The Privilege of Peace Page 22

  “T’Jaam got the good run,” Alamber announced. “They’ve got three ex-Navy pilots who lifted a VTA from Station 2 and are making hit and runs down on Luur.”

  “Those things aren’t armed. What are they hitting with?”

  “Don’t know.” He raised his voice. “Hey! Gamar! What exactly are your crazy pilots doing?”

  Up ahead, in the center of T’Jaam, Gamar’s hair lifted. “They’re throwing rocks!” he yelled back over his shoulder.

  Alamber almost stumbled. “Out of a VTA?”

  “Decommissioned Naval VTAs have holes in the floor,” Torin reminded him. Presit had fallen out of theirs, and Torin had been forced to jump out after her.

  “Think we’ll be back before the Berganitan arrives?” Binti asked, falling into step on Torin’s right.

  “We’re up against six cutting lasers,” Torin reminded her. Security in a mine on Carlyle Bon had managed to lock six ex-Marines with cutting lasers into a dead-end tunnel, but couldn’t figure out how to remove them. Commander Ng had seemed pleased about the prospect of telling the general he’d sent Alpha Team out. “If Craig would put some thought into the Susumi equations, we could be back before we left.”

  “Craig would rather not die horribly,” Craig muttered.

  * * *

  • • •

  A fist-sized rock shattered against the wall over Werst’s head, pieces too small to ricochet bouncing off his helmet. “Fukkers built a cannon. Points for ingenuity.”

  Another rock whistled past, shattering farther down the tunnel.

  “Good reload time.” Without her scanner, Torin could just barely make out the end of the pipe poking through the rough block wall that closed off the tunnel twenty-two point seven meters away—pipe and blocks were the same pale gray.

  “Their aim sucks.”

  “True, but artillery has a broad definition of accurate. I’m almost impressed that they’ve built in enough maneuverability to hit the ceiling and both walls.” Their default, straight down the tunnel shot was chest-high on Humans and di’Taykan and head height on the Krai. The mine had high numbers of Younger Races in the work force although the ownership and most of the supervisory positions were Niln. “Mashona, can you put one down the pipe?”

  “I can, but a standard round’s going to do SFA unless one of them’s got his eye to the end, lining up a shot. I time it right, I might ignite whatever they’re using for propellant. Might not. Depends on what they’re using. If I had boomers . . .”

  “But you don’t.” Standard operating procedure kept boomers above ground. Collapsing the tunnels solved no one’s problem. “Let’s hope you get lucky.” The cannon covered the only approach to the dead end where the ex-Marines were trapped, and the speed of their reload meant they had the cap off the far end of the pipe as soon as possible after firing. “On my mark . . .” The next rock hit the ceiling about a meter out from where Alpha Team crouched against the walls. Torin tucked her chin down and turned her helmet toward the debris. As the last piece hit the floor, she straightened. “Mark!”

  With the sound dampener engaged on Binti’s KC, the only sound was the crack of the bullet’s miniature sonic boom.

  And within nanoseconds, the impact at the far end of the pipe, muffled within the stacked blocks.

  Torin’s scanner agreed with her eyes. No visible change to either cannon or wall. So much for luck. She’d served under officers who disdained primitive weaponry, but Torin concentrated on effect. If the end result was a dead Marine, even a rock deserved respect.

  “Might’ve destroyed the firing mechanism,” Ressk pointed out after a few moments.

  Binti snickered. “Or we pissed them off, and they’re loading something nastier than rocks.”

  “Yeah, because being showered by rock fragments is such a joy.”

  Turning a fragment between thumb and forefinger, Torin stared at the mouth of the cannon, a memory just out of reach. “Check metal present within twenty-two point five degree arc, Marine zero.” A number flashed on the lower right edge of her scanner and began to climb. “Son of a . . . RUN!”

  They were twenty meters down the tunnel when Torin’s internal countdown hit zero.

  “DROP!”

