Change of Command - Heris Serrano 06

by Elizabeth Moon

  “I’ll ask,” the professor said. He glanced at Margiu, who headed for the door again. She passed the question off to Lightfoot, and went back to the professor. In that brief inter­val, the discussion had already turned too technical for her under­standing, but it came to an abrupt end when someone pounded on the door.

  “Come in,” the professor called.

  Ty came in. “I’ve found two things-one’s a datalog showing transmissions to this station from Stack Three five days ago. From Bacarion. I think someone here’s on their payroll.”

  “Most likely,” the professor said. “And?”

  “And a transmission from orbit to this station, just now. Personal for Lieutenant Commander Vinet.”

  “For Vinet! I’d never have guessed he was part of it,” Swearingen said. “He’s such a fusspot. Did you answer it?”

  “No, just acknowledged receipt, using the same sig code that was logged for reply to the others. But I did take a look-”

  “Wasn’t it encrypted?” someone asked.

  “Yah, but a simple one. Not hard to break. Thing is, he’s not only part of it, they were telling him they’d be coming down in a day or so, and not to worry-that they’d prevented anyone from sending word from the station. So here we are, nobody else knows what’s going on.”

  Margiu spoke up. “We have to get word out somehow!”

  The professor looked at her. “You’re quite right, Ensign. And we have to keep them upstairs from finding out that we’re here, if possible, to give ourselves time to work-to get word out somehow, to destroy what we can’t protect.”

  Margiu noticed that he didn’t say “to get away safely.”

  “We’ll need the troops that came with you, Gussie, to keep the baddies out of our hair.”

  “Right. Ty, did your guard come back with you?”

  “No, I left him there to guard the equipment.”

  “Ensign, we’ll need Major Garson.” Margiu told Lightfoot, who hurried off, and in a minute or two Garson appeared.

  He listened to Ty’s report, scowling. “I’ll put Vinet under arrest, then. I wonder how many baddies were with him.”

  “And I wonder how many are with you, sir,” the professor said.

  “None, I hope,” Garson said. “Can you people take care of the rest of it?”

  “Building a tightbeam with the power to a ship insystem, yes. Building a scan to locate such a ship, yes. Destroy the more delicate research, and the records, yes. But it will take time, Major. There are only fourteen of us, and some of the work is specialized enough that only one person can do it. So we’d best get at it.” He nodded to Garson, and the major withdrew. The professor turned to the group. “One thing worries me.”

  “Only one?” Swearingen asked, grinning.

  “If they don’t know we’re here, they won’t be in as big a hurry to get down here . . . but when the cloud cover goes, they’ll be bound to take a look. And they’ll see our transports sitting there like a sign in capital letters: TROUBLE HERE.”

  “We could send them back,” Swearingen said. “But then we’d be stuck here. Besides, the latent heat would still show on a fine-grain IR scan.”

  “If you just want to hide the planes from scan,” Bob said, “we can do that with Zed. Set it for just those parameters. It’d be a good test-”

  “And if it fails, they’d not only know we were here, but they’d also know about Zed.”

  “It’s a lot quicker to dismantle and destroy than the big guy,” Bob said.

  “How many more hours of darkness? And does anyone have a clue about the weather?” The professor looked around the group.

  “Local sunrise is at 8:13 tomorrow; it’ll be light before that, of course, if it’s clear.”

  “And we have no weathersats . . . but we can always go outside and look.”

  When they opened the door, a squad waited to accompany them. The professor told Ty to get back to the communications shack; half the squad went with him. With the others he went outside to look at the weather. Outside, a cold wet wind scoured the ground. Margiu stayed close to the professor, looking up only once to see that no stars showed.

  “I can’t tell,” the professor said finally. “Bob, go on and rig Zed to cover the planes. We’ll start dismantling the other stuff-”

  “Professor-” That was Major Garson. “We can’t find Vinet, or several others. I want all of you back inside, until we find him.”

  “That could take days,” Swearingen said. “Some of the labs are underground, connected by tunnels.”

