Winning Colors

Chapter Eight

Lady Cecelia had debated for several days where to go first after Zenebra. Heris left her to it. She had spent enough time thinking about horses. Now, as the yacht worked its way out of the crowded traffic patterns of Zenebra’s system, she concentrated on the crew’s training. Koutsoudas worried her, especially in light of her aunt’s message. No one but Livadhi knew what he could really accomplish with two bent pins and a discarded chip. An undetectable hyperlight tightbeam comlink, for instance. Cecelia’s concern that she could not see clearly where Fleet personnel were concerned warred in her mind with her aunt’s trust in her judgment. She would like to believe her aunt, but if she did that, she might as well believe her aunt on everything. Her mind shied away from the implications like a green horse from a spooky fence . . . and that image brought her back to Cecelia.

Inspection. It was more than time for an inspection. Heris checked the set of her uniform before she headed down the passage to crew quarters. As she would have anticipated, the ex-military crew kept their quarters tidy, almost bare of personal identity. The programmable displays that other crew left showing tropical reefs, mountain valleys, or other scenery had been blanked.

Heris continued into the working areas of the ship. The new inspection stickers—real ones, not fakes—made bright patches on the gleaming bulkheads. She checked every readout, every telltale, the routine soothing her mind. Even the memories of violence on the ship—here Iklind had died, from hydrogen sulfide poisoning, and down this passage his distant relative Skoterin had nearly killed Brig Sirkin and Lady Cecelia. Redecoration had removed any trace of corrosive gases, of blood. The memory of faces and bodies that floated along with her were no different from those that haunted any captain’s days.

In the ’ponics sections, she found Brun replanting trays, a dirty job that always fell to the lowest-level mole.

“What are you growing this round?” she asked.

Brun grinned. “Halobeets,” she said. “I hadn’t realized how much sulfur uptake ship ’ponics need.”

“There’s a ship rhyme about it,” Heris said. “Eat it, excrete it, then halobeet it. And it’s always confused me that we call the sulfur-sucking beets halobeets . . . you’d think they sopped up the halocarbons, but they don’t. How are you getting along with Lady Cecelia’s gardener?” Lady Cecelia’s gardener produced the ship’s fresh vegetables. Ship’s crew produced only the vegetation needed to normalize the atmosphere. Brun wrinkled her muddy nose.

“I think he worries that I’ll steal his methods for Dad’s staff. You know I’m supposed to check the oxygen/carbon dioxide levels on his compartments, but he hovers over me as if I were after industrial secrets.”

“Are you telling me you’re never tempted to sneak a tomato?” Heris asked.

“Well . . . perhaps.” Brun’s wide grin was hardly contrite.

Heris left Brun to the tedious work, and continued her inspection. She was not surprised to find Arkady Ginese on his own tour of inspection, checking the weapons controls interlocks. The yacht had once had spacious storage bays, far larger than it needed for the transportation of a single passenger. Now those bays were stuffed with weaponry and its supporting control and guidance systems, with the jamming and other countermeasures that Heris hoped would serve as well as shields if someone were shooting back. They had not had the volume to mount both effective weapons and strong shields; Heris hoped she’d made the right choice.

“All’s well, Captain,” Ginese said. “I did want to ask you—Koutsoudas says there’s a new wrinkle in ECM that we could probably rig onto what we have, if you wanted.” If you really trust Koutsoudas hung in his words.

Heris thought a moment. “Do you understand it? Does it make sense to you?”

“Yes—it’s a reasonable extension of the technology. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.”

“And how do you feel about Koutsoudas?”

Ginese looked around. “Well—”

“Of course he may have ears everywhere—the better to hear the truth, Arkady. He’s smart—he has to know we don’t completely trust someone from Livadhi. How do you feel?”

“I—like him more than I thought I would. He’s like all scan techs, clever and sneaky. But he doesn’t give me that bad feeling . . . then again, I missed Skoterin.”

“So did we all,” Heris said. “But I think all our sensitivities are flapping in the breeze now. Let’s go on and make that change—send my desk a complete description, and I’ll file it. If anything comes up—”

“Of course, Captain.” Ginese looked happier, and Heris went on to complete her inspection.

