An Ancient Peace (10 page)

“Yeah, but I could still give you one.”

“You'll dux out the ship we need faster if we can narrow the parameters before you start,” Craig told him. “Faster you're in and out, less likely you are to end up with your balls in a vise.”

“And it's been a while since any of us have been dirtside,” Torin added. Most of them had taken personal time during the ship's refit—Craig had refused to leave the dockyard, Alamber had stayed with Craig, the rest of them had visited family, Torin had caught hell for not bringing Craig with her—but they'd had very little down time since the team had gone active. “We could use the break.”

“We're lucky they had seats for all of us,” Alamber said as they entered the waiting area outside the tether's boarding gate. “We were looking at four days of total boredom if we'd had to wait for the next drop. As it is, we won't be here long enough to overhaul the station's entirely out-of-date entertainment options. They'd have thanked us,” he added when Torin's eyebrow rose.

“You know, we have a shuttle,” Craig began, but Alamber cut him off.

“Landing fees are stupidly expensive on any planet with an elevator system and this one's got three.”

“All extruded out of Mictok ass,” Werst noted.

Torin crossed to look out the nearer of the two, meter-high, concave ports that broke up the outer bulkhead. The surface was smudged and pitted, but it looked structurally sound with no weak points an assault team could take advantage of. She leaned forward, one hand against the glass, weight shifting to account for the duffel bag hung over her shoulder, and counted nine moving lights. Nine ships, too many stars to count.

“Station maintenance could use a kick in what serves them for nuts,” Craig muttered from behind her. “You see bolts loose in the public areas, you wonder what upkeep on the important part of the structure's been like. What are you looking at?”

“A casualty list in the billions had Primacy jumped this far in.”

“Yeah. Well, stop. If they'd jumped this far in without the buoys, they'd have carked it trying to occupy a space already filled with a ship or a planet or a moon or a . . .”

“I get it.”

He kissed the top of her head. “Losses sure, but not billions.”

“That's strangely reassuring.”

“It's what I do. Strange reassurance.”

She smiled as she turned toward him, but the smile slipped as she caught sight of three Trun, clearly security of some sort given the uniforms provided by the company that ran the tether. Talking among themselves, hands and tails waving, they were clearly discussing her team, ignoring a family of Rakva, the adults being driven to distraction by a four-egg clutch, as well as half a dozen Niln wearing the same symbol on their vests, who stood nose to nose shouting at each other and waving their slates.

Craig turned just far enough to follow her gaze, then turned back to face her. “They don't look a whole lot different than the security at the shuttle heading down to Paradise. Except for the tails. And the entirely unsubtle way they're looking us over.”

“We're making them nervous.”

“We're twice their size.”

“So are the Rakva.”

“True enough, but the Rakva are half their weight.” He leaned in and pressed his shoulder to hers. “No one gets nervous about a species that has to fill their pockets with rocks so they don't blow away in a high wind.”

“Still . . .” The actual security had been automatic; hand in a scanner to confirm commerce was, indeed, the purpose of their visit, then a blood test to ensure no one carried anything that could affect the indigenous population, flora, and fauna. “Both the Rakva and the Niln used the scanner first.” She rubbed the tip of her finger where the trio of needles had punctured the skin. “Maybe it didn't recalibrate properly.”

“Torin.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “Not your job to worry about their ability to do their job.”

“I know.”

“What's really bothering you?”

The boarding klaxon rang before she could answer.

“Hold that thought. I'm going to grab us coffees for the trip.”

She watched him cross to join Binti at the vending machines—watching Craig walk was always worthwhile—shifted the strap of her duffel bag higher, and joined Ressk and Werst. Alamber, for reasons of his own she couldn't hope to understand, had decided to amuse the hatchlings as they lined up at the scales.

For the first time in her life, she was unarmed while landing on a new planet.

Craig would probably think that was sad.

Torin rubbed her palms against her thighs and wished she had a weapon.

