Elizabeth Moon - Serrano 1 - Hunting Party.pdf - Elizabeth Moon - margozap

Familias 1 - Hunting Party_v1.1

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Hunting Party

by Elizabeth Moon

Familias Regnant Books by Elizabeth Moon

1. Hunting Party

2. Sporting Chance

3. Winning Colors

4. Once a Hero

5. Rules of Engagement

6. Change of Command

7. Against the Odds

[Blurb]

PARTY FAVORS

They were somewhere inside, dry and safe. He imagined nooks and crannies cushioned with

colorful pillows and rugs, rock-walled chambers where naked nymphs bathed in clear subterranean

pools or streams.... He crept through the darkness, smugly certain of what he would find. The light

strengthened; he felt his way around a corner of the rock, and saw them at last.

His first thought was disappointment; the dark-haired girl had her arm around the lucky first-

comer. The Prince wondered why he'd preferred her to the more curvaceous blonde. His second

thought stumbled over the first in a wave of righteous rage. Ronnie!

"You unspeakable cad!" he said. "What are you..."

His voice trailed away as he noticed that the two black circles facing him were the bores of hunting

rifles like his own. Each girl, blonde and dark, held hers steadily. "You're hunters, too?" he asked,

with a half-nervous laugh.

Ronnie's head came around, and he saw the dark stain of a black eye and bruised face. "My sainted

aunt," Ronnie said, in a voice that didn't sound much like his own. "It's the Prince."

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Chapter One

Heris Serrano went from her room in the small but respectable dockside hotel on Rockhouse

Station to the berth of her new command convinced that she looked like an idiot. No one laughed

aloud, but that only meant the bystanders had chosen to snicker later rather than risk immediate

confrontation with an ex-Regular Space Services officer on the beach.

Heris kept her eyes away from any of those who might be contemplating humor, the dockside

traffic of the commercial district. Her ears burned; she could feel the glances raking her back. She

would not have changed her military posture even if she could have walked any other way; she had

been R.S.S. from birth or before, daughter of officers, admirals' granddaughter and niece, a service

family for all the generations anyone bothered to count. Even that miserable first year at the

Academy had seemed familiar, almost homey: she had heard the stories from parents, uncles,

aunts, all her life.

And here she was, tricked out in enough gold braid and color to satisfy a planet-bound admiral

from one of the minor principalities, all because of the whims of a rich old woman with more

money than sense. They had to be laughing behind her back, those merchanter officers and

crewmen who didn't meet her eyes, who went about their business as if purple and scarlet were

normal uniform colors, as if two sleeves covered with gold rings didn't look ridiculous, as if the

rim of gold and green striped cord around collar, lapels, and cuffs didn't tell everyone that an

R.S.S. officer had descended to the level of carting wealthy eccentrics on pleasure jaunts in

something far more like a mansion than a spacefaring ship.

Commercial dockside ended abruptly at a scarred gray wall with a lockgate in it. Heris inserted her

card; the barred gate slid aside, then closed behind her, leaving her caged between the bars behind

and a steel door with a thick window. Another keyslot; this time her card produced a human door-

opener, who swung the door aside and held out his hand for her papers. She handed over the neat

packet civilian life required. Master's license, certifications in five specialties, Imperial ID, military

record (abbreviated; only the unclassified bones), letters of recommendation, and -- what mattered

most here -- Lady Cecelia de Marktos's seal of employment. The human -- Station Security or

Garond Family, Heris did not know which -- ran a handscanner over this last, and replaced the

entire pile in its file cover before handing it back to her.

"Welcome to North, Captain Serrano," the man said, with no inflection of sarcasm. "May I be of

assistance?"