By the time she reached the bridge again, Lady Cecelia had sent a message—she had chosen their destination, a planet called Xavier. Sirkin already had the charts up on display for Heris, with a recommended course.

“Looks good so far,” Heris said. “I’ll want to check—some of those intermediate jump points may have restriction codes on them—”

“Yes, ma’am, they do,” Sirkin said. “Four of them are heavy traffic; we’d have to file here before we jump for clearance through them. Xavier itself is in the frontier zone; we have to file with the R.S.S., a letter of intent. I’ve done a preliminary file, in case—and there’s an alternate course that doesn’t use any restricted jump points, though it will add sixteen days.”

Sixteen additional days times the daily requirements for food, water, oxygen . . . Heris ran the numbers in her mind before checking them on the computer. “We can do it, but it’s already a long trip, especially counting the long insystem drop at Xavier. You’re right, Sirkin, that short course is the best. What’s the maximum flux transit you’ve plotted?” That, too, was within acceptable limits; Heris reminded herself again that Sirkin had not made the mistakes she’d been blamed for. On her own she had always done superb work.

“Fine—complete that application for the restricted jump points, file the letter of intent as agricultural products purchase, wholesale, and tell me when you anticipate we’ll start the sequence. Good work.” It was, too. Most navigators would still be setting up a single course.

“Thank you, ma’am.” Sirkin might have been her old self, the bright, vibrant girl Heris had first met, but there was still the wariness of old injuries in her eyes. That was maturity, Heris told herself, and nothing to regret. Nobody stayed as young as Sirkin had been and lived to grow old.

Xavier, when they arrived at its orbital station, looked like the uncrowded agricultural world it was. Its main export was genetic variability for large domestic animals too inbred in other populations. A variety of habitats and temperature ranges allowed relatively easy culture of equids, bovids, and less common domestics for many purposes. Cecelia had been there before; she knew most of the horse breeders, and planned to spend several weeks with those most likely to have what she wanted.

“Captain Serrano . . . could I speak to you on a secure line, please?” That request got through; Heris had been wondering how long exactly Cecelia meant to stay, and what the daily docking charges would run to. Some of these outworld stations tried to squeeze every visitor, because they had so few.

“Of course,” she said. She wondered what was wrong; they hadn’t popped a hatch yet.

“I’m the Stationmaster,” the face on the screen said. Heris hadn’t doubted it, but she nodded politely.

“I’ve been authorized to ask this . . . and if it’s an offense, please excuse me . . . but are you related to the . . . er . . . Fleet Serranos?”

That again. Heris hoped her reaction didn’t show. “Yes, I am,” she said. “In fact, I was Fleet myself.”

“That’s what we hoped,” the Stationmaster said. “Lady Cecelia said—but I had to make sure.”

“Why?” Heris asked. The Stationmaster seemed the sort to pussyfoot around the point for hours, and she didn’t want to wait for it.

“We really need your help, Captain Serrano. Your expertise, if you will. I’ve been authorized to invite you to a briefing, with our Senior Captain Vassilos, who commands the planetary defense.”

Heris felt a prickle run down her backbone. “Planetary defense? Is there a . . . problem?” She would have Koutsoudas for lunch if they had dropped into a shooting war without his noticing.

“Not now, Captain. At the moment. But if you would come, if you would consider helping . . . just advice, I mean; you don’t have a warship, we know that.” He sounded more desperate than he should if they were in no imminent danger. Heris paused, considering her answer. Behind her, she heard a stir, and glanced around. Cecelia.

“I told them you’d be glad to help,” Cecelia said, as if she had the right to dispose of Heris’s time and effort. Heris glared at her, then turned back to the screen.

“I’ll attend a briefing,” she said. “At this point, without knowing what you want—my responsibilities to my ship must, you understand, take precedence.”

“Oh, of course. If you’ll—when you’re ready, there will be a shuttle at your disposal. I’ll just tell Captain Vassilos.” And he cut the link. Heris turned back to Cecelia.

“Just what did you think you were doing?”

