A truth of Valor

SIX

"So, I are thinking that while we are being trapped together in Susumi space and are having time, you should be filling me in on the Silsviss."

Stretched out on the bunk, replaying her last moments with Craig over and over, Torin had been paying next to no attention to Presit's background babble, but that got her attention. "I should fill you in on the Silsviss? Where the hell did that come from?"

"If a large, aggressive, reptilian species are joining the Confederation…" One foot pressed against the edge of the control panel, Presit rocked the pilot's chair back and forth. Unlike the chair in the Promise, the pivot point was mercifully silent. "… I are thinking smaller mammalian species are wanting to know about it."

She had a point, Torin acknowledged. On Silsviss, small mammalian species were considered snacks. "Well, you're out of luck because I can't talk about them."

"Can't or won't."

"Both." Sitting up, Torin scraped a clump of silver-tipped fur off the blanket and wondered just why she'd agreed to have Presit come along. They'd established beyond a doubt that the reporter was Craig's friend, but she wasn't Torin's. No more than Torin was hers.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Faulty logic from a military point of view, where nothing prevented the enemy of an enemy from also being an enemy, but Torin supposed it worked in this instance. Craig had given them common ground; perhaps it was time to move beyond that and establish a connection of their own.

One of the basic tenets of the Corps was that no Marine got left behind, that in the midst of violence and death, in spite of rank or lack of rank or species or gender, they were all in it together. For whatever reason, Presit had stepped up when no one else had.

"There are being stories about Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr and the Silsviss. I are thinking you are wanting to set the record straight. Ceelin are just sleeping. He could be setting up…"

"No. I was senior NCO of the platoon accompanying the first lot of diplomats," Torin told her, rolling the fur into a tight silver cylinder. "That's all."

Presit snorted. "That are not what the rumors are saying. I are knowing what you are doing on Big Yellow, and I are knowing what you are doing on Crucible, and I are knowing what you are doing on the aliens' prison planet, so, given what I are knowing, I are wondering if there are being any truth to those rumors."

"Exaggerations…"

"I are not doubting that," Presit snorted. "But I are also not doubting there are being truths at their core and a story people are wanting to hear."

"It's not a story I can tell." It had been a military exercise, and for all the law said full disclosure to the press, the brass had kept the final facts need to know only. As Presit opened her mouth, Torin held up a hand. "But when I can tell it, I'll tell it to you. Okay?"

The lights were low enough that Presit hadn't put on her glasses, but her eyes were as unreadable as the mirrored lenses would have been. After a long moment she nodded, fluffed her ruff with her claws, and said, "Okay."

Progress. As her head began to tip forward of its own volition, Torin stretched back out on the bunk. The random moments of weakness came less frequently but were still a disturbing reminder that she wasn't yet at a hundred percent. The one good thing about time wasted in Susumi was that it gave her time to finish healing.

"I are hating this."

Pedro, or a member of his family, had scratched Sonrisa de senora Luck sobre nosotros in the painted metal above the bunk. "You hate what?"

"Waiting. We are having gone through the information the CSOs are sending us. We are having researched the Prospect Processing Station, not that there are being much available information to research. We are having decided I are being distraction while you are being muscle."

It hadn't so much been a decision, Torin amended slightly, as it had been the only possible division of labor.

"Now we are having nothing to do. Unless you are telling…"

"No." The plastic trim around the small light over the bunk still had no reaction to her touch. She closed her eyes. "Sleeping now."

"I are knowing why you are sleeping!"

"Still healing. Go talk to Ceelin."

"Oh, no. I are knowing that you are trying to be ignoring me…"

Torin had spent a high percentage of her adult life sleeping in war zones and not even Presit could match an artillery barrage for either volume or duration. Although she tried. The computer countdown ended and Craig felt the ship's vibration change as they came out of Susumi space. With his last meal sitting like salvage in his stomach, he prayed to the gods of his childhood that with him and his codes on board, the ship had gone to ground rather than gone hunting for new prey. If he were captain and he had a crewmember he didn't trust and had just picked up a new captive he needed to brutalize, he'd put that crewmember back in the room with the chair. Only, this time, the new crewmember would be the one standing. And that new crewmember would cross a line they couldn't cross back or they'd take a short walk out the air lock. Craig liked to think he knew what his choice would be, but he was honest enough with himself to realize it wasn't something he could know until he actually had to make the decision.

Kill or die.

Sounded like the same choice Torin had made for years.

Close, but not quite.

The locked door said Cho didn't trust him. That maybe Cho figured injuries be damned, if let loose, Craig would overpower the entire crew and fly the ship to the nearest Warden's office. Torin might-fuk it, Torin would-but he wasn't Torin.

But if Cho thought three days of minimal contact would soften him up, the captain knew sweet fuk all about how salvage operators worked. Before Torin, Craig's default had been two or three tendays with no one to talk to but Promise and the space between the stars.

Doc had brought him a pair of overalls on his last visit in to check his knee. They stank of di'Taykan and Craig reacted to them just being in the room.

"You wouldn't fit into mine or Nat's or the captain's," Doc had growled, his hands gentler on the bruised flesh than his voice. "You're too damned tall. Rest of the crew's Krai or di'Taykan. You do the math."

Sure, might have been as simple as that.

Might have been Almon continuing to fuk with him.

Either way, he hadn't put them on. Not like he was packing anything the crew hadn't seen. Nat's casual lechery as she delivered his food-blatant enough to distract him as he ran his fingers over the gray plastic tray-made him reconsider; even the dubious shield of pheromone-drenched cloth became better than no shield at all.

