The Heart of Valour (33 page)

Frowning, he drummed his fingers against his weapon.

“Sakur!”

He jumped and turned away from the window to find Hisht staring up at him, the lower half of his face actually out from under the bodyliner.

“I asked you what you look at.”

“Sorry. I didn’t hear you.” Another glance out the window.

The Krai moved closer. “You are worried for the staff sergeant?”

“About the staff sergeant. Yeah. I was thinking…”

“That explain it,” Hisht snorted. “I smell burning and I thought to myself, must be Sakur thinking.” Grinning, he easily ducked under the di’Taykan’s swing, but as he straightened, he sobered. “The whole platoon is worried.”

“It is?” It hadn’t occurred to him that the staff sergeant’s condition was affecting anyone but the di’Taykan.

Hisht sighed, all nose ridges open, and nearly disappeared behind a plume of water vapor. “Not the same worry with not the same biology, but that doesn’t make our worry less than yours. He was strong like a
harshak
in a gale. Tree,” he added when Sakur frowned. “Very big strong tree; we build our cities in them. No matter the wind, they never fall.” He shrugged, one shoulder and then the other, the Human gesture still needing a little work. “Until they do, and then no one can believe it.”

“For fuksake, Hisht, that makes less sense than you usually do.”

“It’s hard to believe some things can fall. Some people. If he was someone else, it would not be so hard to believe.”

Sakur glanced out the window, then back at his teammate. “You’re saying the di’Taykan are overreacting because of who Staff Sergeant Beyhn is.”

Hisht shrugged again. “I’m saying the di’Taykan are not the deepest thinkers in known space, that maybe it would help if you used your nose filters while you’re inside, and that we’ll all be glad when the staff sergeant is on his feet again.”

Before Sakur could decide if he—and his species—had been insulted, Kichar appeared in the doorway of the inner room.

“Is there any particular reason you two are just standing there?” she demanded while, safely out of sight behind her, Bonninski rolled her eyes. “We’ve cleared this building, there’s nothing here, so let’s move ass.”

Hisht shifted his grip on his weapon. “And I will also be glad when this is over and that one is alone with her water dreams of Gunnery Sergeant Kerr.”

“Wet dreams, brother.” Sakur rapped his knuckles against the top of the Krai’s helmet. “And I hear you.”

They regrouped outside the building as Kichar marked a large white X, a 1/1, and a zero on the door.

“Okay…” Sakur leaned against the wall, cradling his weapon, legs crossed at the ankles. “…I get that the X means the building was searched, I get that 1/1 refers to us—the team at the top—and I get that the zero means we found nothing except artfully adorable…”

“Adorable?” Hisht murmured to Bonninski.

She snorted. “He’s just being an ass.”

“…tableaux set up to make us think that the occupants of the house had been dragged out by the Others without putting up much of a fight, but you know what I don’t get?”

Kichar waited expectantly.

“I don’t get why you packed a permanent marker.” She frowned. “It was on the alternatives list. It’s not just for marking buildings but for marking trails and leaving messages for the platoon if you’re scouting.”

“Kind of low tech,” Bonninski muttered.

“Exactly. You can’t hack writing on a rock.” Kichar slipped the marker back into a pocket on her vest. “And it luminesces under a sleeve light.”

“It what?”

“Glows in the dark,” Sakur told the Krai who was staring at Kichar in confusion.

* * *

“This is fukking stupid.”

Stone shrugged and continued rolling another layer onto the already sizable ball of snow.

“We’re marking searched buildings with snowmen!”

“Look, Carson, if you packed an indelible marker, then whip it out.” He set the ball on top of the larger one sitting directly in front of the building’s door. “If you didn’t, we’ll just continue using the material at hand.”

“It’s a snowman!” she protested again.

“And a damned fine one,” Vega added as she snugged the third and smallest ball down on the pile. “We’re just lucky the temperature’s up a bit and this stuff’s packing.”

“I hate snow.” Pulling off her mitt, Carson held her hand against the snowman’s head. The white of the snow made her skin look even darker. “I stand out. That sucks when things are shooting at us.”

“Stand behind Stone,” Vega suggested. “He’s big enough to provide cover for the whole squad.”