She didn’t understand or she wouldn’t. “I didn’t see any harm in it. They asked about your name; I told them you were ex-Fleet; they started babbling about some kind of problem and needing expert guidance. You don’t mind, do you?”

Mind was not the right word. Heris took a deep steadying breath, and told herself that she did, after all, care about the security of the outer worlds . . . and that clouting one’s charter across the room was no way to run a chartered yacht.

On the shuttle down, she read through the scanty briefing material she’d been handed, and tried to explain to Cecelia why she should stick to horses and leave defense to the military.

“I know that,” Cecelia said, unrepentant. “That’s why I said you should take care of it, whatever it is. I know it’s your specialty—”

“Used to be my specialty,” said Heris between clenched teeth. “You were the one who pointed out so firmly that I am a civilian now.”

“I know.” For an instant, Cecelia’s expression might even have been contrite, or as close as that arrogant bony face ever came. They rode the rest of the way in unrestful silence.

The little military band in its bright uniforms, buttons and ornaments glittering, played some jaunty march which Heris could have sworn she knew. Across the sunburnt grass, the music practically strutted, as if the notes themselves were proud.

“It’s—charming,” said Cecelia beside her. Under the clear blue sky of Xavier, her cheeks were flushed, more with excitement than sunburn.

“It’s ridiculous,” muttered Heris. “If this is their protection—”

“But it’s so . . . it makes me feel good.”

“That’s what it’s for, but feeling good because you’ve got a decent bandmaster won’t save your life if you don’t have some armament, and I don’t see anything here that could take care of a good-sized riot.”

“Maybe they don’t have riots,” Cecelia said. She sounded cross.

“Then they’ve had no practice, as well as having no armament,” Heris said. She knew she was cross. Damn Livadhi and his specialist. Damn her family name, which at the moment was pure embarrassment. Without that, she’d have been comfortably ensconced in the yacht, while Cecelia visited horse farms. Instead, her fame had preceded her, and produced a fervent appeal for help—help which Cecelia had generously offered, on her behalf.

The band switched from one tune to another, this one even more bouncy than the last. Her toes wanted to tap; her whole body wanted to march along a road with a band of brave and loyal friends. A double crash of cymbals and drums, and the music stopped, leaving its ghost in her ears. Trumpets blew a little fanfare, and someone left the group to approach them.

“Lady Cecelia . . . Captain Serrano . . .” He wore a uniform that had been tailored for a slimmer man; it bunched and pulled around the spare tire fifteen years had given him. “I’m Senior Captain Vassilos. Thank you for your willingness to help.”

“You’re very welcome,” Cecelia said. Heris nodded, silently, and waited to see what would come next.

“I presume you’d like to know more about the problem?”

“Quite,” said Heris, before Cecelia could say anything.

“If you’ll come this way, then.” He led them to a brightly polished groundcar with a big boxy rear end and a little open cab for the driver. Heris had never seen anything like it. She and Cecelia and Senior Captain Vassilos sat in back on tufted velvet; the compartment would have held four or five more in comfort.

“We’ve had trouble from the Compassionate Hand from time to time—as you know, milady—” He turned to Cecelia, who nodded. “But we don’t believe these are the same people. For one thing, the survivors report nothing like the discipline we associate with Compassionate Hand raids. For another, the entry vectors are all wrong. I know: the Black Scratch could be using a roundabout jump sequence. But they’d almost have to trail past an R.S.S. picket line that way, and Fleet keeps telling us there’s nothing in the records. Any of them. Of course, they think we’re overreacting—at least, that’s the message I’ve had from them. They’re stretched thin on this frontier—”

“On all,” Heris said. And would be thinner yet, if the government fell. She hoped fervently that Lord Thornbuckle would cobble something together before that happened.

“We used to get a patrol ship in here at least yearly; that kept the vermin away. But in the past eight years or so, it’s been less than that, and in the past two years we haven’t had a patrol closer than Margate.” Margate, two stars away. That wouldn’t help. “Frankly, I don’t know why the Compassionate Hand hasn’t been at us again.”

