The Serrano Connection (108 page)

"Should we use the shuttle's wastecan before we suit up?" Hazel asked.

Brun shook her head. They would need every recycled bit of air and water. She started trying to shuck her own pants and realized that she was simply too stiff; it hurt too much. Hazel moved to help her; Brun held one of the grabons, and gritted her teeth as Hazel started to pull the stiff pants down.

"Is this the pilot's blood, or yours?" Hazel asked.

Brun shook her head, shrugged, and then nodded. It made no difference—the pants had to come off. Hazel worked them free, muttering.

"You're raw . . . from the riding, I hope. I didn't know it was so much worse without a saddle, or I'd have switched off with you—" She couldn't have done it, but Brun appreciated the offer, even as the breath hissed between her teeth.

"We have to put something on this," Hazel said finally. The chill air bit into the raw places and Brun shuddered at the thought of anything touching her. "I'll look." Moments of silence; Brun kept her eyes shut and tried to steady her breathing. It wasn't as bad as being raped; it wasn't as bad as being pregnant; it wasn't nearly as bad as childbirth. She had survived all that; this was just . . . an inconvenience. She opened her eyes and smiled at Hazel, who was watching her with a worried look. "I found a medkit, and put it in the other p-suit," Hazel said. "One of those emergency kits they always put near suit lockers." Brun nodded, and freed a hand to wave a go-ahead signal.

The bite of the painkilling spray would have gotten a yelp from her if she'd had the voice to yelp with, but the almost-instant cessation of pain was amazing. She'd forgotten how fast good meds worked. Hazel followed that with a spray of antibiotic and skin sealant. Brun unpeeled her hands from the grabon, and was able to snag the soft black pants she'd chosen and put them on herself.

Then into the p-suits, where the plumbing fixtures connected as they ought, and all the gauges and readouts worked. Brun sniffed the air coming from the nose filters—nothing she could smell, and the ship's suit-check said it was safe. They filled the suits' water tanks from the shuttle tanks. Brun folded an extra set of shipsuits into padding for the back of her p-suit, and Hazel followed her example. They packed up all the food they could find in the shuttle, and stuffed the p-suits' external storage.

All this had taken longer than Brun hoped, but according to the shuttle's scans, no active scan had pinged them yet. Now, she finished setting up the autopilot for what she hoped would be an effective screening action. Ideally, they would have been able to tie into the shuttle's scans from within the space station, and send it off under remote control. But Brun had long since given up waiting for ideal conditions. She would send it off on a time delay, giving them time to get well into the station. Hazel had left the outer lock open, with an air tank lashed in the gap just in case some officious bit of old programming was still operating and tried to shut it . . . so they didn't have to worry about entrance.

With the little fuel left aboard, she couldn't set up a very complicated course, and she had to assume that ground-based radars had plotted their whereabouts anyway. Probably one of the warships was even now maneuvering in for an attempt to recapture them. For maximum acceleration, Brun decided to run the takeoff and insystem drives together . . . something no experienced pilot would do, but it was the only way to get the ship well away in a hurry.

When she was done, she nodded at Hazel, and they both sealed up. They had made their plans; they had said all they had to say, until they were in the station. They crammed into the tiny airlock, and cycled out.

Outside was a confusion of highlight and black shadow; Brun followed Hazel along the length of the shuttle's hull to the station's wing. From here, she could see that there was a shuttle docking bay—if she'd known that, they could have been safe inside hours ago, because it looked as if it had passenger tubes still deployed. No time for that now. Hazel led her from one grabon to another toward the emergency lock portal.

They were almost to the portal when the grabon she held bounced in her hand, then vibrated strongly. Brun looked back. The shuttle's dual drive had come alive, and the little ship slid away from the station, its takeoff reaction engine exhaust glowing against the dark. It moved faster—faster—out into the sunlight, where it glittered like a bright needle.

Would their pursuers believe it? The course she'd plotted would have been hazardous for an experienced pilot, requiring extreme maneuvers to reverse-burn and survive atmospheric reentry, but it was the most direct way to the ground—if you didn't mind burning up along the way. They had no women pilots; even with what they knew of her background, they might think—she hoped they would think—that she was a panicky female who didn't understand orbital mechanics, who was running directly for cover.

She hadn't grown up hunting foxes for nothing.

She looked around again, trying to spot any of the warships. There, possibly—a dark shape blotting out part of the starfield. And there, below them, the more pointed shape of another shuttle, against the cloudfield on the planet below.

She felt her lips stretching in a grin that had no humor in it. Coming to catch her, were they? They'd get a surprise . . .

R.S.S.
Shrike

Sneaking a task force into a system with a single mapped jump point had taken considerable tricky navigation, especially since they knew few details of the defensive layout. Esmay, as
Shrike
's executive officer, had checked and double-checked every one of the short FTL hops that had brought them into the system via the jump point in another, nearby—nearby in stellar terms. But it had been a difficult period; some of the jumps had required flux levels well above those recommended. Once in the system, microjumps with low relative-vee insertion had hopped them in, apparently without detection, until they were positioned to observe the escape.

For days now they had hung unnoticed, well above the ecliptic, monitoring all transmissions from the planet. Far out, the rest of the task force waited in case of need, trading hours of scan lag for obscurity.
Shrike
had acquired several specialist crew who—according to Admiral Serrano—would enhance their chances if anything went wrong. This included Koutsoudas at scan, and Warrant Officers Oblo Vissisuan and Methlin Meharry, all three of whom had worked with Brun before. Esmay, watching Koutsoudas' enhanced scan at work, helped map everything it picked up.

