Coyote Rising (52 page)

“Certainly. Of course.” This was getting better all the time; she found herself dancing from one foot to another. “Your shuttle will bring you here?”

“
Yes. We can arrive at
”—a few seconds passed—“
1900 hours, by your time. We’ll touch down in the landing field just outside Liberty
.”

The center of Shuttlefield. Perfect. “Very good, Captain Lee. I look forward to seeing you again.”

“
Same here, Matriarch. I hope our talks will be fruitful
. Alabama
out
.”

She heard a buzz within her ear, signaling that the satphone link had been broken. Luisa heaved a deep sigh. “I got him,” she said quietly, unable to keep the smile from her face. “I finally got him.”

“If you say so.” As always, the Savant registered no emotion. “But don’t you think—”

“I think very well, thank you.” She turned away, allowing her bodyguard to open the front door of the community hall for her. In only a few hours, her enemy would walk into her hands, voluntarily and of his own free will. “Come now. We need to prepare for his arrival.”

He must be desperate. All the better. The negotiations would be very short, and entirely on her terms.

1214—URSS
A
LABAMA

Lee switched off, then slowly let out his breath as he settled back
in his chair. For a few moments he gazed out the window, watching Midland as it passed below once more.
Alabama
was in its third orbit since they had come aboard; the titanic column of ash rising from Mt. Bonestell was clearly visible, and, if anything, it had become larger since the last time he’d seen it. He hoped that Fred LaRoux was overstating the consequences of the eruption, but he didn’t think so; already the thin gauze of the upper atmosphere above the limb of the planet had subtly changed color from light blue to reddish brown.

“You know what she’s going to do, don’t you?” Dana floated upside down above the engineering station, consulting a pad she’d clipped to a panel while she carefully entered a new program into the keypad. “She thinks you’re going to give up, and when she finds out you’re not, she’s going to take you hostage.”

“That thought occurred to me, yes.” He tapped his headset mike. “Kim, how’s it going down there?”

“
I’ve got reentry plotted,
” she replied, “
but if we’re going to touch down by 1900, we’re going to have to depart by 1300 at the latest. Sorry to rush you, but we’ve got a tight window
.”

“Understood.” Lee glanced over Dana; she briefly nodded and gave him a thumbs-up. “Shovel some more coal into the engines, we’ll be there as soon as we can.” He clicked off, then unbuckled the seat belt and pushed himself toward the engineering station. “I have no doubt whatsoever that she’ll try to take full advantage of the situation. She’s the kind of person who sees everything in terms of power.”

“And you think you can deal with someone like that.” Not a question, but a statement.

“I think so.” He grasped a ceiling rail to brake himself. “I was once married to someone who thought that way.”

Dana glanced away from the comp screen. “Sorry,” she murmured, embarrassed by what she’d said. “I forgot.”

“Don’t worry about it.” It had been many years—almost 245, in fact—since the last time any of them had seen Elise Rochelle Lee, the daughter of a United Republic of America senator, once his wife before . . . Lee shook his head. He seldom thought of Elise anymore, and when he did his memories were bitter. “Let’s just say that I’ve had practice, and leave it at that.”

Dana said nothing, but her eyes expressed sympathy before she returned to her work. Lee watched as she tapped a few more keys, double-checked what was on the screen against the datapad’s display, then loaded the program into the AI. “All right, we’re golden. Main engine’s back online and I’ve preset the ignition sequence for 1930 on the nose. All we have to do now is set the trajectory and engage the autopilot.”

“I’ve already worked out the trajectory.” Lee reached for the pad. “Want me to insert the final numbers?”

“Let me handle it. I’ve got ’em in my head. Excuse me. . . .” Dana unclipped the pad, then performed a graceful somersault that sent her in the direction of the helm station. “If you want to do something, you can disengage the command lock-out on the autopilot. I know your code, but it’ll save me a minute. Oh, and yeah, Kim might appreciate it if you opened the cradle.”

“Got it.” Lee returned to his chair. Not bothering to seat himself again, he pulled up the lapboard while hovering overhead, then typed in the six-digit string that would allow Dana to enter a new course into the navigation subsystem. Once that was done, he pushed the buttons that would reopen the shuttle cradle and let
Plymouth
undock from the ship.

The instruments made their discordant music of random beeps and boops, and for a moment it almost seemed as if the ship was alive again. Lee let his gaze roam across the command center. He had trouble
remembering Elise’s face, but it was all too easy for him to recall when this place had been filled with his crew, shouting orders to one another in those last minutes before
Alabama
launched from Earth orbit. Now it was just him and his chief engineer, preparing their ship for one last journey. . . .

“Done and done.” Dana turned away from the helm, pulled herself along the rails toward him. “We’re on the clock now. Better get below before Kim throws a fit.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Lee started to reach down, intending to close the porthole shutters, then realized that it was pointless. He withdrew his hand . . . then, on impulse, he hit the switch anyway.

