The Serrano Connection (109 page)

Captain Solis gave her a long look. "You would risk the entire operation—?"

"Microjump to within fifteen seconds scan delay, yes, sir, I would. Give 'em something else to think about. They know she was intended to meet something; they don't know what."

"They don't know for sure it was in this system—"

"If the pilot turned, he'd have told them everything up to the recognition codes. They know someone's waiting for her. We might as well show something—any delay can help her, and we can maneuver sufficiently for the integrity of this ship."

"Suiza, that sounds a lot more like the hero of Xavier." He turned to the communications officer. "Give me a tightbeam, and load a compressed summary of scan; we'll also drop a beacon. Thirty seconds to jump, people."

Shrike
popped out of its microjump at low relative system velocity, and the scans cleared.

"Total blackout 2 minutes 45 seconds," Koutsoudas said. Scan lit with the shuttle's beacon and the others—three escort-size warships, two patrol-size, something that massed like a half-size cruiser, and a clutter of small craft. All blazed with live-weapons warning icons. "They'll acquire us in a second or so—and we should be picking up active scan signals shortly—there . . ." The warships icons all showed acceleration cones; those already under boost had the skewed cones of ships changing direction. "Looks like we're sucking 'em off the shuttle." The skewed cones lengthened as those ships pulled away from their pursuit, to redirect their attention to the newcomer.

The shuttle's position had moved; it was clear now that it was running back toward the planet, with rapid changes of acceleration to make it a difficult target. The screens blinked as the SAR kinked in a tiny microjump, then cleared again. The enemy icons responded more slowly this time. Good. Anything to confuse them, distract them. Another jink, to within a half-second, and then another. A distant explosion, where one of the enemy had released a missile at more than maximum range, to detonate uselessly. It was low enough now to be in the orbital trash. It disappeared around the far side of the planet from them. Long minutes passed, while they waited, jinking in random sequence microjumps to keep the enemy guessing. If Brun had slowed enough, it would be another hour and a half before the icon reappeared.

Too soon, they saw it again, now moving rapidly in a suicidal dive for the surface.

"They'll burn up on the first pass, going like that," Koutsoudas said. "What the hell is that girl thinking of? Did she lose control of the ship?"

"Maybe she doesn't have enough fuel for a proper descent," someone else said. "Maybe she'd rather burn—"

"She's not in the ship," Esmay said. She could feel her heart pounding; she knew without question what Brun had done.

"What, you think it's flying itself? You're the one said they probably didn't have p-suits; they couldn't have spaced themselves."

"Unless they found something with p-suits, or an air supply," Esmay said. "If they did . . . I can see Brun sending the shuttle off as a decoy."

"The only active station—the only thing up there with air and p-suits—is the main station, where
Elias Madero
is docked," Koutsoudas said. "I can guarantee they didn't dock there—leaving aside the fact that if they did, they'd have been captured, because it's occupied."

"Uh-oh."

They turned. The Militia ships had not waited to see if the shuttle would burn. From safely outside the danger zone, they'd sent missiles in pursuit, and a dying flare of the screen showed that they'd hit it.

"Well," Captain Solis said. "That's that. Barring Lieutenant Suiza's unlikely suggestion that there are two p-suits now floating somewhere in orbit, they're dead. No one survives a direct hit on a shuttle."

Esmay had been flipping through Koutsoudas's scan catalog of the orbiting trash. "Here's something—and it's consistent with the origin of that burn."

"It's derelict," Koutsoudas said after a quick glance. "There's an old reactor at the core, but the rest of it's at ambient temp."

"It's big enough," Esmay said. "The shuttle course tracks back—"

Koutsoudas sighed, and pulled up an enlarged version of the thumbnail in the catalog. "Look—it's big, but it's a wreck. Even from here you can see that whole sections are open to vacuum . . ."

Esmay blinked. Open to vacuum they were, but—she remembered the Special Materials Fabrication Unit, open just like this. "Could it have been a vacuum processing or manufacturing facility?"

"They don't have anything like that," Captain Solis said. "They buy or steal their space-made products."

"They do now," Esmay said. "Didn't the Guernesi ambassador mention a facility that used to be here—from before the Militia took over this planet?"

"The operative word is derelict, Lieutenant. Even if Brun and her companion made it there, it won't do them any good. No air, no food, no effective shields, no weapons."

"It might've had p-suits, sir. Even if it was ransacked by the Militia, they might not have taken everything. I think she's there, and I think we should go get her."

"I think you're trying to redeem your career, Lieutenant, at the cost of other people's lives." Solis glared at her.

Silence descended on the bridge; Esmay could hear every breath anyone took. Then she heard her own.

"Sir, the captain has a right to whatever opinion of me the captain holds. But that woman—those women—have one chance only for survival, and that's someone on our side getting to them with air and protection before either their air runs out or the bad guys figure out that the shuttle was a decoy. If the captain thinks I'm a conniving glory-hound, there are others on this ship who can do the rescue. But it needs to be done."

Solis gave her a long look, which she met squarely. "You would volunteer for such a mission?"

Of course
leaped into her mouth, and she bit it back. "Yes, sir."

"Mmm. Who should go, do you think?"

"A full SAR team, sir. Even though we know of only two personnel who may have medical problems, we should anticipate that the Militia may send a boarding party . . . having figured Brun's thinking just as I have. We may be fighting; we will, at the very least, be doing a rescue under hostile conditions."

Solis looked around the bridge, and his gaze came to rest on Koutsoudas. "You've worked with Brun Meager—"

"Yes, sir."

"What do you think?"

