She heard voices from the other end of the module; when she looked, Vispersen was making his way forward, followed by several others in orange survival suits. The suits had no name tags or rank insignia, but they introduced themselves briefly: Sergeant Cosper, Corporal Inyatta, Corporal Riyahn, Tech Lundin.
“Master Sergeant Marek has taken charge in the rear compartment,” Sergeant Cosper said. “He’s the only one of us who’s ever been through a passenger module landing. It was just in training, though.”
“Much better than nothing,” Ky said. “Pilot’s dead. The copilot’s been badly injured—I think poisoned like the other, but he’s still breathing, and I think his leg’s broken. Anyone here trained in trauma?”
“Me, sir. Uh, Admiral.” Tech Lundin was a strongly built woman with a steady gaze out of gray eyes. “I’m certified fourth-level trauma life support.”
“Excellent,” Ky said. “You’re in charge, then.”
“Yes, sir…Admiral.”
“Just sir,” Ky said. “Be sure to collect the copilot’s tags; I have the pilot’s, and the flight recorder.”
Lundin pointed to a bulkhead compartment. “Should be a basket in there, Corporal, and an IV setup in number four. I’ll need both. Sergeant, if you’ll follow me.” She moved forward past Ky.
Ky looked at Vispersen. “I’ll go back and talk to Staff Sergeant Marek.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is there survival equipment in this compartment that we’ll need?”
“Yes, sir.” He pointed to the overhead. “Life raft there—three more in the rear compartment. Contents of some of these lockers—”
“If Tech Lundin doesn’t need these two, start getting supplies together.”
“Deploy the raft, sir?”
“Not yet—just get supplies we’ll need from bulkhead compartments; put them on the seats. I’ll talk to Marek first.”
She made her way down the aisle; when she came abreast of Jen, who looked both scared and offended, she hoped a touch of humor would help. “This is not the homecoming I planned.”
“I thought not,” Jen said. “It is certainly not what I expected. This doesn’t happen back—”
Ky held up her hand. Jen said no more. “We must focus on the here and now. I need your report—did you check the aft compartment before you came forward?”
“I told you about the Commandant’s aide being dead. And Senior Lieutenant Ghomerti, in the compartment with us. I didn’t go back—I came to find you,” Jen said, her voice uneven. “All poisoned. If we’d worn those suits—”
“But we didn’t,” Ky said. “And we’re not the only survivors.” Her thoughts raced; most of them would not help Jen stay calm. Whoever sabotaged the suits had chosen the most critical targets first. With the pilots dead or incapacitated, the shuttle would crash at sea, maybe without separating the passenger module, and the others would die in the crash.
“I’ve got the Commandant’s aide’s ID packet,” Jen said. “Anything else I should collect?”
“Did he have an external com device? It’ll be loaded with Slotter Key access codes.”
Jen opened a locker beside the aide’s seat. “This is all he was carrying.” She pulled out the case Ky had seen back at the station.
“Hang on to that,” Ky said. “Have any background in planetary survival, Jen?”
“No, Admiral. I was born and raised on the Cascadia Station. Only visits downside.”
Ky led the way into the aft compartment. Master Sergeant Marek—a tall, brown, fit-looking man with some gray in his short-cropped brown hair and a deep heavy scar from the left side of his forehead up over his head—had the personnel in the rear compartment divided into teams. She could tell he had no implant; the scar suggested why, a serious head injury.
“Admiral,” he said when he saw her. “What about those up front?”
“The pilot, the Commandant, and the Commandant’s aide are all dead—poisoned—their suits were rigged to kill them. The copilot might make it, but I doubt it.”
His face tightened. “Yours, too?”
“I haven’t looked yet at mine; my aide examined the one designated for her and it was also rigged. Everyone accounted for back here?”
“Yes, Admiral. One fatality, Corporal Gassar. Needle in the neck.” He grimaced. “That means you and your aide are the only officers aboard…unless the copilot lives.” She could read the look he gave her as if his thoughts were displayed on a screen. Was this high-ranking officer from a different military going to be a problem? Or could the admiral who’d led an outnumbered force to victory be an asset?
