CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

Adelaide System

As her small fleet moved slowly to the outer reaches of Adelaide System, Ky sent Ransome’s Rangers to scout out three different systems within a one-jump range. She didn’t expect to find pirates in any of them; it was more a test of the Rangers’ ability and willingness to do what they were told—and of the ansibles’ performance across much greater distances.

The Ranger ships jumped out as soon as they had cleared the mass limit; Ky did not expect to hear from them for days. She had ordered all the larger ships to move slowly so that there would be ample time to receive reports before reaching the mapped jump point. Five days later, Furious reported from its target system. The ansible signal was as clear as if they were alongside; the report, as she’d expected, was of an empty system with a single relay ansible, nonfunctional. Ky put a note in the navigation tables and told Furious to return to the group. Courageous reported in only twelve hours later, with the same news, and Ky called them back as well.

Glorious had gone the farthest: it was the direction Ky wanted to take the fleet, heading back toward the area where Vatta had trade routes. In the navigation database, that system was also uninhabited, with a relay ansible now off-list. Because of the six-day jump lag, a report from the system would be at least twelve days out of date before they could arrive, but Captain Ransome still needed the practice in using the shipboard ansible. His report was the same as the others: empty system, as expected.

Furious reappeared in Adelaide System; Ky watched the scan as Captain St. Cyrien dumped excess velocity, microjumped to realign his vector, and reappeared precisely where she had asked him to go.

“Very neat handling,” she transmitted to him.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said. “Have you heard from Teddy?”

“What we expected. He should be back here within the next twelve hours.”

Courageous also reappeared on schedule, and came into position neatly on their other side. Finally, only two hours from their planned jump into FTL, Glorious reappeared.

“Great news, Captain Vatta!” Ransome looked indecently boyish as he threw her an elaborate salute. “There’s no problem at all. In fact, you have friends there—”

“Friends?”

“Yes. Mackensee Military Assistance Corporation just arrived as I was getting ready to jump out. I have their transition profile if you’d like to see it. We also picked up a bit of chatter. They’re going to be training there. Brilliant of you to anticipate where they’d be.”

Ky blinked. She’d had no idea Mackensee would be training in that system.

“Did you contact them?” she asked.

“Oh, no. You said we should act as scouts, and scouts should not announce themselves—or should we have?”

“No, you did quite right,” Ky said. “Though you could have contacted me by ansible with that update.” She noticed that Ransome’s crew had moved Glorious quickly into position with deft microjumps. These little ships might prove useful after all…“Their scans probably picked you up, but if you were on the way out they might have ignored it.”

He made a dramatic gesture. “I should have thought of that—they wouldn’t have known if I’d used the ansible. I was thinking they might intercept, and we were being scouts, so I shouldn’t risk being overheard.”

“That’s all right,” Ky said. “It’s a new technology to you; you’ll think of it next time. We’re about to jump out, then, if you’re ready.”

“Quite ready, I assure you. Mapped point to mapped point, it’s exactly six point three days of FTL transit.”

“Switch to Channel F, then,” Ky said, and gave the order to the other ships. “We want to exit with low relative velocity,” she said to them all. “Captain Ransome reports that Mackensee Military Assistance Corporation is training in that system; they will have their own scouts out, and we don’t want to be attacked as pirates before we have a chance to explain. I’m going to assume that—despite Captain Ransome’s care—they might have spotted his outbound jump and might have planted mines at the jump point. Synchronize navigation computers—” She hoped this would work with ships of such disparate mass. No reason why it shouldn’t, but…

They reached transition simultaneously, and during the next six days of FTL isolation Ky kept her crew busy. If they were to meet Mackensee in that system—if the MMAC ships were still there—she wanted to present a military appearance without, however, getting killed out of hand.

They all emerged from the jump point within seconds of one another, still in formation. Ky heaved a sigh of relief as the last ship reported in, even before scan cleared. “Captain Ransome, detail one of your ships to stay with our transport,” she said. She could not leave the unarmed transport with no protection. “Everyone else, formation Zeta-blue, but slowly—when your scan clears, watch for mines.”

