Hunting Party

Chapter Fifteen

“We cannot do this alone.” Heris put into that all the command voice she’d ever had. Cecelia merely looked exasperated.

“We’ve been over that. I don’t want to bother Bunny.”

“Lady Cecelia.” The formality got through; Cecelia actually focussed on her. “Do you remember why I lost my commission?”

“Yes, but what’s that—”

“This is exactly the same thing. If we go off, the two of us—you with no military experience whatever—with no proper intelligence, no backup, no plan—that is exactly as stupid, in the same way, as what Lepescu proposed. It is frankly suicidal, and I will not cooperate.”

Cecelia stared at her. “I thought we settled it; I thought you agreed.”

“In anger, yes. At the thought of getting Lepescu’s neck between my hands, yes. But I have no right to risk you and your nephew and the others to serve my vengeance. We don’t know what we’re facing; we don’t know what shape they’re in; we won’t have backup or medical assistance—and if we get killed, what about the youngsters?”

For a moment, Heris thought Cecelia would explode; she turned red, then pale, then stood rigidly still. And finally shook herself slightly and let out a sharp huff of air. “I suppose you’re right. That’s why I came to you; you have the military background. So—you want me to tell Bunny?”

“I think we should both go. He may want confirmation from Sirkin up in Sweet Delight—and besides, I still want to be part of the row.”

“Fine.” With no more argument, Cecelia called Michaels over. “Michaels, Captain Serrano feels that we should not go alone on this.” Heris noticed that Michaels relaxed slightly; he had had more sense than either of them, but not the courage to say so.

“Yes, milady?”

“I’m going to tell Lord Thornbuckle; this will mean telling him that you knew Bubbles took the flitter.” Heris had not thought about that—how much trouble would he be in? Not much, she hoped.

“I don’t think you should tell anyone else about this,” Lady Cecelia went on, as if Michaels were a child to be lectured. “I’m sure you’ll be hearing from his lordship very shortly.”

“Yes, milady.”

“All right,” Cecelia said. “Now we have to find Bunny before that damned hunt starts. We’re lucky Stone Lodge is at this end of the settlement.”

The others were mounted, ready to set out, the hounds swirling around the horses’ legs. Heris was sure that only Cecelia could have gotten Bunny off his horse and into the hall of Stone Lodge so quietly and quickly.

“What is it?” he asked, the moment the door had shut out the sound of milling hooves and human chatter. Cecelia explained, giving as clear an account as Heris herself could have done: her discovery that the young people were missing, Michaels’s report of where they had gone, and the beacon data and data from Sweet Delight which indicated that they were on an island near Bandon. Then she mentioned the uninvited guests, the intruders that Heris suspected might be hunting illegally. Lord Thornbuckle looked at Heris.

“You know this person?” Heris thought she had not heard anyone pronounce “person” with that intonation before; just so did seniors at the Academy refer to incoming cadets.

“Yes, I do,” she said. “He cost me my commission; he has a bad reputation—but the relevant point is that he is here without your invitation.”

“Yes . . . I see that. Just a moment.” He went out the door, leaving Heris and Cecelia staring at one another. In moments, he was back inside. “I told Clem to take over the hunt today; no sense in having them hounding us, as it were. Buttons has already ridden out with the blue hunt; I’ll have him brought back—” As he spoke, his fingers tapped on his personal comunit. Heris had seen him only at the hunt, or at leisure after dinner; he had always seemed friendly enough, but not particularly decisive except when some fool rode too close to the hounds. The nickname Bunny had fit him well enough, the long slightly foolish face, the quick movements of his head at dinner, on the lookout for unpleasantness. Now, though, she saw someone used to command responding to an emergency, someone for whom a title made more sense than a nickname.

“Sir, the other thing—” She interrupted him cautiously; he raised an eyebrow but nodded for her to speak. “There must be someone in this household working with them—whoever they are. Someone to give warning if you’re headed that way, at least.”

He nodded. “And it can’t be Michaels, because he knew about Bubbles and whoever was there didn’t.”

