Hope's Folly (8 page)

I'm trying to keep you all alive
was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't—
wouldn't
—say it. An admiral doesn't make excuses. An admiral doesn't explain. An admiral acts.

Two stripers standing at the waiting area's edge took a few steps in. Philip raised his chin, gave his head a small, negative shake. A show of weapons right now would be counterproductive. These were families with children, for the most part. Tired, cranky, and, yes, angry. But they didn't need the insult of stripers bearing Blue Surgers added to the injury of yet another delay.

He counted fifty-two in the queue that wove past two wide pylons and wondered where the fifty-third one was. Then he realized she was standing by his side, her duffel now gone.

“Get in line, Lieutenant. Seats will be first come, first served.” And the dirtside shuttle would be a small one.

“I'll board when you do, sir.”

Any argument he would have made was halted by the arrival of the dirtside shuttle disgorging its passengers in several noisy clusters. They'd been delayed at the spaceport and, judging from the scowls and grumbling, were in no better frame of mind than those in the waiting room.

He counted forty-five departing. Fifty-three, fifty-four with himself, needed to board. It would be tight— though some could go below if the shuttle had a pressurized cargo deck.

Carmallis appeared at his side. “The ship needs ten minutes to refuel and restock.”

“Fuel's most important. Then water. Just the basics. We're not expecting luxury.” It would be an eight-to ten-hour trip to Seth, depending on the shuttle's speed.

“I'll tell the captain.” She bustled off.

He went in search of Martoni and found him in the middle of the queue, half hidden by a wide pylon, and informed him of the short delay and the possibility of tight quarters.

“We have everyone's baggage almost loaded,” Martoni said, motioning to Philip's duffel. “Sir, I can take that.”

“I'll keep it,” he told Martoni, then turned and almost mowed over his subbie, whose name he'd yet to learn.

“Lieutenant,” he said, but loud, hard voices halted his intended question.

Two men shouted as they advanced on the tubeway and the shuttle crew at the check-in counter.

“Oh, God.” His subbie sounded exasperated. “Mr. Wonderful and his best friend.”

He glanced quickly at her.

“I had to ream them a new one earlier when they tried to take seats away from an elderly couple,” she explained hurriedly. “I probably should have shot them then.” Her hand snaked inside her jacket.

Philip touched her arm. “Leave that pleasure to the locals.”

Her answering sigh was filled with regret, but she didn't refasten her jacket.

“But I paid my money!” the bearded man bellowed. “I have my goddamned rights.”

His friend pounded the counter. “Yeah. Yeah!”

The two stripers broke into a trot.

Philip looked over his shoulder at Martoni. “Get your people loaded. Now.” Once the shuttle was away, the problem would solve itself.

Then a third person rose from one of the back rows of seats. A woman, waving her ticket in the air. “I paid my money too!”

Some people looked away, but a lot watched her and watched the bearded man and his now red-faced friend too.

Carmallis's voice came over the speakers. “Ladies and gentlemen, this shuttle is a priority military requisition. You will take your seats or you will be removed from the waiting area by security.”

“Military?” the woman with the tickets called out. “This ain't no military. It's a lie. Somebody got paid off.”

More angry voices rose around her. One of the stripers pulled away from the ticket counter and headed for the woman, his Blue Surger now in his hands.

Damn it, this is wrong. It makes no sense.
Something about the agitators’ tones and stances seemed staged, forced.

Philip checked the queue. About half were on board. Martoni was still by the hatchlock, next to a decidedly nervous slender woman in the shuttle company's light-green uniform, holding a databoard.

He nudged his subbie without taking his gaze off the commotion. “Go on.”

“With all due respect, Admiral, hell, no.”

That warranted a narrow-eyed glance. She didn't budge. And she had a Stinger in her hand, partly shielded from view by the pylon in front of her.

Another loud shout brought his gaze up.

“You wanna arrest me? Go right ahead!” The bearded man backed away from the counter, hands held high, but his tone and manner were clearly taunting the striper.

Philip saw Carmallis moving in from the right, her comm link to her mouth. Then something else caught his eye. Movement almost behind him, near the tube-way at the far end of the waiting area. More stripers? No, they would come from—

He dropped his cane, twisting, drawing his Carver smoothly as five dark figures burst through the service doors next to the far hatchlock. The high-pitched whine of lasers filled the air.

“Down! Get down!” Philip shouted, returning fire, very aware he was an open target in those few seconds, but he had no choice. There were children and elderly in the rows to his left.

Ignoring his leg, he dropped to his knees behind the pylon and fired again as people fled, screaming.

Something crashed in front of him. A long bench, upended, then another, forming a low barricade. His subbie scrambled toward him. “Guthrie!”

He launched himself sideways with a pained, grunted epithet, well aware he might not be able to walk after this, then ducked behind the metal barrier she'd created. His subbie had her Stinger out and was laying down a pattern of fire, keeping their attackers momentarily pinned behind the tubeway check-in counter.

He holstered his Carver with one hand and made a desperate grab at his duffel with the other, dragging it closer, his hip throbbing in painful protest. Teeth gritted in pain, he unlocked the duffel in two quick moves, then yanked out the Norlack, took aim, and fired.

The counter exploded.

He fired again, dropping one of the black-clad figures. He swung to his right for another, but that one was already falling from the stream of fire from the Stinger next to him.

“Admiral Guthrie!”

He recognized Martoni's voice. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a line of stripers surging down the corridor.

“I'll cover you. Now!”

He looped the duffel's strap over his shoulder. No way he was leaving his arsenal behind. “Subbie. On three. Ready?”

She was grinning, her eyes bright. She shoved her beret down the front of her shirt. “Ready.”