Heris thought they had, but were being circumspect just in case the lack of patrol activity was a trap. Instead of mentioning that, she asked, “Has anyone ever gotten an ID on the raiders?”

“Here.” He loaded the cube reader and began pointing to items in the display. “Last time, they knocked out the scanners and the records at the orbital station, but a farmer down here in the south happened to catch a bit—his oldest daughter’s crazy for space and handbuilt a scanner of her own. But it was at the extreme of her range, and we don’t know how valid the data are.”

“We’ll have—our expert—look at it, if you don’t mind.” Heris just caught herself from saying Koutsoudas’s name.

“No, that’s fine. If you can make anything of it, so much the better.”

They had better make something of it. After a look at the files, Heris realized that a farmer’s brat’s homemade scanner had the only possible data of any importance.

“What sort of defense do you have?” She thought she knew, but better to ask and be sure.

“Well, it’s always been Fleet policy that planets didn’t need their own heavy ships, as you know.” Heris nodded. It was always easier to keep the peace if the peaceful weren’t too well armed. “We had two Desmoiselle class escorts forty years ago, but one of them was badly damaged in a Compassionate Hand raid and we cannibalized her to get parts for the other.” Heris winced. The Desmoiselle class had been obsolete for decades; it mounted no more weaponry than the yacht, and handled worse. Designed initially to protect commercial haulers from incompetent piracy in the crowded conditions of the Cleonic moons, it had been someone’s poor choice for a situation like this.

“And your remaining ship?”

“Well . . . it’s not really operational, and we haven’t the expertise locally to fix it. Nor the money to send it somewhere.” He flushed. “I know that must sound like we want to be sitting ducks, but it’s not really that. We keep Grogon hanging around with her weapons lit up, hoping to scare off trouble, but the pirates have figured out she has neither legs nor teeth.”

“What’s the problem?”

“She was underpowered to start with, and she needs her tubes relined, at a minimum. She makes only seventy percent of the acceleration she had when she came, but there’s no shipyard nearer than Grand Junction or Tay-Fal. And the cost—”

“Let’s see if my engineers can suggest something,” Heris said, making a note on her compad. She had to have something as backup, if it were only a shuttle with a single missile tube and a lot of electronic fakery. If this Grogon could move in space at all, it was better than nothing. “Anything else?”

“We did have a fixed orbital battery, but they got that on the last raid. Then one of the shuttles—” There were only three, as Heris already knew. “We took two of the phase cannons off the other escort—”

Heris blinked. They had mounted phase cannon in a shuttle? “Have you ever fired them?” she asked.

“Not yet. But we think it will work.”

“I think perhaps my engineers should take a look.” Quickly. Before anyone tried it and tore the shuttle apart.

“Of course, Captain Serrano.” The man beamed as if she were conferring a great favor. “Does this mean you’ll take the commission?”

“Let me confer with my . . . er . . . staff,” Heris said. “And if you have any engineering specs on those vessels—?”

“Right away, Captain,” he said.

Koutsoudas received the scan cassette with a curl of his lip that made Heris want to smack him. Oblo, she saw, had a sulky look. Fine. Let Oblo work it off on Koutsoudas.

An hour later, Koutsoudas called her with no sneer at all in his voice. “Good data, Captain. The kid knew what she was doing, whoever she is. Recruit her.”

Heris had already asked. Regret edged her voice: “Can’t, I’m afraid. She died a year back, of some local disease. So what do you have?” She didn’t mention the younger sister she’d been told about, who seemed to have similar talents. Time enough for that later.

“Aethar’s World, but I think the ship ID’s falsified. It’ll be Aethar’s World, just from the flavor of it, but not that number. It’s in the commercial sequence, probably midsize trader . . . too bad that girl didn’t build a wide-band detector as well.”

“I’ll ask,” Heris said. “Maybe she did. But only one ship?”

“So far. I’ll let you know.”

Heris put in a call to Petris, who had gone to take a look at the cannon-loaded shuttle.

