An Ancient Peace (20 page)

“Ryder! Don't touch!”

Craig jerked both hands away, the same motion curling them into fists.

“We've maintained a ghost link to the traffic buoy,” Ressk explained,
glared Alamber out of the second's seat, and brought up a new screen before his ass had fully settled. “There's a ship coming in.”

“Not the first since we arrived,” Werst snarled, straightened out of a crouch and slid his knife back into the sheath strapped to his thigh.

Ressk moved a foot to the board as Alamber answered, “Yeah, but this one, this one's using coordinates identical to ours.”

“They're jumping out at the same buoy,” Torin began.

He cut her off. “They're jumping
from
the same buoy, Gunny. Out from Abalae, using the first open slot after ours.”

And Torin remembered the pattern she'd seen.

Not defensive.

Not offensive.

Familiar.

“There's someone following us.”

“The facilitators?” Werst shifted his weight from foot to foot, ready for a fight, the line of tension across his back showing his frustration with an opponent who wouldn't close.

Torin understood that frustration. Could feel the same line of tension. “No, the facilitators are dirtbound and the Trun wanted us gone.”

“Yeah, well the facilitators might be dirtbound, but the Wardens aren't, and if the facilitators called in the Wardens . . .” Binti paused and met Torin's gaze. “. . . we've got some serious bullshitting to do.”

“If it's the Wardens, we're screwed,” Alamber amended, his attention still focused over Ressk's shoulder on the board. “And not in a good way.”

“We didn't do shit that would justify calling in the Wardens.” Still shifting from side to side, Werst ran both hands back over his head, the bristles making a soft shuff shuff under his palms. “Oh, wait. I forgot, the Trun don't actually need us to
do
anything; we're dangerous, murdering animals.
Revenk
fukkers.”

“It's not a Justice ship.” Ressk had another screen open, registration numbers scrolling past. When the scroll stopped, Torin had only a quick glimpse of a line glowing orange before Ressk opened it, exposing the data. “It's a Katrien ship.”

“The
Seelinkjer
?”

Alamber shook his head, hair moving in counterpoint. “Not possible. Jamers wasn't on Abalae.”

“Entirely possible,” Binti contradicted. “It's a big planet, and we saw one small part of it.”

“Granted. But once we had the ship, we searched the other stations' docking records. She wasn't there.”

“She isn't here either,” Ressk added. “Incoming ship isn't the
Seelinkjer
, it's the
Tinartin Hur Tain
registered to the family Valinstrisy.”

“Valinstrisy? Are you sure? We're running under a false reg,” Torin explained as Craig twisted around and frowned up at her, his reaction no surprise, as he was probably the only other person on board who recognized the name. “Jamers is a smuggler, a false reg would make sense.”

“Could be,” Ressk agreed, “Isn't. We checked specs not just names and numbers on Abalae. And yeah, she doesn't need to have been docked at Abalae to use that buoy—space is big, right? But if she's got a fake registration, it's better than anything the Corps can provide. I know where the edges are in
our
code, and this ship is smooth. Evidence suggests our buddy Jamers isn't smart enough to load in anything that clean. The incoming ship is the
Tinartin
and it's everything it says it is, I'd bet my breakfast on it. Current course and speed'll bring her right to us. I'll contact . . .”

“No.” Torin had to breathe deeply before she felt she could control her voice and maintain anything resembling a neutral tone. “Call me when it catches up.”

She had one foot out of the hatch before Craig asked, “Where are you going?”

“To hit something.”

Weight pushing the soles of her bare feet against the deck, far enough away to keep the entire bag in her field of vision, Torin slammed in a combination that would have landed mid-torso on an opponent her size. They'd be head shots on a species significantly shorter. She shuffled back, shuffled in, arms relaxed, throwing quick, snapping punches. Then again. Then faster. Normal combinations. One two. One two. One two three. A few less orthodox. One three two.
Three one two three three. Lips pulled back, she sucked air through her teeth. Fights seldom came with convenient breaks to breathe.

“You're dropping your hands.”

“I'm aiming low.”

One two. One three two.

“Torin . . .” Craig moved behind the bag and braced it.

“I'm getting it out of my system before she arrives.”

One one three two.

He grunted, feet slipping back a couple of centimeters. “Presit is not your enemy. She's been there when we've needed her, more than once, and yeah, a good part of why she was there was vested self-interest, but she's not the arrogant self-absorbed show pony we thought she was.”

“Yeah, and she's hot for you.”

“She's a different species.”

“I
know
.” Torin stepped back, took a deep breath, and rubbed the sweat off her face with the bottom of her shirt. “Presit a Tur durValinstrisy is a reporter and she's followed us in the past knowing we'll lead her to a story. But this, this is a story she can't have, so what do we do with her? And not just her, she'll have a crew.”

“A pilot at least,” Craig agreed. One hand on the bag, he stepped around it. “You can't . . .”

There were a lot of things she couldn't do. There were a few things she might have to and she could hear all of them in the pause after Craig's voice trailed off. “Then what can we do? It's Presit versus a war we're supposed to stop. We can't let her tell this story and we've never been able to shut her up. If we tell her we're in the Core on a Justice Department op we can't talk about, Presit will go to the Justice Department and demand transparency.”

