“Captain, we’ve got a line back to Rascal—”
“—only minor damage, Captain Serrano. But we can’t stuff any more in here. I do have a debris plot—”
“Thank you, Captain Suiza. Any sight of those shuttles?” Hardened combat shuttles should be able to survive, if not hit by anything too big. The officers’ shuttles, however . . .
“Yes, sir. One at least is whole, but appears to be tumbling out of control. Haven’t spotted the others—wait—Koutsoudas says he has ’em.”
“We’re coming in, but slowly—” Shields up, to avoid damage from debris, much more slowly than she wanted. Please, please let them be alive. More of them. Most of them. All of them, if it’s possible, please—
She waited a few minutes on the bridge to deal with any questions from the section commanders, but none came. So, with a last nod at her exec, she went to her office across the passage. There she copied and sealed the scan records, and began her own detailed report for Fleet, as she waited for the first reports on rescue attempts. Petris was dead. Livadhi had “fun” with him—she could imagine what Livadhi had said, how Petris must have felt. And she had come too late, with no miracles, without the chance to tell him what she felt.
The hours crawled by. She acknowledged the first report of success: the tumbling shuttle found, boarded, survivors—most badly injured—stabilized as well as possible. Another shuttle, its hatch open (had it been loading at the moment of destruction?), and all aboard dead. Another, all aboard alive, com mast destroyed, but the pilot had been able to guide it toward Rascal.
Her com beeped; she answered, trying to concentrate on item 16(f) in her report, and a voice said, “Captain, do you want lunch in your office, or over here?”
She started to refuse lunch, but experience said eat now or pay later. “Soup and bread,” she said, answering the unasked question. “In my office.”
“Five minutes, then, Skipper.”
The soup tasted flat, and the bread stale. She ate anyway, knowing it was important, alternating two spoonfuls of soup with a bite of bread. He was dead. He was dead forever. He hadn’t even been able to hear her, see her, in the moment before he died. All he’d heard had been Livadhi’s poisonous words; all he’d seen was Livadhi’s arrogant face.
Someone tapped on the door. “Come in,” Heris said, glad of anything to break the mood. The door opened, and Methlin Meharry stood there in a rumpled p-suit.
“I’m sorry, Captain,” she said. “I couldn’t get him out—”
“I know,” Heris said. Her eyes filled with tears; she blinked them back. “I know.”
“I should’ve killed that scum-sucking toad the moment I felt that twitch in my gut,” Meharry said. “It would’ve saved us a lot of trouble.”
“You did the best you could,” Heris said.
“Seemed like it at the time, but now—y’know, if it wasn’t for the mutiny—we all worried about starting trouble on the ship, in case we got into combat—”
“It’s not your fault,” Heris said.
“I know. But dammit, Captain—I know how you felt about him.”
“Yes, and I’m going to grieve and cry at the wake . . . but I was lucky to have his love, and that’s what I’ll remember. I’m not going to let a traitor rob me of that memory, and it’s not going to ruin my life.” She said it to comfort Meharry, but all at once she felt better herself. It wouldn’t last, she knew—the pain would come back, the loss—but that instant’s memory of his laughing face in the sunlight, years ago on Sirialis, brought only joy.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Winter rains had finally come to the main Fleet base at Copper Mountain, one front after another dumping snow on the higher elevations and a cold, stinging rain lower down. Q-town glittered in the lights of celebrating bars and restaurants and stores, streets freshly swept by another squall of rain and a bitter wind that rushed people off the street and into shelter.
Inside Diamond Sim’s, the main room was crowded with men and women in Fleet uniforms: almost all the tables were full, with a line of people at the bar.
“Just what we need,” Oblo said, “a politician horning in on our celebration. By the time our officers get here, we’ll all be falling on the floor.” Fleet personnel in and around Copper Mountain had chosen this bar for a joint celebration. Crowded as it already was, it would get worse—standing room only by the time they came to the toasts.
“The Speaker isn’t just any politician.”
“Politicians are politicians,” Oblo said. It was not his first mug that stood half empty on the table at his elbow. Methlin Meharry, across from him, shook her head. Her younger brother Gelan sat beside her, newly promoted and decorated for his part in defeating the mutiny. He was still a bit stiff with her shipmates.
At one end of the long bar, a group of civilians clustered around a balding older man in a ridiculous yellow leather jacket like a costume out of a play.
“Like him,” Oblo said, gesturing with his mug. “What’s he doing here, dressed like that? Is this a costume party, or a proper wake?”
“He saved me,” Gelan said, leaning forward. “He’s a scientist—and he and the others stole a troop carrier from the mutineers to get the secret stuff from the weapons research lab on Stack Three. They’ve earned their night out.”
“If you say so,” Oblo said.
“Who’s the redhead?” asked Methlin.
“Ensign Pardalt. She’s another one that was on the plane that picked me up, and she was the professor’s bodyguard. I heard from the rest of them that she saved his life. Besides that, she put together some kind of signalling device that put the word out about the mutiny.”
“She did that? Where’s she from? What’s her specialty?”
“Xavier. Got a Fleet scholarship after that. She’s a junior instructor here.”
“Waste of talent,” Oblo said. “She sounds like another Suiza.”
“Prettier,” Methlin said.
“Careful,” Oblo said, nodding to a young officer a table away. “Young Serrano won’t like to hear that.”
“Young Serrano won’t even notice,” Methlin said. “He’s far too involved. She’s a looker, Ensign Pardalt. And that fat old man knows it.”
“He’s that kind, then?”
“No . . . I’d say he’s using her honey to bait his trap for the people he wants to talk to. Oh, he’ll flirt, but my guess is he’s thoroughly attached elsewhere.”
The outer door opened again, and a new group stood blinking rain out of their eyes. Oblo, facing the door, raised a cheer. “There she is! Cap’n—over here!” But there was another cheer, this time bringing the Serrano table to its feet: “Suiza! Suiza!”
Heris Serrano and Esmay Suiza, side by side, came into the room, and behind them was a phalanx of Serrano admirals around a blonde woman in civilian dress and a redhead in uniform.
Oblo gaped. “What?” said Meharry.
“It’s—Brun,” he said. “Brun Meager-Thornbuckle. She’s—it must be she’s on the staff, or something . . . and Lady Cecelia.”
Methlin turned to look. “By—it is. And—Oblo, look—Heris has her stars!”
“Fff . . . and they didn’t ask us to the ceremony.”
The Serrano Admiralty, now increased by one, created a wave of silence that flowed from the nearest tables to the far corners, so that the words of the last speaker, an ensign explaining how he’d won a battle, rang far louder than he’d intended: “And then the exec said if I hadn’t been there and remembered to shut the ARTI valve, he didn’t know what might have happened, but it wouldn’t have been good . . .” His voice trailed away as he craned around to see why silence had fallen.