The mines showed up when scan cleared: five clusters, spaced to allow lanes between them for those who either knew the locations or were slow enough, with good enough scan, to avoid them.

“Is that Mackensee’s standard toss-out?” Hugh asked her.

“I don’t know,” Ky said. “But it’s not like what I saw at Sabine. Of course, I didn’t have the scan capability then that we have here. It’s an effective distribution, though…”

Other scan data came in; at first glance the system was full of ships of all sizes and types.

“Mackensee?” Ky asked.

“No. The Mackensee ships are there—” Hugh pointed. “They’ve got clear beacons; they’re not hiding who they are. These are something else. That new software you loaded thinks most are bogeys—drones, signal emitters, stuff tossed out to be confusing. There’s at least four actual ships, but with fogged beacons, which doesn’t look good. And microjumping—here—here—there. Looks like an attack pattern to me. They’ve pincered the Mackensee ships…”

Ky’s mouth went dry; she swallowed. “Pirates, then. Attacking Mackensee—they’ll get a surprise—”

“Maybe not. Look at the numbers.” Whatever they were, they outnumbered the Mackensee ships at least two to one, and when the weapons analysis came up, they outgunned them as well.

Ky hit the alarm. “Whatever it is, it’s trouble,” she said. Lights flashed for alert status; she saw the boards light with acknowledgments from Weapons. Number one battery was first, as usual.

“We jump out?” Hugh asked.

“Not yet,” Ky said. “I want to know what’s going on.”

“There’s more of them than us,” he pointed out.

“I know,” Ky said. She was not going to repeat the mistake she’d made with Osman. Ship ID beacons began to register. “Mackensee,” Ky said. “The two together there—” She pointed. “I know that beacon logo.”

“Right,” Hugh said. “I recognize it, too. But who are the others?”

“They have shipboard ansibles—they’ve got to be the enemy.” Her stomach tightened into the familiar knot. “And they weren’t expecting us.”

Clearing scan showed that four of the enemy were in the same attack formation they’d used before, their ships converging from either side, both pairs in echelon, with the Mackensee ships at the crossing of the X. “Tactical conservatives,” Hugh said.

“And we’re in position to hit them on the flank,” Ky said. If she wasn’t being rash again; if she wasn’t missing something deadly. This time she had to get it right. “Except for those—”

She indicated the other icons, still marked UNKNOWN TYPE, UNKNOWN ORIGIN.

“Those may not be ships,” Hugh said. “Like I said, we used to get scan data like that from drones or from holos. They don’t carry ID beacons, drones. They’re just there to be scary.”

Ky eyed them suspiciously. “I’d hate to discount them and then find that they’re firing up my tail.”

“True. And there are such things as towed arrays, or armed drones. But considering the way they’re arranged, I think they’re fakes. What’s our mass detector say?”

“We’re too far out still.” Ky chewed her lip. Four pirates against two Mackensee ships…the Macs might fight free; they were certainly capable, as she knew. And she had no duty to them. On the other hand, she did have a duty to destroy the enemy, as long as it didn’t mean losing her own ships. And she had wanted them as allies. “If those other icons are harmless drones or fakes of some kind…we’d make it five to four, not even counting the little ships, and I know the Mackensees aren’t going to sit there doing nothing.”

“Battle stations?” Hugh asked.

“Yellow only,” Ky said. “We have hours to go before we’re in range, and I don’t want to jump until we’re well clear of the mines and sure we aren’t jumping into worse. I hope Mackensee can hold out that long. Signal the others with the new code.” That now seemed a brilliant idea. Her spirits lifted. They had tactical surprise, secure communications, and a superior position. “We can take them, and if we get Mackensee on our side—”

“Crossing fire,” Hugh warned her.

“We’re far enough out to track it and avoid it,” Ky said. “We can define their plane.” The X-attack made things simpler for the attackers, who knew exactly where their own fire would go, but a third party could attack from off-plane, avoiding the original shots and also the intended victim.

