W hen Vanguard dropped out of FTL in the empty system that had been their next programmed jump point, Ky immediately contacted the other two ships and explained the change of plans.

"So—we're not going to Ciudad?" Captain Argelos of Sharra's Gift asked. He looked confused, and Ky didn't blame him. She had been so certain that's where they should go, before that jump.

Ky shook her head. "No. Not at first, anyway. We need allies; telling them that one of their ships has been destroyed and we couldn't save any of the crew is not the way to get help."

Argelos nodded. "That makes sense. But what are we going to do, just the three of us...do you really think we can accomplish anything?"

"I should try to find others from Bissonet," Pettygrew said. Bassoon's captain looked hollow-eyed, as if he'd lost kilos of weight while they were in FTL flight. "I can't just ignore what happened..."

"Turek didn't start with the resources he had now," Ky said. "We can do a lot with three good ships, and we'll have more once we have something to show others. Dan"—she used Pettygrew's given name for the first time—"I can't stop you if you want to leave, but consider—it's a big universe, and you have no idea where other Bissonet ships might be. Please consider staying with us for now—we can help you, and you can certainly help us."

"I don't know what's happening," Pettygrew said. "Back home—I don't want to think about it, but—"

"I don't know what's happening back at Slotter Key, either," Ky said. "And I know my family's mostly dead."

Pettygrew looked down, then nodded slowly. "All right. If you think we can do anything—"

"We did. We blew away some of their ships. We damaged others. Now—" Now, before anyone had too long to think, she had to get them busy about something they could do. "—I need to know your munitions status."

Pettygrew grimaced. "I threw everything I had, short of the galley sink. That's another thing; I can't fight without replacements—"

"And you?" Ky turned to Argelos.

He shrugged. "The same. No, I think I ended up with five missiles in reserve. And what I had in trade goods might buy another ten, at a cut-rate weapons shop. If the ansibles were up—"

"If the ansibles were up, we'd all have less trouble," Ky said. "We're low, too. So the first thing to do is resupply. I have funds—for now. We need to find a place, come in looking strong but not threatening—"

"That's a neat trick," Pettygrew said.

"—and see what we can pick up," Ky said, without answering that. "I've been searching the catalogs—Vatta catalogs—and there's a system near here that's listed as having a major outlet for munitions at good prices; they have manufacturers in the system. Even bigger than MilMart at Lastway, it looks like. Vatta picked up cargo there before—in the old days."

"Exactly the sort of place the pirates would be hanging out, I'd think," Argelos said.

"Quite possibly, and if so, we're in trouble. I'm sure they'll have agents there, at least. I'll admit that the Vatta database has warnings posted about it. Some fraud in the repair shops, for instance, selling old parts for new, that kind of thing. But it's likely to have what we need, and it's only one jump away. We've got experienced weapons crew who can detect substandard munitions."

They both nodded. "So where is this gun shop?" Argelos asked.

"One jump, five days." Ky hesitated. "Another thing—these shipboard ansibles are making communications much easier, but we know the pirates have them—we need to find a way to protect our messages."

"Scramble 'em?" Pettygrew said. "That's easy enough."

"But it lets the pirates know someone else is using the tech," Ky said. "I'd rather they didn't know that...though the ones who got away back there may have noticed. Do you have any technical wizards who might be able to add a channel or whatever, something the pirates won't know exists?"

"Dozi," Pettygrew said, before Argelos could say anything. "Dozi Lattin. She might be able to—she's been tinkering around with ours, very carefully."

"Nobody on my ship," Argelos said.

"That's good news, Dan," Ky said to Pettygrew. "If we can detect their transmissions, but they can't detect ours, we'll have a communications advantage even if we can't understand anything they're saying. It's definitely worthwhile hanging about here for a few days while your tech works on the problem. She should be able to give us a yea-or-nay in two days, right?"

"I'll ask her," Pettygrew said.

"Full scans, power up, and ready to jump out if trouble arrives," Ky said. "We can risk spacing at a half light-second, so we can use conventional tight-beam until we get the new channels on the ansibles." She wondered whether to talk to the other captains about Hugh's recommendation that they train all the crew in military skills, but decided to wait for more secure communications, if they could get them.

She considered contacting Stella to let her know the ship was still intact, but decided it was too risky. So far, no one but she herself knew that Stella had one of the small ansible units; if the pirates realized that one unit was on a planet or station, they might attack it—and she would not be there to protect Stella and Toby. Best to wait until she could use a system ansible, where her signal would be drowned in a million others. She didn't analyze the surge of relief that decision gave her.

Dozi Lattin's solution, as she explained the next day to Ky over the reconfigured system, was "not elegant at all, but it works." Between Lattin's Bissonet accent, much thicker than Pettygrew's, her rapid delivery, and the technical complexity of the explanation, Ky soon felt drowned in detail.

"So—the short of it is, you've modified the system so the pirates won't detect it? And it still works?"

