Trading in Danger (20 page)

“She’s alive,” Cally said. “The medics are with her now.”

“What happened?”

Cally explained briefly. Quincy’s color had come back during that, and now she snorted. “Idiot boys!”

Cally agreed with her but wasn’t going into that. “Understand you’re head of engineering.”

“Yes.”

“You reported no functional FTL drive. How did this ship get here with no functional FTL drive?”

“It failed us coming in,” Quincy said. “I swear I thought it had ten more jumps in it, at least, when we left Slotter Key. But there was a little wobble coming into Belinta, and then it was worse leaving Belinta, and the downjump to Sabine—well, the sealed unit went haywire, and we’ve got cavitation damage downstream…”

“Um.” So much for using this ship as a courier, which was what the Old Man had hoped for.
Victor
carried spare sealed units, but nothing that would fit on this tub.

“We were trying to arrange repairs at the station when you blew the ansibles—” Quincy glared at her. Cally realized that the old woman wasn’t scared. Was that good or not?

“What makes you think we blew the ansibles?” she asked.

“You have the big guns,” Quincy retorted. “Nobody else would blow ansibles.”

Civ thinking. People who have the weapons would use them, never mind why.

“We didn’t blow the ansibles,” Cally said. No reason not to tell them that. No reason not to start setting the record straight. “We don’t want trouble with ISC.”

“Then who did?”

“Don’t know. Not us, that’s all I know. So, your FTL’s out. What about your other systems?”

“Fine so far.” The old woman was still angry. Not scared a bit—well, the old were like that, if they weren’t scared of everything.

Ky woke slowly, as from deep sleep. It didn’t feel right. What didn’t feel right, she wasn’t sure at first. A smell… not the smell of her cabin. Astringent, even medical. She opened her eyes. Above her, too close, was a shiny curved surface; when she tried to move, her arms bumped into something firm and unyielding.

The curved surface lifted away from her face. Now she could see more—and nothing reassuring. Too far away, now, the overhead with rows of lights; too big, the compartment in which she lay enclosed in something uncomfortably like a coffin.
Medbox,
her mind told her.

She struggled to put facts together in a string that made sense. Medbox meant injury… She had been injured? When? Where? And this place she was in… what was it? Where? A face hung over her; she had never seen it before, that she was sure of, if nothing else.

Its expression was serious. The mouth opened.

“Do you know your name?”

Name. What you call yourself, that is your name. Ky fumbled around in a brain that felt like a basket of wool puffs, until a sharp angular fact prodded her inquiry. Name. Your name from him meant my name to me… My name is… “Kylara Vatta,” she said.

“Ah. And do you know where you are?”

She looked around as far as she could see over the rim of the medbox. For some reason it seemed more like a ship than a hospital onplanet. “I’m in a medbox,” she said. “On a ship? I don’t know for sure.”

“Do you know the date?”

She had no idea. The whole concept of
date
seemed slippery. “No…”

“No matter,” the man said. The knowledge that he was a man and not a woman had slid into her mind without her thinking about it. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

She didn’t remember anything, but she pushed at the gray fuzzballs. Past the screen of her mind ran the equations for calculating oxygen output from a Class III environmental system per square meter of reactive surface—so she recited that, and then the ones for calculating drift on downjump.

“Think of a person,” the man said.

She tried, but couldn’t remember anyone to think of—person meant someone like her, like the man leaning over the medbox. Suddenly a cascade of faces appeared on the screen. Her father, her mother, her brother, her uncle, Cousin Stella, Aunt Gracie Lane, Gaspard, the Commandant, Mandy Rocher…

“Ah…” the man said.

The faces combined in scenes, in actions. Then a white streak blanked out everything for an instant, as if lightning had fired inside her head, and she was abruptly completely awake, oriented, rememoried, and very, very frightened.

She knew what that was. That was a memory module insertion. Someone had her memories on a mod, and they’d just reloaded her brain.

Which meant her brain had been… at least stuck in off and at worst completely gorked.

And she knew why.

“That
idiot
!” she said, meaning Skeldon.

“It was a stupid thing to do,” the man agreed. “I gather you didn’t know about it.”