“Just got here,” he said. “But you were right. They assumed that only the mass mattered. They’ve got them bolted into the frame—the unreinforced frame—with homemade ports cut in the hull plates.” He sounded less contemptuous than she expected as he went on. “Quite a job, really—they put some thought into it. Pity they didn’t know more about phase cannon. To make this thing operational, we’ll have to dismount them, reinforce, and remount. At best, that’s five weeks of work with the equipment available—”

“Downside or orbital?” Heris asked.

“Downside—they’ve no orbital facilities at all. Anyway, that’d give you a slow shuttle that could fire a couple of bolts every five minutes or so. Not worth it, unless we’re desperate.”

“That will depend on how bad the old escort is.”

All along Heris had wondered who crewed the two escorts. When she swam aboard the remaining Desmoiselle, she found out. Anyone who wanted, it seemed. Oldsters retired from space, youngsters desperate to get above atmosphere, balancing a complete lack of proper training with intimate knowledge of their single ship.

“Grogon’s not a bad ship,” its elderly captain told her. “She takes a bit of easing along, that’s all. . . .” Petris raised his brows but said nothing; he’d explain later. Heris could see for herself most of its problems.

Back with Captain Vassilos, Heris showed him the recommendations of her engineering staff. “Can you tell me why you think the raider’s due?”

“It’s more a guess than anything else,” he said. “It’s come twice before in our springtime, and now it’s late spring. It feels like the right time.”

Heris had heard worse reasons. “Those phase cannon in the shuttle can’t be used as they are—and five weeks of downtime, if your planet-side yards can do the work, still give you only a very minimal weapons platform. If you have the resources to start that work, go ahead, but don’t count on it to do much. I do have another suggestion. . . .”

“It’s a little thing, whatever it is.” Esteban Koutsoudas and Meharry bent over the displays. “Let me just tinker a bit here—ahhh.” He signaled Meharry with one stubby finger. “That cube I had—put it in here—” Another screen came alive with numbers that scrolled so rapidly Heris couldn’t see anything but lines. Then it froze, with one line highlighted.

“Hull constructed at Yaeger, registered with Aethar’s World as a medium trader . . . but Aethar’s traders are everyone else’s raiders.”

That much any of her own crew could have gotten, but Koutsoudas wasn’t through. The screen wavered and steadied on a new display: the other ship’s design details, shown in three-dimensional display. Colored tags marked deviations from the listed criteria. Where Sweet Delight’s other detectors merely showed blots of warning red for weapons on active status, this one showed the placement and support systems for weapons not otherwise detected as live.

“Where’d you get this stuff?” Meharry asked, her voice expressing her lust for that equipment.

“You know how it is,” Koutsoudas said without taking his eyes off the display. “A bit of this, a bit of that. It’s not exactly standard, so I can’t mount it in any Fleet craft—”

“But you can’t get that resolution that far away,” Meharry said. “Thermal distortion alone—”

“You need an almighty big database,” Koutsoudas said. He sounded almost apologetic, as he tweaked the display again and an enlarged view of the distant vessel’s portside weapons appeared, with little numbered comments. “I’ve been sort of . . . collecting this . . . for a long time.” He tapped the cube reader. “Had to design new storage algorithms too. And the transforms for the functions that do the actual work . . .”

“Magic,” Meharry said. Koutsoudas grinned at her.

“That’s it. Got to have my secrets, don’t I? If I teach you everything, who’s going to care about my neck?”

“Nobody cares about your neck now, Esteban. Other parts of you—”

“Are off limits,” he said. “Besides, that ship’s no good.”

“Can you tell what it’s getting?” Heris asked.

“It won’t have us now,” Koutsoudas said confidently. “Not with the last batch of little doodads Oblo and Meharry and I installed. We’re in no danger, and we can sit here and read their mail if we want to.”

“Not and let them run amok in this system,” Heris said. “Not if we can stop them, that is.”

“Oh, we can stop them.” Koutsoudas pointed to his display. “Their weapons look impressive on scan—or will, when they go active and light up the station’s warning system. But this is old tech, slow and stupid stuff. Good for scaring the average civilian, though I’ll bet they never take on any of the big commercial carriers. And when they refitted that hull with new engines, they made a big mistake.” He brought up a highlighted schematic, and Heris saw it herself. They’d wanted more performance, and they’d mounted more powerful drives . . . but without reinforcing the hull or mounts. If they used those engines flat out, they’d collapse either hull or mount. Even worse, they could do structural damage by combining a lower drive setting with missile firing.

