CHAPTER

FIVE

F or the next forty-seven hours, Ky watched the dwindling credits in the Vatta account. If she had to sell that diamond, she would have to do it before the final twenty-five-hour restriction. With five hours to go, she called the Crown & Spears manager and asked his advice.

“They might hit you with a final charge of several hundred credits per ship,” he said. “But if you’d like to arrange a line of credit—I really think you’re safer aboard ship, frankly—I know that Vatta Transport has been a Crown & Spears client for decades, and I am confident that your company will take care of it when the ansibles come back up.”

“Thank you,” Ky said. Once, she would have expected such a courtesy, having seen how the Crown & Spears branch back home treated her father. Now she knew how much he risked, and not only with the Gretnans. “I’d very much appreciate it.”

“My pleasure,” he said. “I will need your voiceprinted authorization—a moment while I access the form—” He read it to her, and she repeated the relevant authorization paragraph as he recorded her voice. “Now here’s what you’ll see when you access your account. The balance will drop, and show the overdraft, but we will honor the draw on the account from Gretnan sources. That way you’ll know how much you owe, should you come to a system with working ansibles before ours comes back online, and the Gretnans will not know how much your line of credit is.”

She had to assume the Gretnans had a hook into financials somehow, because the balance continued to dwindle…paused at zero as the twenty-five-hour limit approached. Then—at thirty hours—another charge appeared and her balance dropped below zero. But her financial status report from the Gretna officials still showed green.

Finally, at forty-six hours fifty minutes, the stationmaster announced they were clear for undock, and counted them down.

Vanguard eased out of the docking bay, centimeter by careful centimeter. Ky knew that Argelos and Pettygrew were undocking at the same moment, as ordered.

As the bow cleared the station’s hull, Ky let out the breath she’d been holding. “Well, that’s over with,” she said. “Go on and bring up longscan now.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure,” Hugh said. He pointed to the forward scans, which had just come alive as they cleared the station. “Something’s going on—I didn’t think there was anything docked that close to us. Of course we weren’t allowed off the ship, and they could fox the data station communications sent us. And that ship with the Polson beacon is still out there, near-zero relative motion.”

“It’s not my concern,” Ky said. “That one is—” A small ship, barely shuttle size, was pulling back from an adjoining docking bay on the station hull as well.

Ky called the stationmaster. “We have traffic portside,” she said. “Warn them off.”

“Not your business,” the stationmaster said.

“Vanguard, I have a small craft approaching on my flank,” said Pettygrew in her other ear.

“So do I,” said Argelos. “And I don’t like the look of it. We can’t kick up the drive until we’re a safe distance from the station.”

Everything the indentured medical personnel had told her made it clear what was going on.

“They’re going to try to board,” she said. “In a moment, they’ll claim—”

A loud squawk on the official channel nearly deafened her. “Thieves!” said an angry voice. “Stop at once! All three of you! Shut down your engines. Prepare for boarding!”

“Not in my lifetime,” Ky said to her bridge crew. “Do they really think they can take all three of us?” She touched the alarm that sent the ship to battle stations. “Prepare to repel boarders,” she said into the shipcom. “Unknown number, unknown tech at this time.” Then she called Argelos and Pettygrew. “We’re expecting an attempt to board; you’ll probably have them, too.”

“I see them,” Argelos said. “I’ve got my people arming up now. Damned Fishies! Should’ve known they’d try something. I wish I knew how many…”

“If that shuttle was full of them, quite a lot. They know how big our crews are, though they don’t know how well we’ll fight.”

“We’re not in position to support one another,” Hugh pointed out. “We’re still too close to use the beam without risking backflash damage; we can’t use the missiles because they’re inside the auto-delay distance.”

“To keep us from blowing a hole in ourselves, yes. And they know that, because they sold them to us. What do they have for close-in weapons?”

“Well, they can’t use missiles, either, until we get farther out, and they won’t, if their shuttles are this close to us. They have the perimeter platforms—”

“Light-hours away,” Ky said. “We’re in no immediate danger there. So how do they expect to attack us—with handguns?”

“Tools from their repair facilities to breach the hull and put armed parties aboard. And we don’t have any weapons designed to repel them.”

“That shuttle’s almost touching our hull,” Lee put in. “They’re evacuating…no, it’s an EVA crew. In armor.”

“If we had rocks,” Ky said, “we could at least throw them. The next time I have money, I’m going to put something out there we can repel boarders with.”

