Elizabeth Moon - Against the Odds

As usual, I have many people to thank for help, including some who prefer not to be listed; you know who you are, and you know I appreciate it. David Watson and Kathleen Jones, for hours of brainstorming and for their collection of useful references, but most of all for wanting the story so badly that they restored my ability to tell it. The weekly fencing crowd (Allen, Andrew, Beth, Connor, Sean, Susan, Tony, Brian, etc.) for varied expertise that included such things as damage control on an aircraft carrier and the characteristics of large cables under tension, an evening of editorial comment, and especially for allowing me to work off my tension by poking them with swords. Clive Smith and Christine Joannidi for bits of physics, the history of an Anglo/Greek trading family, and the best Yorkshire pudding in central Texas. Those who hang out in my SFFnet newsgroup and provide facts, ideas, and general support (in this case, a double dose of thanks to Cecil, Howard, Julia, Rachel, Tom, and Susan.) Carrie Richerson for her ability to detect mushy spots in characterization. My husband Richard for the worst pun in the book. Our son Michael for patience with a writing parent. Michael Fossel, M.D., Ph.D., for stimulating discussions of rejuvenation. Ruta Duhon for weekly doses of sanity even when writing gets wild.

Mistakes and errors are all mine, not theirs.

Readers familiar with Change of Command will notice a temporal overlap between the last part of that book, and the first part of this one. Here the first chapter starts between the mutiny and the second assassination.

Newcomers may wish a bit more background.

The Familias Regnant is a political assembly of great families, now spread across hundreds of solar systems. Centuries ago, they combined their individual family militias into the Regular Space Service, which has the dual mission of policing the spaceways and defending the Familias from external attack.

In the previous book, Change of Command, longstanding dissension and unrest in the R.S.S. came to a head and elements of the Fleet mutinied.

The mutineers first struck at the Fleet training planet, Copper Mountain, freeing some of the prisoners from a high-security brig on a remote island. The rest they massacred. Their original plan had included taking over a weapons research facility, but loyalists managed to prevent that, at least for the moment. Unfortunately, the mutineers managed to destroy their transportation: the loyalists are marooned.

A cold wind swept the barren top of Stack Two; Ensign Margiu Pardalt’s eyes ached from squinting into it. Broad daylight now; the wind had long since swept away the bitter stench of the seaplane fires. Where were the mutineers? Surely they would land, to snatch the weapons they knew had been designed here. Had the message she’d tried to send using the old technology actually reached anyone, or would the mutineers get away with their whole plan? And when would they come . . . when would they come to kill her?

“This is stupid,” Professor Gustaf Aidersson said. Bundled in his yellow leather jacket over his Personal Protective Unit, with a peculiar gray furry hat on his head, he looked more like a tubby vagrant than a brilliant scientist. “When I was a boy, I used to imagine things like this, being marooned on an island and having to figure out a way to get home. I had thousands of plans, each one crazier than the one before. Make a boat out of my grandmother’s porch swing, make an airplane out of the solar collector, take the juicer and a skein of yarn, two cups, and a knitting needle and make a communications device.”

Margiu wondered whether to say anything; she couldn’t feel her ears anymore.

“So here we are, on the perfect island, full of challenges. I should be improvising rappelling gear to go down the cliffs, and something to construct a sailboat . . . I actually have built a boat, you know, but it was with wood from a lumberyard. And I sailed it, and it didn’t sink. Of course, it wouldn’t hold all of us.”

“Sir,” Margiu said, “don’t you think we should go back inside?”

“Probably.” He didn’t move. “And there is not one thing on this blasted island to make a boat or an airplane out of.” He gave a last look at the blackened stain that had been their transport. Then he looked at Margiu and his mouth quirked in a mischievous grin. “There’s only one thing to do, when the bad guys have all the transport . . .”

“Sir?”

“Make them give it to us,” he said, and headed inside so abruptly that Margiu was left behind. She caught up with him as he went in the door.

“Make them—?”

“It’s a desperate chance . . . but by God it’ll be fun if it works,” he said. He looked around the room at the scientists and military personnel who were also stranded. “Listen—I have an idea!”

“You always have an idea, Gussie,” one of the scientists said. Margiu still hadn’t sorted them all out by name. They all looked tired and grumpy. “You probably want us to make an airplane out of bedsprings or something . . .”

“No. I thought of that, but we don’t have enough bedsprings. I want the mutineers to bring us an airplane and give it to us.”

“What?”

The professor launched into an enthusiastic explanation. In the few seconds from outside to inside, his idea had already developed elaborate additions. The others looked blank.

Major Garson was the first to nod. “Yeah—the only way to get transport is to get them to give it to us. But it’s not going to be easy. They’ve got a lot more troops topside than we have . . . they can scorch us with the shuttle weaponry, for that matter.”

“So our first job is to convince them we’re not that dangerous,” the professor said. He had taken off his hat and shoved it into a pocket; his thinning gray fringe stuck up in untidy peaks.

“Do they even know how many of us there were?” asked Margiu. “They don’t know the planes were full, do they? Vinet didn’t get any messages up to them—”

“No . . . that’s right. And except during the firefight last night, we’ve been mostly undercover. But they’d be stupid to come in carelessly,” Major Garson said. “Never count on the enemy to be careless.”

“But—” The professor held up his hand a moment, then nodded. “But suppose, using Margiu’s radio apparatus, we give them what looks like accidental clues. We try to contact them, pretending to be mutineers fighting with scientists—”

“No, wait!” That was the skinny man with wild black hair. Ty, Margiu remembered. “Look, they know the loyalists have the radio now. Suppose we send a message, like we hope it’ll bounce around to mainland, begging for help. And then break off. And then an hour or so later, there’s a message to them from some of the military pretending to be mutineers, and then—”

“How would the mutineers know how to use that equipment?” Garson said. “It’s nothing Fleet-trained people would know unless they happened on it somewhere else, like Ensign Pardalt. And besides, it’s too fragile. It could get shot up in a firefight.”

“Suppose we say the radio’s the loyalists’,” Margiu said. The others looked at her. “And we’re begging for help from the mainland, like he said.” She nodded at Ty. “But of course it doesn’t come. We sound more and more desperate—we talk about being hunted by the mutineers, about the people killed in the explosions of the planes, and then the food shortages—the mutineers have all the supplies . . .”