Great. She was not only unconscious, but naked. Heris could imagine explaining this to Lord Thornbuckle: sorry, sir, but I let your daughter experience war in the company of drunken miners and they dumped her into a pod, unconscious and naked, and shoved her out into the debris of battle. . . . No. Not a good plan. Something had to be done. “Do they have any kind of location on the pod?” she asked.
“No, sir.” Faroe looked miserable, as well he might. “I’ve had our scan techs on it since I heard, of course, but there’s so much—”
“Captain, you won’t believe this.” It was Koutsoudas, from across the bridge. Heris looked up. “Some idiot rockjumper is trying to collect weaponry with a personnel pod.” He pointed to an icon that darted into a drift and then back out. “At least he’s got some sense, but—”
“ ’Steban, put a lock on that pod. Can you do a retro analysis—could that have come from the ore-hauler four or five hours ago?”
“It only turned its beacon on a few minutes ago, but let’s see if I can get any kind of trace on the recordings. Hmm. Yes, it could’ve. Why?”
“Because it’s Brun,” Heris said. Only Brun could be that lucky, although her luck could run out any moment. “You’re going to have to guide Sweet Delight to it for a pickup. Faroe, are you getting this?”
“Yes . . .” He sounded less confident than she felt. He hadn’t been around Brun that long. “It’s pretty thick stuff to take the yacht in. . . .”
“You’re right.” Heris thought a moment. “What we need is in the incoming formations. If we can help her stay alive that long . . . I need a tightbeam to the Harrier,” she said.
Brun had forgotten everything but the scans that told her where the rocks were thickest. She had once thought it must be fun to pilot a pod like this in the rings of a gas giant; now she understood the look she’d gotten when she said so to the miners. And although she’d read that rocks usually drifted along together, all moving about the same vector and velocity, these rocks didn’t act that way at all. She was constantly having to dodge rocks coming in at different angles, different speeds. She was almost glad she hadn’t found any clothes, since she was dripping with sweat.
When the control panel suddenly spoke to her, in a scratchy simulation of a voice she knew, she didn’t notice until it repeated her name the third or fourth time. “Brun! Brun! Can you hear us? Brun!”
Communications. Now where was that switch? She groped around until she found it and another little screen lit up to say that her transmitter had full power. “I hear you, but I’m busy,” she said, flicking the starboard thruster on again. One thing about it, she was getting better at this all the time.
“Brun, is that you?”
“Yes, it’s Brun. There’s a lot of rocks out here.” Then curiosity got past her concentration. “Who is this?” she asked.
“Koutsoudas,” she heard. “Brun, you need to let me give you some guidance; someone’s going to pick you up.”
“Why can’t you just give me a vector over to Sweet Delight?”
“Won’t work,” Koutsoudas said. “And I doubt you’ve the fuel for it.” Brun glanced at the fuel display and was shocked at how much she’d already used. She’d been trying to do short adjustments but—“Give me a tenth-second burp starboard,” Koutsoudas said, before she could think about it. “Now port.” Something slid by in the scan, long and narrow with a thermally active tip.
“I don’t understand all these thermally active rocks,” she said to Koutsoudas. “I thought volcanoes had to be on planets.”
“They aren’t rocks,” he said. While she was thinking about that, he gave her more directions. Now the scan blips thinned out.
“But they’re not ships . . .” Brun said. She could see the ships clearly. These things were a lot closer.
“No,” Koutsoudas said. “They’re weapons.”
“You mean—someone was shooting at me? Why?”
“No, you were crossing drifts of misses—missiles that didn’t hit their target. You’re almost out of it now—”
Brun realized she was shaking. It was stupid; she was almost out of it now.
“Is there a suit aboard?” Koutsoudas asked. “You’ve got ten minutes before your next drift, if you can find a suit—”
She found an EVA suit, a drab utilitarian model nothing like her custom suit. Its owner had been shorter; Brun felt the pressure all along her spinal column once she’d struggled into it. But the locks did fasten, and the internal gauges did turn green. It was fully charged with air, water, and power. Best of all, the suit boots had gripper feet; she now had a solid down.
She worked her way back to the control panel and discovered that it was just possible to handle the switches in gloves. She plugged in the suit com to the pod’s com, and told Koutsoudas she was suited.
“Just in case,” he said, in the same calm voice he’d used all along. “Now—what’s your fuel situation?”
“Down to ten percent.” And she didn’t know what ten percent was, in terms of use. She didn’t even know how long she’d been using it.
“Then give me one-half second, thrusters seven and four.” She could see the fuel display sag at that, and she said so.
“Not much longer,” Koutsoudas said.
When the blow came, it took her by surprise, and slammed her against the adjacent lockers. The suit’s padding protected her, but the boots came unstuck from the deck, and she tumbled. Another blow to the pod sent her tumbling in another direction. The pod rang with noise: clangs, scrapes, piercing squeals. Finally it was still. Brun put out a cautious foot and it stuck. She could hear nothing; the end of the communication cable waved around, making it clear that she’d come unplugged. She moved slowly back to the control panel, and plugged it in. A patient voice was calling her, not Koutsoudas but someone else.
“Brun—Brun—Brun—”
“I’m here,” she said. “Just shaken up.”
“Good,” the voice said. “You’re now locked onto the R.S.S. minesweeper Bulldog, en route to the Harrier. Remain in your spacesuit; do not attempt to leave your vessel until docking is complete and you have received notification.” And that was the end of that; her comlink cut off and would not reopen.
It seemed like a long time later that a gentler series of bumps woke her from a nap. The comlink hissed gently, live again, then another voice spoke to her.
“Brun?”
“Yes,” she said, feeling grumpy. “I’m here.” Where else would she be?
“Your pod is aboard our ship—it’s the R.S.S. Julian Child—”
“I thought I was going to something called Harrier,” Brun said.
A chuckle. “Oh, you are. But Harrier has no facilities for docking like this, and the admiral thought it would be safer to transport you by shuttle, not make you swim tubes.”
“Oh. Thanks.” Admiral. What admiral? Where was Heris? Where, for that matter, was Lady Cecelia?
“We understand you’re in a vacuum-capable suit . . . if you’ll open your hatch—it’s the left-hand flat button—”
“That says exterior hatch, caution. Yes, I know.”
“That will put you in our number six docking bay. It’s not aired up—if you have any concerns about your suit air, please tell me now. There’s an airlock to ship-normal air about six meters to your left, as you exit, and suited personnel will be there to help you.”
Outside the pod, Brun saw a vast cargo bay open to space; craft she had no name for were parked along the sides, and her pod filled the open middle. Beyond the lip of the bay, she could see the hull of another ship, a shape so odd she wasn’t at first sure it was a ship. She stared until someone touched her suited arm, took the dangling cable of her comunit, and plugged it into his own suit.