“They’ve got some kind of tools,” Lee said, over his shoulder. “Can’t tell what, exactly—”

“They’ll be used to boarding hostile ships,” Hugh said. “But they’ll expect disorganized, incompetent resistance. May I suggest that the captain get into armor?”

“I suggest everyone does,” Ky said. “They can’t get through the hull instantly…I hope…” She headed for her cabin, where she kept her personal armor. She and Hugh had made a plan for this situation, if it occurred, but they’d had no time to drill the crew in it. She suspected the others hadn’t, either. If everyone did what they were told, let the military crew handle it, casualties should be low—or even nonexistent, she hoped. And when it was over, and they were far enough away, she would enjoy blowing holes in Gretna Station…

Over the ship com came Hugh’s steady voice: “Battle stations. Battle stations. Prepare for hostile boarding. Remember your assignments. Nonmilitary crew, take cover and stay at your assigned locations. Fighting crew, report now…”

Ky’s implant gave her the crew reports: where they were, what weapons they had, what their sensors told them. She knew, through the implant’s connection to the ship, the instant an enemy hand touched the hull…and exactly what it was doing.

“Emergency air locks are supposed to be easy to exit,” she muttered. “Not enter…” Vanguard’s hatch lock finally deformed and let go under the combined attack of vacuum torches and brute force. “And that’s an expensive repair. Damn them.” But the attack on the air lock had been only a decoy—on the far side of the ship, a cargo hold opened suddenly, and a string of space-armored bodies drifted into it. Some cargo loader had managed to get the hold lock code. If they had all of them, things could get very difficult very quickly; the boarders would enter behind the obvious defense positions based on air locks and crew passages. Ky wanted to race to the bridge, but Hugh had convinced her that she should stay here, in her office, until an invading force came close. Then…then she would find out if Osman’s deviousness actually worked.

For the first time since taking his ship, Ky had reason to thank Osman for his piratical ways. The Gretnans had walked right past hiding places and the access hatches to secret passages, apparently in the belief that Vanguard was nothing more than the armed trader she seemed. Ky’s implant tapped into the onboard surveillance, and she followed the invaders’ progress to the bridge, the splitting off of smaller parties to take control of the missile batteries.

She spared a quick thought for the other captains, who would have improvised something, she was sure, as she eeled forward in a conduit just big enough for her and its intended contents on the slick, silent platform meant for just such contingencies. Then she was behind the bridge overhead, looking out the carefully placed fish-eye lens that gave her a view of the whole space. Pilot, bridge officer, communications tech, all seated on the floor with their hands on their heads, while two of the enemy aimed weapons at them, and five more examined the controls, weapons slung. One of them was talking.

“This way, we get the ships already loaded up, y’see. Make a fine addition to our fleet, they will, once we’ve washed out the stench of you Mudders. We’ll just put you in holding until another ship comes and takes you off our hands.”

“What kind of ship?” Lee asked.

Another unpleasant laugh. “A ship that trades in such as you. Well, them others. What’s a decent man like you doing hanging about with Mudders?”

First things first. Choice of rounds…Ky decided on two solid rounds followed by frangibles with low-dispersal chemstun. Supposed to be low-dispersal: Ky put on the emergency filter mask anyway, and pulled out several more to toss down to her crew. It would be inconvenient to have reinforcements arrive…yet closing off the bridge physically would warn the enemy. But there was another way…through her implant, she slammed compartment hatches at a distance. Sure enough, one of the two guarding the prisoners moved to the bridge entrance and looked down the passage.

“What was that?” asked one of the others.

“Nothin’ I can see,” the guard said, shrugging. “Doors slamming…”

“Doors don’t slam by themselves.”

“Well, I didn’t see nobody. If there was somebody, I’d of seen ’em.”

“Call Merin. See if he’s got anythin’.”

The guard muttered something but spoke into a shoulder mike, then shook his head. “Nuthin’ from Merin. He says he’s got eight under guard just off the cargo hold.” Ky unlatched the little drop-hatch Osman had installed so conveniently near the fish-eye, and with two quick shots dropped the guard at the entrance and the one standing over her crewmembers. Then, as her implant shut the bridge hatch, she took out another two before they even turned around to see what happened, the frangible rounds bursting on impact, releasing the chemstun. Another one, close enough to be affected, slumped down. Before she could take aim on the last two, Lee had thrown himself toward the weapons the Gretnans had taken from them. He took out one. Hugh’s moddy arm melted the barrel of the last Gretnan’s weapon; the man dropped it and threw up his hand, shaking.