She explained her plan to the other captains, who agreed with her analysis. “Three to four’s not bad odds,” Argelos said cheerfully.

“It’s five to four in our favor, really,” Ky said. “Not even counting our scouts. The Mackensee ships will fight, and fight well. We do have to let them know we’re on their side, though. And we can’t really communicate with them until we’re close enough for lightspeed to make sense. In the meantime, they have no reason to believe our beacons are honest, even if they notice us in the confusion.”

“When do you think the pirates will notice us?”

“Depends,” Ky said. “This isn’t a heavily used transfer jump point, so they may be concentrating on the Mackensee ships. And”—a thought suddenly hit her—“if they’re monitoring their drones or holos or whatever those other signals are, their scan tech may be too busy to notice new signals in the system. I wonder why the Mac ships aren’t moving faster—”

“Already disabled?”

“Or they had personnel on EVA,” Ky said. “If they were on a training mission, practicing EVA, they’d want to recover their personnel before they moved.”

“That just makes targets out of ’em,” Hugh said. “They can get roasted by passing fire…”

Vanguard and Bassoon had military-grade microjump capability, but Sharra’s Gift did not. Argelos could jump his ship only in longer hops, with less precision. Ky made a mental note to find out what it would take to bring his ship up to military specs—later, maybe much later. Now she considered the relative advantages to keeping her little group together, and decided it was worth the risk to disperse them. “We can talk in real time all the way across the system,” she said. “There’s no reason for us to stick close. If we can position Sharra’s Gift on the exit side of their attack, to take them in the opposite flank—”

“Crossing fire,” Hugh said again.

“Different plane,” Ky said. “If we’re all above their plane, our fire will cross, but not on one another, nor theirs on ours.”

“Right,” Argelos said. “I can make that in one hop, pretty close. I think, anyway.” Ky hoped he was right.

“And we can come in with short hops,” she said to Pettygrew. “Here’s where we want to end up.” She pointed to the display. “With any luck, they’ll be too busy monitoring their own decoys or drones, and we’ll be able to blindside them.”

“What about us?” Ransome asked. “Where do you want us?”

Where he and the others wouldn’t interfere, but she couldn’t say that. “We need someone watching our backs,” she said. “Furious has to concentrate on the transport; we need someone watching our backs and also helping to trace weapons tracks. But you’re so maneuverable, I want you close enough to get off some shots if needed. I’d like Courageous here”—she pointed—“and Glorious there.”

“Do we announce ourselves, or just hope that the Mackensee ships assume we’re friendly?” Argelos asked.

“When we blow their attackers, I think they’ll get the picture. But I’m planning to tell them as soon as we’re close in, to less than a one-light-minute range. Oh—and have your communications personnel check the channel we know the pirates use, at least twice a minute. If you pick up anything interesting, record it and pass it on later.”

“Attention all ships.” Ky had no way of knowing if any of them would pay attention to the broadband hail, but someone would hear it. “This is Space Defense Force, Third Fleet, First Squadron. We recognize ships of Mackensee Military Assistance as under attack by unlawful forces, and we order you to desist or be fired upon.” By the time the pirates heard that, her first rafts of missiles should be impacting their shields. Mackensee, she could see, were firing bursts of missiles, but only one of their ships seemed capable of using a beam weapon, in short bursts.

Sharra’s Gift reappeared on scan, almost perfectly positioned. Ky had her communications tech monitoring the pirates’ ansible channels, and a burst of incomprehensible jargon came from the ansible.

“I think they heard us,” Ky said. She nodded, and Hugh changed the ansible to their private setting.

“Captain Argelos, do you have a firing solution?”

“I do,” he said. “My primary target is the number one first crossing the X.”

Ky nodded to her own weapons officer. “Get ’em, Dannon.”

Their forward beam weapon stabbed out, raising a flare on the shields of the nearest enemy ship just as its shield and the second in that echelon sparkled with the impact of their missiles.

“Not getting through,” Hugh said.

“Not expecting to yet,” Ky said. “This is to get their full attention off the Mackensee ships…”

“Space Defense Force—who the hell are you?” That came from a Mackensee ship. “This is MSS Metaire, Colonel Kalin commanding. Who’s your commanding officer?”

