DAY 3

Pingat Islands Base had gone on alert as soon as they received word the shuttle was in trouble. SAR-One, the active rescue crew, waited for the order to go, and then—when the weather in the suspected landing zone was downgraded—waited for better information and orders. They didn’t have another briefing until the third day after the shuttle went down.

“They’ll still be in that storm, most likely,” the base exec said. “But you might find something—from the rest of the shuttle. The passenger module would have been blown east of where the shuttle body went down.”

“And been moving east ever since, assuming they made it out of the raft. When is that long-range aircraft coming in?” Arvi McCoy, pilot of SAR-One, looked at the chart display with a sinking feeling. Everything was at the limit of his craft’s range.

“Not until tomorrow or the day after. So go as far as you can safely, but don’t push your luck unless you see something definite.”

The crew of SAR-One moved out to their aircraft, not saying much. McCoy and his copilot Jamie Sonder went through their preflight while data recorder Seth Lockhart and hoist techs Benji and Caleb Reston checked their own equipment. All were well aware of the difficulties inherent in finding anyone south of Miksland. Impossible in the frequent storms, improbable at the best of times, which autumn-shading-to-winter was not.

Four hours out, Lockhart spotted something—white lumps floating in the water.

McCoy circled over the debris; Lockhart zoomed in on it. A line of numbers … a few letters. “Could be part of the shuttle itself. If it disintegrated before it hit—”

“There’s another,” Cal Reston said. “Bigger piece.”

“Got it.” Lockhart increased magnification. “E-code for Spaceforce. We can run it in the system when we get back.”

“Ten minutes more, then we have to go back,” McCoy said. “I’ll fly an arc.”

They saw nothing more but dark sea with dark land rising out of it. On the way back, no one spoke. Their instruments told them water temperature was one degree Celsius, with survival in the water measured in minutes.

“Code’s right,” Tech Larson said, in the forensic laboratory at Pingat Base. “Spaceforce shuttle, the one that went down. You found its debris, not something else.”

“So …”

“So that’s all. This is coded for the starboard aileron. Your scan gives the right density, the right shape—here’s the overlay. It’s not the whole thing, just a part, but it fits.”

“Shuttle, not passenger module.”

“Yes. Nothing from the passenger module.”

“We went as far as we could—how far could the module be from the shuttle?”

“You need somebody else for that,” Larson said. “Those things come down with parachutes, don’t they?”

“They’re supposed to.”

Grace Lane Vatta glared at the man shown on the screen. “We already knew the shuttle went down there.”

“We didn’t know for sure exactly where.”

“But the debris tells us nothing about the passengers.”

“It gives us a westernmost point to search, Rector. The shuttle was ballistic at the time: engines had failed, and the pilots were ejected with the passenger module. The module, descending more slowly under parachutes, would have been more affected by the prevailing wind; it must have come down farther east. Survivors in rafts would also be affected by the wind and the currents, carrying them still farther east—beyond range of the SAR craft usually based at Pingats.”

“What craft do you have that can search farther?”

“The Long Range Recon and Search squadrons; the nearest operational is up on the northwest coast.”

“There’s nothing closer?”

“Closer, yes, but there’s a typhoon at Gerrault; all aircraft are grounded. They expect at least a three-day delay before they can get out again; storm surge made it over the seawall and they won’t know the damage to the runways until they get the water off.”

“I see. So another three to four days?”

“That’s our best estimate. It would be better to get the northern squadron down to Pingats, in case the Gerrault runway needs major repair. The LRRCs aren’t the fastest aircraft we’ve got, but nothing else has their range at low altitude.”

“Do it then, Admiral. All those people deserve our best efforts.”

“I’ll see that you’re kept informed of progress, Rector.”

Grace called Helen and explained the status of the search. “I’m concerned that the eastward drift will take them out of even that aircraft’s range, but there’s nothing else we can get, this time of year.”

“I don’t know what to do about the legal situation,” Helen said. “Should Stella just move into the CEO’s office here, for the duration? She’s met all the department heads, now.”

“How critical is it that Ky appear in person?”

“Unless she’s been declared dead, or been missing without communication for two planetary years, very. That’s what the law says.”

“See if there’s any leeway for cases like this. Yes, there’s a chance she might show up later, but she wasn’t contending with Stella. She had signed over her proxy before. This just makes it permanent.”

“I’ll see what we can do,” Helen said.

Grace looked at her status list. Yet more people wanted to talk to her about the shuttle, its disappearance, the personnel who’d been on it. She knew the questions already: who had done it, had she known, why hadn’t she known, when would she know, what was she doing … she read through that list and then the list of the passengers once again. Betange, compassionate leave. Parents killed, siblings … She called in her assistant.

“Find out who is taking care of Tech Betange’s siblings, and when it’s a decent time in their zone, put a call through for me. I need to know what their situation is.”

Waiting for an answer gave her an excuse to ignore the other demands for a time. Finding out what the caregivers needed—besides Betange himself—would give her something she could accomplish.