"Yah," Lattin said. Onscreen she was a thin, unkempt woman whose jacket pockets bulged with data wands. She pulled one out. "It's all on here; your communications staff can have a copy when we get somewhere we can pass information hard. They don't want to be just following directions forever. And I'll be working on a better—"

"That's great, Dozi," Pettygrew said. He winked at Ky, the first humor she'd seen from him. "But I need to talk to Captain Vatta. Later, eh?"

Lattin smiled and ducked away from the screen; Ky was not surprised to see that she almost ran into someone coming onto Pettygrew's bridge. Typical tech, that, striding along with head down, concentrating on anything but her surroundings.

"Now what?" Pettygrew asked.

"Now we can make our final plans, how we want to come in. I'll send your nav computer the coordinates of our next stop," Ky said. "On the new channel—" She pointed to her com officer, and the data went out. Argelos' face appeared on the screen, now split to show both the other captains.

"Got it," Argelos said, a split second before Pettygrew.

"Gretna...," Pettygrew said, frowning slightly. "It doesn't have the best reputation with Bissonet traders."

"Dodgy repairs? That's all my company notes say."

"They never did sign off on the full Commercial Code," Pettygrew said. "They pad their station bills, too, according to my database."

"A lot of places do that," Argelos said. "My implant does have a yellow flag, but it's limited to several repair facilities and a caution about certain subsections of contracts related to the Commercial Code. But three armed ships like ours—unless we find a whole pirate fleet there, we should be able to handle anything we find."

"So how do we announce ourselves?" Ky asked. "We have three different flags, and we are all armed. Suppose they take us for pirates?"

"You want us to decide on an organizational name now?" Pettygrew asked.

"It might be wise," Ky said.

"I think we should wait until we have a chance to acquire some insignia," Pettygrew said. "Like this, with our ships bearing different flags on their IDs, our crews in different uniforms, no way to prove we do belong together, other than circumstance, I don't think we'd have much credibility."

Argelos nodded. "He's right, Captain Vatta. I think we'd do better to come in as a group hanging together for security, which is really what we are at this point. We can certainly talk about what we want to call ourselves, and maybe pick up uniforms or patches or whatever at Gretna, but I don't see that we can afford to look ridiculous right from the start."

"I see your point," Ky said. "But let's take a few hours to talk over what we are, so we can gather the materials we need with the least waste of time."

"We need an organization with a name. We're not going to get anywhere as an association of privateers. Something solid, respectable. Something-something Defense, Force or Fleet or—"

"Spaceforce," Argelos said.

"United Planets Spaceforce? Needs to be something that makes a good acronym."

"Or very dull, and we let any nicknames take care of themselves."

"Space Service?"

"Combined...united...space service?"

"There's always Space Patrol..." Everyone groaned. In all the years, however calculated, of human presence in space, no one had ever called a military organization "Space Patrol," which was inextricably associated with bad children's programming. "Space Rangers?"

"Special ops name, Rangers," Hugh said. "We need a name that implies a solid military force authorized by a legitimate government."

"Which we don't have."

"Details." Hugh grinned. "It doesn't matter, really. Who's to know?"

"So we just do it," Ky said. "Space Defense Force, how's that?"

"Sounds good to me," Argelos said. Pettygrew nodded.

"So...we become the first flight, or squadron, or something, of the SDF?"

"Not first anything," Hugh said. "We want the opposition to think there's more of us, including some they don't know about. Pick another number, not too high."

"Third?" Ky said.

"Third Fleet...," Hugh said slowly. "About right. When we have four fleets, we can always shift ourselves to first, if that matters."

She could see the others trying it out mentally. Finally they all nodded.

"We need a design, a logo," Argelos said. "I've got a junior engineer who's talented that way."

"How about a spiral galaxy with a formation of ships shooting a bad guy?" Pettygrew asked.

"Too complicated, but I like the galaxy. Implies more than one system." Argelos squinted, thinking. "Galaxy and maybe the small formation of ships across it?"

"Fine," Ky said. "Now: we need to get our ships marked with the joint-force logo. I'm not talking about re-registration—the original flags are fine—just an indication of our organization. Unit patches as well as ship patches."

"Uniforms?"

"Not worth the expense right now, and to some extent the different uniforms reinforce the idea of a multisystem force."

"If Gretna's got munitions, they're bound to have someone used to turning out military insignia," Hugh said. "Even a rough sketch should be enough."

Greater Gretna's advertising started at the jump point: WELCOME TO GRETNA, GUNS FOR THE GALAXY! blared from the welcoming beacon as soon as they had cleared downjump scan turbulence. ALWAYS A FAIR DEAL! A SAFE PORT IN ANY POLITICAL STORM! HONEST TRADERS WELCOME; TRAMPS AND LAYABOUTS STAY AWAY! YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!

"That's an interesting combination," Hugh said. "Safe port in a political storm, but only for those we already know and like?"