  “Ty’s at the communications shack,” the professor said. “He has guards, but-”

  A flare of light, followed in moments by a whoomp. Down the runway, one of the planes was blazing, the flames shooting up to glow on the underside of the clouds.

  “Great,” Garson said. “They can spot that right through the cloud cover. Go on now-get inside, get under cover.”

  “Where’s Lieutenant Lightfoot?” Margiu asked.

  “I don’t know-he’s not answering the com.” Another, brighter flare of light painted one side of the major’s face, and another explosion rolled through the night. The second plane. “Ensign, switch your PPU mask to enhanced, and get these civilians back under cover. That yellow jacket makes a fine target.”

  Margiu fumbled for the mask controls, and hit suit reflectivity by mistake. Her suit turned silver, then back to dark blue as she turned it off. Then she found the right set of buttons, and instead of dark clouds and a distant fire, she was looking at a scene painted by someone with a passion for shades of ­amber and orange. She could see little orange figures moving around, some with green triangles for heads; the blazing fire looked black. As her eyes adjusted, she noticed that the professor had a green triangle, and so did the NEMs around them.

  Then a turquoise line stabbed across her vision, to crawl up the professor’s sleeve toward his head. Margiu threw herself at him, hooked a leg behind his, and they fell together as a shot whined past and smacked into the armor of the NEM on the other side. He staggered, then all of the NEMs dropped as one.

  “Target acquired,” the one beside Margiu said. “Mark hostile-” Margiu turned her head and saw that one orange figure now had a red square on top. Another of the NEMs fired, and the distant figure went down. She lifted her head, and the NEM shoved it back down. “Not yet, Ensign. May not be dead, and may be others.”

  “Casualties?” That was Garson, on the com.

  “No, sir. Small arms fire only; didn’t penetrate armor. Civil­ians all unharmed.”

  “Who’s on high guard?”

  “Turak and Benits-report!”

  “No activity on the roof-nothing, sir.”

  “Let’s get them inside.”

  The NEMs formed a double row of armor, and the civilians crawled carefully between them into the building, but no more shots were fired. Margiu took a last look through her enhanced mask, and the orange figure still lay where it had fallen. Then a network of turquoise lines appeared, coming from several angles to converge on the antenna cover of the communications building. She leaned out to see, and a NEM yanked her back.

  “Are you trying to get killed?” a woman’s voice asked.

  “No, I just-”

  “Get inside, stay inside, take care of your professor!”

  Margiu followed the others into the windowless break room; the professor was looking at her in a way that made her uncomfortable.

  “What are they doing?” Swearingen asked.

  “I think they’re trying to destroy the antenna array,” Margiu said. “It’s under that dome on the communications building, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. And if they succeed, we’re not going to be able to use a tightbeam, even if we construct one.”

  “Why a tightbeam?” Margiu asked.

  “Goes farther, carries more data. We might even be able to reach the system ansible, if we can get a fix on it. That would get word out.”

  “But-wouldn’t a regular b
roadcast disperse more widely, giving you more chance to warn any incoming ship that wasn’t part of the mutiny?”

  The professor looked thoughtful. “You mean-like old-­fashioned broadcasting?”

  “Yes. If you have enough power-”

  “And the antenna is much easier to make. You may have saved more than my life, Ensign.”

  * * *

  The R.S.S. Vigor came through the jump point in textbook fashion. Just because they knew they were coming into a secure system, just because nothing could possibly be wrong, was no reason to be careless. Captain Satir would not have paid attention if anyone had complained, and no one did: Satir was a good captain, and his fussy adherence to every little jot and tittle of the rules had saved lives before.

  Now Vigor slowed to scan the system defenses and monitor system message traffic before proceeding insystem, even as her beacon automatically informed the system who she was. As she dumped velocity, the communications officer stripped one message after another, hardly glancing at them as they came off the printer-Captain Satir demanded hardcopy, even if that did mean plenty of recycling. He handed them to the captain’s runner, who took them to Satir. Satir was already alert, peering at the system scan.