T
ORIN HAD NEVER RIDDEN
a tether. Paradise had a regular shuttle service, a maglev track up the side of Mount Bliss, and the Corps preferred a quick and dirty VTA drop rather than load the taxpayers' credits into a vehicle dependent on a string a child could cut—albeit a child with a high-powered cutting tool. Even if there'd been one in place, a tether would have been far too vulnerable to exactly the kinds of things the Corps would have been heading dirtside to deal with. Not to mention vulnerable to battle debris. And the weather.

“Remember how you were wondering about station maintenance?” she asked, leaning a little more weight against Craig's shoulder. “Next time we're about to plummet four hundred kilometers down a braided strand of Mictok webbing at 200 kilometers an hour, you can keep those questions to yourself.”

He paused his game and turned toward her. “Worried about the brakes?”

“I don't worry about things I can't affect.”

A dimple flashed. “And you hate having no effect. If it comes to it, how long to get the emergency pods from here?”

“We can have pods locked and launched in six point two seconds if we don't stop to assist the civilians. If they need help, given that all but two of the civilians are small enough to be grabbed and tossed and the adults, being Rakva are lighter than most bipeds their size, fifteen point two seconds, give or take a tenth of a second. Slightly more time
if all four hatchlings have to be in a pod with their parents. Slightly less if more than one of the hatchlings is in arms when the abandon ship is given.”

“You didn't even look at the pods.”

“You mean just now?” She frowned. The pods were lined up in the bulkhead to her left. There were eight, each rated for nine hundred kilos, emergency access code in bright yellow across each hatch. “I worked the timing out before we started to move.”

“Of course you did.”

Torin wondered what he found so funny when she knew he'd done similar calculations. He had a lot more trouble relinquishing control in moving vehicles than she did and the game he had up on his slate was a distraction from the unpleasant reality of entering the atmosphere in a can on a string. A string extruded from a Mictok's ass.

“I look at it this way, Torin; the company may not care about the cheap seats, but this tether's mostly freight and there's about fifteen tons plummeting with us. They'll want to minimize the odds of company profits vaporizing on impact.”

“And that helps?”

He grinned, grip white-knuckled around his slate. “Not really, no.”

“All right, then.” She nodded at the screen. “Red durr on green banon.”

“Not yet. I have a strategy.”

“For losing?” Craig had acquired a fairly extensive game library while working alone as a Civilian Salvage Operator; the addition of four ex-Marines and one ex petty criminal had removed the qualifier. “You've never gotten above shield level seven.”

“Yeah, well, welcome to level ei . . .” The screen flashed red then yellow then black. “Fuk me sideways!”

The male Rakva turned toward them, crest up. Hands over the bright green auriculars covering a hatchling's ear openings, he snapped his rudimentary beak. It would have been more effective had the beak been less rudimentary, but he made his disapproval clear.

Craig, who'd had more experience with children—and their parents' expectations—than Torin, clicked what she assumed was an apology. Crest fully extended, the male pointedly turned his back. The
female dragged the smallest and downiest of the hatchlings onto her lap. “What did you say?”

He shrugged. “This one is sorry for any offense. Could be a dialect problem.”

“Could be.” But she doubted it. She remembered her first trip to Ventris Station, standing in the docking bay with sixty other raw recruits, many of them meeting a new species for the first time and seeing only that di'Taykan were too colorful and their eyes were weird and Krai were too short and their feet were weird and Humans were too soft and their noses were weird. Finding the similarities came later. But without the Corps to emphasize a Marine is a Marine, how long did it take civilians to get to the point where they realized the similarities far outweighed the differences? Or, she wondered, watching the adult Rakva shift around until their bodies blocked their hatchling's view of the Younger Races, was it a realization not everyone bothered to reach?

