Could they patch the raft before it sank? If it did—“Master Sergeant!” He looked over at her. “Start transferring essentials over here and prepare your spare raft.” In her mind the sequence unfolded; Marek spoke to Jen, then turned to the others, telling them to transfer rations and water to Ky’s raft beforehand, just in case—
Ky saw the spines withdraw a little; water welled up beside each, and then the shark struck at the puffer, pushing it up into the raft floor as the spines erected again. Everyone in Goose was down now, struggling to the sidewalls, away from the violent struggle below and the growing leaks in the middle of the floor. Vispersen grabbed Jen’s briefcase and slung it wildly in the direction of Ky’s raft; it bounced off the canopy and into the ocean. Lanca, with a howl, grabbed the sidewall and wallowed over it into the raft with Ky. Some of the others were yanking open the storage bags along the sides. Suddenly the spines vanished, only to reappear a meter away.
In the chaos that ensued, Ky called out “Marek! Inflate the spare raft! Throw all the rations and water you can into it! The desalinator—”
“Admiral! What can I do?” Jen’s call ended in a shriek as the shark’s snout broke through the weakened center of the raft and its razor teeth ripped a bigger hole. Marek, struggling with the spare raft’s case latches, was instantly up to his waist in water; others had a good hold on the grabons of the wall, but everything that had been on the raft floor slid inexorably toward the center and down into the gap.
Ky threw the rescue rings she’d left stored near the canopy opening. Sergeant Chok caught one and handed it to Jen. The cover of the raft pack finally snapped back, and Marek pulled the inflation cord. The raft whooshed open, tilted up on one end by the sidewall of the Goose, and the canopy popped up automatically, blocking most of the Goose’s passengers from access to its interior.
Sergeant Chok caught one of the grab-lines and worked his way to the hatch opening, got in, and lowered the canopy so others could throw things over the sides. “Get the rations from the side pockets, throw them in here!”
Kurin, now beside Ky, had hold of the lines connecting the two rafts and pulled them snugly together. Marek made it to the entrance ladder of the spare raft. It tilted more. “We’ll have to puncture flotation on this side,” Ky said. “So it can float out.” She looked around; Corporal Lanca was crouched on the other side of their raft. “Get back over there, Lanca; they need the weight in Ounce.”
“But I’ll get wet—”
“GO! Now!”
Lanca scrambled back across to the entrance and heaved himself into Ounce, muttering.
In the scramble to free the Ounce from the Goose and get everyone aboard, only some of the supplies made it.
“Get a line on your raft!” Ky yelled. “We’re linked to Goose, not to you.”
Chok threw a line, and finally Ounce was linked to Ducky and free of the Goose. Ky and Kurin worked together, hands stiffening in the cold water, to free the line to the Goose.
By the time they had everything that could be salvaged from Goose in Ounce, the wind had picked up, ruffling the swells with miniature waves. Another shelf of dark cloud neared. Looking toward the wind, Ky could see a blur of fog or rain in the distance. “Close canopies,” she said. “Might be more squalls.”
When the squall hit, a mix of rain and sleet soon turned to wind-driven snow. The foul weather lasted all night.
Ky woke to the sound of the storm and in dim light saw Kurin bracing herself on their spare raft’s case and poking at the canopy with the desalinator.
“What’s wrong?”
“Ventilation flap frozen down. I got the other one open this way—it’s—a matter of—timing.”
Ky could see that, with the raft pitching and rolling on the heavy seas. With a last jab at it, the flap popped up and a few chunks of ice fell in. Kurin sank down on the raft case, breathing hard, then slid the desalinator into one of the storage pockets, leaving enough sticking out to identify.
“Good thing it was your watch,” Ky said. “We’ll have to check regularly.”
“I hope this storm doesn’t last as long as the last one,” Kurin said.
CHAPTER TEN
The Long Range Recovery Team’s aircraft could stay up in the huge oval designated as the target area for hours. Long enough to make finding survivors possible, though not certain. SAR-One joined the crew that had brought the plane out. “The more eyes, the better,” Commander Depeche said from the pilot’s seat. “The Rector’s got her undies in a wad over this. Says it’s about the Commandant, but I figure it’s more about her niece or whatever—a Vatta aboard.”
“It’s a hit to Slotter Key’s reputation, too,” McCoy said. “Especially sabotage. The inner worlds have been snooty about us out on the margins for a long time.”
“There’s that,” Depeche said. “Ula, let McCoy have your seat for a while. Take a nap or something.”
“Fine with me.” Ula Maillor grabbed her hot-cup out of its stand on the way out of the cockpit. “I slept the last third of the way to Pingats last night. But don’t think I don’t know you just want to talk politics with McCoy.”
“I live for talking politics with McCoy,” Depeche said.
“Gossip,” McCoy said. “Not politics. You just like the down and dirty.”
Depeche raised an eyebrow. “And you don’t?”
“You know I do. So who’s sleeping with whom that’s new and interesting? Any tagged dirty money?”
“No sex, but there’s a rumor that Vatta Transport is going to reorganize and move its headquarters to the Moscoe Confederation. Slotter Key will just be a regional hub for them.”
“Already heard that. Blondie coming here was public.”
“And the admiral. Between those two and the Rector, they hold the most shares.” Depeche glanced over at McCoy. “And someone I know knows someone who claims the old lady is sure who bombed their headquarters back when.”
“I thought it was the wicked cousin. Whatsisname… Osmar or Osmin or something—”
“Osman. No, not him. He was with that pirate bunch, all right, but he’d been banned from Slotter Key permanently decades ago. They’re thinking the construction firm did it, put the bombs in place in one of the expansions.”
“Paid to do it, or their idea?”
“Guy I know thinks someone hired ’em. Maybe just a foreman or something, maybe the head. But if the Rector thinks it was the head… then heads will likely roll.”
“Can’t blame her for that,” McCoy said.
“No. But it makes life too interesting for the rest of us, her being head of Defense and all our lives in her hand. Made Orniakos furious when she called up and reamed him out for doing his job.”
“I hadn’t heard that.”
“That Space Defense Force ship Admiral Vatta came with sent their shuttle after the one that went down, when it changed course. Came right down into our airspace without asking permission, live weapons and all, and Orniakos told them to get out and stay out. Rector wanted them left alone on her say-so.”
“Sounds… like a mess.”
“It was. Is. Admiral Hicks is mad at Orniakos for making the Rector mad, and mad at the Rector for not informing him first, and there are rumors all over Region V headquarters about it. At least she asked Hicks to send us, so here we are. I get flight hours, so I’m happy, if no one else is.”