Change of Command - Heris Serrano 06

by Elizabeth Moon

  “But it’s not the same,” Cavallo said. “And these children should be with their families.”

  “You offerin’ to let us go?”

  “Would you?”

  “Might.”

  Cavallo watched the man put down the mike and turn away, talking to the others. He boosted the audio pickup.

  “You said they was here!” he heard one man say; he couldn’t pick out features from the fish-eye view.

  “That’s the best word we had.”

  “I tell you, I’m gettin’ sick of this. We come all the way from home, workin’ like dogs on that damn ship, because you didn’t want to spend the money for tickets, which would’ve been worth it if we’d killed the old buzzard, but we didn’t, on account of somebody else beat us to the draw.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to take that long-”

  “And who picked out that ship? Then you say let’s go get those kids back-and they’re not even our kids-and we have to work our passage again, comin’ here, and when we get here they ain’t. I don’t know’s I believe they ever have been.”

  “Ever’body in that bar said they was!”

  “Ever’body in that bar was drunk, Dan. They ain’t here, and they ain’t been here, and what in Sam Hill are we gonna do now?”

  “I’ll think of sumpin’-just give me a minute, will you?”

  “We could take these kids-”

  “Hell, Arnett, I don’t want these kids. These ain’t our kids, or Ranger kids. And what’d we take ’em in, anyway?”

  “Well, what d’you want to do, give up and let them kill us like they did them Rangers?”

  “We ain’t done nothin’ yet they’d kill us for.”

  “I ain’t surrenderin’ nothin’.” That was Arnett, Cavallo could tell by his voice.

  “Well, I’m not killin’ any chillen.” That was the one who had protested in the beginning. “Why don’t we trade ’em for a ship out of here?”

  “A whole ship? You think godless heathen would give us a whole ship for just a bunch of chillen? They don’t care about chillen.”

  “How’s it going?” the major asked. Cavallo sat back, still watching the vid.

  “They’re fighting over whose fault it is. If I understand them right, this bunch wanted to assassinate Lord Thornbuckle, and when they found out someone else had, they decided to hunt up the women and children and capture them. I don’t think they’re NewTex Rangers; I think they’re a bunch of idealistic fools that went off by themselves.” He tapped the mike, and heads turned in the vid. Dan came over, almost reluctantly, to pick it up.

  “Dan! Dan . . . listen. Are the children still all right?”

  “Yeah, yeah, they’re fine for now.”

  “Dan, the stationmaster tells me the women and children left eleven days ago on a passenger ship, the Dolphin Rider.”

  On the vid, two of the other men threw up their hands, and one spat on the deck.

  “Now I can’t change that, Dan, but here’s what I could do.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know if you’d-but if you’d-I mean, if we could get you a ship, Dan . . . and then the children wouldn’t get hurt-”

  “You mean trade the chillens for a ship? You’d do that?”

  “Yeah, of course. It’s children we’re talkin’ about.”

  “A whole ship-a ship that actually works?”

  “Of course.” Cavallo glanced up as someone leaned over and handed him a pad with Mindy Cricket II scrawled on it.

  “I dunno. We’d need supplies.”

  Cavallo dared a grin at the major, as he flicked the mike off. “They’re gonna take it,” he said. “Now if they don’t cross us-and there’s some of them I’m pretty sure won’t-where’s that ship docked?”

  It had taken another twelve hours of ticklish negotiation before the children were reunited with frantic parents, the NewTex terrorists were finally aboard the Mindy Cricket II, and the little ship lurched away from the station with her usual grace.

  “You didn’t really have to do anything,” Sarknon said. “She’s not goin’ to get ’em anyplace real fast.”

  “Especially not now,” Cavallo said. He had applied the bricks of LUB to best advantage. Mindy Cricket II wouldn’t make it to jump distance in one piece. Two hours out, a safe distance from the station, and she’d blow. “We don’t need that kind of scum wandering around causing trouble.” He stretched, and grinned at the major. “Guess I’ll go finish the shopping now, if it’s all the same to you.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  R.S.S. Gyrfalcon

  “Jig Serrano to the captain’s office . . .” Barin tapped his code into the wall-hung unit to signal his receipt of the message, and turned to the sergeant of the compartment.