"Did your company ever trade here?" Ky asked.

"Not that I know of. We bought our munitions from a dealer in our headquarters system. They might have bought here, for all I know, though. I wasn't in that end of things."

For such a supposedly busy marketplace of a system, there was little traffic showing up on longscan. Shuttles between the planet and space station, four small insystem cargo haulers on logical routes to the other planets, all with Gretna ID beacons, and a single inbound cargo ship whose beacon identified her as Dryas, from Polson. Ky queried her implant and found no information on Polson. The ship was barely crawling along, an approach that would give her plenty of time to gather information about system defense. Was this a shipload of pirates disguised as traders? Ky checked the course and alerted her weapons crews, though she didn't think a single pirate ship would attack three armed ones traveling much faster.

Shortly after that, Greater Gretna's insystem militia hailed them. Ky answered, as they had agreed.

"Vanguard, eh?" the uniformed man on the screen said. He was one of the palest humans Ky had ever seen, with ice-blue eyes and hair of an unattractive pale yellow. "We don't have you in the database...Cascadian registry? Don't see many Cascadians out here. You're the ones all touchy about manners, aren't you?"

"Cascadian registry, yes," Ky said. "Ship was salvage; I had to repaper her."

"Ah. And those with you—don't they have functioning coms?"

"Yes, but since we're traveling together it would save your time to talk to just one of us—that's Sharra's Gift, Slotter Key registry, and Bassoon, out of Bissonet."

"And you're traveling together because—"

"The universe has gotten dangerous," Ky said. "We were attacked by pirates; we got away but we need to resupply. If we'd been solo..."

"Ah. Well, you've come to the right place. We've got the best prices—and the best quality—you'll find anywhere. Now, the rules are, we don't tolerate troublemakers or people who can't pay their bills. We have a nice place here and we intend to keep it that way. You'll all need local ID, whether you're staying on the ship or out on the station: Port Security will take care of that for you. Fifty credits a head, and don't try hiding anyone or it'll be a stiff fine. No transients downplanet...and don't think you can sneak past our security." He grinned, a very unpleasant grin. " You're not going to fit in."

"What was that about?" Ky said to nobody in particular when she closed the connection.

"I think they're Fishbellies," Lee said.

"Fishbellies?" Ky said. Then she remembered. Some systems had been settled not by the usual mix of human types, but very deliberately by those of one phenotype or one religion. A few of these had populations with minimal melanin, and the rude term for these, among more...she tried not to think normal...societies was "Fishbellies." "My family didn't use that term," she said to Lee. "Though—if he is one—I can see where the name came from. Seems an odd choice...but then phenotypy always does, if there's not a good environmental reason for it. Maybe there's something on their planet to explain it."

"Fishbellies are strange," Lee said. "I met two of them once in a bar on Allray, years back. Sat there the whole time complaining about mixing—finally got a fight started, and then told the station police that it was everyone else's fault."

"Oh, any inbred group will do that," Hugh said. "There are some strains of genetic humods who go out of their way to be pushy and then complain. I don't suppose Fishies are any worse than anyone else."

"I hope not," Ky said. "If these are...er...Fishbellies, we have to deal with them."

"I wouldn't trust them a centimeter," Lee said. "They give people like me a bad name." He gestured at his shock of yellow hair.

"They're merchants," Ky said. "At least the ones we'll be dealing with. As long as we make sure the merchandise meets specs and they know our money's good, we shouldn't have a problem. Though I will be alert, of course."

Gretna Main Station had ample docking spaces—trade was down here, too—but the stationmaster refused to assign the three ships adjoining berths, on the grounds of station rotational balance. It made sense, but Ky felt a twinge of uneasiness. From the aft external monitors of Vanguard, she could not see even the aftmost tip of Sharra's Gift or Bassoon, though there were no ships between Vanguard and them.

Port Security waited at dockside, ready to issue local IDs to the entire crew and collect the fee. All of them were as pale as the face Ky had seen onscreen before; though some had more pink color than others, all had pale eyes and hair. They were efficient about taking information and issuing IDs; tags with name, ship's name, and a local code number spat out the end of a machine in just a few seconds.

"You're now free to move about the station," the one with the most glitter on his uniform said. "You must wear the ID tag clearly visible at all times."

Ky nodded; his assistants pulled a cover over the tag-making machine, and they all left dockside.

"That was odd," Hugh said. "No welcoming speech, nothing."

"I'm going to call the others," Ky said.

"Ansible?"

"No. I know that's the most secure method we've got, but I want to know how the station's own system works. We'll need to meet. There's bound to be some central location...Captains' Guild, if nothing else. Let's get our security monitors mounted dockside—"

"Right away," Hugh said, nodding. "Munitions draw thieves on the most law-abiding ports." From his tone, he'd already decided that Gretna wasn't one of those.

