Rules of Engagement

  Barin’s heart sank, if possible, even lower. A vid of Brun was one thing, but her yacht, empty and bearing signs of a fight, was not something likely to have been faked.

  “Did she say anything to you-anything at all-that might give us a clue to where she could have been when she was attacked?”

  “No, sir. I brought the notes I’ve made-” Barin handed them over. “Mostly we talked about the courses, about the other students and instructors. Quite a lot about Lieutenant Suiza, because Brun-Sera Meager-asked about her.”

  Escovar flipped through the pages, reading rapidly. “Here-she mentioned owning a lot of stock-did she ever say in which companies?”

  “Not that I remember,” Barin said. “She may have, but that didn’t really interest me. She talked about hunting-on horseback, that is-and bloodstock, and something about pharmaceuticals, but I don’t know anything about that, so-”

  R.S.S. Shrike

  They had been in jump for eight standard days, and Esmay had spent much of the last two shifts in the SAR ready rooms, briefing the specialist teams on the wonders of EVA during FTL traverses. Solis had asked her to work up a training syllabus. She would have expected this to take only an hour or so, but the teams had ever more questions-good questions. If it had been possible, they would have gone EVA on Shrike; Esmay was glad to find that the fail-safe of the airlocks worked here as well as on Koskiusko, and no one could get out.

  “We really should practice it, though,” Kim Arek said. She had the single-minded intensity that Esmay recognized as her own past attitude. “Who knows when we might need it?”

  “Someone should develop suit telemetry that works outside the jump-space shielding,” someone else said. “The temporal distortion could kill you if you didn’t know when your air was running out.”

  “What techniques do you use when your air is running out?” Esmay asked. “I know what the manuals say, but the only time I saw my gauge hitting the red zone, I found ‘stay calm and breathe slowly’ wasn’t that easy.”

  “No kidding.” Arais Demoy, one of the neuro-enhanced marines, grinned at her. “Imagine what it’s like when you’re not even on a ship, but knocked loose somehow. That happened to me one time, during a ship-to-ship. That’s why we have suit beacons in the space armor. Try to go limp, if you can-muscle contraction uses up oxygen-and think peaceful thoughts.”

  The ship shuddered slightly, and everyone swallowed-the natural response to a downjump insertion; the insystem drive had been on standby for the past half hour, and now its steady hum went up a half tone.

  “Prayer doesn’t hurt,” added Sirin. “If you’re any sort of believer.”

  Esmay was about to inquire politely which sort she was, when the emergency bells rang.

  “XO to the bridge; XO to the bridge-” She was moving before the repeat.

  “Captain?”

  Solis was glaring at her as if she had done something terrible, and she couldn’t think of anything. She had been in his good graces; he seemed to have put aside his earlier animosity.

  “We have received a flash alert, Lieutenant.”

  War? Esmay’s stomach clenched.

  “Lord Thornbuckle’s daughter has been taken captive by an unknown force which threatens reprisals against Familias should any action be taken to rescue her. She has been mutilated-”

  “Not . . . Brun!?” Esmay could feel the blood draining from her head; she put out a hand to the hatch coaming.

  “Yes. There is, apparently, incontrovertible evi­dence of this capture. All ships are to report any trace of an Allsystems lease yacht Jester . . .” Solis shook his head, as if to clear it, and gave Esmay another long challenging look. “You don’t seem pleased that your prophecy that Sera Meager would come to grief has been fulfilled-”

  For a moment she could not believe what he said. “Of course not!” she said, then. “It has nothing to do with-I never wanted anything bad to hap­pen-”

  “You had best hope, then, that she is recovered quickly and in good health,” Solis said. “Because otherwise, what everyone will remember-as I’m sure her father remembers-is that you bawled her out and she stormed away from Copper Mountain in a temper. You might as well realize, Lieutenant Suiza, that your future in the Regular Space Service depends on her future-which right this moment looks damned bleak.”

