Against the Odds

by Elizabeth Moon

  "Oh, right. Pull rank. I'm not leavin' my friends in that bastard's hands any more than you are. Now come on."

  When they got to Command Deck, they saw Oblo, Arkady, and Esteban sauntering down the passage from the bridge at a pace that could only be considered glacial.

  "Now what?" Oblo muttered. "Do we tackle him, or—"

  "You get out," Petris said. "I'll go in alone."

  "Heris will love that," Oblo said.

  "You," Petris said, "go to the bridge and start trouble. We need to be sure that this ship does not fire on any other and doesn't jump. While you're causing trouble, Arkady will take down the weapons. If they aren't lit, Heris is less likely to blow us all away."

  "If we can do that, why do you want us to evacuate the ship?" Meharry asked.

  "The captain's thumb," Petris said, who had thought of it only on that last dash up the ladder. For a moment they all stared blankly.

  Then, "He wouldn't," Meharry said.

  "He would if he's feeling trapped enough. Now get out—any minute he'll be out in the passage looking for us."

  When they were out of sight, Petris marched smartly up to the hatch of the admiral's command section and announced himself.

  Not at all to his surprise, Admiral Livadhi held a very lethal weapon and nothing in his demeanor suggested any reluctance to use it. Moreover, the protective cover of his command console was open, and the large red button of the ship's self-destruct was clearly visible. Around him, the duplicates of the bridge displays gave him access to the same information as bridge crew.

  "If you hadn't meddled," Livadhi said, in a conversational tone, "you would have been all right. They'd have repatriated you; they promised me."

  "And you believed them." Petris felt no fear for himself; as if a storytape were running in his head, he could see the tiny figures racing through the corridors, then stopping to argue . . . filling the shuttles in the shuttle bay . . . stuffing them . . . and would that even work?

  "They've always kept their word to me," Livadhi said. "I wouldn't have done anything that would hurt you—you most of all, Heris's old crew. You're good people—"

  "So let us go. Let the crew go."

  "I can't do that—I can't fly this ship alone."

  "She won't let you take the ship," Petris said. "She'll blow it."

  "I hope not," Livadhi said. "I trust not. I'm sure, though, you told the others not to come—"

  "Right."

  "I could have security bring them in, assuming you haven't suborned ship security, too. I suspect you've done something to interfere with my attacking Serrano and Suiza."

  "I believe so, yes."

  "Such a waste," Livadhi said. "You realize I can kill everyone—"

  Tell him that the crew were even now boarding shuttles to leave? No. Petris waited, as Livadhi—still holding the weapon on him—leaned back in his chair. "You don't want to kill everyone, Admiral," Petris said, trying to believe it.

  "No—but I may have no choice." He made a slight gesture with his free hand. "Sit down."

  Petris hesitated—sitting down took away any chance of a swift lunge—but every second he could keep Livadhi occupied might save another life. He sat gingerly on the edge of one of the chairs.

  Livadhi smiled. "Tell me," Livadhi said, "what was she like?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "Heris Serrano. You slept with her, I know. What was she like?"

  Shock held Petris speechless a moment. "I'm not going to talk about that—"

  "Why not? We both loved her; you perhaps love her still. She never favored me with the delights of her body, but you—you she raised from enlisted to a commission just for her pleasure—"

  "Not just that," Petris said, through clenched teeth.

  "Oh, I think so." Livadhi's airy tone, in these circumstances, was obscene. "You're not really command material, you know. Nothing like her. Or me, for that matter."

  "I never turned traitor," Petris said. The doubts that so often assailed him when he thought of himself and Heris as a pair—that had interfered, though he tried not to see it, with their love—now rose again to confront him. She was command material, and he—he loved her, but he wasn't her match.

  "No, you didn't turn traitor. That's not the point and you know it." Livadhi took a sip from his flask. "You're a good loyal man, Petris Kenvinnard. Competent at your job—but not a commander. If you had been, I wouldn't be here with control of this ship. Heris would have taken me out somehow; in your place, I'd have taken out a traitor admiral. But you dithered. You waited. You missed one opportunity after another."

  "I—" He had, he knew, done exactly that. He had waited for Heris to come, for her to make the decisions. But how had Livadhi known? He felt paralyzed by shame.

