Heris Serrano (148 page)

She ate the food when it came without noticing what it was. One group of miners wanted to know if it was safe to go back to their domed colony. Another claimed salvage rights on the destroyed killer-escort and asked permission to start cutting it up. She suspected it had already started doing so. Those in the ore-carrier, without any explanation of what they'd been doing, announced that they were going back.

Heris called the bridge, and asked for tightbeams to both
Despite
and
Sweet Delight
. The young captain of
Despite
wanted to explain the mutiny, but Heris cut her off. "That's for a Board of Inquiry," she said. "Right now I need to know what you've picked up from the planet."

"We have no estimate of the number of survivors," Suiza said. "We've picked up two transmitters, but one may be an automatic distress beacon. It's repeating the same message over and over. The other seems to be trying to contact the first, not us."

"Ah. They probably don't know who won up here, and they're trying to collect their forces on the ground. A good sign, though it may be tricky for our people to land if they're going to be mistaken for hostiles."

A light blinked on her console. "Excuse me, Captain," she said; the youngster started, as if she were surprised at the formality. "I'll get back to you," she promised. This time it was Jig Faroe on
Sweet Delight
.

"Come on back," she said, only then remembering that she'd told him to keep his distance until called. "We'll need to get those civilians off the yacht, or you off the yacht, I'm not sure which."

"Yes, sir." He seemed much older than the other Jig—but then he hadn't been through a mutiny, and the command of a yacht was well within his ability. Heris still had to find out how Suiza had ended up in command, and how she'd destroyed a Benignity heavy cruiser. "Uh—a couple of them aren't aboard."

"Aren't aboard? What do you mean?"

"Well . . . Lady Cecelia said it was a good idea. Brun's acting as our liaison with the miners."

"Oh. Well, make sure someone brings her in." Another blinking light. This one must be the admiral's call. "Be sure we know your ETA," she said, and clicked off.

"Captain—tightbeam from the admiral—"

"Coming." Heris left for the bridge, very glad of the clean uniform. She nodded to Milcini and sat in the command chair. She hadn't actually sat down in it before; she'd been too busy running a warship in combat, when she always thought better on her feet. Now she put on its headset and enabled the screen. There on the display was her Aunt Vida, admiral's stars winking on her shoulders.

"Captain . . . Serrano." That pause could be signal stretch, an artifact of their relative positions and velocities, but it felt like something else.

"Sir," Heris said. She was aware of a grim satisfaction in the steadiness of her voice. Defiance tempted her, the urge to say something reckless. She fought it down, along with the questions she could ask only in private.

"Situation?" That was regulation enough; it might mean any of several things, including the straightforward need for information.

"No present hostilities," she said, back in the groove of training and habit. "Xavier system was attacked by a Benignity force, which destroyed its orbital station and did major damage to both population centers. Damage estimates for the planet and its population are incomplete; we have not established communication with survivors. There are at least two functional transmitters. The population did have some warning, and the local government tried to evacuate to wilderness areas."

"And Commander Garrivay?"

"Is dead. May I have the admiral's permission to send an encrypted sidebar packet?"

"Go ahead." Heris had prepared an account of her actions, and the background to them; now she handed this to a communications tech, with instructions.

"Status of Regular Space Service vessels?" her aunt went on.

"
Paradox
was lost in combat, no survivors known.
Vigilance
has structural damage to an aft missile bay from a blowout. Engineering advises that it would not be safe to attempt FTL at this time.
Despite
is jump-capable, and essentially undamaged, but extremely short-crewed."

"How dirty is the system?" In other words, how many loose missiles with proximity fuses were wandering around on the last heading they'd followed.

"Still dirty," Heris said. "And we laid orbital mines around Xavier, nonstandard ones improvised with local explosives. None of those are fissionables, but they're potent."

"Very well. Hold your position until further orders. We'll send the sweepers ahead; we're laying additional mines in the jump-exit corridors and closing this system to commercial traffic until the new station is up and operating." A long pause, then, "Good job, Captain Serrano. Please inform your command of the admiralty's satisfaction."

"Thank you, sir." Heris could not believe it was ending like this. Of course there were reasons an admiral wouldn't get into all the issues even on a tightbeam transmission, but she had expected something, some demand for explanation . . . something.

"Well," she said to her bridge crew. "Admiral Serrano thinks we did a good job." A chuckle went around the bridge. "I think we already knew that. Now let's get things in order for the admiral's inspection, because if I know anything about admirals, she'll be aboard as soon as
Harrier
's in orbit."

Brun woke slowly, in fits and starts. It was dark. It was cold. She couldn't quite remember where she was, and when she reached for covers, she discovered that she was quite naked. The movement itself set up competing fluctuations in her head and belly. She gagged, gulped, and came all the way awake in a sudden terror that slicked her cold skin with sweat.

After uncountable moments of heart-pounding fear, Brun wrestled her panic to a dead stop. She wasn't dead. She hung on to that with mental fingernails. In twenty minutes, maybe, or two hours, or a day, she might be dead . . . but not now. So now was the time she had to figure something out.

You wanted adventure, she reminded herself. You could have been sitting in a nice, warm, safe room surrounded by every luxury, but . . . no, no time to think that, either. Only time for the realities, the most basic of basics.

Air. She was breathing, so she must have air of a sort. She didn't even feel breathless, though her heart was pounding . . . that was probably fear. She wouldn't let herself call it panic. She felt around her . . . finding nothing, at first, in the darkness. Nearly zero gravity, she thought. And air, and not freezing, or she'd be dead. Her stomach wanted to crawl out her mouth, but she told it no. She'd already gagged once; her belly was empty. Dry heaves would only waste energy, she told herself, and hoped that she hadn't already compromised the ventilation system with vomit.