“We hope.” Lady Cecelia looked grim. “They haven’t called in; their flitter’s not at a regular field—”

“Which island?” Lord Thornbuckle asked. “Could your ship make that out?” He called up a map which displayed on the hall wall as thin green lines.

“That one,” Heris said, pointing.

“Bubbles’s favorite,” he said. “The children camped there many summers; she knows every meter of that island. I wonder if she’s just camping and hiding out.”

“If it weren’t for the unauthorized shuttle, and the fact that Lepescu is on Bandon—” Cecelia began.

“We hope on Bandon, and not on this island,” Heris put in, tapping the map again.

“Yes. We must assume he is, and that he’s up to no good.” His focus shifted to her, completely. “You were formerly an officer in the Regular Space Service, isn’t that right, Captain Serrano?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then please give me the advantage of your professional assessment. What are we facing here, and what is your recommendation?”

Heris felt like a junior officer caught out at an admiralty briefing. “We are presently lacking important information,” she began. “We know, or rather strongly suspect, that Admiral Lepescu is on Bandon. The shuttlecraft that landed him could have held as many as fifty individuals, but since it came from a chartered yacht, it is reasonable to suppose that it did not. That it was configured for luxury work, with a maximum of perhaps ten. We do not know how many such shuttle flights have been made to and from Bandon, or the number of people on each. However, it’s reasonable to assume that an actual invasion force is unlikely.”

“Why, Captain?”

“Both practical reasons and the character of Admiral Lepescu, sir. Practically, invading an inhabited planet is difficult, and one like this would require complicity of too many of your employees. You have four orbiting Stations, additional navigation and communications satellites, and a high-tech population scattered around the planet. An invader would have to gain control of communications to prevent an alarm being sent. Your own militia would have to be suborned or defeated in battle, and from what I’ve heard of your militia, they’re loyal and tough, and very well equipped. Right now, you have thousands of legitimate guests, and their crews and servants—and it might be easier to sneak onplanet in the confusion, but it certainly would not be easier to deal with so many . . .” She struggled for a word that expressed what she meant without rudeness.

“Difficult individuals?” suggested Lord Thornbuckle, with a smile.

“Yes, sir. And as well as practicality there’s the matter of Lepescu. He’s not a man to involve himself in something that blatant; his tastes run otherwise.”

“Ummm. You said he cost you your commission?”

“Yes, he did.” When Lord Thornbuckle’s expression did not change, Heris realized she was going to have to say more. Anger roughened her voice.

“He considers war a noble sport, sir. He considers that putting troops in impossible situations is sporting; his expression is ‘see what they’re made of.’ Until recently, the only way he could do this was by risking his own ship, but two years ago he attained flag rank and was given command of a battle group. You are no doubt aware of the Cavinatto action. In that conflict, he ordered my ship, and the ground forces under my command, to make a frontal attack on a strongly defended lunar complex. The defense could have been breached another way—in fact, several other ways, which I and other captains presented as alternatives. But he insisted that it must be done the one way likely to fail—even the battlecomps said so—and certain to cost the most lives.”

“Is that legal?” asked Lord Thornbuckle.

“Perfectly,” Heris said. “An admiral’s fitness for command is judged afterwards, by results. He is not obliged to take advice from anyone but his own commander, and our group was operating far from anyone more senior. It was something Lepescu had worked toward for years.”

“Did his order to you risk the whole operation?”

“No. Most of the group would attack the main objective, and while his orders for that were not what I’d have given, they weren’t as reckless. Our diversionary action was important, but it need not have been suicidal.”

“Did this admiral have a grudge against you before? It seems he must have. . . .”

“I’m not sure.” In her own mind she was sure, but she would not condemn even Lepescu on the basis of her personal belief. “I had not anticipated anything like this. But the point is, that in the event I did not obey his very plain orders. My ship and forces attacked the lunar complex, and gained control of it, but I didn’t do it his way.” At the change in his expression, Heris nodded grimly. “That’s right: I deliberately disobeyed the order of a lawful superior, in combat status. Grounds for court-martial; in fact, that’s what I expected. I knew exactly how serious it was; my family’s been Service for generations, after all. I had evidence, I thought, that would protect my crew at least, and that seemed better to me than losing several thousand of them because Admiral Lepescu enjoyed ‘a good fight.’ There was even a chance that a court might see it my way—small, but there it was.”