  She could not think about that; it was too dire a threat to think about. Instead, her mind leaped for any useful connection. “That trader,” she said. Solis looked blank. “The little ship,” Esmay said. “The one that trailed it in, the five bodies that weren’t crew, but had been mutilated. That could have been Brun’s ship.”

  Solis stared at her, then blinked. “You . . . may be right. It could be-could have been. And we sent the tissue for typing-”

  “Sector HQ forensics-but they’ll be coded as related to the Elias Madero. And we don’t have any beacon data on the little ship.”

  “No . . . but we have a mass estimate. All right, Suiza-and now, one more time, and I want the truth: is there even the slightest glimmer of satis­faction?”

  “No, sir.” She could say that with no hesitation. “I was wrong to lose my temper at the time-I know that, and I would’ve apologized if she’d still been there when we got back from the field exercise. And I would not wish captivity on anyone, any time, least of all someone like her . . .”

  “Like her?”

  “So . . . free. So happy.”

  “Umph. Well, I’m mostly convinced but I doubt anyone else will be. Better see you don’t make any mistakes, Suiza. With the data we have aboard, we’re sure to be called back to confer with the task force. You will be questioned about her, and one wrong word will ruin you.”

  Esmay put that out of her mind, and instead thought of Brun the laughing, Brun the golden. She had not thought of herself as religious-in her great-grandmother’s sense-for years, but she found herself praying nonetheless.

  Aragon Station, Sector VII HQ, Task Force Briefing

  Barin found himself in the very uncomfortable position of being the youngest person at a very ticklish conference. He knew why he was there: he had trained with Brun on Copper Mountain; he and Esmay had saved her skin. He had known about her disappearance almost from its discovery for precisely that reason. But nothing in his training had prepared him to sit at a table with a Grand Admiral, his admiral grandmother, two other three-star admirals, a sprinkling of commanders-his cousin Heris among them-and the Speaker of the Council of Families of the Familias Regnant.

  Nothing except growing up Serrano, which at the moment he felt was a distinctly overrated quali­fication.

  Brun Meager’s father, Lord Thornbuckle, was far beyond distraught . . . balanced on the thinnest knife-edge of stability Barin had ever seen in a previously functioning adult. In the harsh light that shone onto the polished table, Barin could see the fine tremor of the man’s hands, the glitter of silver in his close-cropped blond hair as his head shifted in tense jerks from side to side, when someone spoke.

  You’ve got to tell them everything. That’s what his captain had said. Everything. But how could you tell a roomful of brass, in front of the woman’s father, about her less admirable behavior? He sat very still and hoped against hope that something would inter­rupt this before he had to hurt a man already hurting so much.

  “Grand Admiral Savanche, we have a flash-priority mes­sage-”

  Savanche pushed himself back. “This had best be worth it.” Barin knew that despite this almost-­regulation growl, he was secretly glad to have something break the tension of the briefing. Savanche took the message cube, and put it in the player.

  “It’s from Captain Solis, aboard the search-and-­rescue ship Shrike . . . they were pursuing leads in the disappearance of a Boros Consortium merchanter, and have been out of contact for weeks. He just heard about the yacht’s disappearance, and-you’d better see this for yourself.” He transferred output to the room’s main screen.

  Onto the screen came a sect
ion of star chart, with a corner window of Captain Solis.

  “-trace of a very small craft in the system as well,” he was saying. “We presumed at first that it was the raider’s tail on the Elias Madero. When we located debris and bodies from the merchanter, amounting to the entire adult crew and one juvenile apprentice-but not the other apprentice, nor four small ­chil­dren-we also located five bodies which were not crew, and which we could not identify. My forensics team believes them to have been military, but they weren’t Fleet, and the usual identification sites had been mutilated.”

  “There were ten . . .” breathed Lord Thorn­buckle.

  “We sent off a report on this to Sector, top priority, when we got back to Bezaire, but we had to use a commercial ansible. At that time we had not received word that the Speaker’s daughter was missing. How­ever, when we came out of jump at Sil Peak, we received that news and specifications of her ship. My Exec, Lieutenant Suiza, immediately thought of the other bodies we’d found. The ship trace we found is consistent with a yacht of the stated mass. We have the recovered bodies in storage; please advise next move.”