Still, even if she had air now, she might not always. She had to get somewhere and find out where she was and how long she had. She tried to remember what she'd been taught about zero gravity maneuvers. If you were stuck in the middle of a compartment, someone had said (who? was her memory going too?), you could put yourself into a spin and hope to bump into something. A slow spin, or you'd throw up. And how to spin? She twisted, experimentally, and then drew up her legs while extending her arms.

Something brushed her leg. She grabbed for it, automatically; her hand found nothing, but nausea grabbed her, proving that she'd tumbled. She flung out arms and legs both, to slow the rotation, and felt something brush her left elbow. Maddening—she couldn't tell what it was. Slowly, she tried to reach across with her right hand. Whatever it was slid along her arm; she was moving again. On her shoulder, down her back . . . it was hard not to grab, but she waited . . . something linear, like a rope or length of tubing. Smooth, not rough. Cool.

Her head hit a surface, hard; she saw sparkles in the darkness for a moment, then her vision settled. Cautiously, she moved her hand up, found the surface, knobbly with switches. Some were rocker switches, smooth curves of plastic. Others were little metal toggles. A few were round, flat buttons with incised lettering—she could feel that, but not what the letters were. A control panel, but on what? She tried to remember what she'd seen before everything went wrong.

The image that came to her was grinning faces, mouths open, singing. A party. It had been a party, loud and happy—the rest of the memory burst over her. The ore-hauler, stuffed like an egg carton with the little four-person pods: the miners had their own plans for dealing with Benignity invaders. Faroe had been horrified—he knew they couldn't survive a fight with the big ships. She had offered to go talk to them; he'd agreed. Then, against Faroe's expectation (though she had never doubted it) Heris Serrano had defeated the Benignity ships. And Fleet had arrived: they were safe. The resulting celebration involved mysterious liquids far more potent than the fine wines and liquors her father served, even more potent than the illicit brews at school. The last she remembered was sinking peacefully into a bunk while a group of miners sang the forty-second verse of "Down by the Bottom of the Shaft." Or perhaps the twenty-first verse the second time around. It had a fairly repetitious form, minor variations on the same few innuendoes, and she hadn't exactly been paying close attention.

Which meant she was probably in one of the personnel pods, which meant she had seen the control panels before. She didn't want to push any of the flat buttons. They were all critical; one of them, she remembered, was the airlock main control.

She had drifted closer to the control panel; her knee bumped something with an edge (the desks below or the storage shelf above? It didn't really matter) and she felt cautiously around with her foot until she was sure she had the foot hooked under that edge. She felt carefully with both hands until she had the little metal tip of a toggle pinched in either hand. Now she was anchored, if she didn't lose her grip. Her feet defined "down" for the moment. She let the other foot wave slowly until her toes found the same edge and crawled under it. Both feet hooked in . . . now she could release one hand and feel around in a more organized way.

Out to the right . . . the switches ended in a smooth cool surface. That made sense with her memories. Carefully, forcing herself not to rush and break loose, she moved her right hand back, caught hold of the toggle, and slid her left hand across the switches there.

Should she push this switch? Any switch? Panic shook her again, as if some great beast had its jaws around her chest. Think. What would happen if she didn't? She'd be here, naked in the dark, until she died, and she would have no idea when that might be. Was that what she wanted? No.

The first switch she pushed produced no detectable change. Nor did the second. She hesitated before pushing another. If the electrical system was off, none of the switches would do anything. But if the electrical system was off, the air wouldn't be circulating, and that tiny draft on the small of her back suggested that it was, though perhaps on a standby system.

Where had the electrical system controls been? On the left-hand side of the consoles . . . if she was right-side up. Now she could think of that, and how to tell. Below the consoles a kneehole space accommodated the person working them; above was the storage shelf with netting. Her toes wiggled down, and found themselves snagged in something tangled. Netting, she hoped. That meant—her mind struggled. It was surprisingly hard to think upside down in the dark . . . the lower left console would now be . . . up
here
. She felt over it, slowly. The main lighting control should be about halfway up—perhaps this big rocker switch? She pushed it.

Light stabbed at her; she squinted. She was indeed upside down; her stomach lurched, and she fought back the nausea. It wasn't really upside down, not in zero G, just
relatively
upside down. That thought didn't help. Move slowly, Ginese had told her repeatedly. Now, as she tried to turn her head and look across the tiny compartment, one foot came unhooked and she lost her grip on the toggle. Don't panic, Ginese always said. Just drift, if you have to . . . she drifted, held by her right toes clenched on the shelf's retracted netting. Light was definitely better. She could put up a hand to fend off the stool that tumbled slowly before her (was that what she'd kicked before?) and she could see that what she'd first felt was indeed a length of tubing, perhaps two or three meters of it. She had no idea what it was for.

After a long struggle, she finally twisted and coiled herself into an "upright" position, with her feet under the consoles. With a firm grip on the edge, she rested and tried to think more clearly. She was, as she'd thought, naked. She saw no sign of a spacesuit, but across the compartment were personnel lockers. Perhaps in there she could find something. Meanwhile . . . with the lights on, she could identify most of the switches. She pushed displays on and the smooth screens to either side of the consoles lit up. For a moment they blurred into fuzzy rainbows as tears rose, but she blinked hard. She could cry later, if she had to. For now, first things first. Air: she had air, more than a hundred hours at present usage. She had electrical power keeping the internal temperature high enough for survival—calories, in that limited sense. Water? She found none listed, but that didn't mean much; she might find juice in one of the lockers.