Reclamation

Sarah Zettel Reclamation

This book is dedicated to my teacher, Mr. Thomas B. Deku.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Doug Houseman, Leonard Zettel, Karen Fleming, and Timothy B. Smith for their expert technical help, the Untitled Writers Group for their infinite patience in reviewing so many revisions and Dawn Marie Sampson-Beresford, who always listens.

0—Prologue

"We're in." Coming through the cargo bay's intercom, Hellea's tenor voice sounded watery.

Burig let out a sigh that deflated his paunch to half its normal size. The arms on his chair tightened around his midriff to compensate. A split second later, the hum filtering through the sterile deck plates from the third level drive fell silent. Now, the Alliance Runner drifted on nothing but its own momentum and Hellea's calculations.

A series of sharp clicks sounded from across the bay as Ovin opened all the restraint catches on her own chair and shoved its arms out of the way. Burig smiled. Ovin hated being strapped down. Already she was pulling out drawers and raising wire racks up around the thaw-out table, jetting them ready for the equipment she would need to hang there if their find went into shock, or worse.

Burig shifted his weight so that the chair leaned him toward the intercom's control board. He touched the VIEW key beside the flat screen set flush against the undecorated, blue tile wall. The familiar pattern of white spheres and gold lines that represented May 16's system filled the too-small square. The Runner showed up as an out-of-proportion red dash floating between them. Burig rapped the image twice with his knuckle for thankfulness.

Ovin glanced curiously at him from between the forest of wires and monitor boxes she was building, but she didn't say anything. The bay's stark, white lights gave her profile a hard edge, despite her snub features. Burig tried to ignore her cool eyes. Instead he touched the CALL key for the bridge.

"Hellea," he said toward the intercom, "how soon can you get me through to Director Dorias?"

"As soon as I set up a priority call for an open line," came the reply. "Want it routed down here?"

"If you would." Burig glanced past Ovin at the capsules. All of them waited dormant and dark in their racks, except the one humming and clicking gently by her elbow. "How far out are we?"

"This rate of drift, and all other things being equal, we'll be putting in at Alliance Station in eight, maybe ten hours."

"Thanks," Burig said without any feeling. He shut the view screen off and swiveled the chair away from the wall. The restraints suddenly felt too tight around his waist. He thumbed the catches so the arms fell open to let him stand up.

"What's the matter?" Ovin bent over the stacks of emergency gear next to the thaw-out table. Everything was switched on now, and at full ready. "Not soon enough for you?"

Burig leaned against the table and watched Ovin run through her checks. She kept her attention focused on the readouts as tightly as if she had a full hold and this was her first run. She had only stowed the loose systems that might be damaged in the event of a rough reentry into the system.

Everything else had stayed up and running for the whole trip. Captain Notch had bawled her out about wasting power at the beginning. Ovin had replied that if Notch wanted to risk the cargo, wanted to risk a life, he could drop the ship into a black hole, but he wouldn't do it by intimidating her.

Burig had hidden his smile. Nobody tried to tell Imeran d'or dyn Ovin anything about her specialty more than once. It wasn't worth it.

"I'm just going to be really glad when we can hand her over to somebody else," Burig said. "This is too close to contraband running for me."

"Got a flash for you, Subdirector." Ovin looked down at her charge. "This is contraband running."

Burig sighed again. From here, he could see through the polymer shell of the active capsule to the woman inside. The ragged patchwork she wore as clothing looked incongruous trapped under the network of tubes and wires that fed her drugs and nutrients and monitored her condition. The translucent blue of the tubes reflected against her clear, brown skin, making long pale streaks that ran perpendicular to the scars on the backs of her hands. A respiration mask covered her mouth and nose, but Burig couldn't see her chest move at all.

"Well," said Burig, not taking his gaze off the still figure, "it's not like she's really Family."

Ovin pursed her thin lips and watched the data on the support screens. Her trained eye picked out the details of heart rhythm, eye movement, respiration, and brain activity. "That's not what we're telling the rest of the Quarter Galaxy."