Queen of Chaos, page 23
part #3 of Sequoyah Series
She ignored a few hesitant efforts to get her attention, heading for the thicker greenery at the back of the conservatory. Once in the shadows, she turned. Ennis had managed to conceal both weapons under his long coat. Moire tilted her head toward the open room with a questioning glance; he nodded. Clear.
Moire tapped at the control bracelet. “Yolanda? You still there?”
“Goddammit Captain, don't yez da gain!” Her underworld accent was indecipherable, but Moire could translate purely from tone and inflection that Yolanda did not want a repeat of what had happened.
“Sorry, but things blew up in a way even Zandovar didn't anticipate. I'll tell you what happened someday if we both survive. There's a takeover attempt going on. We are back in the conservatory. Get everybody loose on the station back to the ship. Can we still get out this way?”
“Is Ennis near you?”
Puzzled, Moire glanced at him. “He's right next to me. Why?”
The section of wall near a tall palm exploded in heat and smoke.
“Need to know where ya were. Come on, Captain, we got the shuttle waiting.”
One of the figures that had emerged from the hole was beckoning. It was wearing a hardbody construction suit, which in the smoke and confusion looked remarkably like battle armor. Certainly nobody in the conservatory was hanging around for a better look.
The hole opened directly into the huge central airshaft for the station.
“Ah, this brings back some memories,” Moire muttered as she climbed down the ladder rope.
“This time I'm running away with you,” Ennis commented.
It seemed to take forever to climb down to the bottom hatch. Then Moire and Ennis had to be transferred to the shuttle via emergency bags, which was more terrifying than she wanted to admit—but there wasn't time for suits. Nor was there room. The little nerya was not pleased by this mode of travel and let her know with a tight–clawed grip, but she couldn't complain. Gremlin had saved their lives.
The shuttle was packed with suited people and gear. Somehow Moire wiggled through to the front controls.
“Yolanda. What's the radio chatter?” Moire eased the shuttle away from the station at regular speed. No point in looking like they were running away.
“They know somethin' goin' bad. Lotsa yelling from the ceeyo folk but not sure who they think is in charge.”
“Good. Give them something to worry about besides us. Somebody keep an eye on traffic; let me know if anything looks like an intercept.”
There were a few false alarms, but nothing to make her change course or velocity on the way back to Raven.
“Yer not botherin' to come in sneaky,” commented Yolanda.
“We aren't going to be returning to Kulvar any time soon,” Ennis said grimly. “Any of us.”
“Even if Zandovar loses?” Moire asked.
“We can't know that unless we actually go there. Zandovar took a big hit but he didn't get where he was by being stupid or lazy. If he's gone then the new ceeyo will probably want to talk to us to see why Zandovar thought we were such a big deal. Not good.”
Now that they were at the ship they could speed things up. She docked as quickly as she could and ran for the bridge. Alan was there waiting for her, his face spreading in a wide smile when he saw her.
“It works great!” he said. “It's the best rifle ever!”
That was when she noticed he was holding the sniper rifle instead of the weapon he'd had when they first left the ship. Then she noticed the woman they had encountered was also there, only now she was calm and relaxed, watching Alan with a tolerant air of approval. She also was wearing a pistol in a thigh holster.
“I see you were using your initiative all over the place,” Moire said, giving Yolanda a meaningful glare as she headed for the pilot's pit. She'd deal with it later.
“We did a pretend war! There were the hardbodies from all the other people standing outside, and we made it look like they were shooting each other! Well, I shot them from far away and Yolanda had some things that made noise like a gun going off.”
Ah, then that explained the sniper rifle.
“Company,” warned Ennis, who was at the scope.
“And somebody yellin' on the main channel.” Yolanda looked up from the comm board, confused. “Did we take any of Zandovar's people with us?”
“We killed a bunch, but why would we want any souvenirs?” Moire was only partly paying attention at this point. A strong lineup, anywhere. Deception was called for. They had put tracers on her ship.