His brows were drawn in so deeply they nearly met over his nose, but he didn't argue. He knew Presit. “She's compromised in the past. Waited to go public. Underplayed certain aspects of the situation.”

“A compromise isn't good enough.” Torin tapped the release tab and began unwrapping her left hand. “We're doing this job because the Corps can't and the Corps can't because the press not only demands full disclosure, but makes damned sure they get it.” She
dropped her first wrap into the recycler and released the tab on the second. Her hands ached in spite of their protection. “Now we've got our own member of the press—who knows what kind of work we do—following us, planning to bolster her reputation by exposing details that could start a civil war.”

“To be fair, Torin, she doesn't know that.” He kept his voice light, even, but Torin could see the dawning realization of just how badly they were screwed on his face. “We could blow. Leave her hanging.”

“We don't know where we're going yet. And leaving won't stop her from following us.”

Craig nodded, a silent acknowledgment to Presit's commitment to the chase. “What are we going to do?”

“Do what you must to stop the grave robbers. To stop a war. We've all seen too much war. That, Gunnery Sergeant Kerr, is the mission should you choose to accept it.”

The second wrap followed the first. Torin reached for a water pouch, took a long drink, and said, “What I have to.”

If he noticed the pronoun change, Craig let it go.

Eventually, the two ships sat motionless, less than a kilometer apart.

“Anything?” The upper curve of the pilot's chair creaked under Torin's grip. With Ressk sitting second, she stood behind Craig, able to see and be seen—the moment there was something to see or see her.

Ressk frowned at the board. “Nothing yet.” He smacked Alamber's hand away without looking.

Tall as he was, and he had five centimeters on Craig, Alamber wasn't quite tall enough to reach the board from his position behind Ressk's chair, but that hadn't stopped him from making a regular attempt. Torin had no idea if he'd maintained that position the entire time she'd been gone or taken it up again when Craig reclaimed his place. As Ressk hadn't told the di'Taykan to fuk off, she allowed him to remain.

Werst had been sitting reading, one foot working a bright red spring grip, when Torin and Craig returned to the control room. He'd acknowledged them, switched the grip to his other foot, and returned his attention to his slate. Binti had returned a few moments later,
ignored the three empty seats, and leaned against the rear bulkhead, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. Fully aware she was the source of Binti's suspicions—the other woman hadn't spent enough time with Presit to have reached that level of suspicion on her own, not to mention that Presit had saved their collective asses during their run from Vrijheid—Torin appreciated having another set of eyes on the target.

“There's something happening,” Ressk muttered. “I'm only reading it because I've got a broad . . .”

::You are being where you are not needing to be!::

Training kept Torin from reacting to the voice booming out of her jaw. “Why are you following me, Presit?” As heads turned, she mouthed,
implant.

Ressk snorted and danced his fingers through a pattern of blue and yellow lights.

::I are not following you! It are . . .

“. . . not always being about you.”

Torin nodded her thanks. The Katrien were loud and high-pitched regardless of what language they spoke, and switching the implant feed to the ship's speakers would keep her skull from vibrating off the top of her spine. “There's no story here, Presit. Go home.”

“I are not going anywhere. You go home!”

It always sounded strange when Katrien syntax matched up to that used by the rest of the Confederation. Since they spoke perfectly understandable Federate, Torin had always assumed the syntax was an affectation.

“If I are ever having done anything for you, Torin . . .”

Presit usually addressed her by her rank, her tone anywhere from fondly mocking to full-out derision. Torin frowned. This was serious, then. And personal. “Presit, you're on speaker. My whole team can hear you. Do you need me to switch you back to implant?”

“Your whole team are listening?”

“You followed us from Abalae. We all wanted to know why.”

“Why I are following you?” Her voice sharpened to a familiar edge. “We are chasing the same shadow, that are being why. And you are knowing that if you are spending half a moment to actually be using your brain. Still perhaps I are better off appealing to consensus than
your better nature, Gunnery Sergeant Kerr . . .” There was the derision. “. . . but if I are discussing this with the whole lot of you, then I are looking you in the eyes while I are doing it.”

“She's off implant, Gunny. Switched to ship to ship.” Hand just over the board, Ressk glanced up at her. “Do I put her up?”

The ability to throw visuals onto the glass of the front port was new as of the post-Vrijheid refit.
Promise
's visuals, when Craig had bothered to snag more than the audio signal, had been confined to the board. Fine for one or two people, completely useless for six.

“Do it,” Torin sighed. “Before she puts on a suit and tries to kick in the air lock. Give her visual on the whole cabin, we don't want her to think we're hiding things from her. That never ends well.”

“But we are hiding things from her, right, Boss?” Alamber raised both hands when Torin turned toward him. “Hey, I don't want to say the wrong thing.”

“Don't mention the mission.”

“Well, duh.”

A running red light delineated a meter-by-meter section of the glass, the internal area filled with the head and shoulders of Presit a Tur durValinstrisy, the stars still faintly visible behind her image. She combed the claws on her left hand through the fur on her cheeks, the pale, green metallic polish gleaming against her thick, silver-tipped dark fur, and sighed. “Well, the whole gang are being there, aren't they? Fine. At least I are being comforted by knowing I are not going to be misquoted during the retelling of my story.”