“Come with me a moment,” Ky said. She led him into the middle compartment, where the Commandant’s aide was still strapped into a seat, his dead face a gray mask. “Yes, Commander Bentik and I are the only live officers aboard. And yes, we’re not in your chain of command. Nonetheless, it is my duty both as an officer, and as a native of Slotter Key, to offer my services. We both know the relevant citations in the Code.” Ky kept her eyes on his and her voice steady. “Do we have a problem, Master Sergeant?”
He scowled at her for a moment. “It depends, Admiral. Do you have any idea what to do in this situation?”
“Some. It has distinct advantages over a space emergency,” Ky said. “We have air to breathe, food, and an abundance of water. Our mission is survival until we get back to a safe base. This module hasn’t sunk yet; we have modern life rafts and supplies. We’re rich, in survival terms. So our first task is to get into the rafts before this module goes down, then stay alive in the rafts until we reach land. I understand you’ve had training in the module.”
“Yes—I know how to deploy the rafts, and what supplies are in them. But the training was a long way from here, in warmer waters.”
“But you can do it.” It was not a question; she saw from his expression that he took it as she meant it, that his resistance to her taking command was weakening.
“Yes, Admiral. I’m certain I can get a raft deployed. We’ll be crowded in it; they’re rated for twenty, but—”
“We’ll need two rafts deployed,” Ky said. “We don’t know if we can reach Miksland, or how long it will be until we’re found and rescued—we need the supplies in both. At least.”
“So you’re—you’re really taking command?”
She had not expected such indecisiveness from him, but it was a circumstance he’d never faced. “Yes. I ask you again: is that going to be a problem, Master Sergeant?”
His expression firmed, this time to a tight grin. “No, Admiral. I accept your command, on behalf of the Slotter Key personnel aboard. And your orders?”
“That you prepare to evacuate this thing. How long will the passenger module float?”
“As long as one of the cushions doesn’t deflate,” Marek said. “The range was up to ten hours in calm water.” He shook his head. “All this rocking around puts more stress on the cushions—the manual said even one deflation could make it unstable enough to tip over. We should launch the life rafts as soon as we can.”
“It doesn’t feel”—Ky grabbed for a seatback again—“like the parachutes are very efficient sea anchors.”
“No, Admiral, they’re not; they were supposed to detach. These seas are too big. And we’re too big and sit too high. Wind’s shoving us around.”
“How do we transit from the module to the rafts? As you said, we’re sitting high.”
“There’s a slide installed into the hatch itself; deploy that first, attach the raft’s tether to the hull, then inflate the raft and let it slide down to the water. Then personnel can go down. Anything else we take can slide down to the rafts and be pulled in.” Once focused on the task, he seemed more confident.
“Vispersen told me there are four life rafts; every one will have supplies—”
“Four, yes. Far more than we need. I was about to pull one and check it. With the shuttle sabotage, maybe the rafts were sabotaged as well.”
Ky had been
trying not to think about that possibility. She kept her voice level. “Go ahead. We should bring all the rafts, one spare to each inflated one.”
His brow wrinkled. “Why the others?”
“Sabotage, again. We don’t know if there’s another saboteur among us. This is a big cold ocean and I’d rather increase our chances of staying afloat, not treading water.”
He nodded. “That makes sense. I’ll get a raft down and do the exterior inspection, then pop a hatch. If we can open just one, it’ll be better.”
“Carry on, then. I’m going to collect some forensic data forward,” Ky said. “I’ll leave you to assign personnel to each raft. If you need me, tell Commander Bentik.”
“Yes, Admiral.”
When she went back forward, Tech Lundin had the copilot on the rescue basket, but shook her head when she saw Ky. “We’ve lost him, sir. I got IVs in, intubated him, but there’s a mark on his neck—like the needle only went in partway. It wasn’t the injuries—the poison killed him. I’m sorry.”