Her throat closed a moment, remembering the words she would have heard if she had gone through

a similar lockgate on the other side of the commercial docks, where sleek gray R.S.S. cruisers

nuzzled the Station side by side. Where her gray uniform with its glowing insignia would have

received crisp salutes, and the welcome due a comrade in arms. "Welcome to the Fleet," she would

have heard, a greeting used anywhere, anytime, they came together away from civilians. But she

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could not go back there, back where her entire past would wrap around her. She had resigned her

commission. She would never hear those words again.

"No, thank you," she said quietly. "I know where the ship is." She would not say its name yet,

though it was her new command.... She had grown up with ships named for battles, for monsters,

for older ships with long histories. She could not yet say she commanded Sweet Delight.

North, on all Stations, defined the environs of aristocracy. Wealth and privilege could be found

anywhere, in the R.S.S. as well as the commercial docks, but always near something else. Here

was nothing but wealth, and its servants. This deck had carpeted walkways, not extruded plastic

sheeting; the shops had no signs, only house emblems. Each docking bay had its own lockgate,

enclosing two large rooms: one marked "Service Entrance," lined with racks and shelving for

provisions delivered, and the other furnished luxuriously as a reception salon for going-away

parties. Heris's card in the slot produced another human door-opener, this time a servant in livery,

who ushered her into the salon. Heris made her way between overstuffed sofas and chairs covered

in lavender plush and piled with pillows in garish colors, between low black tables and pedestals

supporting what were probably priceless works of art, though to her eye they looked like globs of

melted space debris after a battle.

The actual docking tube lay unguarded. Heris frowned Surely even civilians had someone

watching the ship's main hatch, even with the security of a lockgate on the dock itself. She paused

before stepping over the line that made the legal division between dock and ship. The lavender

plush lining of the access tube hid all the vital umbilicals that connected the ship to Station life

support. Unsafe, Heris thought, as she had thought on her earlier interview visit. Those lines

should be visible. Surely even civilians had regulations to follow.

Underfoot, the lavender plush carpet felt five centimeters thick. A warm breath of air puffed out of

the ship itself, a warm breath flavored not with the spice she remembered from the interview, but

with the sour stench of the morning after a very large night before. Her nose wrinkled; she could

feel her back stiffening. It might be someone else's ship in principle, but she did not allow a dirty

mess on any ship she commanded -- and would not now. She came out of the access tube into a

family row; the tube's privacy shield had kept her from hearing it until she stepped across the

barrier. Heris took in the situation at a glance. One tall, angular, gray-haired woman with a loud-

voice: her employer. Three sulky, overdressed young men that Heris would not have had on her

ship, and their obvious girlfriends... all rumpled, and one still passed out on a lavender couch that

matched the plush carpet and walls. Streaks of vomit stained its smooth velour. As she came

through the barrier, the chestnut-haired youth with the ruffled shirt answered a final blast from the

older woman with a whined "But, Aunt Cecelia -- it's not fair."

What was "not fair" was that rich spoiled brats like him hadn't had the nonsense taken out of them

in boot camp, Heris thought. She smiled her normal good-morning-bridge smile at her employer

and said, "Good morning, milady."

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The youths -- all but the unconscious snorer on the couch -- stared; Heris could feel her ears going

hot and ignored them, still smiling at Cecelia Artemisia Veronica Penelope, heiress of more titles

than anyone needed, let alone more money.

"Ah," said that lady, restored to instant unruffled calm by the appearance of someone to whom it

meant something. "Captain Serrano. How nice to have you aboard. Our departure will be delayed,

but only briefly" -- here she looked at the chestnut-haired youth -- "until my nephew is settled. I

presume your things are already aboard?"

"Sent ahead, milady," Heris said.

"Good. Then Bates will show you to your quarters." Bates materialized from some angle of

corridor and nodded at Heris. Heris wondered if she would be introduced to the nephew now or

later; she was sure she could take that pout from his lips if given the chance. But she wouldn't get

the chance. She followed Bates -- tall, elegant, so much the butler of the screen and stage it was

hard to believe him real -- down the carpeted passage to her suite. She would rather have gone to

the bridge. Not this bridge, but the bridge of the Rapier or even a lowly maintenance tug.