“Don’t kill me! Don’t! Please—”

Ky dropped the filter masks she had ready. “Mask up, folks. Supposed to be low-dispersal, but—”

“Good timing, Captain,” Hugh said without looking up. With his other hand, he had already pulled a filter mask from his belt and slapped it to his face. Lee scooped up a mask for himself and tossed one to Theo Dannon. “What do you want done with this prisoner?”

“It depends,” Ky said. “If he offers any resistance whatever, kill him. Otherwise, make sure he’s secured. I’ll be there in a moment.” Surely Osman had planned for the need to have the secret watcher actually arrive in person…there. Another drop-down hatch. Ky opened it and eased through, making sure she didn’t come in contact with the area in which the chemical should have stayed.

The Gretnan, now with hands bound behind him, stared at her, wide-eyed with what looked like both fear and horror, flinching when she grinned at him.

“You,” she said. “You’re alive only as long as you behave. Get that?”

“I didn’t do nothin’. It’s not my fault…you’re all thieves anyway.”

“What?”

“All your kind. You know. You come in and take stuff, you don’t work for it.”

“I paid for it,” Ky said. “Perfectly good credits from Crown & Spears.”

“But that’s not real work,” he said. “You just had them credits, and for all I know—what I think is—it was prob’ly stolen anyway. People like you don’t deserve money.”

Lee cocked a fist, but Ky shook her head at him. “You don’t want his slime on your skin,” she said. The man spat. “I think you need to go to sleep awhile,” she said, switching to a trank round and shooting him in the buttock. In moments his head sagged and he fell onto his side.

From the bridge to the captain’s cabin, their way was clear. Ky led them into the secret compartment and along between bulkheads, aft and down, as her implant forwarded data from the surveillance equipment.

“Bad news from the others, Captain,” Hugh said in her skullphone. “Pettygrew says he’s making a fighting retreat, but he’s cut off from the bridge and from drives; apparently they’d gotten cargo hold codes for all the ships. Argelos still has control of drives, but not the bridge. They’ve taken casualties.”

“So have we,” Ky said, looking down at the latest, the number two engineer, sprawled in a pool of blood and splattered flesh. The intruders here were all dead, but she had been just that instant too late for Foxeham, who hadn’t stayed in the hidey-hole he’d been assigned. Neither had Seeley. Just as Hugh had predicted, some of the civs hadn’t followed orders. “One dead, one wounded.” Seeley would recover, but right now he was in shock, partly from a shattered leg and partly from seeing Foxeham die in front of him. “But the drives are secure now. We’ve made contact with the aft batteries; we’re about to squeeze the bastards between us.”

She left Twigg from Environmental with Seeley, with orders to stay put until someone came to help him get Seeley to sick bay. At least she had medical experts now; surely they had stayed where they were told. Now, with Lee at her shoulder, she moved back into the cover of Osman’s labyrinth. Just ahead, a cluster of intruders—the most heavily armed, since they had attacked the aft battery and armory—continued their attempt to break through the barricades her aft crew had thrown up. In addition to the chemical rounds for their light weapons, they had two cutters at work on the bulkhead aft of the battery hatch, trying to cut in behind the defenders.

“Jon Gannett reports the forward batteries clear, all intruders accounted for, forward of bulkhead sixteen, all decks,” Hugh said. “Do you want reinforcement?”

For a moment she weighed a faster mop-up here against the evident immediate peril to Bassoon and Sharra’s Gift. Her own ship’s safety had to come first. “Link me to Jon,” she said. “The faster we clear this ship, the faster we can help the others.”

As the Gannetts worked their way aft, they reported on two more intruders, detached individually, trying to break into the ship safe. These were now disposed of, and now Jon spoke in her skullphone.

“Captain, I have you in view. Permission to close up?”

“Come ahead,” Ky said softly. The intruders had shown no sign of having competent acoustic surveillance, but she wasn’t going to take chances. “The intruders are about two meters away, working on the aft port battery bulkhead. Our crew’s in position, ready to surprise them now you’re here. Starboard battery’s got about the same situation, but the enemy haven’t started digging into the bulkhead yet.”

This time Ky felt a wicked glee as she prepared to signal the attack through another one of Osman’s secret panels. She could almost admire him for the way he’d set up the ship. Here they were below the deck level; the panels lifted up. Osman had even installed ricochet baffles, not that those would help much with frangibles.