"Sir, I think Lieutenant Suiza's right about how Brun thinks—she's very quick, very ingenious, and willing to take risks. If she did dock to any of the junk we've found orbiting this planet, that derelict station is the obvious place. If she's not dead, then that's where she'll be. Suiza's also right that if she did dock there, it would've been detected by any decent ground-based sensing system. We can't assume they don't have one. If I were the Militia, I'd have shuttles on the way—and in fact, we've spotted shuttle takeoffs, three altogether."

Solis looked past Esmay. "Meharry—you're also specially assigned to this mission—what's your assessment?"

"The lieutenant's on target, Captain. And the longer we sit around here jawing about it, the worse off Brun's going to be."

"Would you trust Lieutenant Suiza on a mission like this? Or is she grandstanding?"

Esmay was aware of Meharry's unquiet presence behind her. Rumor had spread many stories of Meharry, most of them unpleasantly concentrating on her lethal talents. "With me along, sure, Captain. Personally, I think she's straight, but if I'm there she won't have a chance to screw up."

"Lord Thornbuckle has insisted all along that Sera Meager would not want to see Lieutenant Suiza," Solis said, his tone still cool.

"I think Brun would be glad to see anyone on our side," Meharry said. "And from what I saw at Xavier, and heard from people on
Kos
, the lieutenant is ideally suited to this sort of thing." That could be taken more than one way, but Esmay wasn't feeling picky.

"Very well. Lieutenant, you'll take Team One, and Warrant Officers Meharry and Vissisuan." Esmay did not need to be told that they would be watching her, as much as helping Brun.

Freed at last to do what she knew she was best at, Esmay felt her spirits rising. Their mission was beyond difficult—but so had others been. Brun might not be on the derelict, or if she was, she might already have died from any of a thousand things. If they found her, they might find a corpse, or they might all be blown up by a Militia missile, aimed or stray.

None of that mattered now. Clear in her mind was the plan, as if someone had drawn it in scarlet ink on white paper . . . she heard herself explaining it in crisp phrases to the others. And they responded to her confidence, her enthusiasm.

By the time she was in the pinnace, her p-suit on but not sealed, and the gloves flipped back, the first flurry of action had settled to a purposeful, organized bustle.

The captain's voice in her ear caught her attention. "Lieutenant—you were right about two things. Koutsoudas says he's picked up a single signal from the derelict, something he believes only Sera Meager would send. Fleet frequencies, Fleet codes, and a message that the fox has gone to ground. And there's at least one shuttle headed for the derelict. We can't get you there before it arrives; our jump limit will leave you at least five minutes behind them."

"Yes, sir."

"The rest of the wave's insystem, and I've been in contact with the admiral. I'm sending both SAR teams, and the other pinnace will have all the supplies we can stuff into it. You have discretion to use whatever force is necessary to protect Sera Meager and her companion. We will be sending reinforcements when we've dealt with the other ships, but that may be some hours. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir." Hours . . . it might be days before they were reinforced. And they would have no heavy weapons. The sonic riot-control generators used in aired-up stations wouldn't work on a derelict open to vacuum . . . what could she use? "Meharry—"

"Yes, sir." Meharry's eyes had a feral glitter reflecting Esmay's own enthusiasm.

"Captain tells me we're going to be docking five minutes behind a hostile shuttle. The station's supposedly not aired up—at least, some of it isn't aired up. We'll need more than small arms."

"On it." Meharry ducked out, leaving Esmay staring at blank air. Well, she'd been with Heris Serrano for years . . . and this was how it was supposed to work . . . tell the good ones what to accomplish and then get out of their way. But she hadn't expected to feel quite this . . .

"Lieutenant—" It was a squad of the neuro-enhanced troops, heavily laden with weapons segments; their sergeant handed her a screenful of official numbers and letters for her signature—if they came back without all eight CFK-201.33-rs, it would be her job to explain where they had gone . . . and she hadn't a clue what they
were
, or any of the long list of components below them. She ran her command wand aross the bottom of the list, and handed it back.

"We'll be first out as usual . . ." the sergeant said, with not quite a question mark.

"Right," Esmay said, dragging her mind back from Meharry's disappearance and the mysteries of Fleet inventory control to the immediate tactical problem. "And with hostiles ahead of us, and no idea whether our rescue targets have pressure suits."

"Piece of cake," the sergeant said. "None of the hostiles are going to be female, from what I hear, and our targets are. So we just shoot the bad boys, and leave the girls alone."

"What now?" asked Hazel. Brun shrugged. She needed to think.  She was hungry, thirsty—she sipped at the helmet tube—and very, very sleepy. And her legs hurt; the anesthetic spray was wearing off.

What could they do, with the few weapons they had? She could almost hear Commander Uhlis's voice yelling at her in the class: your best weapon is between your ears. Yes, and she'd like to keep it there, preferably in one piece.

"If we could get the artificial gravity on," Hazel said, "then we could turn it off."

Brun supposed she meant in order to confuse their enemies—but it would gain them only minutes, if that. It would certainly reveal their presence—the gravity generator wouldn't be on if no one was here. A vague plan began to form in her brain, shapeless as rising mist.

Exploring the controls while in a p-suit was a lot safer than playing around with them otherwise; Brun grinned as she remembered Oblo's cautionary tales. She prodded one after another, seeing what worked.

"Lights!" Hazel said. That was obvious. But was it lights in this room or overall? Brun waved a wide-armed gesture; Hazel nodded and pushed off to explore. Brun peered at the panel. If she could figure out how to bring up station scan, there should be an idiot display somewhere on the main board that would tell her what she needed to know, in several languages and nonverbal symbols. Since the controls worked at all, she ought to be able to bring up station scan.