“And then what?”

“Then I was offered the chance to resign my commission, in exchange for immunity for my officers and crew, or a court-martial for all. The scan data had disappeared; accidents happen in combat. I had some junior officers whose careers would be cut short forever by a court-martial now, even if they won . . . the stigma never really goes away. And some hotheads in the crew would, I knew, convict themselves if they got before a court; there are always people who can’t keep quiet even to save themselves. So I resigned.”

“You didn’t tell me all that,” Cecelia said. “Not about what he wanted you to do.”

“It didn’t seem relevant,” Heris said. The rest of it boiled up in her mind—what Lepescu had said to her and about her: Coward. Stupid bitch. Typical woman, only good to lay and lie. And more, that she would never tell anyone. Who could understand?

“So I judge from your report,” Lord Thornbuckle said, “that Admiral Lepescu is more likely to put someone else in danger than to risk his own hide?”

Heris struggled to be fair. “He’s not a coward, sir; he had a name for boldness when he commanded his own ship. But he’s also ambitious in politics and society. He would enjoy hunting here under your nose, but he would not chance making such a powerful enemy by attempting open invasion.”

“What about taking hostages?”

“Possibly. Especially if he found himself in a trap.”

“Do you think he’s the head of whatever is going on?”

“I don’t know. He has other hunting friends—” Quickly, she told him about the club she’d heard of, and the rumors about it.

“And you would recommend?”

“Taking in enough force to make resistance futile—and there’s the problem of surprise and collusion. If they find out you’re coming in, they might get the shuttle off, and the yacht—”

“Not if their crew’s in the Bay,” Lord Thornbuckle said. “That’ll be easy enough to find out; it’s on a routine report.” All this time, he had been tapping out orders on his personal comunit. “There’s a Crown Minister here—Pathin Divisti—but I hate to involve the Crown if we can avoid it. And he’s here for hunting; he brought no staff.”

Heris hoped her face didn’t reveal her reaction. She thought of Crown Ministers as a particularly bloated form of bureaucratic incompetence, whose internal struggles for power resulted in unexpected budget changes for the Services.

The door chimed; a servant Heris had hardly noticed opened it to a militia squad, uniformed and armed. Lord Thornbuckle smiled at Heris.

“Captain Serrano, if you’d brief my Captain Sigind while I get some more information—”

Heris stepped outside; the hunt had ridden off some time before, and she could just hear the hounds giving tongue somewhere in the distance. Captain Sigind was a lean, tough man a decade younger than she, whose expression hardly wavered when he saw he was to be briefed by an older woman in hunting attire. Heris laid out the situation as far as she knew it, and he nodded.

“I know Bandon, of course, and something of the other islands. Haven’t been there in a couple of years, but here’s the layout.” He pulled out a map display and flicked through the file. Bandon came up in a standard military format, with topo lines and color-codings for vegetation types. “The landing field’s here—with shuttle extension into these woods. When they expanded the field, they cleared a little place at the lodge itself for small flitters—right here. It’s grass, not paving. It’d be real handy if we knew how many were at the lodge, and how many on this other island—”

“All I know about is one shuttle load, and I don’t even know if it was troop-fitted or civilian,” Heris said.

“Ah. You’re military?” His pale eyes were shrewd, wary.

“I was. Regular Space Service.”

“Any ground combat experience?”

“No, not myself. That’s—”

“Why you didn’t rush into this like a damn fool. Smart.” His brisk nod approved. “But you see our problem. . . .”

“Of course. You need to know how many they are, what their resources are, and which of Lord Thornbuckle’s employees are on their side.”

“The outrange supervisor, for one,” he said. “I’m sure of that, because it’s his responsibility to know who’s on which settlement, and when. They’d have needed his codes to get the Bandon beacon functioning for the shuttle.”