“On three,” she said, and flicked her fingers—one, two, three—and five deck hatches lifted. She had a perfect view of boots and lower legs as they all fired simultaneously; the low-power solid slugs had plenty of punch to knock the intruders off their legs. Their return fire was wild, unaimed; an instant later the aft battery hatch opened and her battery crew poured through to finish them off. Ky knew her shots had gone home, but it was over so fast she didn’t feel anything but mild satisfaction.

She and the others emerged, set a watch on the passage both ways, and then she and Martin inspected the intruders’ arms and equipment.

“I think they brought only the two drills,” Martin said. “That’s why the starboard squad is just waiting around…”

“They made a mess of that,” Ky said, pointing to the deep grooves in the bulkhead. “We’ll have to get one of the engineers to check it out, and repair it eventually. But for now—secure these drills, and let’s go clear the ship.”

The starboard squad of intruders were standing around “like idiots,” Martin reported, making loud threats to the battery crew, who made no answer. “Lousy communication among them—they should know their people are being massacred.”

“Complacent,” Ky said. “We’d better not be.” This time they attacked at deck level, using the cross-passage between the two batteries. Martin edged ahead, extending a spider probe on the deck itself, where it would be least visible. As Ky’s implant had indicated, the intruders looked careless and complacent, weapons held loosely, the men—they were all men—slouched against the bulkhead with their masks unhooked.

Ky signaled a change of ammunition, to chemical rounds, and checked the seal on her own mask as she slipped out her magazine and fitted another. No one said anything. She checked her implant readings again. Something not quite clear farther aft down that other passage…she called in data from the nearest of Osman’s fish-eyes, and there they were, a squad farther down the passage, just out of line of sight. Weapons ready, masks tight, half facing each way. So they did suspect something, but didn’t know which direction an attack would come from.

Fine. She was in the mood for more of a fight. She signaled again, this time the number and location. Jon Gannett shrugged, grinning behind his mask. She knew she was grinning, too. She took a breath and spun rapidly around the corner, raking the first group with chemstun rounds that shattered on the bulkhead. Two of the intruders fell at once; another tried to seal his mask and fell to Martin’s solid round. As the rear guard moved forward, rounds bouncing off the curve of the bulkhead, the battery hatch opened and the battery crew took them in the flank. Ky hit the deck as rounds richocheted around her. Something slammed into her shoulder; her back. The deck felt hot under her. She heard one of the battery crew swearing in his native language as he took a leg wound.

Then it was over, a firefight that had lasted scant seconds. Martin reached a hand down. “You all right, Captain?”

“Fine,” Ky said. “Thanks to that expensive stuff I bought on Lastway.” The deck was littered with intruders, most of them dead. “Hugh, what’s the overall?”

“Ship’s clear. All icons green. Still some chem residue, but I’ll put a work party on that right away. It’ll be safe to unmask in ten minutes.”

“That’s good.” Ky rubbed her shoulder, very glad of the custom armor. “Crew report?”

“Five casualties, three serious, in the ship crew. One in the fighting crew—no, wait, there’s that leg in the battery.”

“Attached to a name,” Ky said.

A brief pause. Then, “Sorry, Captain. Jedrah Puran. No one else has more than minor injuries. What’s the enviro reading at your end?”

“We need cleanup—a lot of chemical residue, both ours and theirs, back here, but everything else looks good. There’s some structural damage to a bulkhead, but they didn’t get through to the circuitry.”

“What do you want done with the prisoners?”

“We only need one,” Ky said. Then she shook her head; they might come in useful. “Secure them all.”

“Good-oh,” Hugh said. “And Pettygrew? Sounds like he might lose his ship.”

Ky turned to Jon Gannett. “We need a boarding party, EVA-qualified, but we also need the forward batteries here operable. Who can you spare?”

“Number two’s capable of operating both, Captain, in a pinch. All us Gannetts are EVA-qualified and experienced.”

“And me,” Stewart Cavanaugh, from aft portside, spoke up. “I can take three of my people who are good EVA and shipside.”

“Excellent,” Ky said. “Jon, you’re senior. Take whatever you think you need; on your way out, let me know how much damage they did to the hull when they breached the aft air lock. You may need to go on to Sharra’s Gift after Bassoon; keep that in mind.” He had already flicked hand signals to his own family, who were moving fast; Cavanaugh waited with his crew. “I’m going to the bridge now; I’ll let Pettygrew know you’re coming, and relay his communications channel to you.”