  “I’ve been to Copper Mountain eight times, and the outer loop’s never been all red,” his scan officer was saying.

  “I’ve been here ten times and never seen this many big ships insystem. What’s going on, I wonder?”

  “We’re ten minutes out-twenty delay on queries.”

  “I don’t think I want to talk to the station. Put us at battle stations, Tony, but don’t light up the weapons.” The alarms rang through the ship; colored lights danced across the various control boards reporting systems in operation. Satir glanced at the sheets of paper in his lap. Trouble. Major trouble.

  “Sir, there’s an odd signal coming in-you need to see it now.”

  “Odd how?”

  “Not the usual frequencies, for one thing. It’s surface propagated, but not a coherent signal-it’s like they didn’t care who picked it up. It’d dissipate to noise within this system, though.”

  “And it says?”

  “It’s in clear, and it says there’s a mutiny at Copper Mountain, that the mutineers have the orbital station and control of system defenses. It’s begging somebody to get the word out.”

  Captain Satir looked at his bridge officers. If this was a hoax, reacting as if it were real could end his career. If it was not a hoax, he had only one chance to get away.

  Even as he hesitated, a bank of lights on the scan desks came alight.

  “They’re aiming at us,” his scan officer said. “Tracking us-”

  “Full ahead, find us a slot and take us to jump,” Satir said. “We’re getting out of here while we can.” Vigor had the speed and the angle; none of the ships insystem could catch them in straight flight, and he was prepared to jump blind if necessary to put more distance between them. The system ­defenses were preset to defend certain arcs which he could easily avoid. “Make extra copies of all scan data, and try a squirt at the system ansible as we go by-they may have reprogrammed it, but it’s worth a try.”

  Four days later, Vigor came in range of an ansible in ­another system, and transmitted an emergency override command set, followed by the entire load of scan data she’d collected.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sirialis

  The long room with its high ceiling would have held twenty pairs of fencers, and had before. The walls were pale green above the mirrors, and the gilt beaded molding around the ceiling was echoed by the molding around the mirrors. The east wall, a bank of French windows, let in the natural daylight and overlooked a rose garden. This morning, bars of yellow sunlight lay across the polished wood floor. Only a few roses had opened, the early white single ones like showers of stars, but their perfume entered on the slightest movement of air. Down the middle of the polished parquet floor ran the strip, deep green.

  Miranda finished her stretches, and picked up her practice foil. Facing the mirrors, she could see that Pedar, though still stretching, was watching her. She moved through the parries, smoothly but not fast, feeling for the rhythm that would best suit her needs. He finished his stretches, but made no move to pick up his own blade. He stood watching her instead. She met his eyes in the mirror, then turned.

  “What? Am I doing something wrong?”

  “No, my dear. I was thinking how lovely you are-and how incongruous it always is to see a beautiful woman holding a deadly weapon.”

  “This?” Miranda laughed, touching the button, and bending the blade with only a little pressure. “Even if it weren’t so whippy, it could hardly kill anyone.”

  “It’s the principle of the thing,” Pedar said. “And I’ve seen you with stiffer blades.”

  Miranda grimaced. “I was younger, then.”

  “You were Ladies’ Champion in epee . . . I have never forgotten your grace, that day.”

  “I was lucky. Berenice ran out of breath-I’ve always suspected she had a cold. Usually she beat me.”

  “But still-if you had live steel in hand, in the old days, I don’t doubt you’d have been a formidable opponent.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Miranda said. “Shall we?”

  Still he didn’t move. “I was going to ask a favor.”

  “A favor? What?”

  “I see you have Bunny’s old collection here-in the hall. I know he never let anyone actually use it, but-do you suppose we could?”

  Bait and hook, taken faster than she’d expected. She frowned a little. “The old weapons? But Pedar-they’re old. I don’t even know how old, some of them.”

  “If I could just hold them-just feel them.”