  “We own stock in Boros,” Lord Thornbuckle said. “She was out there-she’d said she wanted to look into the olive orchards on . . . whichever one it is, I can’t think. It has to be her . . . her yacht. Her guards . . .”

  “Do you know anything about them, Lord Thorn­buckle?”

  “They’re from my militia. Brun had . . . not gotten along with the Royal Space Service security personnel who had gone with her to Copper Moun­tain. There had been an incident-”

  “And you say there were more than five-”

  “Yes . . . there should have been ten.” Lord Thornbuckle stared at the table between his hands. “She thought that was too many.”

  “Well, it’s imperative that we get what evidence Solis has gathered as soon as possible.” Savanche’s eye swept the room and lighted on Barin. “Ensign-go find my signals chief and tell her I want a secure link to Shrike.”

  “Sir.” Barin found the Grand Admiral’s staff signals specialist hovering outside the room-someone had anticipated the need-and sent her in. He was glad to be out of there, and hoped he wouldn’t be called back. Shrike . . . Esmay was on Shrike. He wondered how she was taking the news.

  Chapter Twelve

  Shrike came into the system like an avenging angel, a high-vee insertion through a lane cleared for that purpose, and then shifted insystem in a series of microjumps . . . reducing a normal eight-day down transit to a mere eleven hours. Three tugs went out to meet her, and dragged her toward the station at a relative velocity that seemed reckless. Barin, aboard Gyrfalcon, lurked in scan and watched along with everyone else.

  “Ensign-” He glanced back to find his captain beckoning, and followed him to his office.

  “We’ve been getting realtime downloads from Shrike for the past hour,” the captain said. “I want you to hand-carry this to the Grand Admiral’s office-it’s for his eyes only, and I want you to put it in his hands personally.”

  “Sir.” Barin took the rack of four data cubes-a lot of data-and headed for the Grand Admiral’s temporary suite of offices. He’d been couriering one thing and another since they’d arrived, so the Admiral’s staff listened when he said, “-in his hands personally.”

  “You’ll have to wait, though. The Admiral’s receiv­ing a dele­gation from the Guernesi Republic.”

  “Fine.” Barin found a spot out of the way of the traffic through the outer office, and let his mind wander to Shrike’s arrival . . . and her executive officer. Would he have a chance to see Esmay? Not likely; Shrike’s captain would certainly be the one coming to any briefings. Perhaps this new information would divert attention from his supposed expertise on Brun, which seemed more tawdry ­every time he thought of it. So she had wanted to bed him-so what? So she had been, in his mind, a difficult and headstrong individual . . . but whatever she had been, she didn’t deserve what had happened to her. Once again he saw the video clip of the surgery and felt his own throat close; he swallowed with an ­effort.

  “Hello, Ensign Serrano-”

  His eyes snapped to the left, where Lieutenant Esmay Suiza stood with a challenging look . . . and a lockbag of data, no doubt.

  “Lieutenant!”

  “Wool-gathering?” she asked, in almost the tone of the old Esmay, the Esmay of the Koskiusko.

  “Sir, my mind had wandered-”

  “Just another minute, he said,” the clerk at the desk inter­rupted. “If the lieutenant wouldn’t mind going in with Ensign Serrano-”

  “Not at all,” said Esmay.

  Barin tried not to stare, but-she looked so good. Nothing like Casea Ferradi; if she was priggish in some ways, she was at least clean.

  The admiral’s door opened, and a harried-looking commander waved them both in. “Come on Serrano, Suiza-he’s waiting for both of you.”

  From within someone said “No!” very loudly. Barin paused. “I won’t have her-I don’t want to see her.” The commander holding the door closed it again. “-all her fault!” leaked out just before it snicked shut.

  Thornbuckle. Still angry, still unreasonable . . . Barin gave Esmay a sidelong glance; she was staring straight ahead, almost expressionless. He wanted to say something-but what?-but the door opened again, this time to Grand Admiral Savanche.

