The Serrano Connection (85 page)

"No." He hated admitting that. "She—she said she wanted to visit several friends, and check into some of her investments, before coming to Sirialis. She had no itinerary; she said if she made one, the newsflash shooters would find her. She said she'd be at Sirialis for the opening day of the hunt."

"So—you expected her to be out of contact."

"Yes. She had mentioned visiting Lady Cecelia de Marktos on Rotterdam, and perhaps even Xavier's system."

"I see. So when would you have considered her overdue?"

"I was beginning to worry—I expected her to call in more often—"

"You see, milord, it's a very large universe, and she is only one person. Our technicians are still working on the data cube and the flatpics, but so far nothing definite has shown up. The cube itself is one of the cheap brands sold in bulk through discount suppliers; the image has been through some sort of editing process which removed considerable data. The flatpics were taken with old technology, but the prints you have are simply copies of prints, not prints from negatives. That again reduced the data available for analysis." Savanche cleared his throat. "Right now, there is nothing whatever to give us any idea what we're dealing with, let alone where she is."

"But they said they were the Nutaxis something or other—"

"New Texas Godfearing Militia, yes. Something we never heard of before; it sounds utterly ridiculous to me. We are making discreet inquiries, but until something comes along—some confirmatory evidence—this might as well be the act of lunatics."

"And how long will that take?" Thornbuckle asked. "Don't you realize what's happening to her?"

Savanche sighed, the creases in his face deepening. "It will take as long as it takes . . . and yes, I understand your concern, and I can imagine—though I don't want to—what may be happening to her."

R.S.S.
Gyrfalcon

"Ensign Serrano, report to the Captain's office. Ensign Serrano, report to the Captain's office." What had he done wrong this time? Lieutenant Garrick turned to look at him, and then jerked her thumb toward the hatch. Barin flicked the message-received button, and headed up to Command Deck.

When he knocked, Captain Escovar called him in at once. He was sitting behind his desk, holding what looked like a decoded hardcopy.

"Ensign, you knew the Speaker's daughter, didn't you?"

For an instant Barin could not think who this might be—what chairman, what daughter. Then he said, "Brun Meager, sir? Yes, sir, I did. I met her at Copper Mountain Schools, and we were in the escape and evasion course together."

"Bad news," Escovar said. "She was on her way back to her family home when her ship was attacked by raiders."

Brun dead . . . Barin could not believe that vivid laughing girl was dead . . .

"She was
alone
?"

"Not quite. She'd chartered a small yacht, about like one of our couriers, and she had a small security detachment, her father's private militia." Escovar paused, as if to make sure that he was not interrupted again. Barin clamped his jaw. "The ship has not been found, but a message packet was sent to her father, via commercial postal service." Another pause. "The Speaker's daughter . . . was not killed. She was captured."

Barin felt his jaw dropping and bit down hard on everything he felt.

"The raiders . . . wanted her family to know that they had taken her, and what they had done." Escovar made a noise deep in his throat. "Barbarians, is what they are. Information has been forwarded to me; it should arrive shortly." He looked at Barin, over the top of the hardcopy. "I called you in because we have no adequate professional assessment of this young woman's temperament and abilities. I know she was referred to Copper Mountain by Admiral Vida Serrano, apparently on the advice of Commander Serrano. But her Schools files were wiped, when she left, as a security measure. If anything is to be done for her, we need to know what she herself is capable of, and what she is likely to do."

Barin's first impulse was to say that Brun would always come out on top—it was her nature to be lucky—but he had to base this on facts. He wasn't going to make rash assumptions this time about what he knew and what he merely surmised.

"She's very bright," he began. "Learns in a flash. Quick in everything . . . impulsive, but her impulses are often right."

"Often has a number attached?"

"No, sir . . . not without really thinking it over. In field problems, I'd say eighty percent right, but I don't know how much of that was impulse. They didn't let her do the big field exercise, for security reasons. She did have a problem . . ." How could he put this so that it wouldn't hurt her reputation? "She was used to getting what she wanted," he said finally. "With people—with relationships. She assumed it."

