The Heart of Valour Read Free Page A

Krai recruit adjusting her uniform as she passed, one foot holding the strap, both hands attempting to straighten her collar. The Krai had no problem in zero gee—no nausea, no disorientation—but other species weren’t so lucky. Human and di’Taykan recruits who’d spent their whole lives dirtside were tested in zero gee modules before they were allowed into the shafts, but even then it was pretty much a guarantee that the rest of the station would be dodging wobbly globes of vomit and the embarrassed recruit trying to clean them up at some point during the first thirty days of every Basic course. Since a new course started every ten days, it paid to pay attention in the verticals.
    At Level 3, Torin grabbed the bar over the door and flipped out into the deck. The link station was right where she remembered it. By the time the link arrived, there were eight Marines waiting with her, and she had less than twenty minutes’ travel time left.
    Not a problem.
    Like the public terminal, the main parade square had been designated as an “outside” area of the station. On her way around to the link station that would take her to Section 23, Torin snapped off three salutes and then stopped by a recruit who stood staring around at eighteen potential exits in rising panic.
    “Where do you need to be?” she asked.
    Pale gray eyes holding an equal mix of determination and fear locked on her face. “Sir! This…”
    “Don’t call me sir, I’m not your DI. Call me Gunnery Sergeant.”
    “Sir! Yes, si… Yes, Gunnery Sergeant! This recruit needs to be at L4S12 main administration.”
    She checked his collar tabs. He was still in his first fifty. “Are you cleared for verticals?”
    “Yes, Gunnery Sergeant!”
    “Take that shaft… That shaft!” She reached out and turned his head. “Take it up two levels. Turn right immediately out of the shaft. Keep moving until you get to Section 12 then take the first vertical you see back down a level.”
    He glanced at his watch. “I have to be there in four minutes!”
    It was hard not to smile. “Then you’d better hurry.”
    “Yes, Gunnery Sergeant!”
    She watched him double-time off, turned back toward her station, and saluted a Krai lieutenant wearing a Ventris patch who was staring at her with disapproval.
    “The recruits need to learn their way around on their own, Gunny.”
    Stifling a sigh, she stopped walking. She really didn’t have time for this. “The recruits need to learn they can depend on other Marines when the chips are down, Lieutenant.”
    “And what does he learn if you tell him how to get where he’s going?”
    “That it isn’t a weakness to ask for directions.”
    “He didn’t ask for directions, Gunny.”
    “Now he knows he can, sir.”
    The lieutenant’s nose ridges flared. “You can’t ask for directions in combat!”
    Torin did not drop her gaze to the lieutenant’s chest and an absence of ribbons but was so obvious about it, she might as well have. “You’d be surprised, sir.” She snapped off another salute and was in the link and gone before he realized he’d been dismissed.
    She reached L6S23C29 with three minutes and forty-two seconds to spare.
    And found her reputation had preceded her.
    “Congratulations on the promotion, Gunnery Sergeant Kerr.”
    “Thank you, Captain Stedrin. And you on yours.”
    The captain smiled, pale blue hair flicking back and forth. “I suspect the general thought it was easier to promote me than to break in another aide. Besides, we’ve got an actual staff now, and he probably believes the extra bar will make it easier for me to take command.”
    “I don’t think you’ll have any trouble, sir.”
    Captain Stedrin’s hair sped up a little. “That’s quite the compliment coming from you, Gunny.”
    “Yes, sir.” She meant it, though. When they’d first met on the
Berganitan
, Lieutenant Stedrin had been a typical “stick-up-the-ass” young officer—not, as it happened, too different from