  “I’ll finish this inspection later,” he said. “And I expect you’ll have done something about those lockers.” The lockers had been unlocked, and Barin had already found three major discrepancies.

  “Yes, sir!”

  All the way upship, he wondered what he’d done. He couldn’t think of anything, and Major Conway had actually complimented him the day before.

  Captain Escobar’s clerk gave him no warning glances, just smiled and waved him through. Barin came to attention and waited.

  “Ah . . . I thought you’d like to know you have pay.” Escobar handed a data cube across to him.

  “Sir?”

  “Apparently your . . . dependents . . . have found honest work somewhere. They’re off Fleet’s hands.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Some colony world. Apparently Professor Meyerson and that Lone Star Confederation diplomat found them a place, and someone paid their colony shares. Also paid off at least part of what Fleet spent on them, and HQ has forgiven the rest. So you have pay again. I suppose this means you’ll be marrying?”

  Barin felt himself go hot. “I-hope so, sir.”

  “From one fire into another. Better give your family time to get used to it. Have your parents ever met Lieutenant Suiza?”

  “No, sir. But now that I’m getting pay again, if I could get a little leave-”

  “You’d get married.”

  “No, sir, not right away. I’d get her together with my parents, though.”

  Escobar considered. “You have plenty of leave stacked up. Tell you what-figure out a time that will work for your parents and her, and I’ll do my best.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  R.S.S. Navarino

  “You have mail, Lieutenant.” Esmay wondered what it was this time. Her last mail had been a stiff notice from Personnel advising her that she should have informed them before accepting appointment as a Landbride, and that any request for a variance would have to work its way through the chain of command in her sector, then at Headquarters.

  A cube from Barin. That had to be better than something from Personnel.

  Her heart soared as she read it. Out from under the responsibility for all those women and children. Getting paid again. He’d talked to his parents; they wanted to meet her. He could get leave-what about her? He was sure he could enlist the senior Serranos to aid in bending the restrictions about Landbrides. . . .

  She, too, had accumulated leave time. Surely it would be possible to meet for a few days, even a week. Somewhere private-she didn’t mind meeting his parents, but she wanted at least some hours alone with Barin.

  Copper Mountain

  Although Fleet’s Copper Mountain Training Base, named for the red-rock formation of the original landfall, had become the generic term for the entire planet, Fleet had other bases where neither mountains nor red dust were in view. Most NCO training courses, though reached by shuttle from Copper Mountain, were actually dispersed to other facilities on the same continent: Drylands, in the northern plains, Camp Engleton in the coastal swamp, Big Trees far to the west. Permanantly assigned school staff had their own recreational areas which students never saw: the long sand beaches far east of Copper Mountain where the carnivorous h
unters of the deep had been carefully fenced away. Eight Peaks Mountain District, which offered far more than eight peaks, though the rest of them weren’t quite eight thousand meters.

  Among these lesser-known bases were the Stack Islands facilities. Rising almost vertically from the cold waters of what someone had unimaginatively called Big Ocean, the old volcanic plugs of the Stacks had been engineered into even more forbidding shapes than time, wind, and water had created. The Stack Islands group had three Fleet bases altogether, two for research (biomedical and weapons) and one to supervise the confinement of its most dangerous criminals.

  That proximity was no accident; although the Grand Council knew nothing about it, research into neurobiology used prisoner subjects, some of whom emerged from the program with new identities. But the proximity was on a planetary, not local, scale: though less than an hour by aircar to either of the other Stack Islands bases, the prison was distant enough to keep its prisoners secure. The research bases were only a few kilometers apart, on neighboring stacks, but the prison base lay at the east end of the group, out of sight from either and far beyond swimming distance, even if water temperature and sealife had not intervened.