“You tried your best,” Ky said, looking down at Major Sunyavarta, father of a nine-year-old daughter who wanted to be like Ky—at least this year. “We shouldn’t leave him to the fish. We’ll bring his body home to his family—all of them, in fact, if we can.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll suit him back up, shall I?”
“Good. I’m going into the cockpit to see if there’s any other evidence investigators might want later,” Ky said. “When I’ve done that, you can retrieve the pilot’s body, too. Anyone know something else that might be useful in establishing the cause of the problem?”
“Sir, if you can pull the flight recorder—”
“I have that already,” Ky said, patting the pocket it was in. “Anything else?”
“If we’re taking the bodies, why not leave his ID on him?”
“I want the IDs separately. If we’re not found fairly soon, we may have to bury them at sea.”
In the cockpit, she noticed a notepad clipped to one side of the pilot’s control panel and shoved that in the same pocket as the flight recorder. In the same locker where the flight recorder had been, she found a stack of plastic envelopes and used her stylus to take a little of the foam from the pilot’s lips and smear it inside one of them. She folded that and put it in another pocket, then wiped the stylus on her survival suit’s leg. She looked again at the control panels. Surely the passenger module would have a transponder, some form of communication. But all the lights were off. She flicked switches; nothing happened. The module’s communication was as dead as her skullphone.
When she came back into the cabin this time, Tech Lundin had the copilot once more concealed in his survival suit, helmet fastened on. “Here’s his ID, Admiral,” she said, handing it over.
“He mentioned his daughter when we were introduced. I will do my best to see that they learn what happened to him,” Ky said. A nine-year-old child had just lost her father. Ky had been—she thought back—twenty-three when her father was killed. She had been too shocked, too horrified, by the needles in the Commandant’s neck to feel the anger she felt now. Six men—good, competent, productive men—dead by treachery. No time for that now; she had these men and women to care for.
“Pack up any medical supplies you find,” she said. “We may need them. We’re going to be evacuating this module, getting into life rafts, as soon as possible.”
Only then did she remember that she had not collected the Commandant’s identification packet. She did that and started back down the aisle. Tech Lundin called to her.
“We can put the pilot on the same basket as the copilot, sir, and drag it, but we can’t fit any more in it.”
She could see that, and she could see the outline of the forward emergency hatch. Lifting dead bodies up and over that, to slide down and then be hauled into the rafts like so much dead—like the dead men they were—would be very difficult.
“Staff Sergeant Marek will be opening a hatch and letting the slide down, then a raft,” she said. “There should be time to move them one by one. If we’re found quickly—” And if not, they could not keep corpses in the same rafts with the living. In a separate raft? No. And the other injured man, whom she hadn’t checked on yet. “Tech Lundin, there are other injured back here. Let others move these.”
“Yes, sir.” Lundin moved quickly past her with the case of supplies.
Vispersen, she saw, was sitting down again, looking uncertain. “Staff Sergeant Vispersen,” she said. “Need something to do?”
“But I—but you’re—”
“Take another seasick pill if you need to. There’s plenty to do before we move to the life rafts.” She realized after a moment that he was either confused or scared. “Get that life raft down,” she said, pointing to the bulge in the overhead. “Move it to the aft compartment.” He got up, then, and moved to unlatch the raft hard-case.
Ky followed Lundin into the aft cabin. Marek had made his assignments; the other personnel were in two groups, with Commander Bentik off to one side. Her first impression was that all the survivors looked like good troops—not surprising, considering the selection, but they were all alert, attentive, and at least outwardly calm. Three life raft hard-cases had been propped on seats. Marek nodded to her.
“Ready to open the escape hatch, Admiral.”
“Go ahead.”
When the hatch opened, a wash of cold, wet air came in, along with the sucking and splashing of water against the inflated cushions. Despite the cold, it smelled like home to Ky. She was surprised to recognize the smell here, in a place she’d never been.