“They gone 'zent mental,” Yolanda complained. “Now they are talking about ghosts. Give ghost back. Wha? What the hell happened back there?”
“Not our problem anymore,” Moire murmured, and engaged the drive.
¤ ¤ ¤
Moire watched the readouts, feeling tired and hollow. “He'd better be there. I'm not going to wait around.”
“We don't know for sure they got all the data,” Ennis said, knowing what she was thinking.
“And we don't know they didn't. I wish we knew what had happened back there. How did Kolpe Anders end up on Kulvar? Yolanda said there was never any sign of a Toren presence.”
Ennis shrugged. “Anders wasn't acting rational. He may have done it on his own, for his own insane reasons. Main point is, we need help to keep Toren off Sequoyah and we can't go to Kulvar to resupply. Palmer is our only link to the outside now.”
“Yeah, I know. I just want to get back there and make sure everyone is all right.”
“Gren knows what to do.”
Moire reached for the dropout switch. “The only combat he knows about is when one of his ex–wives catches up with him.” The collapsing gravity bubble dragged itchily over her bones. “OK, we're here. Is he?”
Ennis was bent over the scope. He cursed, a sudden explosion that made her jump. “Something is here, but it looks like wreckage. Dammit, Palmer!” He spun and reached for the comm controls. “No distress beacon.”
“Get back on the scope. Patch me through; I'll do the yelling. Make sure that's his ship.” Moire first put out an alert to the crew. If it was Palmer, he would need help. If not, someone might still be out there. “Lady of Leisure, come in. Come in, Lady.” She repeated the hail while Ennis scanned. Yolanda came running onto the bridge.
“I can help scan,” she called out.
“Do it. Ennis, you're on guns. There's a secondary screen up there too. I'm going to take us closer. Any signs?”
Ennis slung himself up the ladder. “No signal. I think it was him, though. I recognize that cargo pod. You think someone found him here? How?”
“Somebody put a snooper on our ship. They could have done the same for him. It can't have happened too long ago; we're right on time.”
They continued to sweep the wreckage. The main body of the ship was in one piece, but there was a huge hole, surrounded by twisted and blackened metal. Standard core rupture. Then she saw the blast marks.
“Yep, somebody was shooting at him.”
“Captain. There's a piece of wreckage that's way outside the debris field.” Yolanda gave coordinates. Moire raised an eyebrow. That was significantly distant from the main body of the ship, meaning it had gotten there partially under its own power.
“See it. Let's take a look.”
When they got close enough, Ennis called down, “It's his remote waldo! And there's something on it!”
Yolanda fussed with the scanner. “Looks like a spacesuit. Don't see him moving, though.”
“Let's get him in. Probably injured. That makes it look like he had time to escape, anyway. Maybe he wasn't shot up here, or they would have gotten him.”
Ennis went out with the crew of the runabout to recover the suited survivor. “It's Palmer,” he radioed. “Seems to be breathing, but unresponsive.”
“Don't hang around to take pictures. I want to get out of here.”
As soon as everyone was back on board Moire set the fastest course she could back to Sequoyah. Something was wrong. Very wrong. The sick feeling in her stomach wouldn't go away.
“Looks like he took some bar–phen,” Ennis said when he got back to the bridge. “He's alive and apparently unhurt, but he won't wake up until the drugs wear off. That was pretty clever of him.”
“How so?”
“Only life support he had was that suit. It's not rated for extended survival. He knew his only hope was us showing up, and that we'd look for him once we saw what happened to his ship. With the bar–phen, his metabolism slows and he uses less oxygen. Plus, he gets nervous in vacuum. Prone to panic.”
“I wish Fortin was here. If he overdosed we may never know what happened.”