During boarding, the Rakva had taken seats as far from Torin and her team as possible, even though it put them closer to the half dozen Niln who'd clearly been drinking and were skirting the obnoxious edge of boisterous. If it came to the vote Colonel Hurrs feared, would the Rakva vote to turf the Younger Races out of the Confederation?

Dragging her hands back through her hair, she exhaled and cursed the colonel. This was why she never bothered with politics. Even if these particular Rakva never managed to get past the differences, they didn't speak for their entire species.

“Deep thoughts?” Craig asked, bouncing his shoulder off hers.

“I'm remembering the doctor who was with us on Silsvah.” An environmental research physician thrown into combat, Dr. Leor had done everything possible to keep her Marines alive. “He had the same coloring as mama bird over there.”

“Could be related. You should go ask.”

“No.”

“Because you don't care?”

“Because there's a billion Rakva with the same coloring and the odds are very high they're no relation.”

“Never change.” He leaned in, aiming for her mouth—she assumed—kissed the side of her nose, and went back to his game.

“So, Boss, if you and Craig aren't going to play,” Alamber began, dropping into the seat on her right. “You and I could . . . Kidding!” he assured her when she turned to face him, waving off any reply she might have made, the other hand dramatically clutching his masker. “You have made your opinion on sexing up the subordinates absolutely clear. Besides,” he added, hair moving in a self-satisfied arc, “I don't need you; the Niln offered.”

“All six . . . five of them?” The sixth was framed in the open hatch of a species neutral refresher, puking into what Torin hoped was a toilet.

“I think they wanted research sex.” When Torin turned to face him . . .

“Hey, I was leaning on that shoulder,” Craig muttered, shifting his weight without looking up.

. . . Alamber grinned. “See, this whole group of short and scaly are grad students heading back after a break. I think they said they're studying cultural anthropology, but that sparkly red-and-gold one, she's got an accent I can barely get my head around.” Stretching out long legs, he admired the
fragile
stickers on the toes of his boots. They'd been free at check-in and Alamber had happily taken a couple. “Anyway, they've studied up on members of the Confederation and a couple of them have heard things from a friend who knew someone who'd gone out of the Core, but they've never seen a di'Taykan before. Or a Krai for that matter.” He snickered, eyes lightening. “Actually, for an entirely different matter as having research sex with short, cranky, and disproportionate never came up.”

Torin had no intention of asking him to clarify what he meant by disproportionate.

After a moment, he realized that, shrugged, and continued. “Your lot, they've seen. But only because there were two Human crew on the cheap holiday boat they just left. The Trun checking us out up in the station? We were firsts across the board for them and they're out of the gravity well, so I think it's fair to assume they're going to be a bit more exposed than their buddies on the ground.”

That explained the attention. They were new. Different. “So, when our antique hunters . . .” Grave robber was not a designation Torin wanted overheard. “. . . came in for supplies, they didn't use this tether.”

“Or they didn't use it when those two were on,” Alamber pointed out. “There's three crews on a ten-day up/twenty-day down rotation, but I didn't get a chance to delve for details because they were all . . .” He waved a hand gracefully between them. “. . . hurry, hurry, no time, schedule to keep. But this is the cheapest of the three ways down, not to mention back up again, so unless our antique hunters have found a backer with deep pockets, this had to have been their ride.”

Unfortunately, they had no idea of how well-funded the grave robbers were, and if Big Bill's operation on Vrijheid had taught her anything, it was that crime didn't have to be petty. Big Bill had taken a percentage off every pirate in two sectors as well as off the merchants who supplied them with food, fuel, and entertainment. But if these particular criminals were well-funded, would they have needed to sell an artifact to make a little extra on the side? Not necessarily
need
, she reminded herself. Greed was a much more likely motivator.

How much would a dealer pay for an illegal biscuit maker?

“You're thinking about the biscuit maker, aren't you, Boss? You've got a little line . . .” Alamber touched her forehead with a cool fingertip. “. . . here. Happens every time.”

Torin bit back the urge to deny it and glared past his hand until he removed it.

