The Science Officer by Blaze Ward Page A

like?” she asked, apparently also striving for courtesy. Maybe there was hope.
    Javier flipped on the portable’s hologram projector. A color–coded terrain map hovered between them, green for trees, brown for grass, gray for rock. Southwest, it just kept gently rolling to a distant sea. Northeast, their goal, the details slowly filled in.
    Javier checked a readout to one side. Exactly one transmission source other than the shuttle, anywhere within range. And even here on the surface it was weak. He pushed the remote up another two hundred meters, until it was barely a dot in the clear sky above them. Nothing was going to be shooting at it, fingers crossed.
    The wreck suddenly appeared bright on the radar, refined metals covered with dirt amidst scrub on the edge of a forest. It looked like the ship was a small freighter, maybe seventy or one hundred meters long. From the debris field, she had come in pretty hot, plowed through a bunch of trees, barely under control, and broken her back when she slammed down, with three major sections of hull mostly intact, and shards over a fairly compact area.
    He glanced back, up, but she was intent on the display, not him. She really had nice teeth.
    “Any radiation leakage from the wreck?” she asked. And always business.
    Javier felt his shoulders shrug. “No more than normal background,” he said. “Looks like it landed soft enough to protect the reactors. No load now except the emergency beacon, and it’s faint, so they’re fading. Maybe another year before they go.”
    He saw the ghost of a smile actually cross her face for the first time today. “So,” she looked down at him, all business again, “something worth salvaging, after all.”
    “Looks like,” he said, unwilling to commit more from the scans. He really didn’t know what this ship, this crew did when they weren’t all piratey. Maybe they funded orphanages. Space was big. There were a lot of weird people out there.
    Javier watched Sykora go full tactical before his eyes. It was like a switch flipped on.
    “Base team,” she called, a parade ground voice that echoed off the trees, “establish a perimeter. Smith, unlock the guns but don’t shoot first.” A group of spacers looked up from their tasks and variously kept in motion.
    One of the gun bunnies even saluted. “On it, ma’am,” he said, all crisp and professional. And ready for Thermopylae.
    She pointed in the direction of the wreck. “Pathfinders, north–east and stay sharp. Hostile planet.” Two women nodded and faded into the brush, vanishing as he watched. They seemed more competent than he was expecting pirates to be. Much. Who were these people?
    Sykora tapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s go, Aritza.” She encompassed the remaining crew with a look. “Move out.”
    Javier fell in behind her and tried not to trip over anything as he watched the screen and her butt at the same time. He figured Suvi would warn him if anything really interesting scanned.
    Ξ
    Lemuel sat so perfectly still that one of the forest creatures scampered right past him, chittering angrily just like the squirrel it vaguely resembled. Completely different form, but just as daft.
    Below, on the game trail, two people crept past. No, not people. Females. Unclean harlots. Mistresses of Satan. Succubi sent forth to lead the righteous astray into apostasy. He resisted the urge to spit, lest they detect him.
    They passed, silent as the wind.
    Lemuel didn’t bother to follow them. He faded back deeper into the brush. They would seek the wreck, the destruction, the ark that had brought him to this paradise where no females ruled over men unnaturally. He would watch, carefully. There might be others.
    Ξ
    Djamila kept sharp. The tree–analogs here looked similar and fulfilled the same ecological role. That meant the same propensity for ambush and destruction. She glanced up at Aritza’s hovering spy.
    She’d had him pull it in close, barely eight meters over her