The Serrano Connection

by Elizabeth Moon

  "Tell it to confirm to her that we respond to Fleet codes, and ask her to sign a yes or no acceptance of our ID."

  "Yes, sir." A pause followed, then, "It's trying, sir." After another pause, "It says she wants to know who it is. A name."

  Esmay thought a moment. According to her father, Esmay was the last person Brun would want to see, or should see. But that was a name she'd know.

  "She knows us, Lieutenant," Meharry said. "Methlin and Oblo—she'll recognize that."

  "Go ahead," Esmay said. "Tell it that."

  Another brief pause, and then, "It's agreed. It's going to mark the way, and tell Sera Meager someone's coming."

  "Tell it to give her a description of our suits, so she'll know us from the others," Esmay said.

  Now her helmet display lit with the icons of the intruders: twenty red dots displayed on a graphic of the station wing. Esmay followed the expert system's directions with her team; the others moved down the main corridor to intercept those landing.

  Here in the secondary corridor, occasional turqoise p-suits lay like dead bodies. Every one gave Esmay a chill, but the expert urged them on, via the relay through the scan tech. At last, a compartment door slid open ahead of them. Cautiously, Esmay edged forward . . . and there they were. Brun, recognizable through the facemask of the p-suit, and a scared-looking young girl. Meharry moved past Esmay and cleared her helmet faceshield so Brun could see her. Brun staggered forward, moving as if she had serious damage, and fell into Meharry's grip.

  "Medical team," Esmay said. They came at the double, and unfolded the vacuum gurneys that allowed life-support access to a p-suited patient outside pressure. Only then did she think of asking scan for the frequency that the expert and Brun's suit must be using. She glanced around the compartment, to see an obvious gap where bulkhead sections had warped apart. Was that from the recent impact of the Militia shuttle, or old damage? She couldn't tell; it didn't matter.

  Brun struggled to free herself from Meharry's grip, and gestured at the girl. The medics unfolded another of the gurneys, and unzipped it. They rolled each woman into her own, then zipped and sealed, and popped the tanks. The transparent tents inflated, leaving sleeved access ports for treatment.

  The girl started talking right away. "Please—she can't talk—she needs a way to communicate—"

  "Sure, hon . . . what's your name, now?"

  "Hazel—Hazel Takeris. And she's Brun—she was using a compad with voice output, but the plug broke."

  Esmay found the compad, and slid it into the transfer portal of Brun's gurney. She could see Brun cycle it through, then hold it without using it. Plug broken? It must mean that she had needed to plug it into her p-suit. Brun made the universal sign for Air up? and Esmay responded. Brun popped an arm seal on her suit, just as their safety instructor had taught them: never trust anyone's word on air pressure. Then she peeled back one glove, and tapped one of the compad's keys.

  "All correct," announced the audio pickup from inside the gurney.

  "Sera Meager?"

  "All correct."

  "Can you describe your current status?"

  "No." That, as Esmay could see, was another button. The thing must have had preprogrammed messages. What was the keyboard for, then?

  "Can you type complete answers?"

  "No."

  Esmay turned away to consider their overall position. The Militia that had crunched into this wing were about halfway to their part of the wing, though coming down the main corridor.

  "Trouble . . ." scan said. "Big trouble."

  "Bad guys on the other end are carrying explosives. Can't see if the ones on this end are, but they could be."

  The mobile units available to the expert system were secondary models which had survived the initial vandalization by looking like simple boxes. It had taken longer than the expert expected to recharge one of them, get its tracks moving, and send it off to Laboratory 1-21 to look for voice synthesizers. But now it was on its way. The expert kept an area of higher artificial gravity moving along with it, to keep its tracks in firm contact with the deck plating. The expert prided itself on carrying out all orders, no matter how complex, simultaneously. It dispatched another, and then another, in case the first should be disabled somehow. Clearly it was important to get a communications device to the taller human.

  The first unit reached the lab, and extended a pincer-arm to pick up one of the synthesizers, just as an impact rocked the station. The unit flipped off the deck, and out of the area of higher gravity; it flew across the lab, into the corridor, and impacted the opposite bulkhead just behind the group of neuro-enhanced marines that had stalked past. The rear marine slagged it before it had time to fall to the floor, yelling "Hostile!"

