An Ancient Peace (3 page)

“I know what I said.”

The boss' teeth were not being as pointed as Jamers' own, but her smile are being much more deadly. Jamers sighed. “I are not having them now.”

“You destroyed them?”

Jamers wanted to say yes, but she are knowing that the boss are knowing it would be a lie. There are being many things this boss are not tolerating. Touching. Lying.

“You sold them, didn't you?”

She scratched at her arm where the fur are being so thin she are seeing the mottled pattern of the skin beneath. “Yes.”

“Did you tell your buyers where you found them?”

“No!” She'd been hired to bring in the water because she are being able to buy in nearby systems unnoted if not unseen. Because she are not Younger Races. She are knowing better than to give away the compound's location. “I are being careful. There are being nothing to be connecting them to here.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing,” Jamers repeated, willing the boss to believe it. Her mouth are being dry and she swallowed.

The boss' hair are remaining perfectly still. “Nothing but you.”

“Yeah, yeah, it all worked out and the Navy actually came when they were called, but I don't like the kind of bullshit missions where half the team faces a bunch of crazy, militant fukwads and the other half sits on their collective asses doing sweet fuk all.” Werst's bare feet
slapped against the station floor, adding a fleshy emphasis to his words. “Look, we're good at what we do because of the way our strengths combine. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts and all that crap. And, yeah, it worked, fine, and these guys gave dumbasses a bad name, but they had live ammo they were willing to use and you got lucky. You shouldn't be facing those kinds of odds without me, Gunny. Mashona's learned a little meat to meat, but Ryder's fukking hopeless.”

Torin grinned at Werst's disgruntled tone, secure in the knowledge that the significant difference in their height meant he wouldn't see it. “You're a meter two and greenish brown. You wouldn't have passed.”

“Didn't say I would or that I wanted to, only that I'd rather you had better backup when it's three to however many
serley
idiots Human's First had managed to round up.”

“They weren't exactly hard to beat.”

“You didn't know that going in.” Werst stepped into the vertical and grabbed a passing handhold. By the time Torin stepped in behind him, it had risen far enough that they hung eye to eye in the zero gravity. “And if you mention that fukking apostrophe, like it's the reason they were so easy to take down,” he added, nostril ridges flared, “I'm going to inform your court-appointed therapist about your sudden grammar fixation.”

“One apostrophe is not a fixation.”

His lips pulled back off his teeth in what would have been a smile had he not been Krai. When Krai showed teeth, they weren't smiling. “You keep telling yourself that, Gunny.”

Pointedly ignoring him, Torin exchanged a nod with a staff sergeant descending down the other side the vertical—he'd pulled three jacks to her trip tens on their last visit to Ventris Station—and silently acknowledged that Werst wasn't wrong. They
had
gotten lucky.

Binti had been a sniper back in the Corps and while she hadn't had the specialist training in unarmed combat both Torin and Werst had received, she at least had basic hand to hand to build on. Craig, however, had been a civilian salvage operator, arriving after the fight was over to mine the debris field. He was a big man with a heavy layer of
working muscle, but like most people outside the military, he had no training in violence and little amateur experience. Occasionally, over the last year of dealing with messes the Justice Department couldn't—or wouldn't—clean up, he'd had to expand his skill set. Truth be told, Torin didn't like it when Craig was in the thick of the fight any more than Werst did. She wanted Craig safe on board ship, hands on the controls, ready to swoop in to save them using
his
training and experience rather than trying to fake hers. Or Werst's. Or Binti's. Or even Ressk's—who'd proven even more resistant to learning the dirtier tricks of unarmed combat than Craig. They were all ex-Corps, or as ex-Corps as anyone ever got, and her concerns for and about them were familiar—she'd had years of practice separating legitimate concern from speculation. But she didn't think she'd ever get used to the feeling of Craig in danger even if she had gotten good at repressing it.

If the guard on the hatch hadn't been young and stupid . . . although his youth and stupidity had been why she'd sent Craig to that particular hatch. If Craig hadn't been able to bluff his way into the control room . . . although he'd bought a new converter for the
Promise
bluffing out a pair of eights so she didn't want to sell his skills short. Neither did she want to make him into something he wasn't. Nor did she want to insist he never change. She just wanted to keep him safe.

Without, of course, making her concern for his safety so blatant that he was insulted, hurt, or angered by it.

She worried about the team's young di'Taykan as well, but Alamber was an entirely different problem. Had the
vantru
who'd fukked him over still been alive, Torin would have happily put the boots to her. The relationship carried a lot more emotional weight than the translation of primary sex partner implied and Alamber had been almost obscenely young when she'd dragged him with her to Vrijheid Station and not significantly older when she'd gotten herself killed, abandoning him there. Unfortunately, while it helped that they all knew
why
he defaulted to manipulative self-centered shit under stress, it didn't change the fact he did it. Alamber's response to being left behind while the three Humans infiltrated Human's First had made Werst's look calm and measured. A lone di'Taykan among other species became the definition of codependent, and Torin needed to either find
another di'Taykan for the team—and where the hell she'd find one who'd fit she had no idea—or cut Alamber loose. To do what? He'd been a career criminal, albeit a junior one when they'd adopted him—Craig's words and not entirely inaccurate even given that Alamber was legally an adult—and their position in the shadows where the law couldn't reach suited him perfectly. Or it did when he wasn't left behind to take out his frustration by rerouting drone shipping.