He rubbed his palms against the navy blue fabric stretched over his thighs.

No point in counting his heartbeat to keep track of the time between emerging from Susumi and arriving at their final destination-distance between emergence and final destination depended on the equation used and the standard emergent point was ninety minutes out. Even if pirates refused to conform to standards, counting wouldn't change a damned thing.

Torin would probably count.

Craig stretched out on the bunk, hands behind his head.

Torin was a tad anal at times.

He'd just close his eyes for a quick kip.

He had no idea how much later the familiar soft bump of a ship making contact with a docking nipple woke him.

Weird how the internal dampeners never seemed to compensate for that.

They'd be coming for him soon. Prospect was a Krai colony planet, settled for barely two hundred years. The city clustered around the spaceport was a splash of light, but the rest of the land mass under the station's geosynchronous orbit was dark, even though it was just past sunset in that hemisphere. Low population density explained part of it, the Krai's preference for living in actual high forest canopy rather than high-tech imitations explained the rest.

The planet's Krai name was in a dialect Torin had never mastered although she was fluent enough in most to ensure the Krai who'd been under her command had assumed the worst. Her vocabulary in any dialect skewed toward profanity and comfort.

"It are making a better impression if you are able to be throwing the species' name in," Presit admitted, fluffing out her ruff as Ceelin packed the brushes away. "But only if it are pronounced correctly, otherwise, stick to Federate. Prospect are being a perfectly fine name."

Prospect Station was not only the link between the planet and the rest of the Confederation but the ore processing center for the planet below.

"Apparently, planets that are being capable of growing such enormous trees are being short of certain minerals. Who knew?" Presit's tone suggested someone was an idiot.

The ore processing made it a lot rougher place than most planets' primary stations, which probably explained why Firrg and her crew thought it safe to hang around after unloading their stolen ore.

As the station's sysop brought them in, Torin examined the three other ships on the docking arm. The Dargonar was registered as a C Class cargo vessel the same as the Heart of Stone had been.

"It are not looking like a dangerous pirate ship," Ceelin noted, standing up on his toes to see out the port. "It are having no weapons. Not even as much as this ship."

"The weapons are preConfederation Krai," Torin told him. "There…" She used a light pen to circle the forward guns. "There. There. And there for sure. People forget the Krai, like the Taykan, like Humans, were in space before the Confederation emissaries arrived and they took all their really dangerous toys with them."

"PreConfederation weapons are being antiques," Presit scoffed.

"Fine. Copies of preConfederation weapons."

"And you are just happening to be able to identify them?"

"Me and a couple million other Marines. We don't spend all our time dirtside shooting at things," she added off Presit's look.

But all Presit said was, "Didn't spend all your time."

Hard to remember given the assault she was planning.

To Torin's surprise, one of the other ships was Silsviss.

Presit combed gleaming copper claws through her ruff. "I are maybe knowing they going to be here," she admitted. "There are being small integration attempts before they are being given full citizenship where studies are being done on how they are dealing with other species off their planet as well as on. They are wanting to look into orbital smelting, and Prospect are small enough and isolated enough if it are all going wrong, damage should be at a minimum. I are hoping you are giving me enough background to be picking up the story."

"You have a story."

"Good thing," the reporter snorted. "Because you are being no help at all."

Moments after the Second Star had attached to the docking nipple, Torin had the board shut down and the air lock sequence initiated.

"I are needing to go out first," Presit reminded her, digging a sharp elbow into Torin's thigh. "I are the reason we are being here, remember?" She nodded toward Ceelin and the camera.

Torin drew in a deep breath. "Almost an hour to get onto the Star. Ninety minutes to get far enough away from the salvage station to fold. Two hours from emergence to docking. Not counting time in Susumi, Craig's been gone twenty hours."

"I know. But you are not helping him if station sysop are not agreeing you have a reason to be breathing their air. This are not a place anyone are going without a reason…" Her muzzle wrinkled. "… or at all if possible, and your reason are likely to have someone calling the Wardens or have whoever are working here with Captain Firrg giving her warnings, so it are better if you are being invisible behind me." The air lock telltales went green, and Presit settled her mirrored glasses on her muzzle. "Show time." "You have got to be fukking kidding me." One hand braced against the bulkhead to counteract the dizzy spells he was still having, Craig stared at the screen outside the cargo bay as the eye moved around the gray-green metal rectangle taking up most of the room. "That's a weapons locker. A Marine Corps weapons locker."

A sealed Marine Corps weapons locker-double sealed, in fact with both the Corps' seal and the CSO seal intact. That meant there were weapons inside. KC-7s at the very least, the chemical-powered, practically indestructible, primary weapon of the Corps. Primitive enough they couldn't be neutralized at a distance the way more high-tech weapons could be and dangerous enough that even in spite of an interfering plastic molecular hive mind, the Corps had nearly fought the Primacy to a stalemate with them.

Torin wasn't big on war stories, but sometimes, lying with her head on his shoulder as the sweat dried and stuck them together, she'd sketch out what he knew were the bare bones of her life before he became a part of it. He'd seen her in action on Big Yellow. He'd seen what she survived on Crucible and the prison planet. He didn't really want to know any more than what she was comfortable telling him. In fact, given how she'd looked the first time he'd seen her in the tank after Crucible, there were things about her previous life he wished he could forget.