"Um. What did she try with you? And I'm sorry if this is a sore subject, but we need to know."

"Well . . . she found me attractive. Cute, I think was her word." Like a puppy, he had thought at the time; it had annoyed him slightly even as he was attracted to her energy and intelligence. "She wanted more. I . . . didn't."

"Aware of the social problems?"

"No, sir. Not exactly." How could he explain when he didn't understand it himself? "Mostly . . . I'm . . . I was . . . close to Lieutenant Suiza."

"Ah. I can see why. Exceptional officer by all accounts."

Then he hadn't heard. Barin felt a chill. He didn't want to be the one to tell the captain about Esmay's stupid explosion, or the quarrel they'd had.

"Brun is . . . like Esmay—Lieutenant Suiza—with the brakes off. They're both smart, both brave, both strong, but Brun . . . when the danger's over, she's put it completely aside. Lieutenant Suiza will still be thinking it over. And Brun would take chances, just for the thrill of it. She was lucky, but she
expected
to be lucky."

"Well, I know who I'd want on
my
ship," Escovar said. Then he touched a button on his desk. "Ensign, what I'm going to tell you now is highly sensitive. We have some information on the young woman's condition after capture, but that information must not—
must
not—spread. It will, I think, be obvious to you why, when I tell you about it. I am doing this because, in my judgement, you may be able to help us concoct a way to help her, if you have enough information. But I warn you—if I find out that you've slipped on this, I will personally remove your hide in strips, right before the court-martial. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir." Barin swallowed.

"All right. The raiders left behind a vid they made of her after the capture. It's one of the ugliest things I've ever watched, and I've been in combat and seen good friends blown to bits. It is clear from this vid that the raiders intend to take her to one of their home planets and keep her there as breeding stock—"

"What!" That got out past his guard; he clamped his teeth together again. He'd thought of rape; he'd thought of ransom; he'd thought of political pressure, but certainly not that.

"Yes. And they've mutilated her: they've done surgery and destroyed her vocal cords." He paused; Barin said nothing, trying not to think of voluble Brun silent, unable to speak. Rage rose in him. "We do not at this time know where she is; we do not know if she is still alive or not—though we suspect she is. We do not know her physical condition at any time subsequent to the vid left by the raiders. It may be impossible to find her."

Barin wanted to argue, to insist that they must—but he knew better. One person—even Brun, even the Speaker's daughter—was not enough reason to start a war.

"I see no reason for you to view the vid," Escovar said. "It makes voyeurs of us, who would least want to participate in something like that. But this may be a requirement later, and you need to know that for calculated cruelty without much actual injury, this is the worst I've seen. The important thing is that what you know about her might make rescue possible. We don't want to shoot her by accident because we failed to understand her way of thinking."

"Yes, sir."

"I would like you to record every detail you can remember about her—anything, from the color of her underwear to every preference she ever expressed. We're trying to get more information from other people she knew, but you and Lieutenant Suiza have the advantage of understanding the military perspective, and having known her in a dangerous situation."

"Yes, sir."

"I put no deadline on this, but I do consider it urgent. The longer she is in their hands, the more likely that permanent damage will result, not to mention political chaos." Barin digested that in silence. He dared not ask how her father was taking it—the little bit that he knew.

"Is her voice—permanently gone?"

"No way to tell until she's retrieved. The surgeon who viewed this tape says it depends on the exact type of surgery they performed. But she could always be fitted with a vocal prosthesis. If the only damage is to the vocal cords, she can whisper—and a fairly simple prosthesis will amplify that. However, they may have done more damage that we don't know about, and since their intent is to silence her, they may punish any attempt to whisper."

"But how are we going to find her?"

"I don't know, Ensign. If you come up with any ideas, be sure to share them. We have been assigned to the task force charged with finding and rescuing her."

Only a day later, Escovar called him into the office again. "They found the yacht. It was dead in space, tethered to an unmanned navigation station; local traffic hadn't noticed it. It was found by the maintenance crew that went out to service the station. Empty, and so far no idea where it came from. Forensics will be all over it . . . there is evidence of a struggle inside."

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—"