An Ancient Peace (5 page)

“Gunny.” Ressk waved his slate until he saw he had Torin's attention. “Major Alie's set our meeting with Intell for 0830 tomorrow morning.”

“Is it a good thing or a bad thing that she wants it over early?” Alamber wondered, fingernails picking at the embroidery on his cuff.

“It's a thing,” Torin sighed. “Although,” she added setting her empty down on the table and tapping in an order for another, “the odds are good it's early because no one wants you lot wandering around unsupervised any longer than absolutely necessary. The sooner the major's done with us, the sooner we'll be redeployed . . . given a new job,” she amended as Craig blew out an exaggerated sigh and the others laughed. “And when I say, you lot, I mean everyone but Binti who, so far, has managed to not get hauled in by the MPs.”

“Hey!” Werst protested. “I didn't . . .”

“Depless Station. You kicked the shit out of that supply officer who suggested the vid of the plastic aliens had been faked.” Werst's nostril ridges slowly shut, and he muttered something about the privileges of being a civilian Torin was just as glad she couldn't hear. “And you two . . .” She nodded at Ressk and Alamber. “ . . . have little enough concept of personal privacy singly. Collectively, well, get caught here and you'll be contemplating the meaning of firewalls from inside a couple of tech free cells. And you . . .” A nudge against Craig's shoulder, rocked him sideways. “ . . . were in a poker game with marked cards.”

Looking smug, Binti raised her glass in a mocking toast.

“They weren't my cards,” Craig protested. “I was an innocent bystander.”

“You had most of the money piled in front of you when the MPs showed up.”

“Not my fault that corporal couldn't cheat worth shite.”

“You said no fighting or hacking deep on Ventris, Gunny.” Ressk hung his slate back on his belt and waved a foot through the table's sensor field to summon a waiter. “We are therefore neither fighting nor hacking.”

Ressk held out his bottle. Werst and Binti tapped theirs against it. Torin rolled her eyes as Craig added his.

“Yeah, but because you won't let me delve deep . . .”

Years of practice allowed them all to ignore the thick layer of innuendo.

“. . . I still can't find what the major wants us for.” Alamber frowned down at his slate and looked up to find everyone staring at him. He took a moment to preen. “Nothing on official channels. Nothing on unofficial channels . . .”

Alamber's previous life on the other side of the line had given him access to some very unofficial channels.

“. . . and, strangest of all, nothing on any of the social networks. The military's not even gossiping about it and you lot are worse than a group of
sheshan
at a family reunion.”

“We don't gossip,” Werst began.

Alamber cut him off. “Please, it's all stoic warrior shit in public, but on private forums you guys are all whine, whine, whine. The food sucks. I don't want to go to Caraba. The tracker at the range is busted, my score should be higher. The sergeant's picking on me.”

“Enough.” Torin's tone put Werst back into his seat. She let the rude gesture he flicked at Alamber as he sat go. They'd all been on edge since they'd received the summons. They'd been chewing over possible reasons for the last three days and the best they'd been able to come up with was the Intelligence Service needed information on one of their deployments firsthand, untainted by the Wardens' interpretation.

“We should've told them we don't take military jobs,” Craig muttered, flicking the menu up, then down, then up again.

Torin shrugged. “They know that.”

Up, then down. “I don't like jumping when the Corps says jump.”

“We're not.” He'd made his opinion on that very clear on their way to the station. “Our employer, the Justice Department, has informed us that Major Alie wants to speak with us. Speaking. That's all.”

Turning far enough to meet her gaze, he sighed. “If that was all it was, they'd have told us what it was about, and if the Corps wasn't involved, you'd be all over the lack of information. You spent years obeying orders, Torin, you haven't shaken free of it yet.”

She wanted to tell him she had, but way back when they'd first got together, back when she was still in uniform and she couldn't always tell him the truth, she'd promised she wouldn't lie to him. “We had to come back to Ventris anyway. Dr. Ito is my court appointed therapist of record.”

Ressk swallowed a mouthful of nuts. “There is some talk about you being back, Gunny. A lot of Marines know you by sight thanks to the whole plastic aliens thing.”

“And the Silsviss thing,” Binti added. “And the Big Yellow thing. And the . . .”

“Yeah, I get it.” Torin cut her off. “A lot of Marines know me by sight.” Especially now that she'd lost the anonymity of the uniform. Hopefully, that was all that it was. “Is General Morris . . .”