“Thanks, Captain,” Jon Gannett said. With a brisk salute to her, he waved Cavanaugh into motion.

“You’re not going, are you?” Hugh said in her ear.

“No—I’ve learned my lesson,” Ky said. Martin, at her side, let out a long sigh. She shook her head at him.

“Thanks be,” Hugh said.

Ky ignored that. “Hugh, split the crew of number two forward battery, and get both manned. I’ll be on the bridge as fast as I can; we’re going to close with the other two ships. And power up the beam.”

“Yes, Captain. What about the aft batteries?”

“Standby only for now. My concern is to keep the station from using anything they have.”

“They don’t have much,” Hugh said. “I broke their code ten minutes ago, and they have only one half-power tractor and one LOS. We can pin them—”

“We’re going to demonstrate that.” Ky strode forward, Martin just behind her. Even though both her implant and Hugh reported the ship clear of intruders, Ky did not let her guard down as she jogged back upship. Martin stayed with her, going ahead at the cross-passages and checking out the lift before she got into it. By the time she reached the bridge, her away party was exiting the ship.

“They made a mess around the air lock,” Jon reported. “Idiots figured they’d bring it in for repair, I guess. It won’t be hard to do a rough patch, but we’ll have to keep the next two compartments at vacuum until we do.” He forwarded a visual.

“Did they get the hatch-opening software?”

“Oh, yes. Hardware, software panel, everything.” Ky wanted to smack someone. It was criminal, stupid, to damage a ship’s air lock. Although she’d accidentally destroyed the forward lock herself, when Osman was attacking Gary Tobai, this was different. She moved abruptly, trying to settle the sudden anger, and winced.

“You were hit,” Hugh said, eyes widening as he pointed to her suit. “How bad is it? Why didn’t you say—”

“It’s nothing,” Ky said, ignoring the stiffness as she shrugged. “Good armor. I’ll probably have some fine bruises tomorrow, though.”

“How many rounds did you take?”

Ky tried to remember. “Three, I think. But I took out more than that.” She grinned at him.

His look was hard to read. “You’ve done close-in killing before.”

“Yes,” Ky said.

“So…no more shakes,” he said.

“Maybe later. Not now. There’s work to do.” She settled into her seat; her back twinged again. Yes, she was going to feel it later. “What’s the status on our wounded?”

“Teams are working on them,” Hugh said. “I hope the stuff we bought is what it’s supposed to be; I don’t trust this place.”

“They expected to get it all back,” Ky said. “Sell it to the next ship they were going to rob. It’s a neat scam, when you think about it. They don’t even need factories: all they need is the initial inventory, since they’ll get it back plus the money paid, the ship itself, and the crew for slave labor downplanet.”

“Or to sell to slavers,” Hugh said. “What you’ve told me about Osman, sounds like he could have been in that trade.”

“If it was bad, Osman was in it,” Ky said. On scan, her team was nearly to Bassoon. “Have you got Pettygrew on the horn?”

“Channel Two,” Hugh said.

Ky flipped over to 2. “Vatta here,” she said. “My team’s almost at your hull. What’s the signal?”

“Fairway,” Pettygrew said. He sounded steady again, if tense. “We just can’t hold them—they’re up to the forward batteries. It’s the smoke they’re using; we can’t see.”

“My team has IR and other modes,” Ky said. “Full space armor. Jon Gannett’s in charge. I’ll give him the signal; here’s his code for you—” She sent it over.

“You’re not coming yourself?” he asked.

“I’m about to give the station what-for,” Ky said. “Don’t be surprised at anything.” On her other channel, she gave Gannett the password; he acknowledged. Then, to Pettygrew again: “You have an open channel here. If you need to tell me anything, don’t hesitate. I’ll also have someone monitoring my team. Otherwise, I’ll be keeping the station busy so they don’t interfere. They expected to have control before we’d moved out to a safe range: they’re about to find out how wrong they were.”

“Right, Captain Vatta.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Gannett said. “We’re about to go in the same hole the rats used.”

The tricky thing was figuring out the best angle of attack, given the limited traverse. Her forward beam had only a twenty-seven-degree cone; the forward missile batteries could not track that far forward. Given the station’s size, she could hit the disk on one end with the beam, and the disk on the other with a single battery, but that left the middle, where most of the population—and the missiles—were. Which would be scarier to them, a beam or a missile? The beam…and it could take out their one weak LOS weapon. They knew how many missiles she’d bought, and what guidance systems, but not the power of her beam.