  “I don’t even know if they’re really mine to lend,” Miranda said. “I mean, they’re here because Bunny brought them along, but they are his family’s heirlooms. You’re the one who said I should be fair to Harlis-”

  “Harlis need never know,” Pedar said. “It’s just-the oldest steel I’ve ever held was that antique Georgy has-you know.”

  “Oh, that old thing.” Miranda allowed herself a sniff. “It’s not a day over two hundred, whatever he says. These are much older-”

  “I know, that’s why I asked. Please?” He cocked his head and put his hands together like a polite child.

  “I suppose it couldn’t hurt,” Miranda said. “If we’re careful . . .” She could feel her heart speed up, safely hidden under her white jacket, as she led the way back to the hall.

  She unlocked the case, and stood back. Pedar reached past her, and took out, as she’d expected, the big saber with the heavy, ornamented hilt. He ran his thumb down the blade, and nodded. “Still-”

  “Bunny said they were still usable,” Miranda said. “But he didn’t want to take a chance on breakage. They’re not replaceable.”

  “No . . .” Pedar breathed on the blade, then buffed it with his sleeve. “Derrigay work, look at that pattern! And the ring-” He rapped it with his nail, and the blade chimed softly. Miranda shivered, involuntarily. Pedar set the blade back, and took down another. “You have no idea of their age?”

  “Bunny always said that one-the epee-was the oldest, and the rapier the next oldest. He said it was just possible those two were from Old Earth from an era when they might have been used.” Used to kill, intentionally. Used as she would use a blade today.

  “Amazing.” Pedar put the rapier back, and took the broad, curved blade for which she had no name. “And this?”

  “I don’t know. It looks more like a chopper to me-for very large potatoes.”

  He chuckled. “Not a blade for artistry, no. An executioner’s weapon, perhaps, from a very bloody period.” His hand reached again, this time for a foil. “So-this is your weight now?” His hand stroked the blade, bent it. “Not so whippy as the one you were using, but-light enough, I’ll warrant.”

  “Oh, probably. I still practice with heavier blades now and then.
” She had to be fair. She had to be scrupulously fair, and let his own folly put him in danger.

  “Let’s fence with these, not the modern ones.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea . . . I don’t know what they would think-”

  “They? What ‘they’? Who could possibly dispute with you, now that the judgement has gone your way? What harm could it cause?”

  “I don’t know,” Miranda said again. “What if a blade breaks? What if Harlis appeals, and then finds out I’ve destroyed a valuable asset?”

  “He needn’t know. He isn’t a fencer; he’s probably never paid attention to them. Besides . . . I’ll explain it was all my idea.” Pedar nodded at the helms. “Look-let’s do it right. Use all the old gear, masks as well. It would be like fancy dress.” He had always liked fancy dress; he had worn it to balls where other men wore conventional clothes.

  “But-”

  “Just this once. There’s no one to see. Please?” Again that tip of the head, the pleading expression, then an impish grin. “I’ll bet you’ve always wanted to. Haven’t you?”

  Miranda smiled. “As a matter of fact . . . I did sneak that one out once-” She nodded at the blade in his hand. “There’s something about it-knowing it’s old, knowing it was used by people long dead-”

  “Yesss.” He drew out the syllable, nodding. “I thought so. Just as you enjoy old porcelain, or jewelry. Those who appre­ciate such things should not be forbidden the use of them. So you will humor me this once, Miranda?”

  She glanced around, as if nervous of watchers. “I suppose-and after all, if we do break one, and Harlis finds out-as you said, he’s no fencer. He can hardly skewer me.”

  “Well, my lady-choose your weapon.” Pedar set the blade he’d been holding back in the rack and waved her forward with an extravagant gesture.

  Miranda reached, pulled back as if unsure, and finally took the blade he had just replaced, the longest of the foils, with a weighted hilt to balance it. He took its partner.

  “Let’s complete the mischief,” Pedar said. “As I said, with such blades as these, our helms too should match. I’ve long fancied myself in one of these-had my armorer make a replica, but it’s not the same.” He tried on one, then another, until he found one that fit . . . the others had, as she knew well, inconvenient and uncomfortable lumps beneath the linings.