Binti grinned. “General Morris isn't on station, I checked.”

“Thank you. So it could be worse. Whatever
it
is.” General Morris had been her own two star pain in the ass for years. He'd sent her to Silsvah, he'd sent her to Big Yellow. He hadn't sent her to Crucible, but he'd been around. If he was here, on Ventris, she could pretty much guarantee her life was about to hit the shitter.

Of course, his absence was no guarantee of
sah
and
kayti
either.

I
NTELL TOOK UP SECTIONS 23, 24, AND 25
of Level 9 and, rumor had it, a Section or two off the public record in spite of stringent full disclosure laws. The vertical took Torin and her team as far as Section 22. A short walk down an empty corridor took them to a set of double hatches outside Section 23 that, when closed, would create an emergency air lock.

“I'm impressed by a paranoia that takes steps to avoid explosive decompression when they're nowhere near the outer wall of the station,” Craig declared, touching the clear plastic cover on the emergency controls before stepping over the inner lip. Given his history—one man, working alone out of a small ship—Torin figured the odds were even that hadn't been sarcasm.

“We're in part of the station's original build,” Ressk told him. “The tech in the walls is still self-contained enough . . .” He held up his slate as he crossed. “ . . . to make sure nothing goes in or out that isn't filtered through Intell first.”

Alamber's hair flattened and he froze. “We're locked?”

“We're filtered.” Werst shoved him forward, then crowded him through the second hatch. “Everything you say can and likely will be used against you.”

“Boss!” Twisting around, he shot a wide-eyed, unhappy look over Werst's head.

“It's just like being back on Vrijheid,” she told him, “with Big Bill listening in.”

“Only the part of Big Bill will be played by the Intelligence Service of the Confederation Marine Corps,” Binti added before Alamber could respond. “So, on the one hand, they're the good guys.”

“And on the other hand?” Alamber demanded when Binti stepped through the lock without saying anything further.

“On the other hand,” Torin said dryly, “they're the Intelligence Service of the Confederation Marine Corps.” She briefly rested her finger below the smudge Craig had left on the plastic cover, and stepped through into an area roughly three meters square that showed all the signs of having once been the decontamination chamber for the small lock. Currently, it was a security station, complete with two armed Marines and a lieutenant in a uniform so perfectly creased and boots, brass, and masker so perfectly shined, she found herself thinking of her first meeting with Lieutenant Stedrin, General Morris' aide. The lieutenant waiting here had fuchsia hair and eyes while Lieutenant Stedrin shared Alamber's pale blue coloring, but the “I'm making a point here” spit and polish were the same. The memory of Lieutenant—now Captain—Stedrin, who'd become an officer Torin would be honored to follow, smoothed out her reaction to being summarily lined up and scanned into the data stream even though anyone with half a brain knew the OS had registered them the moment they'd entered the Section.

She smiled, catching the lieutenant's gaze and holding it. “Thank you for meeting us, Lieutenant . . . ?”

“di'Miru Harym, Gu . . .” His hair flipped in choppy arcs and his eyes darkened as light receptors opened. “
Per
Kerr.”

The civilian honorific as a reminder she was no longer in the Corps was the bald truth, not an insult no matter how unhappy Lieutenant Harym felt about his instinctive reaction to her tone. Given the faint growls she heard behind her, she needed to remind Werst of that. Again. She nodded, politely, and allowed him to look away.

Hair beginning to speed up, eyes darkening further as he glared past her, the lieutenant opened his mouth.

Torin cut him off before he could speak. “I have 0826, Lieutenant. If we're more than four minutes out from where Major Alie wants
us . . .” She left the statement hanging, allowing the lieutenant to fill in the consequences of a late arrival.

His hair flipped once, front to back, a final protest as he turned and snapped, “Follow me.”

Although the Confederation had been nudging the Taykan toward an ability-based system, traditionally the upper classes carried shorter names. Four letters slotted in just below the aristocracy. Torin preferred to believe the Corps didn't give a H'san's ass about the background of its recruits, but the odds were high senior family members had arranged for di'Miru Harym to be posted to Intell where he could accumulate the political capital necessary for the eventual promotion to a flag position.

She had to admit, the lieutenant's ability to make it look like his presence was all that kept them from running wild through the Section impressed her.

“If he made a little effort, he could probably get some enjoyment out of that stick up his ass.” Alamber seemed less impressed.

