Free The Heart of Valour by Tanya Huff Page B

the Mid Races; those who’d joined the Confederation after it had been established but before Parliament had gone searching for aggressive species to protect them against the Others. There’d been a Ciptran, a few Niln, and too many Katrien given the sudden arrival of Presit a Tur durValintrisy and her news crew. Torin hadn’t liked the reporter when she met her and didn’t like her much better after…
    She stared down at her slate, not actually seeing it.
    After.
    There was something she and Craig
and
Presit a Tur durValintrisy had in common.
    After the explosion that trapped them on Big Yellow, the three of them—and Captain Travik, Torin’s injured CO—had been sucked down through a meter of floor slowly enough for the alien ship to scan them. Eventually, all the survivors had passed through seemingly solid parts of the ship, but all other incidents had happened in real time. Was it possible that whatever the ship had done to them during the extended scan had somehow protected them from having the Elder Races wipe their memories of the escape pod?
    There was only one way to find out.
    Captain Travik had died of his injuries, his body lost to space but, as far as Torin knew, Presit was still very much alive. Sitting forward in the chair, the slate down between her knees where her body blocked the screen from any possibility of prying eyes, Torin put together a message.
    Craig: Talk to the reporter. Find out if she remembers the EP. We three may be the only ones who do.
    She’d send the message the moment the
NirWentry
left Susumi space. Going out on a personal burst, it would be legally private. Most of Parliament hadn’t much liked the idea of a Confederation Military at all and had done everything they could to limit their autocracy. Anything that might give away the position of ships or troops got automatically flagged and the message pulled to be dealt with by the lowest levels of Intell, but everything else from bitching about the food to describing the particulars of a battle was fair game. Given that the Corps encouraged their recruits to write home regularly, her message would probably be buried in with sixty others and not even noticed. Still, if memories were being erased, then mail might be read, so there was no point in being obvious about things. Best to give Craig just enough information and no more.
    Once Presit realized something was going on, she’d…
    She’d what?
    Raise high holy hell probably.
    Torin straightened and stared across the waiting room, fingers tightening around her slate.
    Maybe the Elder Races had a good reason for erasing the memory of the escape pod; one Torin had no need to know.
Need to know
had been the operating credo of her entire career. Officers made the decisions, she saw to it they were carried out with as little loss of Marine Corps life as possible. She didn’t deal with the big picture, she took care of the details. This whole thing could easily be part of a big picture she wasn’t even aware of. By stirring things up—and having Craig prod Presit would definitely stir things up—she could be placing the entire Confederation at risk.
    She could be placing Marines at risk.
    Thumb sweeping over the screen to delete the message, she got to her feet as the inner hatch swung open and Major Svensson emerged.
    “Fifty-six minutes, Gunny. Your looming presence seems to have kept them honest.”
    “I wasn’t aware I was looming, sir.”
    “Metaphorically, Gunny.”
    “Yes, sir. Where’s Dr. Sloan?”
    “Dr. Sloan and Dr. Weer are having my head examined.”
    “Sir?”
    “They’re looking at the scans of my head to see if they can figure out what’s causing my headaches.”
    Torin stood aside as he exited into the corridor and then fell into step beside him. “If they’re debilitating, sir…”
    “You’re about to suggest that we don’t need to go to Crucible, aren’t you, Gunny? Don’t bother answering,” he continued before she could speak, “I