They kept a watch on him, discovering fortuitously that Mrs. Perwaty, otherwise known as Linna Ott, had once worked as a medical assistant and at least knew what she was ignorant about. Moire promoted her to ship's medic pro tem. Linna was still not entirely convinced they were legit, but seemed to accept that they were in fact taking her to her husband. Mostly this was due to Alan, who kept telling her stories about what Perwaty had been doing. Moire just hoped he remembered not to mention exactly who, or what, Perwaty's “friend” was.
¤ ¤ ¤
A day later Linna called the bridge. “He's awake.”
When Moire and Ennis entered the cabin Palmer had been given he was trying to stand up and failing.
“He won't have reliable motor control for a day or two,” Linna said, looking at the collapsed Palmer without a sign of pity on her face. “I told you what would happen. You didn't listen. You can whine to them for a change; I'm tired of it. Teach you to blow up your own spaceship.” She sniffed and left.
“She's mean,” Palmer muttered. “I was thinkin' Grimaldi was hardass, but not compared to her.”
“So what happened to you?” Ennis said. He lifted Palmer's shoulders while Moire lifted his feet and they swung him back in the lower bunk.
“I'm sorry. I dunno what went wrong,” Palmer muttered, not meeting their eyes. “I did it just like you said. I go to the dock, and there's the contact 'n everythin'. She got the right words. So I give her the stuff you gave me, and she hands me one a them boxes again—and that's when somebody start shootin'. Heavy load, not them popguns the night–lifters use. I duck back to get my piece, and they start ripping the dock! I dunno what happened to yer contact. She got hit pretty bad, but last I saw she was still movin'. I hear the pressure drop alarm going on–station an' I jus…I jus wanna get out, ya know? So I unclamp and kick off hard. Then I see there's this scary ship on intercept. Looked military, but it din't have no markings or numbers I could see. They start in with their big guns. Lady got hit. Got inta webspace before I realized the reactor control an' cooling was damaged. Kept it together for a while, but the drop I knew was gonna make it go. Rigged up a remote drop switch, got in my suit and soon as I dropped I was out the main hatch. Din't get yer cargo,” he said, looking crushed and defeated.
“At least you brought us word of what happened,” Moire said. Her mind was numb. The cargo they had been expecting, and desperately needed. Kulvar was gone, and now Palmer had been compromised too. “I wonder if this was Kolpe Anders again.”
Ennis shook his head. “That ship on intercept sounds like Toren. They must have found out about the drop. I'm more worried about the data we sent. If that got captured, or the data the contact was delivering, that could be bad.”
“Dunno about the stuff you sent, but I got yer delivery box right here,” Palmer said, brightening. “Rigged it in the suit air gear, just in case the bad guys found me somehow.”
“You mean you have the data box hidden in your suit environmental controls? How?” Ennis stared at him.
“Oh, I hadda pare it down some, of course. Took a looksee with the tomoscope, makin' sure I didn't hit the security thingies, then I just milled around 'em. Took a while, bein' careful an' havin' ta run an' patch the reactor every now an' then, but it's in there!”
Ennis was already running out the door. Moire tried to smile. It was unlikely there would be anything they could use, but at least the run wasn't a complete waste.
“I dunno how I can make it up to ya, but I'll try,” Palmer said.
“Not your fault I've got powerful enemies. I'm sorry you lost your ship. If we get out of all this alive I'll get you another one. We'll find something else for you to do back home. If we are going to survive this,” Moire swallowed around the lump in her throat, “we need all the help we can get.”
Chapter 13
The Dangers of Diplomacy
She wasn't on the bridge. Or her office, or in Alan's quarters, or with Harrington and the recuperating Inathka. Ennis stood in the corridor outside Engineering, thinking. Something was seriously wrong if Moire was avoiding everybody, even him. Admittedly Palmer had brought nothing but bad news—even the messages on the data he had hidden had been less than cheering—but everything he knew of her told him she wouldn't give up when the odds were against her. She never had. So she was hiding for some other reason. Where could she remain alone? What place would she seek when she felt threatened?