At least now he knew why Jan and Sirin had died trying to keep their salvage from the pirates. This could shift power in the whole sector, maybe far enough that other sectors could fall. Craig didn't have Torin's eye for ex-military, but of the members of the crew he'd met-where met included having the shit beat out of him by-he'd bet both Captain Cho and Doc had served. From a violent life to a violent life; no great stretch to assume more pirates would be ex-military than not.

There went any hope that a high proportion of the people who'd end up with these weapons wouldn't know how to use them.

Torin had to find him fast; it was no longer just his life on the line.

And fuk but the universe had a sick sense of humor. What kind of sick joke was it that pirates would happen on this particular cargo in the minimal amount of time between the sealing of it and sending the packet to register salvaged weapons with the military. It hadn't been registered, that was for damned sure, or he wouldn't be here because the Navy would. Torin'd call that kind of a fukked-up coincidence a reason to call in air support…

Torin wouldn't believe in that kind of a fukked-up coincidence.

"You intercepted the registration packet."

Almon glanced up from the controls of the eye and smiled unpleasantly. "We did."

"That's not possible."

"Surprise." The di'Taykan moved closer. Craig gritted his teeth and ignored his body's reaction. Even with Almon's masker up to full, he'd taken such a hit of pheromone he'd be feeling the effects for days. Hopefully only days. "My thytrin," Almon continued, voice dropping into a near growl, pale yellow eyes darkening as more light receptors opened, "the one you nearly killed, he can make a comm unit beg."

"Kinky. That why you're here? Because your thytrin is more into machines than meat?" Craig blocked Almon's blow. "I'm crew now. You don't get to touch me."

"You don't get it, do you, Ryder?" He was standing close enough now that the ends of his hair stroked Craig's cheek. "You don't get to touch me."

"Enough." Cho's voiced backed Almon all the way to the screen. "I need him able to think with something other than his dick." The captain stopped just behind Craig's left shoulder. "Can you crack it?"

Craig had little doubt that if he said no he'd be out the air lock-probably in the kind of condition that would make a fast death in vacuum a gift. He rubbed at the small patch of stubble on the edge of his jaw. "My codes will get me into the guts of the seal. After that, it's grunt work." Sentient species were incapable of being completely random, a pattern always emerged. Find the pattern, work the code. Open the lock.

"Once you're in, we can hook up a slate and…"

"No." Craig wanted to smile but doubted smug satisfaction would go over well. "Hook in anything the seal reads as a random number generator, and you'll fuse it. Usually, that'd mean hacking the seal off the salvage physically and ringing every bell in the yard when you tried to sell it. You… we," he amended, "don't have to worry about sales. We have another problem." He tapped the screen. "Fusing the CSO seal will melt it into the Corps' seal. The Corps' seal will read that as an attempted forced entry and self-destruct."

"So when you say grunt work?" the captain growled.

"We can use a slate to input, but what we input will have to be worked out the old-fashioned way."

"So why do we need him again?" Almon sneered.

The captain raised an eyebrow that asked the same thing.

"Without my codes, you'll fuse the seal trying to get in." Craig spread his hands. "Boom. And I have a better chance of recognizing the locking pattern than someone with no background in the way salvage operators do things. It'll save some time."

"How much time?"

"No idea. Faster with me than without me, that's all I know."

Cho stared at him for a long moment. Craig tried to look like a man who didn't want to be thrown out an air lock. Finally, the captain nodded. "Your slate stays with me. I'll supply a scrubbed slate and you'll be working with Nadayki…"

"Captain!"

"And you can shut the fuk up about it." Cho moved up into Almon's space. "Ryder didn't lure the kid into a dark alley and stick him for his beer money. Ryder fought back. Nadayki didn't haul ass out of the way fast enough. End of discussion."

Almon looked like he wanted to argue, but to Craig's surprise, he kept his mouth shut.

Maybe by the time a person decided to be a pirate, there was nowhere else to go. Get thrown out of the crew, and survival became unlikely. Life at rock bottom explained how a shitkicker like Cho could maintain command. And who'd be stupid enough to challenge him with Doc at his side?

"You…" Pivoting on a heel, Cho turned his attention back to Craig. "Once we've got the locker secured on the station, you'll provide the raw data and Nadayki'll make it dance. Nat."

"Right here, Cap."

It was more than a little creepy how Nat was right there whenever the captain called her.

"Take Ryder back to his quarters and secure him." The smile he shot at Craig was nearly as unpleasant as Almon's had been. "I don't want our new crewmember running around loose while we're moving the locker. He could get hurt."

"I'll stay out of the way."

"I'll make sure of it," Nat muttered, taking Craig's arm. "Come on, gorgeous. If you're lucky, I'll tuck you in."

Still aching from the effect of Almon's pheromones, Craig gave it half a thought. If he wore her out, he could make a run for it. Except that any station welcoming this particular ship onto its docking arm and offering a secure location for the illegal entry into a Marine weapons locker made the oldEarth observation about frying pans and fires depressingly relevant. "… but by far the greatest benefit to processing the ore here in orbit is that we have greatly reduced airborne pollutants in our planetary atmosphere."

"I are seeing how that are being a benefit, but you are having to admit that an orbital facility are adding distinct dangers to the job and that…" Presit reached out, and Ceelin, who continued walking backward without breaking stride, slid a slate into her hand. "… station logs are reporting you are having eight injuries in the last ten tendays and one of them are being fatal."