  The security personnel at Three Stack, as the prison base was colloquially called, made no attempt to prevent prisoners from committing suicide; it was the general feeling that suicides saved everyone a lot of trouble. So little attention was paid to preventing escape attempts that were certain to be fatal. Prisoners could jump off the cliffs into the cold water if they felt like it; if they survived the fall, and the numbing cold, they were easy prey for the native sealife, which in these latitudes was toothy and voracious. Although guards patrolled the corridors and exercise courts, and the base’s aircars were carefully guarded, no regular watch was kept on the cliffs.

  Commanding such a base did nothing to advance an officer’s career, and most loathed brig duty. For a few, however, Stack Islands Base Three offered exactly the milieu in which they flourished.

  Corporal Gelan Meharry, second-shift guard at Three Stack, wondered what it was about his new commander that bothered him. Prison COs were invariably bent in some way-Tolin had been soft, slovenly, entirely too fond of his own comfort, and easily handled by the senior NCOs-but this Bacarion person was clearly not bent that way. What had she done, to get sent here? A tour at a high-security brig was no disgrace to the enlisted security force, rather the contrary, if nothing went wrong, but . . . he had an uneasy feeling about her.

  After the change-of-command ceremony, his immediate superior, Sergeant Copans, dismissed the second shift to eat and prepare for their shift. Gelan racked his ceremonial staff, and changed from his dress to his duty uniform. As always, he made sure that his gear was perfectly aligned in his locker before heading for the mess hall. Then he checked his bay in the barracks. Sure as vacuum, that new commander would pull an inspection, and he intended his unit to pass.

  On the way to mess, he stopped by the base data center, and called up the Officers’ List. At least he could find out about his new commander’s official biography. Her image on the screen showed her with the insignia of a lieutenant commander-she hadn’t had her image updated since her last promotion. He scanned the notes below. Top quartile in the Academy, so she wasn’t stupid. Command Track with her junior duty on a series of front-line craft. As a major she’d done the usual rotation in staff, this time on a flagship, the ­Dominion. There she’d seen combat, though from the staff viewpoint.

  What was it about Dominion? He should know that name . . . he scrolled to the flag’s name. Lespescu. Bacarion had been on Lepescu’s staff? In the engagement where Heris Serrano refused to follow Lespescu’s orders, and by so doing won the battle but lost her command? Gelan clamped his jaw, hoping his expression had not changed. Thanks to Lepescu, Serrano’s crew-including his oldest living sib Methlin-had been tried and imprisoned. Bacarion deserved a prison appointment, he thought sourly. She deserved to be a prisoner, really. He had not seen Methlin since her release, but he’d heard all about it. Lepescu was safely dead, but this Bacarion . . .

  He switched off the unit, smiled a careful smile at the clerk in charge, and went to lunch with a gnawing pain in his belly. Partway through the meal, he stopped eating abruptly, with his fork halfway to his mouth. What if this wasn’t punishment for Bacarion? What if she had wanted this assignment? What if she, like Lepescu, wanted to play games with prisoners?

  He was going to have to be very careful indeed. When she noticed that she had a Meharry aboard, she was going to assume he knew . . . and knew she knew.

  * * *

  Gelan Meharry had not even been born when his oldest brother Gareth died in the wreck of Forge. He had been in school when his sister Methlin was sent to this very prison. His recruit training had been spent under the shadow of her disgrace, though his drill instructor had told him-after he passed-that he personally thought she’d been framed. He had acquired, from his family and their history, a keener awareness of social nuances than most young corporals, and the certainty that anyone keeping things from him had a bad reason for doing so.

  When nothing happened during the first few weeks of Bacarion’s command, Gelan did not relax his vigilance. He asked no questions; he said nothing he had not said many times before; he continued to be, to all outward signs, the same quietly competent young NCO he had been all along.

  Inside, he felt himself caught in a storm. What Bacarion had done, so far, was call in each officer and NCO, in turn, from the most senior down. Each had returned from that interview looking thoughtful; a few had also looked puzzled or worried. None had had more comment than “She’s one tough lady.”

