"All right. Give me your stunner. Go. Go. Go."
"Captain, we came here to rescue you!" cried Stuben, bewildered.
Words failed her utterly. She put a hand on his shoulder instead. "I know. Thank you." She ran.
Approaching engineering from one deck above, she came to an intersection of two corridors. Down the larger was a group of men assembling and checking weapons. Down the smaller were two men covering an entry port to the next deck, a last checkpoint before territory covered by Radnov's fire. One of them was Yeoman Nilesa. She pounced on him.
"Captain Vorkosigan sent me down," she lied. "He wants me to try one last effort at negotiation, as a neutral in the affair."
"That's a waste of time," observed Nilesa.
"So he hopes," she improvised. "It'll keep them tied up while he's getting ready. Can you get me in without alarming anybody?"
"I can try, I guess." Nilesa went forward and undogged a circular hatch in the floor at the end of the corridor.
"How many guards on this entrance?" she whispered.
"Two or three, I think."
The hatch swung up, revealing a man-width access tube with a ladder up one side and a pole down the middle.
"Hey, Wentz!" he shouted down it.
"Who's that?" a voice floated up.
"Me, Nilesa. Captain Vorkosigan wants to send that Betan frill down to talk to Radnov."
"What for?"
"How the hell should I know? You're the ones who're supposed to have com pickups in everybody's bunks. Maybe she's not such a good lay after all." Nilesa shrugged an apology toward her, and she accepted it with a nod.
There was a whispered debate below.
"Is she armed?"
Cordelia, readying both stunners, shook her head.
"Would you give a weapon to a Betan frill?" Nilesa called back rhetorically, watching her preparations in puzzlement.
"All right. Put her in, dog the hatch, and let her drop. If you don't close the hatch before she drops, we'll shoot her. Got that?"
"Yo."
"What'll I be looking at when I get to the bottom?" she quizzed Nilesa.
"Nasty spot. You'll be standing in a sort of niche in the storeroom off the main control room. You can only get one man at a time through it, and you're pinned in there like a target, with the wall on three sides. It's designed that way on purpose."
"No way to rush them through it? I mean, you're not planning to?"
"No way in hell."
"Good. Thanks."
Cordelia climbed down into the tube, and Nilesa closed the hatch over her with a sound like the lid of a coffin.
"All right," came the voice from below, "drop."
"It's a long way down," she called back, having no trouble sounding tremulous. "I'm afraid."
"Screw it. I'll catch you."
"All right." She wrapped her legs and one arm around the pole. Her hand shook as she jammed the second stunner into her holster. Her stomach pumped sour bile into the back of her throat. She swallowed, took a deep breath to keep it there, held her stunner pointed ready, and dropped.
She landed face-to-face with the man below, his nerve disruptor held casually at the level of her waist. His eyes widened as he saw her stunner. Here the Barrayaran custom of all-male crews on warships paid her, for he hesitated just a fraction of a second to shoot a woman. In that fraction she fired first. He slumped heavily over her, head lolling on her shoulder. Bracing, she held him as a shield before her.
Her second shot laid out the next guard as he was bringing his disruptor to aim. The third guard got off a hasty burst that was absorbed by the back of the man she held, although the nimbus of it seared the outer edge of her left thigh. The pain of it flared screamingly, but no sound escaped her clenched teeth. With a wild berserker accuracy that seemed no part of herself, she felled him too, then looked frantically around for a place of concealment.
Some conduits ran overhead; people entering a room usually look down and around before thinking to look up. She stuck the stunner in her belt, and with a leap she could never have duplicated in cold blood, pulled herself up between the conduits and the armored ceiling. Breathing silently through her open mouth, she drew her stunner again and prepared for whatever might come through the oval door to the main engineering bay.
"What was that noise? What's going on in there?"
"Throw in a grenade and seal the door."
"We can't, our men are in there."
"Wentz, report!"
Silence.
"You go in, Tafas."
"Why me?"
"Because I order you."