Although Torin could only see the top of his head, she knew Rergis, the facility's manager, had slammed his nose ridges shut. His whole posture screamed overdone, righteous indignation. "There were extenuating circumstances…"

"And here are being one of them," Presit said brightly as they drew even with what was clearly the station's roughest drinking establishment. Halfway between the docking arm and the processing plant, against the outer skin of the station, it was perfectly situated for easy access. Easy to get to, after work. Easy to get away from, should the need arise.

Rergis pulled himself up to his full height, barely reaching the middle of Torin's chest and towering over Presit by a full six centimeters. "Are you insinuating that these accidents might have been the result of stimulant abuse?"

"I are not suggesting anything of the sort. I are merely observing that stimulants are often considered extenuating circumstances and…" she glanced down at the slate and back up again while Rergis stared at his reflection in her glasses, "… are being cited in two of these reports. So let's be taking a look." Her gesture sent Ceelin in through the hatch, leaving Rergis no choice but to follow the camera or allow Presit to wander unsupervised. He'd been with her for less than ten minutes, and Torin could see he'd already discovered that was a bad idea.

The ore processors ran 28/10 and few, if any, incoming ships would have matched their clocks to the station's, so it was no surprise the bar was fairly crowded although station time was officially midafternoon. Most of the clientele were Krai though there were a few Niln. The bartender was Human. So were two of the people sitting at the bar. Nearly everyone had at least part of their attention on the three Silsviss sitting at a table in the corner.

They were young males and, from the slight distension of their throat pouches, they were here to prove a point-which given how incredibly hierarchal their society was, was pretty much the point of being a young male Silsviss.

"This are not seeming like a problem," Presit announced, her voice cutting through the ambient noise with an ease Torin had to admit she admired. Although no one became less aware of the Silsviss, they all became entirely aware of Presit. And the camera.

Odds were good pirates would prefer to remain off the evening news; Torin noted which Krai were keeping their faces hidden as Ceelin panned the camera around the room. Then she noticed that all three Silsviss were looking at her. When one started to rise, Torin glared his ass back onto his stool.

"I don't know what you were expecting," Rergis began, but Presit cut him off, the points of her teeth barely showing.

"Pretty much what I are finding, actually." Turning to look up at Torin, she added, "You are being too big to be following normal-sized people around. You might as well be staying here while Rergis are showing me the facility and explaining what actual extenuating circumstances he are referring to. Ceelin!" She chivied the camera back out the hatch, giving Rergis no choice but to follow her, trying to explain.

As everyone but the Silsviss returned their attention to their drinks, Torin walked over to the bar, silently acknowledging that Presit had effortlessly put Torin right where she needed to be. Odds were good Firrg was in this bar. No one continued to pay docking fees for the privilege of staying on board their own ship and since the captain's contact for unloading stolen ore had to be someone fairly high up in the power structure of the processing plant, she wouldn't drink anywhere they might run into each other. Or, for that matter, anywhere where she might have trouble getting back to her ship.

Finding her in a dim room full of Krai when most non-Krai couldn't even tell the genders apart-di'Taykan excepted-would be no problem. Torin had planned to find her by doing some eavesdropping among the Krai who'd hidden from the camera but, fortunately, there was a faster way. Firrg hated Humans. The bartender was Human. The fact that the Corps spent a long time teaching recruits to look beyond nearly universal default species parameters meant said parameters were alive and well in the general population.

Torin sat down, pointed at the beer spout, and said as the bartender put a glass of pale draft in front of her, "Which one is Captain Firrg?"

Dark brows rose toward the polished, mahogany dome of the bartender's head-he was old enough he might have been caught up in the permanent depilatory phase that had been popular with male Humans two decades ago or he might have just felt that in an establishment that catered mostly to a species with minimal bristling across their scalps, hair was a bad customer service idea. Didn't matter. He leaned toward her and growled, "Who wants to know."

Torin took a long swallow of beer, then met his eyes as she put the glass back down on the bar. "I do."

After staring at her for a long moment, he snorted and shook his head. If he recognized her, that was the only indication he gave. "You planning on starting something?"

"Not in here."

His grunt was noncommittal. He might have approved, or he might have wanted to see Firrg get hers. Again, didn't matter. Torin had no intention of taking the captain down in a place where a fight would be so distinctly to the Krai's advantage.

"Table just inside the door," he said after Torin took another swallow and set the glass down again. "Firrg's in the red, got the jagged scar across her head. But those five she's with? They're her crew and they're male and they'd die for her."

Torin nodded her thanks.

"I don't care how good you think you are," he added when she stood. "You can't take them all."

"I won't have to," Torin told him, sliding her slate across the credit reader and turning to go. "The thing between us is personal."

Torin knew how to walk across a room and draw every eye toward her. She also knew how to blend, look like she belonged. No one noticed her by Firrg's table until she pulled another chair up, sat down, and said quietly, "I hear you hate Humans. The Heart of Stone, which has, at the very least, a Human captain and two Humans in the crew, has taken a friend of mine captive. I plan on killing whoever gets in my way when I go in to get him back. I figure Humans killing Humans should make you happy, so you'll be willing to tell me where I can…" She twisted out from under the hand of Firrg's crewman reaching for her arm, grabbed it, drove her thumbnail into the nerve cluster on the inside of the wrist as hard as she could, slammed the spasming hand down onto the table, and said to the groaning crewmember still attached to it, "Piss off. The grown-ups are talking."

On anyone but a Krai, Firrg's expression would have been a smile. When a Krai showed that many teeth, something or someone was likely to end up eaten. "Why should I tell you anything when you're damaging my crew?"

