Remnants of Trust. Elizabeth Bonesteel

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СКАЧАТЬ news outlets for information on Greg Foster, she had been surprised to find he had been part of what had happened in the Fifth Sector last year. The face of Central’s involvement had been this woman’s: Commander Elena Shaw, a mechanic who had laid her life on the line for love of a retired PSI captain. Which was the popular myth, of course; Guanyin, who had little sentiment around love, suspected the reality of it was both more mundane and more complex. She had seen a brief, much-reproduced vid of Commander Shaw shouting at some police officers, and while the woman had seemed passionate in her pursuit of justice, she had not seemed much like a romantic hero. Foster was much more the stereotype; but his was not the name that had ended up in the spotlight.

      Here, her face lit by the cold portable lights, Commander Shaw looked even less the hero: she looked haggard and tired, and her worried expression seemed etched into the lines of her face. But as Guanyin watched, the woman’s eyes hit Commander Keita, and her whole demeanor unwound in relief. Oblivious to Guanyin and her people, Shaw shoved her pulse rifle back over her shoulder and flung her arms around Keita. He embraced her in return, and Guanyin saw his eyes squeeze tightly shut. Shaw whispered something unintelligible, and for an instant, Keita’s lips widened into something almost like a smile.

      Then she pulled away and turned to Guanyin, her expression once again professional. “Captain Shiang?”

      Guanyin straightened. “Yes. Commander Shaw, I believe.”

      Something passed across Commander Shaw’s face—chagrin, Guanyin thought, at being recognized. And then her gaze dropped, just for an instant, to Guanyin’s midsection. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but Guanyin thought she blushed.

      They don’t have children on their ships, Chanyu had told her years ago, his voice disapproving. They are superstitious. Guanyin had not believed him.

      Whatever the reasons for her reaction, Shaw regrouped quickly enough. She held out a hand, aware enough of PSI etiquette not to salute, and Guanyin took it. “We can start shifting anything that’s loose,” she said, her eyes scanning the wall. “Anything resists, leave it alone for now. Give me a few minutes to analyze the structural damage.”

      Guanyin left her comm open, then pulled off her gloves, heading for the pile of debris. Behind her, she heard the slither of fabric as Cali and Aida pulled off their hoods and gloves. Cali was moving hesitantly—wary of Guanyin’s trusting nature, she suspected; Cali had always had a much larger dose of Chanyu’s skepticism—but Aida gamely stripped off his protective gear and lent his shoulder to the group. All the Corps soldiers were twice as wide as he was, but they moved aside and included him without comment. Guanyin moved in next to him, and she saw, out of the corner of her eye, Cali against the opposite wall, reaching for a collapsed beam along with Keita. Guanyin started at the bottom, shifting smaller pieces, while Commander Shaw ran a scanner along the ceiling.

      They worked steadily in silence for what must have been a quarter of an hour, and then Commander Shaw took a step back. “Stay to the right,” she said. “Greg? Can you add some gravity units to the supply list? Once we’re clear we’re going to want to shut off Exeter’s gravity and work localized. There’s more structural damage here than we thought.”

      The group shifted to one side, and Guanyin began pulling at larger pieces of debris. At one point she found a solid length of steel that, with Aida’s help, she was able to slide through the gap. Commander Shaw joined her on the other side, and the three of them levered a massive section of shattered bulkhead out of the way, revealing a meter-wide passage through the wreckage. Aiming her light, Guanyin stared anxiously into the opening beyond.

      The gap opened onto the ruins of what had once been a large room, sparsely furnished. The interior walls had fallen in on themselves, table and chairs tossed around the room, in pieces on the floor.

      And in one corner, against the wall, half under a massive tangle of sheet metal and electronic equipment, lay a very still Captain Raman Çelik.

      Oblivious to the others, Guanyin stepped inside. She heard Commander Shaw’s light step behind her as she crouched down next to Çelik’s prone form. Focusing her light on him, she could see he was breathing, although his chest rose and fell too quickly, and she took a shaky breath. His appearance was appalling. His usually copper-warm skin had an undertone of gray, as if he had been rubbed with ash, and his right leg, trapped beneath the remains of a wall, was buried almost to his hip. There was a dark spot on his forehead, a mix of blood and bruise. “Xiao,” she snapped into her comm, “where are you?”

      “Two minutes out, Captain,” Xiao said smoothly.

      “Our doctor is on his way as well,” Foster said in her ear. “He’s alive?”

      “He is.” Guanyin heard Shaw whisper to the others, and they began to clear the debris away from the opening, careful not to disturb the wreckage pinning Çelik down. He began to stir, and Guanyin thought if he could be roused, perhaps his head injury was not as bad as it looked. His eyes still closed, he moved his head, and his eyebrows twitched together. Pain, no doubt. She wondered how much he could feel of what was trapped under wreckage. She wondered how much he remembered of what had happened.

      Guanyin crouched down, bringing her face level with his. “Captain Çelik,” she said, keeping her tone measured and formal. “Sir, you must wake up.”

      Çelik coughed, then cleared his throat. He winced, eyes still closed; his senses were coming back. Out of the corner of her eye, Guanyin saw a pair of legs appear, and then Commander Shaw crouched down next to her.

      “Captain,” Shaw said, her voice firm and sharp.

      He opened his eyes. For a moment he looked at Shaw, unfocused, expression troubled and confused. Then he blinked, just once, and his eyes locked on Guanyin; and to her astonishment, he began to laugh.

      “Well, fuck me,” he said, his voice rough and damaged. “I’ve been rescued by the child prodigy.”

      Beside her, she felt Commander Shaw stiffen; but the relief she felt at the gibe was so intense she almost laughed herself. She fought to keep her expression neutral. “Do you know where you are, Captain?” she asked him.

      He frowned irritably. “I’m in what’s left of Control,” he told her, “on my ship, the CCSS Exeter, which some execrable bastards who will soon be dying a slow and painful death have blown to pieces. I am forty-six years old, my mother’s name is Nadide, and you have five fingers on your left hand. Are you satisfied?”

      “For the moment.” That was worrying; she would not have expected him to lose composure in front of her.

      He blinked again, his eyes back on Shaw. “I know you,” he said.

      “Yes, sir.” Shaw’s voice was so composed it might have come from a computer.

      “You worked for me.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Didn’t they throw you out?”

      “Not yet, sir.” There was no mistaking the hint of annoyance in her voice; but Çelik looked satisfied.

      He looked past Shaw to take in the rest of the group. “Keita,” he said to his second-in-command, “what’s our status?”

      “We’re still doing recon, sir,” Keita said. “Twenty-six enemy ships destroyed, one escaped, but Captain Shiang hit it with a tracker before it entered the field.”

      Çelik’s СКАЧАТЬ