“A combined force formed to defend against the common enemy…the pirates commanded by Gammis Turek,” Ky said. “We have representatives of various planetary systems…” Never mind that one of those systems had been destroyed, one was an exile, three were wild-eyed adventurers, and her own ship’s Cascadian registry did not really represent the Moscoe Confederation’s support.

“You’re on our side?”

“Yes. You’re legitimate,” Ky said. “They aren’t. Excuse me a moment…” She turned to her weapons officer. “Phase two, shall we?”

“But who’s commanding?”

“I am,” Ky said. It was harder than she’d expected to say both that and her name in the same utterance. “Kylara Vatta,” she said after a pause. Then quickly, before he could comment, she said, “Can you maneuver? I notice you’re near drifting.”

“Troops outside,” he said. “We’re trying to bring them back aboard, but this way we can at least offer them some protection.” A pause, then, “Are you that Kylara Vatta? The one who—”

“Yes,” Ky said.

“I see. Talk to you later.” And the contact cut off.

On the display, the battle shifted abruptly from what had seemed like the easy destruction of an outnumbered static force by a larger mobile one, as the pirates realized they themselves were caught in a pincer formed of the Mackensee ships and Ky’s force. Though Ky could not understand any of the commands their commander gave, it became obvious that they considered the Mackensee ships’ missile batteries less dangerous than the others’, and they tried to close in enough to use the Mackensee ships for a screen.

But Ky had anticipated this; she and Pettygrew both microjumped in much closer. Close in, Vanguard’s missile launchers achieved a rate of fire Ky would have thought impossible, hammering at the pirates’ defenses. Shields on the nearest pirate ship brightened to an actinic flare, and the next launch sent a hundred into her unprotected flanks. The optical monitors blanked; others indicated hull breach, fragments blown wide…

“That’s not going to be going anywhere,” Hugh commented. He sounded calmly pleased.

“Good,” Ky said. “Though I wouldn’t mind if we disabled one and captured it.”

That ship’s partner decelerated abruptly.

“Not the maneuver I’d pick,” Hugh said.

“Me, neither,” Ky said. “The debris cloud will be broader when he reaches it. I think he’s hoping to duck it, but it’s not going to work.”

One of the pirate ships ran full into the barrage Metaire had launched shortly before, and its shields flared. “I’m on it,” Pettygrew said. He pursued, and a salvo up the bustle breached the after shields. The resulting explosion indicated that at least one insystem drive had blown. The ship yawed, then began a sickening tumble.

“Lost their stabilizers,” Hugh said. “Probably lost all insystem, and all internal power…talk about vomit comet…”

“Is it reparable?” Ky asked.

“By a good shipyard, yes. Jury-rigged, probably not. It’ll never go through jump.”

“Might as well blow it, then,” Ky said. “It’s a navigation hazard as it is. Too bad; I’d have liked another armed vessel.” She looked at Hugh.

“You’re right,” he said. “It’s too bad, but I don’t see any way to get it repaired out here, not with our resources.”

Ky nodded at Dannon. “Forward beam.” The beam stabbed out, finding the tumbling ship, and a few seconds later it exploded in a cloud of debris.

The fourth pirate ship, disabled, drifted on its way. Ky sent Ransome to keep watch on it. “Stay out of its range,” she said. “If we can capture it whole, it’ll be useful, but we don’t want trouble while we’re waiting.” If the pirates had contacted their friends by shipboard ansible—and she was sure one of them at least would have—trouble might drop in at any time.

For the moment, though, her concern was for the battered Mackensee ships. She contacted Colonel Kalin aboard Metaire.

“Can we assist?” Ky asked.

“Do you have medevac capability for zero-gravity, micro-atmosphere situations?”

“Er…not much,” Ky said. Her medical personnel had been reading the manuals and working on simulations, but had no actual experience. “We have medical personnel and supplies, but not expertise in EVA work, though they’ve been doing simulations.”