“Bring the beam up,” she told Dannon.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. As the beam’s tracker came online, Ky hailed the station.

“Attention. Attention. Attention. Stationmaster, Gretna Station, you are under my guns—” Obsolete language, but the traditional term ought to get their attention. “Your personnel have illegally breached and boarded my ships and injured my crew: you will immediately inform them that they should cease resistance and surrender to lawful authority—”

“What are you talking about?” The stationmaster came onscreen, buttoning his tunic. “You’re crazy—turn that thing off or we’ll—”

“I am protecting my ships and crew,” Ky said. “If you attempt to reinforce your intruders or harm my ships, I will fire on your station. If you do not immediately order your criminals to surrender, they will all be killed.”

“You can’t do that—you’re thieves—they just acted to take back property you’d stolen—”

“Don’t even try that,” Ky said. “Either comply with my orders or take the consequences.”

“You wouldn’t dare fire on the station. On civilians—”

“Use the targeting laser,” Ky told Dannon. “Half power will take some skin off their noses, but not kill them. There might be some innocents on that station.” She hadn’t seen any children, but she hadn’t explored the station. “Next shot, take out their LOS weapon.” It wasn’t even warmed up yet, but it was the one thing on the station that might damage them.

“Just scorch ’em for now. Yes, ma’am.” He touched the controls. On Ky’s scan of the station, a part of the hull in the central disk suddenly showed up as a bright white spot: hot enough to ablate a layer of hull a few millimeters thick.

“Stop!” the stationmaster yelled, eyes bulging. “You can’t—”

“I can. I will. How many people do you want to lose?”

“But we’re—we have weapons—”

“Not mounted,” Ky said. “And you’ve got only lightspeed communication with your defensive platforms; it’ll be hours before you can give them targeting information on us, and I doubt even your best targeting systems can distinguish between us—this close to you—and the station.” She grinned at the man, and he flinched. “You’re screwed,” she said cheerfully. “Do you want to call off your goons, or do you want to hope you can retrieve the parts later?”

“Parts?”

“Parts. I see no reason to be careful with the remains of inshore pirates.”

He was wringing his hands now. “We can’t—we don’t have any way to talk to them.”

“Too bad,” Ky said. “We’ll just have to deal with them ourselves. Dannon—”

“Wait—I can try—”

“You have one minute. In the meantime—” Ky nodded to her weapons officer, who touched the controls; another hot spot appeared on the station’s hull, this time at the mounting of the station’s LOS weapon. It sagged to one side; a fountain of electrical discharge showed that they’d gotten the main power cables. On her scan, its icon went to black.

It was only forty seconds before Captain Pettygrew called from Bassoon. “They’re dropping their weapons and begging for mercy,” he said. “Are we feeling merciful?”

“Depends,” Ky said. “I’ll talk to Captain Argelos and get back to you.”

Captain Argelos answered her hail with a cheerful, “Are we done yet, and can I chuck the lot of them out the air lock?”

“Are you sure your ship’s secure? All of them located and neutralized?”

“Well, two more fell out of the overhead about a minute ago, but I think that’s the lot. Scruffy bunch. Apparently they didn’t realize that people who buy thousands of rounds of ammo are likely to know how to use it. We got them all with small arms, except the last two.” He didn’t specify how they’d been taken down.

“Here’s the situation,” Ky said. “I’ve got the station under my beam; they’re trying to claim innocence, not very successfully. I’m not sure how many we had total—do you have a count?”

“Fifty on my ship,” Argelos said. “Thirty-seven are dead; thirteen are alive, but eight won’t make it.”

“How about your people?” Ky asked.

“Two dead, fourteen casualties, from minor to serious. All should recover, though.”

“Pettygrew had it worst,” Ky said. “Ship design as much as anything, from what they said.” Bassoon’s design made deep penetration easier; the defensive positions were more exposed, and the smoke screen the attackers used had worked well. “But he’s secured his ship. The question is, what do we do now?”

“I’d like to blow that scumsucking station out of the region,” Pettygrew said. “It’s outrageous, a contravention of every treaty—”

“Vanguard, Vanguard! Please answer!” That hail, on conventional com, carried the ID of Dryas, the ship from Polson.

“Vanguard, Captain Vatta,” Ky said. “Identify yourself, please.”