Tafas crept cautiously around the door, stepping over the threshold almost on tiptoe. He turned around and around, staring. Afraid that they would close and lock the door at another firing, she waited until he at last looked up.
She smiled winningly at him, and gave a little wave of her fingers. "Close the door," she mouthed silently, pointing.
He stared at her with a very odd expression on his face, baffled, hopeful, and angry all at once. The bell of his disruptor seemed large as a searchlight, pointed quite accurately at her head. It was like looking into the eye of judgment. A standoff, of sorts. Vorkosigan is right, she thought; a disruptor does have real authority. . . .
Then Tafas called, "I think there may be some kind of gas leak or something. Better close the door a second while I check." It swung closed obediently behind him.
Cordelia smiled down from the ceiling, eyes narrowed. "Hi. Want to get out of this mess?"
"What are you doing here—Betan?"
Excellent question, she thought ruefully. "Trying to save a few lives. Don't worry—your friends over there are only stunned." I won't mention the one hit by friendly fire—dead, perhaps, because of a moment's mercy for me. . . . "Come on over to our side," she coaxed, madly echoing a child's game. "Captain Vorkosigan will forgive you—expunge the record. Give you a medal," she promised recklessly.
"What medal?"
"How should I know? Any medal you want. You don't even have to kill anybody. I have another stunner."
"What guarantee do I have?"
Desperation made her daring. "Vorkosigan's word. You tell him I pledged it to you."
"Who are you to pledge his word?"
"Lady Vorkosigan, if we both live." A lie? Truth? Hopeless fantasy?
Tafas gave a whistle, staring up at her. Belief began to illuminate his face.
"You really want to be responsible for letting a hundred and fifty of your friends breathe vacuum just to save that Ministerial spy's career?" she added cogently.
"No," he said, jaw firming at last. "Give me the stunner."
Now shall trust be tested. . . . She dropped it down to him. "Three down and seven to go. What's the best approach?"
"I can lure a couple more in here. The others are at the main entrance. We can rush them from behind, if we're lucky."
"Go ahead."
Tafas opened the door. "It was a gas leak." He coughed convincingly. "Help me drag these guys out and we'll seal the door."
"I could swear I heard a stunner go off a while ago," said his companion, entering.
"Maybe they were trying to attract attention."
The mutineer's face flared with suspicion as the stupidity of this suggestion sank in. "They didn't have stunners," he began. Fortunately, the second man entered at this point. Cordelia and Tafas fired in unison.
"Five down, five to go," Cordelia said, dropping to the floor. Her left leg buckled; it wasn't moving quite right. "Odds are getting better all the time."
"It had better be quick, if it's going to work at all," warned Tafas.
"Suits me."
They slid out the door and ran lightly across the engineering bay, which continued its automatic tasks, indifferent to its masters' identity. Some black-uniformed bodies were piled carelessly to one side. Tafas held up his hand for caution as they rounded the corner, jabbing a finger significantly. Cordelia nodded. Tafas walked aro
und the corner quietly, and Cordelia pinned herself to its very edge, waiting. As Tafas raised his stunner she oozed around, searching for a target. The chamber narrowed in this L, ending in the main entrance to the deck above. Five men stood with their attention riveted to the clanks and hisses penetrating dimly through a hatch at the top of some metal stairs.
"They're getting ready to storm," said one. "It's time to let their air out."
Famous last words, she thought, and fired, once and twice. Tafas fired too, rapidly fanning the group, and it was over. And I will never, she pledged silently, call one of Stuben's stunts harebrained again. She wanted to throw down her stunner and howl and roll in reaction, but her own job was not finished.
"Tafas," she called. "I've got to do one more thing."
He came to her side, looking shaky himself.
"I've gotten you out of this, and I need a favor in return. How can I cut control to the long-range plasma weapons so you can't get it back for an hour and a half?"
"Why do you want to do that? Did the Captain order it?"
"No," she said honestly. "Your captain didn't order any of this, but he'll like it when he sees it, don't you think?"
