Элизабет Мун - Cold Welcome

“Yes, Admiral,” Vispersen said. “Nobody left out.” He grinned. “Even me, when I’ve seen you safely suited. The aft stewards will be taking care of the other compartments.” He paused, then asked, “Will your aide be in her own suit?”

The Commandant gave him a sharp look but said nothing; he had his suit unfolded now, and was unsnapping the front closure. Tiny alarm bells rang in Ky’s mind.

“I’m certain she will,” Ky said, unfolding her own. “I know she brought it.”

“You can leave your shoes on if you want, Commandant,” Vispersen said. “These new models accept any footgear that doesn’t have an aggressive sole. Admiral, yours—”

“Is the same,” Ky said.

Ky’s stomach lurched a little as the anti-gravity failed to compensate completely for the increase in deceleration. She struggled for a moment with the tabs on the suit; one was stiffer than the others. Then she put her legs into the suit legs and stood up, one hand automatically on the nearest grabon, the other pulling the suit up over her uniform. The shuttle jerked and rolled to starboard; the Commandant, who had both hands busy fastening the torso toggles on his, fell sideways, but Vispersen caught him.

“AG compromised,” said a mechanical voice from above. “Expect unpredictable vector accelerations.”

Ky worked her free arm into the suit arm, changed hands on the grabon without letting go, and worked her other arm into the suit before another lurch came. She saved herself a knock on the head by stiff-arming the bulkhead. Vispersen was helping the Commander attach the helmet and its connections. Ky maneuvered back into her seat, slid one arm under the emergency seat restraint webbing, and fastened her own torso closure. Then she dug into the suit bag for her helmet.

“Secure for shuttle rotation. Expect zero G first, then hard Gs.”

The artificial gravity cut out completely during rotation. Sandwiches and tea tried to wiggle up her throat, but Ky kept them down. To her surprise, the viewport screens retracted, letting daylight into the cabin. Shouldn’t they stay covered in an emergency? Vispersen, legs swinging above the deck briefly, moved from the Commandant to her.

“Let me get that helmet hooked up and sealed for you.”

“Thank you,” Ky said. The Commandant, now webbed into his seat across from her, helmet face-shield open, had the inwardly focused look of someone in serious discussion with his innards. Vispersen closed the tabs she hadn’t yet managed, then attached the helmet and its connectors. “I’ve got the display now,” she said. Her own familiar display, with all the readouts in the right places, including readouts Spaceforce would not have and a seamless integration with her implants.

Vispersen opened an overhead locker and pulled out another suit, easing into it with practiced efficiency. Like Ky, he slid an arm through the seat webbing of the remaining seat before putting on his helmet.

She felt pressure against her back as the shuttle braked hard. More, and then more. Something popped in her suit, and she felt a protective cushion expand. Her mind seemed to split into separate tracks: questions (who, why, what, when, how?), a stream of possible outcomes (if the shuttle blew up, if it made it to land, if it crashed in the ocean), and an inchoate swirl of animal emotion, frantic. She locked that into a mental cupboard. That was panic. This was real: here, inside the shuttle. She set aside the things she could not predict or control (would the shuttle explode? Would they crash?) and reviewed what resources she had. A functioning survival suit, her bulletproof armor under her uniform, her 10mm pistol, her implant stuffed with her father’s Vatta data and her own for both Vatta and her own organization. The ansible implant, and the cable for it she wore as a hidden necklace.

If she survived to landing, she was not without resources, not even counting what might be on the shuttle or in others’ kits. “I don’t think this is aimed at you, Admiral Vatta,” the Commandant said. “I have annoyed many people in my time, some of them quite dangerous.”

“Two fish with one hook,” Ky said.

He grinned; she could tell it took effort. “Possibly. But sabotaging this shuttle almost had to be internal, in Spaceforce, where you’re more popular than not. We’ve got good crew—and there’s a master sergeant in back. You got the full list in from my aide, right?”

“Yes, Commandant.”

“If anything—well, if you need to, take care of them.” If she survived and he didn’t, that meant. His trust in her gave her an instant’s warmth.

Ky’s implant pinged her: Pordre, her flag captain. “Admiral—the course changes—are you in trouble?”

“Sabotage,” she said. “Shuttle problems—”

“We’ve launched one of our shuttles. Any chance of matching orbits? Doing a transfer?”

“No, we’re already too far down,” Ky said. “Where’s ours?”

“High and behind, but we’ve got an eye on you. Looks like you’re headed for a cluster of islands west of that line of cliffs—what is that, anyway?”

“Small continent, terraforming failure,” Ky said. “Patch me through to the shuttle crew.”

“Right away, Admiral. That’s Lieutenant Sonducco.”

“ Vanguard Two shuttle—this is Lieutenant Sonducco—Admiral?”

“Vatta here,” Ky said. “You still have us visually?”

“Yes, but you’re going into that cloudbank before we can get down to your altitude. It’s several layers deep—top’s at seventeen thousand meters. We’ll lose you to visual, and to scan until we lose some vee. Vanguard should be able to track you, and we’ve got a good probable trajectory.”

“There should be islands ahead of us—how far?”

“Not going to make it on that course, Admiral. You’ll be east of them, approx—”

The transmission ended as if someone had flicked a switch: no hiss, no crackle, nothing. They were in cloud now, but cloud should not have interfered. Ky assumed another form of sabotage though she could not think what would have that effect, then remembered the Commandant had said something about Miksland itself affecting communications. She wished she’d told Pordre about that. They dropped through the first layer; beneath were more clouds, these showing more structure. Ky hadn’t paid much attention to planetary meteorology for years, not since she’d lived on Slotter Key; she could not read the clouds for clues to the weather. At least they were down in atmosphere, descending fast into breathable air, the first requirement for survival.

She forced her attention back onto what she could do, assuming they landed safely and ignoring the possibility that the Commandant might not survive. The Commandant would take command; everyone knew him. The pilots and stewards, as the shuttle’s crew, would direct passengers; the shuttle had life rafts, and they would know how to deploy them. Once down, they would get into the rafts… she reviewed what she remembered about the raft drills her father had insisted on, those times he’d taken her and her brothers sailing.

Her job would be to follow crew instructions, and then offer whatever assistance she could. How many of these people had sailing experience? Many of them, probably; most people on Slotter Key lived near enough to open water, and all the early colonists had built sailing craft. Some would have had cold-water experience she didn’t have. She ran through the contents of a typical life raft in her mind, wondering if Spaceforce rafts had additional supplies. An initial supply of fresh water, and then a desalinization pump to produce more from the ocean water. Another pump to remove water from the raft. Rescue rings, lines for various purposes, sea anchors, nonperishable food, warming blankets, transponders, signaling devices of several kinds, fishing tackle, paddles, first-aid kit—it was a long list, and she couldn’t remember some items, but trying kept her mind occupied as the descent continued.