The image on the screen was blurry, badly focused. “Captain Vatta, I’m Captain Partsin. We’re in distress…we’ve been sitting here for days, they won’t let us dock, because we’re humods. Please—can you do something? Make them let us have supplies, at least?”

“What kind of distress?” Ky asked. That would be an easy claim for a pirate ship to make. “And why didn’t you call on us when we came into the system?”

The image cleared a little, enough to show a gaunt-faced man with staring eyes and obvious humodifications: chem-sensor probes on either side of his nose, now curled into smooth knobs, and one forearm split giving him a three-fingered hand and a socket into which various tools could fit. His uniform hung loosely on him; it was clear he was malnourished.

“Our system was attacked—by pirates, we think—and I got away with a shipload of survivors, but we’re out of supplies. We couldn’t take anything but the people, and we’re…it’s bad, Captain Vatta. We’re almost out of water; we’ve been out of food for days. If we don’t resupply—”

“Those scum!” Ky said. She felt an exhilarating rush of white rage. Aid to disaster survivors was a basic human value; nothing could be worse than refusing to help them because of their appearance. “Captains—” This to Argelos and Pettygrew as well as Partsin. “Gretna Station needs a lesson it won’t forget. Stay tuned; this could be fun.” For a definition of fun she didn’t want to think about right then.

She called the station. “If you want any of your people back alive,” she said, “and your station whole and functioning, you’re going to agree to resupply that refugee ship at no charge, and you’re going to pay for the damage to my ships.”

“That’s—you’re threatening human lives! For those—those—obscenities!”

“So did you threaten human lives,” Ky said. “Ours, if you don’t count theirs, which I do.” After a moment, she went on. “Let me make it very clear. You have broken interstellar law, both commercial and criminal. You have cheated, lied, stolen, and killed. So you can complain all you want, but either you do what I say or I’ll start punching holes in your station, beginning with your command deck. And all your people out here will be dead. Most of them are anyway—”

“Murderers!”

“No. You started this. I’m finishing it. You have sixty seconds.”

In the next hours, as pieces of the station hull spalled off under sporadic hits from Ky’s beam—and a longer burn finished the destruction of the station’s one line-of-sight weapon—the station population finally came around. By then, they had no way to communicate with their remote platforms. Ky monitored their communications with the refugee ship, whose captain first thanked her, then said he was afraid to bring his ship in. Ky sighed; she could understand that, after what she’d seen and heard. Clearly, overwhelming force hadn’t changed the Gretnans’ opinion of outsiders, and the weakened Polsons would be at risk from anyone stronger than a child with an airbat. She called Argelos. “Can you find room for some really big tanks?”

“I suppose. Why?”

“Because I’m a softheaded idiot, just like my family always said,” Ky said. “I can’t just leave that ship out there without enough air, water, and food, and I don’t trust this bunch of wolves not to attack them in dock. I need you to pick up oxygen and replacement cultures for them, water and food, and whatever else they need to make a safe jump somewhere else.”

“Can you afford it?”

“Better than living with the memory of not helping them. I’ve been in their situation, almost. But I’m not paying for it—I’m taking it. The Gretnans are learning to be generous—as long as I have their station hostage, that is. I’m not going in, because I’m the one with the beam weapon. Pettygrew hasn’t the cargo capacity, and his ship has the most damage. I’ll have him stand off with his batteries hot, and I’ll have the beam on them. I know where their munitions are stored, and they know I know.”

“Fine with me,” Argelos said. “I won’t mind a bit dumping their trash and picking up something worthwhile. And if they blow us up—”

“You’ll have an honor guard,” Ky said. “There won’t be a Gretna Station.” She would regret killing the Crown & Spears manager who had been so helpful and the other indentured captives, but if they attacked Argelos, she would.

Three days later, Ky’s group met the refugee ship out near the jump point. While she and Pettygrew kept watch, Argelos arranged the transfer of emergency supplies onto the transport. Oxygen, water, fresh cultures for the environmental chambers, additional tanks and equipment, food, bedding, personal items. Argelos’ crew had ransacked dockside stores for everything from antibacterical soap to children’s toys and stuffed it into station shuttles, which they’d put under tow.

“I can’t thank you enough,” Dryas’ captain said. He looked even more gaunt and haggard; Ky suspected he had cut his own rations as well as those of the crew and refugees. Her own belly griped as she remembered the situation she’d faced back at Sabine. “I don’t know how long we can hold out, but now we have a chance. Where are you headed next? Can we tag along?”