  The pieces of metal close enough to the center mass filled the tunnel with hundreds of edges and sharpened points, moving fast enough to cut through anything they hit. The pieces on the expanding edges of the shot hit walls, ceiling, floor: some of their momentum lost, but their angle of approach impossible to anticipate. Scattershot moved slower than solid projectiles, but made up in amount of potential damage what it lost in speed.

  Fortunately, military-grade uniforms left few areas vulnerable and even a day pack provided additional protection for the spine. Head cupped within the curve of her left arm, Torin focused on the flashing medical alert in her cuff. “Ressk! How bad?”

  “Shrapnel in the ass. Uniform stopped it, but it’s going to leave a fuk of a bruise.”

  “I’m reading blunt impact trauma. It’s broken through the skin.”

  “Explains why my ass is warm.”

  She could hear the team scrambling up onto their feet as she stood. “Mashona, effective range of scattershot?”

  “No more than seventy-five meters, Gunny.”

  They were approximately forty meters down the tunnel. “Forty more, let’s move!”

  At twenty-three meters more, they reached a cross tunnel and safety. Cannon couldn’t fire around corners, although Torin wouldn’t apply that statement to artillery as a whole; she’d seen too many inexplicable explosions.

  Three minutes. Five. The cannon didn’t fire again.

  “Might’ve been all the sharp metal they had.” Reaching up, Werst ran a finger along a deep gouge in his helmet.

  “No reason to risk it,” Torin told him. “We’re going to plan B.”

  “Plan C,” Ressk amended as he dropped his trousers to pool around his boots. “Plan A being identifying ourselves as Wardens and requesting they surrender.”

  “Doesn’t count. No one ever listens.” Binti flicked on her cuff light and leaned in. “That’s a perfectly triangular hole in the ass you’ve got there.”

  Torin expected a response from Alamber and got one from Craig.

  *I’m on my way down.*

  “It’s a punctured butt,” Ressk scoffed, twisting to try to see it. “I don’t need a medic. Spray it and I’m good.”

  *You’re getting a medic anyway.*

  “Bet he’s feeling left out,” Binti murmured.

  “No bet.” Craig had been left in the Operations Center with Alamber. Six ex-Marines with cutting lasers against four ex-Marines with KC-7s and combat grade uniforms didn’t require the nonmilitary members of the team to take the field. “But since Plan B involves a lot of sitting around in safety, no reason he can’t join us if there’s a scenic route to our location that keeps him out of the main tunnel. Werst, his butt is yours.”

  “That’s what the vows said,” Werst agreed, approaching with a can of sealant.

  *Boss, I’ve finally pulled the full schematics out of their joke of an OS. Confirm there’s too much ventilation going into that section to gas them, but nothing big enough to crawl through.*

  “Roger that.” The trapped ex-Marines were Human and di’Taykan. Krai didn’t go underground if they had another option. They had a gas that would work on both species—different biological reactions, but unconscious was unconscious as far as Torin was concerned. Cothi Hurexical, the mine supervisor, had insisted she couldn’t guarantee a complete seal between the target area and the rest of the mine, and as no one knew how the gas would affect Niln, she wouldn’t approve it. Nor would she clear biologicals out even though eighty percent of the work had been automated. Two of her workers were dead and three pieces of equipment destroyed, but she had a production objective she
intended to meet.

  She’d also refused to cut off power, water, or air, unwilling to contribute to the deaths of sentients. Torin appreciated the sentiment, but since it left her people advancing toward a cannon, she didn’t appreciate it much.

  Torin flicked her PCU over to the mine’s channel. “Per Hurexical, you’re a go on the digger as we discussed. Open up the dead-end and herd them out toward us.”

  “Are you sure that’s necessary, Warden?”

  “They’re defending their position with artillery.”

  “We never intended to open that wall up. The digger will cause damage to the tunnel already in place.”

  “It’s proactive damage.”

  Proactive damage? Binti mouthed.