Torin shrugged. "I could have driven my elbow into his nose ridges and assumed someone would keep him from drowning in his own blood."

"You could have," Firrg agreed, her nod throwing the jagged scar zigzagging across her forehead into relief. The edges looked too even to be accidental and Torin had a suspicion she knew the source of at least some of the pirate captain's hatred. Scars being easy enough to remove, that was a statement. It said, Hi, I'm completely bugfuk! among other things. "And you're right," Firrg continued, her expression holding the rest of her companions in place. "Humans killing Humans makes me very happy. But you're Human, and I don't do favors for Humans." She spread her hands. "So I can't help you."

"Last word on the matter?"

"Yes." Firrg looked happy to be turning her down. Her crew laughed.

Torin had really hoped they could do this the quick way. She didn't have time to fuk around and no choice but to take the time. Leaning forward, she said in thickly accented Krai, "I've heard that the reason you hate Humans is because it was a Human who laughed as you ran like a coward from a fair fight." Then she stood and walked out of the bar, trailing her fingers over the gray plastic frame around the big menu screen on her way by. Behind her, chairs scraped against the floor as they were shoved back, and there was a lot of loud swearing that Torin would bet serious money came from everyone but Firrg.

Hating Humans-or any other species as a whole-wasn't that unusual, no matter how often the H'san sent out slightly sad messages insisting that the member species of the Confederation were one big happy family. Everyone knew someone who hated their family, but no one seemed willing to clue in the H'san. Had Firrg just hated Humans, the odds were good, given that it had been established Firrg was a pirate and pirates were violent and unscrupulous thieves, she'd give the order to have Torin killed before Torin made it back to the Second Star.

"Captain Firrg hates Humans, I mean, really, really hates them. Don't know what she thinks about di'Taykan, but Humans, Humans she obsessively hates."

Obsession meant she'd do Torin herself. Obsessive hate meant she'd get up close and personal to do it. Rational people were a lot harder to manipulate.

Just past the Dargonar, about twenty meters from the Second Star, Torin stepped into a large storage alcove, half filled with replacement parts for ore processors unloaded from the fourth ship on the docking arm-the ship that didn't belong to the Silsviss, pirates, or an ex-Marine hunting pirates. When it came down to it, it was a wonder the station got any work done. The alcove wasn't entirely private, but the angles would interfere with the security cameras. The two Krai already using it took one look at her face, grabbed their clothes, and ran.

Then she waited.

But not for long.

Firrg hadn't come alone. The five males from the bar moved into a semicircle behind her, eyes locked on Torin, lips drawn back off their teeth, their presence clearly saying that if a random hell should happen to freeze over and Torin should just happen to win, she'd still lose. Had Firrg stopped to pick up reinforcements, that might have been a problem, but five was doable.

Firrg's scar drew an angry red line against the mottled green of her scalp. Her nose ridges flared once, twice, then clamped shut. "I am going to kill you," she snarled and charged forward

Torin took half a step out to meet her, then slammed her as hard as she could in the side of the head with the iron pipe she'd been hiding behind her leg. Craig didn't have time for her to fight fair.

Krai teeth were among the hardest substances in known space, and Krai bone came a very close second. Firrg was unconscious and bleeding when she hit the floor but probably not badly hurt. By the time Torin had her boot on the captain's throat, the three Silsviss males-who'd arrived about the time the pipe made contact-had taken care of the crew.

"I need one conscious," she snapped, and the claws stopped just on the surface of the Krai's eyeballs.

It took the pirate's brain a few seconds to catch up to his situation, then he pissed himself and sagged in the Silsviss' grip.

"We were there," one of the others said, using the metal ring on his tail to smack down a bleeding pirate trying to rise, "when you accepted the pack's defeat."

Given the way they'd been looking at her, Torin had figured as much. If they'd learned Federate before their trip, they weren't bothering with it. The cylindrical comm units on their harness translated simultaneously with her implant. And thank tech support that her new translation program had lost the extra sibilants.

"These little ones were not very good fighters," another said. Like the two reptilian species already part of the Confederation, they flicked their tongues around an impressive array of pointed teeth when they spoke. "The little ones you had with you in the preserve were better."

"They're called Krai, not little ones, and these Krai aren't used to fighting for their lives," Torin told him. When male Silsviss reached the age that their body chemistry required them to challenge for position, they were sent to wilderness preserves where they formed packs and fought it out-pack to pack as well as within the pack for position. It was as much population control as training. If these three had been there on the hill when Torin accepted the pack surrender and had become, for all intents and purposes, their pack leader, then they were only just off the preserve. Fighting for survival was still very close to being their default setting.

She figured they'd been brought on this trip, not only because of the flexibility of youth, but because they'd had at least some contact with other species even if that contact had consisted primarily of trying to kill them.

Switching her attention to the only conscious pirate-although she suspected one of the others of faking-Torin leaned in until the watering eyes behind the points of the four-centimeter-long claws focused on her face. "Tell me where I can find the Heart of Stone, or I'll kill your captain."

"You are inedible!"

"It's ruder in Krai," Torin explained as the Silsviss looked confused by the translation. "Tell me where I can find the Heart of Stone, or I'll kill your captain and have your eyes gouged out slowly."

At Torin's nod, the Silsviss tightened his grip slightly.

Nose ridges flapping so quickly they sounded like crumpling paper, he gasped. "Vrijheid!"

"Coordinates?"

"I don't know where it is exactly! I'm not helm! The government thinks it was destroyed during the war, but it wasn't!"