Carson nodded, poking her finger into the snow and making a pair of eyes. “True.”

“We’re wasting time.” Hair moving under the edge of his helmet, Jonin returned from pacing and glared down at the snowman. “We need to call this building cleared and move on.”

“So you can get back to the staff sergeant.”

He transferred his glare to Carson. “I should be there.”

“Not if we’re out here,” Stone said quietly, brushing snow off his mittens. “Are we going to have to have that talk again?”

“No, but…”

“No buts.” He closed his hand over Jonin’s shoulder. “There’s half a dozen di’Taykan with him. Right now, you’re with us. Or you’re not with us. Choose.”

The silence went on almost too long.

His eyes gradually darkening, Jonin stared down at Stone’s hand. “I can think of better things you could do with that,” he said at last.

“He’s back,” Vega snorted.

Eyes narrowed thoughtfully, Stone waited a moment before he let go. Jonin’s tone hadn’t been completely convincing, but the words were completely di’Taykan—he just wasn’t sure that was a good thing right now. “Hand me that bit of broken flashing off the edge of the window. I want to leave our snowman with a weapon.” When Jonin passed it over, he twisted the bit of metal, set it in place and stepped back. “There, that’s the…”

“Private Stone, what the hell are you doing?”

The team turned as one to see a figure, indistinguishable at that distance from any other Marine, on the roof of the anchor.

“Marking this building as searched, Gunnery Sergeant.”

“Not like that you’re not. The weapon goes up to the snowman’s right shoulder.”

As the other three exchanged silent but speaking looks, he bent and fixed it.

“Better.”

* * *

There was still no sign of the enemy. Torin moved away from the edge of the roof hearing herself explaining to Command why the platoon had been moved off the designated scenario after the appearance of a single tank and a distant surface-to-air missile that hadn’t been aimed at them.

“Gunny!”
The amount of teeth snapping Piroj managed in that single word was not a good sign.
“We’ve got a problem!”

She was running before he finished. “What kind of problem?”

“With the CPN!”

No point in calling him on the lack of details in his report; if it was a tech problem, she’d be in the room before he could finish explaining.

When she got there, both Piroj and McGuinty had their hands around the staff sergeant’s slate—although technically Piroj had his hands around McGuinty’s—and seemed to be trying to pull it from the port. “What’s happening?”

“I sent in a worm,” McGuinty grunted. “It came back with something that’s destroying the slate.”

Every screen on the desk seemed to be open, code moving across them all too quickly to read. “It’s wiping the data?”

“Yeah, that, too. But it’s also frying the hardware. Not so totally fried as last night, but… shit!” With a smell nasty enough to slam Piroj’s nose ridges shut, the slate came free. Both Marines stumbled back, bouncing off the outside wall. McGuinty pulled his hands and the slate from Piroj’s grip, glanced down at it, and tossed it away. “It’s toast, Gunny.” Bending, he flicked on his scanner—for the magnification, Torin realized—and shone his light into the port. “This is fused. Unusable.” Scanner off, he ran his thumb down the nav bar along the side of the desk then tried each screen in turn. “And I’m completely fukking locked…”

The desk made a deep, whining noise and every screen went blank.

McGuinty smacked his palm down on the glossy black surface.

Nothing happened.

“That’s that, then.”

“That’s what?” Torin demanded. His hand left a print behind, but that was all.

“The CPN is slagged. Maybe they added too much juice last night, but this…” Another smack. “…may not be melted but it’s just as dead.”

“Last night was a practice slagging?” Piroj snorted. “How’d they do this one? Hijack an ObSat?”

“Probably.” McGuinty sighed and pulled off his helmet. “I’m not sure what all that code was, Gunny, but I can tell you one thing, there’s one fuk of a lot of something on the way.”

* * *

“When we are moving out of Susumi space, I are sending this message to Ventris that instant.” Cradled in the pilot’s chair, Presit swung away from the board and flashed a mouthful of sharp teeth in Craig’s direction. “Parliament are not allowing the military to be keeping the press away. If you are showing legitimate press credentials, then public relations officers are needing to find your ship a berth. Even if your ship are not one they are wanting to be seeing back again. Why are the Marine Corps not wanting to see your ship back again, Mr. Ryder?”

