Valour's Choice (2 page)

“You must be Staff Sergeant Kerr.”

She nodded as he stepped forward. “Sir.”

“Staff, this is General Morris.” The regeneration tank around the lower half of his left leg kept Captain Rose from standing, but his voice, unexpectedly deep from such a small man, was enough to stop the general’s advance. “He has new orders for you.”

“Say rather an opportunity. But don’t let me interrupt.” He gestured at the slate under Torin’s arm. “I understand you’ve been acting First. We’ll talk once you’ve finished your morning report.”

“Sir.” Her face expressionless under the general’s smiling regard, she crossed to the desk and downloaded the relevant files. Right now, with no more information to go on than his smile and two dozen words delivered in an annoying
we’re-all-in-thistogether
tone, she’d be willing to bet that, first of all, General Morris had never seen combat and, second, that Captain Rose liked him even less than she did. As the captain appeared to know what was going on, her sense of impending disaster strengthened.

“Doctorow’s no longer critical?”

“Regained consciousness at 0300. Woke up and demanded to know what...” Given the general’s presence, she rephrased the quote. “...idiot had taken his implant offline.”

“Good news.” Quickly scanning the rest of the report, the captain looked up, brows rising. “No one got arrested?”

“Apparently some vacuum jockeys off the
Redoubt
got into a disagreement with some of our air support in Haligan’s, and betting on the fight provided a sufficient diversion.”

“Wait a minute,” the general interrupted, one hand raised as if to physically stop further discussion. “Am I to understand that you expected your people to get arrested?”

Together, Torin and the captain turned, Torin shifting position slightly, unable to move to the captain’s side but making it quite clear where she stood as he answered. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell the general what kind of planetfall we had. After something like that, I expect my people to need to blow off.”

The general’s broad cheeks flushed nearly maroon. “You’ve been on station for six days.”

“Half of us have. Sir.” Like many combat officers, Captain Rose had come up through the ranks and he’d retained the NCO’s ability to place inflection on that final
sir.

The two men locked eyes.

General Morris looked away first. “They say another company wouldn’t have got that many out,” he admitted.

“I have good people, sir. And I lost good people.” The quiet reminder drew Torin’s gaze down to the captain’s face, and she frowned slightly. He looked tired; his fair skin had developed a grayish cast, and there were dark circles under his eyes. Had they been alone, she’d have asked how the regeneration was going; as it was, she made a mental note to check his condition with Med-op as soon as possible. As acting First, he was as much her concern as the company.

“Yes. Good people.” General Morris straightened and cleared his throat. “Which leads us nicely into what I’m here for.”

Oh, shit. Here it comes.
Torin braced herself as he aimed that
I’m looking for someone to get their tail shot off smile
directly at her.

“I need a platoon for a special duty, shipping out ASAP.”

“I haven’t got a platoon, sir.”

He looked momentarily nonplussed, then the smile returned. “Of course, I see. I should have said, I need you to put together a platoon out of the available Marines.”

“Out of what’s left of Sh’quo Company, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Out of the survivors, sir?”

“Yes.” The general’s smile had begun to tighten.

Torin figured she’d gotten as much satisfaction from that line of inquiry as she was likely to. “A lot of them have leave coming, sir, but we should have new recruits arriving shortly.”

“No. Even if I had time to wait for new recruits, I couldn’t use them.” Folding his hands behind his back in what Torin thought she recognized as parade ground rest—it had been a
long
time since she’d seen a parade ground—the general fixed her with an imposing stare. “I’m fully aware of your situation, Staff Sergeant Kerr, yours and Sh’quo Company’s, and I wouldn’t be canceling leaves if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. The problem, Sergeant, is this: I’m putting together a very important diplomatic mission intended to convince a new race, the Silsviss, to join the Confederation and I need an honor guard. A military escort is absolutely essential because the political leadership of the Silsviss is dominated by a powerful warrior caste that we most certainly do not want to insult. After careful consideration, I’ve decided that Sh’quo Company is the best available unit.”

“As an honor guard?” Torin glanced from the general to her captain—who looked so noncommittal that the hope it was some kind of a joke died unborn—and back to the general again. “We’re ground combat, sir, not a ceremonial unit.”