  “Lieutenant, I believe you have a hand-to-hand for me?”

  “Yes, sir.” Esmay’s voice expressed no more than her face as she handed him the databag.

  “Very well. Dismissed.” He turned to Barin. “Come along in, Ensign.” Barin tried to catch Esmay’s eye, but she looked past him. He followed Savanche into the conference, his heart sinking rapidly past the deck toward the gravitational center of the universe.

  “The tissue typing confirms that the unidentified bodies found at the site of the Elias Madero hijack­ing were those of five members of the ten from Lord Thornbuckle’s personal militia: Savoy Ardenil, Basil Verenci, Klara Pronoth, Seren Verenci, and Kaspar Pronoth. This very strongly suggests that Sera Meager’s ship was there at the time, and may have attempted to intervene.”

  Which meant that they knew, at last, where Brun’s yacht had been when she was attacked. At last they could narrow the search to something other than all space everywhere. Shrike’s subsequent search for traces of the Elias Madero narrowed it further. Barin tried to fix his mind on the evidence and its logical consequences, but Esmay’s set face kept intruding. She had been wrong, yes-but Lord Thornbuckle’s outburst, his refusal to see her, was profoundly unjust. Brun’s situation was not Esmay’s fault.

  “The Guernesi are working on data cubes recovered from the Elias Madero; they have already identified the organization-apparently it really is the New Texas Godfearing Militia, and they are attempting to find out which branch captured Sera Meager.” The briefing officer, a commander Barin did not know, paused for questions. One only came, from Lord Thornbuckle.

  “How long . . . ?”

  When the conference was dismissed, Barin fully intended to go looking for Esmay. He wanted her to know that he, at least, was no longer angry with her. But the ubiquitous Lieutenant Ferradi caught him first. By the time he’d finished running the errands she assigned, he was due back aboard Gyrfalcon for his watch.

  * * *

  Captain Solis met Esmay at the docking hatch for Shrike. “We need to talk,” he said. He looked more tired than angry. “So far no one aboard knows about this-and I would prefer to keep it as quiet as possible.”

  “Sir.” She hadn’t done anything at all, but follow orders and take the data where she’d been told.

  He sighed. “Near as I can tell-and I should be able to tell, or what am I doing with my rank?-your outburst back at Copper Mountain was just that, an outburst. You’ve done a good job for me; you’re an effective leader. You fit your history, is what I’m saying. But acts have consequences, including mis­takes, however rare.”

  Esmay thought about saying some
thing, but decided there was no point.

  “Lord Thornbuckle needs a villain,” Solis said. “And since he can’t get his hands on the real villains, he’s picked you. He refuses to have you involved in planning the rescue; he doesn’t even want you on the base. There’s a very limited amount that we can do, given his position and his state of mind. However, I consider your knowledge of Sera Meager-and the investigation of the Elias Madero hijacking site-to be important resources. I’ve gone on record as saying so, and had my tail chewed by Admiral Hornan.”

  “Yes, sir,” Esmay said, since the long pause sug­gested the need for some comment.

  “You’re going to have to stay out of everyone’s way-I won’t say I’m restricting you to Shrike, because that would be unfair, but until I can get you some kind of assignment that uses your talents, I strongly recommend that you consider spending most of your time there-and make sure you don’t run afoul of Lord Thornbuckle or Admiral Hornan. The latter won’t be easy-he’s taking his position as Sector Commandant very seriously, and he would like to lead the task force when it acts. Since the Serranos are in Thornbuckle’s bad graces, he may well get that assignment.”

  “Yes, sir.” Why were the Serranos in trouble? That made no sense to Esmay, but clearly she should stay away from Barin until she got that figured out. The last thing she wanted was to get a Serrano in worse trouble.

  “And if you do mingle, watch what you say-because someone else will be.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll do my best to keep you informed of the progress of the investigation and planning-now, get in there and keep my ship the way it should be.”