Law-abiding port or not, Gretna Station had a Crown & Spears branch office just two doors away from the Captains' Guild. Ky found that Vatta Transport had a sizable balance there, drawing minimal interest, and the manager accepted her identity without question. He ushered her into his private office and set an obvious privacy device on his desk, flicking it on. "Trading in munitions?" he asked then.

Ky wondered why he didn't trust the privacy devices no doubt built into the entire branch, but that was not something to ask. She shrugged. "Trade goes where the profit goes. In these unsettled times—"

"Of course," he said. "If you want advice, I'd go with General Munitions instead of Gretna Munitions Outlet—"

"Thank you," Ky said. "That's the recommendation in Vatta's records as well; the notation is that quality control is better. I'm glad to have recent confirmation. I need to pick up medical supplies as well—any recommendations there?"

"Supplies alone or medically trained personnel? You might be able to pick up some of the latter at the local indenture auction house."

"Indenture auction house?"

He looked down, running his finger along the side of his desktop display. "You haven't been to Gretna before...there's a long-standing tradition of indentured labor here."

"You mean...slaves?"

"They prefer not to call them slaves. Criminals working off their court costs and fines, is the way Gretnans look at it. Recently, with less trade coming through, it's become more obvious. At any rate, if someone buys out a contract, they can get contracted labor fairly cheaply. I happen to know there's a surplus of medically trained personnel right now. The listing's available." He cleared his throat. "And you probably noticed...the native Gretnans are pretty much all of one phenotype, and they distrust those of other phenotypes. With your...uh...I'd be careful, if I were you."

With her darker skin, he meant. Ky scowled. "So why does Crown & Spears deal with them?" But the answer was obvious and she said it along with him as he shrugged. "Trade and profit, I know. All right—but I thought there was a prohibition in the Commercial Code about slavery."

"There is. Gretna isn't a signatory to the full Code and as I said, they don't call it slavery. Under their legal system, working out a debt or a sentence is quite legal. We asked about that before opening a branch office here; our legal staff have reviewed it regularly, and they say it's within the law as it now stands."

"Do they make up charges against transients—ship personnel, for instance?"

"They say not, but I would say it's happened. Recently, with ansibles down and trade in decline, I suspect it's become more common. More often, a ship runs out of funds, can't pay the docking or air charges, and they seize the ship and crew. Under their law, anyone on such a ship is equally guilty."

"I don't have any notations about that in the Vatta database," Ky said.

"No—well, Vatta's always maintained a healthy balance, as you see, and usually unloaded, loaded, and was out of here in just a few days. They don't prey on the prosperous who can always pay a few extra charges. We've tried to tell the Gretnans they're damaging their own economy—fifty years ago, they had much more trade coming through and even some outside investment—but they don't want advice from outsiders, they say."

"I'll be careful," Ky said. "I have no intention of overdrawing our account. Do you know if they're trading with this current crop of pirates?"

"I couldn't say, really. We have a very small staff here, and there are security concerns...I've been told not to pry." His expression said more. Ky could easily imagine the pirates dealing with Gretna for those confiscated ships. Or their crew.

"There's another ship in the inbound lanes," she said instead. "I didn't see anything about its arrival time on the notice boards. We looked at the beacon as we passed them, and it said Polson. I wondered if it was pirates."

"I doubt it." He grimaced. "Polson's a very small colony—we don't have a branch there yet—mostly genetic humods, like a lot of start-ups. Humods aren't popular here. There's been trade in the past, but the current situation has made everyone more jumpy. Word is they're not being allowed to dock without special inspections and restrictions, and so far they've refused."

That sounded more like pirates than legitimate traders to Ky; she wondered why the manager didn't think so. She had just opened her mouth to ask when his comunit beeped. He took the call then turned to her. "I'm sorry, Captain Vatta, but there is another matter I must attend to. Please don't hesitate to contact me again if we can assist you with your trading."

Within four hours, she had compared her balance with the daily dock charges and the prices listed at General Munitions, determined how much she could afford, and settled in for a meal at the Captains' Guild to discuss with Argelos and Pettygrew how the purchases should be allocated among ships. The Captains' Guild was almost empty; three pale-skinned officers, obviously local, sat at the far end of the dining room, well out of earshot. Even so, despite the telltales glowing on their table to indicate that its security block was on full, Ky felt uneasy enough to put her own privacy device on the table.

"We're going to need medical as well as munitions," she said. "How are you fixed for that?"

"I have eight medboxes and a small operating theater," Pettygrew said. "We have two surgeons and nine other medical personnel, mostly direct patient care but one specialist in medical imaging. I think that's all my ship needs, really."

"That's more than I have," Ky said. "I'm impressed."

"More than I have, too," Argelos said. "I have five medboxes and two Spaceforce-trained medics. You've been on that merc ship—what did they have?"

"It looked like a military hospital," Ky said. "Operating suites, trauma sets, lots of medboxes, lots of personnel. I'm assuming also lots of equipment, though I didn't see all of it, by any means."

