Valour's Choice (16 page)

“Well.” His ears slowly unfurled. “We seem to have survived.” Blinking twice, he focused on her face. “Are you injured, Staff Sergeant?”

She coughed, dabbing crimson against the back of her hand. “Split lip. Wrenched knee. You?”

Two of the claws he’d driven into the deck had broken off leaving a ragged, bloody edge at each fingertip. “I am bruised but essentially intact.”

Her implant chimed. The lieutenant’s implant, reading his vital signs, informed her he was unconscious but alive and in no immediate danger of dying. The weight of one in thirty-nine lives lifted off her shoulders.

“Thank you for securing me, sir. If you could see to your people...?”

His whiskers fluffed forward. “Go where you’re needed, Staff Sergeant.”

The other three Dornagain were alive, but beyond that she couldn’t tell; the emergency lighting threw shadows that masqueraded as injuries. Squeezing past them, sifting sounds into
deal with
and
ignore,
she tongued her implant.

Across the compartment, Cri Sawyes had unstrapped and was attempting to free the doctor from the ruins of his seat. Crest flat against his skull, Dr. Leor looked shaken but not visibly injured. The Rakva beside him, however, was clearly dead, head lolling on a broken neck. A closer look at the body and she recognized the young male who’d been learning to play poker. She knew his name, Aarik Slayir, but nothing else about him. And now, there was nothing more to know...

Two of the sergeants keyed in. Glicksohn and Chou. Thirty-six lives to go.

All she could see of the Mictok was webbing, but as the structural integrity of their corner seemed intact, she could only assume they were alive.

Still no response from Sergeant Trey.

The controls of the hatch to the cockpit were out. Fighting with the manual override, she tongued her implant again and subvocalized,
*Sergeant Glicksohn, report.*

*Staff, multiple casualties, three dead and Sergeant Trey.*
“Clear that space and set him down! Careful, watch his head!” The microphone in his jaw picked up the shouted order; then he began subvocalizing again.
*Sensors read half VTA under mud. Can’t evac down here.*

Four dead. So far. But it could have been so much worse. It seemed that one of Silsvah’s ubiquitous swamps had saved them. The hatch began to give.
*Doctor’s alive. Will send.*
She wanted to send him immediately, but unless the universe had really buggered them, the
Berganitan’s
two corpsmen were in the troop compartment and she had no idea of what she’d find in the cockpit.

Levering the seals with a steady stream of profanity, she finally opened the hatch enough to squeeze through.

“Staff!” Lieutenant Ghard looked up from the captain’s body, facial ridges almost white, both hands red. “I can’t stop the bleeding!”

Torin turned her head. “Doctor Leor!”

To her surprise, he was at her side in a moment, and, after one look at the situation, at Captain Daniels’ side a moment later. She’d expected him to protest, or hesitate, or have hysterics or do any of the other useless things civilians did in an emergency—that he hadn’t was encouraging. Torin gratefully shifted him from “civilian” to a “will do his job so don’t worry about him” category.

Moving back to let the doctor work, the lieutenant stared down at his hands, his mouth working but no sound emerging. Given the way that both control panels were flashing, they didn’t have time for him to go into shock.

“Lieutenant Ghard!”

Her tone blew much of the confusion off his face. He blinked and swallowed, a little color coming back into his ridges as he scrubbed his palms against his flight suit. “Staff Sergeant?”

“The VTA needs seeing to, sir.”

Facing forward, his shoulders stiffened. “The engines were hit...” Both hands and a foot began flying over the board. Torin didn’t understand the steady stream of what sounded like prayer, but behind her the female Krai aircrew gasped. Turning, she frowned. “You all right?”

“I guess...” Blood ran down the lower ridges of her nose, dripping onto her uniform. She stared wide-eyed up at Torin.

“You
guess?”

Once again, the tone did its job. “I’m all right, Staff Sergeant.” Straightening, she blotted the blood into her sleeve.

“Good. And him?”

Propped up against a canted wall, the other member of the bridge crew answered for himself. “Bumped head, Staff. Spinning...”

“Stay there. The doctor will take a look when he’s done with the captain. You, Aircrew...?”

“Trenkik, Staff.”

“Aircrew Trenkik. Are the external scanners functioning?” Stepping across her fallen comrade to the other station, Trenkik scowled down at the board. “Topside bow seems fine, the rest...”