“Then no, you can’t. You can keep any more trouble off us, though, if you would. Verain’s holed. Internal damage. She’s not going anywhere…”

“If you need crew space,” Ky said, “we have room.”

“We prefer to take care of our own people,” Colonel Kalin said, a bit stiffly.

“Understood,” Ky said. “We’ll take high guard.”

She moved her ships back, except for the transport, which might prove useful. Her scan crews mapped the expanding debris fields and the tracks of live weapons. Though missile drives would run out after a few minutes, the missiles themselves continued as live warheads.

Recovery of personnel outside the ships took agonizing hours. Verain’s captain reported worse news: both insystem and FTL drives down, several onboard fires, no power to deliver the fire-retardant foams. The weapons bay crews shoved unused ordnance out the hatches as fast as they could, racing the approaching fires. Finally the captain ordered his crew to abandon ship…and most made it into shuttles or onto the rope tows before the ship blew.

Ky felt helpless and guilty both as they stood off listening to the mounting damage and casualty reports, watching for more trouble that never arrived. Meanwhile, she sent Argelos to the drifting pirate hulk.

“Definitely some hostiles alive aboard,” Argelos reported. “We can pick up the transmission of short-range communicators. Nothing on the ansible—I’m hoping its power source is down; it should be. Can’t understand what they’re saying, though, except for a word now and then. Wait—they’re using regular ship channels now…they want to surrender.”

“Do they indeed,” Ky said. She called the Mackensee ships. “Colonel, the remaining pirate ship is disabled but whole, and they want to surrender. Could you make use of that hull?”

“Chances are they’ll just ambush any boarding party,” Kalin said. “And I don’t have the resources to use right now. We certainly could use the space, if the hull’s airtight, but you blew the engines, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know the full extent of damage,” Ky said. “But I don’t want to leave a shipful of pirates loose, even if they seem to be disabled now.”

Kalin grunted. “I must say, Captain Vatta, that you saved our skins, and I’m grateful. And your tactics were competent. So I guess it’s up to you. You’re a privateer, aren’t you? You’d claim her as a prize?”

“I was a privateer,” Ky said. “Now you might want to think of us as another military unit. And you have need. If that ship would be of use to you, and if we can capture it without undue loss, I’d certainly let you use it to get back to a system where you had resources. Then, yes, our force could always use more ships.”

“I don’t know what advice to give you,” Kalin said. “And from what I’ve heard about you, you don’t always take advice.”

“True, but I’m listening,” Ky said.

“Well, then.” From his expression, he was trying out approaches, discarding them. “It’s very, very tricky, doing a hostile boarding. I know you’ve been boarded once—”

“Twice,” Ky said.

“All right. The advantage is with the defenders, usually. They know their ship best. And that ship’s tumbling, which is going to make it harder. You don’t know how big the ship’s company is, so you don’t know if they’re all out, even if you get some of them to evacuate onto tethers. They’ve had plenty of time to set booby traps, too.”

“So your recommendation would be to blow it away?”

“Ordinarily, yes: without hesitation. But you’re right: we are short of space, especially with our wounded. We expect a resupply force in about fifteen days, but until then—”

“Colonel, we have a transport ship insystem; she’s not fully loaded, and there’s space aboard her you could use.”

“Had you planned to be here that long?”

“I was planning to do training exercises here, the same as you were.”

“Did you know we were here?”

“Just before we jumped, one of my scouts reported that he’d seen your ships in the system, and nothing else. It was just over a six-day jump. I didn’t know if you were about to leave, had just arrived, or what—but I didn’t consider you hostiles.”

“I see. If you can take some of our personnel aboard until our other ships arrive, that would be a big help. And if you have extra medboxes and medical personnel—” He turned away for a moment. When he turned back, his shoulders had slumped a centimeter. “Our casualties are very high, Captain Vatta. Any help you can give—”

“Of course.” Ky spared a thought for the remaining pirate ship. With her people out there watching it, it wasn’t going to cause trouble, and the casualties were more important. The plight of the pirates themselves didn’t bother her at all. “Tell me where you want the transport: I don’t want to cause more trouble.”