"Was it a specialized hospital ship?"

"No. One of their larger warships, somewhat larger than Vanguard."

"Hmmm. I can see if we get in more battles, we may really need additional medical capacity, but I don't know where I'm going to put it. I guess we could move some functions outboard to one of the cargo holds..."

"If we become the force we've talked about, the only cargo we'll be carrying is our own necessary supplies," Ky said.

"You're right," Argelos said, scrubbing his head with both hands. "I guess I'm still thinking like a trader-privateer."

"I had the same problem," Ky said. "It took a round of food poisoning to make me realize what was missing."

"So—do you think this place has anything in the way of medical supplies?" Argelos asked.

Ky told them what the Crown & Spears manager had told her about the Gretnan labor market. "I looked," she said, "and they list forty-six medical personnel, including two trauma surgeons, three surgical nurses, a medical imaging tech, a neuropsych specialist, and others. I hate the thought of buying people, but—"

"Well, we wouldn't keep them as indentured," Argelos said. "What's this likely to cost?"

"I don't know. I have the feeling that if they know we want them, the price will go up. According to Crown & Spears, we can bid through an agent, and the manager's willing to act as our agent. He says he often does, and they won't know that we're the ones bidding. He and I both hope. The munitions are listed already; we know what they cost. Same with medical supplies. But we need to maintain a reserve—" She explained about the Gretnans' habit of seizing ships and crews that defaulted on any payments. "I'll just have to set a limit for what we can spend at the auction, and hope that yields something. Meantime, I've looked at your supply requests, and this is what I can afford." She handed over the hardcopies; Argelos and Pettygrew looked them over.

"I can add some credits to that," Pettygrew said. "It's not much, but it would cover my ship's docking fees, air fees, and crew rations."

"That's a big help," Ky said. "I'm sure Crown & Spears would set up an account for you, if you don't want to merge with the Vatta accounts."

"Merging's fine," Pettygrew said, with a crooked smile. "We're already sharing risks; we might as well share resources."

"And I still have a little cargo to sell off," Argelos said. "That may help, and it clears out a hold for military supplies."

"Excellent," Ky said. "Now, since neither of you has beam weapons and I have two, I thought I'd assign each of you more than a third of the missiles we can afford. That still won't fill your racks—well, not unless your cargo sells very high—but it should give you something to work with."

"That's very generous," Pettygrew said. "Thank you."

"Yes, thanks," Argelos said. "But don't leave yourself too short."

Ky went back to Crown & Spears after lunch to give the manager her limits for the indentured auction and explain what she was looking for.

"I'll do my best," he said. "Most bidders are agents for someone; in fact, you aren't my only client this time. With any luck, they won't figure it out. I think the prices won't be too high at this auction; the hospitals and clinics here and down on the planet are fully staffed, so medical personnel have been selling as general labor. Especially if they're...um...more like you."

"Yes. Well, I appreciate your service," Ky said. Back at the ship, she told Hugh how she had allocated the munitions purchases.

"We could fight an engagement," Hugh said, shaking his head at the total. "I'd have to hope we weren't outnumbered."

"We have to have docking fees, and we need more supplies than just munitions," Ky said. "And I'm hoping to get some medical personnel. At...er...auction." She explained about the indenture policy.

Hugh grimaced. "That's disgusting. I hadn't heard that about them before. What about that ship we passed? Hear anything more about it?"

"The Crown & Spears manager knew about Polson," Ky said. "Legitimate small colony, he said. Apparently the Gretnans want to run them through some additional—and no doubt expensive—inspection procedure because they're genetic humods. So they're keeping them at a distance."

"They don't like us; they don't like humods...I'm coming to agree with Lee about these people. Fairly nasty lot, aren't they? Are you going to try selling these Fishies anything?"

"Nothing...interesting," Ky said. "If you find anything innocuous on inventory, I'd be glad to make a little more. We're going to be tight, and we don't want to be caught short."

"Quite so. I'll see what I can find and check with you before listing it."

By the middle of the next shift, deliveries started arriving at dockside.

Ky could not help noticing that the Gretna workers—all as pale as the Port Security personnel—avoided looking at her and her crew when she faced them and spoke only when spoken to...but behind her back, as the security monitors proved, they stared and muttered to one another. The mutters, amplified and recorded by the monitors, did nothing to improve the crew's attitude toward the locals.

"I told you they were Fishbellies," Lee said. "All right: I have blue eyes and light hair, too, but I'm not like they are. I don't care what color someone's skin and eyes are, as long as they're decent; these idiots seem to think color's what makes 'em decent."

"You call them Fishbellies," Ky pointed out. "That's as bad as their calling some of us Mudders."

"It's not," Lee said, "because I'm not calling them that because of their color. It's their attitude that makes 'em Fishies."

