Valor's Trial (17 page)

She touched her tongue to it. “There's disinfectant in this.”

Approximately a minute of disinfectant, a minute of rinse. Then it shut off. The pallet had absorbed none of the water, drops beading up off the surface when Torin tossed it out onto the floor and let it unroll.

“Two-minute showers. Every platoon could go under say, once every three afternoons. Officers and NCOs in the mornings. We could set a piece of that smart fabric up like a screen . . .”

Torin could see Pole drawing up schedules in his head, and she smiled as she moved around the pipe. As the prisoners regained their strength, both physical and mental, they'd need things to do, and lining up for showers was a long-standing tradition of the Corps. Bitching about lining up for showers had been going on for almost as long.

The next alcove was about the same size but had no pressure plate and no showerhead. She could almost get her fingernail into a crack around the outside of the alcove ceiling so assumed this was the place where pallets, the smart fabric, and the other odds and ends Harnett hoarded had dropped from.

The remaining arc of the pipe was smooth, unmarked metal. Torin ran her fingernails over it just to be sure. Metal. Not plastic. Past experience had taught her not to trust that particular shade of gray. Remembering that the hatches leading out of Big Yellow's replica of the dirtside warehouse had looked and felt like metal didn't help.

“Gunny?”

“Just feeling a little paranoid, Staff.”

“Part of the job.”

“That's what they tell me.” Turning away from the pipe, she could see the stack of pallets where Harnett had slept. Fortunately, there were four of them, so there'd be three for her and Werst and Kyster with the top one left over—none of them would have to sleep directly on the same pallet Harnett had.

There was little available to make his private quarters opulent, but he'd done what he could. Besides the bed, there were two other pallets folded into chairs, two water jugs—one of them clearly for pissing into—and a scattering of things that had to have been taken off incoming Marines.

“Son of a fukking bitch . . .”

“A little hard on his mother,” Torin heard Pole murmur as she ran for Harnett's quarters. She hadn't been mistaken. It was a slate. Impossible to tell whose or what it had on it but she felt better just holding it in her hand and, as much as she hated to admit it, she completely understood why Harnett had kept it close.

“None of the tech works,” Pole reminded her, sinking down onto one of the chairs, breathing heavily. “It's all been completely drained of power, and there's no way to get it running again.”

Torin just barely managed to keep herself from stroking the housingas she snapped the slate onto her vest. “If all we need is power, then there has to be a way to recharge.”

“Because you say so, Gunny?”

“Because the lights are running on something.”

Pole glanced up at the high ceiling. “Can't reach the lights.”

“We can in the tunnels.”

“All right, you can touch the lights, maybe even tap their power, how do you use it to recharge the slate?”

“I have no idea,” Torin snorted. “I'm no tech. But there's a hundred Marines gathered around this pipe; odds are good there's one with the skills we need.”

“A hundred Marines out of the hundreds of thousands available and you think those are good odds?”

She smiled at him then. “I've had worse.”

“Okay. But speaking of your power source, we need to get that second extra feeding started if we're going to do it tonight. The lights won't stay on much longer.” He stood, stepped forward, swayed, and would have fallen had Torin not caught him.

Strange to hold a man with so little flesh on his bones, to feel the ridges of his spine, the blade of his hip. Craig was . . . muscular. Burly even. Heavy, working muscle she could test her own strength against. They'd have told him she was dead. They—everyone—believed the Others didn't take prisoners.

“Gunny?”

She hurriedly schooled her expression. Pole's tone had been too kind; her thoughts had to have been showing on her face. “Sorry.”

“Not a problem.” His hands closed around her wrist, and she realized she still had an arm around his waist. “But we're going to have to stop meeting like this or people will start to talk.”

“Start?” Torin found a fairly believable laugh as she carefully released him. “I can't get people to shut the fuk up . . .”

“There are not being much of a story there.” Presit speared a piece of fruit out of her drink and popped it into her mouth. “The Others are having used a big weapon, and our side are having lost,” she continued after swallowing when Craig remained silent. “I are having seen the military vids, and the ground are being flat and glassy. Flat and glassy are not looking exciting on vids.”

“And you think that's all there is to the story, then?” Craig asked, using his beer bottle to make interlocking circles of condensation on the tabletop. “So the military word is dead set to you now; you never used to believe them.”

The reporter shrugged, the motion sending highlights rippling once again through her dark fur. “The law are insisting they are giving full disclosure. So unless you are knowing a reason they are hiding something . . . ?”

He didn't. He looked around the bar, kept dim because of the number of Katrien at the tables and in the booths, and saw no reasons there either. “You used to believe they were always hiding something.”

“I are knowing what you are doing,” she sighed. “You are wanting to go and be seeing where Gunnery Sergeant Kerr are dying . . .”

“I'm not . . .”

“. . . but the military are not allowing civilians to the site. Full disclosure laws are meaning they are not keeping me away, so you are coming to me.” She speared another piece of fruit and paused with it halfway to her mouth. “I are owing you a little bit . . .” Thumb and forefinger on her other hand were close enough together that the silvered claws nearly touched. “. . . for the story on the gray plastic alien, and I are willing to do this for you if you are finding me a story there. So far, you are wasting my time.” The piece of fruit disappeared behind sharp white teeth with a bit more emphasis than Craig thought was merited.

“Parliament has sent in a team to do DNA testing at the site . . .”

“No one are wanting to watch DNA testing.”

“. . . to identify the remains . . .”

“There are being no remains. Remains are interesting.”

“. . . before the Others return.”

“There are being a chance the Others will return?”

He had no idea. He just needed to see the place where Torin had died. “That was the impression the Commandant of the Corps tried not to give me when I was on Ventris.”

“Why are the Commandant of the Corps talking to
you
?”

