Rules of Engagement

Chapter Twenty

Brun woke abruptly with the feeling that something was very wrong. They were in free fall . . . but they had been on insystem drive, with the artificial gravity on. The pilot was awake, and changing switch positions on the main board. Brun looked at Hazel, who was also awake, hanging upside down above the bench where she’d slept. She reached back, tapped her arm, and nodded toward the pilot.

“What are we doing?” Hazel asked. Her voice was high with tension.

“End of the line, girlies. I been talking to them over there—” He gestured, and Brun looked out to see a dark shape against the starfield. What it really was, or how far away, she couldn’t tell, but she could see the ovoid shape of a warship. Fleet? “I get more from them, for turning you in, than from you, for taking you on. An abomination was one thing—I didn’t bargain on a runaway from Ranger Bowie’s house.”

Not Fleet. Brun’s stomach tightened. The pilot smirked at them, and opened his mouth to speak into the headset. Brun uncoiled from her seat, twisting in midair, and slammed both booted feet into the side of his head. Hazel squeaked—no other word for that short alarmed sound, but then pushed off the overhead to get her forearm around the man’s neck and hold it against the tall seatback while Brun untangled herself from the cords and wires her attack had landed her in.

“What do I do if he—” Hazel began, when the man jerked against her arm, and then grabbed at her arm and tried to free himself. But he was strapped in, and Brun already had her knife out, and a firm hold on the back of his seat for leverage; she jammed the knife under his ribs and up, just as she had been told. He twisted, struggling, for a moment longer, then slumped . . . that long elephant-skinning knife had the length to reach his heart. Brun stared at Hazel, who was white with shock.

But they had no time for shock. Catching her feet under the copilot’s seat, she unhooked the pilot’s harness, and started pulling his body out of the seat, pushing it to the back. Drops of blood followed it, floating, dispersing.

“Can you . . . pilot?” Hazel asked. Brun grinned at her and nodded, then clambered into the seat. Hazel climbed over the pilot, still snorting a little but beyond help, and made it into the copilot’s seat, strapping herself in quickly.

Insystem drive . . . where was insystem drive again? And she didn’t want to run them right into that warship . . . she gestured to Hazel: rotate us, point us that way. Parallel to the warship’s axis, toward what she hoped was its stern. Hazel touched the controls, and the stars wheeled crazily. Brun ignored that, and her ears, and found the inset black square that should be the insystem drive startup. She pushed it. Nothing happened. What else . . . oh. Yes. Safety release . . . she tried again, in sequence. Release, startup, drive on . . . and the sudden apparent lurch of the dust in the cockpit told her they were under drive again. Now for the AG . . . down there. One tenth . . . and the dust settled, leaving the cockpit clearer. Behind her, the pilot’s body thumped to the deck. A little red globule slid past her gaze and attached itself to her shirt . . . blood. The pilot’s blood.

And she’d never thought about what would happen if she’d cut his throat in zero-G. They could be drowning in the stuff, unable to see any of the controls . . .

Maybe her luck was back. But she wouldn’t count on it. She notched up the insystem drive. If she had the pilot figured right, he was a smuggler or something and his personal shuttle would be overpowered, up to and maybe beyond the structural limits of the craft. She found the accelerometer, and the V-scale, but the blasted thing was in mph, whatever that was, rather than meters per second. Still—it was fast, and going faster.

Hazel touched her arm. She had found the scan controls. Two screens came up: systemwide and local. Local was the problem, Brun thought. The warship behind them was lighted up like a Christmas tree with active weapons scans. But according to Esmay, anything as small as a shuttle was hard to hit . . . if it was far enough away. Well, the answer to that was to get far enough away—and that meant speed. She notched the drive up again. The little craft still felt stable as rock. Corey’s had gone faster—she notched it up again, and again.

Hazel tapped her arm. On the system scan, several ships were flagged with weapons markers. And behind, the warship had swapped ends and was in pursuit.

It had always been a small chance. She’d known that. Better to die out here, than back there. She hoped Hazel felt that way—she cocked her head at the girl.

“It’ll be close,” Hazel said. “But I like it.”

Well . . . close or not, that was the right attitude. Brun pointed at the drive controls, and mimed shoving it to the line. Hazel looked at the scan, and nodded. What the hell, Brun thought. It can’t be worse. She rammed the control all the way to the end of the slot. The drive rose from a deep whine to a high one, and the shuttle vibrated down its length.

And behind them, on the scan, an explosion marred the pattern. If she had not accelerated—

“We could jump, couldn’t we?” Hazel asked. “These shuttles are jump-capable.”