Bates stood aside at her door. "If the captain wishes to rekey the locks now... ?"

She looked at that impassive face. Did he mean to imply that they had thieves on board? That

someone might violate the privacy of her quarters? The captain's quarters? She had thought she

knew how far down the scale she'd fallen, to become a rich lady's yacht captain, but she had not

conceived of needing to lock her quarters.

"Thank you," she said, as if it had been her idea. Bates touched a magnetic wand to the lockfaces;

she put her hand on each one. After a moment, the doorcall's pleasant anonymous voice said,

"Name, please?" and she gave her name; the doorcall chimed once and said, "Welcome home,

Captain Serrano." Bates handed her a fat ring of wands.

"These are the rekeying wands for ship's crew and all the operating compartments. They're all

coded; you'll find the full architectural schematics loaded on your desk display. The crew will

await your arrival on the bridge, at your convenience."

She didn't even know if she could ask Bates to tell the crew when to expect her, or if that was

something household staff never did. She had already discovered that the house staff and the ship

crew had very little to do with each other.

"I could just pass the word to Mr. Gavin, the engineer," Bates said, almost apologetically. "Since

Captain Olin left" -- Captain Olin, Heris knew, had been fired -- "Lady Cecelia has often asked me

to speak to Mr. Gavin."

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"Thank you," Heris said. "One hour." She glanced at the room's chronometer, a civilian model

which she would replace with the one in her luggage.

"Philip will escort you," Bates said

She opened her mouth to say it was not necessary -- even in this perfumed and padded travesty of a

ship she could find the bridge by herself -- but instead said, "Thank you" once more. She would

not challenge their assumptions yet.

Her master's certificate went into the mounting plaque on the wall; her other papers went into the

desk. Her luggage -- she had asked that it not be unpacked -- cluttered one corner of her office.

Beyond that was a smaller room, then the bathroom -- her mouth quirked as she forced herself to

call it that. And beyond that, her bedroom. A cubage larger than an admiral would have on most

ships, and far larger than anyone of her rank ever had, even on a Station. A suite, part of the price

being paid to lure a real spacer, a real captain, into this kind of work.

In the hour she had unpacked her few necessary clothes, her books, her reference data cubes, and

made sure that the desk display would handle them. The chronometer on the wall now showed

Service Standard time as well as ship's time and Station time, and had the familiar overlapping

segments of color to delineate four-, six-, and eight-hour watches. She had reviewed the crew bios

in the desk display. And she had shrugged away her regrets. It was all over now, all those years of

service, all her family's traditions; from now on, she was Heris Serrano, captain of a yacht, and she

would make the best of it.

And they wouldn't know what hit them.

-=O=-***-=O=-

Some of them suspected within moments of her arrival on the bridge. Whatever decorator had

chosen all the lavender and teal furnishings of the rest of the ship, the bridge remained functional,

if almost toylike in its bright, shiny, compactness. The crew had to squeeze in uncomfortably;

Heris noticed who squeezed in next to whom, and who wished this were over. They had heard, no

doubt. They could see what they could see; she might be wearing purple and scarlet, but she had

the look, and knew she had it; all those generations of command came out her eyes.

She met theirs. Blue, gray, brown, black, green, hazel: clear, hazy, worried, frightened,

challenging. Mr. Gavin, the engineer -- thin, almost wispy, and graying -- had announced, "Captain

on the bridge" in a voice that squeaked. Navigation First, all too perky, was female, and young,

and standing close to Communications First, who had spots and the slightly adenoidal look that

Heris had found in the best comm techs on any ship. The moles -- environmental techs, so-called

everywhere from their need to crawl through pipes -- glowered at the back. They must have

suspected she'd seen the ship's records already. Moles never believed that strange smells in the air

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Elizabeth Moon - Serrano 1 - Hunting Party.pdf

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