Heris Serrano (101 page)

Issi Guar said, "There's something coming into the system—something big."

"Not Labienus and the Tenth Legion again," Heris said. They had been dragged through innumerable ancient texts on warfare in the Academy: ground, sea, air, and space. One of the clubs had put on a skit about Labienus and the Tenth Legion—the way the Tenth Legion kept showing up like an adventure cube hero in the nick of time—which they all thought very funny until one of their professors reminded them of Julius's career stats. Nonetheless, it had become a byword among officers of her class.

"No . . . I doubt it." His fingers flew over the board, trying on one screen after another. "I wish we'd gotten that VX-84 you found, Oblo."

"She said nothing stolen," Oblo said, with a sidelong glance at Heris.

"I said nothing
illegal
," Heris corrected. "But you didn't pay any attention to that—what stopped you this time?"

"Guy wanted more than I wanted to pay . . . I don't like messy jobs." Messy, to Oblo, could have several meanings. "Let him take care of his own family problems," he continued. Heris let it roll over her and tried to figure out what the Compassionate Hand commanders were doing. The yacht was running flat out, on a course that the gas giant and its satellites would curve into a blunt parabola. They had emerged from jump too close to its mass to do anything else. The two larger C.H. vessels paralleled it, slowly catching up; the signal delay from them was down to five seconds. The third had been unable to gain on them.

Meharry appeared at the bridge entrance, bloodstained and breathless. "Captain—it wasn't Sirkin after all. It was Skoterin. Sirkin's been shot; she's alive—"

"INTRUDER YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. UNDER THE JUSTICE OF THE BENIGNITY OF THE COMPASSIONATE—"

"Now, Arkady!" Heris said.

"—HAND YOU STAND CONDEMNED OF TRESPASS, REFUSAL TO HEAVE TO—"

"They never said 'Heave to'; they said 'don't maneuver'," Oblo said. "Weapons away, Captain. And it's supposed to be 'convicted,' not 'condemned.' "

"—AND OTHER SERIOUS CRIMES FOR WHICH CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS THE CUSTOMARY SENTENCE. PROTESTS WILL BE REGISTERED WITH YOUR GOVERNMENT AND INDEMNITY DEMANDED FOR YOUR CRIMES. BY THE POWER VESTED IN ME AS AN OFFICER OF THE—"

"Targeting . . . incoming, live warheads,
much
faster than before."

"BENIGNITY OF THE COMPASSIONATE HAND, SENTENCE IS HEREBY CARRIED OUT. JUSTINIAN IKLIND, COMMANDER—"

"I think those little warts were just testing us before—" Ginese sounded more insulted than worried.

"Get off my board, Oblo, and let me at them," Meharry said.

"Spoilsport." They switched places smoothly, and Oblo returned to his own console. His brows rose. "My, my. Look who's come calling."

"Unless it's half a battle group, I don't care," Heris said, her eyes fixed on the main screen. The incoming missiles jinked, but relocked on the yacht; their own seemed to be going in the right direction but—no—she lost them in the static from the incomings, which had just blown up far short of their target.

"If they thought all we had was ECM to unlock targeting, they're going to be annoyed," Ginese said.

"That wasn't a bad guess, Captain," Oblo said. "Although it's only one cruiser."

"Our side?"

"By the beacon, yes. By behavior—we'll have to see when their scans clear. It says it's Livadhi again."

Livadhi's cruiser had arrived with far more residual velocity than the yacht, and more mass as well—it appeared on the scan with its icon already trailing a skewed angle. Livadhi, it seemed, meant to be in on the action.

The Compassionate Hand ships, on the other hand, made it clear what they thought of his interference. One engaged him at once, with a storm of missiles. The other changed course, angling across the yacht's path to come between the yacht and Livadhi's cruiser. The third—

Heris reached out for the tight beam transmitter they weren't supposed to have. "Oblo, get me a lock on Livadhi's ship."

"Why? He's got Koutsoudas on scan one—d'you think he'd miss anything?"

