The Vorkosigan Companion - Lillian Stewart Carl [102]
newly discovered wormhole. After ordering the lieutenant to break orbit to avoid capture and to let Beta Colony know what has happened, Cordelia, along with her survey partner Ensign Dubauer, are taken by surprise by a Barrayaran soldier, later identified as Sergeant Bothari, who shoots Dubauer with a nerve disruptor and knocks Cordelia unconscious. She awakens to find herself a prisoner of Aral Vorkosigan, known as "The Butcher of Komarr" for supposed previous wartime atrocities. Bargaining for Dubauer's life—although injured by the disruptor blast, he is still alive, but severely impaired—she agrees to go with Aral as his prisoner to a cache of equipment and weapons. Along the way, Cordelia realizes Aral had been left for dead here in a mutiny by his men. They set out for the cache, fending off assorted wildlife and getting to know each other along the way. Cordelia realizes that Aral is not a coldhearted killer, but a man with deep principles and honor who does what he feels he must for his homeland. After reaching the cache, Aral regains control of the men loyal to him, including Bothari, and ends the mutiny, although two ringleaders escape capture on the planet. He takes Cordelia back to his ship, where he proposes a most surprising idea—marriage. Cordelia asks to think about it, but before she can give an answer, learns some of her ship's crew have boarded the Barrayaran ship to rescue her, bringing some of the mutineers back with them. Before she can do anything, the mutineers commandeer the engineering room, demanding the surrender of the bridge officers, or they will turn life-support off. Cordelia sneaks down and stuns the ringleaders with the help of a former turncoat who switches sides again. She then frees her crew and they steal a shuttle to escape. Several months later, Cordelia is in charge of creating a diversion to let Betan cargo ships travel to Escobar through the Barrayaran blockade, using a holographic image of a capital ship as her bait. It works, but she and her crew are captured, and she comes very close to being tortured and raped by Admiral Ges Vorrutyer, who first orders Sergeant Bothari to do it. He refuses, claiming she is Vorkosigan's prisoner. Vorrutyer is about to force himself on her when Bothari kills the admiral. Discovered by Aral, Cordelia and the psychologically disintegrating Bothari are hidden in his quarters while Aral and his personal security officer, Simon Illyan, deal with the aftermath of the murder. Prince Serg Vorbarra comes aboard to let Aral know he's going to lead the Barrayaran fleet against the Escobarans. Aral protests, but he knows better, or worse—the Escobarans will counterattack at the right time, and although he hates the sacrifice of so many Barrayaran soldiers, he has no say in the matter. When the Escobarans do counter attack, they use a new weapon brought by Cordelia's convoy called a plasma field mirror, which turns an attacking ship's blast back upon itself. The resulting carnage destroys the ship that Prince Serg was on, along with much of the attacking fleet. Cordelia is told that Aral had extracted the information about the weapon from her while she was under sedation, but apparently didn't let the rest of the command staff, or Prince Serg, know about it. She later realizes that Aral actually had prior intelligence on the plasma mirrors, but was ordered not to reveal his knowledge so the Emperor of Barrayar could be rid of Prince Serg, a venal, deviant sadist—and his own son. Cordelia is transferred to a prisoner-of-war camp to be held for a future exchange, where the rest of the prisoners think she killed Admiral Vorrutyer, making her a hero, the last thing she wanted. Back on Beta Colony, she is feted as such, and the stress of keeping secret what she knows and living up to the propaganda her own government has created about her brings Cordelia to the breaking point. When military representatives believe that she has been programmed to be a spy for Barrayar, she escapes and travels there, where she takes Aral up on his proposal of marriage. Afterward,