“You’ll do fine. All you have to do, Sergeant, is have the troops apply a little spit and polish and then stand around and look menacing. You’ll see new worlds, meet new life-forms, and not shoot at them for a change.” He paused for laughter that never came, then continued gruffly. “It’s a win/win situation. I won’t have to pull a company out of their rotation for planetfall— which means Sh’quo Company won’t be rotated in before it’s their turn. As there’s no need for heavy artillery, company equipment can still get the overhaul it requires.”

“A full platoon makes quite an honor guard, sir.”

“It’s essential we make a strong impression, Sergeant.” For less than an instant, an honest emotion showed in the general’s eyes, but before Torin could identify it, he added, “Besides, it’ll give you a chance to break in your new second lieutenant.”

“My new...” Unable to think of anything to say to the general that wouldn’t get her court-martialed, she turned to Captain Rose. “Sir?”

“He arrived yesterday afternoon. I asked him to meet us here at 0900. The general thought you should receive your orders first and then he could give the lieutenant the overview.”

Officers handled the big picture, NCOs handled the minutia. Part of a staff sergeant’s minutia was handling new officers in charge of their first platoon. This would be Torin’s third, staff sergeants having a slightly longer life expectancy than second lieutenants.

The captain’s door announced an arrival just as her implant proclaimed 0900.

“Open.”

The door slid back into the wall and a di’Taykan wearing the uniform of a second lieutenant, Confederation Marine Corps, walked into the office, pheromone masker prominently displayed at his throat. It could have been any di’Taykan; Torin was no better than most Humans at telling them apart. Male and female, they were all tall, slender, and pointy and, even when heavily armed, moved like they were dancing. Their hair, which wasn’t really hair but a protein based sensor array, grew a uniform three inches long so they all looked as if they went to the same barber, and with their somewhat eclectic taste in clothing removed by the Corps...

It
could
have been any di’Taykan, but it wasn’t.

The lilac eyes, exactly one shade darker than his hair, widened slightly when he saw her and slightly more when he spotted the general. “Second Lieutenant di’Ka Jarret reporting as ordered, Captain.”

“Welcome to Sh’quo Company, Lieutenant. General Morris will begin your briefing in a moment, but in the meantime, I’d like you to meet Staff Sergeant Kerr. She’ll be your senior NCO.”

The corners of the wide mouth curled slightly. “Staff.”

“Sir.” There were a number of things Torin figured she should be thinking about now, but all that came to mind was,
so that explains why he folded his clothes so neatly,
which wasn’t even remotely relevant. She only hoped she’d managed to control her expression by the time Captain Rose turned his too-perceptive attention her way.

“Sergeant, if you could start forming that platoon... see if you can do it without splitting up any fireteams. The three of us...”

She had to admire how that
us
definitively excluded the general.

“...will go over what you’ve got this afternoon.”

“Yes, sir.” Turning toward General Morris, she stiffened not quite to attention. “Begging the general’s pardon, but if I’m to cancel liberties, I need to know exactly how soon ASAP is.”

“Forty-eight hours.”

She should’ve known—a desk jockey’s version of
as soon as possible,
or in other words, no real rush. “Thank you, sir.” Retrieving her slate from the captain’s desk, she nodded at all three officers, turned on her heel, and left the room.

The general’s hearty voice followed her out into the corridor.

“Lieutenant, I’ve got a proposal I think you’ll...”

Then she stepped beyond the proximity grid and the door slid shut.

“Figures,” Torin sighed. “Officers get a proposal and the rest of us just get screwed.”

Technically, she could’ve worked at the First’s desk in the small office right next to the captain’s. All Chigma’s personal files had been deleted, every trace of his occupancy removed—it was just a desk. Smarter than any other she’d have access to, but still, just a desk. Which was why she didn’t want to use it. Sometimes it was just too depressing to contemplate how quickly the Corps moved on.

The verticals were crowded at this hour of the morning, so she grabbed the first available loop for the descent down to C deck, exchanging a disgusted look with a Navy Warrant one loop over; both of them in full agreement that their careful progress represented an irritating waste of time. By the time she finally swung out onto the deck, Torin was ready to kill the idiot in station programming who’d decided to inflict insipid music on trapped personnel.

