A truth of Valor

As the pause lengthened, Big Bill's brows rose, barely breaching the breadth of forehead. "That wasn't a rhetorical question. Is that what I'm supposed to believe?"

Torin shrugged, and locked her gaze with his. "That's up to you. Me, I discovered everything I believed was a lie. That my whole fukking life was a lie. That almost everyone I knew died for that lie." Colonel Mariner. Major Ohi. Captain Rose. Lieutenant Jarret. First Sergeant Tutone. Sergeant Hollice. Private Gradon. The list went on. And on. This anger, it was safe to show. "You can believe it or not."

He stared at her, head cocked. The two Krai behind him shifted in place.

"I believe it," he said after a long moment. They continued to stare at each other for a moment longer, then by a silent and mutual decision, looked away. Big Bill looked over Torin's shoulder again. "And you three?"

"We're with her," Werst answered.

"Obviously." He brushed his palms together. "So this is a salvage operator's ship. I can see where the pens attach. How did you come by it?"

"So this is a mining station," Torin replied flatly. "How did you come by it?"

He stared at her again, then he laughed. "I like you, Gu

"I'm considering the best use of our talents."

"Which are?"

"We're trained killers." It was the tone Marines learned not to argue with.

Big Bill made a noncommittal noise and dropped his hands to the shoulders of his Krai companions, moving them closer together. "The people who use this station call these guys the Grr brothers."

Behind her, Werst snorted.

Torin ignored him when Big Bill did. "Think you can take them?" he asked.

"Yes."

Both brows rose. "You're that sure."

Torin looked at them. They looked amused. They won as much on reputation as skill, then. She didn't give a flying fuk about their reputation. "One at a time or both together?"

"Always together." When she returned her gaze to Big Bill, he looked amused as well. "And you alone."

Of course. "I'm that sure."

"They've never lost a fight, and they prefer to eat my enemies alive. Around here, people believe they devour souls with the flesh."

Torin heard both Werst and Ressk shift in place, but they held their position. Before receiving her third chevron, Torin'd had to learn a number of obscure details about the three species who made up the Confederation Marine Corps. Belief systems, philosophies, religions-if people believed the Grr brothers were eating souls with the flesh, then it was because the Grr brothers had told them they were.

"Still think you can take them?"

Crackpot religious beliefs further warped by a pair of amoral believers didn't frighten her. "Are you asking me to prove it?"

"You have no gun. No blade. None of the means to kill that Marines are so fond of." Under Big Bill's hands, the Krai shifted, ready to prove a point. "I think you overestimate your…"

Eyes still locked on Big Bill's, Torin put a hand behind each of the Grr brothers' heads, twisted, and slammed their faces together as hard as she could, glad of the chance to spend some of the anger she'd carried since Craig had been taken. Krai bone was one of the hardest materials in known space. Krai faces, without warning enough to get their nose ridges closed, were a weak point.

Taking them on one at a time, she might have had a problem.

She didn't-Craig didn't-have time for extended posturing.

As expected, they pushed away from the source of the pain first.

By the time they turned to her, gasping for breath through the blood, blinking it out of their eyes-and, noted for later encounters, it was a short time-Torin grabbed the brother reaching for her and dug into the bundle of nerves at the base of his thumb. As he hit the deck, arm stretched up over his head, his brother wrapped a foot around her ankle and a hand around her arm just as she drove her fingertips in under the edges of the nose ridges he couldn't close.

He froze.

"Your choice how this finishes," Torin said quietly. The Krai could do Big Bill's dirty work with half his nose ridges destroyed, the scarring would add visual intimidation, but he couldn't win this fight.

Big Bill considered it long enough, she felt the grip on her arm tighten just a little. Finally, he sighed. "Stand down."

When the standing Grr released her, she pulled her hand away, stepping back as he did, freeing his brother. Stepping back until she felt a warm, solid body against her left side. Werst; the other unarmed combat specialist in the group, had moved to a support position.

Both Krai flashed bloody teeth as they moved to flank Big Bill.

Torin bit through the back of her left index finger, showed them the drop of blood, and rubbed it against her own teeth, saying in Federate because she didn't know the Krai, "Your defeat feeds me."

Part of the catechism.

When their eyes widened, she knew she'd gotten lucky. They were true believers, not crazy fuks using an unpopular religion to spread terror. Or, at least, not only crazy fuks using an unpopular religion to spread terror.

They clearly didn't like it, but they nodded and said in unison, "Zer ginyk satalmerik."

Based on the article Torin had studied, "We are tree-down" was the correct reply to her statement. For an arboreal species, it meant, "We are finished." If the cultural xenologist had it right, she'd symbolically just eaten their souls, and they wouldn't move on her or hers-an insurance policy against a random attack.

Unless Big Bill gave a direct order, in which case all bets were off. Commerce trumped religion nine times out of ten.

"So are we welcome here or not?"

Big Bill glanced down at the Krai and back up again, this smile purely Human. "If you can afford to breathe."

The rates were murderous, but they wouldn't be there long enough for anyone to discover the account Ressk had set up was imaginary.

"We can afford it."

"Good." He should have been furious that his bully boys had been defeated, but, if anything, he looked speculative. Behind the smile, he was clearly making plans. "All right. What are your immediate needs?"

I need to know if the Heart of Stone is docked here. If it is, I need you to stay out of my way while I take back what's mine.

Torin bit back the words, kept them from showing on her face. The price for Big Bill's cooperation would be far too high. She'd pay it if she had to, sell herself to save Craig, buy him and her people passage away from Vrijheid, but not until she'd spent everything else.

"Ship could use restocking," she said.

"Then let me escort you to the Hub. I'm going that way."

No one spoke during the sixty-meter walk down the arm to the Hub. Torin walked at Big Bill's right, the two Krai, still bleeding from their nose ridges, followed on their heels, Werst, Ressk, and Mashona behind them.

The arm was narrow, clearly a later addition to the station, and although there were other ships docked between the Second Star and the Hub, none of their crews were out and about. Either Big Bill preferred not to be approached in a confined space, or people preferred not to approach him-Torin didn't plan on being around long enough for the difference to matter.

A wave of sound hit as they stepped out through the decompression doors into the central cylinder on the lowest level. Torin could see four bars and half a dozen small businesses around the outer curve. Two large screens on either end showed sports and what looked like music vids-play-by-play and instruments competing for ears. There were people in the concourse-Human, di'Taykan, and Krai-talking, conducting business at small kiosks, moving from one place in the station to another. Torin thought she saw the bottom segment of a Ciptran disappearing into a vertical. A few people were drunk, and a couple of voices were raised in an argument heading for a fight, but they could have been in any one of a thousand stations.