The Serrano Connection

by Elizabeth Moon

  With considerable difficulty, Brun helped Hazel up the narrow ladder into the shuttle. The man was already busy at the controls; he glowered when Brun made her way forward and settled herself in the other control seat. "Don't touch anything!" he said sharply. Brun watched. Everything looked much the same as on Corey's ship. Although the names of the measures were strange, she could identify most of the instruments. The man ran down the same sort of checklist.

  The little craft bumped its way down the field, engines screaming, gaining speed with every meter. But could it possibly be enough? The trees at the far end approached too rapidly—Brun could remember going much faster than this at Rotterdam. Suddenly, the shuttle rose into the air as if hoisted on a crane . . .

  "Short field ability," the man said, grinning. "Surprised you, didn't I? She needs a third less runway, and she can clear a hundred feet when she goes up."

  Sun streamed in the cockpit windows; Brun stared avidly at the control panel. Her mind had been so hungry, all this time, for something real, something to do. She glanced back at Hazel; the girl grinned, pointing to the gauges. Yes—a spacer girl, she would have had the same hunger. But now Hazel was looking out and down, at the shadowy folds of hills and valleys receding as they rose. Was this, perhaps, her first planet? Brun had never thought of that. Higher . . . there was a river, winding between hills, with a roll of ground fog like wool resting on the hill to windward. The craft climbed steeply, and the view widened every minute. Over there should be the city they came from, with its spaceport . . . yes. Small—smaller than she expected, though the spaceport had landing space enough for a dozen shuttles.

  The radio crackled; their pilot spoke into his headset, but it was so noisy Brun couldn't hear what he said. Higher . . . higher . . . the morning sky that had been a soft bright blue darkened again. The gauge that must be an altimeter had reeled off thousands and ten thousands, but Brun didn't know what the unit of measure was. It neared sixty thousand somethings, and passed it. Then the pilot pulled the nose up even higher, and pushed a button on the left side of the cockpit. Acceleration slammed her back in her seat as a penetrating roar came from behind. The sky darkened quickly to black; stars appeared.

  She noticed a streak of sunlit vapor climbing below them; their pilot yelled something into his headset. The vapor trail turned away. The pilot pointed through the front window. Brun peered back and forth, not seeing what he meant, until Hazel tapped her arm. "Ten o'clock, negative thirty . . . their space station." Then she could see it, as its shape passed over a sparkling expanse of white cloud on the bulging planet below. She had been there, on the inside, unable to see . . . and now she was here. Free. Or almost free.

  The man handed Brun a headset; she put it on. Now she could hear him. "Changing from lift engines to insystem—we're supposed to rendezvous with something out here. Dunno if it's military or civilian or what. They gave me code words to use."

  The craft lurched as he switched from one drive to another, then the artificial gravity kicked in, and she might as well have been sitting in a model shuttle on some planet's surface. Quiet, too, just as it should have been, with only the faint crisp rustle of the ventilation system. She glanced back at Hazel, who was grinning ear to ear. It felt right to her as well, then. She peered out at the stars, burning steadily . . . but she could not recognize any of the geometry. What system was this?

  "Might's well take a nap, now she's on auto," the man said. He switched off the banks of instruments useless with this drive, yawned, and hung his headset on a hook. "I'm going to." He closed his eyes and slumped in his seat.

  Brun slid her headset down around her neck, but did not follow his example. Too much was at stake.

  "I'm really tired," Hazel whispered. "And my legs . . ."

  Brun mimed sleep at her, and watched as Hazel dozed off. The man was snoring now, snores of such complexity that she was sure he couldn't have faked them. She put out her hand to the controls, and he didn't stir.

  So here she was, on her way . . . she touched her knives, reminding herself that she was not going to be recaptured, if anything went wrong. And out there somewhere, Fleet waited. She was sure it would be Fleet; her father would not have risked anything less in taking on a whole planet. She hoped it wasn't far out, and she hoped very much that whatever ships were there did not include one Lieutenant Esmay Suiza. She was not ready to face that, on top of everything else.

  An hour passed, and another, and another. Despite herself, she yawned. She would have taken a stimulant if she'd had one; she scolded herself for eating such a big breakfast. Another yawn . . . Her eyes sagged shut, and she struggled to open them, only to yawn again. She looked at her shipmates. The man was snoring in a different pattern now, but just as loudly. Hazel slept neatly as a cat, curled into herself on the bench seat. Brun tried pinching herself, changing position, taking deep breaths . . . but in that steady, warm stillness, she slept in spite of herself.

  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 a
bout 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?