“The Corps,” Craig told her from where he sat on the pulldown bench by the cabin’s one small table, “didn’t like me asking about classified information.”

“But why are Big Yellow being classified to you?” She combed chromed claws through her whiskers, first one side then the other. “You were there, so they are overreacting.”

Craig blinked. That last sentence had been in fluent Federate. Seemed like there might be some basis to the theory that the Katrien could unscramble their syntax, but they enjoyed pissing off the rest of the Confederation too much to bother. He supposed that at less than a meter tall and covered in plush fur they needed every advantage to keep the larger races from considering them almost unbearably cute.

Personally, he found the Katrien’s size an advantage. The amount of room taken up by the Susumi drive meant that salvage vessels the size of the
Promise
had next to no living space. Smaller lungs needed less oxygen and extrapolating from lung size and body weight, he could calculate her diffusing capacity and from there her absorption rate, but if he took the percentage down from twenty-one to say, nineteen then it would last…

“You are wearing your
there are too many people in here
face,” she said, not unkindly. “Be taking a deep breath.”

“Just what I don’t want to do,” he muttered, took a mouthful of coffee, and made a face as he swallowed the cold, slightly greasy liquid. Carrying three injured Marines, two Katrien, and an elderly Niln away from Big Yellow in an area barely more than fifteen square meters had kicked his phobia about sharing space right in the arse, but it hadn’t kicked it entirely out of his head.

And this trip, Presit spent most of her time in the cabin instead of spending it locked in the head with the landing party’s only surviving Katrien scientist grooming and bitching.

Grooming and bitching.

He frowned.

Katrien were a very social species and they didn’t like being on their own. Presit had been the only Katrien on Rosenee Station—the station’s OS had been very clear about that when he’d had it comm her. He had thought that meant she was working with a non-Katrien crew, but now he realized that made no sense, not given species preferences and the fact that Sector Central News was predominately Katrien staffed. She’d said she had a crew with her, but he suspected now that she’d lied. More telling, she’d taken commercial transport to get to the station when she’d arrived at Big Yellow in a news ship.

Which she’d damned near destroyed. Might as well have destroyed since the military had confiscated the pieces.

Her crew had been killed in the explosion.

A lot of very expensive gear had been lost.

The story she’d returned with, while exclusive, had been very limited in scope both because she’d had to rely on the military for all her visuals and because they’d left Big Yellow knowing little more than they had going in—unidentified alien ship, constructed of polyhydroxide alcoholydes, interior able to take a number of shapes, capable of performing detailed brain scans although probably only with contact. Four points; that was it.

Presit a Tur durValintrisy was no longer Sector Central News’ fair-haired girl—or silver-tipped female—and she wanted that position back. She’d been willing to travel out to Rosenee in search of a story big enough to put her back on top. No wonder she’d jumped at a chance to investigate the missing escape pod.

It also explained why she’d curbed her ego enough to keep him from wanting to dump her out the air lock.

“You are stopping staring at me! Now!”

Most of the time.

* * *

Having seen some truly bizarre things during her years in the Corps, things beautiful and terrible, Torin was able to school her expression as she came out onto the roof. But it was close.

“This happens every time she comes up here?” she asked Lirit quietly.

“Every time, Gunny. They’re nesting on the roof of that building there.” Lirit pointed and, dialing her scanner up, Torin could see piled mud and entry holes and an impressive amount of bird shit. “When she’s not around, they go back, but as soon as she appears again…”

They looked as much like pigeons as it was possible for a nonpigeon to look. The details were wrong, but the overall resemblance was uncanny. And they seemed to love Dr. Sloan. She stood in the middle of the roof, staring off at the dense cloud cover that had filled the sky to the west, blatantly ignoring the circle of birds bobbing and strutting around her feet. Where the snow hadn’t been packed tightly enough for them to walk, they’d flap a few paces before settling down and walking again.

“She used to run at them, try and chase them off. Hell, we tried, too, but nothing works. Shooting them seemed a little over the top although Sergeant Jiir did wonder how they might taste.”