He gave her the system coordinates; Ky passed them on to the transport, and then ordered Furious to stay far out and keep watch over the jump point.

“Do you expect more pirates?” Captain St. Cyrien asked.

“No, but they didn’t expect us,” Ky said. “And anyone down-jumping there is in danger from those mines. We may have to blow them up…” Which would create a debris field wider than the minefield, but a lesser hazard. Only weakly shielded tradeships would be at risk of a hull breach or serious damage.

Their supply ship, unable to perform precision microjumps, followed Argelos’ pattern to place itself within a few hours of the location Colonel Kalin had requested, then edged in with insystem engines.

The first shuttle load of Mackensee personnel that eased up to Vanguard’s larger air lock swam the tube with helmets sealed. Ky waited for them herself, with armed guards beside her. Friends they might be, but she was not a naïve space cadet anymore.

The first person into the ship had a row of stripes on the suit arm and PITT stenciled on the helmet. Ky fought back a grin. This was entirely too good to be true.

“Master Sergeant Pitt requests permission to come aboard—” Clearly, Pitt was having the same trouble; the corner of her mouth twitched.

“Permission granted,” Ky said. “I understand you have three wounded with you?”

“Yes, ma’am. They’re coming through next.”

“Chief Martin will escort them to our medical facility. Our medical staff is set up and waiting. You and the rest of your personnel will be in our starboard crew compartments. Sergeant Crayle will guide you—” She gestured to one of her escort, who stepped forward. “I’ll be in to speak with you later, when I’ve reported to Colonel Kalin about the status of your wounded.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Pitt said, saluting. She stepped aside. Next out of the transfer tube were the wounded, in enclosed litters; Martin led them away. Ky, glancing through the transparent shields, tried not to show what she felt. It was one thing to imagine what being hit by projectiles when outside a ship might mean…quite another to see the human wreckage up close. She followed the last of the litters to the medical suite they’d set up.

Here, her medical teams had already opened the first seal; the stench of blood and burned flesh and bowel contents filled the compartment until one of the techs lowered the exhaust hood.

“I’m a combat medic,” one of the Metaire crew said. “Can I help?”

“Scrub in,” one of her own crew said. Ky flattened herself to the bulkhead as the other man came by.

“Down that way; spare jumpers in the locker.”

Of the three injured, two went immediately into medboxes for supportive care while the medical team worked over the third. Ky stood by, making sure she was out of the way, until all three had been treated and her team had handed over the medical data Kalin’s people would want. Then she headed for the bridge to talk to Colonel Kalin.

“They’re all alive,” she said. “I’m transmitting the files to you now.”

“Thank you,” he said. He looked drawn; Ky multiplied what she had seen in her own sick bay by…however many casualties there’d been…and understood. “If only we hadn’t had so many out in EVA. Now—where did you people come from? And why?”

Ky started in again. “We jumped in from Adelaide System. Our scout—you should have his beacon as Glorious—had reported the system empty except for your two ships.”

“And that was about twelve days ago, you said? We have a brief scan contact from back then, but no hail. The enemy…you say you know who they are?”

“You don’t?” Ky asked.

“No. Never heard of pirates attacking armed ships like ours before.”

Ky summarized what had been happening.

“They’ve taken whole systems? And we don’t know…oh. Yes, of course, the ansibles being out. They must be part of that, too…”

“Possibly,” Ky said. “Certainly they’re making good use of communications being disrupted.”

“So…who’s paying for your bunch? The…um…Space Defense Force or whatever you’re calling it? Organized pretty fast, wasn’t it?”

“It’s multisystem,” Ky said.

“Yes, but the last I heard, Slotter Key’s ansible was out…so how did they let you know they were in on this?”

“Colonel, I’m not comfortable discussing this kind of thing over an open connection, even with scrambling. My scouts don’t think there’s anyone else in this system, but what if there’s a stealthed observer ship somewhere?”

“I see your point. All right. We’ll talk later, in a more secure location.”