“I’d bet they never have fired many shots in anger,” Heris said. “At least, not while under any significant acceleration. That’s a beginner’s mistake.” If only she had a real Fleet warship, she’d simply chase them into their own fireball.

“With any luck, they won’t live long enough to learn better,” Meharry said.

“Not luck,” Koutsoudas said. “Skill. Knowledge.”

Heris wasn’t sure if that was an attempt to flatter her, or to brag about his own ability. “How long before you can strip the rest you want off them?”

“Twelve to fourteen standard hours, Captain,” he said. “With the captain’s permission, I’ll put one of the juniors on scan, and plan to be on the bridge in four hours for a check, and then in ten hours—”

“Of course,” Heris said. “We’ll use the Fleet scheduling for this. Firsts, give me your interim schedules, and make sure you are offshift enough for real rest before then.”

Koutsoudas smiled. “I didn’t know if we’d have the crew for that—”

“Not quite, but better than they have, I expect. As long as we don’t let them get past us—or get the first shot—we’ll do very well.”

After she had the schedules for the next twelve standard hours, Heris went to see Cecelia.

“I don’t know how that man does what he does, but we’re damn lucky Livadhi wanted me to run off with him. With my people, I’d have a lot less margin to play with.”

“So we’re going to fight again?” Cecelia looked as if she were trying to project eagerness. But she would be remembering that other battle, in which she was trapped in her aged and disabled body, unable even to speak clearly. She had to be scared.

“Yes, we’ll fight—but it won’t be anything like the time before. They won’t have detected us—and they’re unlikely to do so until we blow them away.” She used Cecelia’s desk display to diagram what they intended to do.

“It’s not very sporting, is it?” Cecelia asked.

“It’s not ‘sporting’ at all. It’s not a game,” Heris said. “Lepescu made that mistake; I don’t. This is a band of ruffians who have terrorized this system repeatedly, and I’m going to destroy them. True, their homeworld may send more—I can’t help that. But if Koutsoudas is right, Aethar’s World may have more to worry about than a missing allied pirate. These people will have months—maybe years—of peace and a chance to develop their own effective defense. So yes, I’m going to destroy them with the least possible risk to us.”

“How can you be sure they’re the right ones? What if you’re about to blow up an innocent ship?” She didn’t sound really worried about it, but Heris considered the question seriously.

“By the time we do it, we’ll know what brand of dental cleanser they use,” she said. “Right now we know they are running with a falsified ID beacon—which doesn’t necessarily mean criminal intent; we had one. But they’ve also got a whopping load of armament. And they’re from Aethar’s World, which is always suspicious. About the only time those barbarians leave home, it’s to cause trouble for someone. They fit the profile of the trouble your friends have been having. . . .”

With the enemy ship only a light-second away, Koutsoudas continued to pour out a torrent of information about it. “Not only Aethar’s World, but one of the Brotherhood chiefs. Svenik the Bold, I think—certainly he had this particular ship a while back, and this sort of raid is his specialty.”

“I’m surprised he’s lasted this long with that hull/engine combination,” Petris said.

“So am I,” Koutsoudas said. “But he hasn’t been up against anything that made him redline it. Yet.” He grinned at Heris. “I know you want to do this the quick way, Captain, but I wish we could push him to it.”

“Not worth it,” Heris said. “I know—it would be fun, but none of our friends can match our scan capability, and if we made a mistake—or he got lucky—”

“He’s gone hot,” Arkady Ginese, on weapons, did not look up for anyone else’s conversations.