Tafas, confused, agreed. "If you short this panel," he suggested, "it should slow things down quite a bit."
"Give me your plasma arc."
Need I? she wondered, looking over the section. Yes. He would fire on us, just as surely as I'm cutting for home. Trust is one thing; treason another. I have no wish to test him to destruction.
So, if Tafas isn't fooling me by pointing out the controls to the toilets or something . . . She blasted the panel, staring with a moment's primitive fascination as it popped and sparked.
"Now," she said, handing the plasma arc back, "I want a couple of minutes head start. Then you can open the door and be a hero. I suggest you call first and warn them; Sergeant Bothari's in front."
"Right. Thanks."
She glanced up at the main entry hatch. About three meters away, he is now. An uncrossable gulf. So in the physics of the heart, distance is relative; it's time that's absolute. The seconds spun like spiders down her spine.
She chewed her lip, eyes devouring Tafas. Last chance to leave a message for Vorkosigan—no. The absurdity of transmitting the words, "I love you" through Tafas's mouth shook her with painful inward laughter. "My compliments" sounded rather swelled-headed, under the circumstances: "my regards," too cold; as for the simplest of all, "yes" . . .
She shook her head silently and smiled at the puzzled soldier, then ran back to the storeroom and scrambled back up the ladder. She beat a rhythmic tattoo upon the hatch. In a moment it opened. She found herself nose to nose with a plasma arc held by Yeoman Nilesa.
"I've got some new terms to carry back to your captain," she said glibly. "They're a little screwy, but I think he'll like them."
Nilesa, surprised, let her out and resealed the hatch. She walked away from him, glancing down the main corridor as she passed. Several dozen men were assembled in it. A technical team had half the panels off the walls; sparks flared from a tool. She could just see Sergeant Bothari's head on the far side of the crowd, and knew him to be standing next to Vorkosigan. She reached the ladder at the end of the corridor, ascended it, and began to run, threading her way level by level through the maze of the ship.
Laughing, crying, out of breath and shaking violently, she arrived at the shuttle hatch corridor. Dr. McIntyre stood guard, trying to appear grim and Barrayaran.
"Is everybody here?"
He nodded, looking at her with delight.
"Pile in, let's go."
They sealed the doors behind them and fell into their seats as the shuttle pulled away at maximum acceleration with a crunch and a jerk. Pete Lightner was piloting manually, for his Betan pilot's neurological implant would not interface to the Barrayaran control system without an interpreter coupler, and Cordelia braced herself for a terrifying ride.
She lay back in her seat, still gasping, lungs raw from her mad dash. Stuben joined her, seething, and staring worriedly at her uncontrollable trembling.
"It's a crime what they did to Dubauer," he said. "I wish we could blow up their whole damned ship. Is Radnov still covering us, do you know?"
"Their long-range weapons will be out for a while," she reported, not volunteering details. Could she ever make him understand? "Oh. I meant to ask—who was the Barrayaran hit by disruptor fire, planetside?"
"I don't know. Doc Mac got his uniform. Hey, Mac—what's the name on your pocket?"
"Uh, let me see if I can sound out their alphabet." His lips moved silently. "Kou—Koudelka."
Cordelia bowed her head. "Was he killed?"
"He wasn't dead when we left, but he sure didn't look very healthy."
"What were you doing all that time aboard the General?" asked Stuben.
"Paying off a debt. Of honor."
"All right, be like that. I'll get the story later." He was silent, then added with a short nod, "I hope you got the bastard good, whoever he was."
"Look, Stu—I appreciate all you've done. But I've really got to be alone for a few minutes."
"Sure, Captain." He gave her a look of concern, and moved off muttering, "Damned monsters," under his breath.
Cordelia leaned her forehead against the cold window, and wept silently for her enemies.
Chapter Seven
Captain Cordelia Naismith, Betan Expeditionary Force, fed the last normal space navigational observations into her ship's computer. Beside her, Pilot Officer Parnell adjusted the leads and cannulae to his headset and settled more comfortably into his padded chair, ready for the neurological control of the upcoming wormhole jump.