"No, but he's being shot at. Give him a break, can't you?"

"Right." Oblo nodded when he had the lock.

Heris flipped the transmitter switch. "Livadhi—third bogie on your tail—watch it."

As if he'd been waiting for her signal, her own tight beam receiver lit. "We've got to stop meeting like this, Heris. You got bad data at Rotterdam. You've got a traitor aboard. That's why we're here."

"Not for long if you don't watch it," Heris sent back, eyeing her own scans. But Livadhi, in a fully crewed cruiser, had more eyes to watch than she did, and the first attacking missiles died well outside his screens. She wondered what his orders were—if he had any—because his counterattack was already launched. She had never thought of him as a possible rogue commander, but here he was deep in someone else's territory and opening fire.

"Something else I wish we had," Oblo muttered, watching. "Screens that would stop something bigger than a juice can."

"Wouldn't fit, remember?" Military-grade ship screens ate cubage and power both; offensive armament could be crammed into small ships without room for shields.

Both Compassionate Hand cruisers now engaged Livadhi's ship. Heris began to hope everyone would forget about her . . . given enough time, they could continue their swing around the gas giant, reach a safe jump distance, and disappear. That would leave Livadhi in a fix, but he seemed to be doing very well. His first salvo sparkled all over one of the enemy's screens, an indication that he had almost breached them. And if he had come to rescue them, give them a chance, then the smart thing to do was creep away and let the professionals do the fighting. She didn't really like that, but the yacht was no warship.

"Captain—" That was Petris, on the intercom. "Medical report: We've got three dead, two critical, three serious—"

"Lady Cecelia?"

"Alive, conscious, in pain but she'll make it. Skoterin, Mr. Smith, and Haidar are dead. Sirkin and Lady Cecelia's communications therapist are critical—we may lose them without a trauma team, which we don't have. Three others of her medical team are in serious condition. Lady Cecelia's physician is unhurt, but trauma's not her specialty—she's a geriatric neurologist—and she says she's out of her depth with open chest and belly wounds."

Heris fought down her rage and grief. That wouldn't help. She felt her mind slide into the familiar pattern . . . a cool detachment that allowed rapid processing of all alternatives, uncluttered by irrelevant worries. They had dying passengers; they needed medical care. The nearest source of trauma care was . . . right over there, being shot at.

And of course it was the best excuse for getting involved, although she pushed back a niggling suspicion that that carried more weight than it should.

"Thank you, Petris," she said. "We'll do what we can. Livadhi's out there now, and he has a trauma center. Assuming we win the battle."

Silence for a moment, as he digested that, and calculated for himself the probability that the yacht and Livadhi's ship might be in one piece, in one place, able to transfer patients, before they died. "Right. I'm going back down to check the damage—stray shots hit some circuits around there, and now that we've no live environmental specialists—" It was not the time to tell him that one of the things she loved about him was his ability to stick to priorities.

"I think," she said, in a thoughtful tone that made Oblo and Meharry give her a quick look, "I
think
those Compassionate Hand ships have decided we're not worth bothering with. They seem to think the important thing is keeping Livadhi away from us."

"Yes, Captain?" Oblo looked both confused and hopeful.

"Well, they got between us. All of them—" Because the trailing third ship had risked a microjump—a
huge
risk, but it had worked—to catch up to the battle. Dangerous, but it had worked. "And nobody's targeting us. Now speaking as a tactical commander, don't you think that was stupid?" None of them answered, but they all grinned. "I think they just put themselves in our trap. Oblo, how much maneuvering scope do we have?"

"Not much—but we can close the range on them, if you want. It'll cost us another half hour to a safe jump range."

"Jump won't get our wounded to care any sooner," Heris said. "But Livadhi's got a perfectly good sickbay over there, if somebody doesn't blow a hole in it. Let's make sure no one does."

