The corners of his mouth twitched up, and Torin almost heard him say, Why not… in the pause.

"… context."

The little plastic aliens, the polynumerous polyhydroxide alcoholyde shape-shifting molecular hive mind, had deep scanned both their brains-hers and Craig's-during the Recon investigation of the unidentified alien ship known as Big Yellow. The organic plastic bastards had then hitched a ride inside their skulls in order to give context to observations about the centuries-long war between the Confederation and the Primacy. A war the little plastic aliens had admitted to both starting and maintaining. A lot of Marines had died while they'd been along for the ride, and sometimes Torin would sit in the control chair, listen to Craig sleeping in the bunk behind her, watch the stars, and find herself second-guessing every choice she'd made since that day on Big Yellow. Wondering if it had actually been her making them.

CSOs were able to doubt the lives they'd lived, but gunnery sergeants accepted responsibility for their decisions and moved on. They didn't dwell. And, yeah, she'd left the Corps, but the Corps would never really leave her.

Twisting her hand above Craig's grip, Torin poured the coffee into his lap. They'd gotten dressed before emerging from Susumi space, so it didn't make as much of an impression as it could have.

"Fukking hell, Torin!"

Still, it was a fresh pot. Hadn't cooled much.

Torin knew a lot of different ways to kill people. She could come up with three ways, off the top of her head, using the mug as a weapon. All things considered, a crotch of coffee rated minus five on a scale of one to ten.

When she stepped back, Craig hung on. She could have broken his hold. She didn't. Minus five or not, she figured she owed him that much.

He met her gaze, ignoring the liquid pooling in his lap. "Okay, it's too soon to joke about context. I'm sorry. If it means that much to you, we'll go check on the other ship."

My business is none of your business.

HE suits screamed for help if their wearers got into trouble they couldn't get out of. Beacons in the suits were slaved to the ships and when they went off, the ship would go off as well, extending the suit's range. If the ship was damaged, its own distress call would sound.

The Promise wasn't picking up a distress call.

But she was picking up registered CSO tags.

Pirates would take the tagged debris, or what the hell was the point of being a pirate.

"No, you're right…"

"If I'm right," he interrupted, "why am I absorbing caffeine through my ass?"

Four ways with the coffee mug. "You're right," she repeated, "that I need to start thinking more like a salvage operator."

Craig nodded, relaxing slightly. "Without a distress call, they wouldn't thank us for dropping by."

That surprised a laugh out of her. "I was a Marine. I didn't expect to get thanked."

The battle debris had drifted into an interlinked mass, the smaller, more salvageable pieces fused to huge sheets of twisted metal and slabs of ceramic. Given the parts she could see, given the protection offered by the large, outer pieces of hull, Torin was willing to bet her pension that the odds of finding DNA remnants would be high. Maybe not the specific Marines she counted as her friends, but Marines.

"This first trip out, we eyeball the puzzle pieces," Craig reminded her, waiting by the air lock as Torin checked his helmet seals. "We tag what'll give us the best resale price, maybe set a few small charges to break things up so that we can get a better look inside. DNA scans come later." He checked her seals in turn, then moved his hands to her shoulders and left them there. "We're not wearing propulsion, so we stay tethered to the ship or the end of the grapple at all times. Eyeballs on where I'm attached before you unhook. It's safer if we're not both off the ship at the same time."

The urge to respond to this latest repetition of common sense masquerading as instruction with a noncommittal "Yes, sir." was intense, but that wasn't a dynamic she wanted to set up with Craig-he'd earned her respect a long time ago. And, in all fairness, in spite of her previous performance out by the pens, she understood why he erred on the side of caution. She'd been equally unwilling to trust his skills, all evidence to the contrary, when he'd been on her turf. Since the CSOs didn't have any kind of basic training to meld individuals into a unit, and would likely be appalled by the thought, all she could do toward being thought one of them, was give it time.

So she said, "You think eight charges will be enough?" They were each carrying four.

"We're not out here to fight a war."

"Please," she snorted. "I could win a war with seven."

They were close to the edge, as likely to run into a Primacy ship making a foray into Confederation space as a Confederation ship on patrol.

"Eight should be aces, but there's only one way to find out for sure." He opened the air lock's inner door. Promise's interior lights shifted red-they were now a lot closer to vacuum than the ship's sensors were happy about. "After you."

They used the heavier grapple to first tether the ship to the largest piece of wreckage and then to winch them closer, the wreckage winning the mass sweepstakes.

Standing beside Craig on the edge of the deployed pen, Torin couldn't see his expression through the helmet's polarization, only her own blank silver reflection, but she could hear the smile in his voice when he gestured at the massive triangular piece of metal above them and said, "Race you," as he released his magnetic soles and pushed off.

She considered jerking back on his safety line. Didn't. But it was close.

In the end, she won only because her suit was newer and, when she flipped, she remagged her boots at full charge, allowing them to drag her down past him. She was moving fast enough at impact that she was glad she had her tongue tucked safely away from her teeth.

Landing beside her two seconds later, Craig grunted, "Cheater."

"Don't start with me, Ryder. Usually, there's a three count before a race."

"Just assumed, you being an ex-gunnery sergeant and all, you should be handicapped to make it fair."

She grinned and flipped him off. "Handicap this."

They were standing on a piece blown out of the outer hull, roughly eight meters by four meters at the longest points, and half a meter thick-the two visible Susumi contact points on the metal no longer radiating.

"You don't find that odd?" Torin leaned over to check that the information on Craig's sleeve matched hers. She didn't completely trust his aging tech. "Given the initial radiation readings?"

"Dispersal," he said absently, his attention having been pulled deeper into the tangle. "Damn! Take a look there."

"You want to be a little more specific?" There covered a lot of ground.

"That piece, the blue-green one just past the cable end." His voice was as animated as Torin had ever heard it. "That's Other… Fuk it, Primacy tech. Premium scoop, babe! We get that out and we're building a deck."

"Babe?" Love she could cope with. Lines had to be drawn.

"Heat of the moment." She heard the grin in his voice.

One hand gripping the edge of the hull, Torin turned until she could pull herself headfirst a short distance into the debris. "Piece we want looks fused to that link section, but I can't get a good enough angle on it to see for certain." With the magnification on her faceplate at maximum, she could see pitting caused by tiny pieces of debris but still couldn't see the point where the Primacy tech butted up against the link.

They were going to have to blast it clear.

"Do we tag it for later?" she asked reaching for the tagging gun strapped to her thigh.

"We tag it for now." Craig pulled one of his charges from the pouch. "This, we don't wait for."