“It’s not us,” Koutsoudas said. “He isn’t side-scanning—that’s just preparation for hitting the station. He should be transmitting his demands—yes—there it goes—”

“Go ahead, Mr. Ginese,” said Heris, feeling that familiar sensation in her belly. Plan, plan, and plan again, but at the moment, there was always one cold thrust of fear. Arkady and Meharry both touched their boards, and their own displays lit. Now, if the raider were looking, they could be seen. The weapons boards flickered through the preparatory displays, then steadied on green, with the red row at the top showing all the weapons ready. It had definitely been worth it to get that fast-warm capability, though it cost half again as much. Or would have, if Ginese and Meharry hadn’t done the conversion themselves.

They had the raider now, though he didn’t know it and might not before he died. They had calculated their ideal moment to attack, but from here on, the conclusion wasn’t really in doubt.

“Screens warm,” Heris said. Their puny screens wouldn’t deflect much, but better a little protection than none. Second by second they closed.

“Second scan,” Koutsoudas said suddenly. “Jump insertion, low velocity. Preliminary says it’s a medium-size cargo hull; weapons minimal.”

It had always been a possibility that the raider would have a companion. Or rival.

“Koutsoudas on the new one; Meharry, you take main scan on the raider. Ginese?”

“Any time, Captain.”

“It’s hours out,” Koutsoudas said. “And it’s not in any hurry. Could be tramp cargo—I’m just getting the beacon ID—but the timing’s suspicious.”

“That’s why we have backup. Meharry, give me a replay of the raider’s transmission to the station.” The station, as agreed, had rebroadcast that narrowbeam transmission in omni, which allowed the Sweet Delight to pick it up—and enter it in the log, for evidence. It was about what she’d expected, the wording varying only slightly from the previous raids. Koutsoudas glanced up briefly.

“That’s Svenik the Bold. I recognize his voice; it was one of our voice-screen samples on file. Want a verification?” Heris nodded. He reached over to Meharry’s board, and flicked a switch on the module he’d added.

“Transmit our authorization,” Heris said. Koutsoudas grinned, and hit another switch.

Half a light-second; the raiders should be startled to receive a transmission from a source they hadn’t spotted, giving them official notification that they were unwanted and about to be fired upon. The question was, what would they do next?

“There’s Grogon,” said Ginese. “Right on time.” The old escort had been given a special set of electronics and now lit up the scans as if she were studded with more armament than the yacht. Positioned as she was, on the far side of the intruder’s path, she limited its possible maneuvers. He would have to assume a coordinated attack plan.

“Now,” Heris said to Ginese. He ran his thumb down the firing controls, and the green telltales flicked to red, the red ready lights to yellow. The Sweet Delight shuddered at launch, even though the missiles were shoved out of the tubes at low velocity, to light outside. Red to orange to yellow to green, as the weapons reloaded automatically, and the red row at the top reappeared.

Meanwhile, Ginese and Meharry tracked the launches. “Five—eight—all lit,” Meharry reported. Half a light-second still left over 90,000 miles between the two vessels, though that distance was closing as the raider approached. Certainly it was enough time for them to maneuver. But which way? They should be worrying about the old escort; they should be wondering what other weapons she would launch.

“Koutsoudas?” Heris watched the back of his head. “What’s our friend up to?”

“Dumping vee. With the lag, still a safe distance out. Very interesting ID, Captain.”

“Yes?”

“In the FR registry as an independent hauler, crew-owned. But I’ve got a flag on her in the Fleet database for suspicious activities, and a personal flag . . . she’s been in the same system, but remote, during raids by Aethar’s World pirates and by the Jenniky gang.” He cleared his throat. “My guess is she’s either a spotter or a paymaster. Maybe both. Not in her own right, of course, but for someone else. My guess there is the Black Scratch; she claims to trade with Xolheim and Fiduc, and you know the Benignity has a strong presence there.”

“Agreed. Keep an eye on her, then. Arkady?”

“Nothing—there. They’ve launched at us, and kicked up another ten gees acceleration. It’s within our pattern, and I could stop their salvo with my bare hands, just about. Old stuff.”

“A rock in the head will kill you just as dead,” Heris quoted; Ginese laughed.

“Yes, Captain, but Aethar’s prefers bang to finesse . . . look at my scans.” Already the Sweet Delight’s elegant ECM had confused the enemy missiles; Heris would need to order no evasive maneuvers at all. She worried more about the old escort, with her novice crew and her faked signatures. If they fired anything much at her . . . but the raider seemed intent on getting away.