Down in the starboard crew area, Pitt and her people already had their area ready for inspection. Sergeant Crayle had shown them the mess area, and Ky found them cleaning up after a meal.

“Officer on deck!” Pitt called out, and the others all came to attention.

“At ease,” Ky said. “Have you found everything you need?”

“Yes, ma’am. Nice ship you have here…bit more than the other one.”

“Thanks. It’s a repossession; this ship was stolen from Vatta decades ago, and I got it back.”

“Yes, ma’am, I did hear something about that. Was a pirate ship, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right. I re-registered her, after we got her cleaned up and refitted. Good to see you again, Master Sergeant Pitt.”

“Good to see you in the role you were meant for, ma’am, if I may be so bold. ’Specially since we really needed some help out there.”

“Wish we’d been a bit sooner,” Ky said. “What happened to your sentries?”

“Blown away before we knew it. They knew exactly where to look, apparently. First I heard, it was ‘Abort exercise, return to ships.’”

“So…there’s probably an observer here somewhere. Stealthed…we haven’t spotted anything…” The suggestion she’d made to Kalin, because she didn’t want to discuss the tenuous nature of the Space Defense Force, might have teeth.

“Almost certainly. And a spy at our last stopover, too. Not that our people are loose-lipped, but we went into the Powdern jump point with the right vector to come out here. It’s only got the two endpoints, where we’d come from and this one.”

“Come up to my office with me for a bit,” Ky said. Pitt sent her people back to work and followed Ky. When they reached the office, Ky waved her to a seat and sat down herself, behind the desk.

“Nice,” Pitt commented, glancing around.

“If it was a spy where you were, communicating with someone here, where the system ansible doesn’t work, how do you suppose the message went?” Ky asked.

“Is that a trick question? Without an ansible, it would have to be…” Pitt’s expression changed. “It’s…it would be impossible.”

“Yeah,” Ky said. “We’re all so used to universal ansible access—to having real-time communication—that the implications of not having it can slip by. If there was no working ansible where you were—Powdern?—and no working ansible here, then a spy there couldn’t communicate to ships here. Without another kind of ansible.”

“But there isn’t another kind of ansible,” Pitt said. “Everyone knows that…oh.” She stared at Ky. “There is? And you know about it?”

“The pirates have a way of communicating instantaneously across interstellar space,” Ky said. “It’s a ship-mounted ansible.”

“But that’s…everyone’s always said—”

“It’s impossible, yes. But it’s not. It’s technology that the ISC tried to keep under wraps. I don’t know how it got out but it did, and it explains the coordination of the pirate attacks.”

“It would,” Pitt said. “Real-time communication in combat? Fantastic.” Then her expression changed again. “You…certainly showed up in time. How do you know about this?”

“When I captured this ship, it was full of all sorts of goodies,” Ky said. “Among them, sixty shipboard ansibles. One mounted ready for use, the rest crated and ready, I presume, to sell or hand over to the other pirates. At that time I had aboard an ISC agent, who just about came apart when he saw them. He knew what they were, and what they did, and he wanted to impound the lot.”

“I’ll bet he did,” Pitt said.

“However, I persuaded him that if the man who’d run this ship had them, the tech was already out of the bag and couldn’t be stuffed back in. I refused to turn them over or destroy them.”

Pitt cocked her head. “You have grown up a lot, you know?”

“It’s been an interesting time,” Ky said. “What you don’t know is that most of my family is dead.”

“What?”

“Someone—I think this same group of pirates, in collaboration with someone in the government of my home planet—set out to destroy my family and my family’s business. My parents and siblings are dead, along with many others; ships and crews were attacked as well as the corporate headquarters and some of the homes.”

Pitt looked stunned. “When did this happen?”

“Shortly after I got back to Belinta…about the same time the ansibles started going out. I didn’t find out about all of it until I got to Lastway.” Ky shook her head. “Not a good topic of conversation, actually, but yes—I’ve changed. Not entirely…for the better.”

“I wouldn’t wish that on anyone,” Pitt said. “But I’m damned glad you showed up when you did.”