“And someone at that Station,” Heris said. “Where the charter yacht that launched the shuttle came from, because I understand that the use of private shuttles isn’t permitted.”

“Right. But back to you—you say this man Lepescu is part of some sporting club? Most sportsmen have self-imposed limits on the weaponry they’ll use—or is he a trophy hunter type?”

“I don’t know,” Heris said. The door opened, and Lord Thornbuckle came out. The bony face she had once considered amiable but weak now looked anything but amiable.

“Complete shuttle records for the past thirty days,” he said. “The same station where that charter’s berthed has launched twice its normal quota of shuttles. Cargo and supplies, most of them were said to be, for Bandon lodge. We don’t land supplies for Bandon there very often, not offworld supplies. Certainly not at this season. One of my comsats recorded the same conversation your officer picked up, Captain Serrano—as well as these—” He handed over strips of hard copy, which Heris glanced at. She could not read that fast, and he was still talking.

“I’ve relieved the Stationmaster there, and put old Haugan in charge—I know he’s loyal, at least. Suspended all shuttle flights, and all communications, with the explanation of power problems on the Station. If I understand correctly, there are fewer than twenty people who’ve taken shuttles like the one Lepescu was on. All but one have returned to the Station. You were right, Captain Serrano, that they were fitted for civilian luxury use, with a total capacity of ten passengers—and carried less. Here are the latest satellite images of Bandon and the adjacent islands—there’s some cloud interference, apparently a storm overnight—”

Heris and the militia captain leaned over them. Three shots of Bandon, five minutes apart, and two of each adjacent island. They looked at the Bandon pictures first. One atmospheric shuttle stood on the end of the runway; no other vehicles were near it. Three flitters were parked on an apron off to one side in two pictures, and only two in the third and last. A tiny blob the captain identified as an electric groundcar moved along the narrow driveway between the landing field and the lodge. Comparing the three pictures, they could tell that it had left the lodge for the field—and then a flitter had taken off.

On the islands to the east, south, and west—four in all—the captain found nothing remarkable, though heavy clouds still clung to the peaks of the eastern island. But the island to the north—“where the children camped”—Lord Thornbuckle put in—they saw what they were looking for.

A flitter on the east beach, hatch open. A flitter parked on the south end of the island another a few hundred meters offshore, as if approaching. They could see nothing on the visual of the island’s center; it, too, was cloaked in cloud.

“We have continuous loops, of course,” Lord Thornbuckle said. “And we can get infrared and radar images. But it seems to me that’s enough to go on.”

“Right, sir.” The militia captain closed his eyes a moment, and then said, “We’ll need all the Homestead militia, and those at the Neck. Day ’n night gear both, full armor, and riot weapons—” He paused, as the clatter of hooves broke upon them. Heris looked up to see Buttons riding breakneck up the avenue on a lathered horse. Servants ran out to take the horse; he flung himself off and ran up the steps to the portico.

“What happened? Is Bubbles all right?”

His father glared at him. “What do you know about Bubbles?”

“She took a flitter with the others to Whitewings for a few days—she asked me to cover for her—what’s happened?”

“We don’t know. We know the flitter’s down on that small island north of Bandon, the one you youngsters camped on. We haven’t been able to contact her, and Cece’s Captain Serrano has reason to believe she’s in great danger.”

“And you want me to do what?”

“Be my representative with the rescue force. We expect some opposition. . . .”

“Opposition?”

“Captain Sigind will brief you fully. You’ll need your personal gear—”

“Liftoff in thirty minutes, sir,” the militia captain put in.

“Right.” Buttons dashed into the hall, as changed as his father from the amiable and rather foolish young man Heris had thought him. Captain Sigind eyed her thoughtfully.

“You want to come along?”

“Of course we’re coming—” began Lady Cecelia, but the militia captain’s eyes never wavered from Heris’s. Heris shrugged.

“It’s your operation; I don’t know the terrain, the entire situation, or your troops. If you can find a corner where I won’t be in your way, yes—but I’m not going to step on your toes.”

