Surf

“Ms. Park. Put Vikka on.”

“Vikka is also unavailable.”

“Did we have an accident? A malfunction?”

“No accident,” she replied, as she logged into the helm console with Vikka's password and changed all the passcodes. “Ship systems are all green.”

“We've lost gravity and the hatch above me is stuck fast. What do you call that?”

“I call that one small switch and a medium?sized lock, Dr. Cardin.”

The pause was longer this time. “Ms. Park, explain. Now.”

“I decline,” she said. “If I were you, I'd get a hold of something shortly, because I'm about to start shutting systems down and I assure you, sharp things multiply in the dark.”

“Morus put you up to this. How much did he pay you to infiltrate my team and sabotage my project?”

“A poor guess. I've never even met Professor Morus,“ she said. “Please rest assured that my real client has no interest in the success or failure of your project; you are merely a convenience.”

“What is it you want?”

Everyone keeps asking me that, Bari thought with some annoyance. For Cardin, she had a more practical and immediate answer. “I want your ship.” And then, because she didn't really want to talk to him again, she turned the intercom speaker back off.

[You're just about in position,] Omi said over her private link. [Turquoise is going to help spot for you, so I'm patching him back in. A fair warning: he's still complaining about being itchy.]

<It does itch!>

“I'm certain it must, but it's not for very much longer,” Bari replied, trusting Omi to translate. “How am I looking?”

<Do you see the big female ahead? Pull up beside her.>

Bari leaned forward and peered out the window. She'd closed the distance between her and the herd, and again she was struck by how singularly massive all the Rooan were. And how much, if they'd been green instead of gray?black, and hadn't had shifting fluorescent colors along their underbellies, they'd look like gigantic space pickles. “How do I tell which ones are female?” she asked. Or “big” ?

There was a pause, then Omi answered instead of Turquoise. [I'm not translating that.]

Banging started up again on the hatch, easily ignored. Bari picked one of the several looming shapes in front of the ship and sidled up between it and another. “Is this good enough?” she asked.

<It will do.>

[The herd is on a straight trajectory now, and will cross into Auroran territory shortly,] Omi said. [You should lower the ship's energy output to avoid detection.]

“On it,” she said, and she already was, shutting down all non?essential systems and the Turd's primary engines. Unless something went terribly wrong, she wouldn't need anything more than minimal thrusters to keep her position amidst the Rooan. Just before hitting the lights, she glanced around the cabin and spotted a small silver ball hovering, idle, near the ceiling at the back of the ship. She snapped her fingers. “Bob,” she called. The bob lit up, glided near. “Light,” she ordered. “Thirty lumens.”

The bob switched on, casting a light bright enough for Bari to make out the controls but not much brighter. She turned off all ship interior and exterior running lights. There was a brief flurry of sound from the hatch that sounded faintly like someone scrabbling for purchase, then nothing. I did warn him.

With the faint light from the bob sufficient for what she needed, she killed all remaining main and auxiliary power feeds to the ship. A faint hum she'd long ago stopped hearing became noticeable by its sudden absence, and reflexively she took a deep breath. Ceen and Vikka, unconscious, breathed shallow and slow, and she resented only one of them what air they used. Cardin's supply was his own. Bari would use only a little herself, and if they didn't all die at Auroran hands she'd have plenty of time to turn the air generators back on before anyone felt any ill effects.

Leaving the helm controls on auto, she stripped out of her coveralls and pulled on the suit that she'd taken from her locker, a tight?fitting, matte?black, alien?made biosuit much less cumbersome than the Turd's, and worth far more than all Cardin's grants and endowments combined. She slipped her jacket back on over that and buttoned it up. The jacket was fine black linen, a double?row of magnetic buttons up the front placket, and a small semi?circular starburst of silver thread embroidered where mandarin collar met left shoulder, where sleeve met arm. She ran her fingers lightly over the old thread and thought of long?forgotten things.

[I'm picking up incoming from the outpost. Four ships, probably showing up for some more target practice on the Rooan. They don't appear to be in a hurry, but they're definitely coming here.]

“Got it,” she said, pulling her suit hood up over her short?cropped hair and sealing the face?plate. Next she put on a vest, quickly checking each pocket to make sure it was still sealed and its contents secure. Ignoring Cardin's maneuvering rig, she pulled a much lighter?weight, thin?profile pack out of her locker and slipped it over her shoulders, fastening straps across her chest, abdomen, and crotch. A small plug connected it into the suit. Then she took out the last item she'd need, sliding it into the narrow sheath just over her shoulder.

She flexed the muscles in her hand in sequence, powering on the suit's systems. “Can you hear me?” she asked. [Loud and clear,] Omi answered.<Are you coming out to play?>Turquoise added. “I am,” Bari said, and she cycled herself out the airlock into space. As part of its camouflage, the outside of the Space Turd had been given a rough, uneven surface. It had made adding covert handholds to it trivially easy, and Bari used these to move up and on top of the ship. Around her the Rooan shifted ever so slightly, giving her an unnerving vertigo. She wondered where among them her friends were hiding— nowhere easy to find, certainly

No one who had not been explicitly invited there came intentionally within reach of Aurora. This inactivity made the pilots who flew along the border outposts bored, and bored pilots found any entertainment they could. On their last two passes a third of the Rooan herd had been lost; much more and they wouldn't have the numbers they needed to survive.

The gigantic animals must have become aware of the approaching ships, because the flashing on their undersides became more intense. [The ships are on direct approach,] Omi said. [They should be in range in three point six minutes. The herd is getting nervous.]

At the apex of the ship, perched on the nose, she undipped the large energy?cannon she'd tucked there just before the Turd left Glaszerstrom Station to intercept the Rooan. “I need a window,” she said. [Working on it. These things are hard to nudge.] The Rooan to Bari's left began drifting upward, and Bari could make

out four small pinpoints of light moving toward them. In the distance was the faint blue glow of Outpost One. Deep in space behind that was the heart of Aurora itself, with its implacable, invincible warlord, who took everything he could see, and owned everything he could touch. She gritted her teeth, raised the cannon, and took aim at the closest of the incoming ships.

The first one will be the easiest, she told herself, and fired. The pinpoint of light flared for an instant and went out, as immediately the other three veered away. Now the hunt would begin; they'd be scanning the area, but the Turd, powered almost fully down, would be virtually invisible. Her Dzenni suit, far more sophisticated than anything found in human space, was a total insulator: she would not radiate heat, she would not absorb it. She would not be easy to find.

One of the remaining ships moved nearer, slowly edging up on the herd as if scanning for something on the far side of it. She checked the cannon's heat load — still only twelve percent, still cool enough — and then shouldered it again.

The second ship flashed and disintegrated.

“I don't see the other ships. Omi?”

[One is circling around the Rooan. I don't see the other.]

All of a sudden, around them, the Rooan began to shift and scatter, their light?patterns now oscillating wildly.<1 believe he's trying to use the herd for cover while he looks for the source of the fire,>Turquoise said.

“That works for me,” Bari said. She turned around, then threw herself backward in a panic, flat onto the surface of the ship as a Rooan barreled overhead, nearly knocking her off the ship. Big mistake,