  "What is it?" Kim Arek asked. She was surprised and delighted to find that her voice didn't crack.

  "This thing just flew out the hatch at me—"

  "Something bounced loose by the hit?"

  "Looked like one of those robot bomb-crawlers, what I saw of it."

  "Well . . . keep an eye out for others."

  Pete Robertson, Ranger Travis and Captain of Rangers, had plenty of time to think on the way up from the surface. It was all Mitch's fault, and God's judgement on Mitch's hasty ways and unhealthy attachment to outlander technology was about to land on all of them. He made up his mind, and called the others—they would make sure no one used that heathen station for anything ever again, and that Mitch paid the price for his unbelief.

  He had no real hope that they'd get out of this in good shape—not with the appearance of enemy ships in the system—but at least they'd take care of their own dirty laundry first. And Mitch would never be Ranger Captain: he would see to that himself.

  The two enemy shuttles that had docked to the derelict would present no problem if they simply blew the derelict up—and he'd toyed with the idea of having Yellow Rose and Heart of Texas do that before they went out to fight the invaders, but he'd rather do it himself. It felt right.

  So, huffing a little in his hardened p-suit, he shuffled carefully off the shuttle with the rest of the Travis crew, and led the way down the corridor that lay open before him. Sam Dubois, Ranger Austin, had landed at the far end of the long structure—both groups would set explosive charges as they converged on the enemy, and then retreat—and blow the station. The odd thing was, his personnel scanners detected only a small cluster of life forms way up ahead, in the central core, and two off to the right somewhere. Hadn't Mitch caught the women yet? He smiled to himself, forgetting for the moment the missing enemy from the shuttles.

  When the little tracked crawler trundled out of a side corridor, he spun and with practiced ease drew and fired. Bullets ricocheted off the thing's hard shell and holed the bulkhead in a scattered pattern. The machine came on, a jointed arm holding some device . . . behind it was another one, just coming into view around a corner.

  "Git those!" he said, and drew again. Behind him, the Travis crew clumped up, and someone's shot shattered the device the thing was holding. But the crawlers came on, more slowly. "They can't catch us," he said. "Come on—" and turned back to move on the way they'd been going.

  Which was now blocked by huge figures in black armor, holding weapons he'd never seen.

  "Get'm boys!" he yelled, and fired.

  Then the strange weapons belched streams of something gray that shoved him back into his men, and glued them all into one immobile mass. When the next explosion came, from the far end, he had a sudden stark fear that it would ignite the charges his crew had left behind, and blow them all. He was not, he discovered, nearly as ready to meet his Maker as he'd always claimed.

  * * *

  "Dumber than dirt," Jig Arek said, with some satisfaction. "You'd think they never heard of riot control."

  "We still have one bunch loose," Oblo said.

  "Belay that," Meharry said, in what for Meharry was a tense voice. "We've got worse problems. Brun and Suiza fell off the station."

 
; Chapter Twenty-Two

  One moment, Esmay had been checking where everyone was; the next, with no warning, the gurney tent ruptured; air puffed out. Live fire, it had to be. Esmay threw herself on the gurney, covering Brun's body, and slammed Brun's faceshield shut. Even through her armor, she could feel Brun breathing; she could see Brun's face, rigid with fury or terror—she couldn't tell which—but the mask was clear, which meant that air and filters were both working. She pushed herself up a little and locked the elbow position so her armor wouldn't crush Brun if something hit her hard. Something thumped into her armor once, and again; someone fell over her; excited voices yelled in her suit com. She ignored them; she and her armor were between Brun and whatever was going on, and someone else could handle that.

  Then the deck bucked hard, buckled, and the damaged bulkhead peeled away. She caught a glimpse of other suited figures tumbling—someone grabbing for the other gurney—and some blow thrust her toward the opening, out into the brilliant sunlight.

