He frowned. “I see—yes, Sera, that is quite correct. But unfortunate.”
“The crash is unfortunate,” Helen said. “This is merely inconvenient.” Her gaze was steady, her eyes dry.
“Exactly,” Stella said. “And it may be that Grace can give us an answer immediately.” She hated using a skullphone, but in this instance its security features tipped the scale—no one could tap into Grace’s end of the conversation. She entered Grace’s office number, and argued her way through two layers of underlings before Grace came on.
“Yes, Stella, what?”
Stella ignored the tone. “Ser Targanyan at Vatta HQ Legal says we need to inform the court if Ky isn’t going to be there for the filing on the new organization. Ideally, today or tomorrow, because the judge is an idiot—”
“I did not say that,” Targanyan said, eyes wide.
“No, I did,” Stella said. “So, Aunt Grace, can we do that, or do you have the shuttle crash under some kind of security wrap?”
“It just came unwrapped,” Grace said. If she was as angry as she sounded, Stella was very glad not to be in the same building, let alone the same office. “I got a call from a media outlet wanting confirmation that the shuttle had gone down. And I have a strong suspicion who the leak came from, and he is—” A pause. Grace’s voice, now mellow as cream, finished with, “So, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to inform the court of a possible—no, call it a probable—delay in the filing of that paperwork. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have visitors.” The contact ended.
Stella smiled at Targanyan, who was still glaring at her. “See how quick that was?” she said. “Aunt Grace said go ahead and inform the court of a probable delay. You can do that right away. Mother and I need to return to the house for now; it’s a security matter.”
“Just a moment,” her mother said. “Stella, Ser Targanyan—please, I simply cannot go on as before. Stella, please take over. I’m—I’m done.” Her eyes filled with tears again. She stood up, wavering a little. Stella moved quickly to offer her arm.
“Come, Mother; I’ll help you downstairs.” She looked back to see Ser Targanyan openmouthed behind them.
“You enjoyed that,” Helen said when they were in the lift.
“Yes,” Stella said. “Yes, I did. Didn’t you tell me once to find something enjoyable in any situation?”
“No,” Helen said. “That was your aunt Grace.” And after a pause, “But I meant what I said. This is too much for me. I need you to take over. Now.”
“Of course I will. It’s understandable you’d want to recover from another shock.”
Stella opened the passenger door for her mother and took the driver’s side herself. Her mother entered the exit codes, but Stella drove them home.
She said nothing on the way back to the house, her imagination presenting a series of vivid horrific pictures: the shuttle exploding, flaming shards falling into the sea, Ky’s dismembered body among them. The shuttle, whole, slamming into the sea, fragmenting, sinking, never to be found. She tried to force her imagination to something better, but had no idea how that could happen… could a shuttle settle quietly onto the surface of a calm sea? Was that sea calm? The only pictures she’d ever seen of the Oklandan had been storm images, news stories of ships battered and limping into port somewhere to the north of Miksland.
“I really miss Onslow Seffater,” her mother said, into that silence. “Targanyan is such a difficult man.”
Stella struggled with the name for a moment then remembered her father’s legal adviser, whom she’d met on the embarrassing occasion of the family silver disappearing from the country house vault. Ser Seffater had been gentler than her father as he coaxed her to admit she’d given the gardener’s son the combination. The silver had been recovered, the gardener’s son having been as feckless in his theft as she had been in her trust in him, but no one ever forgot that lapse. She had become “that idiot Stella” to the family just as Ky had been “Ky… well, at least she’s not like that idiot Stella.”
“He was killed in the explosion, wasn’t he?”
“He was just coming into the building,” her mother said. “Blown to pieces. At least they could find the pieces. Your father—”
She knew about that, too. The upper floors had collapsed onto the lower floors and her father’s remains, all anyone found, were smears of blood and tissue identified as his by a gene scan.
“I hope we can at least find Ky’s…” Her mother let that trail off.
“She could be alive,” Stella said, over her own certainty that Ky must be dead. “She’s tough. I’ve seen her in emergencies.”
“Gravity has no pity,” her mother said. “Nor physics. Relentless…”
Stella glanced at her. Her mother’s gaze was straight ahead.
With the news that the Grand Admiral had arrived safely in Slotter Key nearspace, tension in SDF headquarters had relaxed somewhat. She was safe; the Slotter Key ansible was working; they had real-time communication with her if they wanted. When eight of the admirals then at HQ met in the Senior Officers’ Club and settled around the big table in the meeting room with their favorite evening drinks after dinner, they were ready for a pleasant few hours of chat and discussion. Issues of some weight were set aside while the Grand Admiral was away; they could relax. Padhjan, the admiral who had retired from Slotter Key Spaceforce to serve under Ky Vatta, answered questions about Slotter Key protocol.
“We’re not nearly as formal as Cascadians,” he said. “Fairly casual, in fact. I expect there might be a parade, and some politicians will shake her hand, but—”
“Sir! Sir!” The pale-faced young officer who flung open the door to the Senior Officers’ Club meeting room had a printout in his hand. Dan Pettygrew, facing the door, scowled at him.
“What is it?”
“It’s—it’s a message for Admiral Driskill, sir. It’s really urgent—it’s bad—I mean—”
“Spit it out, Hopkins,” Driskill said with a quick glance at Pettygrew. “Everyone in here has all the clearance they need.”
“It’s the admiral—Grand Admiral Vatta, I mean. She’s—she’s gone, sir.”
Pettygrew felt as if he’d been flash-frozen; for a moment he could not move or speak. The pleasant dinner he’d eaten earlier congealed in his stomach. Down the table, Admiral Hetherson of Moray System shifted in his seat; no one else moved. Pettygrew struggled and finally said, “What happened?” His own voice sounded strange to him.
“The shuttle crashed on Slotter Key. Into the ocean. They don’t think anyone survived.”
“No!” Argelos, seated on Pettygrew’s left, slapped a hand onto the table. “She can’t—it’s a mistake!” Then, before anyone else could answer, he went on. “What kind of shuttle? When? What kind of search have they done?”
“This is all we’ve got,” Hopkins said. Now the first was out, he seemed to realize he’d burst in on the senior admirals without the slightest courtesy. “It’s from Captain Pordre on Vanguard Two.” He handed the hardcopy to Admiral Burrage, the Cascadian.
Instead of reading it aloud, Burrage read it through silently, lips pursed, then handed it to Hetherson. As each admiral read it in silence, and passed it on up the table, Pettygrew felt his stomach knotting ever tighter. Ky Vatta could not be gone. Dead. She was the reason the Space Defense Force existed; she was the reason he was an admiral, and not just the captain of a single warship fleeing disaster. She had made them, willed SDF into being, commanded them in one after another engagement, against odds that no one else, he was sure, could have beaten. His own planet, Bissonet, though it had suffered badly under Turek’s domination, was free again, and though his immediate family had not survived, many people he’d known were alive because of her.