“I'm just saying.”

“Don't.”

“Okay, then. So, data point on the Trun; they weren't at all interested in figuring out if the parts fit. I was crushed. Prehensile tails,” he expanded when Torin's brow rose.

“I thought you didn't have time to delve? Schedules to keep?”

He frowned thoughtfully. “Yeah, that could've been why.”

Torin opened her mouth, and closed it again. Those were the first Trun Alamber had ever seen; of course he was going to ask. They were the first Trun Torin had ever seen. According to the information in Intell's packet, which she suspected had been heavily cribbed from
Races of the Confederation
, a book every schoolkid was familiar with, the Trun were hermaphroditic, all of them able to produce viable sperm and carry young. They preferred to live in large family groups. Having colonized four planets, they'd decided that was enough of that and, for the most part, left their home planet only to visit one of the other three. Having spent the last sixteen years jumping from battle to battle all through the OutSectors, Torin had to remind herself that most people never left the gravity well they'd been born in.

Last of the four planets settled, only sixty percent of Abalae's population were permanent residents, the other forty percent held short-term visas and attended one of the five Centers of Learning or two Centers of Discovery, or were visitors at one of the four Centers of Commerce or the seven Centers of Nature. Given the split, Torin had assumed they'd go unnoticed. It hadn't occurred to her that the Younger Races in general didn't frequent this part of the Core. Why would they? The military had always been pointed in the other direction.

“Nice bit of recon, Alamber. Thank you.”

His eyes darkened to let in more light—checking her face for sincerity. After a moment, his hair fanned out and he smiled, not his usual cocky grin but a younger, softer expression that hinted at a desperate need for approval and made Torin want to shoot his
vantru
every time she saw it. “You think we should we talk about it, Boss? I could wake the others.”

“No. Let them sleep.” Binti and Ressk had stretched out, foot to foot, over a row of empty seats, Ressk's head in Werst's lap. Werst was reading, probably a Krai romance if only because it was usually a Krai romance. He had his free hand wrapped loosely around the back of Ressk's neck. “Give them a heads-up before we leave the pod.”

“And this had been such a simple straight-on job,” Craig said quietly as Alamber disappeared with three of the Niln. “Slide in, find out who sold the biscuit maker, crack a little code. Harder to slide if we're going to be exotic visitors from the OutSectors. I'd ask if you think there might be trouble, but that's pretty much your default setting.”

“You know me so well.” She dug an elbow into his side when he smirked. “It's still a straight-on job. If the Younger Races are rare on
the ground, odds are higher the dealer will remember who sold them the artifact.”

“But?”

Stretching out her legs, she tapped her right boot against her left. “But why would they come here if they knew they were going to be noticed?”

“Who says they knew?” He shrugged broad shoulders. “They wanted to unload a biscuit warmer, thought Commerce would be a good place to do it. Felt exposed, never came back.”

Torin turned that over. Examined it from all sides. “Makes sense. Doesn't feel right.”

“A gut feeling, then?” He was smirking again.

“Shut up.”

A glance down at his game, then back up at her. “We're not supposed to be noticed either. What do we tell the locals if they're all about why we've visited their lovely planet?”

Torin sighed. “I miss not having to explain myself.”

We're the Marines, we're here to save you.
It had never descended quite that far into bad vid territory—uniforms and weapons made the announcement redundant. “Confederation citizens,” she said after a moment, “have the right to travel freely within the Confederation. We are Confederation citizens. Abalae is part of the Confederation. We have the right to travel freely here. And,” she added, not bothering to soften the edge, “we could always mention how, now the war is over, we thought we might like to see what we've been dying for.”

“Guilt.” He cocked his head. “That could work.”

Then the greenest of the hatchlings shrieked. Torin glanced over as Craig jerked forward and caught his slate as it slipped from his hand.

“I can't believe you didn't react to that.” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the undulating, high-pitched noise.