Fortunately, Ressk, just as frustrated but less likely to end up imprisoned for it, had spotted the hack.

Which brought her back around to Werst's point about bullshit assignments. It might be time to take another look at the parameters of their arrangement as independent contractors with the Justice Department.

A twitch in her peripheral vision caught her attention, and she swung out into the level nine corridor before Werst had entirely released the handhold.

“Could've sworn you weren't paying attention,” he grumbled as he dropped to the deck beside her. “Should've known better.”

In too much of a hurry to say anything, a pair of captains settled for glaring disapprovingly at their civilian clothing as they pushed past and into the lift. Four meters down the corridor, a di'Taykan second lieutenant opened her mouth and snapped it shut again as Torin met her eyes. Bright green hair flattened against her head, and she nearly slammed her elbow into the bulkhead, putting distance between them as she passed.

Werst snickered.

In Torin's opinion, it was never too early to start training officers to recognize senior NCOs out of uniform. Or out of the Corps entirely. After a certain point, the rank and its ramifications remained.

The waiting room outside Dr. Ito's office was empty. As far as Torin knew, it was always empty. Over the last year, she'd never seen anyone sit in one of the three admittedly uncomfortable looking chairs. Never seen anyone pick up the slate on the small, round table. Never seen anyone put eyes on the vid screen that always showed the star field outside the station like it was a badly situated window.

When she mentioned the lack of any other patients to Werst, his
shoulders lifted and fell in what was almost a shrug. The Krai had picked the motion up from Humans, but had never been able to entirely duplicate it. “Yeah, because you'd be such pleasant company sharing this shithole.”

He had a point, Torin allowed as Master Corporal Tresk, Dr. Ito's current admin, looked up from her desk and stroked a document closed as she acknowledged them. “Gunnery Sergeant Kerr. Master Corporal Werst.”

Torin had stopped reminding Tresk they were civilians three appointments ago. She had two brothers; the Corps hadn't needed to teach her to pick her battles.

Nostril ridges open, Werst spread his arms. “Sorry, Tresk, still happily taken.”

“Sorry, Werst, still not interested.”

Torin wouldn't have known Tresk was female had Werst not mentioned it. The Krai had so few secondary sexual characteristics, it was difficult for a Human to determine their gender. Torin liked to think that once she knew, she could spot the difference in the way the bristles grew on the mostly bare scalp or the subtle distinctions in the mottling, but the odds were high she was fooling herself. The di'Taykans, who relied on scent, had no difficulty telling male and female Krai apart—which was amusing as di'Taykans probably cared less about gender than any species in Confederation space.

“We'll be in Sutton's when you're done, Gunny.”

“What, you're not going to wait here to escort me down?” Torin touched her slate to the desk with one hand and ran the fingertips of the other along the plastic trim.

“Yeah, funny thing, you never disappear on your way to the bar.”

“Miss one appointment,” Torin muttered as he went out the hatch.

“Seven,” Tresk corrected. “Over the last six months. The doctor will see you now, Gunnery Sergeant Kerr.”

Werst waited in the corridor outside Dr. Ito's until he heard Torin go into the inner office and the hatch close behind her. Then he exhaled, allowing his nostril ridges to flutter in relief. She'd never walked away from an appointment once she was in the office, and she always had
a reason when she missed one—it wasn't like they kept to a regular schedule—but he preferred to be sure before he walked away.

And not only because of the “court appointed” part of the sessions. They all joked about it, sure, but Werst had seen the changes in Torin after Vrijheid Station, had seen the shadows behind her eyes, and, since she wouldn't talk about it with the team, Dr. Ito became a necessary evil.

Gunnery Sergeant Kerr had been one of the best Marines Werst had ever served with. With the weight of the Corps behind her, she'd been able to be as practical and as ruthless as needed to bring her people home alive. Leaving the Corps hadn't worked out quite the way she'd expected; the life she'd tried to build with Ryder had been kicked apart by some Grade A assholes—currently space particulate thanks to Mashona's aim. Without the weight of the Corps behind her, Torin had been searching for definition, and whatever had happened in the shuttle bay on Vrijheid, whatever made that fight, that death different, had skewed the way she saw herself.

Werst knew
not quite right
when he saw it.

The others didn't see it. Ryder, for all Werst generally approved of him, didn't have the context to see the differences. Mashona saw better from a distance. Ressk was better with code than people.

Gunny said she was fine.

For fuk's sake, she was Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr. Of course she was fine.

“She's fine,”
echoed Ryder and Binti and Ressk.

Alamber . . .

To give the little shit credit, Werst acknowledged, heading back toward the vertical, Alamber had noticed something was off. He was probably trying to take advantage of it, but at least he'd seen it.