Dragon Ship by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

Author:Sharon Lee & Steve Miller [Lee, Sharon & Miller, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781451637984
Amazon: 1451637985
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2012-09-04T04:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-THREE

Codrescu Station

“No useful search patterns are present.”

Bechimo voiced what Theo had known at her first sight of the pilot’s capsule. His was the first recognizable voice in the noise that grew around them as ships and comrades and stationers reacted, overwhelming channels with shouts and cries of protest—all too late. Just like they’d been.

Too late.

Bechimo’s sensors were acute; Theo’s screens showed video, radar, and the results of more subtle search regimes, all verifying that, other than the tangled metal and ceramic hulk of the utility craft, there was nothing within range that bulked large enough to have been a person, nothing that might be usefully identified.

“Theo?”

That was Clarence. She heard him, as she touched the scans automatically, for surely there must be some way to . . .

But Bechimo was ahead of her. Every scan she touched already had statistics and analysis behind it.

“Crew person recovery system is activated,” Joyita said soberly. “This seemed the best modality for the situation we find. We receive no results appropriate to the launch of further assistance.”

Theo looked to Screen Six. Joyita met her eyes, and she would swear that his cheeks were wet.

“Theo,” Clarence said again, his voice soft and careful. “Rescues are chancy. And with a bad suit on top . . .”

She threw him a look, grimmer than he wanted or deserved, she thought, from the way his face went instantly bland.

Deep breath, Theo, she thought. Inner calm.

The deep breath, she managed. Two of them, in fact.

She’d flown fatal training sims, and seen vids of a dozen wrecks or more at the Academy. People died in ships—she knew that. Had firsthand knowledge, if it came to that—witnessed a plane blown out of the air, seen the recording of Father destroying an enemy in battle, had with her own hands . . . But this was not that.

This—this was a noncombatant, a . . .

“It’s just so stupid,” she managed, her voice shaking. “What was it for?”

Bechimo rode station beside the tiny tumbling wreck, each second compiling and recompiling images from the different sensors, giving the main screen a staccato flash of the recognizable and the unguessable.

Clarence cleared his throat after an accidental closeup of the interior showed a shattered control board, worn in spots, and stained with what might have been years of sweat and work-dirt, now open to vacuum. A place someone had lived, after all, a pilot’s home.

“Violence is a tool. You might be violent to prove that you can be violent. Certain value in that, sometimes. Best use—you’re right—is when there’s a point to be made, or defended, or Necessity. Wasn’t that here, was just someone’s frustration . . .”

He paused and Theo saw him touch the earbud.

“Am I feeding this to the station, Pilot? They might have a necessity we don’t. Might have an idea we don’t.”

Her hand told him do that.

By now they’d drawn the interest and censure of Eylot Command; they’d become witness to a useless death and were away from the confused swarm that was Codrescu Central.

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