“Why did you do that?” Dana watched the shutters slowly descend upon the windows, blocking out the sunlight and casting the compartment into darkness once more. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.” It was hard to explain, but he felt like it was the right thing to do. Like offering a blindfold to a man being marched before a firing squad. He turned toward the hatch. “Come on,” he said, feeling a dryness in his throat, “let’s go before I change my mind.”

1301—WHSS
S
PIRIT OF
S
OCIAL
C
OLLECTIVISM
C
ARRIED TO THE
S
TARS

“There it is,” Baptiste said. “Increase magnification, please.”

He watched as the image displayed on the ceiling changed. What had once been a tiny sliver of reflected light almost lost among the stars suddenly became a recognizable shape: the
Alabama
, picked up by the
Spirit
’s navigation telescope.

The other ship was nearly two thousand miles away, gliding just above the limb of the planet. Over the last few months, his crew had
become used to spotting the derelict every now and then; its equatorial orbit was higher than the
Spirit
’s, though, and on a slightly different plane, and so the vessel would disappear beyond the horizon after each brief encounter. Only once had anyone gone aboard the
Alabama
, and then just to disable its communication system. Baptiste always meant to pay it a visit, if only out of curiosity—after all, it was an historic artifact—but he had never found the time nor the opportunity, and after a while its presence faded to the back of his mind.

Once again it occupied his full attention. As he watched, a tiny wedge-shaped form detached itself from its midsection. A brief flare of light, then it slowly fell away from the ship, beginning a long descent toward the planet below.

“That must be the shuttle,” the com officer said unnecessarily. “I should be able to locate its radio frequency, sir. Do you wish me to hail it?”

“Negative.” The last thing Baptiste wanted its crew to know was that it was being observed. “Reopen the channel to Liberty, please.” He waited until he heard the double beep within his ear, then prodded his jaw. “You’re correct, Matriarch. There was someone aboard the
Alabama
.”

“
Was, or is?
”

“Was. Past tense. We just saw a shuttle depart.” He peered more closely at the
Alabama
. No light within its portholes. “From what I can tell, its docking cradles are empty. I doubt there’s anyone aboard.”

“
I see
.” A brief pause. “
All the same. I’d like to be certain. Can you send someone over there to check?
”

“Just a moment.” Baptiste glanced at the navigator. She tapped a couple of keys, then pointed at her screen. He punched up her console display on his private screen, quickly studied the orbital tracks of both ships. “I can do so, but it’ll take some time for a skiff to make rendezvous. Six hours at least, and only if we launch at once.”

“Please do so, Captain. At the very least, I’d like to have their satphone capability taken down again.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He didn’t like Luisa Hernandez very much; she was arrogant, her methods crude and imperialistic, and once already they’d crossed swords. Although he was in charge of military operations, she
was the colonial governor, and in certain matters her authority superseded his. It was her original order to deny orbital communications to the resistance movement, and in that regard she had the final say. “I’ll send a team over right away. If that’s all—”

“It isn’t, I want you to come down here and join me.”

Several people looked up as she said this. They were patched in to their conversation, as normal for space-to-ground communications. It was no secret among the crew that the captain detested the Matriarch, and that he’d returned to the ship, on the pretext of maintaining command discipline in order to avoid having personal contact with her. Baptiste deliberately turned his back on them. “Do you think that’s necessary, ma’am?”

“Captain, may I remind you that Robert Lee is aboard that shuttle, and that he himself has requested this meeting? If he’s planning to surrender—”

“You said earlier that he requested an armistice.”

“
Only a choice of words. This situation obviously poses a threat that he can’t handle. Or perhaps he’s been considering this for a while, and just sees this as a way out. Either way, he wants to bring hostilities to an end. As commander of Union Guard operations, your presence here is crucial.”

Baptiste bit his lower lip. She had him there. In breaking off her operation nearly three months earlier to capture Rigil Kent, he’d asserted his rank as the most senior Union Astronautica officer on Coyote. The role of being a commander of an occupational force wasn’t comfortable for him, though, and since then he’d been happy to let the Matriarch do as she would with the Union Guard reinforcements he’d brought from Earth.

He knew he couldn’t wash his hands of the matter any longer. And, he had to admit to himself, he was curious as to why Lee would make such a sudden gesture toward peace. And the timing . . . there was something odd about the timing. . . .

“Yes, Matriarch. I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

“Very good, Captain. I’m looking forward to—”

“Thank you, Matriarch.
Spirit
out.” He impatiently cut the comlink, then stood up from his chair. “Prepare a shuttle for me, please,” he said, turning to the senior watch officer standing nearby, “and tell the pilot I want a fast descent to Liberty.” With luck, he might be able to beat Lee’s
shuttle to the ground. “And detail an inspection crew to the
Alabama
,” he added as he headed for the lift. “Tell them to burn extra fuel if they have to, but I want them aboard as soon as possible.”