  By the time she realized she was tumbling outside the station, she knew she was still clinging to Brun, the armor's power-assisted gloves clamped to the frame of the gurney. The view beyond shifted crazily: light/dark, starfield/planet/station. She tried to focus on the helmet readouts, and finally found the ones that gave an estimated relative vee to her "ship"—the station—a mere 2.43 meters per second.

  Brun, when she looked, was staring back at her with no recognition. Of course not—Esmay had never changed her faceshield to allow it. Impossible now. She had no idea what to do, but she knew one thing not to do—let go of the gurney frame. Her suit had the beacon.

  "Lieutenant!" That loud shout in her helmet com got her attention; she hoped it was the first call.

  "Suiza here," she said, surprised that her voice sounded as calm as it did.

  "Lieutenant, have you got the gurney?"

  "Yup," Esmay said. "She's alive; air's flowing."

  "What about you? Somebody thought they saw a plume."

  Another look at her helmet readouts was not so reassuring. Her own air was down, and the gauge was sagging visibly. I've been here before, she thought, remembering her first terrifying EVA from Koskiusko. And I didn't like it then.

  "Low," she said. "And going down."

  "The blast may've pulled your airfeed loose—can you check it?"

  "Not without letting go of the gurney," Esmay said. "And I'm not going to. What's the situation?"

  "They're dead; we've got two dead, and four tumblers, counting you and the gurney as one. Max has you all on scan. We'll have a sled to you in less than ten minutes."

  She didn't have ten minutes.

  "What is your air?" That was Meharry.

  "Three minutes," Esmay said. "If it doesn't leak any faster."

  "Is Brun conscious?"

  "Yes. She's looking at me, but she can't see me—my helmet shield's still mirrored."

  "I'm going to transmit to her, tell her to see if she can stop your leak."

  "No—it's too dangerous."

  "It'll be more dangerous if you pass out and can't help guide the sled in."

  She could see the change in Brun's expression, though Meharry hadn't patched the transmission to her. Then Brun wriggled around, wrapping one arm in the straps waving from the gurney, and reaching around behind Esmay. Her arm wasn't long enough; she tapped Esmay's shoulder.

  If Esmay let go with one hand, and turned, Brun might be able to reach whatever it was. But she might lose her grip on the gurney—they might not find her. Brun's tap the next time was a solid slug. Esmay grinned to herself. Whatever the damage, Brun hadn't changed in some essentials. Carefully, slowly, Esmay loosened her grip on the gurney frame on that side, and transferred her grip to one of the grab straps on Brun's p-suit. Brun wriggled more. The air gauge quit dropping . . . stabilized . . . at eight minutes.

  "Eight minutes," Esmay reported to Meharry.

  "She's got the luck, that one," Meharry said. She did not say whether eight minutes would be enough. Esmay told herself that one minute of oxygen deprivation was within anyone's capacity. Brun bumped against her, flinging out an arm and leg. What was the idiot doing—oh. Slowing rotation. Esmay extended her legs on the other side. The confusing whirl of backgrounds slowed, as they lay almost crosswise of each other, forming, with the gurney frame, a six-spoked wheel rolling slowly along.

  Then Brun reached up with her webbing-wrapped arm, and pushed up Esmay's mirrorshield before Esmay could bring an arm in to stop her. Her eyes widened. Then she grinned, as mischievous and merry a grin as Esmay had ever seen on her face. She used the same arm to work free the thermal-packed bag of IV fluids sticktaped to the gurney, and very deliberately used her glove's screwblade attachment to poke a hole in it. Then she winked at Esmay, looked past her—moved the bag around—and squeezed.

  A stream of saline jetted out, instantly converted to a spray of ice crystals that glittered in the sun. Esmay wondered if Brun had just gone completely insane. Then she realized what it was. For all the good it would do, Brun was trying to use an IV as reaction mass to get them back to the station faster.

  Esmay did her best to hold still, even as her air ran out, and the hunger for oxygen overtook her, urging her to run, struggle, fight her way out of the dark choking tunnel that was squeezing the life out of her.

  She heard voices before she could see; the steady quiet voices of the medics, and somewhere beyond, quite a bit of cursing and yelling.

