“Ah. They probably don’t know who won up here, and they’re trying to collect their forces on the ground. A good sign, though it may be tricky for our people to land if they’re going to be mistaken for hostiles.”
A light blinked on her console. “Excuse me, Captain,” she said; the youngster started, as if she were surprised at the formality. “I’ll get back to you,” she promised. This time it was Jig Faroe on Sweet Delight.
“Come on back,” she said, only then remembering that she’d told him to keep his distance until called. “We’ll need to get those civilians off the yacht, or you off the yacht, I’m not sure which.”
“Yes, sir.” He seemed much older than the other Jig—but then he hadn’t been through a mutiny, and the command of a yacht was well within his ability. Heris still had to find out how Suiza had ended up in command, and how she’d destroyed a Benignity heavy cruiser. “Uh—a couple of them aren’t aboard.”
“Aren’t aboard? What do you mean?”
“Well . . . Lady Cecelia said it was a good idea. Brun’s acting as our liaison with the miners.”
“Oh. Well, make sure someone brings her in.” Another blinking light. This one must be the admiral’s call. “Be sure we know your ETA,” she said, and clicked off.
“Captain—tightbeam from the admiral—”
“Coming.” Heris left for the bridge, very glad of the clean uniform. She nodded to Milcini and sat in the command chair. She hadn’t actually sat down in it before; she’d been too busy running a warship in combat, when she always thought better on her feet. Now she put on its headset and enabled the screen. There on the display was her Aunt Vida, admiral’s stars winking on her shoulders.
“Captain . . . Serrano.” That pause could be signal stretch, an artifact of their relative positions and velocities, but it felt like something else.
“Sir,” Heris said. She was aware of a grim satisfaction in the steadiness of her voice. Defiance tempted her, the urge to say something reckless. She fought it down, along with the questions she could ask only in private.
“Situation?” That was regulation enough; it might mean any of several things, including the straightforward need for information.
“No present hostilities,” she said, back in the groove of training and habit. “Xavier system was attacked by a Benignity force, which destroyed its orbital station and did major damage to both population centers. Damage estimates for the planet and its population are incomplete; we have not established communication with survivors. There are at least two functional transmitters. The population did have some warning, and the local government tried to evacuate to wilderness areas.”
“And Commander Garrivay?”
“Is dead. May I have the admiral’s permission to send an encrypted sidebar packet?”
“Go ahead.” Heris had prepared an account of her actions, and the background to them; now she handed this to a communications tech, with instructions.
“Status of Regular Space Service vessels?” her aunt went on.
“Paradox was lost in combat, no survivors known. Vigilance has structural damage to an aft missile bay from a blowout. Engineering advises that it would not be safe to attempt FTL at this time. Despite is jump-capable, and essentially undamaged, but extremely short-crewed.”
“How dirty is the system?” In other words, how many loose missiles with proximity fuses were wandering around on the last heading they’d followed.
“Still dirty,” Heris said. “And we laid orbital mines around Xavier, nonstandard ones improvised with local explosives. None of those are fissionables, but they’re potent.”
“Very well. Hold your position until further orders. We’ll send the sweepers ahead; we’re laying additional mines in the jump-exit corridors and closing this system to commercial traffic until the new station is up and operating.” A long pause, then, “Good job, Captain Serrano. Please inform your command of the admiralty’s satisfaction.”
“Thank you, sir.” Heris could not believe it was ending like this. Of course there were reasons an admiral wouldn’t get into all the issues even on a tightbeam transmission, but she had expected something, some demand for explanation . . . something.
“Well,” she said to her bridge crew. “Admiral Serrano thinks we did a good job.” A chuckle went around the bridge. “I think we already knew that. Now let’s get things in order for the admiral’s inspection, because if I know anything about admirals, she’ll be aboard as soon as Harrier’s in orbit.”
Brun woke slowly, in fits and starts. It was dark. It was cold. She couldn’t quite remember where she was, and when she reached for covers, she discovered that she was quite naked. The movement itself set up competing fluctuations in her head and belly. She gagged, gulped, and came all the way awake in a sudden terror that slicked her cold skin with sweat.
After uncountable moments of heart-pounding fear, Brun wrestled her panic to a dead stop. She wasn’t dead. She hung on to that with mental fingernails. In twenty minutes, maybe, or two hours, or a day, she might be dead . . . but not now. So now was the time she had to figure something out.
You wanted adventure, she reminded herself. You could have been sitting in a nice, warm, safe room surrounded by every luxury, but . . . no, no time to think that, either. Only time for the realities, the most basic of basics.
Air. She was breathing, so she must have air of a sort. She didn’t even feel breathless, though her heart was pounding . . . that was probably fear. She wouldn’t let herself call it panic. She felt around her . . . finding nothing, at first, in the darkness. Nearly zero gravity, she thought. And air, and not freezing, or she’d be dead. Her stomach wanted to crawl out her mouth, but she told it no. She’d already gagged once; her belly was empty. Dry heaves would only waste energy, she told herself, and hoped that she hadn’t already compromised the ventilation system with vomit.
Still, even if she had air now, she might not always. She had to get somewhere and find out where she was and how long she had. She tried to remember what she’d been taught about zero gravity maneuvers. If you were stuck in the middle of a compartment, someone had said (who? was her memory going too?), you could put yourself into a spin and hope to bump into something. A slow spin, or you’d throw up. And how to spin? She twisted, experimentally, and then drew up her legs while extending her arms.
Something brushed her leg. She grabbed for it, automatically; her hand found nothing, but nausea grabbed her, proving that she’d tumbled. She flung out arms and legs both, to slow the rotation, and felt something brush her left elbow. Maddening—she couldn’t tell what it was. Slowly, she tried to reach across with her right hand. Whatever it was slid along her arm; she was moving again. On her shoulder, down her back . . . it was hard not to grab, but she waited . . . something linear, like a rope or length of tubing. Smooth, not rough. Cool.
Her head hit a surface, hard; she saw sparkles in the darkness for a moment, then her vision settled. Cautiously, she moved her hand up, found the surface, knobbly with switches. Some were rocker switches, smooth curves of plastic. Others were little metal toggles. A few were round, flat buttons with incised lettering—she could feel that, but not what the letters were. A control panel, but on what? She tried to remember what she’d seen before everything went wrong.
The image that came to her was grinning faces, mouths open, singing. A party. It had been a party, loud and happy—the rest of the memory burst over her. The ore-hauler, stuffed like an egg carton with the little four-person pods: the miners had their own plans for dealing with Benignity invaders. Faroe had been horrified—he knew they couldn’t survive a fight with the big ships. She had offered to go talk to them; he’d agreed. Then, against Faroe’s expectation (though she had never doubted it) Heris Serrano had defeated the Benignity ships. And Fleet had arrived: they were safe. The resulting celebration involved mysterious liquids far more potent than the fine wines and liquors her father served, even more potent than the illicit brews at school. The last she remembered was sinking peacefully into a bunk while a group of miners sang the forty-second verse of “Down by the Bottom of the Shaft.” Or perhaps the twenty-first verse the second time around. It had a fairly repetitious form, minor variations on the same few innuendoes, and she hadn’t exactly been paying close attention.