Clearly, breaking the story on the gray plastic aliens hadn't been enough for Presit to gain further access to High Tekamal Louden, and it was pissing her off a bit. Not that it was particularly difficult to piss Presit off. “I used her name to access sections of the station off limits to visitors. She tracked me down to tell me not to do it again.”

“Ah.” Presit sat back in her chair and ran her claws through her whiskers. “And then you are all being friends and she are giving you privileged information?”

“We were talking about Torin. Her father—Torin's father—he was there, too.”

“And there are being drinking? Of alcohol?”

“There are . . . was.”

“Humans are talking about everything when they are drinking alcohol. I are noticing that in the past.” She combed her whiskers again. “A chance to be getting actual footage of the Others invading while there are only helpless scientists attempting to be bringing closure to the grieving, that are being something I can use.”

Craig found it amazing that it hadn't occurred to her she'd be just as helpless as those scientists in case of an attack, but since he needed her to get the coordinates for the Susumi equations from the military, he didn't point that out.

“You are wanting to be my crew?”

“I've done it before, haven't I?” No point in adding that since the camera did most of the work, it wasn't exactly a difficult job. Presit, yeah, she was difficult. The job, not so much.

“And you are offering your ship for transport?”

“I'm sure as shit not leaving her here.” Hiring her out to Sector Central News would cover his costs.

Black lips curled up off Presit's teeth. “And you are realizing I are being your boss for the duration?”

He lifted his bottle and tried not to think of a planet's surface melted like glass. “I can cope if you can.”

Torin sent Darlys, Jiyuu, and Akemi to the barricade carrying sleeves of kibble skimmed from the morning feeding, a canteen each, and two eight-liter jugs of water hanging off a yoke made from the smart fabric.

The major had seemed resigned to her choices.

The two biscuits in the middle of the day tasted a bit like the jerked yeast she'd had in the barbecue place next to the recruiting station high above Paradise. She hadn't thought of that place, or the recruiting station, in years.

“You don't want to know, Gunny,” Werst snorted when she asked him what he tasted. “You really don't.”

Something in his tone convinced her she didn't.

That afternoon, she sent Werst and Divint, Kyster and Sergei out into the tunnels to check the small caves for new Marines. Tunnel three was nearly a direct route to a wall of obsidian, the remnant of an ancient lava flow, but the other six had to be covered.

“Colonel Harnett had a schedule based on the pattern of arrivals he'd observed,” Terantowicz sneered. “Should've thought of that before you killed him.”

“I'd have killed him if he'd had a foolproof plan to get us all out of here,” Torin told her with a smile.

She blanched and backed away.

Torin spent a moment regretting that Terantowicz had convinced Bakune to attack her at the pit rather than doing it herself.

New supplement sheets dropped out of the pipe the next morning. Torin suggested they station a Marine at the pipe with one of the clubs, ready to jam the hatch open the next time something dropped. Major Kenoton seemed less than enthused but allowed her to give the order to Pole.

“Can't see Harnett not having tried this,” Pole pointed out.

“He may have,” Torin allowed, “but that doesn't mean we can't.”

The next evening Torin met the last three of Harnett's goons out in the tunnels. Two Humans and a di'Taykan who stared at Torin as though he were trying to figure out if it was true—where
it
could mean only one thing. The Humans just stared, one of them trying to figure out if they could take her.

“No, you can't,” she told the younger woman wearily.

“I wasn't . . .”

Torin raised a brow, and Private Malan fell silent. So far, things were going well.

Which was, of course, when Lance Corporal Zhang Yadong, the second Human, charged her. Torin twisted, grabbed his arm above the elbow, and continued his forward momentum into the rock wall. Her desire to kill him was so strong it frightened her a little—a long time since anything had done that—and she barely managed to make sure his skull impacted with less than lethal force. When he flipped over, blood streaming into his eyes, Torin put a boot on his throat before he could rise. “Stay down!” she snapped.

He could have grabbed her ankle and taken advantage of the way she stood, balanced with her weight on one foot. She would have. But he stayed down.

Malan was staring with her mouth open in shock—or awe, it was hard to say—and the di'Taykan had a visible erection.

“Private Waturu.” Experience kept her from adjusting her clothes. She'd been a lot more uncomfortable for the same reason.

“Yes, Gunnery Sergeant!” He leaned toward her, lime-green eyes dark.

“Turn up your masker.”

“It's at the regulation mark, Gunnery Sergeant.”

“Then you're obviously overpowering it. Turn it up.”

“It's not my fault; you're
der heen sa verniticna sa vey.”

With a Human, Torin would have moved into their personal space. Di'Taykan, particularly di'Taykan as aroused as Wataru seemed to be, were likely to take that the wrong way. Teeth gritted, grateful she was female, Torin growled, “Does it say progenitor on my collar tabs?”

“No, Gunnery Sergeant!”

“I don't give a rat's ass whose fault it is; turn your masker up!”

His erection looking suddenly less visible, he did as commanded. Malan looked grateful.

Torin nodded down at Zhang as she lifted her foot from his throat and stepped back. “On your feet, Corporal. It's almost time for evening mush, and I get cranky if I miss a meal.”

“I'm bleeding.”

“But you're alive, so I'd say the cup is half full. Hand your weapons to Corporal Werst . . .” He rounded the corner on cue. “. . . then go and get your platoon assignments from Staff Sergeant Pole.”

“And that's it?” Malan asked suspiciously as she handed Werst her stone knife.

“As far as
I'm
concerned,” Torin told her.

“So you're in charge?”

“Major Kenoton is in charge.” Torin stepped aside to let her pass. “Try to stay out of trouble.”

“That's not it,” Werst muttered as they watched the last three of Harnett's survivors head into the node.