At present, the enemy warships insystem included four lightweights in classic tetragonal array around the planet about half a light-second out, and another lightweight docked at the orbital station. Of the lightweights, three were escort-size, and two patrol-size. Three light-minutes out, something that massed like a half-sized cruiser seemed to represent the enemy's idea of a forward defensive force. All these had their weapons systems live, a careless convenience that made it easy for Koutsoudas to analyze them.

Word on the extrication had been mixed. The Guernesi agent in place had sent off a signal at the agreed frequency, but with "cows" instead of "cow" and mention of a price increase. The plan had not included bringing the babies . . . what could the plural mean? Had there been another woman with Brun? That could be disastrous; pursuit might follow more quickly or the other woman might resist. Esmay wondered if the second person could be the older girl from the merchanter.

Koutsoudas, listening in on transmissions, picked up something about "Ranger Bowie's patience" having disappeared, and more about a search under way for "the abomination."

"They know she's gone—I hope she got clean away."

"That's probably why Ranger Bowie's patience is gone—he captured her."

"Maybe."

When Koutsoudas acquired the shuttle's signal hours later, the tension increased again. Esmay felt she could hardly breathe. Now on the scan screens, the bright dot moved out, and out, coming ever nearer. If the plan worked perfectly, in a day or so they would rendezvous with the little craft, take Brun aboard, and jump outsystem before the enemy realized they had been there. Then—with Brun safe—the rest of the task force would have time to blockade the planet and start negotiating the return of the other prisoners. If the plan didn't work . . . a cascade of contingency plans devolved from any point of discovery.

"Go get some food, people," Captain Solis said. "It's going to be a long wait. Suiza, that means you, too—go eat, then sleep; be back in four hours."

Esmay tore herself away from the screens, and found she could actually down a full meal—she had skipped a couple without even noticing. She knew she should sleep, but she lay on her bunk not sleeping, thinking of Barin over on
Gyrfalcon
, of Lord Thornbuckle back at Sector, of the remarkable Professor Meyerson . . . the alarm woke her, and she rolled off her bunk, smoothed her hair—much easier, these days—and headed for the bridge.

There she found a grim mood unlike that earlier.

"That sonuvabitch has sold them out," Koutsoudas said. He bent over the scan. "He's cut out the insystem drive, put 'em on a zero-G ballistic for that Militia ship—" The enemy ships were still holding their tetragonal formation.

"What're our options?"

"We can microjump between them and the warship, but the backwash might get 'em. Stuff I'm getting is a minute old; we aren't sure where they are."

"It's worth a try."

"Wait!" Koutsoudas held up a hand. "Hot
damn
 . . . she wasn't fooled—"

"What's—?"

"There—I can't get focus on the cabin good enough, but there's something going on . . . what—there's
three
people in there, not two!"

"Rotation!" called another scan tech. Koutsoudas glanced at his screen.

"You're right, Atten. Let's see . . ." But they all saw that the shuttle's icon had come alight with the cone that meant acceleration. The cone lengthened, then lengthened again. Vectoring away from the planet, past the warship . . .

"Gotta be Brun," Koutsoudas said. "She's remembered to run past him. Come on, girl, knock it to the wall."

Moment by moment the cone lengthened, an arrow angled away from the planet, toward the distant freedom of deep space. But the little ship was deep in the gravity well, and the warship had the high ground.

"Weapons discharge!" yelled the other scan tech. They groaned; the shuttle was still in easy missile range of the warship. But just before the plotted course intersected, the cone lengthened again.

"That girl's born to win," Koutsoudas said. "She sucked that out of 'em like a pro. 'Course, their systems are optimized to hit big slow things—notice it didn't blow where it should have. They didn't change the arming options. Hope she figures that out. They'd have to be lucky—"

"Another enemy ship on the chase!" said the other tech. "Intersecting—more weapons discharges." The second ship, one of the patrol class, had left its station on the tetragonal array, and boosted to intercept.

Koutsoudas grunted. "Come on, girl—do something—" The cone shifted shape, its tip changing direction, the colors fragmenting and reforming. "Dammit, not that!"

"She's trying to dodge—she can't make it that way. It gives 'em time to get in position."

"It might work—if they don't think to reset their targeting options—if they don't get a lucky hit. But she'd do better to run this way. If she knew we were here . . ."

Esmay watched the displays, her heart pounding. She could imagine herself in Brun's place—every move Brun made was one she would have made, again and again.

"She's heading back—" the scan tech said. "Is she going to try to land on the planet?"

"No," Esmay heard herself saying. "She's heading for the orbital stuff."

"You think so?" Koutsoudas asked, without looking up. "And what makes you think that, Lieutenant?"

"It's her style. She'd have tried to jump, and something prevented her—that ship should have jump engines, but maybe they're not working. Failing that, a straight run would make her an easy target . . . so she dodged about, but that uses fuel. So she's looking for cover."

"That's a lot of thinking for someone just hauled out of prison," someone said.

"She wouldn't panic," Esmay said. "She's smart, brave, and a risk-taker."

"That's the truth." Koutsoudas flashed a quick grin. Then he sobered. "But she's in real trouble here—unless she's planning to toss herself out the door in a p-suit and hope they shoot the shuttle down. And—there's still two live ones in the shuttle. She brought someone with her."

"If they have multiple p-suits," Esmay said, "she'll probably try that. But given what we know about these people, I doubt there were p-suits for all of them aboard. We should microjump in closer."

"And tell their system we're here? Before the rest of the task force comes in? I thought you were the one who said one woman wasn't worth a war."

Would they always misinterpret that? Anger put an edge to her voice that even she could hear. "When there was a chance to get her out without one, no. In present circumstances, when a covert extrication has gone sour, it's the only way to get close enough to do her any good."