“Morning, Staff.”

The cheerful greeting brought her up short, and she turned toward the Marine kneeling by the edges of the lock with a degrimer, turquoise hair flattened by the vibrations. The grooves could have been scrubbed automatically, but on a station designed to house thousands of Marines, manual labor became a useful discipline. “Maintenance duties again, Haysole?”

The di’Taykan grinned. “I was only cutting across the core. I figured I’d be there and back before anyone noticed I wasn’t wearing my masker.”

“You crossed the core on a Fivesday evening unmasked—and you’re only on maintenance?”

“I kept moving, it wasn’t too bad.” Turquoise eyes sparkled. “Unfortunately, Sergeant Glicksohn was also crossing the core. Uh, Staff...” He paused while a pair of Human engineers came through the lock, waiting until they’d moved beyond their ability to overhear. “...I heard you were seeing stars in the captain’s office.”

Torin folded her arms around her slate. Many di’Taykan worked in Intelligence—most species had to make a conscious effort not to confide in them. She had no idea how need-to-know General Morris had intended to keep the status of his visit, but it was irrelevant now. “What else have you heard, Haysole?”

He grinned, taking her lack of denial for confirmation. “I’ve heard that the general’s looking for a chance to be, oh, let’s say, more than he is.”

“A promotion?”

“No one used that exact word, but...” His voice trailed off suggestively.

Torin ignored the suggestion. “That’s it?”

“About the general. But I’ve also heard that the new
trilinshy
is a di’Ka.”

She frowned, and his grin disappeared as he realized she’d translated
trilinshy
to something approximating its distinctly uncomplimentary meaning.

“That is,” he corrected hastily, “the new second lieutenant is a di’Ka, Staff Sergeant. High family. Not going to be easy to work with.”

“For me or for you?” Private First Class Haysole was a di’Stenjic. Five more letters in a Taykan family name made for a considerable difference in class.

“You know me, Staff...” His gesture suggested she could know him better any time it was convenient. “...I
try
to get along with everybody.

“Staff Sergeant Kerr?”

Torin started, suddenly aware she’d been staring at nothing for a few moments too long, the implications of shepherding an aristocratic second lieutenant and a combat platoon through a planetfall where no one got to shoot anything suddenly sinking in.
And just in case that doesn’t seem like enough fun, let’s not forget you slept with said lieutenant.
The one bright light in her morning was that that particular little tidbit hadn’t been picked up by the gossip net. “You missed a spot,” she said, pointing, and left him to it.

* * *

The desire for stimulants following hard on the heels of sentience, coffee had been one of Earth’s prime agricultural exports to the Confederation almost from the moment of contact. Most days, Torin appreciated the history of being able to drink exactly the same beverage that her several times great grandmother had back in the dark ages, but today she’d give her right arm for a cup of Krai
sah
and its highly illegal effect on the Human nervous system.

“Staff? I got that download you wanted on the Silsviss.”

Resisting the urge to yawn, she leaned into the video pickup. “Thank you, Corporal. Send it to the desk.”

“Sending,” the tiny image of the Admin corporal acknowledged, and disappeared.

There wasn’t much.

In an effort to secure a section of the front, the Confederation planned to lay a new pattern of defense satellites with the optimum pattern placing one satellite directly in the center of 7RG6 or what was now to be called the Silsviss System. Unfortunately, the Silsviss, a warm-blooded reptilian race, had developed a limited intrasystem space travel. Both their moon and the nearest neighboring planet had been reached and they were in the process of building an orbiting space station—although Torin wondered how they’d found room for it given the number of weapons platforms already in orbit. Their technology, while crude by Confederation standards, was more than sufficient to destroy anything put into place without their cooperation—making it essential to get their cooperation.

“Thus the suck-up mission,” Torin muttered, refilling her mug from the dispenser in the desk. She didn’t know what General Morris had been drinking but spit and polish was not a high priority for a combat unit. If Haysole’s sources were right—which they usually were—and the general intended this mission to push him toward promotion, the man was a bigger idiot than she’d first thought.