They could jump, but where? Supposedly, there was a Fleet ship insystem, waiting to pick them up. If only she could find that—

Another explosion; the little ship shivered as fragments impacted its minimal shields.

“Another one!” Hazel said, pointing. Brun glanced at the scan—and saw another weapons-lighted warship. They weren’t going to make it through this—she might as well jump, and sort it out later, if she could. She found the jump controls, and started the checklist . . . never leave out the checks, Oblo had told her, because you can get killed just as dead by a malfunction as by an enemy.

Navigation computer on; target jump point selected; insertion velocity—not good, but she dared not slow. Her hands raced over the controls, but she left nothing out. When she was ready, she tapped Hazel on the shoulder, and pointed to the jump-initiation control. Hazel nodded, and Brun pushed it.

Nothing happened. Brun pushed it again—some of these controls stiffened if not used regularly.

“It’s asking for a validation code,” Hazel said, nudging Brun and pointing. On a side panel, a small display had lit, with the words Voice recognition validation required prior to jump insertion.

Brun hissed. The one thing they couldn’t do was produce an approximation of the pilot’s voice, and whatever code words he’d used. She slammed her fist once more against the useless button, and turned her attention to what they could do.

This system was woefully short of useful pieces of rock, at least near the planet. No moons to land on—she would have given a lot for a moonlet with caves to hide in. So—make use of the terrain you’ve got, her instructors had said. No terrain in space, though. If she could get back to the planet, they could hide out in the wilderness . . . or they could be recaptured as they tried to land. That was worse than death; she’d dive this thing into the ground before she let that happen. She glanced at Hazel. The girl was pale-faced, but calm, waiting for Brun to do something.

Terrain. It all came back to escape and evasion, and in space that meant outrun or hide out. They couldn’t outrun the warships, and there wasn’t any place to hide. Except—what if they went straight for the Elias Madero, docked at the space station? Could they get in it from outside? Hide in it? It would take a long time to find them, time in which Fleet might be coming. Or might not.

She looked around the cockpit. Somewhere, the pilot must have had local space charts—they had not run into any of the things which must be up here, the various satellites and stations. She didn’t spot charts, but she did spot a noteboard. She scribbled Local charts on it and handed it to Hazel. Hazel said, “We’re not going back, are we?”

Not exactly, Brun thought, and mouthed. Hide. Hazel seemed to understand the mouthed words, and nodded.

Backed off from its maximum velocity, the little ship could maneuver surprisingly well. Brun kept an eye on the scans as she jinked back and forth, counting to herself in a random sequence she’d once memorized for the pleasure of it. Her other eye was on the fuel gauge—rapid maneuvering ate up fuel at an alarming rate.

“Local nav charts up on the screen,” Hazel said. Brun spared a glance. Little satellites, big satellites, space stations—she hadn’t realized this place had more than one station—and a large number of uncategorized items. Most were drifting in a more—or-less equatorial orbit, though a few were in polar orbits. In size, these ranged from bits as small as pencils to stations a kilometer across. She needed something big enough—an orbital station would be perfect, but of course there wouldn’t be one.

Hazel leaned past her and tapped something. Brun glanced again. Something long and skinny, much bigger than the shuttle, and marked on the chart with a large red X. The shuttle shivered, as a near miss tore at its shields. Whatever it was would have to do. She nodded at Hazel and pointed to the nav computer. She couldn’t figure a course to it in her head, not and dodge hostile fire. In a moment or two, the course came up on the nav screen, along with an estimate of fuel consumption. Very close . . . they’d have to spend fuel to dump vee, and spiral around the planet on a much longer approach than Brun really wanted, with ships shooting at her.

And if she was really lucky, maybe the two enemy ships would run into each other, and remove that problem.

Minute by minute, as the shuttle curved back toward the planet, Brun expected the bright flash that would be the last thing she ever saw. Behind—to either side—but none of them as close as they had been. The boost out had taken hours . . . how long would it take to get back using all the power she dared? How much of the outbound trip had been unpowered? How long had she slept before waking to zero G? She didn’t know; she didn’t have time to think about it, only time to watch the scans, and the nav screen, and do what she could to conserve their fuel.

“One’s out,” Hazel said suddenly. Brun nodded. One of their pursuers had miscalculated a boost, and was now out of sight behind the planet. The other, farther away, was probably out of missile range—at least, nothing had blown up anywhere near them for some time. The other red-marked icons she could see now were farther away, and didn’t appear to be chasing her. Yet. She could have used Koutsoudas’ enhanced scan; she didn’t even know what size those things were. Even ordinary Fleet scan would have told her that, and located any Fleet ships insystem as well.