  Torin flipped her off.

  “But you could still wait them out.”

  “Per Hurexical, they’ve already built a wall and a cannon. You want to guess what they’ll come up with if you leave them in there much longer?”

  “But how . . .”

  “They’re Marines. You told us you had a digger available.”

  “I thought this was a backup plan.”

  “There’s a cannon. We’re going to the backup plan.”

  “You’re looking at a three-hour dig from the closest access point, Warden. Longer if we hit a hard patch. And we could. It could take all night.”

  Local time was twenty-two oh six. “All night? Longer than I’d like, but that explains the production numbers.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Slow and steady wins the race; that’s what my father always said.”

  “Really?” Binti asked during the long pause.

  Torin covered her mic. “Not a chance.”

  “Just over two hours, Warden. Be ready.”

  “We’re not going anywhere.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “If they hadn’t upgraded the uniforms to combat knock-offs, that would’ve gone through you. As it is, you’re still looking at a trip to medical before we debrief.” Craig tossed the empty tube of sealant back into his kit, having removed and replaced Werst’s earlier work. “Bruising’s already starting to spread.”

  “You want to sit the rest of this out, Ressk?”

  “Cute.” He pulled up his uniform and his nostril ridges snapped closed. “Great. Damp and sticky. Sealant does SFA to get the blood out of the pant leg.

  “Good thing Torin put you two in boots.” Craig picked up a piece of composite sliced from the edge of Werst’s sole. “That would’ve taken half your foot off.”

  “It’s a bit creepy how into comparative wounds you’ve gotten,” Binti called from her place at the intersection of the two tunnels. She’d been shooting the wall at random intervals to keep all involved from becoming complacent.

  “Full-service medic,” he told her. “I also give opinions.” Turning to Torin, he checked her over, again as though he could see and make note of the bruising on the backs of her legs and arms. “So, we staying?”

  “We need to be here when the digger drives them out.” She didn’t know what personal demons the six were fighting, but with luck their mental state hadn’t deteriorated to the point where they’d try to take on the digger. “You don’t have to stay.”

  “They may need patching up. I’ll stay.”

  Werst held up a deck. “I’ve got cards.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “Why do you think Big Yellow came back?” Craig frowned at his cards. “Give me two.”

  “If it’s not a trap,” Ressk declared, “it’s a distraction.”

  Werst sorted his cards into a new configuration and frowned. “Distraction from what?”

  “From whatever they’re up to somewhere else. Three.”

  “The plastic ran an intergalactic war for centuries.” Torin had replaced Binti on watch, part of her attention on the wall and the cannon, part taking inventory of the nails, the small bits of metal with shiny, fresh-cut edges, and the two-centimeter-long pieces of wire scattered along the tunnel in case she had a later use for them. “No one knew they were there.”

  “You saying they don’t need to distract us, Gunny.”

  “I’m saying, if the shoe fits. I’m also saying put your damned boots back on.”

  “I’m injured,” Ressk muttered.

  “Because you’ve forgotten how to duck.”

  “Simpler answer, with no shoes involved.” Binti laid down three kings and scowled at Werst’s full house. “The plastic was in Presit’s head, right? And now she’s running for Parliament. An intergalactic war is one thing, but Presit making decisions that could affect the whole sector is something else again.”

  “They came back to stop her?”

  “Then how about we leave them alone,” Alamber suggested. He’d shown up about twenty minutes after Craig. Torin had chewed a piece off him, but as he was tracking the digger on his slate and could take over the operation should Per Hurexical change her mind, she had no good reason to send him away. “Ignore the plastic completely until they give us more to work with than their presence; who knows—they might be here to support Presit, and that’s not what I dealt you.”

  Craig fanned out his hand, showing a galactic cluster. “I didn’t like what you dealt me.”

  “One of you stacks the deck, or neither of you stacks the deck,” Werst growled. “But both of you stacking is bullshit. Misdeal.” He gathered up the cards. “I’ve got this one.”