“Topside bow’ll have to do, then. I need you to scan for enemy activity.”

She dragged her thumb up a pressure bar. “Enemy, Staff?”

“Unless those missiles were launched accidentally.”

“You don’t think...” Then she caught sight of Torin’s expression and flushed. “Oh. Right. There’s nothing out there, Staff. Scanners show Silsviss life signs about thirty kilometers away. Our landing probably killed most of the local fauna.”

They were right side up and essentially in one piece. Torin decided she’d count that as a landing, and the moment she got the chance she was buying Captain Daniels a beer. Deliberately looking past the doctor and the captain’s prone body, she scowled at the mud covering the window. “Trenkik, are we still sinking?”

“Yes, but slowly.”

The VTA was designed to withstand vacuum. With its physical integrity unbreached it could certainly handle a little mud. Unfortunately, the engine room had taken the brunt of the attack and the landing had pretty much finished it off.

“Fortunately, the mud seems to be containing most of the leakage.”

“Fortunately,” Torin agreed dryly. “Are the topside hatches usable?”

“Only the forward hatch.”

“Then that’ll have to do. Give me internal speakers.” She glanced over at the lieutenant. “With your permission, sir?”

Ghard started, glanced down at the captain and suddenly realized what that meant. “Yes. Of course, Staff Sergeant.”

* * *

“...the situation as it stands. As Captain Daniels is badly injured and Lieutenant Ghard has his hands full with the VTA, until Lieutenant Jarret regains consciousness, you will be taking your orders from me.”

“She had to tell us that?” Ressk snorted.

“Idiot.” Binti smacked him on the back of the head. “She’s telling the civilians. Now they know we know, they can’t argue.”

The staff sergeant’s omnipresent voice continued. “When the doctor has done what he can for Captain Daniels, he’ll come below. Sergeant Glicksohn, I want three fireteams, fully armed, at the forward hatch in ten. Once the area is secured, we’ll begin evacuation. That is all.”

In the moment’s silence that followed, Mysho sighed deeply. “I don’t know about the rest of you,” she said in a voice that carried, “but I feel better knowing there’s someone in charge.”

“Someone who knows her fukking ass from a mudhole in the ground,” Juan agreed.

Even the wounded laughed. It would clearly take more than a couple of missiles and a swamp to suck a VTA out from under Staff Sergeant Kerr.

* * *

Up in the cockpit, Torin stroked off the communication board with a steady hand. Later, once those she was responsible for were safe from both enemy action and their own damaged equipment, she’d allow herself the luxury of a reaction. Right now, she didn’t have the time.

“The communications array is badly damaged, Staff, but I may be able to jury-rig something that’ll enable us to send a...” The expression on her face cut Lieutenant Ghard off short. “What?”

“Send a message to who, sir? The
Berganitan
is not in orbit.”

“We have to send a message to the Silsviss, let them know what happened and where we...” Once again he stopped without finishing. “There’s only us and the Silsviss on this planet, isn’t there, Staff?”

“As far as I know, sir.”

The silence in the cockpit was so complete, Torin could hear the gentle hum of the doctor’s bonder reattaching a piece of Captain Daniels’ scalp.

“Why would the Silsviss shoot us down, Staff?”

“I don’t know, sir. But I intend to find out.” Reaching up over Trenkik’s head, Torin pressed her right thumb into the dimple at the edge of the weapons locker.

“You’re going to question Cri Sawyes?”

“Yes, sir.” Wrapping her fingers around the familiar stock of a KC-7, she lifted it out and checked the clip.

“I’ll go with you.” He started to stand.

“Lieutenant!” Trenkik’s voice held a touch of panic. “The rerouting you put in is failing! Leakage is rising!”

He hovered for a moment, clearly wanting to be a part of any questioning, then finally, he sat. “Be careful.”

Torin felt her lip lift, then decided it was just one of those things officers said. “Yes, sir.”

I should never have left that lizard alone in there. I should have got up and taken him out when he least expected it. If anything’s happened...
She’d got too used to thinking of Cri Sawyes as a friend.

The stink still lingered in the civilian compartment and her short absence made it quite clear that it lingered most strongly around the Dornagain. Breathing shallowly, as she squeezed through the partially open hatch, Torin had to admit that she wasn’t surprised considering the way they smelled just generally.