"Well, stay in the ship, then," Ky said. "It's hard enough dealing with them without having to keep a lid on you, too." She did not mention that his recent training in military etiquette seemed to have vanished under the first real stressor. That would come later.

She had left Hugh supervising the unloading dockside; now she took a call from him.

"Better get out here, Captain; we've got a complaint from Port Security. They don't like our monitors."

"There's nothing wrong with our monitors," Ky said. "We aren't spying on anyone else."

"They want to see the captain," Hugh said, without answering her comment. Ky sighed and headed for dockside, glancing at the bridge display from those monitors as she went. A man in Port Security uniform stood next to Hugh; the Gretna workers who should have been moving pallets into Vanguard's cargo holds were clustered, heads together, near the dock entrance. She reached out and increased magnification on one image. Yes, they were smirking. Ky introduced herself to the Port Security officer in a neutral voice.

"Private security monitors are illegal," the man said, not quite meeting her eyes. "Only law enforcement is authorized to place monitoring devices. Such devices must be removed at once."

"I'm sorry," Ky said. "Everywhere else I've been, dockside security is the responsibility of the shipowner."

"This isn't everywhere else," the man said. "This is Gretna, a place for honest people. People who don't need to steal."

Ky managed not to raise her eyebrows. No one proclaims honesty as much as the liar.

"If you don't trust our honesty," he went on, "how can we trust yours? Only the dishonest are suspicious."

"We'll remove the monitors," Ky said. And replace them with less detectable ones or human eyes...She had the weapons crews free to stand watches outside the ship, if that's what it was going to take.

"Very well," the man said. "No more cargo will be loaded until you do."

"Hugh," Ky said, struggling to keep all traces of anger out of her voice. "See that our equipment is removed from dockside. I will wait here while you arrange it." Very shortly, the Gannetts came out and detached the monitors from the dockside bulkheads. Ky followed them back into the ship without another word to the officer, leaving Hugh to supervise loading once more.

"They're up to something, Captain," Jon Gannett said as soon as they were well inside the ship.

"I could just figure that out," Ky said tartly. She was suddenly angry, so angry that she felt the back of her neck burning.

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "Reckon you'll want some special surveillance?"

"Yes," Ky said, struggling to hold down the anger enough to think clearly. "Inspect every missile and its control system—make sure they're not sabotaged in some way, and that they are what the invoice says. Check the other supplies, too: I wouldn't put it past these people to sell us contaminated food. Internal surveillance, in case they get the notion to wander out of the cargo holds or stick their own little devices somewhere...and I'd better go talk with the other captains." She called them and suggested meeting at the Captains' Guild again.

The others, she found, had had the same annoying experience. "It's our dock space," Pettygrew said. "They charge enough and they don't even provide surveillance; I don't see why they object to us having it. It's an insult."

"They've got to be up to something," Argelos said.

"I know," Ky said. "But we need the munitions and other supplies. I'm sure you've already thought of this, but have your people check—"

"—everything," Pettygrew said. "I am, believe me. Do you have external video monitors on your ship?

"Like nearscan?"

"No—actual video. We have external monitors that retract in flight, but in dock we can bring them up to see most of the hull. I've got mine out now, just in case."

Ky, remembering the near-attack at Lastway, felt a cold chill down her back. She had not thought of that. If the Gretnans were up to something like that—but surely, if they attacked ships in dock, it would be in her father's files. "All we have are the docking cams fore and aft," she said. "They don't begin to cover the whole hull." Though they could be useful, she thought; the Gretnans couldn't keep her from using equipment on the ship itself.

"I don't think they'll attack us," Argelos said. "I think they're more likely to cheat us some way, or try to. I've put two of my crew on watch at the cargo bay, just keeping an eye out."

"Pilferage we can handle," Ky said. "But I've been on a ship attacked from the outside near a station—so everyone keep an eye on the traffic around us. We can do that with nearscan, even though we don't have true video. I have to say I'm surprised at Osman on this one—I'd have thought he'd be more careful."

Second-shift the next day, the Crown & Spears manager called her. "I've got your personnel," he said. "Do you want them all to report to your ship? They're all right here in the office, with the guards."

"I'm on my way," Ky said.

"They're...um...listed as general labor," he said. "You said you needed more cargo handlers, right?" The warning in that was clear: he didn't want the Gretnans to know that she had specifically asked for medical personnel.

"That's right," she said. "We have a lot of stuff to shift; so does Sharra's Gift. We'll share them back and forth for a while. I'll be there shortly, with Captain Argelos."

She called Argelos and told him that they now had "enough cargo handlers."

"But—" he said.

"Cargo handlers," Ky said. "That's what we needed." Even over a com line she could hear the gears clicking in his head.

"Right," he said. "I'm just hoping you got strong ones. We have some heavy loads over here."

"Meet me at Crown & Spears," Ky said. "We'll divide them up—better bring some guards along; I'm sure the Gretnans won't want these people wandering around unguarded."

"Right," Argelos said.