  “I’m all for ignoring Big Yellow.” Ressk glared at Alamber until he rested his hands palm up on his thighs. “But General Morris won’t, and I don’t want him there without a mitigating influence.”

  “And we’re to provide that?” Binti asked. “Also this hand is shit. I had better cards when Craig and Alamber were screwing around.”

  Even without her scanner, Torin could see places where the walls of the main tunnel had been scored by the shrapnel. They’d gotten lucky.

  “See you. Raise you.”

  “Fold. Could be the plastic’s finished analyzing their data,” Ressk continued over the sound of cards slapping against the floor, “and now they want to put their conclusions into some kind of context.”

  “Now you have sufficient data, what do you intend to do with it?” Torin demanded.

  “The data must be analyzed.”

  “And then?”

  “We will know when we analyze the data.”

  “Not good enough.”

  The gray plastic alien shrugged. It copied the Human motion better than the Krai. “We will know when we analyze the data.”

  “Fine. On a more personal level,” she growled, “what the fuk were you doing in my head?”

  “Analysis requires context. You provided context.”

  “Torin?”

  Muscles locked across her back, hand gripping her KC so tightly it had gouged pressure points into her palm, Torin jerked away from Craig’s touch and forced herself to relax. Slowly, carefully, she pulled her finger out from inside the trigger guard and set the weapon down.

  “Good idea.” Craig rested his hand, warm and heavy, on her shoulder. “You were strangling it like it had cheated at cards.”

  “Or insulted your mother,” Binti added. When had she gotten so close?

  “Or ate the leftover rernamal bah with your name on the container. What?” Ressk spread his hands. “That’s worth a pounding where we come from.”

  Alamber snickered. “Pretty much everything’s worth a pounding where I come from.”

  “You lot finished?” Torin spread her fingers, working the stiff joints loose.

  “Or you discovered it’s a Navy KC and you were teaching it to respect its betters.” Werst nodded, satisfied. “Now we’re done.”

  Lips twitching up into an invo
luntary smile, Torin muttered, “Assholes.” She expected them to return to the game now they’d had their say. They didn’t.

  “Visualizing the plastic or Morris?” Craig asked, strong fingers gently working the bones of her hands.

  “Analysis requires context. You provided context.”

  “Took a trip down memory lane.”

  “Did it involve you in underwear?” He waggled his brows.

  Another involuntary smile. “Underwear, blisters, stink, all the good stuff.”

  “Sexy times.”

  “Oh, fuk me, don’t you two start getting cute.” Muffled thuds punctuated the plea as Binti held her helmet in both hands and bounced her forehead off the upper curve. “Those two supply as much cute as I can stand.”

  Those two in that tone only ever referred to Werst and Ressk. Torin tossed a small rock at Binti, her gaze still on Craig. “I doubt General Morris is going to attempt diplomatic contact.”

  “Likewise, but I’d have thought you’d want to go all Marine Corps on the plastic. And when I say all Marine Corps, I mean big guns and angry infantry—not spit, polish, and having each other’s backs.”

  “We’re not angry, we’re motivated.”

  Dimples flashed. “And that’s what you took from that.”

  She stood, picked up her weapon, and stepped back from the corner. “Werst.”

  “On it, Gunny.” Scanner down, he dropped into the position Torin had held, eyes on the far wall.

  Torin brushed against Craig’s shoulder as she passed him, needing to move. “There’s no point in attacking Big Yellow. We can’t affect enough of it at a time to make a difference.”

  “The science team’s explosion,” Ressk began.

  Torin cut him off. “That explosion destroyed a meter and a half by two and a half meters of internal bulkhead, and it had no noticeable effect on the whole. If the ship provides an airlock, a suicide run might be able to carry enough incendiaries inside to cause noticeable damage, but the odds are higher Big Yellow would realize what was up before they got inside and they’d be expelled—either out the airlock, or they’d make a hole straight to vacuum.”