  "And now, because of you, your beloved Heris is going to have to decide between blowing us all away, or letting me escape. You aren't worthy of her, Petris. I was, but she wouldn't have me. She chose you—I suppose she felt sorry for you."

  "That's not true!" But was it? He thought back over the course of their love—their acknowledged love—from Sirialis to the present. Surely the depth of his love mattered more than whether he had her gift for command. Their passion—he squeezed his eyes shut a moment, remembering her touch, the feel of her, the scent—

  "It is true," Livadhi went on. "But I suppose she wouldn't tell you. I'm sure she did her best not to notice . . ."

  Rage blurred his vision. She had not—she had loved him, she'd proven it. If he was less than she in this one way, she had not cared. "You're trying to make me angry," he said in a hoarse voice he hardly recognized as his own. "You want me to do something stupid."

  "No," Livadhi said. "I know you're not stupid. But you must realize how it feels to me—how being refused in favor of you feels. How long were you hiding your relationship before she ran out on you?"

  So much was wrong with that, so many false assumptions, that Petris could not answer them. "We had no relationship before she—before it was proper," he said.

  "I'm sure," Livadhi said, amusement sharpening his voice. "Well, perhaps not. But she had her eye on you, I'm sure, from the first. And you, I suppose, worshipped the deck she walked on—" He made it sound disgusting; Petris struggled to control his anger.

  "I admired her," he said very precisely, "because she was an outstanding officer."

  "I would have said excellent, not outstanding, but a little exaggeration can be expected . . . from lovers . . ." Livadhi cocked his head to one side. "Yes. Definitely a case of hero worship masquerading as sexual passion."

  "It is possible to admire the one you love, Admiral, though I don't suppose you've had that experience."

  "Oh, certainly. Had she returned my affections, I would have both loved and admired her. But she didn't, you see. We got as far as the hair-rumpling and kissing stage, but then she declined any more of it. Which is why I asked you . . . did she strip as good as I've always thought she would? Was she as good in bed?"

  "Better," Petris said. He shouldn't do it, he knew, but he couldn't help it. Something older than military protocol and honor was acting now, and while he might be at this man's mercy, he had one thing Livadhi would never have. "She was mine, and you cannot even imagine how good it was—"

  Livadhi's smile widened. "Excellent. Then I think you are indeed the best leverage I could have. She can let me go, or she can watch you die." His free hand came up with another weapon, this one, Petris recognized, loaded with tranquilizer darts.

  * * *

  R.S.S. Indefatigable

  * * *

  "What is going on over there?" Heris asked.

  "Their targeting's gone, their weapons—they're standing down, Captain." Her weapons officer sounded relieved, and no wonder.

  "Is it a trick?" asked Seabolt.

  "They do have Koutsoudas," Heris said, "but he's on our side—he's been covering Rascal. He's the only one I know who could possibly fox our scan of their arming status."

  "Tigh
tbeam from Rascal," said her comm officer.

  "Put it on," Heris said.

  "Captain Suiza here . . . our scans show Vigilance is no longer targeting us, and their weapons are down."

  "We confirm," Heris said. "Any communication from Vigilance?"

  "No, sir. Wait—we have something—shuttle bay—"

  "Got it," Heris said, watching the change on her own scan screens. "Confirm shuttle bay opening." This was crazy—was Livadhi going to launch an attack on Rascal by shuttle?

  "Shuttle emerging, Indy," Suiza's voice said. "Our scan shows troop shuttle mass—wait—we're getting a signal—"

  "Tightbeam? General?" Heris waved at her own comm crew, who shook their heads.

  "Tightbeam, sir; I'll relay—"

  Over the relayed beam came the voice of Esteban Koutsoudas. "Rascal—Captain Suiza—hold your fire. Evacuating the ship. Commodore Livadhi's trying to defect—"

  Evacuating the ship—! Heris could hardly breathe for a moment. They couldn't get them all off—unless they could unload and go back. Would there be time?

  "Permission to dock shuttle and offload troops?" Suiza asked her, breaking into the relayed message.

  "Put out a tube," Heris said. "Tell `em to go straight out—not wait to swim all the way, if they have p-suits."