They might actually make it. She glanced at the fuel gauge again. Enough to decelerate to match their target . . . and that small margin over which would give her a chance to try a last wild gamble. She linked the autopilot to the nav computer for the approach, trusting the universe enough to take this moment to stretch before trying to dock to an uninhabited derelict.

The little shuttle lay snugged to the station, hidden from several directions by the sheltering wing of the station. Brun hoped its thermal signature would be hidden as well, but she didn’t trust it. They might be detected from the ground as well as space. She looked around. The dead pilot nuzzled the stained plastic of the bulkhead, held there by one of the ventilation drafts.

They needed pressure suits. While she wasn’t actually naked, she felt the hungry vacuum outside . . . her clothes were no protection. They needed to get off the shuttle, and onto something bigger, with more air.

They needed a miracle.

Make your own miracles, Oblo had said. The escape—and-evasion instructors had said the same thing.

Brun spotted what might be a p-suit locker, and aimed Hazel at it. Sure enough, inside was a smudged yellow p-suit easily large enough for either of them. One p-suit, not two. Hazel clearly knew how to check out a suit; she was running the little nozzle of the tester down each seam. Brun waited until Hazel had checked it all, including the air tanks.

“It’s fine,” Hazel said. “Both tanks full—that’s six hours, if I understand their notation.”

Six hours for one person. Could Fleet get from where it was to here in six hours? Not likely. The shuttle’s air supply was much bigger—they would have air for four or five days—but if the warships found the shuttle, they would be dead before then.

Priority one: find another p-suit.

Priority two: find air.

“Weapons would be nice,” Hazel said, surprising Brun again. The girl seemed so docile, so sweet . . . was she really thinking . . . ? From her face, she was.

With the helmet on, Hazel tested her com circuit. She would use it, they’d decided, only to tell Brun she was on the way back . . . no need to let everyone on the planet know where they were, if they hadn’t been spotted.

With Hazel gone, Brun took the opportunity to search the dead pilot. Like all the men, he had packed a small arsenal: a knife at his belt, another in his boot, and a third up his sleeve, as well as a slug-thrower capable of putting a hole in the hull—what did he want with that aboard a ship?—a needler in the other boot, and two small beamers, one up the other sleeve, and one tucked into the back of his belt.

Hazel’s voice over the com: “Bringing suits.” Suits? Why suits plural? Brun hissed the two-syllable signal they’d devised for acknowledgement. “Problems . . .” Damn the girl, why couldn’t she say more . . . or nothing?

Soon enough—sooner than Brun expected—she heard the warning bleat of the airlock’s release sequence, and then muffled bumps and bangs as Hazel cycled through. An empty p-suit came out first, scattering glittering dust from its turquoise skin. Turquoise? Brun rolled it over, and there on the back was a label—BlueSky Biodesigns—and a code number whose meaning she could not guess. Hazel next, in the pilot’s dirty yellow p-suit, towing another turquoise model. Then two spare breathing tanks, lashed to the second p-suit. When they cleared the hatch, Brun reached behind her to dog the inner lock seal, as Hazel popped her helmet seal.

“Brun—it’s really strange in there. I found a suit locker right away, but the tank locker beside it was empty. So I had to hunt around. And I’ve never seen a station like it—”

Brun tapped her shoulder, and Hazel stopped. Brun wrote: LABORATORY. GENETIC ENGINEERING.

“Oh. That might explain the broken stuff, then. But listen, Brun, the oddest thing . . . remember how this p-suit’s fitted for males? All the suits in the station lockers—the ones I looked in, anyway—are fitted for females. That’s why I brought two. It’s a lot more comfortable . . . and near’s I can tell these suits have all the functions we need. And I found women’s clothes scattered around, soft shipsuits. Better’n these rough things, if your legs are as sore as mine.”

Brun hated it when haste blurred Hazel’s accent into conformity with that of the locals. But she was right. Already Hazel was unsuiting, packing the pilot’s p-suit away with practiced skill as she came out of it, hardly swaying as she steadied herself with first one hand then another. Brun opened the first turquoise suit and found the clothes. Soft fleecy pants and tops, in colors she hadn’t seen for far too long: bright, clear, artificial colors. Hazel had brought an assortment, bless her, different sizes and colors.

“You’re so much taller,” Hazel said, “I hope what I got is big enough . . .”

Brun nodded. She watched Hazel try to wriggle out of her clothes, wincing, and struggle into the softer ones. She chose dark green; the top had an embroidered design of flowers and swirls. Brun had found a pair of black pants that seemed longer than the rest, and a cream-colored shirt that was bigger around—even bound, her milk-swollen breasts had added to her size.

“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 . . .

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.”

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.”