what's on the other side of it.”

The ends of his hair flicked back and forth, the movement dismissive. “More tunnels.”

“That's possible, sir. But my gut tells me it's also the way out.

“Your gut tells you?”

Maybe not the best body part to bring up to a man who'd just been more than half starved. “Yes, sir.”

“Are you planning an escape, Gunny?”

“Yes, sir.” Although, so far, there wasn't much of a plan beyond clearing the rock away.

“Not what I meant when I said we need to get you out of here.” The major stared down at the back of his left hand for a moment, watching his right thumb stroke across the loose skin. “These are your orders, then,” he said when he finally looked up. “You're to go out to the barricade with the next group. As part of the next group,” he amended before she could speak. “Food for three is quite enough to skim.”

“Sir?”

“Go beyond the barricade,” the major continued as though they'd been discussing a trip to the barricade all along. “Make contact with the other group of Marines. If they're in the situation we were in, well, you can use your overabundance of personality to save them. If, however, they're having as pleasant a time as is possible under the circumstances, let them know that our situation has changed. I will want to speak with their CO; however, there's no rush. It's not as if either of us are going anywhere. Return with your group if you can, if not . . .” He shrugged.