The weighted evacuation slide rolled out, inflating as it went, smacking the water hard as the module rolled toward it. Spray flew up; a little came into the shuttle; it stung like ice. Marek had already made a line fast to the raft bundle and now shoved it out the door, yanking a second, short line as he did so then letting go. With a whoosh, the raft inflated and the canopy popped up, its entrance hatch open.
“Go Team One!” Marek said. Ten orange-suited figures hurried through the hatch, one after another, skidding down the slide. They had just reached the bottom when Ky felt the module shift again as the wave passed beneath it, lifting the slide now, and the raft at the end of it. “Grab on!” Marek yelled. “Stay with the raft!”
Six were able to hang on to the raft; four rolled away, back down the slide, but managed to grab on to loops set on the inside of the slide tubes. They made it into the raft when the next wave lifted the module higher again. Marek sent a raft package after them, and they hauled it in as well. “Team One’s supposed to be checking all the equipment in the inflated raft to see what’s missing and what doesn’t work.”
“Good,” Ky said. “We’ve got six dead bodies to get aboard the second raft. The copilot died. Who checked the crash gear at the station?” Ky said.
“Bai Gassar,” Marek said. “Our dead steward. So at least we can be certain he didn’t have anything to do with the sabotage.”
“He had some kind of fit just before we landed,” someone else said. “I saw him kind of twitching in his seat, so I checked him out first when we got up.”
“Did you open his suit?”
“No, Admiral. He was dead.” Ky’s implant reminded her that this was Corporal Riyahn. “Master Sergeant opened it.”
“And found a needle.” Ky nodded.
“Is that what killed the Commandant?” Riyahn’s eyes widened.
“We think so. And the pilot and copilot.”
“Does that mean Bai was the one who sabotaged the suits?” Riyahn’s voice rose; two others looked at him.
“Unlikely.” Unless it had been suicide, but if the saboteurs had committed suicide then the pilot and copilot might have been in on the plot as well. She could not believe that, not after Sunyavarta’s mention of his daughter. “No way to be sure yet, and we can worry about that later. For now, we need to get everyone off this thing and into a raft.” She turned to Tech Lundin, who was applying a splint
to Corporal Barash’s arm.
“How many injured?”
“This is the worst, sir. The rest are contusions, some abrasions. They’ll heal on their own. And the arm may not be broken; I’m splinting it as a precaution against further injury.”
“Good work,” Ky said. She started to say more but was interrupted.
“Do you want Corporal Gassar’s ID packet, sir?” That, her implant informed her, was Sergeant Chok.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” Ky said. “Stick it in a pocket and keep it safe; I have the others.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The correct address is Yes, Admiral,” Jen said, her voice harsh with disapproval.
Chok looked confused. “Sorry, sir—Admiral—I mean, Commander—”
“No problem, Corporal,” Ky said. “Commander Bentik is more familiar with the protocol of the Cascadian forces.”
“And in the Space Defense Force,” Jen said, her voice still edged with disapproval.
Now they were all watching her and her aide, even Marek. This was exactly the way Jen had caused tension on that visit to Moray, criticizing Moray military usages as not being Cascadian. Ky kept her voice even.
“In an emergency such as this, sir is perfectly appropriate,” Ky said to Chok. Then, to Jen, “But, Commander, I appreciate your care for the courtesies when under such stress.” She meant it as a softening compliment, but from Jen’s expression she felt it as an insult. Jen would have to deal with it; she had no time to placate her aide.
She looked at Marek. “Time to launch the second raft?”
“Not yet, Admiral,” Marek said. “We need a report from the team in the raft on what’s missing—see if it can be replaced anywhere in this module. Then we need to arrange everything that will go into it for quick unloading. The remains, for instance, can’t be lifted into the raft with the rescue basket; it could snag the life raft fabric. They’ll have to come in by hand.” Or not, his tone said.
“I’m sure someone will be looking for us,” Ky said. “My crew tracked us into the cloud cover. If they find us in time, these bodies can be brought home to their families.” And perhaps yield clues to the saboteurs’ identities.
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