At Crown & Spears, she found the manager's office and the corridor outside crowded with men and women in skimpy gray tunics and short pants, their feet in what looked like cardboard sandals. They all looked undernourished and hopeless; they were all darker than the typical Gretnan. The Gretnan guards, pink and fleshy, smirked over them; they held weapons.

"You may go," Ky said to them. "I have my own guards."

"But—"

"Under your law, the indenture owner is responsible for security; I checked on that. These people are mine now; I will use my own guards."

They looked at each other; then the one with a couple of stripes on his sleeve shrugged, and the Gretnan guards shuffled out.

"Well, let's see what we have here," Ky said to the manager, who handed her a list; a stack of ID folders was on his desk. Her eyes widened. He had bought eighteen people for the amount she'd stated. Everyone she'd marked as especially interesting, plus an assortment of others.

"Please—" said one of the women. "I'm really not general labor; I'm a trained—"

Ky held up her hand; the woman stopped, almost flinching. "I am aware of your listed qualifications," she said. "At the moment, it is in everyone's best interests to concentrate on our immediate need for cargo handlers." She glanced from corner to corner of the office, hoping they'd understand. She saw dawning awareness. "Now, Captain Argelos, from this list I'm prepared to lend you numbers five, seven, nine, and eleven, along with fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen." She handed him the list. "Those numbers, stand forward."

Those numbers included one of the trauma surgeons, two surgical nurses, and four general nurses, two of them certified for advanced practice. Argelos nodded, handing the list back. "That's fine—they look capable enough. Stenson, take these workers back to our ship; make sure they don't stray."

"Sergeant Gannett, take the rest back to Vanguard while I settle up with the manager here. Captain Argelos, you'll want their ID packets."

A half hour later, she was back aboard Vanguard. As she came aboard, she felt the tension in her crew. "Where are they?" she asked Hugh.

"In the mess, eating the first decent meal they've had since they were taken," he said. "These people—!" She knew he didn't mean the new ones.

"I'm going down to explain to them," Ky said. "Here are their ID packets. Look them over when you get a chance, just in case there's a problem we need to know about." The ten were already changed, wearing a variety of clothes her crew had donated, mostly civilian but a few military knit shirts. The feet she could see had warm ship socks instead of the flimsy sandals. They were eating as if they were half starved. She didn't doubt they were.

"Captain on deck," one of the Gannetts said. They looked up, spoons and forks halfway to their mouths, apprehensive.

"Take it easy," Ky said. "First, I want to welcome you aboard Vanguard. I'm Captain Vatta. Vanguard is, as you probably figured out, a military ship, and you were chosen specifically for your medical backgrounds." No one said anything; Ky went on after waiting a moment. "Though it was necessary to purchase your indentures at auction, pretending we wanted general labor, in fact I wanted to hire—not buy—medical personnel. I apologize for continuing that pretense in the Crown & Spears office, but I deemed it necessary. From the moment you crossed into our ship space, I consider you free persons. If any of you do not want to ship with us, you are free to leave, though I cannot guarantee what the Gretnans will do."

"I can," said the same woman who had spoken up in the manager's office. "They'll put us back in the rack again. I'd do anything to get out of here."

"Then here's what I propose," Ky said. She hitched a hip on one corner of a table. "We'll take you with us; you'll do whatever medical duties come up. Right now I don't have enough resources to pay you a salary, but if we aren't blown up in some battle, I will when we get to a system with a working financial ansible. In the meantime, you'll have clothes, decent food, and good treatment. How does that suit?"

"You have medical work for us?" That was a man...the neuropsych specialist, her implant informed her.

"We have had, and we may well have more. We just purchased additional medical supplies. I'm afraid you'll have to make do with what we have, but I'll certainly take advice on how they should be employed. I suggest you finish your meal, sort yourselves into your assigned quarters, and then let me know what your other needs are. If you take a survey of the medical supplies and equipment we have aboard, and tell me of anything particularly urgent, I might be able to fit it in—or not. Our accounts are low right now."

"Thank you," the woman said; the others nodded. She sounded near tears. "I can't—we can't thank you enough. You don't know—"

"Glad to help," Ky said. "I wish I could have freed everyone. By the way, I don't think any of you should leave the ship, for any reason, just in case." They all nodded. She glanced at Jon Gannett. "Assign someone to help them find their places; I'm heading back to the bridge."

"Wait, please!" It was the woman again. "You have to be careful—you don't know what they do. You said low on funds—they'll claim your ship didn't pay some bills, and seize her—"

"I have a reserve," Ky said. "Please don't worry—" Then it occurred to her that these people might know more details about how the Gretnans seized ships. "But tell me—what exactly happened? Did they seize you while you were off the ship, or did they board with some excuse, or damage the ship, or what?"

This produced a barrage of answers; Ky held up her hand and they quieted. "One at a time," Ky said. "You first." She nodded at the woman.