"Was the name changed?"

"Why the fuk would they change the name? I told you, the government thinks it did a crash and burn!"

That was enough information to find it.

"Big Bill Ponner runs it now! He'll fukking kill you!"

"You can drop him."

As he hit the floor, Torin took her foot from Firrg's throat and pulled her slate off her belt. "Presit, I've got it. Head back."

"There are still being more to the story here. Those accidents…

"Can wait. Craig can't."

"On our way."

"What do you want us to do?" Given positioning, this was the dominant male of the three. They were all a little twitchy. The instinct to fight her for control had only barely been overlaid with more adult socialization.

"Wait with this lot until security arrives." Firrg groaned as Torin rolled her out into the camera's line of sight. "Tell them to check the load of ore that just came in with the Dargonar. The numbers on the sled will match the numbers on a drone that recently went missing during a fold. Someone in the station is accepting stolen goods."

"When they ask how we know this?"

"Tell them you heard it from Presit a Tur durValintrisy's pilot. If you convince them, you'll all gain status for bringing it to their attention."

"Then why do you leave this opportunity with us?" the dominant male hissed.

Torin smiled as she passed them. "I have a bigger enemy to take down."

Three tails tapped against the floor in unison. To the Silsviss mind-set, that made perfect sense. And they were another species who recognized the baring of teeth for what it was.

The exposure of someone on the station dealing in stolen goods, not to mention the capture of the thief, her crew, and her ship, would bring in the Wardens, and when Torin's involvement came to light-if not through the Silsviss then through the payment she'd made in the bar-it might actually light a fire under the ass of the law, given the finding of Page's body and the attack on the Promise that the Wardens already had on record. The problem was Torin no longer wanted the Wardens suddenly going all gung ho-enthusiasm from that quarter could easily provoke the pirates into killing Craig. Involving the Silsviss-who were not yet members of the Confederation-would slow things back down to diplomatic speeds.

"Strategy and tactics," she muttered, stepping into the Star's air lock. "Your tax dollars at work."

"There are being a lot of shouting happening down the docking arm," Presit said, leading Ceelin back into the ship. "I are being hustled past it at full speed. Apparently this station are not wanting what could be a diplomatic incident on the news. You are being responsible?"

"I am." Torin sealed the air lock doors behind the Katrien.

"I are suspecting as much. The Silsviss are seeming to be very involved, and I are seeing how they are watching you in the bar. Rumors are saying that with your platoon being pinned down and outnumbered, you are challenging the lizard leader to mortal combat and are having been ripped off his head."

"Not quite what happened," Torin told her, sending a request to disengage from the docking arm. But, given that she had a Silsviss skull in her quarters, she could at least see how that rumor had gotten started.

"I are really wanting to hear that story someday." Presit pulled herself up onto the other chair and added her codes to the request. "They are not locking down the press, no matter how many unconscious pirates they are having at the feet of large lizards. Not if they are not wanting a world of trouble."

Torin had hoped they'd get clear before any lockdown happened. Maybe they had, she acknowledged as the clamps released, but it was equally possible Presit had just kept them moving. "Thank you."

Feet tucked up under her, Presit lowered the light levels in the cabin and took off her glasses. "Thank me by telling me what the story of the Torin Kerr and the Silsviss are being. But later," she added, raising a hand to wave off Torin's protest. "Right now, you are first telling me that we are having a location?"

"We are. Do. Have. Vrijheid. The government thinks it was destroyed by the Primacy during the war. Crash and burn, my informant said, so it's a station."

"The government thinks?" Presit snorted. "That are being unlikely. Still, that are being enough information even for you to be finding it. Fortunately, you are not having to. Ceelin! Run a search."

Because Confederation law stipulated that all recording equipment must be large enough to be seen by the general public and carry obvious network identification, Ceelin's camera also included as much or more data storage than the Second Star, an ability to hook into any nearby network, as well as, he'd confided to Torin on the trip out, every game made by Kwin Industries. That was one hell of a lot of games.

"So when we are finding Vrijheid Station," Presit continued, "you are having a plan? Or are you just docking and telling murdering pirates they are giving you back Craig Ryder now."

"Yes," Torin told her, frowning down at the Susumi charts.

"Well, which is it being?"

"Both." The crew of the Heart of Stone had moved the armory to a heavily reinforced storage pod near the station's old shuttle bays. If Craig had to bet, he'd say the pod had been designed to hold explosives of one kind or another. Stations usually stored explosives in support of mining facilities on the planet they orbited and that told him absolutely sweet fuk all about where he was. There were enough uninhabitable planets being mined that most of them didn't even have names and, even if this one did, he sure as shit wouldn't find it written on the wall in a storage pod.

As large as the armory was, the pod was just enough larger that Craig could walk all the way around it.

"The seal is on the front," Cho snapped.

"On the front of a locker potentially containing enough explosives to fracture this pod, hole the station, and kill us all," Craig reminded him, reaching out to brace himself against the metal as his vertigo returned. "I've lived most of my life in vacuum and I have no intention of dying in it because I didn't take a couple of minutes to make sure I knew what was I doing."

"Why would salvage operators even need a seal this complicated?" Nadayki sniffed. He hadn't been happy hearing about the possibility of fusing the lock and exploding the armory. Although Craig suspected he was less happy about not being able to hook in his slate than he was about blowing up. The youngest of the ship's di'Taykan had lime-green hair and eyes and an attitude Craig wanted to smack off his pale face. Where the di'Taykan default leaned toward elegantly slender, Nadayki bordered on skinny and that, combined with the not entirely healed leg, made him appear as close to awkward as one of his species ever got. "It's like you're expecting to be robbed," he added sulkily.

