Elizabeth Moon - Against the Odds

She tried again. “Why not take a shuttle? I’ll let you go; you’ll be safe—they’ll can me, but that’s happened before. And your crew”— my crew —“will be safe. You can trust me not to fire on you.”

“No,” Livadhi said. “I need the cruiser and its crew. That’s my ticket home.”

She could hardly believe, even now, how coldblooded he was. “Come on,” she said. “You’re an admiral; they’d be glad to have you if you arrived in your underwear.”

“No, Heris, they would not.” He seemed to be picking his words as if they were berries among thorns. “It is their opinion that I have not, heretofore, justified their investment in me. That is almost their exact phraseology. I must bring the cruiser and its crew—they don’t want the crew, but they want to be sure the cruiser isn’t booby-trapped.”

Away from the audio pickups, someone murmured, “Captain—” and when she glanced aside, held up a board with the number so far evacuated on it. She looked back at Livadhi.

“How about the crew, Livadhi? Did you think how they’re going to react, now they know you’ve sold them over to the Benignity? Can you really keep control of them until you get there? Do you think they’ll let the ship go without a fight?”

“Thanks to you and Suiza, probably not. Blast it, Serrano, it’s all your fault anyway.” Back to that, where he would stick until the end, she realized.

“Is Petris in your cabin with you?” she asked.

“Oh, yes. I couldn’t trust him elsewhere,” Livadhi said. “Do you want to see him?” And before she could answer, he’d turned the video pickup around. Petris sat slumped in a chair on the other side of the desk. He had a vacant, vague expression, so utterly wrong for that reckless face that Heris could not repress a gasp of dismay.

“A touch of pharmaceutical quietude,” Livadhi said; he turned the pickup back to himself and his grin was feral. “He’s too dangerous, and besides, I’d had my fun twitting him. He’s besotted with you, you know. Though he’s not up to your weight.”

Her mouth had gone dry; she could not speak. Over half the crew had been taken off, and stuffed like salt fish into Rascal ’s compartments and passages. The shuttles were even now loading again—this load would have to make the longer traverse to Indefatigable , unless they were left dangling on the ropes trailed from Rascal ’s transfer tube. She knew that if she microjumped closer, Livadhi would press that red button under his thumb. He might anyway.

Petris was dead already. She could see no way of getting him out—Livadhi could push that button before anyone could get into the compartment, even if there had been someone to do it. She raged inwardly at whoever was in Environmental—couldn’t they have thought to pump in some narcotic gas? But the flag offices probably had their own separate ventilation system, complete with secured oxygen tanks, for just such possibilities.

All she could do was keep Livadhi talking, as the slow shuttles went and came, ferrying off one meagre load at a time. Maybe—maybe—Petris would be the only innocent to die.

But even as she thought this, Livadhi’s gaze turned from her to one of the screens beside him, that she could not see. His eyes widened; he paled. “They’re running away! Evacuating! NO! I will not let you win, Serrano.”

And his thumb went down.

“I regret to inform you—” The old formula made it possible to say, but not easier. “Commodore Livadhi just blew up Vigilance. Rascal was much closer than we are; they may have damage. We hope there will be survivors; we are now going to mount a search and rescue effort.”

“I ask you all to remain calm, and carry out your duties; when we have word on survivors, you will be informed. For the duration of the rescue, launch bays and medical are cut out of the internal communications net: if you have a medical problem, contact your unit commander, who can contact the bridge.”

“Captain, we’ve got a line back to Rascal —”

“—only minor damage, Captain Serrano. But we can’t stuff any more in here. I do have a debris plot—”

“Thank you, Captain Suiza. Any sight of those shuttles?” Hardened combat shuttles should be able to survive, if not hit by anything too big. The officers’ shuttles, however . . .

“Yes, sir. One at least is whole, but appears to be tumbling out of control. Haven’t spotted the others—wait—Koutsoudas says he has ’em.”

“We’re coming in, but slowly—” Shields up, to avoid damage from debris, much more slowly than she wanted. Please, please let them be alive. More of them. Most of them. All of them, if it’s possible, please—

She waited a few minutes on the bridge to deal with any questions from the section commanders, but none came. So, with a last nod at her exec, she went to her office across the passage. There she copied and sealed the scan records, and began her own detailed report for Fleet, as she waited for the first reports on rescue attempts. Petris was dead. Livadhi had “fun” with him—she could imagine what Livadhi had said, how Petris must have felt. And she had come too late, with no miracles, without the chance to tell him what she felt.

The hours crawled by. She acknowledged the first report of success: the tumbling shuttle found, boarded, survivors—most badly injured—stabilized as well as possible. Another shuttle, its hatch open (had it been loading at the moment of destruction?), and all aboard dead. Another, all aboard alive, com mast destroyed, but the pilot had been able to guide it toward Rascal .

Her com beeped; she answered, trying to concentrate on item 16(f) in her report, and a voice said, “Captain, do you want lunch in your office, or over here?”

She started to refuse lunch, but experience said eat now or pay later. “Soup and bread,” she said, answering the unasked question. “In my office.”

“Five minutes, then, Skipper.”

The soup tasted flat, and the bread stale. She ate anyway, knowing it was important, alternating two spoonfuls of soup with a bite of bread. He was dead. He was dead forever. He hadn’t even been able to hear her, see her, in the moment before he died. All he’d heard had been Livadhi’s poisonous words; all he’d seen was Livadhi’s arrogant face.

Someone tapped on the door. “Come in,” Heris said, glad of anything to break the mood. The door opened, and Methlin Meharry stood there in a rumpled p-suit.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” she said. “I couldn’t get him out—”

“I know,” Heris said. Her eyes filled with tears; she blinked them back. “I know.”

“I should’ve killed that scum-sucking toad the moment I felt that twitch in my gut,” Meharry said. “It would’ve saved us a lot of trouble.”

“You did the best you could,” Heris said.

“Seemed like it at the time, but now—y’know, if it wasn’t for the mutiny—we all worried about starting trouble on the ship, in case we got into combat—”

“It’s not your fault,” Heris said.

“I know. But dammit, Captain—I know how you felt about him.”

“Yes, and I’m going to grieve and cry at the wake . . . but I was lucky to have his love, and that’s what I’ll remember. I’m not going to let a traitor rob me of that memory, and it’s not going to ruin my life.” She said it to comfort Meharry, but all at once she felt better herself. It wouldn’t last, she knew—the pain would come back, the loss—but that instant’s memory of his laughing face in the sunlight, years ago on Sirialis, brought only joy.

Winter rains had finally come to the main Fleet base at Copper Mountain, one front after another dumping snow on the higher elevations and a cold, stinging rain lower down. Q-town glittered in the lights of celebrating bars and restaurants and stores, streets freshly swept by another squall of rain and a bitter wind that rushed people off the street and into shelter.