“No, I didn’t know about it.” Residual fear made her cranky. “I told them—”

“We know that much—it was on your recorder. What I’m asking is, did you know he had that crush on you?”

“No,” Ky said. Then, less willingly, “Not exactly. I knew he was too grateful that we took them aboard, but I thought he’d go for Mehar in the end.”

“The end wasn’t long enough,” the man said. “Here’s the situation: you were knocked cold and got a bullet in the arm. The bullet was no problem; the stray needle we took out of your ankle was no problem either. But the head injury was bad enough that we did a pattern extraction and replacement once we’d stopped the bleeding and controlled swelling.”

“You’re… the mercenaries. Mackensee Military Assistance Corporation?”

“Yes. And you’re aboard the
Victor
, our command ship for this operation, because your ship lacked the right medical facilities.”

“My people?” Ky asked, trying to sit up. The medbox restraints held her back.

“They’re all right so far,” the man said. “Now—before you exit the medbox—I need to do some final tests of function. Just lie quietly and answer my questions.”

She couldn’t do anything else… The medbox restraints held her and even if she got her arms loose, she didn’t know how to unlatch a medbox from inside.

“I’m projecting a visual chart above you, and what do you see on line ten?”

Ky read off the symbols. After that came a color vision test, and a test of depth perception, and then pictures of her crew, to see if facial recognition was working. It was.

Finally he unlatched the box, removed the restraints, and helped her sit up. For a moment, she felt dizzy and nauseated, but it passed, and she was simply there, inside a warship’s surgery, sitting on the opened case of a medbox in a row of medboxes, wearing a pale blue shift with MMAC PROPERTY stamped on it. Across the wide compartment was another row of medboxes, six with their status lights on, and down the middle a row of operating tables, shrouded in the hoods that kept them sterile until needed.

“It’s—as big as a hospital,” Ky said. She had not really thought about how much medical treatment a mercenary force might need. For that matter, she hadn’t seen this part of a Slotter Key warship, either.

His lips twitched. “War isn’t a pretty business. We have thirty medboxes, ten operating sets, five regen tanks—and that’s active. We have the stored capacity for field hospitals as well. Now—ready to stand up?”

Ky pushed off the edge of the medbox. Her knees felt rubbery, but she was able to stand.

“Immobilization does that—nothing we’ve come up with prevents at least temporary weakness. Now—I’m sure you’ve got your own medical personnel back home; I’m giving you a cube with details of the treatment you received here, some of which they may want if you need other treatment within the next standard year. Slotter Key does use standard calendar units, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Ky said. She focused on the “back home.” If they were giving her medical reports for the doctors back home, surely that meant they weren’t intending to kill her…

“Your arm and ankle responded well to the regen tank treatments; you should however do fifteen minutes a day of rehab exercise—the details are on the cube—to regain strength at the maximum rate. Your C-spine injury may cause you some difficulty as you get older; I would advise you to consult your medical personnel about a regen treatment when your neural recovery is complete. We’ve got it stabilized, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a little soft-tissue damage which we couldn’t regen because of the primary brain injury.”

“C-spine injury?” Ky said.

“Yes. Luckily, Sergeant Pitt knew enough not to move you until the medics got there. But it’s perfectly stable now.”

Ky resisted the sudden urge to put her hands up and feel around her neck. It didn’t hurt—nothing hurt, really, but the knowledge that she’d been knocked silly and taken off the ship like a bundle of rags… she, the captain, who was supposed to ensure the safety of her ship and her people.

“When can I get back to my ship?” she asked.

“I don’t know—after the major talks to you, probably. It’s up to command, not to me. You’re fit for duty, as is. Well, once you get clothes on. I’m afraid your uniform is… pretty much gone. Just a moment.” He walked to the far side of the compartment; Ky leaned against the medbox she’d come out of and wondered about the six others with lights on. That was easier than wondering what she was going to do now.

The man came back with a neatly folded bundle; for the first time she noticed what must be a nametag stenciled on his tunic. Dubois.

“Your ship’s sent over a clean uniform. You’ll want to change, and any moment now you’re going to want to use the toilet.”