"Yeah, well, we don't play well with others, and eyeballing this thing…" Craig patted the metal. "… isn't about the seal. What we have here is an armory that hasn't been treated with the respect it deserves." He eyeballed the dent beside his hand. "If something inside is damaged and leaking, it could blow before we get a chance to fuk it up."

"That's… possible," Nadayki reluctantly acknowledged after a long moment.

"I've already examined it," Cho growled.

"And I've got more experience with debris blown off a battle cruiser." Craig tapped a fingertip against the metal and almost laughed as Nadayki's eyes lightened. "I know exactly what kind of stress fractures that causes, and I know when it's safe to hang around and when the only thing to do is haul ass and pray."

Cho folded his arms and glared first at Nadayki and then at Craig. Craig waited patiently for the captain to deal. Every second he took coming to a decision brought Torin one second closer. "Fine," he said at last. "Inspect it."

"Thank you."

Ignoring the sarcasm, Cho only growled, "But make it fast."

Unfortunately, the locker was in amazing shape considering what it had been through. In spite of his best attempt, Craig could spend only so long checking out a line of slag that ran diagonally across the bottom third of the locker's back to tail out along the lower edge of one side. It looked like part of whatever had secured the locker to the Marine packet had melted.

"Well?" Cho had moved back beside the pod's closed door.

There was barely enough damage for Craig to lie about.

"Looks like the slag's attached to the locker's surface. With luck, it hasn't melted in." Down on one knee, he reached back to where Nadayki hovered, making less than helpful comments under his breath. "Give me a screwdriver, kid."

"Why would I have a screwdriver? That's hardware. And don't call me kid!"

"Fine, a stylus then. Just something solid and pointed so I can get a bit of this slag off and make sure there's no structural damage."

"Use your kayti," Nadayki snorted dismissively. "And it's obviously not melted in. Even pathetic Human eyes should be able to see that."

Craig grabbed for the approaching foot but missed as his depth perception twisted. Naydaki's kick wasn't hard, not given that the kid was supporting weight and movement on his bad leg, but he hit the armory with enough force to break off a six-centimeter length of melted metal. It took a bit of enamel with it as it fell to the deck.

"See? No structural damage. Can we get on with it?"

"An excellent suggestion. Move, Ryder; on your feet."

"Forgive me for wanting to start with not blowing up," Craig muttered as he stood. Halfway up, the pod tipped sideways, and he slammed back against the locker.

"What is the matter with you?" Nadayki snarled, yanking him forward.

Okay, maybe not the pod that tipped, he thought as those metaphorical red-hot spikes got shoved back through his temples. Jack-knifing forward, he spewed the contents of his stomach over the young di'Taykan's uninjured leg. Shoved hard, he bounced off the locker, vomited again, then headed for the floor, impact jarring both knees. At least he avoided putting his hands down in his own puke.

I've got to learn some more di'Taykan profanity, he thought as the pod tipped again and he fought to keep from toppling over. It sounded like the kid had hidden depths and an impressive vocabulary.

"Well, are you surprised?" Doc asked, as he half carried a semiconscious Ryder past the captain and out of the pod. "Given the amount of juice Almon hit him with, I'm amazed he has brain function. Intermittent dizziness and vomiting is no big deal."

"It's keeping him from what I need him to do," Cho growled.

"Doesn't the boy wonder have Ryder's codes? Tell him to get started. Tell him to change first," Doc amended, nose wrinkling.

"Ryder's codes are only the first step," Cho began, but Doc cut him off.

"Yeah, well, that's where most people start. Now, I'm going to take my patient to sick bay and make sure there's no brain damage I missed."

"If he's brain damaged…"

"Station medic is looking for organs. I'll take care of it."

"Good."

Cho stared into the storage pod, stepped aside as Naydaki shuffled out, and tried not to show how much he'd been startled when Big Bill said conversationally behind him, "Smells like puke down here."

"Ryder had an accident."

"Ryder? Your salvage operator?"

"Lingering effects from when we took him."

"You need to learn to play more nicely with your toys." Thumbs in his belt loops, Big Bill nodded toward the pod. "So that's what's going to change the world as we know it?"

"You can take a closer look," Cho allowed reluctantly, even as he moved to put himself between Big Bill and the pod.

Big Bill's expression suggested he could do whatever he damn well pleased. "No, I don't think so. I'm not a part of this. Remember?"

Because Big Bill only allied himself with schemes that had a hundred percent chance of working, Schemes where a mistake wouldn't blow a hole into the station that, one way or another, Cho definitely wouldn't survive.

"I wasn't even here," Big Bill added before Cho could reply.

Nose ridges closed, the Grr brothers followed their boss toward the nearest hatch.

Cho amused himself by thinking of feeding them a missile, launching it, and watching their guts spray paint the outside of the station. "So if Merik are not having what you sent him for, what then?" Presit demanded, as Ceelin ran the brush down the center of her back with long, firm strokes.

"He'll have it," Torin told her, scowling down at the tufts of undercoat on the floor as she did her second set of push-ups.

"Wishing are not making it so."

"If I were wishing for something, I'd wish I was going in as part of a full Marine boarding party with cruiser backup."

