An Ancient Peace by Tanya Huff

planet.
    Craig would probably think that was sad.
    Torin rubbed her palms against her thighs and wished she had a weapon.

THREE
    T ORIN HAD NEVER RIDDEN a tether. Paradise had a regular shuttle service, a maglev track up the side of Mount Bliss, and the Corps preferred a quick and dirty VTA drop rather than load the taxpayers’ credits into a vehicle dependent on a string a child could cut—albeit a child with a high-powered cutting tool. Even if there’d been one in place, a tether would have been far too vulnerable to exactly the kinds of things the Corps would have been heading dirtside to deal with. Not to mention vulnerable to battle debris. And the weather.
    â€œRemember how you were wondering about station maintenance?” she asked, leaning a little more weight against Craig’s shoulder. “Next time we’re about to plummet four hundred kilometers down a braided strand of Mictok webbing at 200 kilometers an hour, you can keep those questions to yourself.”
    He paused his game and turned toward her. “Worried about the brakes?”
    â€œI don’t worry about things I can’t affect.”
    A dimple flashed. “And you hate having no effect. If it comes to it, how long to get the emergency pods from here?”
    â€œWe can have pods locked and launched in six point two seconds if we don’t stop to assist the civilians. If they need help, given that all but two of the civilians are small enough to be grabbed and tossed and the adults, being Rakva are lighter than most bipeds their size, fifteen point two seconds, give or take a tenth of a second. Slightly more timeif all four hatchlings have to be in a pod with their parents. Slightly less if more than one of the hatchlings is in arms when the abandon ship is given.”
    â€œYou didn’t even look at the pods.”
    â€œYou mean just now?” She frowned. The pods were lined up in the bulkhead to her left. There were eight, each rated for nine hundred kilos, emergency access code in bright yellow across each hatch. “I worked the timing out before we started to move.”
    â€œOf course you did.”
    Torin wondered what he found so funny when she knew he’d done similar calculations. He had a lot more trouble relinquishing control in moving vehicles than she did and the game he had up on his slate was a distraction from the unpleasant reality of entering the atmosphere in a can on a string. A string extruded from a Mictok’s ass.
    â€œI look at it this way, Torin; the company may not care about the cheap seats, but this tether’s mostly freight and there’s about fifteen tons plummeting with us. They’ll want to minimize the odds of company profits vaporizing on impact.”
    â€œAnd that helps?”
    He grinned, grip white-knuckled around his slate. “Not really, no.”
    â€œAll right, then.” She nodded at the screen. “Red durr on green banon.”
    â€œNot yet. I have a strategy.”
    â€œFor losing?” Craig had acquired a fairly extensive game library while working alone as a Civilian Salvage Operator; the addition of four ex-Marines and one ex petty criminal had removed the qualifier. “You’ve never gotten above shield level seven.”
    â€œYeah, well, welcome to level ei . . .” The screen flashed red then yellow then black. “Fuk me sideways!”
    The male Rakva turned toward them, crest up. Hands over the bright green auriculars covering a hatchling’s ear openings, he snapped his rudimentary beak. It would have been more effective had the beak been less rudimentary, but he made his disapproval clear.
    Craig, who’d had more experience with children—and their parents’ expectations—than Torin, clicked what she assumed was an apology. Crest fully extended, the male pointedly turned his back. Thefemale dragged the smallest and downiest of the hatchlings onto her lap. “What did you