She did, she realized.

“Right through there: you can also shower, if you like, though the medbox does a sonic clean every four hours. When you’re dressed, come out and you’ll be escorted to the major’s office.”

He did not tell her not to try to escape. She could figure that out for herself, and clearly he knew it. Ky took the bundle and retreated through the door marked STAFF ONLY. Inside she found three shower cubicles, deep sinks, and a row of toilets. Sonic cleaning or no, she wanted a shower and shampoo, and the brisk water washed away another layer of confusion.

When she combed her hair at the mirror above the sinks, she could see nothing of what had happened. Her arm had a puckery scar that looked old, well-healed, but no soreness, even when she raised it high overhead. Her ankle’s scar was smaller, hardly visible. Her hair seemed shorter. She put on her uniform—the alternate one her mother had insisted she buy; it was annoying even now that her mother had been right—thankful that whoever had sent it had included underwear. When she’d pulled on the soft-soled ship boots, she felt much more like herself.

“I meant to tell you,” the medic said, “we don’t extend regen to cosmetic results, but that scar on your arm will respond to about two hours of regen, if you ever want to get rid of it.”

“It’s fine,” Ky said. “Thank you.” She was annoyed with herself that she hadn’t thanked him before.

“Quite all right. It was orders, after all.”

“Thank you anyway,” Ky said firmly. She was in the right about this, at least. “Clearly you—and others in this place—saved my life.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, shrugging as if the thanks made him uncomfortable. “Corporal Conas will take you to see the major,” the man said.

Corporal Conas was waiting, armed. Ky wondered what they thought she could do, that they needed to give her an armed escort, but she walked forward when he gestured.

The major—Harris, his name was—sat behind a desk in a tiny office so bare and tidy that Ky wondered if it was a real working office, or just a place chosen to interview hapless civilians. He did not smile but introduced himself.

“Captain Vatta, we have a problem.”

She knew she had a problem, but not any problem they shared.

“What is that, sir?” The sir came out automatically.

“You’re aware that someone blew the system ansibles…”

Someone implied that it wasn’t the mercenaries… “Yes…” Ky said.

“We didn’t do it. We don’t blow ansibles; we don’t want trouble with the ISC any more than anyone else does. Overcharging monopolistic pirates they may be, but what they do is essential, and what they do to people who bother their ansibles is… exorbitant.” He paused.

“I see,” Ky said.

“Naturally, everyone thinks we did it,” the major went on. “Warships appear; the ansible platforms blow. Obvious. I’m sure by now the ISC has figured out where we are, and is thinking the same obvious thing. The only party who won’t believe we did it is the party who actually did it, and so far no one has claimed responsibility. It would be far handier if the mercenaries were to blame.”

“I see,” Ky said again. She did, in a way. She had wondered about that; she
remembered
wondering about that. Why would mercenaries, who depended on ansible communications as much as anyone else, risk the serious and permanent annoyance of the ISC? Control of ansibles was one thing; destruction entirely another.

“We have, besides the operation we were hired to perform, several other tasks now facing us: we need to clear ourselves with the ISC before they come barreling in here and blow us up on spec, and we need to house hostages safely in the meantime, lest we incur judgment for their fates as well. We had hoped to use your ship, the smallest, as a courier to the ISC, but I understand that you have no FTL capability.”

“Right,” Ky said. “And we also have a commitment to deliver agricultural machinery, now in our holds, to Belinta.”

“Neither of which is possible without an FTL drive, isn’t that correct?”

“That is correct, yes, sir.” Ky took a deep breath. “Major Harris, if I may ask, would it be possible to obtain a sealed unit from the repair yards on Sabine Prime’s orbital station?”

“Not now or in the immediate future,” Major Harris said. He did not explain why, and Ky was reluctant to ask. He cocked an eyebrow at her. “You are not acting like most civilian captains, Captain Vatta—most of them try to bluster and scold and command me to do what they want.”

“It’s my first voyage, Major,” she said.

“Um. I suspect it’s more than that. What are you, Slotter Key space service operating undercover?”

Ky felt her eyes widen. “Me? No, sir.”