The Compassionate Hand ships clearly thought they had an enemy cruiser locked in their box; for all that Heris's scans could detect, they paid no attention to the yacht's change of course that brought her swinging out toward the warships. They were too busy pounding at Livadhi's ship, and dealing with his salvos. If the yacht had not existed, it would have been a well-conducted attack, almost textbook quality.

"Of course, when we
do
fire, they'll be all over us," Heris said.

"If they don't notice us another minute or so, we'll be close enough to blow one of them completely," Ginese replied.

"One of them . . ." Meharry said softly. "But the other two will have to acquire us, get firing solutions . . . we have time."

That minute passed in taut silence. Livadhi's attack breached one of the enemy ship's shields, but it neither broke up nor pulled away. Major damage, was Oblo's guess, but he couldn't understand the Compassionate Hand transmissions, which were in a foreign language and encoded anyway. "I think they rolled her, though, to put the damaged shields on this side."

"That's your prime target," Heris told Ginese. "You know wounded C.H. commanders—they get suicidal. How much longer?"

"At your word, Captain."

"Now." The yacht shivered as Ginese sent a full third of its ballistic capability down the port tubes and out toward the wounded C.H. ship. Oblo rolled the yacht on its axis to present the remaining loaded tubes to the fight. Seconds ticked by. Then the yacht's missiles slammed into the enemy cruiser, one after another exploding in a carefully timed sequence. The external visual darkened, protecting its lenses from the flare of light as the cruiser itself ruptured and blew apart.

Heris spent no time watching. "Oblo—maximum deceleration, now."

He gave her a startled look but complied. The yacht could not withstand extreme maneuvers, but a course change like this might be enough to surprise the enemy. And avoid any late-arriving missiles that Livadhi had sent at that cruiser. Unfortunately, it would blur their scans just when they needed them clear, but—

"There they go—Livadhi did have a couple on the way."

"I would hate to get blown away by my rescuer," Heris said.

"I have a lock on the second cruiser," Meharry said. "Permission—"

"Do it." Again the yacht shivered; she wasn't built for this kind of stress. But the salvo was away . . . Heris tried to calculate what that did to their gross mass, and what that meant to maneuvering capability, but at the moment the figures wouldn't come.

The scans had adjusted to their new settings; she could see that the other two Compassionate Hand ships were changing course, the trailing one swinging wide now, losing range to take up a safer position, where Heris could not attack it without risking Livadhi in the middle or performing maneuvers beyond the yacht's capacity. The nearer enemy ship and Livadhi continued to exchange fire, and Oblo reported that the nearer ship was trying to get a targeting lock on the yacht.

With their course change, it took seconds longer for their salvo to reach the enemy, and this time someone had been watching. Heris felt a grudging admiration for a crew that could react that quickly to a new menace. Half their missiles detonated outside the ship's shield, and the rest splashed harmlessly against it. Return fire, already on its way . . . but Meharry and Ginese were able to break the target lock of some, and the timers of the rest.

This time it was Livadhi's crew that exploited an opening—or perhaps defending against Heris's attack had taken just that necessary bit from the shields—for Livadhi's salvo blew through, and the enemy cruiser lost power and control. It tumbled end over end, shedding pieces of itself to clutter the scans.

"And that leaves number three," Ginese said.

"And their reinforcements. It may take them a while to get here, but they'll arrive."

The third ship now fell farther back. Heris didn't trust that, but she didn't have the resources to pursue it. Instead, she changed course again, returning to maximum forward acceleration, and put a tight beam on Livadhi's ship.

"We have critical casualties," she said. "Can you accept five patients?"

"How's your ship?"

"Not from that—from a fight inside. That traitor you mentioned."

"I see. Frankly, I don't want to risk docking with you while that other warship's untouched . . . I can send over a pinnace with a trauma team, would that help?"

"Yes." It would help, but would it be enough? She could see Livadhi's point—if she'd commanded the cruiser, she wouldn't want to have some civilian ship nuzzled up close when an attack started. "But we have no supplies for trauma, and just empty space . . . send what you can."