He turned and jogged back to the bridge, past the pilot's pit and the realspace controls, and looked up. There wasn't any light up in the gunner's position, but the shadows were thicker than they should be. He climbed up the ladder. Moire was curled up in the chair, staring at the blank readout screens. He could see the glint of her eyes when she glanced at him, then away. There wasn't room for another person up there, so he braced himself against the lip of the access hatch and stood on the ladder.
Once his eyes adapted to the minimal light provided by readout pinlights he could see her face. She looked tired and hard. Ennis forced himself to go still, to match the rhythm of her breathing. She hadn't snapped at him to leave, but in this dangerous mood, she could. He had to get through to her without making her close up even more, or finding somewhere else to hide.
“Hungry?” he asked, after a few minutes of silence had passed.
She made a noise that could mean anything, or nothing. The silence deepened. “Do you think Fleet will come if they get your message?” she said finally.
“I don't know,” he said, wishing he could give a better answer. “A lot will depend on how quiet they think the crab war has become. They didn't give much detail with the latest summary, but there's been a noticeable decrease in attacks.”
More silence, but it had a thoughtful quality. “I wonder why. It can't be just because we're talking to them, can it?”
“I keep remembering what Perwaty told us when we first found them. He said Radersent said the crab war was a mistake, and humans weren't the ‘right ones,’ whatever that means. Maybe word is getting around among the crabs.”
“How could they not know we were the wrong enemy?” Moire asked. “If the diplomacy is helping I guess we'd better show up at the rendezvous.”
Ennis took a deep breath, stilling his reaction. “You were thinking of not going?”
She shifted in her seat. “I know I promised…but right now the only thing I can think of is protecting Sequoyah. We're cut off. If we don't already have it or we can't find it in the sargasso—very far away, I might add—we can't get it. I can't justify taking the time just to deliver messages for Fleet, but if it means the crabs could stop attacking altogether and Fleet can help us, that's different. A small chance. I can't count on it, though.” She slammed her fist down on the armrest. “People are going to die no matter what I do. What the hell were they thinking putting me in command?”
Getting closer to the problem, now. He reminded himself again not to rush. “That you would do a better job than they would? Stop thinking we're a bunch of gullible idiots,” he snapped. “Everybody who's joined up has a very good idea how dangerous this is. You've already lost people and your crew is still with you. They made their decision. Why can't you accept that?”
She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. “Because I'm in charge,” she said, her voice tight. “Every single one of them is important and irreplaceable. How do I choose? How can I choose? When choosing means somebody dies? They should at least know it was for a reason.”
Something in her voice, in her words, triggered the memory. He'd buried it deep, telling himself it didn't matter anymore. The person who left Fimbul, shivering in a borrowed blanket because every scrap of clothing he'd worn was contaminated, was not the person who had been born there. Who had survived there. Doing what needed to be done. That person was dead. He had survived.
How do I choose? “You find the core. Some things are bad but you do them if you have to. Like stealing. Others…you'd die, without even thinking about it, rather than do. Sometimes they aren't what you'd think they are. My foster father had built a shelter on the surface. It was hidden. You couldn't get to it without breather gear. It kept us alive. Not just because it had air and heat, but because nobody else could find it. He was old and had never been a fighter, and…and he had me to protect. About a month before the rescue I came back from the tunnels and saw tracks going toward the shelter. I always covered my trail, and my foster father was too sick to even stand, then. I never knew if that man had discovered the shelter or not, but I found him close enough to have seen it. He hadn't done anything—but I couldn't take the chance. I killed him. Dragged the body into a crevasse; went back and erased all signs of him. I never told anyone. Not my foster father, not Fleet. Sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice. Maybe he had meant no harm and just was looking for a safe place himself. The tunnels were really bad then. But if he was looking for us, or told anyone…discovery would have been death.”