"I don't know anything specific," the woman said. "I was in my stateroom—it was a chartered passenger ship—washing my hair, when suddenly there were all these men in there, and they grabbed me and dragged me away. They said I was a criminal; they took my identification and shoved me out in the corridor—I still had shampoo in my hair; they wouldn't let me rinse it or anything—and shackled us all together."

"I was on the station concourse, eating with some friends," a man offered. "Suddenly Station Security came in, a whole squad, and grabbed us and everyone else in the restaurant just stared. They threw us down on the floor, put cuffs on us, wouldn't listen to anything we said."

"I haven't seen any of the ship's crew or officers since we were taken," another man said. "What I heard from people from another ship, taken quite a while before ours, was that they separate ships' crews from any passengers. One steward from that ship was mistaken for a passenger, and that's how they knew."

"So the attack came while you were docked," Ky said.

"Yes. We'd been here only two days, scheduled to depart third-shift, ship time. Some of us had planned dinner on the station, just for something to do. Others stayed in—it didn't matter."

"Have you heard about other forms of attack?"

"From other prisoners, you mean?" That was the neurosurgeon. "Nothing recent. Stories passed down through the cells...armed ships attacking out where ships come in, forcing them to dock here so they can ransack them. The people I met had all been attacked while docked at the station, like our ship."

"A woman in my cage said they'd used gas on her ship," said a woman at the back. "They piped it through the service umbilicals and put everyone to sleep—when they woke up, they were all caged."

"Any idea how long this has been going on?"

"Just since the ansibles went down, is what I heard." The first woman again. "I don't think they could've gotten away with it before—people would have known."

"Thank you," Ky said. "You've been most helpful. Let me assure you again that you are welcome, you are safe, and I consider you free men and women. And now I must return to the bridge." To ensure that they were protected from chemical attacks through the umbilicals, among other things. She called down to Sam Gulandar and told him to take protective measures.

"Put us on internal air supply only?" he asked. "That'll cut our safe transit time when we leave."

"Better than letting them capture us," Ky said. "I think we're safe until they think we've spent all we can—but be alert." Then she called the other captains, this time using the onboard ansible, and warned them.

A few hours later, a port official insisted on talking to Ky; she sighed and made her way out to the dock. "You bought indentured workers and I don't see them working!" he said. "What kind of scam are you running?"

Ky raised her eyebrows. She had anticipated something like this. "They are handling cargo aboard, not the dockside transfers," she said. "You didn't want me to deprive your citizen-workers of their pay, did you?"

His mouth opened and closed. "Oh. Well, yes, of course, you would still have to pay for dockside transfers...I suppose it makes sense."

"Believe me," Ky said, "I intend to get my money's worth out of those workers. We have a lot of load balancing to do, and my regular crew have their own duties."

"I see," he said. "Well." His pale eyes shifted back and forth, looking for anything he could complain about, but finding nothing. "All right, then," he said. "As long as you pay all your fees on time."

"I fully intend to," Ky said.

Over the next three shifts, almost all the munitions and other supplies were delivered, and Ky watched the Vatta account at Crown & Spears carefully. Already they'd been hit with unexpected "special delivery" charges, and she didn't want to hock one of the few remaining diamonds if she could help it.

Finally, she thumbprinted the last charge slip; there were still a few credits in the account. Each ship still had a pallet or two of mixed goods to load, but the three captains had agreed to dismiss the local dockside workers as soon as the last order had arrived, not wanting to incur any more charges.

"Can we be ready to leave in six hours?" Ky asked the other captains. "The sooner we're out, the happier I'll be. I'm switching to internal air supply immediately."

"We'll be loaded in four," Pettygrew said.

"Three for me," Argelos said.

"Three to four for us," Ky said. "I'll contact the stationmaster about the departure queue. There's been no traffic for days, and we're already balanced—shouldn't be a spin problem."

The stationmaster thought differently, no surprise there. "It is impossible. You must not jump the queue."

"What queue?" Ky asked. "There's nothing on the boards."

"Not all flights are listed," he said, his pale eyes narrowed. "It is none of your business what other flights are in the queue; you outlanders are always prying into the affairs of others. The earliest departure I can give you is...forty-seven hours. You are required to remain in your ship for the final twenty-five hours prior to departure, to allow us to verify that all debts have been paid and no crimes committed have yet to be discovered."

"I just paid the last bill," Ky said, feeling her anger rise again. "And no one's been committing crimes."

"Regulations," the man said, sneering. "We've had experience with your kind. Sneaking around off the ships, crew buying personal items the captain claims not to know about. Do you want that departure time or not?"

"Yes, thank you," Ky said, through her teeth, and cut the connection as soon as he'd confirmed it.

"These have to be the most paranoid people in the universe," Hugh said when Ky had shut down the comlink and notified the other captains of their departure slot.

"Or greedy," Lee said. "This way, they get another two days' docking fees and air tax out of us."


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.