She
was
surprised to find Cri Sawyes had already been taken care of. Curiosity replaced anger as she tried to take in this astonishing development.

The Silsviss had been barricaded into a corner behind several seats ripped out of the deck and webbed together. The largest of the Dornagain squatted on her haunches watching the barricade like an oversized cat watching a mouse hole. Resting her weapon on her hip, Torin cautiously approached. As no one seemed to have taken any injuries from tooth or claw, she could only assume the Silsviss was in there because he’d agreed to the captivity.

Why?

As a gesture of goodwill, obviously. Given that he was presently trapped in a VTA with a platoon of Marines his people had just shot down, he was going to need all the goodwill he could get.

Halfway across the compartment, the Mictok ambassador scuttled out to meet her. “Staff Sergeant Kerr, is it safe to assume that our vehicle has been disabled and we are confined to the ground?”

“Yes, ma’am. It is.” The ambassador seemed relatively calm about the whole thing. In fact, as Torin looked around, none of the civilians seemed to be panicking—at least not within species parameters she understood.

“We have assured the others that the military is in control of the situation.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” That explained it. They were used to being taken care of. If she could herd them like sheep, she had a chance of keeping them alive. Unfortunately, as sheep wouldn’t have taken the initiative of confining Cri Sawyes, she suspected it wasn’t going to be that easy.
More’s the pity.

“We hope you have sustained no serious injuries.”

“Not personally, ma’am, but I have four dead including one of my sergeants. Both aircrew tending the engines were probably killed instantly. Lieutenant Jarret is unconscious. Captain Daniels is also unconscious and more seriously injured. I don’t yet know the extent of the other injuries. You?”

“We have sustained no damage, Staff Sergeant. Our protection was sufficient.”

Torin stopped at the barricade. “And this?”

“Upon emerging from our protection, we realized that, except for the Confederation members on board this vehicle, the Silsviss are the only missile-using species on this planet. Therefore it must have been Silsviss who shot us down and perhaps Cri Sawyes is not to be trusted.” One eyestalk swayed from side to side. “Strength of Arm volunteered to guard him.”

They were so proud of themselves that, in spite of everything, Torin had to hide a smile.

The Dornagain’s ears went up, feathery tips brushing the ceiling. “He gave us no trouble, Staff Sergeant.”

“No reassson why I should,” Cri Sawyes remarked dryly, framed in the triangular space between a seat top and bottom. “I am not your enemy. Thossse were not our misssilesss.”

Torin snorted. “How do you know?”

His inner eyelids flicked closed and he pointed through the barricade toward the view screen. “I sssaw them approach.”

“And a quick glimpse at a missile moving at just under supersonic speeds allowed you to make a positive identification?” It wasn’t quite sarcasm.

“I wasss in the military for mossst of my adult life, Ssstaff Sssergeant, and at war for much of that time. Alliancesss change quickly on Sssilsssvah, an ability to make a fassst, posssitive identification of incoming ordinance isss necesssary for sssurvival.”

From what little Silsvah history she’d learned, that was certainly true. Still... “I doubt you can identify every single missile on the entire planet. You’d know your own, and your closest allies’or enemies’.”

His tongue flicked out. “You ssseem to be making my argument for me. If it was a Sssilsssvah misssile that I couldn’t identify, it’sss clearly from a group I have no affiliation with. Will I be held resssponsssible for the actionsss of my entire planet?”

Son of a...
He was making way too much sense. “For the moment,” Torin began, then paused as her implant chimed.
*Contamination levels now at 2.5 and rising.*

Humans could stand a contamination level of 5.7, di’Taykan a little more. Krai a little less. An initial warning at 2.5 gave everyone time to get clear. At least that was the theory. She had no idea how much time the three species of civilians would need, although the information was probably buried somewhere in her slate.
Best just to hurry.

“You I’ll deal with later.” She nodded toward their captive, more than willing to let Cri Sawyes’ loyalties slide for the moment. “Or the lieutenant will deal with you when he wakes up. The rest of you...” She found the massed attention of the civilians—particularly the massed attention of the Mictok—a little disconcerting and had to clear her throat before she could continue. “...get into your storage compartments and put together everything you’ll need for personal and species survival in the wilds of Silsvah. We’ve only got one working exit and we can’t get the sleds out of it, so you’ll be carrying your gear over some rough terrain. Remember that when you put it together.”