Ky had not thought of that. Now that her group had plenty of munitions, should they go on to Ciudad or somewhere else?

“Where did you want to go?” she asked Partsin.

“Somewhere friendly,” he said. “Polson had trade agreements with the Adelaide Group; that’s only two jumps from here, one into an empty system. I’m pretty sure they’d let us in, at least for resupply. You can’t imagine what it’s like for these people. They’ve lost everything—”

“I can, actually,” Ky said. She didn’t explain, though he raised an eyebrow. “Let me check with the charts and my captains; I’ll get back to you within the hour.”

Ky checked the scan of the station again. No communication from them; no sign of more hostile activity. Apparently they were going to behave, though she would not put past them some kind of trickery before her people had left the system. She called a conference with Argelos and Pettygrew.

“Dryas wants us to escort them somewhere—their captain suggested the Adelaide Group, two jumps away. I know we had planned to go to Ciudad, but this is the kind of mission that could boost our reputation—and they need the help. They can’t pay us—”

“Tell you the truth,” Pettygrew said, “I was never that eager to get to Ciudad. As you said, all we have to offer them is that one of their own died to save us. It’s not much recommendation when we didn’t even recover the bodies. I’d rather go there when we have something to show them.”

“I agree; let’s help the refugees,” Argelos said.

“And your military adviser?”

Argelos grunted. “I told him times have changed and I don’t give a whatsis if Slotter Key doesn’t approve what I do. We have no communications with them anyway.”

“Good,” Ky said. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

“If you’re going to be our supreme commander,” Pettygrew said, “are you always going to ask our opinion?”

“No,” Ky said. “Just sometimes. When I want it. Now I’ll tell their captain.”

Captain Partsin was embarrassingly effusive in his thanks. “I don’t know what we would have done. I didn’t think anyone would take advantage of refugees the way they did—”

“I’m just sorry it happened,” Ky said.

“Who are you people?” he asked.

“SDF,” Ky said. “Space Defense Force: a multisystem force to defend against these pirates.” It seemed like the right time to announce their new beginning.

“I never heard of it,” Partsin said. “When did this start?”

“Not that long ago,” Ky said. “And it’s still growing. We’re part of Third Fleet.” No need to mention that so far there was no First or Second fleet and that her three ships were the whole of “Third.” “Now. Do you have route information for the Adelaide Group? Is your ship capable of microjumps?”

“Yes, I have navigation data, but no, we can’t do microjumps.”

“What’s your best insystem speed?”

The answer was depressingly low. They would be another five days to the jump point—another five days of high alert, because Ky did not trust the Gretnans at all. On the other hand, that was five days to gather information about what had happened to Polson, everything that Partsin knew.

“We’re a small colony,” Partsin said at the first briefing with the other captains. “We’re not rich; I don’t know why they attacked us, except maybe we have a six-axis jump nexus.”

“That would do it,” Argelos said, nodding.

“They came in,” Partsin said. “Maybe fifteen ships; I’m not sure. Overwhelmed our local protection, occupied the colony, and told everyone to get out within thirty-six hours or expect a bloodbath. We only had two ships docked capable of taking on passengers—it wasn’t nearly enough.” Ky remembered the panic at Sabine; she could imagine how much worse this might be. “They didn’t care,” Partsin went on. “Everything our governor tried to say, begging for more time, they just said Not our problem, get out or die. A lot of people didn’t believe them until they shot a whole classroom full of children.” His face twisted; Ky felt her own stomach knot in horror. She waited until Partsin had caught his breath.

“What can you tell us about them?” she asked then. “Any details at all might help.”

“They’re insane,” Partsin said bitterly. “They look like thugs, most of them, but they act like robots—that kind of discipline. They wear burgundy and black—”

“Turek,” Pettygrew said. “It’s got to be—”

“Go on,” Ky said to Partsin.

“The governor asked who they were, where they were from, who they worked for—they just laughed at him.”

“Did you get any records of them?”

“No…well, nothing really good. One of the kids had a toy recorder; the images are blurry, but you can tell the color of the uniforms and so on. I do have a list of ship IDs, but I’m sure the beacons were faked.”

“Anything might be helpful,” Ky said. “How are your passengers doing?”

“Better than they were,” Partsin said. “Some of them had medical training, so they set up the protocols for refeeding.”

Ky, remembering the situation at Sabine, sympathized, but there was nothing more they could do until they reached a friendlier place.