The corridor the lieutenant led them into stretched twenty meters in both directions and was empty except for a hurrying captain who shot them a disapproving look nearly identical to the one on the faces of the captains she and Werst had passed in the corridor by Dr. Ito's office. All but this last year of her adult life spent in the Corps, and Torin had never realized that captains were inherently against civilian clothing.

Not that they were exactly flamboyant; Craig wore blue trousers and a brown jacket over a yellow shirt, and Alamber had wrapped himself in flowing layers of ragged, deep purple fabric that covered everything except his head, his fingertips, and his platform boots, but the rest of them were squared away in black. Not in uniform, but not exactly out of it. The Corps had switched to black when the Elder Races added the di'Taykan to their military—it seemed agreeing to fight and die in an interstellar war was one thing, but multicolored pastels over the old camouflage crossed a line.

“You and your team can wait in here, Per Kerr.” Lieutenant Harym gestured through an open hatch.

A rectangular black table and ten chairs nearly filled the small room. The long wall facing the hatch showed distant birds wheeling through a silver sky over turquoise waves that lapped gently against a sandy shore. Banal, but a pleasant enough change from the default starscapes. At least it wasn't pretending to be a window. The other three walls appeared to be pale gray, painted metal.

“Per Kerr?”

“Eyes before feet, Lieutenant.” Senior NCOs made sure that junior officers survived long enough to learn how to lead. It was a hard habit to break. Torin stepped over the hatch and into the room.

The edge around the table's screen was gleaming black . . .

“Lacquered wood.” Werst caressed the sleek surface. “Krai work, definitely.”

The room was empty of visible plastic. The chairs were the same black lacquer; the seats unpadded, but then this wasn't a room designed for comfort. It smelled faintly of cleanser, all evidence of the last people to use it wiped clear.

“You think Intell's dumped the plastic out of their entire sector?” Binti wondered.

“If anyone has.” Torin walked to the far end of the table. Her jaw implant chimed 0830 as her ass hit the chair.

Craig sat to her right. “So they're making us wait. Because we're less important than anything else they could be doing?”

“Or something came up. I doubt we're the most important item on today's agenda.” Torin hid a smile when Craig seemed determined to remain annoyed. The Wardens they dealt with recognized the need for their combined skill sets while simultaneously disapproving of how those skills were applied. Given that the Elder Races tied themselves in knots over the need for a military at all, let alone the less savory needs that violence as a career had created, Torin had gotten into the habit of ensuring no one on the team took that disapproval personally. The Elder Races needed to own their shit.

“I don't like going in blind.” Craig tipped his chair back and braced a knee against the table. “Is it against protocol to give us a heads-up? Let us know what they want us flapping about?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, it's against protocol. They'll get more detail if they don't give us a chance to compare stories.”

“Sneaky bastards.”

“True that.” Binti sat on Torin's left, having beaten a scowling Werst to the chair. “But marketing thought Intelligence Service sounded better and the Elder Races weren't familiar with the term oxymoron.”

At 0837, the glossy black tabletop turned pink, the color surging through the glass in a virulent wave.

“Alamber.”

Eyes on the vertical lines of a Taykan keyboard he'd called up amid the pink, he waved her off. “Not hurting anything, Boss.”

“Reset the defaults.”

“Oh, come on, Boss.” His voice dropped into a seductive purr. “Let me play for a while.”

“No.”

“But . . .”

“Defaults. Now.”

“Told you,” Ressk murmured as the pink disappeared.

At 0839 a Krai colonel stepped through the hatch followed by a di'Taykan major, bringing the four ex-Marines to their feet. Torin didn't recognize the colonel, but Major Alie hadn't changed. Being Taykan, when she finally did change she'd move from di' to qui' and out of the Corps. None of the Taykan served during the brief years they were breeders although a few returned when they changed again.

“As you were, people.” The colonel took the seat at the other end of the table, the chair automatically compensating for his height. In the beginning, trying to merge their three new species into a cohesive military, the Elder Races had attempted a compromise—the Krai were to sit a little too far from the floor, di'Taykans and Humans a little too close, and everyone would be equally uncomfortable. The Krai, born and raised in arboreal cities, had headed immediately for the highest chairs available and the whole idea had been filed under
nice try, next time ask.