  That in itself was slightly bothering. On such a small post, gossip about each other was the main entertainment. From short encounters came small bits of information, painstakingly assembled into the common understanding of each individual. Gelan knew that their former commander, Iosep Tolin, had an aunt who bred flat-faced long-haired cats, a cousin in the wine business, and a daughter from whom he was estranged-Tolin blamed his former wife, who had left him for a historian.

  But about Bacarion, nothing. “A tough lady.” His sister Methlin was tough . . . he had not known, while she was in prison, just what prison was, or how difficult, but now he did. At least from the other side of the doors. His throat closed whenever he had duty on the women’s side, thinking of Meth in there, and he wondered if any of the women were like her, unfairly condemned.

  His turn with Bacarion would come soon. She had access to his service record, which included a list of all relatives formerly or presently in service. What would she say? What would she ask? What should he say, since the truth-I want you dead, like Lepescu!-would not do.

  Tolin had not been a slob, but Bacarion’s offices already looked shinier, neater. Everything gleamed, smudgeless. ­Every paper on the clerk’s desk aligned perfectly with every other.

  A martinet, like Lepescu. In the inner office, Bacarion waited, sitting motionless behind her desk like a carved figurine.

  “Corporal Meharry reporting as ordered, sir.” It was hard not to react when her cold gaze met his.

  “You don’t look much like your sister,” was her first comment. Then she sighed, and gave a mock smile. “Why is it the men in a family so often get the looks, I wonder?”

  He felt his neck go hot, then the flush spreading up his face. Her smile warmed.

  “Sorry, Corporal. Didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

  Didn’t she, indeed! Gelan hoped that looking like a silly boy was the best strategy now.

  “I met her only a few times, of course,” Bacarion went on smoothly, as if reading from a script. Perhaps she was. “I was shocked and surprised when I heard she’d been sentenced to prison, and delighted when her name was cleared again.” A wrinkle appeared in her forehead; Gelan was sure it was intentional, intended as a sign of sincerity. “It may be hard for you to believe, Corporal, but when I was serving on Admiral Lepescu’s staff, I had no i
dea that he was capable of any dishonesty. He seemed so . . . so focussed on defeating the enemy.”

  That was one way of putting it. If you ignored the way that Lepescu’s allies paid the price of his focus, as well as the enemy, the fact that he liked seeing blood shed, in quantity, and didn’t much care whose it was.

  “I hope we can work together,” Bacarion was saying, now with a little frown, as if he’d failed to carry out some order.

  “Yes, sir.” Gelan tried to inject some enthusiasm into the familiar phrase. Bacarion’s face relaxed, but whether that was good or bad he could not tell.

  “Did you request assignment here because your sister had been here?” she asked.

  “No, sir.” He had anticipated this question. “Personnel noticed I hadn’t had a tour in my secondary specialty, and yanked me off Flashpoint right before deployment. I asked for Sector Three, so I’d at least be in the same sector as my-as the ship-but they sent me here.”

  “Do you find it difficult?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What do you think of the general loyalty of the officers and men on this station?”

  What kind of a question was that to ask a corporal? “Loyalty? I’m not sure I know what the commander is asking about.”

  “Don’t play innocent, Meharry! Any time you have prisoners and guards, you have the possibility of collusion, even a breakout. I’m asking you if you know anything about such a situation here.”

  “No, sir,” Gelan said. “Nothing like that.”

  Another searching look. “Very well. Dismissed.”

  The autumn evening was closing in, a fine cold mist blowing across the courtyard. Gelan shivered. It was a week yet until time to change to winter uniforms, but it wasn’t the outward cold that chilled him. The ten kilometers to Stack Two and twelve to Stack One might as well have been the thousands of kilometers that stretched to the next continental mass, for all the good it did him. He could not pilot any of the aircars even if the aircars had not been kept under close guard. There were no surface watercraft; the Stacks had no beaches or harbors where such craft could land. Water met rock with brutal suddeness twenty meters below the lowest accessible path; in storms, the spray of that meeting shot upward thirty and forty meters. He could swim, but he could not swim ten kilometers in water that cold, even if the sea creatures didn’t eat him.