  A long moment, then Suiza came back on. "Confirm p-suits in this load. Tube's out; ETA four point two minutes."

  Heris translated that into real distance; Rascal was practically nestled into the cruiser's flank. "You cut that close, Captain Suiza—were you planning to clog an attempt to jump?"

  "If I had to," Suiza said. "And it gave me a clear shot."

  "Yes . . . I see that. Carry on. When you get those personnel aboard, you should probably let Koutsoudas onto scan. And if there's anyone from my old crew, I'd like to speak to them."

  "Yes, sir. Second shuttle emerging—"

  Seconds ticked by, her mind hardly needing the chronometer to sense the passage of each one, each meter gained as the shuttles moved toward Rascal. One after another . . . the entire complement, like beads on a string. That ship would be most vulnerable when she opened the hatch to let them in—but Suiza had not suggested moving back to a safer distance. Heris reminded herself to be pleased with Suiza later.

  * * *

  R.S.S. Rascal

  * * *

  The first shuttle positioned itself close to the end of the transfer tube, and vented its internal pressure on the far side, pushing it gently against the tube. With the shuttle hatch open, the transfer tube with its rope handholds was easily accessible. One of the chiefs reached in and got the spare rope tethers, already secured to one of the tube framing members, and passed it up the length of the shuttle. Everyone took a grip, then those nearest the hatch stepped into freefall, and pulled themselves forward, toward Rascal, as the pilot eased the shuttle away again. The others, still inside, were shucked from the hatch by the rope they held.

  Koutsoudas was third on the rope, and up the tube; with the first two, he cycled through the lock and into Rascal. After Vigilance it seemed cramped; he made his way to the bridge faster than he'd expected.

  Suiza was watching for him. "Over here," she said, without more than a flip of the hand in return for his salute and request to enter the bridge. "And Commander Serrano wants a report from one of her old crew. Who's aboard?"

  "I'm the only one on that shuttle. Issi Guar may be on the next. Arkady, Oblo and Meharry went to the bridge to shut down weapons." He unfastened his p-suit, and pulled a small gray box out of its inner recesses. "Just a second, sir, while I get this going—"

  The scan screen blanked, broke into a multicolored hash, and then reformed with far more clarity than before. "There," Koutsoudas said. He glanced back at his new captain. "Captain, there's a real situation over there. The bridge officers are Livadhi's, but they're not in on the treachery—they believe what he's told them. Secret orders, he says, and Serrano's the traitor or she couldn't have trailed him." He tapped one of the controls, and the screen shifted to show a closeup of Vigilance's flank, the open shuttle bay. "They're getting edgy, though, and I'd guess, since the weapons came off, that our people convinced 'em."

  "So—do you think they'll arrest Commodore Livadhi?" Suiza asked.

  "No, sir—he's got the captain's thumb."

  "The self-destruct?"

  "Yes, sir. At least, we think he does. He's in the flag office, dual screens an' everything, including the switch."

  "But he doesn't want to blow the ship," Suiza said. "He wants to get to the Benignity."

  "Which he can't do with you sitting tight like this, and Commander Serrano in a cruiser in easy striking distance. Especially not when he realizes how much of the crew we're gettin' off. We think he'll threaten to blow it, try to get her to let him go."

  "She won't," Suiza said with utter certainty. Koutsoudas looked at her. She was a long way from the exhausted, frightened young officer who had saved them at Xavier. She had the same kind of look he associated with Serrano—with Livadhi before he went bad. She turned from him, and told her exec to take care of getting the new arrivals settled out of the way—no easy task on a patrol ship.

  The next shuttle bellied up to the transfer tubing, and repeated the unloading maneuver. The first shuttle was easing back into the shuttle bay; the third and fourth were lined up to unload. Koutsoudas wondered how many personnel were waiting . . . how many had been convinced . . . well, there was a way to find out. He tapped into the communications line, and probed for Vigilance's internal communications. Oblo had promised to turn it to full power.

  There . . .

  "—But this is mutiny!" came the voice of Captain Burleson.