“Heris!” Lady Cecelia’s bony finger poked her in the back. “We have weapons—!”

“We have weapons, milady,” said Heris formally, “but you have no training and I have not been on a groundside operation in years. We are superfluous, and we might even be in the way. Captain Sigind must decide.”

His earlier indecision came down on the side of respect; she had won that much. “Thank you, Captain Serrano. I’m glad you understand. Now, if you and the lady will agree to act under orders, I’m sure we can fit you in.”

“We had a supply shuttle almost loaded,” Heris said. “Including personal armor for Lady Cecelia and me, and decent weapons.”

“Good. Then I can send a squad with you—expand the standard medical unit—and now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be off. Twenty-five minutes, now.”

Heris set off for the flitter hangars again, Cecelia in tow. They’d have to change there into whatever clothes Cecelia had packed earlier, or go in hunting attire and look like idiots. It shouldn’t bother her, she told herself, after that purple uniform. She knew it wasn’t really the clothes that made her feel incompetent. She had never been on a mission as an observer; she had always had a place, a duty. Now her duty was to keep out of the way, stay out of trouble, keep Cecelia out of trouble. It felt wrong.

“I wish we could take the horses,” Cecelia grumbled. Heris looked over at her. Cecelia was not used to being rushed; the bustle and scurry of the militia’s preparation, the need to scramble out of her clothes and into others in the cramped restroom at the flitter hangars, had ruffled her composure, and she had reacted with a string of complaints. The personal armor Heris had insisted she wear under her jacket made her look, Cecelia had said, ridiculous.

Heris didn’t agree; nothing looked as ridiculous as holes in one’s body. She hadn’t said that, since it hadn’t been necessary. Heris’s own armor felt odd, shaped differently than military issue, but she hoped it would be effective. She hoped even more that they wouldn’t need it. The supply flitter’s cargo compartment held food, weapons, tools, ammunition, clothes, medical supplies, and flexible plastic tanks of water. With them were four trained medics, two of them full-time militia. A saddle wouldn’t have fit aboard, let alone a horse.

“Horses? To this island? What good would that do?”

“I’ve always said war wouldn’t be as bad if I could ride into it.” Cecelia twitched her shoulders. “Not that I could ride with this thing on—another advantage of riding.”

“You’d be dead before the first stride,” Heris said. She could feel her own breathing tighten. . . . It always did, until the action began, and here she had no way to work it off. The supply flitter, needing no pilot, stayed in position well behind the troop carriers. The medics talked softly among themselves, eyeing her as if checking her for stress levels. She made herself open her hands, let them rest lightly on her lap as if she were relaxed.

“It’s on an island, with a forest,” Cecelia said. “Horses are faster over the ground than people.”

“Bigger target,” Heris said. She didn’t want to talk; she never wanted to talk ahead of time. She wanted to pace, to check over the plans she had not made, to see the faces that were not her people look at her the way her people had.

“You’re nervous,” Cecelia said more quietly. Heris glared at her.

“I am not nervous.” It came out with more bite than she intended; Cecelia did not flinch, but nodded as if it confirmed her opinion. Heris stretched her hands and shrugged. “Not nervous, exactly . . . just unsettled. It’s not the way I’m used to.”

“Did it bother you when you had command?”

“Bother me? Yes, and no.” She knew what Cecelia was doing, trying to keep her focussed intellectually, but she did not mind. It might help both of them. “I worried—one always does—about the plan. Was it good enough, had I missed something, would people die because of my stupidity? And that includes preparation—had I trained them well enough, often enough? Would they make stupid mistakes because I’d been too lenient? But beyond that, it didn’t bother me. There’s a . . . a sort of quiet place, between the commitment and the combat itself. In a way you probably felt it, from what you’ve said of starting a cross-country. Once you’re on the course, once the horse is galloping, the time for worry is over. From then on you just deal with it, one fence at a time.”

