The Serrano Succession (100 page)

"No. We may need our weapons for something else. But it makes a statement. Nobody's going to think we're playing a game." His voice changed, turning soft and sweet and rotten. "Ser Thornbuckle seems unwell, Smithers. Take him to his cabin."

Harlis lay staring at the overhead, unable to sleep, his mind running the sequence over and over and over. The house—
his
house—gone, utterly gone. Destroyed. The grand staircase, the ballroom, the fencing salon, the billiard room, the library, the morning room, the sunroom, his own suite with his personal treasures . . . gone, in a moment of time, a puff of smoke and surge of flame. Horror and grief and fear circled around the memory of what he'd seen, dread furies that screamed his name. Bunny would kill him for this—Bunny was dead—so many were dead—so much destruction—how could he? How had he? And what could he do? His body shivered, long shuddering quakes, as he remembered the hard hands that had hurt him, the cold eyes that had examined him and found him soft, contemptible, the feral smiles that had delighted in his pain, in his fear, in his horror at their capacity to destroy.

R.S.S.
Fremantle

"Would you look at that, now," Lt. Commander Coston said to nobody in particular. A patrol ship . . . two patrol ships . . . or something with that mass and drive signature . . . had just downjumped into the system. "Were we expecting anything?" he asked his exec.

"No, sir." His exec, also a lieutenant commander, grinned. "Some excitement at last," he said.

"Definitely." At the angle the ships had entered, scan had picked up their location only eight light minutes away, with a rapidly lengthening "tail" aiming toward their entry point as the data streamed in. "Beacon data?"

"No beacons," reported his scan tech. "Running hot—"

"And so are we—" Their orders were to prevent mutineers from reaching Aethar's World—futile orders, he'd thought, since space was far to big to barricade. But sure enough, someone had come right past his picket, and the only ships that would run without beacons were those up to no good. He reminded himself that mutiny did not make people stupid, that these ships would know every trick he did. But he had something up his sleeve:
Gorgon
and
Matchless
, plus a tactical plan designed for exactly this situation.

"If they haven't got a trailing heavy cruiser, they're meat," Coston said.

"All signatures confirm Fleet patrol craft," his scan tech said. "No beacon, but everything—the weapons lit and all—"

"Fine, Kris. That just makes it easier." He nodded to his Exec. "Put us on the plan. I'll hail 'em."

The hail was more for the record than anything else. Those could not be innocent merchanters out there, and only the largest private yachts had near that mass.

Before his message would have had time to reach the vessels, one of them fired at him.

"Good," Coston said. "That makes it simple. No need to wait—"

Fremantle
microjumped, halving the distance to the mutineers, then jumped again to only five seconds away. When they came out, the mutineers had fired a salvo at where they'd been.
Fremantle
microjumped ahead, to less than a second ahead of the mutineers' computed course. Her own course, warped by the successive microjumps, gave only the smallest window for firing down the mutineers' throats—but this was only the first such attack.
Fremantle
hopped out, to be replaced by
Gorgon
, and then
Matchless
, in a precisely timed dance that ensured they didn't hit each other with their weapons. On the screens, hit after hit ablated the mutineers' shields, degraded their ability to fight back. One of the two mutineer ships attempted to break away, microjumping five minutes out. But at that moment the first blew, and soon the trio of loyalists had caught and destroyed the other.

Coston grinned at his Exec. "This'll make the admiral happy. Now if we can just get some ID on those ships . . ."

When Arash Livadhi returned to Sector VII HQ from the first convoy, and made his report to Admiral Serrano, she nodded. "Good work. I'm sure you have ideas now on training for the ships in convoy; I'd like you to brief the captains waiting for the next convoy as soon as you have them organized."

"Of course, sir." Arash explained his observations.

"Have you heard the good news?"

"Haven't heard a thing, sir," Livadhi said. "Somebody get a mutineer ship back?"

"Not back, no. But Heris located the mutineer flagship,
Bonar Tighe
, and destroyed it. We have confirmation that Solomon Drizh—he was bumped up to admiral minor, just like you—was the actual spearhead." Livadhi's stomach did a slow turn. He had avoided Drizh for years. "Apparently he was one of Lepescu's proteges that we missed, and he'd reconstituted the Loyal Order of Game Hunters . . ." Admiral Serrano looked sharply at him. "You did know about that, didn't you?"

"Heris told me," he said quickly, feeling the sweat slicking his hands.

"That bastard poisoned everyone he touched," she said, shaking her head. "Lepescu, I mean. But apparently Drizh was just as bad."

Livadhi swallowed. He had to say it; he had to know what she knew. "I . . . served with Admiral—then Commander—Lepescu once, you know. I was pretty young."

"I know," she said. "You may be the exception to the rule. You're lucky he took a dislike to you. He hated Heris, too. The youngsters he thought had promise—"

The youngsters he thought had promise he invited into his circle. Flattered them. Taught them. Urged them to become the elite, the best they could be. And then . . .

"He ruined them," Admiral Serrano went on.

"It's a shame," Livadhi said, unable to think of anything else.

"If he were still alive, I'd strangle him myself," Admiral Serrano said.

"Me, too," Livadhi said, and meant it. He had been so young, so naive, so willing to be flattered, so honored to be singled out by a commander already known for his dash, his fighting ability, his high standards. He had admired Lepescu, had tried to copy him, even to what he preferred in music and food.

"It's amazing," Admiral Serrano went on, "how many people one bad apple comes in contact with. And yet there must be others, like you, who were around him and not part of his coterie, and what we don't need right now is another witch hunt aimed at everyone who served under him, however far back."