  "Yes, sir, and reckless abandonment, that's right." That was Oblo, no doubt about it. In the patient voice he sometimes used with the duller pivots, he went on. "And if we're wrong, then the admiral will do nothing but sit there and talk to Commander Serrano, and when she's convinced we'll all go back and be reamed out. But it's better than ending up a Benignity prisoner, don't you think?"

  "He wouldn't—"

  "Sir, he has. There's evidence. Thing is, we are not going to get in a fight with loyal Fleet vessels, and we're not going to sit here and let the admiral blow us away. You have a choice, sir, of coming along willingly, or me and Methlin'll carry you."

  "He's not going to come," Suiza said. "He's a captain—he'll want to stay."

  "The rest of you—come on—" Oblo again, a little breathless. Koutsoudas figured Suiza was right, and they'd had to knock out the stubborn flag captain. "General alert—let's try—"

  * * *

  R.S.S. Vigilance

  * * *

  Livadhi still smiled that poisonous smile as he completed the tightbeam to Indefatigable. "Commander Serrano . . . it's too bad you came all this way for nothing."

  "I wouldn't exactly call it nothing." Heris's voice steadied Petris, but Livadhi's knowing leer still hurt. Petris could feel himself sliding into the tranquilizer's warm dark pool; he wanted to speak, but he couldn't figure out how. "When an admiral and his ship go missing, in time of war, people notice."

  "All you're doing," Livadhi said, "is ensuring that hundreds of innocent people die. They would have been safe, but for you. They could be safe still, if you do what I tell you."

  "And what is that?"

  "Let me go. Pull back, you and Suiza, and let me go. I know what I'm doing."

  "I don't think you do, Arash," Heris said.

  "They're your people, Heris. People you love. People you hurt once—do you want to kill them now?"

  "I'm not killing them, Arash—you're the one who was planning to take them to their deaths."

  "They'd have been repatriated," Livadhi said. "Jules promised me—"

  "Jules?"

  "Never mind. It doesn't matter now. What matters is that your people are at your mercy, Heris. I have Petris right here with me—"

  "And you're going to kill him unless I let you go, and
then he'll be killed by the Benignity? That won't work, Arash."

  Of course it won't work, Petris thought. I could have told you that. Bless the woman; he wished he could tell her he loved her. He relaxed, then, and let the dark pool lap over him.

  "You haven't heard me out," Livadhi said. "You always did interrupt. Listen."

  * * *

  R.S.S. Indefatigable

  * * *

  "Arash—don't do this," Heris said. She felt useless; she had tried before to persuade traitors not to be traitors, and it hadn't worked then. "You won't get anywhere; you'll only be killed—"

  "You can't stop me," he said. "At best, I'll be under suspicion the rest of my life. Why should I do that?"

  "Because—" Because they had been friends. He had given her Koutsoudas when she needed him; he had let her go, with the prince's clones, when he could have blown her away. She didn't try to say that; he knew it already.

  "I don't want that life, Heris. I don't want to live that way, with all those meaningful glances."

  "So you're going to run off to the enemy, when we need you?"

  "You don't need me. You don't even love me—"

  "Love you! Is that what this is about?"

  "No. Well, not entirely. Now that I'm leaving . . . I'm sorry we never got together. You Serranos are . . . special people." The smirk on his face was infuriating; Heris wanted to wipe it off with a shovel.

  "We Serranos are stubborn, arrogant, and rude, Arash. You wouldn't have liked sleeping with me, even if I'd been willing. Now be serious—you always were a good officer. Think. This isn't fair to your crew."

  "Life isn't fair, Serrano. You of all people should know that."

  "Why not just kill yourself, and let them go?"

  "Why would I? Heris . . . look, I wasn't close to Lepescu, and I never went on his stupid hunts. But I knew about them. And that got me sucked in—they had something on me, so I—"

  "Arash . . . you blew up two Benignity ships coming to my rescue—you can't seriously mean—"

  "Heris, you're such an innocent. Why do you think I was even there, within range to hear you? If you hadn't tried to fight, and that idiot in the Benignity hadn't decided to take you out completely, you'd never have known I was there. You had something the Benignity wanted badly, and the plan was that you'd be boarded, the item removed, and then you'd be towed into a fairly lonesome sector to make your way back if you could."