"If you are wishing," Presit snorted, "why not be wishing Craig Ryder safe and being here? Never mind," she added, as the five-minute emergent warning sounded and Torin got to her feet. "You are Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr, and you are not taking the easy way. Fine. If Merik are having what you sent him for, what then? You are not having the fleet you were thinking you would."

Torin appreciated the sneer Presit used when referring to the absent salvage operators. "I know."

"So you are planning to be doing what?"

"I'm going after Craig."

"Oh, that are being a brilliantly developed plan," she muttered.

Torin ignored her, wiping at her face and arms with a towel as she threw herself down into the chair. "Have you got that packet ready to go to the Wardens?"

"It are going automatically the moment we are being back in real space. You are thinking it'll help?"

"It can't hurt."

"Even given that I are having pulled the information on the pirates into some kind of coherency, they are not likely to be suddenly thinking you are right and they are not actually needing to conduct an investigation before they act. They are not going to be sending the Navy in at the last minute to be saving the day."

"They can't if they don't have the information."

"They won't even if they are having it."

Torin sighed and turned to look at the reporter. "Black."

Muzzle wrinkled, Presit climbed into the other chair. "I are having no idea of what you are talking about."

"Just wanted to see if you'd say white."

Ceelin snickered, tried to turn it into a cough, and all but ran into the other cabin prodded by Presit's glare. "Oh, yes, you are being very funny."

They were forty minutes out from Val Doron Station when they got the message from Merik. All three answers to the packet she'd had him send out on the way to the salvage station were positive.

"You are never doubting?" Presit asked, studying her face.

"Not this," Torin told her. "This, I believed in."

She didn't have much beyond belief to keep her going. Belief in her own ability. Belief that Craig would know she was coming and do what he had to in order to stay alive until she got there. Belief that after everything they'd been through, after everything the polynumerous polyhydroxide sons of bitches had put them through, they were not going to have their lives ruined by a group of pissant pirates.

Val Doron Station was one of the larger OutSector stations. Torin had originally chosen it as a meeting place both because it was busy enough that only the station sysop took note of every coming and going and because it was a very short fold from the salvage station.

Merik was waiting on the other side of the air lock when they docked.

"They are not being happy," he said, grinning broadly. "My ship are having too low ceilings apparently. But they are being here."

As Presit pulled him aside to fill him in on their new information-or possibly to complain about how the dry air in the ship had made her fur brittle, it was impossible to tell with Presit-Torin looked past them at Ressk, Werst, and Binti Mashona, all three of them smiling and obviously glad to see her. Her chest hurt. In the months since she'd seen them, in the months since she'd left the Corps, Ressk had slimmed down, Werst had bulked up, and Mashona had added half a dozen small gold rings to the upper curve of her right ear where the light spilling off them painted gleaming highlights against the dark skin. Before she could move, Mashona dragged her into a hug while both Krai charged forward and slapped at her arms. It seemed strange not to be keeping the distance rank and the Corps demanded. Strange, but not unpleasant. "Thank you for coming."

Ressk spread his hands as they separated. It was strange to see him-to see all of them-in civvies. "All you had to do was ask, Gunny."

"Whatever you need us for," Mashona added. "Merik told us the CSOs won't help. Do we convince them, or…"

Torin opened her mouth, but Werst, eyes locked on her face, spoke before she could. "We're going after Ryder."

The other two looked from him to Torin, who finally nodded. Years of training couldn't keep the anger from leaching into her voice. "Werst's right. We don't have time to convince the salvage operators Craig isn't dead. And they won't put themselves and their families in danger for a dead man."

Metal clanged farther down the docking arm. Someone shouted. Someone else laughed.

Mashona snorted. "You believe he's alive, Gunny, that's good enough for me."

"Us," Werst growled, nose ridges flared. "Good enough for us."

"We're it," Torin reminded them. "It's one thing to ask you to help train a sizable fleet, it's another thing entirely to ask you to get involved in a retrieval of personnel from behind enemy lines."

"Yes, it is," Ressk allowed. "But Merik told us up front, and we're still here." He grinned. "It's not like we have anything better to do."

Mashona matched the grin. "Who knew I'd miss nearly dying on a regular basis?"

"I," Werst snarled, "am looking forward to kicking the ass of someone who undeniably needs their ass kicked. Since you haven't found those gray plastic fukkers yet, pirates will do."

"They'll do in a pinch," Mashona agreed. "How are we going in?"

They didn't have time-Craig didn't have time-for Torin to tell them what this meant. She suspected they already knew or they wouldn't be standing there.

"We'll go in as pirates. Given what they saw on the vids," Torin expanded, lifting the first case of supplies Merik had also delivered, "no one's going to be at all surprised if the four of us are bitter, twisted, and seriously pissed off."

"Ryder was on those vids, too," Ressk pointed out, heaving a case up onto his shoulder.

"Not too much, he are mostly being behind the camera, and he are hiding most of his face behind a patchy pelt. Besides, he are not being a big hero like you three are being. Hello." Presit smiled up at the ex-Marines. "I'm sure you are remembering me."

"Hard to forget," Werst muttered, a case under each arm. "Is she coming, too?"

"No." Torin nudged Presit away from the Star's air lock.

"Yes," Presit corrected, shoving back.

"Okay, then." Mashona picked up the last case and followed Torin, the two Krai, and all three Katrien onto the ship. "So we're pirates."

"In this?" Werst snorted, setting the case on the floor and tossing his duffel onto the bunk.

Torin turned and looked around the cabin which seemed significantly smaller now it held seven warm bodies, three new duffel bags, and a stack of supplies. "All right, so we're not very successful pirates."