Major Alie nodded at Torin as she sat. The ends of her deep orange hair barely moving, she swept a level gaze around the room. “I am Major di'Uninat Alie. This is Colonel Hurrs.”

Ressk gripped the edge of the table, and Torin assumed he'd placed the colonel as well. Unless there'd been layers under the surface she'd missed, nothing they'd done in the last year should have brought out the Intelligence Chief of Staff. And Torin didn't like the implication that there'd been layers she'd missed.

Nor did she like how comfortable she felt being in a room with an officer in charge. Over the years she'd had more good officers than bad but, good or bad, an officer gave her a point of reference. The freedom to look after the details, to do her job and not have to worry about the big picture. Although as the big picture had turned out to be plastic aliens provoking and extending a war as a social science experiment, resulting in millions dead, maybe she should've worried a bit more.

“As we have information on all of you . . .” Major Alie touched the table with two fingers. The full surface lit up, showing multiple files.

Alamber stood and leaned out over the table, trying to read his, twisted far enough around Torin's spine hurt just watching him. She glared him back into his seat.

“. . . as well as the reports filed with and by the Justice Department concerning your previous missions, we'll forgo further introductions and proceed directly to the reason you were called in. Colonel.”

Colonel Hurrs tapped a file from the table up onto the big screen. “This is a H'san grave good from the Bertan'sh dynasty—some two hundred and ten years postConfederation. It was purchased in a market on Abalae and sold to a wealthy Human collector. This collector is known to one of our retired specialists who brought it to the major's attention. Major Alie brought it to me.”

If her team had been in contact with H'san grave goods over the last year, this was the first Torin had heard of it. Alamber, the best bet for having been running an illicit antiquities business on the side, had his head slightly cocked to the right, a clear tell that he was processing new information. From the collection of ticks and tells around the table—and Craig's overtly irritated confusion—the image was new to everyone.

“Excuse me, sir, but what is it?” It looked a little like a hollow, ceramic fish with a metal interior—if fish were pale pink, slightly squashed half circles with blue spines and, for all Torin knew, some were.

“As near as we can determine without consulting the H'san, it's a biscuit warmer.”

Alamber opened his mouth, then gasped and closed it. Given the minimal shifting above the table, Torin assumed Ressk had squeezed Alamber's leg with a foot.

Binti leaned closer to Torin. “Why would a H'san be buried with a biscuit warmer?” she asked quietly.

“The H'san prefer warm biscuits in the afterlife.” Gunnery sergeants always knew. It was part of the job description.

“Bullshit,” Binti muttered.

The last year as an ex-gunnery sergeant had worn a bit of shine off the brass.

“And this . . .” The colonel touched the table again, and the image changed. “ . . . is a H'san grave good from the early Bertan'sh dynasty, roughly one hundred and fifty years postConfederation, purchased on 3Bortan.” And again. “As is this, but purchased on Darquen Bi.”

As she hadn't heard of either planet, Torin assumed neither had been attacked by the Primacy. Her best shot at identifying the first artifact was that it was a coil of irrigation tubing. The second might have been a shoe. It might have been another biscuit warmer.

“And this, purchased on Sarvai or Minout or whatever they're calling it now.” He squinted at the piece of flattened metal, covered in strapping. “Although our expert suggests this is closer to one hundred years postConfederation.”

Definitely not a biscuit warmer. Possibly, given what looked like hinges, it was the door off a small cupboard. Or the H'san version of a baby carrier. Or a cheese tray. Who knew with the H'san?

“I'm sure that's made a few archaeologists shit happy bricks, Colonel.” Craig laid both hands flat on the table. “But what do photos of ancient naff have to do with us?”

Colonel Hurrs glanced at Torin, who looked politely attentive. When it became obvious that was all she was going to do, he frowned,
shifted his attention to Craig, and answered the question. “The H'san do not sell their grave goods. These items were looted from H'san graves and sold. We're not certain how many items these grave robbers have taken, but that's of less interest to us than the era they were taken from. The H'san are a very old race. The Eldest of the Elder Races.” A faded photo of a shattered building surrounded by bodies and body parts appeared on the screen. “And a very long time ago, they were a very violent race. After a war that went on for centuries, killing billions of their people and reducing a colony planet to a smoking ruin, they achieved enlightenment, pledged themselves to peace, founded the Confederation, and turned the planet they'd recently destroyed into a memorial slash cemetery. For more than a millennia they fetishized their dead and . . .”