  "What's her pO2 doing?"

  "Coming up. Caught it in time . . ."

  "We're going to need another can of spray over here—"

  "My God, what'd they do to them?"

  "It was the horse, I think—" That in a tentative, soft voice.

  Esmay opened her eyes to see unhelmeted faces bent over her. She wanted to ask the logical question, but she would not ask that one. One of the medics anticipated her.

  "We're in the shuttle again. Our targets are alive, no wounds taken in the shootout. We lost two dead, eight with minor injuries. The station's pretty much gone and there's a fight going on upstairs somewhere. And now you're with us, we don't have to worry about you any more." The medic winked. "But I do have to do a mental status exam."

  Esmay took a deep breath, and only then realized that she still had something up her nose feeding her oxygen. "I'm fine," she said. "What else is going on?" She tried to sit up, but the medic pushed her back.

  "Not until we're sure of your blood gases. Your suit telemetry said you were out of air for about two and a half minutes before we got you reconnected, and that's on the edge of the bad zone."

  "I'm fine," Esmay said.

  "You're not," the medic said, "but you will be when we're done with you." She inserted a syringe into the IV line Esmay had not noticed until then, and a soft gauzy curtain closed between Esmay and the rest of the universe.

  Barin had the uncomfortable honor of observing the whole collapse of the "simple, straightforward extrication" from the bridge of Gyrfalcon. Most of the carnage had already happened by the time Shrike's signal reached them, and his grandmother ordered the rest of the task force to jump in. They popped out less than thirty light seconds from the planet, only ten from the nearest enemy ship. Gyrfalcon's first salvo took it out; the cruiser's massive energy weapons burned through its shields in less than a second.

  "Not used to facing real firepower," Escovar said calmly.

  "Captain—Shrike has recovered one shuttle—casualties . . ."

  Please, please, let it not be Esmay . . . Barin clenched his hand on the ring he had bought for her.

  "Firing solution on second enemy ship—RED for Shrike—"

  "Hold!"

  "Got it!" That from Navarino, whose clear shot at the second enemy ship had blown it as cleanly as their own had the first.

  "Third target running—headed for jump point—"

  That would be the job of Applejack, the cleanup light cruiser . . . Barin watched scan intently as the enemy ship headed to
ward the minefield Applejack had spent the past six hours sowing around the jump corridor.

  Hazel had seen the bulkhead peeling back, and felt a moment of complete panic—not now, not after all they'd been through—but someone's gloved hand caught the bar at the end of her gurney, and wrapped a quick line to it, then secured the line to a stickpatch. But—when she looked—she could see a tumbling, receding shape that had to be Brun and someone holding her.

  She said nothing—there was enough noise on the comunits anyway—until someone asked if she was all right.

  "Yes, but—what about Brun?"

  "We'll get them back," a reassuring voice said. "Don't you worry. And we'll get you into a shuttle."

  "Yeah, before this place breaks up completely . . ."

  She was passed from one set of hands to another—each carefully attaching her to another set of secured lines before releasing the first—and then finally through the cargo hatch of a shuttle. People moved past her, all busy, all doing something she hoped would rescue Brun. She had heard of Fleet SAR all her life, but she'd never seen it in action. She'd had no idea that SAR teams wore black p-suits that looked like space armor from storycubes. She'd expected them to wear bright colors with flashers or something to make them easier to see.

  "Hey there—can you tell us your name again?" That was a blonde woman with sleepy green eyes.

  "Hazel Takeris," Hazel said. "Of the Elias Madero." Her throat closed on all the things she had meant to say, that she'd rehearsed in her head so many times.

  "We're going after Brun now," the woman said. "There's a beacon on the officer with her—we can't lose her."

  Hazel felt better, but she could sense more tension in the people around her. Something was still wrong.

  "What is it?"

  "Nothing to worry about," the woman said. "Only this was supposed to be a quick, simple extrication . . . and we didn't know about you—"

  "I'm sorry," Hazel said automatically. The woman looked startled.

  "Don't you be sorry. It's those idiots who planned it who need to be sorry."