“One … two … three!” He lurched to his feet, fired once more at his attackers, then took off for the hatchway in his best painful-beyond-belief limping run, laser fire whining around him.

Philip shoved his subbie ahead into waiting hands that tugged and pulled both her and him into the safety of the hatchlock. Someone took his duffel and the Norlack, the hatchlock clanging shut behind him. He let them go this time, because pain screamed through his body and he didn't know how he was going to make it the twenty feet down the tubeway to the ship without falling flat on his face.

An arm went around his waist, a mass of curly brown hair brushed against his shoulder, and he leaned on her, damning his leg but, more so, damning his stupidity.

He should have recognized a diversion the moment the bearded man first shouted. He hadn't, and people back on the station—civilians—were likely injured or dead.

So were most of the attackers. He hoped Carmallis figured it out and had the bearded man—Mr. Wonderful— and his friend in custody. And the ticket-waving woman. They were all part of it.

“Admiral Guthrie, are you all right?” Martoni had his other arm now.

“All things considered, yes.” Philip grunted. He shoved at Martoni. “We'll need an armed escort. Tell the captain. Find out what armaments this bucket has. And get your best combat pilot on standby!”

Philip doubted that five attackers were the sum total of the operation the Imperials or the Farosians or whoever was behind this planned to throw at him. Someone wanted to make very sure Admiral Philip Guthrie didn't make it to the Seth shipyards.

Martoni nodded, then plunged through the shuttle's airlock.

Seconds later, Philip and his subbie hobbled through. They were just aft of the bridge and faced the shuttle's small galley. The aisle to his right led to rows of seats filled with people jostling into position, anxious faces turning toward him.

He offered a quick salute, then, still leaning on his subbie, turned for the bridge. Martoni was angled over the back of the captain's chair, talking rapidly. The copilot, a human male with a bushy dark mustache, and the navigator, an older Taka, nodded as Philip edged into the narrow open hatchlock. He took in the shuttle's bridge with a practiced eye. A good ship, less than ten years old judging from the screens and equipment blinking at him. From the configuration, he guessed it to be a 200-plus-ton Rouder. Sturdy and serviceable.

“Status, Martoni.” His damned voice rasped from the pain.

Martoni straightened. “Station has a P-33 now deploying as escort. Umoran Defense will have another a few minutes behind us. We're breaking dock in … ” He glanced at the captain's armrest screen.

“Five minutes,” the captain said, twisting in her chair. She was his own age. No, older, mid-fifties, her pale hair pulled back in a long braid shot through with silver, her face carrying that elegance some women gain later in life. Her eyes, more green than hazel, were lightly edged by lines. “I flew planetary defense for Umoran for fifteen years, Admiral. We'll get you to Seth.”

He could feel sweat beading at his temples. His leg throbbed.

“Acknowledged. Thanks.” That was good news. A P-33 wasn't. An older thirty-three-ton patrol ship, no ion cannon. Lasers and, if they were lucky, maybe one torpedo bay.

Damned shame he couldn't shoot his own leg off. He shoved his thoughts away from the pain again.

“What are we carrying defensively?” he asked Martoni and the captain—who had a name but, as with his subbie, there hadn't been time to engage in pleasantries. Rank would do until all emergencies were handled.

“Standard laser weapons package you'd find on most Rouders,” she said, confirming the shuttle's pedigree. Then she grinned slightly, almost impish. “And a highly illegal Gritter, but you didn't hear me admit that.”

A Gritter—a GRT-10 plasma cannon. Small, powerful, and one of the more common weapons used by traders, because it was easily disguised as part of an en-viro unit or an auxiliary sublight drive. Of course a shuttle like hers would have one.

He could have kissed her, if that small move wouldn't put him flat on the decking.

“Find a seat, strap in,” she told him, her demeanor once again focused, serious. “It's going to be ditch and drop,” she glanced at her armrest screen, “in two minutes.”

His subbie tugged his arm. “This way. I'll clear you a seat.”

“Floor,” he said tightly, pointing to the open area between the galley and the airlock. “I need that leg straight out.” Or he was going to die right then and there from the pain. “Then you get yourself safe in a seat.”

“Floor,” she agreed.

He leaned against the bulkhead, ship's drives shuddering hard through his body as they kicked to max, and slid clumsily to the decking. He forced his right leg out, teeth clenched, eyes closed, and fought the urge to pound the back of his head against the bulkhead.

At least that would create a pain he could control.

“One minute to departure.” The captain's voice sounded calmly over the speakers.

A sudden lack of warmth on his left told him his subbie had disappeared. Probably to strap in to a seat. Finally, she was listening to him!

Then the warmth was back and, as the shuttle and his stomach lurched sideways, a hand came down firmly on his shoulder. Then a brief sting of something very small and very cold.

“What the hell?” he ground out, slitting his eyes open to see her palming a short cylindrical hypo. “Subbie, tell me you didn't do what I think you”—a slow, numbing heat trickled through his body—“just did.”

“Quarter dose, Guthrie.” Her beret was back on at that jaunty angle. “Courtesy of the shuttle's med kit, so it's probably not all that strong. Just enough to take the edge off. I hate to see grown men cry.”

“I don't cry.” He wiped the back of his hand over his face. It came back damp. God, were those tears? No. “That's sweat.” He glared at her.

Damn, she had a beautiful smile.

Must be the drugs.

The stiffness leached out of his back, and the spasms lessened in his right leg. It still throbbed, but the pain was down to a dull roar.

“Better?” she asked.

“Wipe that smug look off your face. That's an order. ”

“Just doing what I'm trained to do.”

“Polite, professional, and prepared to puncture?”

She snorted out a laugh.

“We were set up, Subbie. Ambushed back there.”

Her smile faded. “I caught on just about when you did. Mr. Wonderful played his part well.”