A truth of Valor

She could hear the smile in his voice, and her lips twitched in response. "You're not the first to say it."

It was going to hurt. Craig's foot. Her ribs. Not to mention assorted mutual bruising. But it was going to hurt a lot less than having either Cho or Big Bill reclaim the armory.

Hurt a lot less than being hit by one of the remaining chunks of blown docking clamp.

Ru

"I'm not going to be happy if you puncture a lung."

"Me either."

Craig was panting. Or she was. The sound of labored breathing filled her helmet, hard to separate into his or hers. Hers might have been a bit wetter. In a military suit, like the one that had saved her life, she'd have hit the foam the moment they cleared the dock and immobilized the broken rib. Unfortunately, without that option, all she could do was clamp her arm against her body and tell herself she'd survived worse. Her right hand, swollen to fill the glove, had immobilized itself.

"Release the clamps on three," she called as they approached the edge of the ore dock. "One. Two. Three!"

As the cables retracted, Torin, Craig, and the armory shot out into space.

"There's the Star!"

"And there's the Heart." Twisting to look back at the station, Torin could see the flares of half a dozen ships. "Looks like the docking clamps have unlocked." "Captain! Seven-no nine-ships are launching!"

"ETA?" Cho snapped, hand clamped white-knuckled around the edge of his screen.

Huirre turned to stare. "ETA? They're right there!"

"Coat of Brown and Thegris Tay are powering weapons! No lock on us yet," Dysun added. "But it's a matter of minutes."

"Nat! Grapples out!"

"Almon was…

"Almon's unconscious, thanks to you! Get the fukking grapples on that armory!" Craig caught the line from the Star with one hand and Torin with the other as its movement whipped him past her. "Hang on! You can't do this with one hand!"

"Want to bet?" But he felt the tug as she grabbed his tanks and gave thanks she favored practical over posturing. "We're in Mashona's shot! Move!

"Mashona's is not the shot I'm worried about!" What looked like a Navy shuttle retrofitted for Susumi had a line on the Star, the armory, and, more importantly, the two of them. "Do not let that bastard get the armory!"

Confused, Huirre frowned. "What bastard?"

"Big Bill fukking William Po

Huirre's nose ridges flared. He gri

"Good thing they're crap shots!"

"They're trying too hard not to hit the station." Well, Big Bill's ships were, she amended as a shot from the Heart left an elderly cargo vessel floating dead in space and another sent a di'Taykan design tumbling sideways. Problem was, no matter how good the gu

Now she had more points of reference, Torin could see that they were moving toward the Star too quickly to be depending on Craig's pulling them in hand over hand. "The line…?"

"Is being rewound, yeah."

Unable to look back over her shoulder because of the suit, or twist because of her ribs, Torin searched for other lines coming from the ship, other lines that should be hauling in the armory, and couldn't see them.

"Brace for impact!" "Holy fukking shit, Cap! I got it! I got the fukking armory! First try!"

Cho's lip curled. It was a little fukking big to miss. "Roll it into the cargo bay while we move! Dysun, take the helm and get us out of here! Huirre, keep firing!" he yelled over his helmsman's protests. "Do not let those sons of bitches line up to get a shot at us!" "Because I was a little busy trying to keep this ship in one piece." Hands still working the board, Mashona glanced toward the air lock just long enough for Torin to see she wasn't going to apologize for not grappling the armory. "I could get you or the armory, Gu

"Thank you." Craig already had his helmet down, lying against his tanks while Torin was still unsealing hers one-handed.

When it finally dropped, she shuffled toward the board, gravity making the suit one hell of a lot harder to drag around.

"There goes the Heart of Stone." His suit abandoned on the deck, Craig slid into the pilot's chair as Werst slid out, his hands dropping automatically to the controls. "They've got the armory."

Torin had seen Craig pilot the Promise through a swarm of enemy vacuum jockeys with pens extended and full of Marines. Seeing him at the controls now made her believe they still had a chance. "Go after them." "Captain! In another hundred meters, we'll be far enough out for them to target us with the station's gun!"

The station only had one gun, but it was a big one. Originally from a battleship, rumor was Firrg had taken it from a salvage operator in Krai territory and sold it to Big Bill for enough to rebuild her engines and supply her ship for a year. Cho didn't give a fuk about the rumor, but he'd seen a battleship's guns in action and a ship the size of the Heart would be vaporized by that kind of firepower. "Nat!"

"I'd like to not slam a big metal box full of weapons through the fukking ship, Cap!"

"Captain!" Dysun's voice had sharpened to near hysteria. "Fifty meters!"

"Speed it up, Nat. We can survive a few dents!" He dropped back into his chair and pulled up the Susumi equations. "Get ready," he snarled at Dysun and Huirre. "You'll lock your boards on my signal. The moment the armory is on board, we'll fold."

And if the Susumi vortex pulled apart the nearer half of Big Bill's fleet, then that would teach the son of a bitch to try and bring down Mackenzie Cho. "He's got his Susumi engines on-line!" Craig's fingers danced over the board and, under the touch of an experienced pilot, the Star responded by leaping forward and closing the distance to the Heart.

"Gu

Torin stepped out of the HE suit, leaving it lying on the deck like another body. "Fortunately, in order to hit us, they'd have to shoot through a crowd of their own ships."

One of the ships directly between them and the station's guns flared and disappeared.

"I think they're good with that, Gu

Star fields tipped as Craig took evasive action. "We need to get out of here."

"Not without the armory." Teeth clenched, Torin shouldered her way into the crowd around the board and pulled up the long-range sca

"Hit the armory with a cutter this size? Gu

"I know." Torin met Mashona's eyes. "Can you hit it?"