Her new command was a slow bulk freighter, unarmed, a steady workhorse of the Beta Colony-Escobar trade run. But there had been no direct communication with Escobar for over sixty days now, since the Barrayaran invasion fleet had plugged the Escobaran side of the exit as effectively as a cork in a bottle. At last word the Barrayaran and Escobaran fleets were still maneuvering in a deadly gavotte for tactical position, with little actual engagement. The Barrayarans were not expected to commit their ground forces until their control of Escobaran space was secure.
Cordelia intercomed engineering. "Naismith here. You about ready down there?"
The face of her engineer, a man she had first met but two days ago, appeared on the screen. He was young, and pulled from Survey like herself. No point in wasting experienced and knowledgeable military personnel on this excursion. Like Cordelia he wore Survey fatigues. The Expeditionary Force uniforms were rumored to be in the works, but no one had seen them yet.
"All set, Captain."
No fear trembled his voice. Well, she reflected, perhaps he was not old enough yet to have really come to believe in death after life. She took one last look around, settled herself, and drew a breath. "Pilot, the ship is yours."
"Ship accepted, ma'am," he replied formally.
A few seconds ticked by. An unpleasant wave of nausea passed over her, and she had the gluey, unsettling sensation of just waking up from a bad dream she could not remember. The jump was over.
"Ship is yours, ma'am," muttered the pilot wearily. The few seconds she had experienced translated to several subjective hours for him.
"Ship accepted, Pilot." She grabbed for the comconsole and began punching up a look at the tactical situation into which they had popped. There had been nothing through this passage for a month; she hoped fervently the Barrayaran crews would be bored and slow on the uptake.
There they were. Six ships, two of them starting to move already. So much for slow on the uptake.
"Right through the middle of 'em, Pilot," she ordered, keying data to him. "It's best if we can draw 'em all off their stations."
The two moving ships neared rapidly, and began firing with leisurely accuracy. They were taking their time, and making every shot count. Just a little target practice, that's all we are, she thought. I'll give you target practice.
All nonshield power systems dimmed, and the ship seemed to groan as the plasma fire engulfed it. Then they cut across the tickling limit of the Barrayarans' range.
She called engineering. "Projection ready?"
"Ready and steady."
"Go."
Twelve thousand kilometers behind them, as if just emerged from the wormhole, a Betan dreadnought sprang into being. It accelerated astonishingly for so large a craft; indeed, its speed matched their own. It followed them like an arrow.
"Aha!" She clapped her hands in delight, and cried into the intercom, "We've fetched 'em! They're all moving now. Oh, better and better!"
Their pursuit ships slowed, preparing to turn and attack this much bigger prize. The four ships that had previously remained properly on station began to wheel away also. Minutes sped by as they jockeyed for position. The last Barrayaran ships wasted little fire on them, scarcely more than a salute, their attention all drawn to big brother behind them. The Barrayaran commanders undoubtedly felt themselves to be in a fine tactical position, spread out in a gauntlet and beginning a withering fire. The little ship preceding the warship was on the far side of them from Escobar, with nowhere to go. They could pick it off at their leisure.
Her own shields were down now, and acceleration failing as the ghastly power drain of the projector took its toll. But minute by precious minute the Barrayaran blockaders were being drawn farther from their assigned mousehole.
"We can keep this up for about ten more minutes," the engineer called up.
"All right. Save enough power to slag it when you're done. If we're captured Command doesn't want one molecule left connected to another for the Barrayarans to puzzle back together."
"What a crime. It's such a beautiful machine. I'm dying for a look inside."
You might, too, if the Barrayarans capture us. She directed all her ship's eyes back along their route. Far, far back at the wormhole exit, the first real Betan freighter winked into existence and began to boost for Escobar, unopposed. It was the newest addition to the merchant fleet, stripped of weapons and shields, rebuilt to do two things only now; carry a heavy payload and go like hell. Then the second, and the third. That was it. They were away, and with a start the Barrayarans could never hope to close.