“A lot of screaming on their bridge,” Meharry said. “I can’t understand their ugly language, but it’s loud.”

“Let me—” Koutsoudas switched back to that channel, and then grinned. “Svenik cussing out his scan tech for not seeing us first . . . someone’s left the main speaker open; the station should be getting all this too. Handy for court, if we ever want to pursue it.” If there was any court to pursue it in, Heris thought.

The Sweet Delight’s missiles carried guidance systems normally found only in military weaponry. Whatever ECM the pirate vessel had didn’t affect them; on Koutsoudas’s enhanced scans, the missiles closed inexorably. Heris wondered if Svenik’s ship had shields of any quality, or if he’d try to outrun them. She almost hoped he would; if he redlined his ship and blew it himself, it wouldn’t be her fault. That was thinking like a civilian, though.

“Got him.” Koutsoudas, who had seen the inevitable an instant before any of the rest. The pirate ship and the missiles merged, and exploded.

“Easiest kill I ever saw,” Oblo said, as if affronted.

“I don’t trust it,” Heris said. “What’s that other doing?”

“It’ll be a while before they get it on their scans,” Koutsoudas said. “They’re still dumping . . . ask me again in a couple of minutes.”

“Just tell me, ’Steban,” Heris said. She felt itchy all over; like Oblo, she was almost irritated that it had been that easy. It felt unreal, like a training exercise. Something picked at her memory. The raider had been there before—that same raider—destroying things but doing less damage than such raiders could. So they’d expected the raider, and they’d gotten the raider . . . and all this time the second ship hung out there and watched. “Weapons off,” she said abruptly. Meharry gave her a startled look, but shut her board down. “ ‘Steban, signal Grogon on tightbeam—shutdown, as dark as possible.”

“You want me to put us back in hiding?”

“Not until there’s a natural obstacle between us and that other ship. I think we just did something stupid.”

“Stupid?” Meharry stared at her.

“We expected an Aethar’s World raider, and that’s what we got. The same raider. Why?”

“Because the Bloodhorde are stupid,” Meharry said impatiently. “They do things like that.”

“For a profit, yes. For honor, if you can figure out what they mean by it. But here—look, we were told they’ve had raiders several times, but they didn’t actually blow the station—”

“They wanted to milk the cow, not kill it,” Oblo said. But he had a worried look on his scarred face.

“The Bloodhorde always figure there’s another cow down the road,” Heris said. “I thought maybe—this is so far from their usual range—they were just skimming on the way home from something else. But suppose they weren’t. And suppose they weren’t on their own business.”

“The Black Scratch,” Koutsoudas said, without looking away from his scans. “Hired ’em, maybe, or offered Svenik backing against Kjellak—that might do it. Send him in on feints at irregular intervals, see what happens. Likely Svenik didn’t know he had a trailer.”

“Right. And nothing much happens once, twice, and then we show up out of nowhere, and sparkle all over their scans with stuff no civilian vessel could have. Blow Svenik without a scratch on us—no contest—” Heris paused, wishing she had the faintest idea where the nearest Fleet communications node was.

“He’s boosting,” Koutsoudas said. “Must have just caught the fight, and he’s not wasting time. Wonder why he doesn’t just jump? He’s far enough from anything massive. . . .”

“Anything we know about,” Heris said. She felt little cold prickles down her back. “No, most likely he wants to see what we’ll do. If he can get us into a chase. Let’s pretend we don’t see him. Suck all you can, but don’t react.”

“And we’re not going back on the stealth gear because you hope they’ll think we popped out from behind a rock?” Meharry’s tone expressed her doubts.

“I think they’ll wonder. We’re small, and it’s a messy system—it wouldn’t take a big rock to hide us. If we went back in the sack now, they’d know for sure there was a ship with that capacity.”

The distant ship vanished into FTL six hours later; Heris trusted Koutsoudas’s scans enough to return to the orbital station then and confer with the Xavierans. They were, she thought, entirely too jubilant, and in no mood for warnings.