Cecelia nodded slowly. “I hadn’t thought of it that way—but that is what I said, and that’s what I did. One fence at a time, but remembering all the ones ahead, too.”

“Oh, yes.” Heris sat still a moment, remembering. “You don’t quit riding the course until it’s over—the last fence, or the last opponent, can kill you if you’re careless at the end. But the commitment is there. The difference here—I can’t begin to explain it.”

“I was surprised that you backed away from it,” Cecelia said, even more quietly. “Bunny would have let you—”

Heris shook her head vigorously. “It wouldn’t work. These aren’t my people; they don’t know me, and I don’t know the local situation well enough. The person who doesn’t fit in, who doesn’t know the people or the terrain, is going to get someone killed. Other people killed. I’m old enough to let someone else do the job for which they’re trained, and simply chew my nails until it’s over.”

“Umm.” Cecelia looked out the canopy, and then back. “A point where riders differ from soldiers, I suppose. I’ve taken on someone else’s mount if they were injured. If you’re a good enough—”

“That’s different. But I’ll bet you didn’t drag some first-timer off her horse just because you thought you could ride it better.” Cecelia turned red. Heris looked at her. “You did?”

“I didn’t think of it that way, but—” She shifted in her seat, and looked away. “Money and influence are another way of dragging someone off a horse—with the coach convinced Ivan would never do for that horse what I could, and the All-Union Challenge coming up in six months—”

Heris knew her expression had said what she thought before she could hide it. Cecelia, still red, did not try to excuse her younger self.

“I shouldn’t have done it—and even at the time, I felt a bit guilty. It wasn’t until much later that I realized how much even the best riders—even I—depended on finding an outstanding horse; I thought Ivan’s failure to stay in the senior circuit after that reflected his ability. Justified the coach’s decision, and my . . . influence.”

“Was that your . . . your best horse?” Heris hoped not. She wanted to think better of Cecelia.

“No. It was a horse I thought might replace my best horse. A big piebald from Luminaire, that Ivan found on a farm, and bought literally out of harness. Ivan had done all his early work, but I thought—we all thought—the horse was such a natural anyone could have made an eventer out of him. What he needed was a better rider, we thought. After I got him, he slammed his stupid hoof into a stall partition while being shipped to the Challenge, and ripped his leg up. Never jumped sound again. I had another mount qualified, and you’ll probably think it justice that she dumped me headfirst in the water—along with the minicam on my helmet.”

Heris struggled not to laugh. “A cube they never made, eh?”

“Oh, they made it. You can buy my dive into the water along with a number of other embarrassing incidents, and since it was full-sim pickup, you can program your own simulator to take the same bounce and see if you can stay on. Sometimes I can.” She sighed. “It was a stupid mistake—and to be honest, I’ve never quite forgiven myself for it. It was just the sort of thing I hated to see, and never meant to do. Yet I could never go back and apologize to Ivan—and a few years later, he was killed in a slideway accident, nothing to do with horses at all.”

Ahead, Heris saw the lead carriers spread out. She knew—they had been kind enough to tell her—that they planned to land two on Bandon proper, to secure the island, and two on the island where the flitter had crashed. The supply flitter would land on Bandon behind the others. She could see the smudges of islands ahead, distorted by the curve of the canopy, but she couldn’t recognize them. Cecelia prodded her side, and pointed. Sunlight glinted off something large and shiny on one of the islands.

“Shuttle on the field,” said one of the medics. Their squad leader spoke into his com, then turned to glance at Heris.

“Shuttle’s not primed for takeoff; there’s nothing on the field with a hot signature. Captain’s got the satellite data, and thinks there’s fewer than a dozen people on Bandon proper, maybe less.”

“Thanks.” Heris managed that much before her throat closed. She didn’t want to sit back here with Cecelia; she wanted to be up there—not even in this flitter, but the lead one. The flitter droned on; the medics, after a long glance out the canopy, went back to checking their gear, over and over. The squad leader stared ahead, not speaking. Ahead, the islands rose out of the sea, by ones and twos, their forest-clad flanks showing dark against glistening beaches and the glowing blue sea.