"I agree," said Livadhi. He agreed with every fiber in him.

"Heris seems to be doing well with old
Indy
," Admiral Serrano said. "How are you getting along with
Vigilance
?"

"Fine, sir. Though I'm sure Heris's old crew would like to be with her—" Was this the time to suggest that they could transfer away?

"No need to worry about that. Not with a war on." She went on. "Besides, she's not coming back here; she's over at Copper Mountain, with the debris she picked up. Chances are none of it is a complete personnel list of the mutiny, but the analysts there might find something."

"Copper Mountain's ours, then?"

"For the time being. The bad news is bad indeed. Mutineers hit a battle group over in Sector V, blew one ship and badly damaged a cruiser. They're trying to blackmail some of the Families into hiring them—the old protection racket. There've been sporadic attacks on orbital stations and even planets. We just don't have enough ships to guard everywhere, not and protect the borders. I expect any minute to hear that the Benignity has mounted an invasion; I can't think why they haven't."

R.S.S.
Turbot
, en route from
Castle Rockto Sector VII

Esmay Suiza found herself in a crowd of officers heading out to take command of their ships: a couple of lieutenants, like Esmay, the rest majors and one lieutenant commander. Like her, most of them spent hours studying the specs of their new commands.

Her ship,
Rascal
, had been upgraded from an ordinary patrol craft—she had been on picket duty in a sector where nothing was expected to happen for years—with the new weapons suites which made her almost a mini-cruiser. To power this weaponry, she'd been given new drives, and despite all the additions and changes, she was still not overly cramped in her personnel compartments, so she had a full complement of crew. Esmay had studied the specs all the way out from Castle Rock, until she was sure she could recognize and name everything. Those months she'd spent on
Koskiusko
learning about hulls and drives made it much easier; she actually understood exactly which modification supported which of the new additions.

Now she was about to see her ship—
her
ship—for the first time. She had checked in when she arrived, so if her crew were alert, they'd know she was on the way, and she had taken a few moments in one of the lounges to make sure that her fringe of hair was as neat as it could be. The several weeks of accelerated growth had produced a surprising amount of hair, but it wasn't what she was used to. Up ahead she saw the docking number and the name
Rascal
.

She squared her shoulders, felt in her pocket one more time for the command wand that would make the ship's electronics accept her as the commander, and approached the smart-looking corporal standing guard at the docking tube hatch. He saw her, recognized the captain's patch on cap and sleeve, and came to attention.

"Captain Suiza! Welcome, sir!" He sounded as if he meant it, and his salute was crisp. She returned it. "Is the captain coming aboard now?"

"Yes," Esmay said. Why else would she have come along, just to see if they knew who she was?

"Very well, Captain; I've just notified the bridge. We have no officers aboard at present; Master Chief Humberly is in charge. The captain's luggage?"

"They're sending it when they've unloaded the transport," Esmay said.

"Captain Suiza—welcome!" That was Master Chief Humberly, a lean older man whose hair was cropped so short Esmay couldn't be sure if he was also balding or not. He had the same brisk, competent, cheerful look as the corporal. Esmay liked him at once, and noted that he had none of the blurry look that had signalled the older NCOs whose rejuvenation was failing. "I'm sorry Jig Turner isn't aboard—he'd wanted to meet you, but he was called to the admiral's office."

"That's all right," Esmay said. She already knew that the formalities of coming aboard were minimal for captains below the rank of commander. But Humberly surprised her; he'd turned out the crew in
Rascal
's rather narrow main corridor, and Esmay walked to the bridge to read herself in, feeling very honored indeed.

When that was over, and the status board lit with "Captain: Esmay Suiza" and "Captain Aboard," she felt simultaneously fully happy and fully anxious. As on
Despite
—once she was captain, it was all her responsibility, every bit of it. But she'd wanted it. She would make good of it. She started at once, turning to Humberly.

"What's our readiness, Chief?"

"Did they tell you about the refit and upgrades?"

"Yes—new drives, new weapons suites. I looked them over—we have thirty-four percent more firepower, half of it in beam weapons, and the drives to power that without dropping shields. But they didn't say what that did to our microjump ability, if anything."

"Ah. We haven't tried it—haven't had the chance. My best guess is that it may knock a few percents off our response time. Not good but—"

"Worth the trade, if that's all there is," Esmay said. "What about crew? I know that a lot of ships are being crewed with people just thrown together—"

"We were lucky," Humberly said. "Because of the need for training with the upgrades, most of Drives and Weapons have been here throughout. We were between captains anyway, and about half of Environmental is new, but being as we have such a small complement, we were able to do a bit of weeding." He looked smug; Esmay grinned at him.

"You went scavenging, didn't you?" she said. "Good for you."

"Patrols don't have much in the way of clerical—mostly it's the captain's own staff," he said, eyeing her to see if she knew that already. Esmay nodded. "We've got a couple of bean counters from supply that haven't been out in a fighting ship before, but they should be all right."

"Provisions?"

He frowned. "There we've had some problems—small ship, busy Station, and no captain aboard. Jig Turner . . . he's a fine young officer, you understand, but a jig just doesn't have the clout of someone more senior, and he's not the type to presume on his position as officer in charge."

"How bad is it?" Esmay said.

"Nothing we can't fix in a few shifts with the captain aboard, I'm sure, sir. Nobody's going to give
you
that much trouble."

Esmay doubted that, but she knew she'd fight back if they did. Her ship wasn't going into action on outdated rations or medical supplies. "What've we got in spareables?" she asked, using the polite term for items used in illicit trade.